Once or twice the emperor was angered by Howard's plainness of speech, but told the ambassador afterwards that he liked the prison reformer all the better for his honesty.

Then did it come to me that those little things, which I did see to cluster against the embrasures, were in truth the countless millions of the Mighty Redoubt; and this I could make out with some plainness in those lower embrasures, which were the more near to me than they above; for the Peoples were set against the light within, yet were as small things like unto insects, in that distance, and within so Huge a Bulk.

She fully realized her plainness before the Emperor Charles XI.

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.

As you contrast the plainness on all sides with the richly decorated edifice in which you have been accustomed to worship, you try to smile a smile of contempt at the scene, but cannot, for you feel that the spirit of Christ is in their midst; and though not a word is spoken during the hour and a half, yet you feel that the silent worship which went up to Heaven, was heard by Him who answers prayer.

Poets and philosophers may say what they will about the grandeur of plain living and high thinking; but a young woman thinks better of the plain liver who is not compelled to plainness by want of cash.

Tolstoi had hitherto been favourably inclined towards Shaw, owing to his friend and biographer Mr. Aylmer Maude; but this cheap-jack sacrilege was too much for the great old man, who seemed to know God with almost Matthew Arnold's plainness as near As flashing as Moses felt, and he closed the correspondence with a rebuke which would have abashed any one but the man to whom it was sent.