"Seriousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strangeness of her attire and for its exceeding richness, was observed by all. Though she was not to be ranked among the most beautiful, she possessed gracefulness, together with a noble assurance that could not be surpassed; and, moreover, her manner of speech and her seriousness were to match, so that there was none but feared to accost her excepting the King, who loved her exceedingly. That he might have still more intimate converse with her, he gave some mission to the Count, her husband, which kept him away ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... been the prototype of one of those rollicking, lusty young mynheers that laugh out at you from a Frans Hals canvas. A roguish fellow with a merry eye; red-cheeked, vigorous. A serious mouth, though, and great sweetness of expression. As he grew older, the seriousness crept up and up and almost entirely obliterated the roguishness. By the time the life of ease claimed him, even the ghost of that ruddy wight of ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... with the natives was brief, but courteous and friendly on both sides. The English visits were interrupted by more or less hostility. "When Pring was about ready to leave, the Indians became hostile and set the woods on fire, and he saw it burn 'for a mile space.'"—De Costa. A skirmish of some seriousness occurred with Smith's party. "After much kindnesse upon a small occasion, wee fought also with fortie or fiftie of those: though some were hurt, and some slaine, yet within an hour after they became friends."—Smith's New England, Boston, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... in one of his essays, expressed the opinion that of all the English poets "the one who, but for a stroke of madness, would have become our English Horace was William Cowper. He had the wit," he added, "with the underlying moral seriousness." As for the wit, I doubt it. Cowper had not the wit that inevitably hardens into "jewels five words long." Laboriously as he sought after perfection in his verse, he was never a master of the Horatian phrase. Such phrases of his—and there are not many of them—as have passed into the ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... of our era be grasped. If He had but one nature on earth, He has but one nature now in heaven. If the historic Christ was monophysite, so also is the Christ to whom we pray. In this consequence consists the seriousness of modern monophysitism. The present reality of His human nature is to-day even among His followers doubted, obscured, or forgotten. Christ is to many spiritual minds merely an ideal personality, a summary of their own ethical ideals. They perhaps regard Him as a disembodied ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... at me, at first; though younger than myself, she was more of a woman than I was of a man, and she assumed with me a great many of the airs of a senior; but upon my vehement and repeated protestations of the seriousness and permanent nature of my intentions, her laughter ceased, she became embarrassed and agitated, and finally, after much pressing, assured me, her face crimsoned with blushes the while, that if I ever came to claim ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... writers whom we hold to be humourists because they have made us laugh. It may be conceded that, as a people, we have an abiding and somewhat disquieting sense of fun. We are nimble of speech, we are more prone to levity than to seriousness, we are able to recognize a vital truth when it is presented to us under the familiar aspect of a jest, and we habitually allow ourselves certain forms of exaggeration, accepting, perhaps unconsciously, Hazlitt's verdict: "Lying is a species of wit, and shows ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... again took the offensive, refusing to permit the American schooner Mermanos to load. Following that report came the report of a battle between Americans and insurgents, which was exaggerated, but showed the seriousness of the situation. The same day the Czar of Russia suggested a joint note from the powers to the United States ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... almost precisely at the hour she had named. She received him with a mysterious tranquillity which almost perplexed him. He remembered, however, that the way to enjoy the society of Miss Demolines was to take her in all her moods with perfect seriousness, and was therefore very tranquil himself. On the present occasion she did not rise as he entered the room, and hardly spoke as she tendered to him the tips of her fingers to be touched. As she said ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... from books of devotion, or prepared by himself expressly for the occasion. By this plan his school will be, during the exercise, under his own observation as at other times. It may, in some schools, where the number is small, or the prevailing habits of seriousness and order are good, be well to allow the older scholars to read the prayer in rotation, taking especial care that it does not degenerate into a mere reading exercise; but that it is understood, both by readers and hearers, to be ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... could find the right way, if I had it.' She was speaking with quite the seriousness she had disowned. 'I hate injustice, and I hate ugliness. I think I could make things nicer if I ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... driver. As they draw near, they check the play a little, to be more decorous in passing by the stranger. He stops to look at them with a pleased expression of countenance, and then says, addressing the driver, with a face of much seriousness, "That's a first-rate horse of yours. Would you like to sell him? He seems to be very spirited." The horse immediately begins to prance and caper. "You must have paid a high price for him. You must take good care of him. Give him plenty of oats, and don't drive him hard when ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... the smallest shred of power. Mr. Gladstone must be as mad as a March hare. The idea of a Dublin Parliament engineered by men whom their own supporters look upon as rowdies would be amusing but for the seriousness of the consequences. Have you been in Ennis? Did you see the great memorial to the Manchester murderers—'Martyrs' they call them? Their lives were taken away for love of their country, and their last breath was God save Ireland! That's the inscription, and what does it mean? Loyalty to England? ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... and difficult. Luther's complaints concerning the seriousness of his task in attempting to teach the patriarch Job to speak idiomatic German might doubtless have found an echo in the experience of this corps of scholars in forcing Luther into idiomatic English. We are confident, however, that, as in Luther's case, so also here, the general verdict ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... possible to have a serious turn of mind, and yet to talk pleasantly and cheerfully. This class of mind is suited to all persons in all times of life. Young persons have usually a cheerful and satirical turn, untempered by seriousness, ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... now made to do as much of the work as they can perform. If pleurisy is not present there is little pain. To the ordinary observer the animal may not appear dangerously ill, as he does not show the seriousness of the ailment by violence, as in colic, but a careful observer will discover at a glance that the trouble is something more serious than a cold. By percussion it will be shown that some portions of the chest are less resonant than in health, indicating exclusion of air. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... saw nothing, but was so definitely conscious of the presence of a personality, that I addressed it in terms which need not be set down here, but of which I may say that they were intended to be of the utmost seriousness, while helpful and encouraging. I may add, that I knew from experience of the acoustic qualities of the house, that I should not be audible to those in Nos. 1 or 8. Absolutely, while I was speaking, the voices we had heard downstairs became ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... is his characterization of himself. And so it is. He could have sprung from no other stock. In person and speech, in the indefinable quality of the man, in the humour which continually tempers his tremendous seriousness, he belongs to London. Among the men of our time who have done creative writing I can think of no other about whom this can be so ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... outset your Commission have been deeply impressed with the seriousness of their undertaking, and have fully recognized that men eminent in intelligence and attainments yield to Spiritualism an entire credence, and who can fail to stand aside in tender reverence when crushed and bleeding hearts are seen to seek it for consolation and for hope? They beg that nothing ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... his estimation since the arrival in London of the first malgamite maker. The grim reality of the one had enhanced the importance of the other. Cornish had been engaged in so many charities pour rire that the seriousness of this undertaking was apt to exaggerate itself in his mind—if, indeed, the seriousness of ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... his friend Barclay was not sympathetic, did not understand the seriousness of what had happened. He could not stay longer to be the target of hostile, vengeful eyes; he felt that half the boys there were blaming him in their hearts for the defeat of their team—and that the others had no ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... and has raised so great a danger through the unrest and dissatisfaction of the working classes, might have been to a great extent avoided, and the higher the rate of taxation had been, and the less the amount provided by loans, the less would have been the seriousness of the problem that now awaits us when the war is over and we have to face the question of the ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... is equal in productivity to the day's labor of a highly skilled mechanic, or that the day's labor of an incompetent workman is of equal value to that of the most proficient. To refute such a theory is as beautifully simple as the theory itself. In all seriousness, arguments such as these are constantly used against the Marxian theory of value, notwithstanding that they do not possess the slightest relation to it. Marxism is very frequently "refuted" by those who do not trouble themselves to ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... and it was not until about 300 B.C. that even primary schools began to develop. What education was needed was imparted in the home or in the field and in the camp, and was of a very simple type. Certain virtues were demanded—modesty, firmness, prudence, piety, courage, seriousness, and regard for duty—and these were instilled both by precept and example. Each home was a center of the religious life, and of civic virtue and authority. In it the father was a high priest, with power of life and death over wife and children. He alone conversed ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... first place, the inoculation thus necessary is really a serious matter. Even vaccination, as is well known, sometimes, through faulty methods, results fatally, and it is a very serious thing to experiment upon human beings with anything so powerful for ill as pathogenic bacteria. The seriousness of the disease smallpox, its extraordinary contagiousness, and the comparatively mild results of vaccination, have made us willing to undergo vaccination at times of epidemics to avoid the somewhat great probability of taking ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... the count thus questioned, he took the hand of the Princess and covered it with kisses. Then, with graceful gallantry and solemn seriousness, as if they had been in the midst of a grand courtly assemblage, he conducted her to the divan. There she seated herself, and he bowed before her with all the formality and obsequiousness of a courtier as he took ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... thirty-six) to share Mrs. Freddy's incredulous astonishment at hearing from Haycroft the night before that Janet Levering had been 'the beauty of her family.' Mrs. Freddy's answer had been, 'Oh, don't make fun of her!' and Haycroft had had to assure her of his seriousness, while the little hostess ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... the most extreme extent, but, as time went on, it was forced to admit into this religion an ever greater measure of secularisation. In the interests of its world-wide mission it did not indeed directly disguise the terrible seriousness of religion, but, by tolerating a less strict ideal of life, it made it possible for those less in earnest to be considered Christians, and to regard themselves as such. It permitted the genesis of ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... see them pass. Here and there a policeman paused, and followed them with his eye as long as the tail of sparks from the furnace was visible. Occasionally a belated toper stopped in his staggering progress to gaze at them, with an idiotical assumption of seriousness and demand, "Wash ey maki'n sh' a 'orrible row for?" Now and then a cat, with exploratory tendencies, put up its back and greeted them with a glare and a fuff, or a shut-out cur gave them a yelping salute; but the ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Branch of the Judgment the Renard Romances declined. The Judgment was imitated by inferior hands, and the beasts were more and more nearly transformed to men; the spirit of gaiety was replaced by seriousness or gloom; Renard ceased to be a light-footed and ingenious rogue; he became a type of human fraud and cruelty; whatever in society was false and base and merciless became a form of "renardie," and by "renardie" the whole world seemed to be ruled. Such is ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the Doctor, and pursing his features into an enamoured grin. The idea of a quondam scrivener making love to Mrs. Mellicent (for on this occasion he thought only of her), and the contrast between her dignity and Morgan's square figure and vulgar coarseness, provoked a smile, notwithstanding the seriousness of his own situation: Morgan thought this a ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... in some respects. The rows look handsome enough. They have solidity and richness. Nor do I say that for a certain species of publication 'full calf gilt' is not a very judicious form of binding. One likes to see the quarterlies and higher-class monthlies done up in that style. It befits the seriousness of their contents. But do not let everything be put into 'full calf gilt,' solid and rich though it appears. Let us give full play to the element of variety. Let every book have an individuality, a character, of its own. Let us be able ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... what to do," Bud suggested, without any seriousness of intent, however. "Make a dash over the lake in your father's motor boat and rescue ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... distance of about 100 metres apart. Near the crater we found at one of these cairns a little Shinto shrine, built of sticks. Its sides were only half a metre in length. Our guide performed his devotions here. One of them had already at a stone cairn situated farther down with great seriousness made some conjurations with reference to my promise to make an extra distribution of red wine, if we got good weather at ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... "How long are we to stay here?" "Where's the spring?" Sometimes these questions were meant simply to tease, but generally they betrayed anxiety of some sort, and a close observer would easily detect the seriousness of the man who asked after "our wagon," because he spoke feelingly, as one who wanted his supper and was in doubt as to whether or not he would get it. People who live on country roads rarely know how far ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... which herself and her legal adviser have thrown such formidable mystery, may have been nothing more, after all, than some imposture of this kind, intended only to mystify and surprise, while it was taken in sober seriousness." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... She resumed her seriousness: 'I find it so hard to be vexed with him and really really like him. For he is a good man; but he will not let one shake him off. He distresses: because we can't quite meet as we did. Last Wednesday Concert evening, he kept ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... remained there till well on into the night, although there was not the excitement of any special amusement to attract them. It was felt by them all that this was the end of the Beargarden, and, with a melancholy seriousness befitting the occasion, they whispered sad things in low voices, consoling themselves simply with tobacco. 'I never felt so much like crying in my life,' said Dolly, as he asked for a glass of brandy-and-water at about midnight. 'Good-night, old fellows; good-bye. I'm going down to ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... must have given to her motherhood an unusual thoughtfulness and seriousness. How close to God she must have lived! How deep and tender her love must have been! How pure and clean her heart must have been kept! How sweet and patient she must have been as she moved about at her tasks, in order that no harsh or bitter thought or ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... become a tragedy, I'll promise you that." The young man spoke with smiling confidence, but when he reached his office again and had closed the door behind him, his manner changed quickly to seriousness and doubt. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... was the catty thing she had said about being kissed again by her admirers. Then, in all seriousness, sentiment aside, I dared not make ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... and when she spoke again, it was with renewed seriousness. "Believe me, Maurice, he is no friend for you. It's not only that you ought to be above letting yourself be treated in this way, but Heinz's friendship won't do you any good. He belongs to a bad set here—and Schilsky, too. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... shrinking with disgust, which he overcame directly, and handing his rifle to his cousin he went down on one knee, with three or four of the little tribe looking on, wonderingly, but all with a grave, solemn seriousness of aspect, while Mark took out a handkerchief from his breast and spread it tenderly over the ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... in all solemn seriousness to go out England? 'T is a awful thought, come you look at ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... seriousness in his voice that made her come to him in her old impulsive, half-childish way. She lifted her hands and rested them on his shoulders, as she had always done when inviting him to ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... felt older than his years, he said, from being the eldest of the family and always carrying responsibilities. He committed no follies of youth, had no quarrels, made no debts. His companions sometimes laughed at him for this prosaic seriousness. But he had friends, for he is of a manly, modest sort. One evening during Carnival last year certain of these friends dropped in on their way to a dance, a costume party at the house of Americans, and seeing him so absorbed by duties and studies, thought it a lark to ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... to add to the defenses of their property, and this of course was felt to be a grievance. Their personal inconveniences were like the shilling that hides the moon, and, in the resentment they occasioned, blinded their hearts to the seriousness of the evils from which their merely temporary annoyance was the deliverance of their neighbors. A fancy of prescriptive right in their own comforts outweighed all the long and heavy sufferings of the others. Why should not their neighbors continue miserable, when they had been ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... not his equal. Yet there is an equality that cannot be denied. The negro is certainly a man, and not a brute animal; although so demoralized and corrupt had grown to be the tone of society that we have actually heard the opinion avowed, in all seriousness, that the negro had no soul. Shylock, in 'The Merchant of Venice,' pleads for himself and his Jewish brethren, in one of the most pathetic passages of even Shakspeare's genius, as though the Hebrew race were considered less than ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sin. She was all calmness and quiet decision; yet in her character there ran a fire beneath the surface, sending up a glow into every loving word and deed. She had never been beautiful, yet always beautified by the radiance of true holiness. In her, seriousness had no gloom, because it was the seriousness of a holy love. She made even worldly people happy to be with her, because they felt the reality and singleness of her religion—it was woven up with every hour's work, with every duty, with every joy. She lived for heaven not by neglecting ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... you must obey me now—do as I tell you in everything," he said with perfect seriousness of mien and accent. "You have given yourself to me now, and if I ask you to kiss me you must, just as readily as Fina, and let me caress and pet you as much as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... reappeared with Margaret Mackenzie behind him. John Ball's eyes immediately fell on his cousin's face, and he could see that it was very pale. The lawyer's wore that smile which men put on when they wish to cover the disagreeable seriousness of the moment. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... she replied, with a seriousness which seemed almost sincere. "Is Mr. French there? I wish to thank ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Phoebe returned the glance with a quiet seriousness, then her eyes lighted a second, were suffused with a quick moisture, and with a proud gesture she bent forward, laying both hands on Caroline's shoulders as she pressed a deep kiss on the ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... its seriousness. A new and charming melancholy shadowed her violet eyes, causing the heavy lashes to droop till their shadows showed on the creamy velvet of her cheek. Her mouth, with scarlet lips drawn close, was earnest and solemn as he had ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... myself, but to save me from my own higher and better nature," Herminia answered with passionate seriousness. "Alan, I don't want any man to save me from that; I want you rather to help me, to strengthen me, to sympathize with me. I want you to love me, not for my face and form alone, not for what I share with every other woman, but ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... know it. It would worry her. It might—frighten her, Simmy, and God knows I wouldn't harm her by word or deed for anything on earth. Only she wouldn't understand. D'you see?" He shook Simmy as a dog would have shaken a rat, not in anger but to emphasise his seriousness. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... any way," I continued, "of showing that this experience of the race about which so much is said without the least attempt to show in what way it may, or does, become the experience of the individual, is in sober seriousness the experience of one single being only, who repeats on a great many different occasions, and in slightly different ways, certain performances with which he has ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... his eyes on the face across the table. There was a touch of seriousness in those words; more like a ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... mother could not say enough of his influence on the estate. He took a large men's class on Sundays. He was a regular communicant; he helped our clergyman splendidly. And especially"—here again the speaker hesitated a moment. But he resumed with a gentle seriousness—"he helped us in all our attempts to make the people here live straight—like Christians—not like animals. My mother has very strict rules—she won't allow any one in our cottages who has lost their character. I know it sounds harsh. ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... incident was given wide circulation in the States, and I am satisfied from my investigation that an exaggerated impression was created as to its seriousness. It is regrettable that it should have happened at all, to mar in any degree the record of heroic and valiant service performed by this regiment under very trying conditions.' "The above are the facts in regard to this matter, and it is hoped that this information may meet your requirements. ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... the gentle seriousness of which penetrated even to the Tyrrell boys' understanding, she felt that her ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... the senses through a moral idea. No one who lives a conscious life can renounce these claims to be respected as rational and self-subsisting. And with these claims at least there is connected in his soul a seriousness, an abandonment of doubt, a belief in a reality, if not with the acknowledgment of a moral law in his innermost being. Do but assail him who denies his own moral destination and your existence and the existence of a corporeal world, except in the way of experiment, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... and delighting to turn even matters of seriousness into ridicule, was immeasurably captivated by the true burlesque of those disputes, the childish virulence, the extravagant pretensions, and the still more extravagant impostures fabricated in support of the rival pre-eminence in absurdity; the visions of half-mad nuns and friars; the Convulsionaries; ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... ask you a question now,' said Knight, somewhat awkwardly. 'I only ask it in a whimsical way, you know: not with great seriousness, Elfride. You may think ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... may be accompanied, naturally perhaps, by grave dangers; that it may actually present itself accompanied by terrible defects, and yet that it might itself be indispensable. Let him illustrate what he meant by an example, the force of which they would all readily feel. Seriousness was a quality of our nation. Perhaps seriousness was always accompanied by certain dangers. But, at any rate, many of our French neighbors would say that they found our seriousness accompanied by ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... that bind us together go back many, many years. We were boys together in sunny months full of frolic, plans and hopes. The merriment and the seriousness, the toil and the ambition of those days all cluster round him as memory brings him to me in the flush of his youth. I have seen little of him of late years, as you know, but the roots of our friendship ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... ridicule. Ridicule is the arm of all the miserable barbers, bachelors, parish priests, canons and dukes who keep hidden the sepulchre of the Knight of Madness, Knight who made all the world laugh but never cracked a joke. He had too great a soul to bring forth jokes. They laughed at his seriousness. ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... forgot the seriousness of the mission they had in view, exchanged glances, and began to laugh, with the result that the man turned upon them quite an ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... the French, the Romans have a passion for the game of Dominos. Every caffe is supplied with a number of boxes, and, in the evening especially, it is played by young and old, with a seriousness which strikes us Saxons with surprise. We generally have a contempt for this game, and look upon it as childish. But I know not why. It is by no means easy to play well, and requires a careful memory and quick powers of combination ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... and he wants to swap even, bring him along. Look at this town! Is it any sort of a town? No honesty, for there ain't a man in it that can shuffle a pack without stackin' it. No ability, for there ain't more'n one or two can stack it real well. No seriousness, for they start in to drown a Chinaman in a dry creek, and they cut away as happy as if they'd succeeded. I sits up here on my porch, and I says, 'What is it but a dream? Fu Shan,' I says, 'this here life's a shadow!' Then that forsaken, conceited, blank heathen, he says one of ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... question of whether Swift was serious in his pessimism. Surely even Mr. McCabe would not maintain that the more funny "Gulliver" is in its method the less it can be sincere in its object. The truth is, as I have said, that in this sense the two qualities of fun and seriousness have nothing whatever to do with each other, they are no more comparable than black and triangular. Mr. Bernard Shaw is funny and sincere. Mr. George Robey is funny and not sincere. Mr. McCabe is sincere and not funny. The average Cabinet Minister ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... responsible for much of the heart, kidney and skin diseases so prevalent among the laboring classes of the colored people. It takes time to keep clean, and the laborer has no leisure. Ignorance of the seriousness of certain diseases like syphilis, scrofula and rheumatism, has played an important role in the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... Saxons into Britain, which was in 451. Our saint, therefore, seems to have been born in 494; he was consequently younger than St. Paul, St. Samson, and his other illustrious school-fellows in Wales: but by his prudence and seriousness in his youth he seemed to have attained to the maturity of judgment and gravity of an advanced age. The author of the life of St. Paul of Leon, calls him the brightest genius of the school of St. Iltut. His application to sacred ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... to which he frequently refers with invariable reverence, and on metaphysical reasonings, which he over and over presents in forms of conscientious elaboration. There are two tests of his sincerity of faith: first, that he always treats the subject with profound seriousness; secondly, that he always uses it as a practical motive. "I do not think," said Socrates, "that any one who should now hear us, even though he were a comic poet, would say that I am talking idly."16 ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... wing—the likeness admirable, though the scale diminutive. That "hour too many," cost me three games of billiards, my bachelor's house, and one thousand pounds. This price of sixty minutes startled me a little; and, for a week, I meditated with some seriousness on the superior gaiety of a life spent in paving the streets, driving a wagon, or answering the knocker of a door. But the "hour" again overflowed me. I was walking it off in Regent Street, when an old fellow-victim met me, and prescribed a trot to Newmarket. The prescription ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... I determined, at least once in three months, to talk with every member myself, and to inquire at their own mouth, as well as of their leaders and neighbours, whether they grew in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To each of those whose seriousness and good conversation I had no reason to doubt, I gave a testimony under my own hand, by writing their name on a ticket prepared for that purpose. Those who bore these tickets, wherever they came, were ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... them, she had followed hastily into the room. With a searching glance she eyed the stranger for a while; then suddenly turning to the children, she addressed them with great seriousness and affection. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... ignominy to the chance of losing my Father's company altogether. Kingsley, a daring spirit, used sometimes to drag us out trawling with him in Torbay, and although his hawk's beak and rattling voice frightened me a little, his was always a jolly presence that brought some refreshment to our seriousness. ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... in his land near "Oregon," some antiquities, consisting of silver coins, for which Mr. Wetzler offered him, unsuccessfully, $50. The story looks very much like a humbug, but it was told with all seriousness by ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... call upon the intelligent and thinking ones amongst us, to urge upon the colored people within their reach, in all seriousness, the duty and the necessity of giving their children useful and lucrative trades, by which they may commence the battle of life with weapons, commensurate with the exigencies of conflict.—African Repository, vol. xxix., pp. ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... hours in the quarries, moving every stone that might hide the entrance to a small cave, and leaving no room for a suspicion that Shine could be lying in concealment there. For a Dick, who, in consideration of the seriousness of recent events with which he had been directly concerned, enjoying a week's holiday, superintended the hunt from the banks; but he wearied of the work at length, and crossed the paddocks to join the men busy in the new shaft. Harry Hardy, McKnight, Peterson, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... every boy in the school, his appearance, his habits, and his companions. It cannot be said that he was always genial in manner; the youngest boys especially regarded him with awe, and his own sense of the intense seriousness of life and duty gave a sternness and austerity to his aspect which made many of his pupils afraid of him. His conception of a school was that it should be first of all a place for the formation of character, and next a place for learning and study, as ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... were written by an orthodox Russian,* celebrated for his extensive and intimate knowledge of Russian provincial life, and were addressed in all seriousness to a member of the Imperial family, we may safely assume that they contain a considerable amount of truth. The reader must not, however, imagine that all Russian priests are of the kind above referred to. Many of them are honest, respectable, well-intentioned ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... and, that as little as possible might be trusted to the silence of others, most of the letters were written by his own hand. He was a man of large stature, thin, of a sallow complexion, with short red hair, and small sparkling eyes. A gloomy and forbidding seriousness sat upon his brow; and his magnificent presents alone retained the trembling crowd of ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... lower. That in the bosom of the Reformer, along with the peaceful review of all his labors and sufferings for evangelical liberty, such a consciousness may have awakened, in the last year of his life, some regret in regard to certain events in his political career, is quite probable from the deep seriousness and melancholy, which we observe in him at this period, as well as from the fervor with which he cast himself into the arms of the Supreme Disposer of all human destinies. He was not at all angry, when reminded ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... substantially better off than other segments of the population, often approaching European standards, whereas minority groups suffer the poverty and unemployment typical of the poorer nations of the African continent. The outbreak of severe rioting in February 1991 illustrates the seriousness of socioeconomic tensions. The economic well-being of Reunion depends heavily on continued ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the young man very kindly, and then for some minutes spoke to him with deep seriousness of his past life. "Thou canst not serve God and Mammon, Friend Wenlock," he said. "Thou didst attempt to do so, and Mammon left thee struggling for thy life on the ocean. More on that matter ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... and drive him nearly mad. All these, and a thousand other pranks, the fast fellows play upon their slow brethren, not in the hackneyed fashion which low people call "gagging," and genteel people "quizzing," but with a seriousness and gravity that heightens all the joke, and makes the slow ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... leader in the woman's emancipation movement, so fruitful later on of deplorable excesses. Rahel herself never overstepped the limits of "das Ewig-Weibliche." No act of hers ran counter to the most exalted requirements of morality. Her being was pervaded by high seriousness, noble dignity, serene cheerfulness. "She dwelt always in the Holy of holies of thought, and even her most daring wishes for herself and mankind leapt shyly heavenwards like pure sacrificial flames." Nothing more touching can be found ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... than that of Madame Recamier and Chateaubriand. It was to be fruitful in letters that would compare favorably with the best of the seventeenth century series. Even now her own letters to Peter were no sprightly scrawl of passing events, but efforts whose seriousness suggested, at least in their carefully elaborated stages of structure, the letters of the ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... at all. I'm only too glad. Your work's first rate, and I much appreciate your suggestions. I don't want you to work less; but, in all seriousness, my dear fellow, you should take it easier. Do just as much work, but don't worry so much about it. Carry your whatsaname more lightly, you know. Believe me, that's ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... interrupted, her great black eyes still deriding him, while her thin face was screwed up into seriousness, as she regarded Mr Sloyd's blameless garments of springtime gray, his black-and-white tie, his hair so very sleek, his drooping mustache, and his pink cheeks. She had taken his measure as perfectly ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... chosen to confer with Napoleon upon the subject of the tribute of gratitude and affection which he should receive. Surrounded by his colleagues and the principal officers of the state, he received them the next day in the Tuileries. With seriousness and modesty he listened to the high eulogium upon his achievements which was pronounced, and then replaced. "I receive with sincere gratitude the wish to expressed by the Tribunate. I desire no other glory than ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... as before in attaching much significance to these phrases. They were pleasant to hear, for they chimed with his own thoughts, but he could not respond with great seriousness. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... of thirty "women-folks." No doubt he should be called "Old Gal Thirty-one." He got up and dressed very, very slowly. The bewildered gratitude, the incredulous thanksgiving of last night, were as far away as yesterday's sunset. A great seriousness settled upon Abe's lean face. ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... Jonas, trying in vain to speak with some seriousness and veneration, "I come to ax your consent to marry one of your flock—the best lamb you've got in the ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... pertains to the act of the appetitive power, and consists in man's appetite being directed aright in applying the cognitive power in this or that way to this or that thing. And this belongs to the virtue of seriousness. Wherefore it is reckoned ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... especially of still lower, rank. Octave Feuillet still produces occasionally a clever piece of workmanship; Cherbuliez at intervals writes a novel which proves how lamentable a thing is the possession of brilliancy alone apart from the seriousness of character, or of some sides of character, which must exist alongside of even high intellectual qualities in order that the man may make a lasting impression on his time. Great gifts frittered away on meaningless trifles are as disappointing as possible, and are the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... of the struggle at the Charterhouse, we see the forms of mental trial which must have repeated themselves among all bodies of the clergy wherever there was seriousness of conviction. If the majority of the monks were vicious and sensual, there was still a large minority labouring to be true to their vows; and when one entire convent was capable of sustained resistance, there must have been many where there was only just too little virtue for the emergency, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... as a book whose words "live in the ear like a music that never can be forgotten—like the sound of church-bells which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments; and ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... her skirt. Winifred, terribly serious and wooden-seeming, was bending over the knee, from which she had taken his blood-soaked handkerchief. Egbert bent forward, too, keeping more sangfroid in his face than in his heart. Winifred went all of a lump of seriousness, so he had to keep some reserve. ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... said Hannah, drawing herself up with great seriousness. "I think you're more complimentary than you have a right to be to ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... that, on receiving the emphatic messages sent through Major Heany and Captain Holden, Dr. Jameson would realize the seriousness of the position, and would, in fact, abide by the arrangements made with him. Nor was this all. It was also clear that the telegram of Mr. Rhodes to which it was inferred reference was made in the concluding words of Messrs. Hamilton's and Leonard's wire—'Jameson has been advised accordingly'—could ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... returned to his face. The securing of that girl's debut was certainly not a high price to pay for all the influence of Duvillard's millions. Monferrand therefore turned towards Fonsegue as if to consult him. The other, who fully understood the importance of the affair, was meditating in all seriousness: "A senator is the proper man for Public Instruction," said he. "But I can think of none, none at all, such as would be wanted. A man of broad mind, a real Parisian, and yet one whose presence at the head of the University wouldn't cause too ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... intended it to be. Promptly he landed sprawling on the station platform and, in the sight of a multitude of natives, but the moment gone by his shrieks roused from their sleep in orderly ranks upon the floor, was gathered into the arms of the stationmaster and had the seriousness of his mistake pointed out to him forthwith and without regard to ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... first hour-and-a-half should be given to greetings and to social levity of the brightest and wittiest sort. If one has an ache or a pain, a care or a loss, let it be forgotten now. It is weakness and folly continually to be under any burden. Here every one should take a genuine release from seriousness and earnestness in weighty and responsible affairs. Let all, except the serving committee for this evening, take part in this strictly social hour-and-a-half. When the late-comers have arrived and have been introduced, and the people have moved about and met one another, almost ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... his head, and, gazing up at the starlit heavens, wandered off into dreams of the life he would like to lead but from which he seemed inexorably shut out. The seriousness of life was striking deeper than ever into Joe's heart, and he lay silent, thinking hard. A mumble of heavy voices came to them from the Reindeer; and from the land the solemn notes of a church bell floated across the water, while the summer night ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... the routine of their respective trades. They understand each other, which is advantageous to both, and establishes a sort of amenity in their relations. Products of the same machine, one classed as useful and the other as noxious, they take the machine for granted in different ways, but with a seriousness essentially the same. The mind of Chief Inspector Heat was inaccessible to ideas of revolt. But his thieves were not rebels. His bodily vigour, his cool inflexible manner, his courage and his fairness, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... an eminent scientist and poet in one, a serious combination; and he took my remarks with seriousness at ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... some resemblance to the fencing-match in Shakspeare; "Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes." The war between Luther and Leo was a war between firm faith and unbelief, between zeal and apathy, between energy and indolence, between seriousness and frivolity, between a pure morality and vice. Very different was the war which degenerate Protestantism had to wage against regenerate Catholicism. To the debauchees, the poisoners, the atheists, who had worn the tiara during the generation which preceded the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... woman. Woman? As he brooded over the devastation she had wrought he began to think of her as an evil spirit. He recalled with a shiver the feel of her burning eyes, hidden but potent; he thought of the nights at sea when he had felt her presence. For the first time he allowed himself to wonder in all seriousness if she had powers above a mere woman's as she ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... culture and the glory and the political and literary prestige of France. Collier (68) says that Germany is forever looking into a mirror rather than out the open window and even sees herself a little out of focus. The seriousness of the Germans, others think, is an indication that Germany takes herself ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... of peculiar habits and opinions, was always thoughtful, and disposed to view the things around him with a shade of philosophy, as well as with seriousness. In him, therefore, the scene in the blockhouse awakened no very novel feelings. But the case was different with Cap: rude, opinionated, dogmatical, and boisterous, the old sailor was little accustomed ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... himself while under condemnation very seriously and modestly, though before that time, he had acted too much the bravo, from the mistaken opinion that people are apt to entertain of courage and resolution. But when death approached near, he laid aside all this, and applied himself with great seriousness and attention to prayers and other duties becoming a ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... went into Sydney, and afterwards to the boat. They ensconced themselves in a corner at the far end, and discussed the state of affairs with much seriousness. Then Pip got up and, strolled about a little to relieve his feelings, coming back in a second with a white, ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... the farmers, a young good-humoured man, who had always been friendly with the boy, and had often been to fish with him; Roderick walked beside him, and told him that he had followed the stream nearly to the pool, when the young farmer, with some seriousness, asked him how near he had been to the water. Roderick was surprised at the same question that his father had asked him being asked again, and told him that he had but seen it from a hill-top near, adding, "But what is amiss with the place, for my father and mother ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... crimes. Long periods of imprisonment, inhuman punishments, and the frequent use of the death penalty were characteristic of this attitude toward crime. Curiously enough, punishments were imposed according to the seriousness of the crime committed, without regard to the character ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... tantalizing coquetry that might have suggested an underlying seriousness. "I think you HAVE lost a good deal. Perhaps, so have I. We might have been good friends in all these years. But ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... speaking with more seriousness, "that Grant Herman will be given the commission. He's all ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... to take what he gives. There is no escaping 'orders.' Even I know that!" said Moya. A slight shiver passed over her as she spoke, laughing off as usual the touch of seriousness in her words. ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... over, much as an expert in horseflesh would a colt, and said, with the utmost seriousness: "Do you know, Levinsky, you have an awfully fine figure. You are a good-looking chap all around, for that matter. A fellow like you ought to make a hit with women. Why don't ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... labors. He could ill brook interruption, and disliked the importunity of visitors. "We are afraid, sir, we break in upon your time," said some of his callers to him upon one occasion. "To be sure you do," was his answer. His seriousness seldom forsook him; there is scarce a gleam of gayety in all his one hundred and sixty-eight volumes. He seems to have relished, however, the wit of others, especially when directed against what he looked upon as error. Marvell's inimitable reply to the High-Church ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... evening lectures which were crowded to suffocation, and as the fame of him went abroad throughout all the city, he was often the cynosure of eyes that were neither friendly nor devout. But, if he sometimes failed to make a deep impression, he always succeeded in persuading his hearers of the seriousness and importance of eternal things, so that "many who came to laugh ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... Lord's will could not but trouble the intercourse between Grove Lane and Dagmar Road. Mr. Barmby, senior, undertook with characteristic seriousness the guardianship conferred upon him. He had long interviews with Horace and Nancy, in which he acquitted himself greatly to his own satisfaction. Samuel, equally a trustee, showed his delicacy by holding aloof save when civility dictated a call upon ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... saw them either out of doors or in her grandmother's room. Tingvold had always been a forbidden, and consequently mysteriously attractive place to the young people. But even now, only those with a certain quietness and seriousness of disposition went there, for it could not be denied that there was something subdued about Mildrid, that ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... a smile that drew him a step nearer, but caused no break in his seriousness. "I am thinking of it," she said, adding, with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, "if they will let me have a fireplace in this room. Shouldn't you want a fireplace if you were going ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... you require it. But you ought to believe my word, sir. I am square as a die in all matters not connected—well, not connected with my profession," he smiled in a burst of that whimsical humour, which not even the seriousness of the ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... remarked Alf, in a critical tone. But he was not offended; only tingled into desire for her by the strange gleam of merriment crossing her natural seriousness, the jubilant note of happy consciousness that the evening's lovemaking had bred. Alf drew her more closely to his side, increasingly sure that he had done well. She was beginning to intrigue him. With an emotion that startled ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton |
