"Severity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to believe that he has done all the cruel things he is accused of, but says that his sternness and severity were necessary for the occasion, and that Spain should be very grateful to have found such a ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 40, August 12, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... my mind too deeply not to prove injurious in its effects; and it did this all the more, that the voice of love, true to its own law, had the words of hope and consolation in it, but never those of complaint. It appeared the acme of the severity of fate itself to have lived to be the mean of placing a heart and mind so rich in disinterested affection on so wild and waste ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... formed up to the present time, appears sanctioned by the silence of the law. It is true that the magistrates demand force to put them down: but what should you do in such circumstances? I think that it would be an excess of severity to be inflexible to a fault, the origin of which is in your decrees: it would be an insult to the citizens to imagine they had any evil designs. It is said that this Assembly wishes to present an address at the chateau: I do not believe that the citizens who compose ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... against top-hats when he was in Harvey—was always in the latest mode. Often the hat was made to match his clothes. He had become rigorous in his taste in neckties and only grays and blacks and browns adorned the almost monkish severity of his garb. Harsh, vertical lines had begun to appear at the sides of the sensuous mouth, and horizontal lines—perhaps of hurt pride and shame—were pressed into his wide, handsome forehead and the zigzag scar was set white ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... the Ten Years' Exile with the Considerations on the French Revolution, it will perhaps be found that the reign of Napoleon is criticized in the first of these works with greater severity than in the other, and that he is there attacked with an eloquence not always exempt from bitterness. This difference may be easily explained: one of these works was written after the fall of the despot, with the calm and impartiality of the historian; the other was inspired by a courageous feeling ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... rapture, the applause bestowed upon his musical talents, his master earnestly deprecated, and violently opposed the cultivation of them. In the contentions between this applause and that opposition—between the charming flattery of the one, and the mortifying severity of the other, the boy took that side which it was natural for him to prefer; and genius, the parent of courage and enterprise, suggested to him from time to time a variety of expedients for baffling all his master's designs, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... this quality in the story of the life of Jesus. The most kindly and affectionate men are sure sometime to reveal at least a shade of harshness, coldness, bitterness, or severity. But in Jesus there was never any failure of tenderness. We see it in his warm love for John, in his regard for little children, in his compassion for sinners who came to his feet, in his weeping over the city which had rejected him and was about to ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... irregular; the mouth being too large and the lips too thick, with—alas! the shade of a moustache; white teeth, a little too small; a commonplace nose, a slightly pug; and her mother's eyes—her best feature. She has the eyebrows of her Uncle Des Rameures, which gives an air of severity to the face and neutralizes the good-natured expression-a reflex from the softness of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... utter failure and falsity of the system I had preached, backing my statements with the wager of her life? Moreover, to do so would be to doom myself to defeat at the poll, since under our byelaws, which were almost ferocious in their severity, I could no longer appear in public to prosecute my canvass, and, if my personal influence was withdrawn, then most certainly ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... you this much," she said, with great severity, "that if you keep on doing everything the baby tells you to do, I will buy you a ticket back to Virginia and send you home. ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... They rose high on her forehead; they projected on her cheeks; and they reached their boldest development in her jaws. In the cavernous eyes of this unfortunate person rigid obstinacy and rigid goodness looked out together, with equal severity, on all her fellow-creatures alike. Her mistress (whom she had served for a quarter of a century and more) called her "Bony." She accepted this cruelly appropriate nick-name as a mark of affectionate familiarity which honored a servant. No other person was allowed to take liberties ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... back to my work, leaving the father and son alone together. Before I left, I could see plainly enough that the bonds were being drawn closer between them. A whole month passed before they returned to London. The winter then had set in with unusual severity. But it seemed to bring only health to the two men. When I saw Andrew next, there was certainly a marked change upon him. Light had banished the haziness from his eye, and his step was a good deal firmer. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... uttered so cordially and pleasantly, that they could not fail to have their effect upon the baron. He was a handsome man, whose refined, agreeable features, of the true Netherland type, expressed anything rather than severity. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... expairiments will prevail ag'in the feelin's o' natur'. Pheeloosophy and religion tall us that the body's no mair than a clod o' the valley when the speerit has fled; but the hairt is unapt to listen to wisdom while the grief is fraish, and of the severity of an unlooked-for sairtainty. I see little good, therefore, in doing mair than just sending in a messenger, to clear the way a little for the arrival of truth, in the form o' ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... language of his own, that darkens knowledge. His works have been translated into French—they ought to be translated into English. People wonder that Mr. Bentham has not been prosecuted for the boldness and severity of some of his invectives. He might wrap up high treason in one of his inextricable periods, and it would never find its way into Westminster-Hall. He is a kind of Manuscript author—he writes a cypher-hand, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... depended, was a blow to which, for a time, no philosophy could reconcile him—the more particularly as the manner in which that loss had been forced upon him seemed, to his sensitive nature, to be marked by peculiar severity. To have had her torn from him in any ordinary way—to part with her in some quarrel in which either side might be partially right, and thenceforth never to see her again—or to be obliged to yield her up to the superior claims of an open, generous ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Pimienta. We were forced to return to our posts without having gained more than the damage wrought by the mines. The loss of those people was considerable, while not few of them perished because of the severity of our fire. But with the opportunity of the fifth mine which remained (which could not have its effect, because the fire-channel of the others choked it), the third attack was made inside of two days, by first setting fire to that mine, and by arranging the men better than on the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... wander thus among these vague remembrances of the past, instead of proceeding to the grave confessions which I have announced to you; it is because, in spite of myself, I recoil from these confessions. I know your severity; I am afraid of being scolded, yes, scolded, because, instead of having acted with reflection, with wisdom (alas for the wisdom of one-and-twenty!), I have acted foolishly, or, rather, I have not acted ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... their own defence. Marauders encamped on the roads. The husbandman was a feudal slave, without possessions of his own. Rudeness was general, humanity as yet unknown to the people. Witches and heretics were burned alive. Gentle rulers were contemned as weak; wild passions, severity and cruelty, everywhere predominated. Human life was little regarded. Governments concerned not themselves about the numbers of their subjects, for whose welfare it was incumbent on them to provide. Thus, the first requisite for estimating the loss of human life, ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... threat of prolonged and dreadful punishment has been found futile. Individuals take the risk because they think they will escape detection. It is an axiom of criminal procedure that a would-be offender is deterred by the certainty, not by the severity, of punishment. The modern theory of probation is, that children and adults may be best led away from evil practices by crowding out old influences with newer and stronger interests. Occupations that ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... without the interruption of tacit objections—I think good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces which it hath received, all from ignorance, but ignorance severally disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of divines, sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of politics, and sometimes in the errors and ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... crime to demand execution!" exclaimed John Hampden. "We shall be told next that it was no crime in the Jews to cry out 'Crucify him.'" A wise and just man would probably have been of opinion that this was not a case for severity. Sawyer's conduct might have been, to a certain extent, culpable: but, if an Act of Indemnity was to be passed at all, it was to be passed for the benefit of persons whose conduct had been culpable. The ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hard upon the heels of that joy! My darling's strength showed no signs of rallying. She had an attack of ague and fever a few days before; on the third day or so thereafter, it returned, and attacked her every second day with increasing severity for a fortnight. Diarrhea ensued, and symptoms of pneumonia, with slight delirium at intervals; and then in a moment, altogether unexpectedly, she died on the 3d March. To crown my sorrows, and complete my loneliness, the dear baby-boy, whom we had named after her ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... this novel theory. At all events, such a process will incline us to abstain from bold assumptions on a point upon which the Almighty has been pleased to throw so little light in his Holy Word, or at least avoid all severity of condemnation towards those who may differ ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... was sent back to Bridlington with a worse character than before, and, besides much prayer and humiliation, he was to receive a disciplina every Friday at the hands of the Prior. This made no improvement in his conduct, for in 1321 his behaviour brought him another penance and still greater severity. A few years after this the Archbishop seems to have reproached the community for the conduct of this unruly brother, which was scarcely fair. The last vision of Simon Constable shows him to be as impenitent as ever, and the Archbishop makes the awful threat that, if he does not reform at once, ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... "It is rather remarkable what a fascination the art of boxing has frequently exercised upon the masters of literature. Even the Greeks, in spite of their artistic reverence for the human body, practised boxing with extreme severity, and on their statues, you know, we sometimes find a recognised distortion which they called 'the boxer's ear.' It seems to show that they hit round rather than straight from the shoulder. The ancient ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... act, raised a storm of indignation throughout the colonies, from Massachusetts to South Carolina, and it was denounced as an oppressive, unrighteous, tyrannical measure. From the wayside tavern and the pulpit alike, it was attacked with unsparing severity. The Government, however, thought it a mere ebullition of feeling, that would not dare exhibit itself in open opposition. Nor does this confidence seem strong, when we remember the weakness of the colonies on the one side, and the ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... not report that veather from the lookout?" the Captain asked with mock severity as Blythe appeared ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... very ill this last fortnight, of your old Carniolian complaint, the 'arthritis vaga'; luckily, it did not fall upon my breast, but seized on my right arm; there it fixed its seat of empire; but, as in all tyrannical governments, the remotest parts felt their share of its severity. Last post I was not able to hold a pen long enough to write to you, and therefore desired Mr. Grevenkop to do it for me; but that letter was directed to Berlin. My pain is now much abated, though I have still some fine remains of it in my shoulder, where ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to be restrained by that particular form of discipline; and after he had had two or three serious tussles with his instructors, he was at last so cruelly beaten by one of his masters that he refused to return, and his parents, who were themselves by no means lacking in old Scotch severity, upheld him in his determination. He had picked up reading by this time, and now for a while he was left alone to hunt about to his heart's content among his favourite fields and meadows. But by the time he was six years old, he felt he ought to be going ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... but he has proved himself a cruel and ruthless master. He has driven forth many of the old tenants and bestowed their lands upon his own servants and retainers. The forest laws he carries out to the fullest severity, and has hung several men who were caught infringing them. He has laid such heavy burdens on all the tenants that remain that they are fairly ruined, and if he stay here long he will rule over a desert. Did he dream of your presence here, he would carry fire and sword through the forest. It is ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... begin to enter upon their virtue," a company of persons of quality assembled at Cauterets, we are told, and abode there three weeks with much profit. But when they tried to return, rain set in with such severity that they thought the Deluge had come again, and they found their roads, especially that to the French side, almost entirely barred by the Gave de Bearn and other rivers. So they scattered in different directions, most of them taking the Spanish side, either ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... disapprobation of her partner. Her omission was not design; it was juvenile indiscretion. We must, my dear sir," continued she, "look with a candid eye on such eccentricities. Faults, not foibles, require the severity of censure." "Far, madam, be it from me to censure any conduct which as yet I have observed in Miss Wharton; she has too great an interest in my heart ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... to the house of Annas. The guards never ceased their cruel treatment of our Divine Saviour, and excused such conduct by saying that the crowds who gathered together in front of the procession compelled them to severity. Jesus fell seven times between Mount Olivet and the house ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... in a Roman province. Orodes is expected in person. In short, it is a serious matter. As to Bibulus's edict there is nothing new, except the proviso of which you said in your letter, "that it reflected with excessive severity on our order." I, however, have a proviso in my own edict of equivalent force, but less openly expressed (derived from the Asiatic edict of Q. Mucius, son of Publius)—" provided that the agreement made is not such as cannot hold good in equity." I ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Grand Army, although the victory cost the French dear. Following closely the retreating enemy, the French pushed on towards the ancient Russian capital, Moscow. This city Napoleon had thought would supply food for his army, and shelter from the severity of the northern winter, which was now approaching. But to his astonishment he found the city deserted by its inhabitants; and scarcely had he established himself in the empty palace of the Czar (the Kremlin), before the city, probably fired ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... to harlots; for they come to those who offer them money without any concealment. Moreover, he forbade men to sell their sisters and daughters, except in the case of unchastity. Now to punish the same offence at one time with unrelenting severity, and at another in a light and trifling manner, by imposing so slight a fine, is unreasonable, unless the scarcity of specie in the city at that period made fines which were paid in money more valuable than they would now be; indeed, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... constructed a wall across the intervening space, cutting off the Sun's rays from the Moon. This wall was double, and built of clouds; the consequence was total eclipse of the Moon, which experienced a continuous night. This severity forced Endymion to negotiate. He entreated that the wall might be taken down, and his kingdom released from this life of darkness; he offered to pay tribute, conclude an alliance, abstain from hostilities in future, and give hostages for these ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... le pere Brossard round his little finger, and Merovee too. Whenever an extra holiday was to be begged for, or a favor obtained for any one, or the severity of a pensum mitigated, Barty was ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Rodion Romanovitch, it was you, and you alone," replied the magistrate with severity. "Confess or not, as you think best; for the time being, that is nothing to me. In either case, my conviction ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... the Old Game regulation for Thursday was lax indeed. He never had departed from it, and he never would depart from it. If any fellow took it into his head to slip out of his house after lights out at ten on any pretence whatever he was expelled. There was some legend in connection with this severity, what exactly none of us rightly knew, but according to the tale the escapade of two fellows years ago, when Corker was new to the place, had resulted in one of the fellows being shot. Twice had he expelled fellows while I was at school—Remington ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... Mackenzie government was relieved—but only temporarily—of a serious responsibility which they were anxious to avoid, at a time when they were between the two fires: of the people of Ontario, {395} anxious to punish the murderers with every severity, and of the French Canadians, the great majority of whom showed a lively sympathy for all those who had taken part in the rebellion of 1869. The influence of French Canada was also seen in the later action of the ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... these reasons, I do not believe that any community in which power is much concentrated will long refrain from conflicts of the kind involving a sacrifice of what is most valuable in the individual. In Russia at this moment, the sacrifice of the individual is largely inevitable, because of the severity of the economic and military struggle. But I did not feel, in the Bolsheviks, any consciousness of the magnitude of this misfortune, or any realization of the importance of the individual as against the State. Nor do I ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... force first for the benefit of the doctor, next for Mrs Henderson—who had also succumbed to a similar though much milder attack—and lastly for himself. Nothing that was done, however, appeared to be of the slightest service, the symptoms continuing with unmitigated severity for fully eight hours, after which they gradually subsided. Gaunt was quite himself again by noon next day; Mrs Henderson recovered about eighteen hours later; but as for the doctor, it was fully a week before he entirely shook off the effects of the attack. But in less than ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... "these words show that when this is not to be feared, that is to say, when a man's crime is so publicly known, and so hateful to all, that he has no defenders, or none such as might cause a schism, the severity of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... was not set off by the severity of her toilet; there was no touch of spring or brightness anywhere, no look or note which should belong to one so young, unless it was the extreme thinness ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... fled of late the troublesome domain of conduct for what I should have supposed to be the less congenial field of art: there she may now be said to rage, and with special severity in all that touches dialect; so that in every novel the letters of the alphabet are tortured, and the reader wearied, to commemorate shades of mis-pronunciation. Now spelling is an art of great difficulty in my eyes, and I am inclined to lean upon ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crises. The financial crisis must be looked upon as an economic disease which brings many evils in its train. The need is not merely to mitigate the severity of the brief period of crisis, but also to smooth out the curve of the business cycle so as to reduce periodic unemployment, the lottery element in profits, and the number of unmerited failures in ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... than any of us, so it was but just that she should be most commended. But of all who lagged behind her, and who felt Madame's severity, and created despair in the mind of the little arithmetic-master, the most unlucky was ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... eighteen pieces of cannon, in a flotilla of sixty bateaux and three hundred canoes. Trent had planted himself in Pittsburgh on February 17, 1754, a date important because it marks the first permanent white settlement there. But his work had been retarded alike by the small number of his men and the severity of the winter; and when Contrecoeur arrived in April, the young subaltern who commanded in Trent's absence surrendered the unfinished works, and was permitted to march away with his thirty-three men. The French completed the fort and named ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... in real life the virtues with which fiction has invested the imaginary character of Jeanie Deans. Refusing the slightest departure from veracity even to save the life of a sister, she neverthless showed her kindness and fortitude by rescuing her from the severity of the law; at the expense of personal exertions which the time rendered as difficult as the motive was laudable. Respect the grave of poverty when combined with love ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... that the negro laborers are easily managed, and will endure a great deal of severity if you deal "squarely" with them; but if you wrong them out of even five cents, they will never forget it. What's more, every citizen of "Blackville" will be informed of the fact, for what one knows they all seem to ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... cry of the democrats for reform. In Carthage there already prevailed all that opulence which marks powerful commercial cities, while the manners and police of Rome still maintained at least externally the severity and frugality of the olden times. When the ambassadors of Carthage returned from Rome, they told their colleagues that the relations of intimacy among the Roman senators surpassed all conception; that a single set of silver plate sufficed for the whole ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... severity with which they are treated by their own people, and the kindness that they experience in us." (Mas, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... course this fact was regarded as irrelevant. The next resolution was that the concubines of patriots should enjoy the same right to rations as legitimate wives. As the Club prides itself upon the stern severity of its morals, this resolution was not carried. An orator then proposed that all strangers should be banished from France. He was so exceedingly lengthy that I did not wait until the end of his speech; I am, therefore, unable to say whether ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... engaging the enemy, and upon whose efficiency and success a vast deal depended, were grudgingly provided with or altogether denied arms and ammunition, unless they could be captured from the enemy. Hard and constant as was the service the cavalryman performed, exposed as he was to the severity of all sorts of climate, without shelter, and often without the means of building the fire which stood him in stead of tent, and sometimes had to furnish him the strength and cheer of the food he lacked, he was yet snubbed mercilessly, and Generals commanding stared ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... know, Caroline," said Grandmamma, with severity, "where you picked up such levelling ideas? Why, they are Whiggery, and worse. I cannot bear these dreadful mob notions that creep about now o' days. We shall soon be told that a king may as ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... to her deceased friend, that till his parents removed to another place, five years afterwards, she never, except in the greatest severity of winter, passed the night any where else than ...
— Minnie's Pet Cat • Madeline Leslie
... during those years of youthful wanderings, does he ever seem, except upon one memorable occasion, to have been made to suffer from the unconscientiousness, the harshness, the infidelity, the indifference of the men and women whom he met, any more than in his boyhood he had suffered from the severity of his masters, the brutality of his tutor-servants, or the ill-nature of his fellow pupils. Fate and the world were extremely kind to Vittorio Alfieri: giving him every advantage and comfort, and teaching him no cruel lessons. But Vittorio Alfieri was ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... source are almost incredible. In some severe cases, the numbers contained in human bodies have been estimated by reliable authorities to be as high as forty to sixty millions. Not long ago, the writer was impressed with the severity of this disease by having brought to his attention an epidemic in a herd of swine caused, presumably, by feeding waste which contained rinds of Western pork, infected with trichinae and many examples may be found of regular epidemics caused by persons eating ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... fair, slight-made little girl, of about twelve years of age. She was simply clad in a short worsted petticoat and bodice of a dark colour; her head was bare, and her hair fluttered with the breeze; her small feet, notwithstanding the severity of the weather, were also naked, and her short petticoat discovered her legs half way up to the knee. She stood there, within a few inches of the precipice below, carelessly surveying the waves as they dashed over the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... cabled to their London edition—that's what it said in the paper; and by this time they must have it in Australia," said Miss Hernshaw, with unrelieved severity. ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... upon (p. 083) writing all over again in his own language. All this nettled Mr. Adams exceedingly. On September 24 he again writes that it was agreed to adopt an article which he had drawn, "though with objections to almost every word" which he had used. "This," he says, "is a severity with which I alone am treated in our discussions by all my colleagues. Almost everything written by any of the rest is rejected, or agreed to with very little criticism, verbal or substantial. But every line ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... armour," "Thou shalt be speedy," "Thou shalt shelter from the more powerful," are some of the laws of primeval life. The appearance of each higher and more destructive type enforces them with more severity; and in their observance animals branch outward and upward into myriads ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... recognised the companion of those often weary, often hungry days, when pockets were empty, fortunes at dead-low tide, and Scotland and wife and children very far away. In public the Chancellor treated his old friend with severity, but arranged with his son, Sir Andrew Home, then a young lawyer, to see Captain Burd alone. Timidly and nervously, with downcast eyes, the poor man repeated the tale to which the Chancellor had already listened. In silence he heard it again, and ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... hands. His hair is a deep chestnut-brown that at first sight seems black. In his early manhood he was superb in looks, as his pictures show, but anxiety and work and the constant flight of years, with physical pain, have settled his face into lines of sadness and almost of severity, which instantly vanish when he speaks. And his face is ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... are always looking out into the future, and vexing ourselves with endless fears as to how things are to go then. There is no divine promise, that, if a reckless blockhead leaves his children to starve, they shall not starve. And a certain inspired volume speaks with extreme severity of the man who fails to provide for them of his own house. But there is a divine promise which says to the humble Christian,—"As thy days, so shall thy strength be." If your affairs are going on fairly now, be thankful, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... winter residence. Louis XIV. came in person to Marseilles to quell the disturbances under the Fronde. He took the town by storm, and had Fort St. Nicolas constructed. Marseilles repeatedly suffered from the plague, and an epidemic raged from May 1720 to May 1721 with a severity for which it is almost impossible to find a parallel; Bishop Belsunce, Chevalier Rose, and others immortalised themselves by ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... wiry youth in high-heeled boots came down to the water's edge. His face was boyish, but with a premature severity that hinted at a man's experience. His complexion was naturally dark; and the sun and wind of an outdoor life had burned it to a coffee brown. His hair was as black and straight as an Indian's; his face had not yet been upturned to the humiliation ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the greater part of the evening that was left after the concert. He was very grave, and took the tone of a fatherly friend; he spoke guardedly of the people present, and moderated the severity of some of Christine's judgments of their looks and costumes. He did this out of a sort of unreasoned allegiance to Margaret, whom he was in the mood of wishing to please by being very kind and good, as she always was. He had the sense also of atoning by this ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... taking along with them the servants, whose duty it was to be on night watch in the garden, and other domestics as well, they visited each place on their round. Such was the control exercised by these three inmates that signs were not wanting to prove that greater severity was observed than in the days when the management devolved on lady Feng. To this reason must be assigned the fact that all the servants attached inside as well as outside cherished a secret grudge against them. "No sooner," they insinuated, "has one patrolling ogre come than they ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... manner—especially of the line engravers—one must admit that there is a great variety of talent; combined with equal knowledge of drawing and of execution; but the general effect is too frequently hard, glittering, and metallic. The draperies have sometimes the severity of armour; and the accessories, of furniture or other objects, are frequently too highly and elaborately finished. Nor is the flesh always free from the appearance of marble. But the names I have mentioned, although not entirely without some of these defects, have great ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... on her errands, social and philanthropic, Isabelle sometimes mused on the lives of the "others,"—all those thousands that filled the streets and great buildings of the city. Of course the poor,—that was simple enough; the struggle for life settled how one would live with ruthless severity. If it was a daily question how you could keep yourself housed and fed, why it did not matter what you did with your life. In the ranks above the poor, the little people who lived in steam-heated apartments and in small suburban boxes had ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... the cuddy," he began in a tone of mincing severity, "are not pleased at the raucous uproar said to be coming from a mess of officers and gentlemen. We are pained. We come to lend our presence to what might otherwise develop into an unseemly brawl——" ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... through a plain covered with deep snow (in some places six feet deep), and at times in the face of a north wind so intolerably chilling and piercing, that at length one of the prophets urged the necessity of offering sacrifices to Boreas[66]; upon which (says Xenophon), the severity of the wind abated conspicuously, to the evident consciousness of all. Many of the slaves and beasts of burthen, and a few even of the soldiers, perished: some had their feet frost-bitten, others became blinded by the snow, others again were exhausted by hunger. Several ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... amused herself by imagining a Net of Constellations which she nailed by shooting stars to four enormous pine trees that grew across the torrent. She described the great mountains that enclosed her father's estate, her loneliness in this giant garden, due to his morose severity of character, her yearnings to escape and see the big world beyond the ridges. All her thought and longing went to the fashioning of this Net, and every night she flung it far across the peaks and valleys to catch companions ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... that would interpret this his public severity to be particular ambition, and that, under a pretext of service to us, he doth but remove his own lets: alleging the strengths he hath made to himself, by the praetorian soldiers, by his faction in court and senate, by the offices he holds himself, and confers on others, his ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... The sharp-shooting of these troops did such terrible execution that the pass was soon cleared, though not without the display of great heroism, and some loss; and the Americans entered Embudo without further opposition. The difficulties of this campaign were greatly increased by the severity of the weather, the mountains being thickly covered with snow, and the cold so intense that a number of men were frost-bitten and disabled. The next day Burgwin reached Las Trampas, where Price arrived with the remainder ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... The severity of the magistrates at the quarter-sessions was equally revolting. I notice in one case, where the leading magistrate on the bench was a great local magnate, an M.P. for Salisbury, etc., a poor fellow with the unfortunate name ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... who held her in parley for his diversion, answered, 'Madam, thou hast not presently trusted thine honour in my hands for any love that thou borest me, but to regain him whom thou hast lost, wherefore it meriteth but greater severity, and if thou think that this way alone was apt and opportune unto the vengeance desired of me, thou thinkest foolishly; I had a thousand others; nay, whilst feigning to love thee, I had spread a thousand snares ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... war is being reorganized, we would modestly suggest that a little severity—say an occasional halter—would not be out of place as regards deserters. There has been altogether too much of this amusement in vogue, which a few capital punishments in the beginning would have entirely obviated. Pennsylvania, we are told, is full of hulking runaway young farmers, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... The severity of this winter caused great difficulties in Kentucky. The enemy had destroyed most of the corn the summer before. This necessary article was scarce and dear, and the inhabitants lived chiefly on the flesh ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... the churches. Boards were laid over the tops of the pews, on these some straw was spread, and on this the wounded lay, with little or no covering other than such scanty clothes as they had on. There were wounds of all degrees of severity, but I heard no groans or murmurs. Most of the sufferers were hurt in the limbs, some had undergone amputation, and all had, I presume, received such attention as was required. Still, it was but a rough and dreary kind of comfort that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... put in force. The identification, for instance, of the dead after a big battle. Others are subject to doubt, unless you insert "lorsque les circonstances le permettent, s'il se peut, si possible, s'il-y-a necessite," or the like. This will give them that elasticity without which the bitter severity of actual warfare will break through ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... class lower even than the Sudras, for it is not one of the original pure classes, but springs from an unauthorized union of individuals of different castes. These are the Pariahs, who are employed in the lowest services and treated with the utmost severity. They are compelled to do what no one else can do without pollution. They are not only considered unclean themselves, but they render unclean everything they touch. They are deprived of all civil rights, and stigmatized by particular laws regulating their mode of life, their houses, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Montagu brought home the custom of inoculation from Turkey (a perilous practice many deem it, and only a useless rushing into the jaws of danger), I think the severity of the small-pox, that dreadful scourge of the world, has somewhat been abated in our part of it; and remember in my time hundreds of the young and beautiful who have been carried to the grave, or have only risen from ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... to Montmorency seemed to disconcert Madam d'Epinay; probably she did not expect it. My melancholy situation, the severity of the season, the general dereliction of me by my friends, all made her and Grimm believe, that by driving me to the last extremity, they should oblige me to implore mercy, and thus, by vile meanness, render myself contemptible, to be suffered to remain in an asylum which honor commanded ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... accompanied his criticisms. Both these expressions, and Wycherley's acknowledgment of them, were omitted in Pope's publication. More than two years elapsed, when (in April, 1710) Wycherley submitted a new set of manuscripts to Pope's unflinching severity; and it is from the letters which passed in regard to this last batch that the general impression as to the nature of the quarrel has been derived. But these letters, again, have been mutilated, and so mutilated as to increase the apparent tartness of the mutual ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles could never soften, or his utmost gaiety render placid and serene; but when that sternness of visage was increased by rage, it is scarce possible to imagine looks or features that carried in them ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Bible! no such thing, sir; but, Captain, begging your pardon we will have nothing more about the bible; you see we are met here, as friends and good fellows, to enjoy ourselves after the severity of our spiritual duties, and we must relax a little; we can't always carry long faces like Methodist parsons—come, Pairah More, let the Bible take a nap, and ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... House. It had not even been necessary to resort again to the manufacture of the coarse felt materials. Though the colonists had suffered from cold during their first winter, the bad season might now come without their having any reason to dread its severity. Linen was plentiful also, and besides, they kept it with extreme care. From chloride of sodium, which is nothing else than sea salt, Cyrus Harding easily extracted the soda and chlorine. The soda, which it was easy to ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... Westminster; and the evening was spent in the effusions of joy and confidence. It was not without some awe and apprehension that I approached the presence of my father. My infancy, to speak the truth, had been neglected at home; the severity of his look and language at our last parting still dwelt on my memory; nor could I form any notion of his character, or my probable reception. They were both more agreeable than I could expect. The domestic discipline of our ancestors has been relaxed by the philosophy and softness of the age; ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... strife with Louis XI., king of France, whose suzerain, or nominal vassal, he was. The king was instrumental in stirring up rebellion in several cities of the Low Countries, which the duke put down with his accustomed severity. ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... movements were in progress on the extreme western end of the line in Belgium and on the southeastern wing in Alsace. At Verdun continuous fighting of the fiercest character had been going on for over sixty days, surpassing in time and severity any individual battle in history. The army of the Crown Prince had been unable to force the French positions in the vicinity of Verdun and the check sustained by the Germans at this point early in the campaign constituted ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... pinned against the wall in agony by a leathern belt passed round his shoulders and drawn violently round two staples in the wall. His arms were jammed against his sides by a straight waistcoat fastened with straps behind, and those straps drawn with the utmost severity. But this was not all. A high leathern collar a quarter of an inch thick squeezed his throat in its iron grasp. His hair and his clothes were drenched with water which had been thrown in bucketsful over him, and now dripped from him on the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... think what the world may, I know him better than they do; and I know there is not a finer creature in existence. I hope his old friends will not desert him,' added Captain Cadurcis, with a smile which, seemed to deprecate the severity of Lady Annabel; 'for in spite of all his fame and prosperity, perhaps, after all, this is the time ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... off the too apparent tendency to mortification that continued, much to the anxiety of the surgeon, for many days. During this time, he suffered almost incessant pain—frequently of an excruciating character. The severity of this pain entirely destroyed all desire for intoxicating drink. This desire, however, gradually began to return, as the pain, which accompanied the knitting of the bones, subsided. But he did not venture ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... kingship, to choose not to be a king when you might. Manlius conquered his father, imperious [Footnote: There is an allusion to the surname of both the father and the son, "Imperiosus" given them on account of their severity.] though he was, when, in spite of his having previously been banished for a time by his father on, account of his dulness and stupidity as a boy, he came to an interview which he had demanded with the tribune of the people, who had filed ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... of nerve and energy, one in his prime, and unfettered by party-traditions and bargains for "the spoils." His characterization of a more experienced functionary, who had once served in the State Department, was more severe than I ever heard from him of any other person; and severity from a man of his judicious and kindly impulses had a meaning ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... whose office it is to watch such aspirants, to a high place among historians. He has taken a seat on the dais without being challenged by a single seneschal. To oppose the progress of his fame is now almost a hopeless enterprise. Had he been reviewed with candid severity, when he had published only his first volume, his work would either have deserved its reputation, or would never have obtained it. "Then," as Indra says of Kehama, "then was the time to strike." The time was neglected; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the rich and lavish ornamentation of its interior making ample amends for the severity of its exterior design. The four corners of the building were occupied by spacious rooms, or possibly subsidiary chapels, the doors of which were closed, but the main or principal temple was open, and into ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... elevation of which is 1173 toises above the level of the ocean. This phenomenon, which had not been seen for several centuries, took place on the day that the Jesuits were expelled, and was attributed by the people to that act of severity. A more striking exception was found in the climate of Valladolid, the capital of the province of Mechoacan. According to my measures, the height of this town, situate in latitude 19 degrees 42 minutes, is only ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... all attempts at correspondence between Margaret or the exiled Lancastrians and himself had been jealously watched, and when detected, the emissaries had been punished with relentless severity. A man named Hawkins had been racked for attempting to borrow money for the queen from the great London merchant, Sir Thomas Cook. A shoemaker had been tortured to death with red-hot pincers for abetting her correspondence with her allies. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... houses, and proctors of the university, knowing the invidious scrutiny to which their conduct was subjected, thought proper to publish a declaration, signifying their abhorrence of all seditious practices, their determined resolution to punish all offenders to the utmost severity and rigour of the statutes; and containing peremptory orders for the regulation of the university. Notwithstanding these wise and salutary precautions, the three boys, who in the heat of their intoxication had drunk the pretender's health, were taken into custody ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... he would still have believed that the presence of Pina during the lessons was a trustworthy safeguard against any 'accident to Ortensia's affections,' as he would have expressed the danger. He had unbounded faith in Pina's devotion to him and in her severity as a chaperon. On the rare occasions when the young girl was allowed to leave the palace without her uncle, Pina accompanied her in the gondola, and sometimes on foot as far as the church of the Frari, where she went to confession once a month; but, as a rule, she had her daily airing with the Senator ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... that the princess was, at this time of her life, such a low-minded creature, that severity had greater influence over her than kindness. She understood terror better far than tenderness. When the wise woman looked at her thus, she fell on her knees, and held up her ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... the verdict in the civil trial of the dead Ruthvens. We shall meet this Hall, and Hewatt (one of the two ministers who professed belief), in very strange circumstances later (p. 217). Here it is enough to have explained the King's motives for severity. ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... thence to do the same, and they had an hundred times more opportunity of revenge than he; that being necessitated to get their livelihood by fishery, they should hereafter always be in danger of their lives. By these reasons he was persuaded to bridle his anger, and remit the severity of his oath. ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... of the country had so far changed, that it had been impossible to enter on the task of sowing seed, and other autumnal labours. That season was now gone; and winter had set in with sudden and unusual severity. Alternate frosts and thaws succeeding to floods, rendered the country impassable. Heavy falls of snow gave an arctic appearance to the scenery; the roofs of the houses peeped from the white mass; the lowly cot ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... closed eyes, describing with words and mimic gestures the doings of his own soul as it follows after and eventually overtakes that of the patient. When this point is reached his gestures generally express the difficulty and the severity of the efforts required to induce the soul to return; and the anxious relatives then usually encourage him by bringing out gongs or other articles of value, and depositing them as additions to the DAYONG'S fee. Thus stimulated, he usually succeeds in leading ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Doncaster was not on the whole unhappy, and the steady discipline of the school was doing me much good. Mr. Cape was a very severe master, and he used the cane very freely; but to a boy who had lived under the tyranny of my father Mr. Cape's severity seemed a light affliction. He kept up his dignity by seldom appearing in the schoolroom; he sat in his library or in the dining-room in a large morocco-covered arm-chair, holding a book in one hand whilst the other was always ready to clasp the cane that he ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... also occurred during the four months since Thady had given himself up to the authorities, which had determined the law officers of the government to follow up Ussher's murderer with all severity, and ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... of mine did succeed. That name "Henrik" often struck my ear. Father Fromm was called Henrik, but he himself uttered the name: that therefore could not be other than his son. My grandmother spoke of him in pitiful tones, whereas Father Fromm assumed a look of inexorable severity, when he gave information on this subject; and as he spoke I gathered frequently the words "prosodia,"—"pensum"—"labor"—"vocabularium"—and many other terms common to dog-Latin: among which words like "secunda"—"tertia"—"carcer" served as a sufficiently ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... was, doubtless, an unforgiving—eminently an unchristian—spirit: but vengeance, sure and swift, was the only thing which could impress the hostile savage. And, if example, in a matter of this sort, could be availing, for their severity to the Indians, they ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... generation is its lack of gentleness. Our age is harsh when it judges, brutal when it blames and savage in its severity. Carlyle, emptying vials of scorn upon the people of England, numbering his generation by "thirty millions, mostly fools," is typical of the publicists, authors and critics who pelt their brother man with ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... was his first batch of cases, and he was anxious to make as good a record as possible. He had no doubt of the prisoner's guilt. There had been a great deal of petty thieving in the county, and several gentlemen had suggested to him the necessity for greater severity in punishing it. The jury were all white men. The prosecuting attorney ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... which at that moment were fixed upon vacancy with a look of thought and calmness very unusual to their ordinary restless and rapid glances. His mouth, that great seat of character, was firmly and obstinately shut; and though, at the first observation, its downward curve and iron severity wore the appearance of unmitigated harshness, disdain, and resolve, yet a more attentive deducer of signs from features would not have been able to detect in its expression anything resembling selfishness or sensuality, and in that absence would have found sufficient ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... men use the disgusting practice of rubbing fish-oil into their skins; but they are compelled to this as a guard against the effects of the air and of mosquitoes, and flies; some of which are large, and bite or sting with much severity. But the oil, together with the perspiration from their bodies, produces, in hot weather, a most horrible stench. I have seen some with the entrails of fish frying in the burning sun upon their heads, until the oil ran down over their foreheads. A remarkable ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... and cause all such persons as are guilty of robbery, felony, or the like crimes, to be sent round to this place in order to take their trial at the annual assizes held here, as I am determined to proceed against all such with the utmost severity of the law. Given under my hand at St. John's, the ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... the contrary, a singular advantage, not only in the greater extent of the field of investigation opened to me by my daily pursuits, but in the severity of some lessons I accidentally received in the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the fire lighted, and an early breakfast in course of preparation. Much had to be done, and it behoved them to set about it with energy and at once, for the short autumn of these arctic regions was drawing on apace, and a winter of great length and of the utmost severity ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... was to subsequently acquire a most sinister reputation as a state prison, yet the present is the first recorded instance of the committal of a great and notorious offender to its dungeon cells. Subsequently, however, the severity of the bishop's imprisonment appears to have been somewhat mitigated, for the King ordered him to be allowed the large sum of two shillings a day for his maintenance; so that, although a prisoner, he was enabled to ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... This threat instantly hardened both hearts against him. The wife represented Roland to the boy as a tyrant, as an enemy, as one who had destroyed all the happiness they had before enjoyed in each other, as one whose severity showed that he hated his own child; and the boy believed her. In his own house a firm union was formed against Roland, and protected by the cunning which is the force of the weak ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thought how the character of the various races of the world is more or less determined by the nature of the country of their origin? Rugged mountains and a hard climate produce people of a similar severity of type, and, on the other hand, one naturally looks for poetry and music in a people so pleasantly and romantically situated as are the Italians. In the same way the Burmese are pretty much what their country has made them. The land is so very fertile ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... you must not stop them," said Helen quietly. "These little ebullitions must not be suppressed in that way—I mean with undue severity." ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... gasped the other girl, turning a white, miserable face toward Miss Cloud as if to appeal to her leniency. But there was a severity in Julia Cloud's face now after her long hours of anxiety that boded no good for the cause of all ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... do, Sahwah," said Nyoda, with mock severity. "I want it distinctly understood that anybody who indulges in puns on this trip is going to ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... at the answering glance of his. He then, in a very few words, set the matter before her, with such a happy mixture of pointedness and kindness, that while the reproof coming from him went to the quick, Ellen yet joined with it no thought of harshness or severity. She was completely subdued, however; the rest of the riding lesson had to be given up, and for an hour Ellen's tears could not be stayed. But it was, and John had meant it should be, a strong check given to her besetting sin. It had a long and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Hierarchical, headed by Laud, and the Nonconformist or Puritan." For the latter, Calvin had become the sole authority, and even as early as 1603, their preachers made up more than a ninth of the clergy. The points of disagreement increased steadily, each fresh severity from the Prelatical party being met by determined resistance, and a stubborn resolution never to yield an inch of the new convictions. No clearer presentation of the case is to be found anywhere than in Mason's life of Milton, the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... the bell, and ordered her water-proof things. It was still pouring with rain; and the close carriage had gone, as you know, with Miss Rachel to Frizinghall. I tried to dissuade her ladyship from facing the severity of the weather. Quite useless! I asked leave to go with her, and hold the umbrella. She wouldn't hear of it. The pony-chaise came round, with the groom in charge. "You may rely on two things," she said to Sergeant Cuff, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... oppressed her conscience and gave a hangdog look to her face for two weeks before she got it out of her pocket, and then she put it under the pillow of Julia's bed, and had reason to believe that the suspicious Mrs. Anderson confiscated it within five minutes. For the severity of maternal government was visibly increased thereafter, and Julia received many reminders of her ingratitude and of her determination to kill her self-sacrificing ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... to affect. For these two years he was one of the most intimate companions of his sovereign, in his festivities and most private debaucheries. He became cordially detested throughout the city for his reckless severity, and still more throughout the Court, for the fearless manner in which he spoke to the King of the malversation and peculations of the minister and all the Court favourites who were not in his interest. He thwarted the imbecile old minister, Roshun-od Dowlah, in everything; and never lost an opportunity ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... one's soul always seeks for truth, but to argue, to discuss details, which after all are of no possible importance, no more part of the eternal verities than a man's—buttons are of his character! Now, remember," with smiling severity, "never again!" She laid her head down on his shoulder. "We are so happy, John, so happy; why should we disturb the peace of life? Never mind what we think on such matters; ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the Church; he had all the Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor; as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to my frankest and fullest confidence, sir—and, highly as I prize the advantages of your society, I can't consent to cultivate your friendship on any other than equal terms." He threw open his respectable frock-coat and surveyed his visitor with a manly and virtuous severity. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... own judges; nobody can hinder us, nor is it in itself to be blamed. But, sure, it is not safe to take all liberty that is allowed us,—there are not many that are sober enough to be trusted with the government of themselves; and because others judge us with more severity than our indulgence to ourselves will permit, it must necessarily follow that 'tis safer being ruled by their opinions than by our own. I am disputing again, though you told me ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... drives and many skirmishes, one stands out for its severity. It is remarkable as being the last action of any importance in the campaign. This was the fight at Moolman's Spruit, near Ficksburg, upon April 20th, 1902. A force of about one hundred Yeomanry and forty Mounted Infantry (South Staffords) was despatched by night to attack an isolated farm ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... time you might have seen another man, of slight figure and rustic aspect, with an air of seriousness, if not severity, moving with the crowd, but with something remote and reserved in his air, as if in the city he bore with him another atmosphere, and were still secluded among solitary hills. In the bright and busy street of the city which was always cosmopolitan, and in which ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... John Brown—"The Hero of Harper's Ferry"—a hot-headed, blood-thirsty brigand; they animadverted against the precipitancy of his measures, and the severity of his invectives; said that he was lacking in courage and deficient in judgment; that he retarded rather than accelerated the cause he championed. But this was the verdict of other times, not the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... They had clothed the dead in white and crossed her hands upon her breast. A linen covering had been passed, nun-like, round the head and chin. The wound was hidden and the face lay framed in an oval of pure white, which gave it a strange severity. ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but when the wrong is not personal, it is for the most part susceptible of remedy. The author may challenge investigation of his book, the artist of his picture, the officer of his administration. If there has been unfair severity of criticism, they are likely to gain by it in the end, for every critic must justify ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... against Sir Geoffrey Peveril as having proceeded with indecent severity and haste upon this occasion; and rumour took care to make the usual additions to the reality. It was currently reported, that the desperate Cavalier, Peveril of the Peak, had fallen on a Presbyterian congregation, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the Principle of Love of Country Into That of Love of Man." In politics he took the Irish Catholic side of the Irish Question; he wrote strongly in favor of removing the political disabilities of women, and he criticized the severity of white men ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... Bismarck's fits of despondency; remark by Gneist. Gneist's story illustrating Bismarck's drinking habits. Difficulties in German-American "military cases'' after Baron von Blow's death. A serious crisis. Bismarck's mingled severity and kindness. His unyielding attitude toward Russia. Question between us regarding German interference in South America. My citations from Washington's Farewell Address and John Quincy Adams's despatches. Bismarck's appearance in Parliament. His mode of speaking. Contrast of his ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... but we have both a Whig narrative and a Jacobite narrative. [543] It seems that the prisoners who were first arraigned did not sever in their challenges, and were consequently tried together. Williams examined or rather crossexamined his own witnesses with a severity which confused them. The crowd which filled the court laughed and clamoured. Lunt in particular became completely bewildered, mistook one person for another, and did not recover himself till the judges took him ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and very short, but no such question was asked. Many circumstances had given room to suspect, that the captain-general secretly desired I should attempt an escape; and his view in it might either have been to some extraordinary severity, or in case his spies failed of giving timely information, to charging me with having broken parole and thus to throw a veil over his own injustice. Hence it might have been that he did not seek to know whether, being ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... he came so he flew away again, mysteriously and incomprehensibly. Again and again he lost his armed force. In some districts he closed the paths leading to wells in order to bring the refractory tribes to submission. With inflexible severity he broke the power of the chiefs who still carried on trade in slaves. He freed numbers of black captives and drilled them as soldiers, for his own fighting men were the scum of Egypt and Syria. With a handful of men he dealt his blows at the weakest points of the enemy's defence and thus always ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... it for the sin of getting tired of our own. I begin to sneeze when I land at Holyhead. Unbutton a waistcoat here, in the hope of meeting a heart, and you're lucky in escaping a pulmonary attack of no common severity, while the dog that infected you scampers off, to celebrate his honeymoon mayhap. Ah, but call at her house in shoals, the world 'll soon be saying it's worse than a coughing cold. If you came to lead her out of it in triumph, the laugh 'd be with you, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the invincible despotism which clothes the gentlemen of Christendom in a livery, we find the masculine mind disposed to severity in the ruling of fashions. Steele, for example, tells us the shocking story of an English gentleman who would persist in wearing a broad belt with a hanger, instead of the light sword then carried by men of rank, although in other respects he was a "perfectly ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... Churchyard, was born in Cornhill, London, December 26, 1716. His father, Philip Gray, an exchange broker and scrivener, was a wealthy and nominally respectable citizen, but he treated his family with brutal severity and neglect, and the poet was altogether indebted for the advantages of a learned education to the affectionate care and industry of his mother, whose maiden name was Antrobus, and who, in conjunction ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... desire to hasten to his journey's end or at least to make a start. He spat blood, and took scarcely any care of himself; for he believed himself guilty, and became his own accuser with too great a degree of severity. He no longer wished for life but as it might become instrumental to the defence of his country. "Has not our country," said he, "some paternal claims upon us? But we should have the power to serve it usefully: we ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... between Lisbon and Aldea Gallega, but especially at close of day in the winter season, or I should certainly not have ventured. The lad and his comrade, a miserable object, whose only clothing, notwithstanding the severity of the weather, was a battered jerkin and trousers, rowed until we had advanced about half a mile from the land; they then hoisted a large sail, and the lad, who seemed to be the principal and to direct everything, took the helm and steered. The ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... [40] but the vote of a last and hopeless remonstrance may seem to imply that the anathema was yet suspended over his guilty head. No sooner had they confirmed their own safety, the worship of images, and the freedom of Rome and Italy, than the popes appear to have relaxed of their severity, and to have spared the relics of the Byzantine dominion. Their moderate councils delayed and prevented the election of a new emperor, and they exhorted the Italians not to separate from the body of the Roman monarchy. The exarch was permitted to reside within the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... at West Point are not ostracized by the upper class men. These new men are merely "kept in their places" with great severity, and without any encouragement whatever. If the plebe can't stand it, then he is plainly not of the stuff to make a soldier. If he does stand it, he goes on into the upper classes, one after another, graduates ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... of their own; the severity of his denunciation of inextenuable crime was only equalled by the inadequacy of the punishment dealt out; as he explained on each occasion, he never ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... have all been transported to Galata, near the entrance of the port, where are nearly two thousand five hundred of the sects (Rabbinites and Caraites), and among them many rich merchants and silk manufacturers, but the Turks have a bitter hatred for them, and treat them with great severity. Only one of these rich Jews was allowed to ride on horseback, he was the Emperor's physician, Solomon, the Egyptian. As to the remarkable buildings of Constantinople, he mentions the Mosque of St. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... a nice hour of the night to be coming home," she said, trying to speak severely, but she could not maintain the severity in her voice, for his arms were about her ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... will occasionally be created by some accident, some fortuitous circumstance, than weeks of ordinary intercourse will produce. Walk down Bond Street in a hailstorm of peculiar severity and you may make a friend of the first person you meet, whereas you would be held to have committed an affront were you to speak to the same person in the same place on a fine day. You shall travel smoothly to York with a lady and she will look as though she would call the guard at once were you ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... hair-brain schoolmasters, aridi magistri, so [2123]Fabius terms them, Ajaces flagelliferi, are in this kind as bad as hangmen and executioners, they make many children endure a martyrdom all the while they are at school, with bad diet, if they board in their houses, too much severity and ill-usage, they quite pervert their temperature of body and mind: still chiding, railing, frowning, lashing, tasking, keeping, that they are fracti animis, moped many times, weary of their lives, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior |
