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Ingenuous   /ɪndʒˈɛnjuəs/   Listen
Ingenuous

adjective
1.
Characterized by an inability to mask your feelings; not devious.  Synonym: artless.
2.
Lacking in sophistication or worldliness.  Synonym: innocent.  "His ingenuous explanation that he would not have burned the church if he had not thought the bishop was in it"



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"Ingenuous" Quotes from Famous Books



... spy, usurer, and astrologer, vile on two sides, sublime on the third; and Rochester, the unique Rochester, absurd and clever, refined and crapulous, always cursing, always in love, and always tipsy, as he himself boasted to Bishop Burnet—wretched poet and gallant gentleman, vicious and ingenuous, staking his head and indifferent whether he wins the game provided it amuses him—in a word, capable of everything, of ruse and recklessness, calculation and folly, villainy and generosity; and the morose Carr, of whom history describes but one trait, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... by our daughters and wives, in a series of exquisite illustrations. Every body has La Fontaine by heart, thanks to the pencil of Granville, which requires neither grammar nor dictionary to aid its interpretations; and even Defoe—even the unparalleled Robinson Crusoe—is devoured by our ingenuous youth in cuts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... doubt not but that ingenuous Authour would easily have recanted if hee had beene but acquainted with those experiences which men of latter times have found out, for the confirmation of ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins

... easy to observe, that the above entirely refers to the predestinarians of the Dissenting party; whatever may be said of them, it must be acknowledged, they act a far more honest and ingenuous part than the predestinarians who are Ministers of the established Church. As Dissenting Ministers are maintained by the voluntary contributions of their hearers, their hearers are at liberty to withdraw their assistance; but then Ministers, who obtain parishes and lectureships, ...
— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor

... supper, Nickie and the ingenuous Millie loitered by the open kitchen window, and Nickie saw and heard things of no little interest to him professionally. Farmer Dickson and three neighbours were comparing bottles of Dr. Crip's ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... selfishness, envy, malice, and base indifference of mankind. To secure a favourable prepossession, I have allowed him the advantages of birth and education, which in the series of his misfortunes will, I hope, engage the ingenuous more warmly in his behalf; and though I foresee, that some people will be offended at the mean scenes in which he is involved, I persuade myself that the judicious will not only perceive the necessity of describing those situations to which he must of course be ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... of you," said the ingenuous creature, "and how delighted and grateful Meadowvale will be. It must be glorious to be rich enough to do ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field

... the most ingenuous air in the world, and not appearing to perceive the young man's embarrassment, "I was detained at home ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... verse effectually cleared the smoking-room, and filled me with a great sorrow, since I had just recollected three or four stories of my own. I now take the liberty of laying these before the ingenuous reader. If he says they are dull, let me tell him (i.) that he has no perception of humour, and (ii.) that occasional dulness is the inalienable privilege of every free-born Briton. Many a spry wight ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... The ingenuous southerner thus poured out his projects into the night with many expressive gestures, and from time to time, as they walked rapidly to and fro in the vast and deserted square, majestically surrounded by its silent and closed palaces, he raised his head towards the man of bronze on the column, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... abominable of all, even that which is most hateful to the Lord,—to sin and death. And this is the condition we are now born into. Consider it, I pray you,—we are born captives and slaves, the most noble, the most ingenuous, and the most free of us all. Paul speaks of it as a privilege to be born free; to be free in man's commonwealth. It is counted a dignity to be a free citizen or burgess of a town. Liberty is the great claim of people now-a-days; ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... acknowledged that I know a great deal about her,' Clara replied. And then the conversation was at an end. Clara had not been quite ingenuous, as she acknowledged to herself. She was aware that her aunt would not permit herself to repeat rumours as to the truth of which she had no absolute knowledge. She understood that the weakness of ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... dilemma, knowing Spontini well, she laughed as though she would never stop at the ingenuous impudence with which we had issued our invitation. A trifling indisposition from which she then suffered provided a reasonable excuse for a delay, more or less prolonged, and this she generously placed at our disposal. Spontini ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... four pretty girls, two of the innocent type that can so easily forget their own good looks; two not so ingenuous, fully aware that they had certain charms, and anxious that they be given full credit ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope

... at the age of twenty. And she was that woman now! But she did not feel like forty; at thirty she had not felt thirty; she could only accept the almanac and the rules of arithmetic. The interminable years of her marriage rolled back, and she was eighteen again, ingenuous and trustful, convinced that her versatile husband was unique among his sex. The fading of a short-lived and factitious passion, the descent of the unique male to the ordinary level of males, the births of her three girls ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... insubordination; Coningsby and Tancred learn wisdom by sitting at the feet of Sidonia; and Lothair reduces himself so completely to a mere 'passive bucket' to be pumped into by every variety of teacher, that he is unpleasantly like a fool. Disraeli still loves ingenuous youth; but he has gained quite a new perception of the value of docility. Here and there, of course, there is a gentle gibe at juvenile vanity. 'My opinions are already formed on every subject,' says Lothair; 'that is, on every subject of importance; ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... and Missouris thought themselves bound to avenge their companions, and the whole nations were at last obliged to share in the dispute; they are also in fear of a war from the Pawnees, whose village they entered this summer, while the inhabitants were hunting, and stole their corn. This ingenuous confession did not make us the less desirous of negotiating a peace for them; but no Indians have as yet been attracted by our fire. The evening was closed by a dance; and the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... for you," said Perkins affably, "which may alter your decision about returning. My friends ashore," he continued, "judging from the ingenuous specimen which has just visited me, are more remarkable for their temporary zeal and spasmodic devotion than for prudent reserve or lasting discretion. They have submitted a list to me of those whom they consider dangerous to Mexican liberty, and whom they are desirous of hanging. I regret ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... to the great Turk, when peril of death Chained him to oar their galleys on the sea Until, as gunner, in Persia they set him free To fight their foes. Of Prester John he saith Astounding things. But Queen Elizabeth He worships, and his dear Lord on Calvary. Quaint is the phrase, ingenuous the wit Of this great childish seaman in Palestine, Mocked home through Italy after his release With threats of the Armada; and all of it Warms me like firelight jewelling old wine In some ghost inn ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... "I must be ingenuous enough to confess," he wrote, "that I am not a little biassed by selfish considerations. To explain: I wish earnestly to attain some knowledge in the military profession, and, believing a more favorable opportunity cannot offer than to serve under an officer of General ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... natures which existed in her, as they exist in every person. This idea attained to perfect clearness in Susanna's religious instruction,—the only instruction which poor Susanna ever had. But how infinitely rich is such instruction for an ingenuous mind, when it is instilled by a good teacher. Susanna was fortunate enough to have such a one, and she now became acquainted in Barbra with the earthly demon which should be overcome in Sanna, the child of heaven, ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... long servitude, the many heartaches and terrors to which our childhood is exposed in going through a grammar school.... No one who has gone through what they call a great school but must remember to have seen children of excellent and ingenuous natures (as has afterwards appeared in their manhood); I say no man has passed through this way of education but must have seen an ingenuous creature expiring with shame, with pale looks, beseeching ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... ago a celebrated deity was incarnate in the person of a Hindoo gentleman who rejoiced in the euphonious name of Swami Bhaskaranandaji Saraswati, and looked uncommonly like the late Cardinal Manning, only more ingenuous. His eyes beamed with kindly human interest, and he took what is described as an innocent pleasure in the divine honours paid him by his ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... things could be more different than the manners of these gentlemen. That of the latter was very highly polished, insinuating, and although far from unpleasantly so, yet slightly artificial; while that of the former was simple, ingenuous, and in the presence of Miss Henly was apt to be at times a little constrained. Charlotte certainly perceived the difference, and she as certainly thought that it was not altogether to the advantage of George Morton. The idea seemed to give her pain, for ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... "considering the great probability that the framers of those laws were wiser than myself, I should prefer not meddling with them." The clumsy phraseology of his closing paragraph coupled not badly a frank avowal of ambition with an ingenuous expression of personal modesty. The principles thus set forth were those of Clay and the Whigs, and at this time the "best people" in Sangamon County belonged to this party. The Democrats, on the other hand, did not ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... next to the pervading elegance above mentioned, his chief claim to our admiration. Another of his merits is a certain tender gallantry, or rather an honest admixture of animal passion with spiritual, also the precursor of the like ingenuous emotions in Ariosto; and he furthermore set his follower the example, not only of good breeding, but of a constant heroical cheerfulness, looking with faith on nature. Pulci has a constant cheerfulness, but not with so much grace and dignity. Foscolo has remarked, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... Francisco, in whose integrity they all had perfect confidence, was chosen with unanimous shouts for the judge; but he declined the office, and another was appointed. He was raised upon a bench, and the guilty but insolent looking Piedro, and the ingenuous, modest Rosetta stood before him. She made her complaint in a very artless manner; and Piedro, with ingenuity, which in a better cause would have deserved admiration, spoke volubly and craftily in his own defence. But all that he could say could not alter ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... represented their God so terrible and so little worthy of love, that several of them have thought they must dispense with loving him; a blasphemy, shocking to other divines, who were less ingenuous. St. Thomas having maintained, that we are obliged to love God as soon as we attain the use of reason, the Jesuit Sirmond answered him, that is very soon. The Jesuit Vasquez assures us, that it is enough to love God at the ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... the lonely little park below had been frequent, and they had been specially solicitous of his coffee, his sugar, his biscuit and other delicacies, insomuch that once or twice during his absence these ingenuous children of Nature had with primitive simplicity, entered his cabin and helped ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... acute of his companions to the like falsehoods; whilst those of weaker minds assented, either from fear of punishment or the force of dreaming over at night the horrors which were dinned into their ears all day. Those who were ingenuous, as it was termed, in their confessions, received praise and encouragement; and those who denied or were silent, and, as it was considered, impenitent, were sure to bear the harder share of the punishment which was addressed ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... Here Gracelove, for that was the Gentleman's Name, saluted Philadelphia, and acquitted himself like a Person of good Sense and Education, in his first Address to her; which she return'd with all the Modesty and ingenuous Simplicity that was still proper to her. At last she ask'd him how long he thought it wou'd be e're Sir William came? To which he reply'd, that Sir William told him, unless he were there exactly at half an Hour after ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... lofty pretensions with low propensities. They invariably bear towards one another a constrained familiarity or frigid courtesy, while to their huntsmen and their prickers, their chaplains and their cooks, (or indeed any other man's,) they display unequivocal signs of ingenuous cordiality. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... and Washington; and a strong detachment, scouring the country east of the Blue Ridge, checked Geary's patrols, and blocked the entrance to the Gap from the direction of Manassas. Within an hour after his pickets were surprised Kenly was completely isolated.* (* The ingenuous report of a Federal officer engaged at Front Royal is significant of the effect of the sudden attack of the Confederates. He was sick at the time, but managed to escape. "By considerable coaxing," he wrote, "I obtained an entrance to a house near by. I was now completely broken ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... on London Bridge and counting the number of motor-buses, foot-passengers, lorries, and white horses that pass over the bridge in an hour. But we never hear of anybody counting the number of faces happy or unhappy, honest or rascally, shrewd or ingenuous, kind or cruel, that pass over the bridge. Perhaps the public may be surprised to hear that the general expression on the faces of Londoners of all ranks varies from the sad to the morose; and that their general mien is one of haste and gloomy preoccupation. Such a staring fact is paramount in sociological ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... they took in a cargo of ham, eggs, pie, pickles, tea, coffee, and boiled beef, which surprised the poor Major, sipping a cup of very feeble tea, and thinking with a tender dejection that Lord Steyne's dinner was coming off at that very moment. The ingenuous ardour of the boys, however, amused the Major, who was very good-natured, and he became the more interested when he found that the one who travelled inside with him was a lord's son, whose noble father Pendennis, of course, had met in the world of fashion which he frequented. The ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... His ingenuous expression exasperated Burnham. The man lost control of his temper at the same moment that he acknowledged to himself his defeat. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... and among men out of doors; and since make-believe is a matter of course in diplomatic intercourse it is right and seemly, of course, that no overt recognition of unavowed facts should be allowed to traverse this run of make-believe within the precincts of diplomatic intercourse. But in any ingenuous inquiry into the nature of peace and the conditions of its maintenance there can be no harm in conveniently leaving the diplomatic make-believe on one side and looking to the circumstances that condition the case, rather than to the formal professions ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... the manuscript whose contents are now first given to the public: And that the singularity of preserving the name of the place where it was first performed in the title of his poem, was intended for an ingenuous and well-bred acknowledgement of the source from whence he drew his ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... conclude that dangers are past, that doubts and fears are entirely removed; but as long as we are in this world, we shall find the expediency of our Lord's exhortation—'Watch and pray.'—(J. B.). [65] Here is a display of a truly Christian spirit, in that open and ingenuous confession of her fault, taking all the blame upon herself, and excusing Mercy. This is not natural to us, but the grace of Christ humbles the heart, and silences the tongue to self-justifying pleas. O for more of this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... that doesn't mean," returned Cope, with another ingenuous unchaining of his native resonance, "that you are afraid of getting a little too much of mine! I'm fond of novelty, and nobody can ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... and teasing from the Toomeys. While Hugh did not resent it or defend Kate, he did not join in their ridicule of her. She was "green," he could not deny that, yet not in the sense the Toomeys meant. Naive, ingenuous, he felt were better words. She knew nothing of social usages, and she was without a suspicion of the coquetry that he looked for in girls before they had begun to do up their hair. She spoke with startling frankness upon subjects which he had been taught were ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... and for their want of a genuine love of science and of mankind, in finding their boasted discoveries anticipated, and the field of honest fame pre-occupied, by men, who, from a natural ardour of mind, engage in philosophical pursuits, and with an ingenuous simplicity immediately communicate to others whatever occurs to them ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... a Letter, containing some Observations, made in the ordering of Silk-worms, communicated by that known Vertuoso, Mr. Dudley Palmer, from the ingenuous ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... taking my ease in my camp chair, luxuriously whiffing away at my after-breakfast cheroot, when who should step gingerly into the room but Manager Fred Gahagan. The clouds of the previous evening had entirely disappeared from his ingenuous countenance, which was puckered up in the most insinuating manner, with what I was wont to call his 'borrowing smile;' for Fred was oftentimes afflicted with impecuniosity—a complaint common enough amongst us subs;—and when the fit was on him, in the spirit of true friendship, he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... walk over to Boonville, ten or twelve miles, the county court center, to watch how law proceedings were conducted. He was interested in one murder case, ably defended by John Breckenridge; in fact, Lincoln hanging around the court-room doors to see the lawyers come out, was impelled by his ingenuous admiration ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... at the group before him. Henry Whitman, Assistant Professor of Economics at thirty, a member of Grave, was telling a story of an Italian in Whitmanville who, when he curled, used only the broadest Scotch. When Tom had met Henry in his ingenuous days he threatened to be overwhelmed by the calm indifference of Henry's manner. The Whitman Air, inherited from a line of distinguished forebears, all but swamped him. It was as perfect and finished ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis

... Delcasse's face was composed, and his eyes, behind their immense glasses, as inscrutable as ever. The President, so ingenuous and child-like, must never ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... the real or of the unreal, but pure intuitions. Where all is real, nothing is real. The child, with its difficulty of distinguishing true from false, history from fable, which are all one to childhood, can furnish us with a sort of very vague and only remotely approximate idea of this ingenuous state. Intuition is the indifferentiated unity of the perception of the real and of the simple image of the possible. In our intuitions we do not oppose ourselves to external reality as empirical beings, but we simply objectify ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... had it on. He has sat on the old chairs and sofas, and rubbed against the old wainscots, and leaned over the old balusters. He knows every mended place in Tony Lumpkin's stockings, and exactly how that ingenuous youth leaned back on the spinet, with his thick, familiar thumb out, when he presented his inimitable countenance, with a grin, to Mr. Hastings, after he had set his fond mother a-whimpering. (There is nothing in the whole series, by-the-way, better indicated than the exquisitely ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... as an artist? What woman could ever cease to adore such genius? That voice entered the soul like another soul. The poor lad was overwhelmed by poesy, and his own despair. He felt himself of no account. This ingenuous admission of his nothingness could be read upon his face mingled with his admiration. He did not observe the gesture with which Beatrix, attracted to Calyste by the contagion of a true feeling, called Felicite's attention ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... amusing discussion about it. He really doesn't know why he prefers business, but Alice has helped him to crystallize his ideas. In fact, she has quite fired his ambition. I think you will enjoy your conversation with him at dinner to-night, Robert, for he is really most ingenuous, and a bit of advice from you will help him just now, even if he doesn't measure up to your ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... must make the most of it,' said I; 'and we must manage to time our arrival for the evening, when the Governor will either be supping or at the theatre, that the delay, if possible, may be of his creating.' 'I owe you more than this,' said the ingenuous youth. 'And I, sir, am even ashamed of myself for asking so much,' ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... to the "concord of sweet sounds" as he was, but could draw a little, paint a little, string rhymes together; and so we never failed to amuse and interest each other. He was impulsive, clever, quick of temper, ingenuous, and indignant at any want of truth or candour in others; generous to a fault and tender hearted as a woman. I was more patient than he, slower in wrath, yet we sometimes quarrelled over trifles but, like lovers, were quickly reconciled; and after these little ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow

... very amiably ingenuous girl, and I love her the more for her love of her sisters: she talked to me of them all, but chiefly of Sophia, the youngest next to herself, but who, having an independent fortune, has quarrelled with her mother, and lives with one of her sisters, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... and never given, after his supporting them against his conscience very honourably and being greatly abused for, he having the name of a great patriot in the country." Thady would hardly have been so ingenuous as that. But for the most part the humour is truly inherent in the situation, and you might look far for a better passage than the description of Sir Condy's parting with his lady. But it is better to illustrate ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... given to suspicion. He accepted people at their face value and believed in human nature. It never occurred to him, then, that the apparently ingenuous and disarming Irene, with her straight glance and wide smile, had brought Tootles to Devon except by accident or for anything but health and peace. He was awfully glad to see them. They added to the excellent effect upon his spirits which had been worked by the constant companionship of ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... and can handle this and that. If good Passivity alone, and not good Passivity and good Activity together, were the thing wanted, then was my early position favorable beyond the most. In all that respects openness of Sense, affectionate Temper, ingenuous Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more could I have wished? On the other side, however, things went not so well. My Active Power (Thatkraft) was unfavorably hemmed in; of which misfortune how many traces yet abide with me! In an orderly house, where the litter of children's ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... me that it was not quite ingenuous in myself to attribute to the Indian writer in question (Rev. Peter Jones), the reflection on his countrymen, obviously conveyed in my expression, "discovering in him such in-dwelling monsters as revenge, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... a trembling of her whole body, finished this ingenuous confession. Ransom edged himself away and then was sorry for it, for her lip quivered and her hands, from being quiet, began that nervous interlacing of the fingers which ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... tell the story on the campus of an ingenuous youngster who walked into the dean's office one fall, set his suitcase on the floor, and drawing two one-dollar bills and a fifty-cent piece from his pocket, laid the money on the ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... friendship between Diane and the handsome minstrel was steadily growing. By what subtle hints, by what ingenuous bursts of confidence, by what bewildering flashes of inherent magnetism he contrived to cement it, who may say? But surely his romantic resources like his irresistible charm of speech and manner, were varied. A rare flower, an original and highly commendable bit of woodland ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... prejudice; but, like a certain other person," with an ingenuous smile, "he had sensibilities, and ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... resourcefulness of the lone hand, the marketable results were less in bulk than formerly. "Dorphy" had been wont to re-sort and classify Hamed's gleanings, for Hamed's eyes are misty; also his desire to emulate "Dorphy's" quickness was so ingenuous that in lieu of oysters he would frequently stow away flat stones and pieces of coral. Such things may be abomination in the eyes of the conscientious oyster-getter, but with Hamed they helped to fill the "beg." Vain old Arab! He ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... in the strange watch that had so suddenly been thrust on her but what did fill her with a certain apprehension, was the new and lofty beauty of expression that sat on that sleeping countenance. 'A nice boy,' 'rather a handsome lad,' 'a boy of ingenuous face,' they had always called Leonard Ward, when animated with health and spirits; and the friendship between him and Aubrey had been encouraged, but without thinking of him as more than an ordinary lad of good style. Now, however, to Mary's mind, the broad brow and wasted features in their rest ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... The ingenuous youth did indeed speak warmly of taking up arms and massacring the enemies of the Republic; but, as soon as these enemies strayed out of his dream or became personified in his uncle Pierre or any other person of his acquaintance, he relied upon heaven to spare him the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... letter down gently, deliberately, turned to his friend, and smiled as Van Buren had not seen him smile since their ingenuous boyhood days. There was that sweetness in the smile which homage to woman makes us dub "feminine," and something of it, too, in the way he laid his hand on ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... this seemingly ingenuous explanation. "No, there is something about your voice and face—" His eyes clouded with the grief of a painful memory; his head sank forward until his square chin touched his broad chest. He muttered brokenly: "But that's impossible.... Anyway—better ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... of looting various apartments in New York City of over eighty thousand dollars' worth of jewelry, the female owners were summoned to identify their property. The writer believes that in every instance these ladies were absolutely ingenuous and intended to tell the absolute truth. Each and every one positively identified various of the loose stones found in the possession of the prisoner as her own. This was the case even when the ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... breakfast, tapping meditatively on the apex of a boiled egg, when his daughter swished into the room, saluted her interesting parent by depositing a light kiss on his bald and ingenuous head, and took her place ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... Principalities, and, unlike that of the Balkan Principalities, it has its humorous side, which affords alleviation. The Moscow cabby has now, as in the time of Mrs. Booby, the reputation of being a very hard customer to deal with. He is not often so ingenuous, even in appearance, as the man who drove close to the sidewalk and entreated our custom by warbling, sweetly: "We must have work or we can't have bread." He is only to be dreaded, however, if one be ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... constancy. Whatever share of beauty she may be possessed of, whether she may have the tinge of Hebe on her cheeks, vying in colour with the damask rose, and breath as fragrant—and the graceful and elegant gait of an Ariel—still, unless she is endowed with this characteristic of a virtuous and ingenuous mind, all her personal charms will fade away, through neglect, like decaying fruit in autumn. The whole list of female virtues are in their kind essential to the felicity of man; but there is such ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various

... procureur-general's sarcasms, which he thinks so witty, they are quite delightfully diverting and ingenuous. "It seems to be generally recognised that elective office, irrespective of all professional aptitude, is the normal means of access to a paid appointment." What else does he expect? It is eminently democratic that the marked absence of professional capacity should single a man out for employment. ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... a holy horror of letters. His strong hands shook with uncertainty when he tried to write a word. On the other hand, his father and the other people in the shop admired the ease with which he could reproduce objects in a simple, ingenuous drawing, in which no detail of naturalness was lacking. His pockets were always full of bits of charcoal and he never saw a wall or stone that had a suggestion of whiteness, without at once tracing on it a copy of the objects that struck his eyes because ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... had been sent to find out if there were any persons in those islands who did evil to others, such as the Caribs or cannibals, and that if so he had come to punish them. The effect of this ingenuous speech was heightened by a gift of hawks' bells and pieces of broken glass; upon receiving which the good old man fell down on his knees, and said that the Spaniards must surely ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her household affairs she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children: and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence, not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend: ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... Well, if one must, one must, though I have nothing of the expected to tell you. I have known Limehouse for many years, and have smiled many times at the articles that appear perennially on the wickedness of the place. Its name evokes evil tradition in the public mind. There are ingenuous people who regard it as dangerous. I have already mentioned its sinister atmosphere; but there is an end of it. There is nothing substantial. These are the people who will tell you of the lurking perils of certain quarters of London—how that there are streets down which, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... diffusive in his confidences as to go surgin' about tellin' this story to every gent he meets. It's ag'in roole for physicians that a-way to go draggin' their lariats 'round permiscus an' impartin' all they knows. You-all can see yourse'f that if physicians is that ingenuous, it would prodooce all sorts of troubles in the most onlooked-for places an' most onexpected forms. No; Peets wouldn't give way to conduct so onbecomin' a medicine man an' a sport. But rooles has their exceptions; an so Feets, in one of them moments of sympathy an' confidence, which two ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY back again and that is what really matters. As a philanderer protesting innocence in the face of damnatory facts we know him well enough; but here we have him innocent and ingenuous as an angel, yet hard put to it to convince anyone but himself of his guilelessness. A millionaire (dollars) with a wife of economic disposition, who declines to spend his money for him, he feels drawn to a course of knight-errantry and rides abroad in search of damsels in pecuniary ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various

... time and circumstance to bring about its establishment, the subject is as wearisome as it is unprofitable. The logic of the belief that it is possible to achieve a representative nationalism in music by the ingenuous process of adopting the idiom of an alien though neighbouring race is not immediately apparent; and although MacDowell in this suite has admittedly derived his basic material from the North American aborigines, he never, so far as I am aware, claimed that his impressive and noble score ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... enlightened, as far as possible, with regard to the how and why of arts and manufactures, we make no question she was carried to Worcester, not only to see the cathedral, but to have the potteries exhibited to her. There was a great deal for the ingenuous mind of a royal pupil to see, learn, and enjoy in Worcester and Warwickshire—for she was also at Guy's Cliff ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... all living, may love of country and pride of country glow with equal fervor among those to whom our names and our blood shall have descended! And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered around it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is connected, there shall rise from every youthful breast the ejaculation, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... lesson, that of guarding his speech to this ingenuous girl. He discreetly changed ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... so haunting to artists and poets, had obsessed Des Esseintes for years. How often had he read in the old Bible of Pierre Variquet, translated by the theological doctors of the University of Louvain, the Gospel of Saint Matthew who, in brief and ingenuous phrases, recounts the beheading of the Baptist! How often had he fallen into revery, as he read ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... first time in his native wilds there is frequently a fearless intrepidity of manner, an ingenuous openness of look, and a propriety of behaviour about the aboriginal inhabitant of Australia, which ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... George had taken on a sudden to boast, it rankled. Hence the challenge. The three younger lads joined in. If they could not defeat their seniors, they could at least dispute the mastery among themselves. Thereupon in all seriousness (ingenuous youths!) they voted that Miss Josselin should be ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... confined to these three sentiments,—I love my father, I respect M. Morrel, and I adore Mercedes. This, sir, is all I can tell you, and you see how uninteresting it is." As Dantes spoke, Villefort gazed at his ingenuous and open countenance, and recollected the words of Renee, who, without knowing who the culprit was, had besought his indulgence for him. With the deputy's knowledge of crime and criminals, every word the young man uttered convinced him more and more of his innocence. This lad, for he was scarcely ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... publisher before I had even seen a printing press. In fact, I was but a little urchin in knickerbockers when I brought out a periodical—in MS. it is true—of which the ambitious title was "The Schoolboys' Punch." The ingenuous simplicity with which I am universally credited by all who know me now had not then, I fancy, obtained complete possession of me. I must have been artful, designing, diplomatic, almost Machiavellian; for anxious to curry ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... one reads. Go where you may, you will find the paper, the magazine, the journal; printed letters, official reports, exhaustive cyclopedias, universal histories; the ingenuous advertisement, the voluminous calendar, the decorated symphony; printed ideals, elaborate gaming rules, flaming bulletins; and latest of all, we have begun to publish our communications on the waves of the air. In this hurly-burly of many books and much ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... who virtually deny the power of God to make Himself known,—His power to create a world capable of exhibiting His perfections, and a mind adapted to that world capable of discerning the perfections which are therein displayed? There might be modesty, there might be humility in the ingenuous confession of ignorance, saying, "I do not know;" but there can be neither in the confidence which affirms that "no imaginable order would be sufficient" to prove the existence of God, for what is this but to say that "he knows all that matter can do, and all ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... idle and industrious philosophers have speculated much upon the thoughts of men about to die; yet it cannot be too ingenuous to believe that such thoughts vary as the men, their characters, and conditions of life vary. Nevertheless, pursuant with the traditions of minstrelsy and romance, it is conceivable that young, unmarried men, called ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... a few feet of me, although I had not heard even the rustling of her gown. The dog, with his apple-green bow now put to rights, was sitting upon her shoulder. By the side of his uncanny features, it seemed to me that I had never sufficiently appreciated the fresh girlishness, the almost ingenuous beauty of her own face. She wore a plain, white, linen gown, and a magnificent blossom of scarlet geraniums ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of his works. Nay Goethe's world is everyway so different from ours; it costs us such effort, we have so much to remember, and so much to forget, before we can transfer ourselves in any measure into his peculiar point of vision, that a right study of him, for an Englishman, even of ingenuous, open, inquisitive mind, becomes unusually difficult; for a fixed, decided, contemptuous Englishman, next to impossible. To a reader of the first class, helps may be given, explanations will remove many a difficulty; beauties that lay hidden may be made ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... Dorothy nodded—a charming, ingenuous bend of the head. Norman felt a thrill of pride in her, so beautifully unconscious of the treacherous attempt at insult. It particularly delighted him that she had not made the mistake of rising to return Josephine's greeting but had remained ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... nevertheless at once diagnosed the cause of the trouble; and with her usual precipitancy began to repulse an attack which had not even been opened. Mrs. Lessways was not good at strategy, especially in conflicts with her daughter. She was an ingenuous, hasty thing, and much too candidly human. And not only was she deficient in practical common sense and most absurdly unable to learn from experience, but she had not even the wit to cover her shortcomings by resorting to the traditional authoritativeness of the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... confessed, softening her frank agreement with an ingenuous smile. "But Captain Mayo is coming to you to-morrow morning on business about the schooner, and you can put the matter to him in some way. Oh, I know you're so keen and smart you can do it without ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... yes, it would be horrid and, for the sake of the world in general, which meant Mary and Helen, he must see what a little diplomacy would do. Kneeling down by the dog, he looked up into her face with the gaze of ingenuous innocence. ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole

... Reserve Battalion has an almost unique reputation as an angler. Scattered elements of the regiment carry his piscatorial heroics to obscure corners of the earth. Majors on the Pushti Kuli range recount the episode of the ingenuous troutling which, having apparently conceived a violent passion for the Colonel, literally forced itself upon the hook seven times within a short afternoon. Captains on the Sultanitza Planina rehearse the epic incidents of how the Colonel snatched ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various

... coming into their estates and titles was to ship their heirs and next of kin to America, and then forget all about them. He had listened patiently to claims to positions more or less exalted,—claims often presented with ingenuous sophistry or pathetic simplicity, prosecuted with great good humor, and abandoned with invincible cheerfulness; but they seldom culminated more seriously than in the disbursement of a few dollars by the consul to enable the rightful owner of millions to procure a steerage ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... be annoyed with him because he was so honest and ingenuous. She merely said, "So they'd think me the rule ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King

... that statesmen have no hearts!" she cried enthusiastically, trying to hide the harshness of her refusal under the grace of her words. "The thought used to terrify me," she added, assuming an innocent, ingenuous air. ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... the Senator's daughter smiled. The smile was so ingenuous that it ought to have disarmed the young matron ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... talk with Chandrapal, and I could see that he was not pleased at my coming. He asked me at once why I was there, and, on receiving a not very ingenuous answer, he became reserved and distant. Indeed, his whole manner reminded me forcibly of the bearing of Snarley Bob on the occasion of our ludicrous attempt on Quarry Hill to introduce him to the poetry of Keats. I had come prepared to ask him a question; but I had no sooner reached the point ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... was present to the minds of these, his dearest friends. "Dr. Arbuthnot's daughter is like Gay, very idle, very ingenuous, and inflexibly honest,"[24] Pope wrote to Swift, May 17th, 1739; and two years earlier, on July 23rd, 1737, Swift had written to Erasmus Lewis: "I have had my share of affliction in the loss of Dr. Arbuthnot, and poor Gay, and others.[25] Such devotion, from such very different people ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... was the dearest old gentleman in a tall hat, who explained to us with ingenuous pride and dignity the splendid collection of coins which he himself had given to the town. It was easy to see that they were the immediate jewels of his soul; there was not one piece which he did not know and love as if it had been his child, though there ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... self-possession, and bowed down formally to the ground, like a little ambassador. They drove past, and he went on unconcernedly with his play: the impromptu readiness and good judgment being clearly a part of his nature. His genial and open expression of countenance was none the less ingenuous and fearless for a certain tincture of fun; and it was in this mingling of qualities that he so faithfully resembled ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... love to linger in the society of the Duc de Saint Simon and Cardinal de Retz, it does not follow that I mean to introduce modern and ingenuous youth to the society of these gentlemen. Each man has his pet book. I still retain a great affection for a man of my own age who gives on birthdays and great feasts copies of "The Wide, Wide World" and "Queechy" to his grandchildren and their friends! Could you believe that? He dislikes Miss ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... pink and auburn lady had been looking at Terry with open admiration; but now the light of interest faded from the good-natured face under the girlish hat. "O-oh," she commented in a tone of ingenuous disappointment, "you're only the—the ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James

... back to New York on the eleven-fifteen, but we came on to glad with you anyway," Mr. Farraday was saying to Mrs. Trevor, with an ingenuous smile. ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... with Senorita Isolda as those he was on with her brother. For, despite the intense pride which seems to be so strongly marked a characteristic of all who have Spanish blood in their veins, Senorita Isolda was a most charmingly ingenuous, unsophisticated girl, frank and open as the day; furthermore, she had been so long accustomed to hear Jack spoken of admiringly by Carlos that she had insensibly acquired a strong predisposition in his favour; and, finally, and quite contrary to rule, when at length she met him in the ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... friends laughed at this ingenuous admission, and then Wraysford said, "Well, I'll have you; but mind, I'm awfully particular, and knock my fags about tremendously, don't ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... marked an exhibition of insincerity. Besides, the thought of being experimented upon in this way, did not in the least tend to soften his feelings towards the fair one. He believed in frankness, honesty and reciprocal sincerity. He liked a truthful, ingenuous mind, and turned instinctively from ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... perception, that he had been making an ass of himself; and the appreciation of that fact by the other young men among whom he lived had been indicated with that coarse brutality, as the poet said to himself, which was the outcome of minds not "softened by the study of the ingenuous arts," as his own was. He had been consistently snubbed and flouted, he and his poetry, and his love-making, and his carefully prepared ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... advanced from the simple to the complex! Even Roth believes in an originally "supreme deity" of the Aryans.[16] Opposed to this, the 'naive' school of such older scholars as Roth, Mueller,[17] and Grassmann, who see in the Rig Veda an ingenuous expression of 'primitive' ideas, stand the theories of Bergaigne, who interprets everything allegorically; and of Pischel and Geldner, realists, whose general opinions may thus be formulated: The poets of the Rig Veda are not childlike and naive; they represent ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... some writers with the high title of a miracle of art: the former is said by Taillepied, in whose time it was standing, to have been "un des plus beaux edifices et des plus admirables de la France." A few lines afterwards, however, this ingenuous writer confesses that loaded carriages of any kind were seldom suffered to pass this admirable edifice, in consequence of the expence of repairing it; but that two barges were continually plying for the transport of heavy goods. The delay between ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... the rights of patrons, but his indulgence removed the badge of disgrace from the two inferior orders of freedmen; whoever ceased to be a slave, obtained without reserve or delay the station of a citizen; and at length the dignity of an ingenuous birth was created or supposed by the omnipotence of ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... I will answer with my life, and for their vigilance, I will answer with my life—I will give thee instant proof, my faithful Roland, that they are ingenuous and trusty as thyself. Come hither—Nay, Catherine, attend us; we carry not so deft a page into our private chamber alone. Make fast the door of the parlour, Fleming, and warn us if you hear the least step—or stay, go thou to the door, Catherine," (in ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... even drew on an envelope a fancy portrait of Miss Easterbrook, as he said himself, "from documentary evidence." It represented a typical schoolmarm of the most virulent order, and was calculated to strike terror into the receptive mind of ingenuous youth on simple inspection. ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various

... familiar as a faith. Indeed, the one religion might well pass for the counterfeit presentment of the other. The resemblance so struck the early Catholic missionaries that they felt obliged to explain the remarkable similarity between the two. With them ingenuous surprise instantly begot ingenious sophistry. Externally, the likeness was so exact that at first they could not bring themselves to believe that the Buddhist ceremonials had not been filched bodily ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... Lepidus his particular friend, and one of the best character of all the citizens, whom Caius had slain, as also because he was afraid of himself, since Caius's wrath tended to the slaughter of all alike: and for Cherea, he came in, because he thought it a deed worthy of a free ingenuous man to kill Caius, and was ashamed of the reproaches he lay under from Caius, as though he were a coward; as also because he was himself in danger every day from his friendship with him, and the observance he paid him. These men proposed this attempt to all the rest that were concerned, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... into a fight jest for a little innercent bedevilin' o' the opposite party. Sometimes for a misprint. Old man Pritchard of the 'Argus' oncet had a hole blown through his arm because his proofreader had called Colonel Starbottle's speech an 'ignominious' defense, when the old man hed written 'ingenuous' defense." ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... too grateful for the gift of a man's love. They forgive deceit, rebuffs, severity, coldness, with a surpassing meekness. But it is here that the artistic quality really emerges; these beautiful, stainless hearts are preoccupied with what they receive rather than with what they give. In that crude, ingenuous book The Professor, the hero, who is a good instance of how Charlotte Bronte confused rigidity of nature with manliness, surprised by an outbreak of passionate emotion on the part of his quiet and self-contained wife, and still more surprised by its sudden quiescence, asks her what ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... expressed precisely what you felt. Let not womanhood rob you of this angelic trait. Shun art; abhor affectation. Set to your seal, that, if detected in this habit, you will lose the confidence and the respect of all noble minds. Know that if you are always ingenuous, you will secure self-respect, and a conscious integrity of heart. Let clouds lower, let the storms of deceit menace the circle you grace, on you will all eyes fix,—and none more benignantly than the All-seeing one above;—and in you will ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... selfishness and a narrow mind; conceiving that a man born in an elevated place in himself was nothing, but everything in what went before, and what was to come after him. Without much speculation, but by the sure instinct of ingenuous feelings, and by the dictates of plain, unsophisticated, natural understanding, he felt that no great commonwealth could by any possibility long subsist without a body of some kind or other of nobility, decorated with honour, and fortified by privilege. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... marvellous fondness for those whose hands were blood-stained. Cicero, for example, is never tired of sounding the praises of eminent homicides. He scarcely praised himself more than he eulogized illustrious murderers of other days. And on his eloquent words in honor of assassination are the "ingenuous youth" of Christian countries trained and taught. That some of them should go astray under such teaching is nothing to wonder at. This has happened in other countries, and why should it not happen here? Assassination is not an American crime;[B] but it is not the less true that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... oddly, not so much a contradiction of anybody as a somewhat ingenuous hope for corroboration: Carlisle's ear caught that note at once. She was observing Jack Dalhousie's shabby friend as a determined adversary observes. He had moved a little nearer, or else the pale light better accustomed itself to him. And she saw that his ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... were the origin of the term, it is easy to see how appropriately, in a secondary sense, it would denote whatever was pure, sweet, unadulterated, and ingenuous. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various

... and held her horse still for a short moment. The glory of the hills came on across the wide park to her and enfolded her, met in kind by the radiance of her wonderful hair, her sunny eyes, her glowing skin. The joy of the night before, the morning's passionate grief, the ingenuous hope and prayer in her ride after Steering, the sweet, anxious torture of the journey to Salome Park were all giving place to a large, impersonal comprehension of the conflict in Steering's soul. She had known before that there was trouble brewing between ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... would really be a pity that the house should not have a roof; not on account of the house, which is simple and thoroughly bourgeois, but because of the paintings of Jehan Fourbault, which adorn its wainscoating. There is a Diana flying in the air, but so excellent, so tender, so delicate, of so ingenuous an action, her hair so well coiffed and adorned with a crescent, her flesh so white, that she leads into temptation those who regard her too curiously. There is also a Ceres. She is another very fair divinity. She is seated on sheaves of wheat and crowned with a gallant garland of wheat ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... tis no Politicks, but a harmless Proposall about the Improvement of the Engl. Tongue." "I believe," he added, "If I writt an Essay upon Straw some fool would answer it." But this disclaimer is ingenuous in the light of the political overtones in the Proposal; for example, the extended praise of Barley as one who saved his country from ruin "by a foreign war and a domestic faction." In fact, the lengthy panegyric of the Lord Treasurer, as ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon

... find Lake in his study. The attorney withdrew the little private enclosure, and slipt it, with a brief endorsement, into the neat sheaf of Wylder's letters, all similarly noted, and so locked it up in the iron safe. He intended being perfectly ingenuous with Lake, and showing him that he had 'no secrets—no concealments—all open as the day'—by producing the letter in which the 'notice' was enclosed, and submitting it ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... no more. She sat long on her bed, dazed by the rush of bitter-sweet memories. The Convent, her father, her early years, this dear boy ... all was washed together in tears. There was something so bizarre, unexpected and ingenuous about it all; it touched the elemental in her. If he had excused himself even, she would have tossed him off impatiently. But his frank exposure of his own self-contradictoriness appealed subtly to her. Was this the want in ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... if Kedzie were guilty of any spiritual corruption it would show on her face. People will look for such things. But she was still young and pretty and ingenuous and seemed incapable of duplicity. And indeed such treachery was no more than a childish turning from one toy to another. The traitors and traitresses have no more sense of obligation than a child ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... us to my Husband; but thanks to my good Stars, & your sage Counsel, I clearly got the Ascendant over him, for which I here present you with a farther Testimony of my Gratuity. The Bawd, (who met with such large Fees but seldom) was so well pleas'd with her Ingenuous and generous Temper, that she both thank'd her heartily for what she had presented her and told her that if hereafter she cou'd by any means oblige her, she wou'd be sure to do it: For I assure you, added ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous

... fair friend, said Alonzo, I consider myself under the highest obligations. The gratitude I feel I can but feebly express. Believe me, sir, when I tell you, (and it is all I can say,) that your ingenuous conduct has left impressions in my bosom which can ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... sceptic's attention to a pathetically simple tribute which was paid to the dramatist by a French student in the first year of the last century, when England and France were in the grip of the Napoleonic War. It was then that a young Frenchman proved beyond cavil by an ingenuous confession that the English poet, in spite of the racial differences of aesthetic sentiment, could touch a French heart more deeply than any French or classical author. In 1801 there was published at Besancon, "de l'imprimerie de Metoyer," ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... was looking sweeter and fresher than ever, and was the same ingenuous, unspoiled girl, whose sunny disposition no amount of wealth and fashion ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... lasted for years, and was full of kindness on the part of the philosopher, and of reverential respect on that of Irving, who, following the natural instinct of his own ingenuous nature, changed in an instant in such a presence from the orator, who, speaking in God's name, assumed a certain austere pomp of position,—more like an authoritative priest than a simple presbyter,—into the simple and candid listener, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... do not know, the ministers are half farmers, but I suppose not more than half; just such a mixture as will suit Fleda, I should think. She has not told me in so many words, but it is easy to read so ingenuous a nature as hers, and I have discovered that there is a most deserving young friend of mine settled at Queechy that she is by no means indifferent to. I take it for granted that will be the end of it," said Mrs. Evelyn, pinching her sofa cushion in a great many successive places, ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... remarking in a tone of voice which plainly indicated an exactly contrary desire that he would be filled with an overwhelming satisfaction if Sen could discover any excuse for returning a second time without disposing of anything. This remark Sen's ingenuous nature led him to regard as a definite fact, so that when a passer-by, who tarried to examine the boxes chanced to remark that the colours might have been arranged to greater advantage, in which case he would certainly have purchased at least ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah



Words linked to "Ingenuous" :   open, naive, undistorted, heart-to-heart, artless, ingenuousness, innocent, sincere, naif, disingenuous, candid



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