While Mrs. Harding, far enough from vanity, always dressed with extreme plainness, Ida's attire was always of good material and made up tastefully.

"A correct plainness, and elegant simplicity, is the proper character of an introduction.

We see this French influence in the Royal Society, which had for one of its objects the reform of English prose by getting rid of its "swellings of style," and which bound all its members to use "a close, naked, natural way of speaking ... as near to mathematical plainness as they can."

Mrs. Thrale speaks tartly more than once; and Johnson's letters go into medical details with his customary plainness of speech, and he occasionally indulges in laments over the supposed change in her feelings.

But it was not merely the absence of colour and beauty in dress, or the want of national character and distinctiona plainness that would afflict even a Russian peasant from the Ukraine or a Tartar from the further Caspian.

She was clothed in all the glory of richly exaggerated plainness and in the latest fashion for morning walking dress.

A too candid relative commenting once on his excessive plainness in his presence, he replied, "Yes, I know, but I've a nice good face."

There is an uncomely, fantastical plainness about the interior walls of St. Mark's, a want of tone and elegance all over them, which may be very interesting to some, but which the bulk of people will not be able to appreciate.

Now in Switzerland" The bird said "Chiff-chaff" again with an almost indecent plainness of speech.

Beside him, in a dress of marvellous plainness, and ugliness, stamped with the brand "home-made" in characters which none can mistake, is the eldest of the sisters.

We have here a sentence which I am certain many a writer would, in secret, prefer to the masterly plainness of Genesis.

It followed that they cultivated that naked plainness and spareness which makes their work supreme.

Lovers then expressed the passion of their souls in the unaffected language of the heart, with the native plainness and sincerity in which they were conceived, and divested of all that artificial contexture which enervates what it labours to enforce.

Yet, had I no certainty; for, as I did know, from much watchings, there was no surety in the searching of the Land, by the Glass; for there was oft plainness where you did think surely none should see, and anon a dullness where might be thought that the sight went gaily.

Severe simplicity was favored by Calvus in his orations, Catullus in his lyrics 5 while a more polished and well-nigh précieuse plainness was illustrated in the speeches of Calidius and in the Alexandrian epyllion of Catullus' Peleus and Thetis and in Vergil's Ciris and Bucolics.

There was a shade of sadness in even the smile of the mother and sister, and a rigid plainness in the house and its surroundings, a depressed look in Whittier himself that the songs of the birds, the sunshine, and the bracing New England air seemed powerless to chase away, caused, as I afterward heard, by pecuniary embarrassment, and fears in regard to the delicate health of the sister.

The first-comer seems to have been able to go straight to his presence at any hour, whether in hall or chapel or sleeping-chamber; and the king was soundly rated by every one who had seen a vision, or desired a favour, or felt himself aggrieved in any way, with a rude plainness of speech which made sorely necessary his proverbial patience under such harangues.

Arnold imperiously demanded a complete vacation from "lessons," and when, it was indolently granted, he spent it incessantly with Judith, the two being always out of doors and usually joyously concocting what in any but the easy-going, rustic plainness of the Marshall mode of life would have been called mischief.

It is plain all round, and is characterised by a simplicity of style which could not be well reduced unless a severe plainness were adopted.

She was very particular about her toilette that morning, and inclined to be discontented with the sombre plainness of her widow's garb, and to fancy that the delicate border of white crape round her girlish face made her look pale, not to say sallow.

Two of the gates, tho' their towers are gone, are nearly perfect; the "porta aurea," with its graceful ornaments; the "porta ferrea" in its stern plainness, strangely crowned with its small campanile of later days perched on its top.

His speaking was in a kind of monotone, but his straightforward plainness never failed to be effective.

] Edits., apprehend, but certainly Mall had spoken with sufficient plainness.

ARB. 'Delighted with unaffected plainness.' 328b.

There is an uncomely, fantastical plainness about the interior walls of St. Mark's, a want of tone and elegance all over them, which may be very interesting to some, but which the bulk of people will not be able to appreciate.