"Stern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would have called it a mountain. Its slopes were timbered, and if there was a road there, this could not be seen. High up above the trees was a city wall, standing out boldly, as ramparts should. Within the wall, still higher, were houses, white, ancient, stern-faced. And there, clear above them all, perched upon the very point of the hill, towered a cathedral. The size of it turned the city into a close. Its site, its bulwarks, however, turned the church into a castle. Here was an abbot filling the post of constable. The longer you gazed, the stronger ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... the horses' feet, thrust it against the bank and forced the boat out into the water. Then he also took a wrench from his pocket, and when his brother, walking down the length of the barge from bow to stern, reached the end, he caught the cable and followed, so that the pull on the wire ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... themselves, scarcely deserve mention in comparison with our New England champions, who, trusting not to carnal sword and lance, in a contest with principalities and powers, "spirits that live throughout, Vital in every part, not as frail man,"— encountered their enemies with weapons forged by the stern spiritual armorer of Geneva. The life of Cotton Mather is as full of romance as the legends of Ariosto or the tales of Beltenebros and Florisando in Amadis de Gaul. All about him was enchanted ground; devils glared on him in his "closet wrestlings;" portents blazed in the heavens ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... really hard and stern; how could it have been otherwise? Where was all their Christian charity? he asked himself. Where was the spirit of justice? Those people knew that he had not yet received a fair trial, and why were they so willing and eager to ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... was no longer at the head of an army, he laid aside this Spartan temperance for the ostentatious luxury of a Sybarite. Though his person was ungraceful, and though his harsh features were redeemed from vulgar ugliness only by their stern, dauntless, and commanding expression, he was fond of rich and gay clothing, and replenished his wardrobe with absurd profusion. Sir John Malcolm gives us a letter worthy of Sir Matthew Mite, in which Clive orders "two hundred shirts, the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... images associated with their environment—that is done by bringing them up here—and also what might be called inherited thought processes. Give 'em a sort of spiritual purge, in other words," he said with a smile. "Then we can build up, feed their minds something fresh. Sarah Stern there is an obstinate case,—she has a deep ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... great capital of the kingdom, surrounded by competitors; no rivalry disturbed his peace, no equality mortified his greatness; all he saw were either vassals of his power, or guests bending to his pleasure; he abated therefore, considerably, the stern gloom of his haughtiness, and soothed his proud mind ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... spoke, a boat on the lake came into the track of the searchlight, and the two persons in it were clearly visible—Buntingford rowing, and Helena, in the stern. The vision passed in a flash; and Horne turned a pair of eyes alive with satirical meaning ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... down from the stern. Captain Barker was there, peering intently through the mist up ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... high, to drive, as we supposed, the fish into their nets. The goods the purchasers came to buy were sometimes quaint. I remarked one outrigger returning with a single ham swung from a pole in the stern. And one day there came into Mr. Keane's store a charming lad, excellently mannered, speaking French correctly though with a babyish accent; very handsome too, and much of a dandy, as was shown not only in his shining raiment, but by the nature of his purchases. These were five ship-biscuits, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... showing events of American history. The first represented Washington Crossing the Delaware. The sponson, a flat-bottomed canoe with air tanks in the sides, came into view around the cliff propelled by one paddler in the stern. In the bottom sat two devoted patriots carrying hatchets. The great George stood in the bow, in defiance of all canoe laws, with one foot up on the bow point, his hand on his sword, his eyes on the distant shore. His hair had turned bright red and he had taken on considerable flesh ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... father of her child, evoking visions of the Minor Canon whom her soul had loved. Lent brought the image of the Minor Canon nearer to her, and towards his perfections she turned the tender face of her dreams, while she presented to her husband the stern face of duty. She had never swerved from that. There was no reason why she should close her door to him, since the material bond was torture to her, and the ramparts of the spiritual life rose high. Her marriage was more than ever a martyrdom and a sacrifice, redemptive, ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... the service of the republic, was one of M. Seneschal's best friends. He was a man of about forty years, with a cunning look in his eye, a permanent smile on his face, and a confirmed bachelor, with no small pride in his consistency. The good people of Sauveterre thought he did not look stern and solemn enough for his profession. To be sure he was very highly esteemed; but his optimism was not popular; they reproached him for being too kind-hearted, too reluctant to press criminals whom he had to prosecute, and thus prone to ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... would imagine themselves ruined if they did not exercise a stern rule. On the omission of ...
— A Middle High German Primer - Third Edition • Joseph Wright
... some of his ships she took fire. In this situation, Botello gave orders for his ships to draw off from the danger, and on going up in his galliot to bring off Antonio Mascarennas, the Dutch ship blew up while Botello was passing her stern, by which his galliot was instantly sunk. His body was found and taken to Malacca, where ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... World that yit wast never young, Whose youth from thee by gripin' need was wrung, Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose baby-bed Was prowled roun' by the Injun's cracklin' tread, And who grew'st strong thru shifts an' wants an' pains, Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains, Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane; Thou skilled by Freedom and by gret events To pitch new states ez Old World men ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... distance from it, in a contrary direction to the earth's course; in the same manner (said they) as, if a ball is let drop from the mast-head while the ship is in full sail, it does not fall exactly at the foot of the mast, but nearer to the stern of the vessel. The Copernicans would have silenced these objectors at once if they had tried dropping a ball from the mast-head, since they would have found that it does fall exactly at the foot, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... exhibited no unnecessary ostentation—he indulged in no exhibitions of intoxicated pride—that gorgeous imagination rather than vanity, which had led the Tribune into spectacle and pomp, was now lulled to rest, by the sober memory of grave vicissitudes, and the stern calmness of a maturer intellect. Frugal, provident, watchful, self-collected, 'never was seen,' observes no partial witness, 'so extraordinary a man.' ("Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii. c. 23.) 'In him was concentrated every thought for every want of Rome. Indefatigably occupied, he inspected, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... belonged to them. Alone he must wander down into the Land of Absolute Negation and Denial; he must abide there; he must resist temptation; when the light breaks he must arise and follow it into the country of dry sunshine. The mountains of stern reality will rise before him; he must climb them; beyond them ...
— Dreams • Olive Schreiner
... He tried to look stern, however. "Haven't I always kept you supplied with pink shoes and blue shoes and all the colors of the rainbow shoes!" he demanded. "And why ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... of Michael, he spares us a sermon and leaves us the story. Then, he is apt to wear a somewhat stiff-cut garment of solemnity, when not solemnity, but either sternness or sadness, which are so different things, would seem the fitter mood. In truth Wordsworth hardly knows how to be stern, as Dante or Milton was stern; nor has he the note of plangent sadness which strikes the ear in men as morally inferior to him as Rousseau, Keats, Shelley, or Coleridge; nor has he the Olympian air ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... committed high-handed and unjustifiable acts, the moment it was discovered that they had accomplished the purposes of order, they allowed the means of vindication to fall into disuse. The regulator system, for example, was directed to the stern and thorough punishment of evil men, but no sooner was society freed from their depredations, than the well-meaning citizens withdrew from its ranks; and, though regulator companies still patrolled the country, and, for a time, assumed as much authority as ever, they were not supported by the ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... them like liquid gold. Thus I saw the last of the dream-island, bathed in the rays of the setting sun. My regret was shared by the boy, who stood, still ornamented with flowers and wreaths, at the stern of the steamer, looking sadly back ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Miss Stivergill in stern tones, on the occasion of her first visit to the hospital in which Pax was laid up for a short time after his adventure, "you're a good boy. I like you. The first of your sex I ever ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... and we did. For two days and nights our steamer lay under the lee of the island, not daring to venture out in the teeth of the gale which buffeted us. Straining, creaking, swaying, first one way and then the other, we lay waiting for the storm to abate. No river steamer with stern wheel and of shallow draught, could safely weather the rough sea for sixty miles to the Yukon's mouth, and ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... the room, while those faces, before so hard and stern, softened. Then with a single glance at the lovely boy, who was still kneeling, with a look on his face as if in a happy dream, one by one, those ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... tons and christened The Egg Nog, was launched from the opposite coast at Vandenburg. Hastily modified to take the new fuel, the weight and space originally designed for the common garden variety of rocket fuel was filled with automatic camera and television equipment. In its stern stood a six-egg, one-hundred-gallon engine, while in the nose was a small, one-egg, fourteen-quart braking engine to slow it down for the return ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... heel, ride roughshod over; rivet the yoke; hold a tight hand, keep a tight hand; force down the throat; coerce &c 744; give no quarter &c (pitiless) 914.1. Adj. severe; strict, hard, harsh, dour, rigid, stiff, stern, rigorous, uncompromising, exacting, exigent, exigeant^, inexorable, inflexible, obdurate, austere, hard-headed, hard-nosed, hard-shell [U.S.], relentless, Spartan, Draconian, stringent, strait-laced, searching, unsparing, iron-handed, peremptory, absolute, positive, arbitrary, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... passed small native boats, some of them with sails and loaded with goods, most of them rowed by one or more oars. It was to be noticed that when there was only one oar it was being worked vigorously by a woman, while a man sat comfortably in the stern and steered. These people were evidently going from the crowded villages in which they lived to ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... the political storms in the United States, one is reminded of one's feelings as one lies in bed on a stormy night in an ocean steamer in a head wind. Each blow of the sea shakes the ship from stem to stern, and every now and then a tremendous one seems to paralyze her. The machinery seems to stop work; there is a dead pause, and you think for a moment the end has come; but the throbbing begins once more, and if you go up on deck and look down in the hold, you see the ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... at him as he came quietly in. His lean, bronzed face, with the purple scar of a sword-cut down one cheek, told her nothing. Only she fancied that his mouth, under its narrow, black line of moustache, looked stern. ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Yet the stern shepherds of the poor black sheep Will soften when they see a woman weep. There was a mother there who strove in vain, With sobs, to hush ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... When I visited his tomb in the church (which is remarkably neat and pretty, and enriched with monuments) I was provoked to find a little mural cabinet, with his figure three feet high kneeling. Instead of a stern bust (and his head would furnish a nobler than Bernini's Brutus) one is peevish to see a plaything that might have been bought at Chenevix's. There is a tender inscription to the second Lord Strafford's wife, written by himself; but his genius was fitter to coo ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Eagle, a Golden Eagle, an Eagle-Vulture, and a White-tailed Sea Eagle. Twice as high as the boy they were, each one of them. And they stood on the rail of the ship, like round-shouldered soldiers all in a row, stern and still and stiff; while their great, gleaming, black eyes shot darting glances here and there ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... summer's sunny hours, As we count them, pass away; And its fairest fruits and flowers, Are but food for stern decay. Then with wailings, deep and loud, Like the sea's in its unrest, Winter spreads his icy shroud, O'er ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... gesture he straightened his giant frame, threw back his mighty shoulders and, with fearless head held high, swung back the door and stepped across the threshold into the room which held for him the dearest memories and associations of his life. No change of expression crossed his grim and stern-set features as he strode across the room and stood beside the little couch and the inanimate form which lay face downward upon it; the still, silent thing that had pulsed with life ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... suppressed elsewhere burned in his 'Sonnets to Liberty,' and added a deeper sadness to the 'Yew-trees of Borrowdale.' But his heart, as well as his imagination, was ardent. When it spoke most powerfully in his poetry it spoke with a stern brevity unusual in that poetry, as in the poem 'There is a change and I am poor,' and the still more remarkable one, 'A slumber did my spirit seal,' a poem impassioned beyond the comprehension of those who fancy that Wordsworth lacks passion, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the students in general by the authorities and the college was stern, austere and distant. The students had little social intercourse with the families or the professors, except such of them as had relatives in Cambridge, which allowed intercourse with the families of the professors. The professors did nothing to encourage familiarity, or even to encourage ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Sibyl Arts, in one stern knot Be all your offices combined! Stand close, while Courage draws the lot, The destiny ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... river, whither the fighting from the ravine had also in large part drifted. How the combat was going down there, it was difficult to say. There were dead men behind every tree, it seemed. Commands were so broken up, and troops so scattered by the stern exigencies of forest fighting, that it could not be known who was living and who ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... early-day ferries were operated at the El Dorado canyon crossing and on the Searchlight road, at Cottonwood Island. W.H. Hardy ferried at Hardyville. About the later site of Fort Mohave, Capt. Geo. A. Johnston, January 23, 1858, in a stern wheel steamer, ferried the famous Beale ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... in glory's light arrayed, In Pushkar's wood his dwelling made, And living there on roots and fruit Did penance stern and resolute. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... parents were occasionally permitted to interject. The personality of Cousin Henry Rogers grew into life about them—gradually. The result was a curious one that Minks would certainly have resented with indignation. For Cousinenry was, apparently, a business man with pockets full of sovereigns; stern, clever, and important; the sort of man that gets into Governments and things, yet somewhere with the flavour of the clergyman about him. This clerical touch was Jane Anne's contribution to the picture; and she was certain ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... view over the North River and New York Bay. The building is a substantial one of stone, with nothing of the repulsive aspect of a jail about it. Asking for Mrs. Jones, we were at once shown into the office. We had expected to see a woman of middle age and somewhat stern aspect. Instead, we beheld a pretty, young person, apparently not more than twenty-five years old, with bright, black eyes, waving brown hair, good features and plump figure. She was very neatly dressed and pleasant in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... rise, and get as near as possible so as to use the lance or drive in another harpoon. When killed, the animal is towed to the vessel and fastened on the port side, belly uppermost, and head towards the stern; it is then stripped of its blubber, the body being canted by tackles till all parts are cleared. The baleen is then cut out, and the carcase abandoned to the sharks, killer whales, and ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... contrasts. As though to atone for the fog she sent a dazzling day out of the northwest, and the summer world was stained in new colours. The yachts were whiter, the water bluer, the grass greener; the stern grey rocks themselves flushed with purple. The wharves were gay, and dark clustering foliage hid an enchanted city as the Folly glided between dancing buoys. Honora, with a frightened glance upward at the great sail, caught her breath. And she felt rather than ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Why should a judge be ashamed to follow the example of his own goddess?" And so at last the owner of the ermine submitted, and the stern magistrate of the bench was led round with the due incantation of the spirits, and dismissed into chaos to seek for ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... down the harbour. I borrowed a glass. After a time I thought that I could distinguish my cousin's boat coming down. Had he escaped; or had the duel been prevented? I made out two officers seated in the stern, but the boat passed at a distance from the Daring, and I was uncertain who they were. I had been so eagerly watching the Pearl's gig, that I had not observed the Daring's, which now approached. A murmur ran through the ship—there was something solemn in the sound. ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... they wear such stuff as in their noses. They are very dexterous, active fellows in their proas, which are very ingeniously built. They are narrow and long, with outriggers on one side, the head and stern higher than the rest, and carved into many devices—viz., some fowl, fish, or a man's head painted or carved; and though it is but rudely done, yet the resemblance appears plainly, and shows an ingenious fancy. But ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... not thought fit to regard these communications, and now Randolph came charged with a long and stern dispatch, in which agents were demanded forthwith, "in default whereof, we are fully resolved, in Trinity Term next ensuing, to direct our attorney-general to bring a quo warranto in our court of kings-bench, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... successfully resisting them, were associated bodies of freemen bound together for a time by common interests, ruled by equal laws, and owning allegiance to no higher authority than their own sense of right and wrong. They held meetings, chose officers, decided disputes, meted out a stern and swift punishment to offenders, and managed their local affairs with entire success; and the growth of their committees was proceeding at such a rapid rate, that days and weeks were often sufficient for vital changes, which, in more ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... she would never have known how to excuse herself; and latterly she had been growing more and more like her father in certain traits. Perhaps her passion for Bartley had been the one spring of tenderness in her nature, and, if ever it were spent, she would stiffen into the old man's stern aridity. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... plans and attachment his brother was not at present to be informed: this stern brother who shut himself up apart from his species, and who, Richard told me, was of too cold a nature to ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... Taylor, the crime of which you have been convicted is so bad that one has to put stern restraint upon one's self to prevent one's self from describing in language which I would rather not use the sentiments which must rise to the breast of every man of honour who has heard the details of these two ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... rich and varied tints of the bracken contributing their share to the similitude of a glorious sunset; and the whole picture is rendered complete to the eye by being set in that massive rocky framework, known as the Aberuchill range, whose stern and rugged sides add to the feeling of the picturesque and beautiful ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... "forever" wants explanation. For such stern conditions would fall hard on very little children, who, not having come to their reason, cannot be expected to understand the great value of their teeth, and take all the care they need of them. So to them ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... childish sorrow On your tender child-heart fell, And you plucked the reddest roses From the tree you loved so well, Passed them through the stern cold ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... But stern was the face of Bunbundoolooey, the son, and no answer did he make with his tongue. But he stooped to the ground and picked therefrom a big stone. This swiftly he threw at his mother, hitting her with such force that she fell dead ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker
... the question," he replies, in a voice so exceedingly stern, so absolutely different from any thing I have ever hitherto contemplated as possible in my gentle, genial Roger, that again, to the depths of my soul, I quail; how could I ever, in wildest dreams, have thought I should dare to tell him?—"it ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... needed in case of a siege. From the windows there was a magnificent view of the Dead Sea, the whole course of the Jordan, Jerusalem, Hebron, the frowning fortress of Marsaba, and away to the north, the wild heights of Pisgah and Abarim. Detached from the palace was a stern and gloomy keep, with underground dungeons still visible, hewn down into the solid rock. This was ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... the optimistic conception of the deity as benign, merciful, infinitely forgiving, was very far indeed from covering the facts. So he insisted on seeing in human destiny the ever-present hand of a stern and terrible judge, administering a Draconian code with blind and pitiless severity. God created men under conditions which left them free to choose between good and evil. All the physical evil that exists ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... rowed ashore. When we were within a cable's length of the shore, the Spaniards fled, hiding themselves in the woods, as being afraid of our ordnance; but indeed to draw us on to land confidently, and to presume of our strength. Our Captain commanding the grapnell to be cast out of the stern, veered the pinnace ashore, and as soon as she touched the sand, he alone leapt ashore in their sight, to declare that he durst set his foot aland: but stayed not among them, to let them know, that though he had not sufficient forces to conquer them, yet ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... in progress. In the upper front room of Vigilante headquarters sat the tribunal upon whose decision Cora's fate would rest. They were grouped about a long table, twenty-nine men, the executive committee. At their head sat William Coleman, grim and stern, despite his clear complexion and his youthful, beardless mien. Near him, Isaac Bluxome, keen-eyed, shrewd, efficient, made ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... traditions. His masters were Homer, Vergil, Milton and the rest of those who wrote with measure, purity, and temperance; and from whose poetry proceeded a spirit of order, of tranquillity, of clearness, of simplicity; who were reticent in ornament, in illustration, and stern in rejection of unnecessary material. None of these classic excellences belong to Browning, nor did he ever try to gain them, and that was, perhaps, a pity. But, after all, it would have been of no use had he tried for them. We cannot impose ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... regarded her in stern surprise. Then I smiled a negation and went on to the place Frederick had indicated. Straightway, Dehra got up and, coming behind me and leaning on the chair back, she put her arms ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... repeatedly, the veil is a great help, and, in a year hence, Teresa will know whether she'd like to join our community. In the meantime, pray let her be in peace and recover herself." The Prioress's voice was stern. ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... system which is called pantheistic; but as it has nothing to do with Mysticism, I need not try to determine whether it deserves the name or not. It is that which deifies physical law. Sometimes it is "materialism grown sentimental," as it has been lately described; sometimes it issues in stern Fatalism. This is Stoicism; and high Calvinism is simply Christian Stoicism. It has been called pantheistic, because it admits only ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... few seconds I remained undecided. Then, aghast and amazed, I became convinced that it was a stern reality. ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... in his Epilogue to Pacchiarotto, he misses the truth. It is almost needless to say that a poet can be sensitive to beauty, and also to the stern facts of the moral and spiritual struggle of mankind through evil to good. All the great poets have been sensitive to both and mingled them in their work. They were ideal and real in both the flower and the pine. They are never forced ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Offers of a home for Eppie had come from all sides, but at first Miss Gordon refused each one. For, after all, the lady of The Dale was made of fine material. Never could she be brought to turn an orphan from her door, and her stern sense of duty drove her to nurse the girl with all the care and skill she could command. But hers was a nature that, while it was capable of rising to the height of a difficult task, failed in the greater task of carrying the ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... calculated to shake their confidence in the monarch, occurred shortly after, which indeed raises the loyalty of the nation to a height inconceivable and impossible to any people, unless one whose conscience is swayed by the sense of stern duty. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... undertaking. Certain it is that it would have been put into execution but for the situation created by the presence of a large British Army in the Sinai Peninsula. A large force was collected about Aleppo for a march down the Euphrates valley, and the winter of 1917-18 would have witnessed a stern struggle for supremacy in Mesopotamia if the War Cabinet had not decided to force the Turks to accept battle where ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... throbbing sound which was not quite a sound. It was actually a sensation, which one seemed to feel all through one's body. It lasted only the fraction of a second, but while it lasted the stars out the side-ports ceased to be stars. They became little lines of light, all moving toward the ship's stern but at varying rates of speed. Some of them passed beyond view. Some of them moved only ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... She was fighting the stern battle which in his innocence he had roused in her hungry mind, and for a moment he trembled for the result. Vaguely he felt that he had done something unfair in shifting the responsibility to her shoulders, but whatever her answer he knew what his duty was; and ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... my comrade gay, my home, my treasure, You were my bosom's friend, in all things true, My best-loved pupil in the arts of pleasure: Stern death took all I had ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... time he was going on. The woman did not go on; she stayed right there—hour after hour, day after day, year after year, twisting sausage links and racing with death. It was piecework, and she was apt to have a family to keep alive; and stern and ruthless economic laws had arranged it that she could only do this by working just as she did, with all her soul upon her work, and with never an instant for a glance at the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who came to stare at her, as at some ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... officers can dance.' The next picture revealed the same men charging up to the guns at the head of their men, and underneath the words: 'But by jingo they can fight too.' There is no doubt that the English officer is good at enjoying himself, and no small blame to him, but when it comes to the stern days of war, he is as keen and gallant as ever. It must have struck the most casual observer that the proportion of officer casualties during this war is entirely disproportionate to the numbers engaged. Again and again this striking fact has met with the severe stricture ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... I have given time to the vineyard, but nothing at all of myself. I held myself aloof and apart while Duty, like a stern taskmaster, urged me to the things I hated, merely to please Mother, who had done so much for me that she had the right ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... was in some places trebled; and this particularly happened where the Colossus was, who, after passing the stern of the French Swiftsure, and luffing up under the lee of the Bahama, supposing herself to leeward of the enemy's line, unexpectedly ran alongside of the French Achille under cover of the smoke. The Colossus was then placed between the Achille and the Bahama, being on board of the latter; and was ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... all about the lake and stay out over night, for you could sleep on the seat cushions. It is twenty-one feet in length and has a five-and-a-half-foot beam, the design being what is known as a compromise stern. The motor is a double-cylinder two-cycle one, of ten horsepower. It has a float-feed carburetor, mechanical oiler, and the ignition system is the jump-spark—the best for this style of motor. The boat will make ten miles an hour, with twelve in, and, of course, more than that with a lighter ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... Albany. There was much leave-taking and kissing of old women and children, and great activity in carrying on board baskets of bread and cakes, and provisions of all kinds, notwithstanding, the mighty joints of meat that dangled over the stern; for a voyage to Albany was an expedition of great moment in those days. The commander of the sloop was hurrying about, and giving a world of orders, which were not very strictly attended to; one man being busy in lighting his pipe, and another in ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... fear, stood up boldly amongst them, and suffered them to scrutinize his person, rightly judging that nothing would so soon mollify their anger as to look upon his handsome and finely proportioned form. When they had gazed as much as they liked, she, the tallest, the one whom all obeyed, spoke in a stern voice, and asked, why he had dared to steal upon them while they were dancing the Sacred Dance of Darkness, and singing the Spirit's Song of Midnight? Did he not know that they were Spirits, the Spirits of the Mountain, who, for many hundred years, had nightly ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... This tree, then, furnished us with the chief part of our material. First of all, Jack sought out a limb of a tree of such a form and size as, while it should form the keel, a bend at either end should form the stem and stern-posts. Such a piece, however, was not easy to obtain; but at last he procured it by rooting up a small tree which had a branch growing at the proper angle about ten feet up its stem, with two strong roots ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... gun, you won't need it," said the leader of the gang, with a grin that was as near amiability as his rough, stern calling permitted him. "Jim and I will go down with you ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... in the drawn face and blazing eyes of Jack Bracy as he, at last, swung into the Avenue. For Jack had the brains as well as the nerve of your true hero, and, knowing the dangerous stimulus of a stern chase to a frightened horse, had kept a side road until it branched into the Avenue. So furious had been his pace, and so correct his calculation, that he ranged alongside of the runaway even as it passed, grasped the reins, and, in half a block, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... he had reached the end of the lane, he turned back, and walked swiftly to the cottage. At the corner he looked into the room where they had been sitting. She was still in the same place where he had left her, by the lamp, her white, almost stern face, with its large, severe lines, staring fiercely into space. It made him uneasy, this long, tense look that betrayed a mind fixed upon one idea, and that idea! He crept away into the lane to flee from it, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... M. Ah! but you didn't do much rowing then. You let me get all the blisters, and you just sat in the stern and steered us like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... control himself no longer. As he paced the small room, the tears stood in his eyes, and he locked and unlocked his hands in a passionate effort to relieve his emotion. David looked at him with a stern curiosity. "You are mair than needfully anxious, sir. Do you think Maggie Promoter has no brother? What ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... attempt at obtaining employment had not been sufficiently encouraging to cause her to entertain any very sanguine hopes in regard to a renewal of her exertions. But that stern necessity "which knows no law," compelled her to make another trial after she had somewhat recovered from the effects ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... overcrowded, swung at a dangerous angle from its davits. A fragment of the shell shattered the bow tackle, and I saw the women and children and the men vomited into the sea beneath, while the boat dangled stern up for a moment from its single davit, and at last with increasing momentum dived into the midst of the struggling victims screaming upon the face ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... an amplification of the subject, how eagerly I looked forward to a number of curious, apposite, and amusing anecdotes, and found them not therein, is an avowal of which I need not fear the rashness, when the known talents of the detector of Stern's plagiarisms[4] are considered. I will not, however, disguise to you that I read it with uniform delight, and that I rose from the perusal with ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... who, gazing on the obelisk that rises from the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, would feel his patriot's pride suppressed by local jealousy? Type of the men, the event, the purpose, it commemorates, that column rises, stern, even severe in its simplicity; neither niche nor molding for parasite or creeping thing to rest on; composed of material that defies the waves of time, and pointing like a finger to the source of noblest thought. Beacon of freedom, it guides the present generation to retrace the fountain ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... point of religion) rejected. Messalla as yet is strongly for severe measures. The loyalists hold aloof owing to the entreaties of Clodius: bands of ruffians are being got together: I myself, at first a stern Lycurgus, am becoming daily less and less keen about it: Cato is hot and eager. In short, I fear that between the indifference of the loyalists and the support of the disloyal it may be the cause of great evils to the Republic. However, ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... countess for the second time had sought her son. Her stern, grave face, her angry eyes, the repressed pride and emotion that he saw in every gesture, told him that the time for jesting or evasion ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... a lovely landscape; and the Port Royalist nuns remarked, somewhat simply for their side of the argument, that they seemed as if warring with Providence, seeing that the favors which he was abundantly showering upon them, they, in obedience to the stern law of their lives, were continually rejecting. But it is better, surely, to be on the side of Providence against Pascal and the nuns, than on the side of Pascal and the nuns against Providence. The ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... constitutional rights. But are such apprehensions of contingent danger in the future sufficient to justify the immediate destruction of the noblest system of government ever devised by mortals? From the very nature of his office and its high responsibilities he must necessarily be conservative. The stern duty of administering the vast and complicated concerns of this Government affords in itself a guaranty that he will not attempt any violation of a ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... had no doubt vaguely heard that in England the fashion of duelling amongst gentlemen had been surpressed by the law with a very stern hand; still to him, a Frenchman, whose notions of bravery and honour were based upon a code that had centuries of tradition to back it, the spectacle of a gentleman actually refusing to fight a duel was a little short of an enormity. In his mind he vaguely pondered whether he should strike that ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... and with them the hope of the ship, for now the waters gaining upon the hold and rising upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow. Oh, had now that stern, brave mate, Gourley, been on deck, whom the sailors were wont to mind—had he stood to execute sufficiently the commander's will—we may believe that we should not have had to blush for the cowardice and recreancy of the crew, nor weep for the untimely dead. But, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... reminder of the noble friend of his early years, whose blood had been shed for him, and to whose last wild death-cry his tortured heart had been compelled to listen. Her presence must ever recall the scorn, the hatred, the opposition of his stern father; the hardships, the abuse, the humiliations, yes, even the blows, all of which had at last bowed the noble mind of the prince and led him to take upon himself the slavery of this hated marriage, in order to be free from the scorn and cruelty of his father. ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... unsophisticated ear and brain. They become accustomed to the sounds after a time, but the noise registers itself continually on the sensitive nervous system, and many a man and woman breaks at last under the strain. Another element that adds to the nervous strain is haste. Life in the city is a stern chase after money and pleasure. Everybody hurries from morning until night, for everything moves on schedule, and twenty-four hours seem not long enough to do the world's work and enjoy the world's fun. Noise and hurry furnish a mental tension ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... "It's mean," he admitted, "but I can't help but laugh when I think of how he looked kneeling there in stern resolve to be covered with glory, and the transformation when he was covered ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the steamer and its head was turned round I stood at the stern and watched that palisade for long, as it receded and receded. At last the blue distance swallowed it up. I could see no more than a silvery line dividing the blues of meeting sea and sky. Then I went down to my cabin and locked the door and lay down on my berth in the quiet, trying to live ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... your conscience, and never ask anybodies leave to be honest."—Collier's Antoninus, p. 105. "To overlook nobodies merit or misbehaviour."—Ib., p. 9. "And Hector at last fights his way to the stern of Ajax' ship."—Coleridge's Introd., p. 91. "Nothing is lazier, than to keep ones eye upon words without heeding their meaning."— Philological Museum, i, 645. "Sir William Joneses division of the day."—Ib., Contents. "I need ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... wild and striking; and the stars, scattered thinly over the heavens, twinkled with a faint religious light, that blended well with the solemnity of this extraordinary worship, and rendered the rugged nature of the abrupt cliffs and precipices, together with the still outline of the stern mountains, sufficiently visible to add to the wildness and singularity of the ceremony. In fact, there was an unearthly character about it; and the spectre-like appearance of the white-robed priest ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... force to accomplish, the initiative which oversteps the bank of words, threats, and angry thoughts, and plunges boldly into the stream, ready to sacrifice itself to lead others. The look of power, of stern determination, which is never absent from the faces of men who change their times, was not visible in the thin dark countenance of the silver-chiseller. Marzio was destined never to rise above the common howling mob which ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... in a stern voice, "honour before everything. Did you not, in the presence of his worship, vow and declare that you gave me that horse, and now d'ye talk of taking it back again? Let me tell you, madam, that such paltry thricks ill become a person of your ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hunchback, though this was his first acquaintance with a galley, knew well enough that she would strike for the frigate's stern as the weakest point. This was precisely what ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... presented the typical appearance of those peasants whom we sometimes find in the eastern provinces and who, with their stern, clean-shaven faces, like the faces on ancient medals, remind us of our Roman ancestors rather than of the Gauls or Francs. He had marched to battle in 1870 with the others, perishing with hunger and wretchedness, risking his skin. And, on his return, he had found his shanty reduced ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... the Greenlanders transport their families, are always rowed by women; for a man will not debase himself by work, which requires neither skill nor courage. Anningait was therefore exposed by idleness to the ravages of passion. He went thrice to the stern of the boat, with an intent to leap into the water, and swim back to his mistress; but, recollecting the misery which they must endure in the winter, without oil for the lamp, or skins for the bed, he resolved to employ the weeks of absence in provision for a night of plenty and felicity. He then ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... mournst the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine—no distant date; Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, Full on thy bloom, Till, crushed beneath the furrow's weight, Shall ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... within the law of the moment," was the stern reply, "but morally you are worse than the most outrageous bucket-shop keepers of Wall Street. Legislation may be slow and Parliament hampered by precedent, but the people have never wanted champions when they ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... military movements were conducted in these campaigns, gave the scene rather the air of a court pageant, than that of the stern array of war. The war was one, which, appealing both to principles of religion and patriotism, was well calculated to inflame the imaginations of the young Spanish cavaliers; and they poured into the field, eager to display themselves under the eye of their illustrious ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... said; and I waited, thinking about home and the old garden at Isleworth and then of that at Hampton; I didn't know why, but I did. And then I was thinking to myself that it was a good job that we had the stern, manly feeling to comfort us of our hard work being our duty, when I heard the slush, slush, slush, slush, sound of feet coming along the trenches, and then my ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... the National unity and strength, may be imagined when we reflect that at this very time the annual expenses of our Government were over $600,000,000, and growing still larger; and that $1.90 in legal tender notes of the United States was worth but $1.00 in gold, with a downward tendency. Said stern old Thaddeus Stevens, alluding on this occasion, to Statesmanship of the peculiar stamp of the Coxes and Fernando Woods: "He who in this time will pursue such a course of argument for the mere sake of party, can never hope to be ranked among Statesmen; nay, Sir, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... presence had scattered rainbow hues! A terrible blow it was to Capt. Willard; a very bitter thing thus to have his cherished plans frustrated, his brightest hopes destroyed; to see the very sun of his existence go down at midday in clouds and darkness. Yes, to the stern father this sad event brought bitter, bitter grief. But to the mother—that tender, affectionate mother, it was death. Yea, more than death, for reason, at the first shock, reeled and tottered on ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... Crawshay coming up to the doorway, I got down from the lamp-post, not wishing to let him see me there, though I was only standing on my rights. But Mr. William had a voice which, something like an old file at work, could go through any crowd, and I heard him in his quiet, stern way, just as if he was talking to his men on a pay-day, say it was no use them crowding there with sticks and stones to talk to ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... construction of which had been duly sanctioned by the Government, pointing to the fact that Judaism was one of the religions tolerated in Russia. In answer to their petition, they received the following stern reply from St. Petersburg, dated ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... father that missed th' first boats, I must raise me claryon voice again' th' invasion iv this fair land be th' paupers an' arnychists iv effete Europe. Ye bet I must—because I'm here first. 'Twas diff'rent whin I was dashed high on th' stern an' rockbound coast. In thim days America was th' refuge iv th' oppressed iv all th' wurruld. They cud come over here an' do a good job iv oppressin' thimsilves. As I told ye I come a little late. ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... friends; And so prepared to sacrifice his place— Persuaded that the Lord would make amends. The Pastor hears his case and straight attends Upon him at his house with wish to know The full particulars, and gladly lends An ear attentive to his tale of woe; How the stern creditor would no ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... him, 'Skerry', presently several Indians came in Sight of us, and made great Signs of Friendship, saying 'Bonny, Bonny'. Then running before us, they endeavour'd to persuade us to come on shoar; but we answer'd them with stern Countenances, and call'd out, 'Skerry', taking up our Guns, and threatning to shoot at them, but they still cry'd 'Bonny, Bonny': And when they saw they could not prevail, nor persuade us to come on shoar, two of them came off to us in a Canoe, one paddling with a great Cane, the other ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... in time. Professor Zepplin, stern of face, gorgeous in a pair of new pajamas, a stick in one hand came stalking toward the group. Stacy saw him coming. The fat boy bounded to his feet in a hurry. He was especially interested in the cedar limb with its sharp broken points, grasped ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... a stern objection to wasteful or unnecessary expenditure, and all the costly and superfluous trimmings so dear to the heart of the military have been ruthlessly pruned. But economy is not insisted upon at the expense of efficiency. Nothing is refused or stinted that is ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... him. From our place of concealment we could admire the athletic form of the leader of the gang, and as the flames from the camp-fire blazed up and showed us his features, we could not help being struck with their stern beauty. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... out then in the afternoon to breathe the fresh air she so much needed, but in a half hour came back with a new look in her face. A stern, forbidding expression did not leave her during the day, and at night she tossed about on her bed, wakeful and disturbed. At length she rose, and sat for more than an hour by the window in the darkness, seeking that peace which had left her so unaccountably. A new thought, in time, took ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... nothing. Their energies in the earlier years of the state were wholly absorbed in organization and conquest. Resting in a stern and simple creed, they had little speculative interest in matters outside the hard routine of their daily life. But with the close of the Period of Conquest came a change. The influx of wealth from conquered provinces, ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... of buttons and switches. Muffled thunder from the stern jets trembled through the hull as ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... to the grave: two heavy tears trickled down that stern man's cheeks; and it was still and vacant in the parsonage; the sunshine within was ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... and minute by minute, as the chance offered for safely taking them in. I was the last who left; and, at the next roll of the ship toward us, the empty length of the deck, without a living creature on it from stem to stern, told the boat's crew that their work was done. With the louder and louder howling of the fast-rising tempest to warn them, they rowed for their ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... or three stories that will make Dinah quake," said Lousteau. "Young man—and you too, Bianchon—let me beg you to maintain a stern demeanor; be thorough diplomatists, an easy manner without exaggeration, and watch the faces of the two criminals, you know, without seeming to do so—out of the corner of your eye, or in a glass, on the sly. This morning we will hunt the ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... above the city's din or broke the quiet of the farm. On city square and village green stand the graceful figures of student, clerk, mechanic, farmer, in that endeared and never-to-be-forgotten war-uniform of the soldier or the sailor, their stern young faces to the front, still on guard, watching the work they wrought in the flesh, and teaching in eloquent silence the lesson of the citizen's duty to the state, How our children will study these! How they ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew: Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper, circling round, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... was a moment's silence. Wilmore, the metaphysician, saw then a strange thing. He saw a light steal across his friend's stern face. He saw his eyes for a moment soften, the hard mouth relax, something incredible, transforming, shine, as it were, out of the man's soul in that moment of self-revelation. It was gone like the momentary passing of a strange gleam of sunshine across a leaden ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... smile expand, so soured and puckered did it become, for the sheep was heavy, the farm buildings were some distance away, and the sun was coming down hot as the two men strode away, Leather looking heavy and stern, but apparently ready to undertake any ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... preach again to-morrow." Year after year he lay patiently in a dungeon, compared with which the worse prison now to be found in the island is a palace. His fortitude is the more extraordinary, because his domestic feelings were unusually strong. Indeed, he was considered by his stern brethren as somewhat too fond and indulgent a parent. He had several small children, and among them a daughter who was blind, and whom he loved with peculiar tenderness. He could not, he said, bear even to let the wind blow on her; and now she must suffer cold and hunger; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... represent a loss of twelve hundred millions; for, if the manufactured product were not double in value to its cost price, commerce could not exist. The proletariat actually deprives itself of six hundred millions in wages. These six hundred millions of dead loss (representing to a stern economist a loss of twelve hundred millions, through lack of the benefits of circulation) explain the condition of inferiority in which our commerce, our merchant service, and our agriculture stand, as compared with England. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... character. He reduced taxes, lessened the burden of their collection, and took into his own hands the appointment of provincial magistrates. Henceforth oppressive governors and swindling publicans had to expect swift, stern punishment from one whose interests included the welfare of both citizens and subjects. By granting Roman citizenship to communities in Gaul and Sicily, he indicated his purpose, as rapidly as possible, to convert the provincials into Romans. It was Caesar's ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... than are generally worn by ladies so strictly decorous, had caused some wonder and mirth to the foreign ministers. The sullen gravity which had been characteristic of the Stadtholder's court seemed to have vanished before the influence of the fascinating Englishman. Even the stern and pensive William relaxed into good humour when ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... There was a clang of bells in the engine room as the chief officer on the bridge shot over the indicator, signalling "Full Speed Astern," at the same time shouting orders that sent men racing to swing out a boat from the davits, while others ran with life-buoys to the stern of the vessel, ready to fling them to the men in the water ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... stared at him with stern curiosity. His piofessional pursuits had familiarized him with the manners and speech of English gentlemen, and he immediately recognized the shabby sailor lad as ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... timid and reserved disposition, without that self-confidence which prompts some men to court adventures, or to seek the familiarity of chance acquaintances, I neither wished to see nor to be seen. Still less did I dream of love. On the contrary, I rejoiced, in my stern and mistaken pride, to think that I had forever stifled that weakness in my heart, and that I was alone to feel, or to suffer in this nether world. As to happiness, I no ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... hardly be accessible by wheeled carriages. The prosperity of the town is indicated by a good many new and splendid edifices, for commercial and other purposes, in the vicinity of the lake; but intermixed with these there are many quaint buildings of a stern gray color, and in a style of architecture that I prefer a thousand times to the monotony of Italian streets. Immensely high, red roofs, with windows in them, produce an effect that delights me. They are as ugly, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bitterness of death, she was, by a cruel mercy unbound and restored to life. When she came to herself, pitying friends and neighbours implored her to yield. "Dear Margaret, only say, God save the King!" The poor girl, true to her stern theology, gasped out, "May God save him, if it be God's will!" Her friends crowded round the presiding officer. "She has said it; indeed, sir, she has said it." "Will she take the abjuration?" he demanded. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... instantly filled with importance and a sort of black joy, dropped her pail in the exact middle of the passage, and almost fell down the crooked stairs. One of Maggie's deepest instincts, always held in check by the stern dominance of Mrs. Baines, was to leave pails prominent on the main routes of the house; and now, divining what was at hand, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... his eyes bent down: now and then he would raise them up as a white man came near; but these did not want to buy him. At last there came one, a man with a hard cross face: he stood close to him, and Saib felt his stern eyes fix on him. This man spoke to the one who had to sell the slaves, and poor Saib was sold! He was soon put on board a ship that was to set sail to that part of the world where white men may keep slaves; here, in our land, such things ...
— The Book of One Syllable • Esther Bakewell
... of the realm, and hearing from the Lords Ruthven and Bothwell that their troops would follow no other leader than Sir William Wallace, and hopeless of any prompt decision from amongst the contusion of the council, Badenoch yielded a stern assent to the only apparent means of saving his sinking country. He turned ashy pale, while his silence granted to Lord Loch-awe the necessity of imploring Sir William Wallace to again stretch out his arm in their behalf. With this embassy ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... I said aloud, in disgust at my tardiness. Then began the stern business of the day. While getting breakfast I turned over in my mind the proper thing for me to do. Evidently I must pack and find the trail. The pony had wandered off into the woods, but was easily caught—a ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... and a rupture, which has already resulted in injury to several somewhat delicately strung masculine hearts. Moreover she is very uneven in her manner. Often gay, even reckless, devising pranks like a spoiled boy, then suddenly reserved, distant, and stern. True, she is always intellectual, so that I know many a man who is uncomfortable in her society, to ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau |
