"Gravity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'a-eh, Blowers?" he rejoins, enquiringly, maintaining great gravity of manner as he watches each ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... energetic rhythm, galvanize and electrify the torpor of indifference. The most noble traditional feelings of ancient Poland are embodied in them. The firm resolve and calm gravity of its men of other days, breathe through these compositions. Generally of a martial character, courage and daring are rendered with that simplicity of expression, said to be a distinctive trait of this warlike ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... Bonaparte received, more in the manner of a sovereign than of a brother in arms, the proposal of Murat. He heard him with unmoved gravity, said that he would consider the matter, but ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... my dear young friend," rejoined Anna, with mock gravity, "that you don't know we have been sacrificed to the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... ironing-day, and our dinners were apt to be late upon ironing-days. I concluded that, if the soup were punctual, and not too hot, I could leave myself ten or perhaps fifteen unoccupied minutes before one o'clock. It strikes me as curious now, the gravity with which this thought underran the fever and pain and dread of ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... already expressed the idea, that the cause of gravity has no such mysterious origin as to transcend the power of man to determine it. But that, on the contrary, we are taught by every analogy around us, as well as by divine precept, to use the visible things of ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... of the man whom I most honoured and esteemed, my unfailing friend Guiscard. To my surprise, he received the intelligence of my appointment with scarcely a word of congratulation. Little as I myself was now excitable by any thing in the shape of human fortune, I was chagrined by his obstinate gravity. He observed it, and started from his seat. "Come," said he, "let us take a walk, and get out of the sight of mankind, if we can." He took my arm, and we strayed along the banks of the Scheldt, where, however, his purpose was unobtainable, for the whole breadth of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... especially keen on their jumping. You know, jumping feet-first from a height, it is very difficult to hold the body perpendicularly while in the air. The center of gravity of the male body is high, and the tendency is to overtopple. But the little beggars employed a method which she declared was new to her and which she desired to learn. Leaping from the davits of the boat-deck above, they plunged downward, their faces and shoulders bowed forward, ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... worthy Master Gravity, Let not a word of the Law be spoken! One thing be clearly understood,— Unless I clasp the sweet, young blood This night in my arms—then, well and good: When midnight strikes, ...
— Faust • Goethe
... the Colonel's wife with many yards of silk ribbons to be converted into german favors, on the other her father weighed out bears' claws (manufactured in Hartford, Conn., from turkey-bones) to make a necklace for Red Wing, the squaw of the Arrephao chieftain. He waited upon everyone with gravity, and in obstinate silence. No one had ever seen Cahill smile. He himself occasionally joked with others in a grim and embarrassed manner. But no one had ever joked with him. It was reported that he came from ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... a river running down a regularly inclined plane in a more or less straight line; any inequality or obstruction would produce an oscillation, which when once started would go on increasing until the force of gravity drawing the water in a straight line downwards equals that of the force tending to divert its course. Hence the radius of the curves will follow a regular law depending on the volume of water and the ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... had completely taken possession of the hearts of the Three Mariners' inmates, including even old Coney. Notwithstanding an occasional odd gravity which awoke their sense of the ludicrous for the moment, they began to view him through a golden haze which the tone of his mind seemed to raise around him. Casterbridge had sentiment—Casterbridge had romance; but this stranger's sentiment was of differing ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... they were jerked from the sledge, and left to slide along the ice on the further side of the gap, in obedience to the impetus given to them by the frightful speed at which they were travelling, the spear, obeying the same laws of motion, accompanied them, but, being of a less specific gravity, lagged behind in the race, just as the stone, which ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... stumble, calmly, confidently, as though he knew that now no one had the right to laugh. The light from an upper window made a halo of his blazing head and lit up his small round face, faintly and absurdly grave, but with something elfish and eager lurking behind the gravity. Robert stared at him as an Ancient Briton might have stared at the first lordly Roman who crossed his ken. He felt uncouth and cumbersome and stupid. And yet he could have knocked the red-headed boy down easily with ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... civilized man, we sat contentedly smoking our pipes; and, Englishmen like, settled the affairs of nations over a glass of rum and water—ever and anon drinking a health to each friend and fair, who rose uppermost in our thoughts. From this the subject turned to "specific gravity." Here an argument commenced. When illustrating a position I had advanced, by the ascension of the smoke from my pipe, we both turned up our eyes to witness its progress upwards: on looking towards the aperture in the roof what was our astonishment at beholding the faces of two Indians, ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... "Good sign!" he told himself: "he hasn't ordered me thrown out yet." And he hurried on, speaking quickly in the semi-humorous style he had, more arresting to the attention than absolute gravity would ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... celebrated magistrates, Achille d'Harlay and Christopher De Thou, Harlay imitated their gravity, but carried it to a cynical extent, affected their disinterestedness and modesty, but dishonoured the first by his conduct, and the second by a refined pride which he endeavoured without success to conceal. He piqued ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... hour went on, and our girls were still left unmolested. As the newness wore somewhat away, the situation began to grow funny. They could see that the pastor and the superintendent were engaged in anxious conversation, to judge by the gravity of their faces; and as their eyes occasionally roved in that direction, it was natural to suppose they ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... The vote of travelers may be safely allotted to the broad gauge. They have more elbow room. The carriages attain the requisite width without unpleasantly, not to say dangerously, overhanging the centre of gravity; and, other things equal, the movement is steadier. Nor is the financial aspect of the question apt to impress gloomily the tourist as he enters the Paddington station and looks around at its blaze of polychrome ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... to dance with him, according to her maid's prediction, but was performing a waltz in exceeding gravity, assisted, as Dick could not help observing, with a certain satisfaction, by the ugliest man in the room. The look she gave him when their eyes met at last sent this shortsighted young gentleman up to the seventh heaven. It seemed well worth ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... demeanour he was modest, and without affectation. He possessed a certain gravity of manners, but he was nevertheless affable, and courteous, and civil beyond the usual ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... repressing themselves as long as they could would burst out afresh, till I began to think that I had bound them to an impossible condition. At last, after holding their sides for half an hour, they set themselves to be serious in real earnest, taking my imperturbable gravity for their example. De la Tour d'Auvergne was the first to regain a serious face, and he then offered Camille his thigh, and she, fancying herself on the boards, began to rub the sick man, whilst I mumbled in an undertone words which they would not have understood however ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... gravity, but after exchanging demure glances, and in spite of themselves, Constance and Francis Lamotte ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... brilliant and glittering picture. Passengers squat in the inside of the boat; so that as it passes you see little more than the heads of the true believers, with their red fez and blue tassel, and that placid gravity of expression which the sucking of a tobacco-pipe is sure to give to ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... happened to be a day when there was more official business than on other days; To-no-Chiujio (who being chief of the Kurand, which office has to receive and despatch official documents) was especially much occupied. Nevertheless they were amused themselves at seeing each other's solemn gravity. ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... laugh. I mean in the hearty abandonment of broad-mouthed mirth. He did smile sometimes, it is true; and there was a good deal of dry, sarcastic humour about him, which told the more from the imperturbable gravity of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... earnestly that she grew grave. He helped her to the saddle and she leaned a little to study him with the same gentle gravity. ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... being obliged every minute to pull off his hat, to answer some civility of the same kind which he receives; and these compliments are paid him not only by opulent people, but by mechanics and labourers, who bow with all the gravity and politeness of ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... at this new point showed that the matter was serious, and, indeed, we had chosen the spot because it had been the storm centre of the last week. The method of approach chosen by our experienced guide was in itself a tribute to the gravity of the affair. As one comes from the settled order of Flanders into the actual scene of war, the first sign of it is one of the stationary, sausage-shaped balloons, a chain of which marks the ring in which the great wrestlers are locked. We pass under this, ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... always with a salutation that was a special tribute, and always with the same low bow, as he gravely pulled out the chair, puffing up the back cushion, his wrinkled hands resting on it until Richard had taken his seat. Then, with equal gravity, he would hand his master the evening paper and the big-bowed spectacles, and would stand gravely by until Richard had dismissed him with a gentle "Thank you, Malachi; that will do." And Malachi, with the serene, uplifted face as of one who had served in a temple, would tiptoe out ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... same manner; but her manner was her own. To come on the stage quietly; to look, in spite of her coster costume, the picture of suburban innocence, and pink and white propriety; to stand facing her audience for a second of time, motionless and in perfect gravity—it was a trick that, though Poppy never varied it, had a more killing effect than ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Nucingen to be as tangible as a Rothschild, and was convinced that the conversations of Louis XVIII. with Vandenesse were historic facts. His sister tells us that he discussed the behaviour of his own creations with the utmost gravity, and was intensely interested in discovering their fate, and getting the earliest information as to the alliances which they were about to form. It is a curious question, upon which I cannot profess ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... to know that they had been detected, and that so far as their characters as good and virtuous dogs went, the game was up. Not one of them returned home. All four took to the woods, and thereafter lived predatory lives. They were aware of the gravity of ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... words, Master Gridley looked full upon him, with a face so charged with grave meaning, so impressed with the gravity of his warning accents, that the Doctor felt as if he were before some dread tribunal, and remained silent. He was a member of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's church, and the words he had just listened to were those of a sinful old heathen who had ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Conway upon the tablets of his consideration. He threw away the remaining inch-and-a-quarter of his cigar, that would have been good for eight minutes yet, and quickly shifted his center of gravity to his ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... came to the meetings of the debating society, where such questions as, "If a fellow ask a fellow for a bite of a fellow's apple, which is the politer way to give it to a fellow—to bite off a piece yourself, or let a fellow bite for himself?" were debated with much mock gravity and real fun. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... more whiskey, he started affably enough, but before going half a mile declared he had left or lent his revolver. "There's only one revolver at Camp Almy just like it," said he, with drunken dignity, and then, with sudden gravity, "an' ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... and Delia had carried away the tray and Miss Blake removed the wonderful folding stand, the governess looked up suddenly and said with unusual gravity: ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... System existed at the very earliest period as a shapeless nebula, a vast undefined mass of "fire- mist;" that at some time or other the separate particles of this fire-mist began to move towards their centre of gravity, under the influence of their mutual attractions, and thus assumed a spherical shape; that by some means or other a motion of rotation was originated in this spherical mass, which increased in rapidity as the process of condensation advanced. The effect of this rotation would ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... either the deacons or the candidates had the slightest thought that they were doing anything dishonorable. Nor do I for a moment suppose that the President and the Trustees of the Doshisha at all realized the gravity of the moral aspect of the course they took in diverting the Doshisha from its original purposes. They seemed to think that money, once given to the Doshisha, might be used without regard to the wishes of the donors. I cannot help wondering how much of their thought on this subject is due ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... help you, of course," he answered, with a gravity which he found it difficult afterward to maintain, for from that moment she had thrown her heart into the work of uplifting until her whole existence appeared to round presently about this new point of interest. While he could follow her here, he waited almost ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... man, impressed by the gravity of her manner, readily consented. Half an hour later he wrapped her up in the sledge-robe and took station at the rear, whip in hand. Constantine freed the leader, and they went off at a mad run, whisking ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... if you don't make two ten-and-six a share. The Chowsleys are up to six and a-half, I see here,' and he pointed to the 'Times.' Mr. Larcom's fat face smiled, in spite of his endeavour to keep it under. It was part of his business to look always grave, and he coughed, and recovered his gravity. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... turning to look again. The singularity of his dress, and fine tall person, as straight as his rifle, and a beard, that waved like a prophet's, on his breast, would have commanded observation anywhere. Joined to this was an air of dignity and gravity that, in spite of the coarseness of his apparel, insured respect. However much the rude and vulgar might feel disposed to insult, they were too much awed by his presence to attempt it. They might speak disrespectfully, indeed, of him in his absence, but before him ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... then, which, at daybreak of August 5, 1864, Farragut sailed in to assault. His fleet consisted of four ironclad monitors, and fourteen wooden vessels, and his preparations were made most carefully, for he fully realized the gravity of the task before him. He himself was in his old flagship, the Hartford, and mounting into the rigging to be above the smoke, he was lashed fast there, so that he would not fall to the deck, in case a bullet struck him. The thought of that brave old leader taking that exposed position so ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... however, get on well with Marfa Timofyevna, when she came to live in the Kalitins' house. Such gravity and dignity on the part of one who had once worn the motley skirt of a peasant wench displeased the impatient and self-willed old lady. Agafya asked leave to go on a pilgrimage and she never came back. There were dark rumours that she had gone off to a retreat of sectaries. But the impression she ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... moment, I write to you in the silvery light of a sun rising over the valley mists; we are conscious of the sleeping country for forty kilometres around, and battle hardly disturbs the religious gravity of ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... took Suzee with me on the car, and all the eyes of its occupants fixed upon us for the whole of the journey. This was harmless, however, and I did not mind, while Suzee sat apparently sublimely unconscious of the rude stares and ruder smiles, with the calm gravity of the Oriental who is above insults because he ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... at an angle determined by circumstances; the wash-dirt is lifted into the upper end by manual labour; when stiff it must be stirred or shovelled, and a stream of water does the rest. The greater gravity of the gold causes it to be arrested by the riffles. Instead of the bars grooves may be cut and filled with quicksilver. When the sludge is very rich, rough cloths rubbed with mercury, or even sheepskins, the lineal descendants ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... the last party I killed, sir," said Jem, with sudden gravity. "I allers laugh when ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... for one who, though he lecture me with such gravity and gracefulness, can scarcely be entitled to play the part of Mentor by the weight of years?" said the Baroness, with a smile: "for one who, I trust, who I should think, as little deserved, and was as little inured to, sorrow ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the thing to be weighed on the scale fully and fairly. Then, one by one, he put the units of gravity on the other side so that the court and jury saw the turning of ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... such a nice supper—while the latter gentleman, having finished his meal, drew forth an antiquated pipe, having a Turk's head for the bowl and a coiled serpent for the stem, which having lighted, he proceeded to smoke with much gravity and thoughtfulness. Not a word did he utter, but smoked away in silence, until the clock struck ten; then pocketing his pipe, and depositing the now empty flask and dishes in the basket, he announced his intention of departing. The grandfather was cut short in a grateful ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... to you." Mr. Pound drove his fork into an asparagus stalk to show that he had said all that could be said and all that he would say. That he had said enough to bring others to his way of thinking was evident from the gravity with which ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... the gravity of the situation, and their apprehensions grew when they found that those who best knew the forest were becoming rapidly infected with superstitious fears. As a race the Dean men were brave and tenacious—centuries of border warfare had made them so—but ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... the father-in-law of Pompeius, at his side. Before him strode his twelve lictors bearing their fasces erect. Not a word was spoken while Lentulus Crus seated himself in the ivory curule chair of office. No sign marked the extreme gravity of ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... 14. Colman has the following Note: "A famous Comic Poet among the Romans. His chief excellences are said to have been, the gravity of his style and the choice of his subjects. The first quality was attributed to him by Horace, Tully, etc., and the last by Varro. 'In argumentis Caecilius poscit palmam, in ethesi Terentius.' 'In the choice of subjects, Caecilius demands the preference; in the manners, Terence.'" Madame ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... it was a small, but dense world, with a surface gravity of one point two standard gees—not enough to be disabling, but enough to make a man feel sluggish. For another, its main export was farm products: there were very few large towns on Viornis, and no center of population that could really be called a city. ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... himself of his own "virtue," sans phrase; and we tax him with no vanity in doing so. As a young man even at the universities, which at that time were barbarously sensual in Germany, he was (for so much we collect from his own Memoirs) eminently capable of self-restraint. He preserves a tone of gravity, of sincerity, of respect for female dignity, which we never find associated with the levity and recklessness of vice. We feel throughout, the presence of one who, in respecting others, respects himself; and the cheerfulness of the presiding tone persuades us at once that ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... narrate of him. What may be familiar to those who saw with their own eyes is not so to others, who can only take at second-hand those things which they had no opportunity of seeing for themselves. Besides, details omitted as frivolous or commonplace by history, which makes a profession of more gravity, are perfectly appropriate in simple memoirs, and often enable one to understand and judge the epoch more correctly. For instance, it seems to me that the enthusiasm displayed by the entire population and all the local authorities for the First Consul ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... that at this point Professor Teller suddenly ceased to be amused; his look of half-quizzical detachment becoming changed to one of gravity, almost of distress; his Majesty's "pace" had apparently become too ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... lay," said Sir Christopher, "to thy youthful blood. Now will I give thee one more befitting my years and gravity," and adapting the words to a wild foreign air, the Knight sent his rich full voice ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... huge foolish Whirligig, where kings and beggars, and angels and demons, and stars and street-sweepings, were chaotically whirled, in which only children could take interest. His look, as we mentioned, is probably the gravest ever seen: yet it is not of that cast-iron gravity frequent enough among our own Chancery suitors; but rather the gravity as of some silent, high-encircled mountain-pool, perhaps the crater of an extinct volcano; into whose black deeps you fear to gaze: those eyes, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... answered her ladyship, with a gravity which startled even Felix himself. "I wish to speak to you about Tommie. You know everybody. Do you know of a good dog-doctor? The person I have employed so far doesn't at all ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... beard. His forehead was high and bald, and his eyes were of a steely keenness under their tufted brows. He was dressed with Calvinistic simplicity entirely in black, and just as this contrasted with the King's suit of sulphur-coloured satin, so did the gravity of his countenance contrast with ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... they set off without her. The meeting between 'Lena and her grandmother was affecting, and Carrie, in order to sustain the character she had assumed, walked to the window, to hide her emotions, probably—at least John Jr. thought so, for with the utmost gravity he passed her his silk pocket handkerchief! When the first transports of her interview with 'Lena were over, Mrs. Nichols fastened herself upon Mr. Graham, while John Jr. invited 'Lena to the garden, where he claimed from her the ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... school from the last half of the fifteenth century, it is the third school in Europe as to age, it being about two centuries later than the Italian, and one century later than the Flemish school. Its importance is only exceeded by that of Italy. The distinguishing feature of Spanish art is its gravity, or we may almost say its strictly religious character, for, excepting portraits, there were few pictures of consequence that had not a religious meaning. Some artists were also priests, and, as the officers of the Inquisition appointed inspectors whose duty it was ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... call your lordship up again, But symptoms lately have disclosed themselves That mean the knell to the frail life in him. And whatsoever thing of gravity It may be needful to communicate, Let them be spoken now. Time may not serve If they be ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Angela motored to Mount Hamilton, and stayed late at the Lick Observatory. On the second day they went to Mount Tamalpais, lunching at the delightful "tavern" on the mountain-top, and rushing madly down the wondrous steeps at sunset, in the little "gravity car" guided by ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... that he did not know that they were not also Turks. In which case the road to Arta was a dangerous path. It was no good news to Coleman. He waited a moment in order to gain composure and then walked back to the Wainwright party. They must have known at once from his peculiar gravity that all was not well. Five of the students and the professor immediately asked: ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... later the male population of Scratch Hill, with a gravity befitting the occasion, prepared itself to descend on the Cross Roads and give its support to Mr. Yancy in his hour of need. To this end those respectable householders armed themselves, with the idea that it might perhaps ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... watch in a little town. The warning gravity of the advocate for the Crown, the emotional eloquence of the advocate for the defence. The court sat listening to what appeared to be its duty in regard to the case of a girl named Barbro, and the death ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... brigade of about 4,500 men on transports, moved into this new water-way. The rebels had obstructed the navigation of Yazoo Pass and the Coldwater by felling trees into them. Much of the timber in this region being of greater specific gravity than water, and being of great size, their removal was a matter of great labor; but it was finally accomplished, and on the 11th of March Ross found himself, accompanied by two gunboats under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Watson ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... force for the preservation of the level of the ocean is gravity. But the surface is seldom smooth. The winds lash it into fury and pile high its waves, but gravity pulling upon every drop of water tends to draw it back to its place and smooth down the surface again. The wind cannot build permanently a mountain ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... Maples and, before he came, I talked much...but not too much...of him to Betty, mingling judicious praise and still more judicious blame together. Women never like a paragon. Betty heard me with more gravity than she usually accorded to my dissertations on young men. She even condescended to ask several questions about him. This I thought a ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... with mock gravity. "I shall have to comply with the maternal's programme as far as that goes; but to do honour to the debut of so fair a stranger in the land, I think Miss Sylla, I can contrive to get out of the window ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... into space or falling freely is defined. But Galileo thought there was no essential moment, no privileged instant. To study the falling body is to consider it at it matters not what moment in its course. The true science of gravity is that which will determine, for any moment of time whatever, the position of the body in space. For this, indeed, signs far more precise than ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... and a glass of water, on his chin. So interested was the audience in this startling feat that the presence of the new arrivals passed unnoted until the juggler, suddenly stepping back, allowed the law of gravity to have its way for an instant. Then his right hand caught the falling bat, the two books crashed unheeded to the floor and his left hand seized the descending tumbler. Simultaneously there was a disgruntled yelp from Jim Morton and a howl of laughter from the rest of the audience. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... sailor boy's suit you're wearing? You've got to dress like a decent white girl that's had some bringing-up, and you've got to—you've got—" Amzi coughed as though afraid of the intended conclusion of his sentence. Phil's eyes were bent upon him with disconcerting gravity. He hoped that Phil would interrupt with one of her usual impertinences; but with the suspicion of laughter in her eyes she waited, so that he perforce blurted it out. "You've got to go into society; ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... there is no immediate risk of success or failure; which years hence may indeed issue in a crop of bad debts, but which any grave persons may make at the time to look fair and plausible. A large Bank is exactly the place where a vain and shallow person in authority, if he be a man of gravity and method, as such men often are, may do infinite evil in no long time, and before he is detected. If he is lucky enough to begin at a time of expansion in trade, he is nearly sure not to be found out till the time of contraction has arrived, and then ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a tea) in the back-green of his house in Melville Street, No. 17, with considerable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the Iliad, and, like all boys, Trojans, we called ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... about made up my mind to go out in search of buried treasure," answered Harriet, with mock gravity. They laughed heartily at this. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... arrived for us to return. Mike had made himself a universal favourite; the Indians, notwithstanding their general gravity, delighting in the merry tunes he played on his fiddle. He frequently set them jigging; and Reuben and I showed them how white people danced— though neither of us had any exact notions on the subject. Ashatea sometimes joined us, and moved about very gracefully, ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... provinces;—really, the overlordship of these rather than the sovereignty, for the Parthians held all things lightly except the ground they happened to be camping on; and this made a change in the center of Parthian gravity which was of enormous help ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... was his duty, a duty on which he insisted, to be "instant in season and out of season" in saying spiritual things to his flock; but then they were things proper, decent, conventional, uttered with gravity at suitable times- -such as were customary amongst all the ministers of the denomination. It was not pleasant to be outbid in his own department, especially by one who was not a communicant, and to be obliged, when he went on a pastoral visit to a house in which Mrs. Butts happened ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... charge and in the same manner as I always did at rhinoceros. Though puzzled at the strange sound of the rifle, the elephants seldom ran far, packed in herd, and began to graze again. Frij, who was always ready at spinning a yarn, told us with much gravity that two of my men, Uledi and Wadi Hamadi, deserters, were possessed of devils (Phepo) at Zanzibar. Uledi, not wishing to be plagued by his Satanic majesty's angels on the march, sacrificed a cow and fed the poor, according to the great Phepo's orders, and had been exempted from ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of good or ill approach you they naturally assume these forms of agonizing death, to impress you more fully with the joyfulness or the gravity of the situation you are about to enter on awakening to material responsibilities, to aid you in the mastery of self which is essential to meeting all conditions with calmness ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... life to that office of auditor of accounts in those islands, and with what conditions, the advisable measures may be taken. In fulfilment of that command, having attended to that matter as was fitting, I have drawn up this paper, in which, as briefly as possible, and as was required by the gravity of the matter, I have compiled what treats of it, dividing it for greater distinctness and clearness ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... person, and had little of her sister's fraternizing quality. She was perhaps rather too thin, and she was a little pale; but as she moved slowly over the grass, with her arms hanging at her sides, looking gravely for a moment at the sea and then brightly, for all her gravity, at him, Lord Lambeth thought her at least as pretty as Mrs. Westgate, and reflected that if this was the Boston style the Boston style was very charming. He thought she looked very clever; he could imagine that she was highly educated; but at the same time she seemed gentle ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... easiest way into a rocky fortress, an instant and unerring attack, a serpent-glide up the steep; eye, hand and foot all connected dynamically; with no appearance of weight to his body—as though he had Stockton's negative gravity machine ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... better obeyed than I fear the Parliamentary requisition of this session will be, though enforced by all your rigor and backed with all your power. In a word, the damages of popular fury were compensated by legislative gravity. Almost every other part of America in various ways demonstrated their gratitude. I am bold to say, that so sudden a calm recovered after so violent a storm is without parallel in history. To say that no other disturbance should happen from ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a curious expression in the face of the old man as he endeavoured to suppress, before Amine and her husband, the joy which he felt at Philip's departure. Gradually he subdued his features into gravity, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Sir, you will do well,' responded the young matron, with as much stern gravity as she could assume; the fact being that she longed to break down and cry heartily, that Esclairmonde should so far have failed, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her lover draw her close to his side. She looked up at him, and saw that his face was grave and pale. This gravity had grown upon him of late, and she saw that lines of anxiety had begun to appear on his brow, which had not been there six months ago. Her woman's instinct of seeking to comfort and support came instantly to ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... pick up the bomb-bird—a glittering flake of tinsel—and the racket begins. Archibalds pop, machine guns chatter, rifles crack, and here and there some optimistic sportsman browns the Milky Way with a revolver. As Sir I. NEWTON'S law of gravity is still in force and all that goes up must come down again, it is advisable to wear a parasol on one's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... to another, philosophers have imagined a vast whirlpool of subtile matter, in which the planets are carried round the sun: they also have created another particular vortex which floats in the great one, and which turns daily round the planets. When all this is done, it is pretended that gravity depends on this diurnal motion; for, say these, the velocity of the subtile matter that turns round our little vortex, must be seventeen times more rapid than that of the earth; or, in case its velocity is seventeen times greater than that of the earth, its centrifugal force must be vastly greater, ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... it all," the stranger said quietly. "I saw and heard everything. My plan first was to wait till the end and then to take steps for their destruction, but in the interest of your personal safety,"—he spoke with the utmost gravity and conviction,—"in the interest of the safety of your soul, I made my presence known when I did, and before the conclusion had ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... very essence of imposture."—Shaftesbury, Characteristics, p. 11, vol. I. "The very essence of gravity is design, and consequently deceit; a taught trick to gain credit with the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth, and that with all its pretensions it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... them." When the meeting was over, some of the ancient women came and spake kindly to me, inviting me to their houses. In the evening certain of these people came to my brother's, and were kind and loving towards me. There was, nevertheless, a gravity and a certain staidness of deportment which I could but ill conform unto, and I was not sorry when they took leave. My Uncle Rawson need not fear my joining with them; for, although I do judge them to be a worthy and pious people, I like not their manner of worship, and their great gravity ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... said Solomon, with the gravity that comes from great wisdom, "these are our dog's fore legs, are they not?" pointing to the ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... that Granville hardly knew what to make of his evident confidence. Surely a man couldn't be mad who could speak like that; and yet, whenever he alluded in any way to his return to England, it was always as though he ignored the gravity and heinousness of the charge brought against him. It was as though murder was an accident, for which one was hardly responsible. Granville couldn't make him out at all; the fellow was an enigma to him. There was so much that was good in him; and yet, there must be so much that was ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... ended with a laugh, somewhat explosively. Mary looked at him with forced gravity as he suppressed it. He had to draw his nose slowly through his thumb and two fingers before he could quite command himself. Mary relieved ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... excites mirth and laughter is always welcomed by an audience. But a serious piece from which humor has been excluded, is calculated, even when played with sympathetic feeling and skill, to create a sense of gravity among the spectators, which, to say the least, can hardly be restful to jaded nerves. Yet when composing his plays the playwright should never lose sight of the moral. Of course he has to pay attention to the arrangement of the different parts of the plot and the characters represented, but while ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... the organized medical vote on that occasion holds the record for noise in the Theatre. And the competition for the record has been and is still severe; every year at Commemoration, we have a scene of academic disorder, which can only be called 'most unbecoming of the gravity of the University', to use John Evelyn's words of the performance of the Terrae Filius at the opening of the Sheldonian. It is true that the proceedings of the Encaenia have been always able to be completed, since the device was hit on of seating ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... festivities. Parents in old age, divested of power over sons, have been forced to beg their food of the latter. Amongst them, even persons of wisdom, conversant with the Vedas, and resembling the ocean itself in gravity of deportment, have begun to betake themselves to agriculture and such other pursuits. Persons who are illiterate and ignorant have begun to be fed at Sraddhas.[864] Every morning, disciples, instead of approaching ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the village fishermen, splendid mastodontic creatures, yellow and white, were solemnly, majestically, deliberately, lumbering in and out of the water, shaking their enormous double chins with the gravity of Roman senators. Their polished hoofs sank deep into the sand; but they could beach the heaviest boat at a single pull. Driving them, geeing and hawing, was Chepa, a sallow round-shouldered sickly fellow, with the expression of a crabbed witch, on his ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... had not been a married man, she would have added me to the number," said the doctor, with much gravity. "I am not certain that Mrs. Harlowe is not jealous, in secret, of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... had accompanied him in his expeditions on the ice; and the figure which she made there, poised on one leg, and clad in petticoats shorter 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 his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the sacred offerings lay not in themselves but in obedience to the commandments of God, the centre of gravity of the cultus was removed from that exercise itself and transferred to another field, that of morality. The consequence was that sacrifices and gifts gave way to ascetic exerctses, which were more strictly and more simply connected with ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... we drove on to Lizy, where the gendarme, wiping his mouth as he came hurriedly from the inn, told us a harrowing tale, and then to Barcy, where the maire, though busy with a pitch-fork upon a manure heap, received us with municipal gravity. We were now nearing the battlefield of the Marne, and here and there along the roadside the trunks of the poplars, green with mistletoe, were shivered as though by lightning. Yet nothing could have been more peaceful than the pastoral beauty of ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... beauty, talent, wealth, virtue, and a royal birth," says Mme. de Motteville. "Her face was not without defects, and her intellect was not one which always pleases. Her vivacity deprived all her actions of the gravity necessary to people of her rank, and her mind was too much carried away by her feelings. As she was fair, had fine eyes, a pleasing mouth, was of good height, and blonde, she had quite the air of a great beauty." But it was beauty of a commanding sort, without delicacy, and dependent ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... undermined all day long; the clay banks tumbled in; the Oise, which had been so many centuries making the Golden Valley, seemed to have changed its fancy, and to be bent upon undoing its performance. What a number of things a river does, by simply following Gravity in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fantasies: the sacred old rag doll at the top of the tree, the score of cheap presents, the punch and carols, the roast chestnuts by the fire, and the gravity with which the judge opened the children's scrawly notes and took cognizance of demands for sled-rides, for opinions upon the existence of Santa Claus. She remembered him reading out a long indictment of himself for being a sentimentalist, against the peace and dignity of the State ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... of gravity of world interest of 1914 has shifted and come to rest at a spot most significant for darker peoples. Victory to all participants in its glorious achievement must be less disastrous than defeat. In order to satisfy the liberal opinion of the world, some form of autonomy must be devised ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... first impulse was to laugh. There was something so droll, yet so thoroughly characteristic of my honest, bustling, resolute, domineering mother in the thing, that its humor for the moment overbalanced the gravity of the news. There was no more helpful, valuable, or good-hearted woman alive than she, provided always it was permitted her to manage and dictate everything for everybody. There was no limit to the trouble she would undertake, nothing in the world she would ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... stand, or sit, or lie, or walk; for I shall do none of these, nor put up my prayers under any of these circumstances, lightly foolishly, and idly, but to beautify this gesture with the inward working of my mind and spirit in prayer; that whether I stand or sit, walk or lie down, glory and gravity, humility and sincerity shall make my prayer profitable, and my outward behaviour comely in his eyes, with whom in prayer I now ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... humorous quiver in Winnington's strong mouth enraged her still further. But he spoke with most courteous gravity. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dignity; and they loved nothing better than to invade his study. Next to them in his regard was a black-nosed pug, named Atis, who invariably accompanied him to his lectures and remained sitting at his feet listening with intelligent gravity to his explanations of the Greek poets. If by chance his master, in his zeal for his own poetry, forgot the lecture-hour, Atis would respectfully pull him by the tails of his coat. No man at the University of Lund was more generally beloved ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... attraction of gravity, persistence of force (or conservation of energy), and one kind of matter, though the latter is an immense addition, but I maintain that God must have given such attributes to this force, independently of its persistence, that under certain conditions ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... the Gothic, and the Hunnic languages; and the hall resounded with loud and licentious peals of laughter. In the midst of this intemperate riot, Attila alone, without a change of countenance, maintained his steadfast and inflexible gravity; which was never relaxed, except on the entrance of Irnac, the youngest of his sons: he embraced the boy with a smile of paternal tenderness, gently pinched him by the cheek, and betrayed a partial affection, which was justified by the assurance of his prophets, that Irnac would ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... is an exquisite little lyric which sings itself to its own music of delicate gravity and gentle pathos; but it too holds, in its few small lines, a complete situation, that most pathetic one in which a woman resolves to merge her individuality in the wish and will of her husband, to bind, for his sake, her intellect in the ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... remarkable series of events; a—most remarkable series,' Dr. Addington answered with professional gravity. 'And certainly, if the lady is all you paint her—and she seems to set you young bloods on fire—no ending could well be more satisfactory. With the addition of a comfortable place in the Stamps or the Pipe ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... authority and pulls the moving object toward it. If it were possible to get outside the air and out of reach of the pull of the earth, we might fling a ball off into space, and it would go on in a straight line until something pulled it to itself by the force of gravity. ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... Of us keep a profound gravity, though really he deserved it from us both. I turned from the Colonel, and said I was coming directly to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... his plight to his brother and suzerain. Assur-bani-pal, preoccupied with the events taking place on the Nile, was for a moment in doubt whether this incursion was merely a passing raid or the opening of a serious war, but the reports of his scouts soon left no doubt as to the gravity of the danger: "The Elamite, like a swarm of grasshoppers, covers the fields, he covers Accad; against Babylon he has pitched his camp and drawn out his lines." The city was too strong to be taken by storm. The Assyrians hastened to relieve it, and threatened ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... saw their glorious deeds renew'd? Where poets, true to honour, tuned their lays, And by their patrons sanctified their praise? Is this the land, where, on our Spenser's tongue, Enamour'd of his voice, Description hung? Where Jonson rigid Gravity beguiled, Whilst Reason through her critic fences smiled? 60 Where Nature listening stood whilst Shakspeare play'd, And wonder'd at the work herself had made? Is this the land, where, mindful of her charge ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... sir," said Dival quietly, "to govern your activities, once outside: free from the gravity pads of the ship, on a body of such small size, an ordinary step will probably cause a leap of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... facts, adding that poor Clarence's punishment had been terrible, but that he was doing his best to make up for what was past; and that, as to anything he might have told, though he might be mistaken, he never said anything NOW but what he believed to be true. She raised her brown eyes to mine full of gravity, and said, 'I DO like him.' Moreover, I privately made Martyn understand that if he told her what had been said about the white-satin lady, he would never be forgiven; the others would be sure to find it out, and it might shorten ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... addressing Rostov's enemy with an air of gloomy gravity and glancing round at his comrades, "there is an order to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... that day over the loss that had blighted his life forever,—yet even then he did not know that she, herself, had passed through the same suffering. But just here the stricken widow of thirty, after a vain attempt to keep up the knitted gravity of her eyebrows, bowed her dimpling face over the letter of the blighted widower of twenty, and laughed so long and silently that the tears stood out like dew ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... in company with the captain, than with one blow he split the mortar into a thousand pieces, and grinning like the head of a bass viol, exclaimed, "Ah, traitresse!" It would have been impossible for me to have preserved my gravity a minute longer, when I was happily relieved by a rap at the door, which I opened, and perceived my mistress coming out of the coach. She flounced immediately into the shop, and addressed her husband thus: "I suppose you thought I was lost, my dear. Captain O'Donnell has been so good as ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... all the elements that constitute an Indulgence. First—A penance, or temporal punishment proportioned to the gravity of the offence, is imposed on the transgressor. Second—The penitent is truly contrite for his crime. Third—This determines the Apostle to remit the penalty. Fourth—The Apostle considers the relaxation of the penance ratified by ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... youngest looked in their glasses and remembered the power of youth and beauty; the middle-aged calculated on the good sense and propriety of character of their object, and were "sure he would never marry a girl;" and the most elderly exaggerated his gravity, thought of his shovel hat, and seemed to suppose that every woman under fifty must be too giddy for its wearer. Meanwhile, what a life he led!—his opinions law; his wishes gospel; the cathedral crowded when he preached; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... not clear Whether her meaning was conveyed in words (She mingled accents of an eastern tongue With deformed phrases of our native Latin) Or whether thought from her gaze poured through mine. The gravity of recollected life Was hers, condensed and, like a vision, flashed Suddenly on the guilty mind, a whole Compact, no longer a mere tedious string Of moments negligible, each so small As they were lived, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... coldly, without anger, fell heavily upon Fromont's bewildered joy, and reminded him of the gravity of a situation which he was always ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is clear that, to the mind of Spenser, both Ariosto and Tasso were authorities of hardly less gravity than Homer and Virgil. Raleigh, in the splendid sonnet with which he responds to this dedication, enhances the fame of Spenser by affecting to believe that the great Italian, Petrarch, will be jealous of him in the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... with the same gravity, and one of them not only surrendered his place to the curious Miss but lifted her and placed her in a seat near ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... water boiled up from the bottom of the spring, it carried the sand up in clearly-curved clouds until their own gravity caused the particles to sink, and again be thrown up by the force of the water. The party watched this phenomenon with interest for some time, for not one of them had ever seen anything like it, with ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... engraved on marble; benefits, on sand: those are apt to be requited; these, forgot."—G. B. "None of these several interpretations is the true one."—G. B. "My friend indulged himself in some freaks not befitting the gravity of a clergyman."—G. B. "And their pardon is all that any of their impropriators will have to plead."—Leslie cor. "But the time usually chosen to send young men abroad, is, I think, of all periods, that at which they are least capable ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... variability. It implies only the preservation of such varieties as arise and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life. Again, it has been said that I speak of natural selection as an active Power or Deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets? It is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature; but I mean by Nature only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... way over it, and Roque still goes on, slowly indeed, but without stop or remark. The strong horses climb the rough and slippery rocks, dragging the strong volante after them. The calesero picks his way carefully; the carriage tips, jolts, and tumbles; the centre of gravity appears to be nowhere. The breeze dies away; the vertical sun seems to pin us through the head; we get drowsy, and dream of an uneasy sea of stones, whose harsh waves induce headache, if not seasickness. We wish for a photograph ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... not forget"—she spoke with a certain gravity; death was a very real thing to her, for she had seen in the last two years two deathbeds, that of her father, that of her husband—"do not forget, Anna, that she told you you would not live ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... took counsel in the matter with the Chancellor. Clarendon's habitual gravity was increased to sternness. He spoke to the King—taking the fullest advantage of the tutelary position in which for the last twenty-five years he had stood to him—much as he had spoken when Charles had proposed to make Barbara Palmer a Lady of the Queen's Bedchamber, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... prompt, yet cool and decided, and relentless as death in the discharge of his duty. Holding the views of the first Napoleon respecting mobs, he did not believe in speech-making to them. His addresses were to be locust clubs and grape-shot. Taking in at once the gravity of the situation, he, after despatching such force as was immediately available to the scene of the riot, telegraphed to the different precincts to have the entire reserve force concentrated at head-quarters, which were ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... I was at liberty to notice everything that was going on with great attention. Now and again, whenever I caught sight of the colonel or Mr. Y——, I had all the difficulty in the world to preserve my gravity. Fits of foolish laughter would take possession of me when I observed them sitting erect with such comical solemnity and working so awkwardly with their elbows and hands. The long beard of the one was white with grains of rice, as if silvered with hoar-frost, the chin of the other ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... queer it is! Every move I'm making, Cosmic gravity's Center I am shaking; Oh, how droll to feel (As I now am feeling), Even as I reel, All the world ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... out the Throg ship, not swinging now in serene indifference to Warlock's gravity, but whirling end over end across the sky as might a leaf tossed in a gust of wind. Its rim caught against a rust-red cliff, it rebounded and crumpled. Then it came down, smashing perhaps half a mile away from the smoking crater in which lay the mangled wreckage of the Terran ship. The disabled ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... harmless, her demands being limited to that of which she really stood in need, and which her own industry could not procure, her pretensions were a subject of mirth and good-humour, and her injunctions obeyed with seeming deference and gravity. To me she early became an object of curiosity and speculation. I delighted to observe her habits and humour her prejudices. She frequently came to my uncle's house, and I sometimes visited her: insensibly she seemed to contract an affection for me, and regarded me with more ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... the righteous in distress," they all set up a loud screaming; and it not unfrequently happens that while some are still blowing the storm, others have already begun the cries of the righteous, thus forming a concert which it is difficult for any but a zealous Hebrew to hear with gravity. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... In the intervals when the pony was out of sight, I had improved my knowledge of the old coachman; and every look added to my liking. There was something I could not read that more and more drew me to him. A simplicity in his good manners, a placid expression in his gravity, a staid reserve in his humility, were all there; and more yet. Also the scene in the dell was charming to me. The ground about the negro cottages was kept neat; they were neatly built of stone and stood round the sides of a quadrangle; while on each ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the palace. He was probably led to make the suggestion by his knowledge of the resemblance borne by this person to the murdered prince, which was sufficiently close to make personation possible. Cambyses was thus enabled to appreciate the gravity of the crisis, and to consider whether he could successfully contend with it or no. Apparently, he decided in the negative. Believing that he could not triumph over the conspiracy which had decreed his downfall, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... about to impart to the magistrate was cut short by the return of Doctor Ardel. That gentleman, in donning the uniform of the expert, had resumed an appearance of professional gravity. ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... for his time of life: he was of about the middle height, slightly made, and dark featured. She had expected something of the gaiety and animation of Versailles, and an evident cultivation of the art of pleasing. What she did see was a remarkable gravity, not to say gloom, of countenance—the only feature of which that struck her being a pair of large dark-gray eyes, that were cold and earnest. His manners had the ease of perfect confidence; and his talk and air were those of a person who ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... easily be prov'd of what necessity there is for its encouragement in this Populous City: If there were no Politick Reasons, yet the Good to Religion that may be done by it, is a convincing Argument at once for its Lawfulness and Use. I know the Gravity of some can't dispense with so much time to be spent in Diversion, tho' I can't think this a reasonable Objection where so much Profit may attend our Delight. If it be lawful to recreate our selves at all, it can never be amiss ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous |
