"Sober" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yonder behind the wagon mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home, you sit down, in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to your ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... that peculiar quality of Californian humor which was apt to mitigate the extravagances of the revolver and the uncertainties of poker had no place in the decorous and responsible utterance of San Francisco. The press was sober, materialistic, practical—when it was not severely admonitory of existing evil; the few smaller papers that indulged in levity were considered libelous and improper. Fancy was displaced by heavy articles on ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... strength and their weakness. They are not equally suitable to all races and to all circumstances. It was this obvious truth that Jefferson tore to shreds before the eyes of his compatriots. He persuaded them to accept his vague generalities as a sober statement of philosophic truth, and he aroused a hatred of kingship in America which was comic in expression and disastrous in result. It was due to his influence that plain citizens hymned the glories of "Guillotina, the Tenth Muse," and fell down in worship before a Phrygian ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... toward the body, but he was staring at the house and shaking his fist at it. He reeled off the cement path and almost stumbled over Simon before he saw him. He gave a cry, and stooped to look closer—then turned and bolted for dear life and vanished down the trail. He had been scared sober! ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... in the agitation of some disturbance. A moment later the sun caught files of bayonets. At the same instant the same thing happened at the end of the other converging street. The armed columns came steadily forward, the people giving way. Their men were dressed in sober citizens' clothes. The shining steel of the bayonets furnished the only touch of uniform. Quietly and steadily they came forward, the snake of steel undulating and twisting like a living thing. The ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... nine seniors, their faces very set and sober, were ranged in chairs round Carson's severely Philistine study. Tulke was not popular among them, and a few who had had experience of Stalky and Company doubted that he might, perhaps, have made an ass ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... the period of the Piagnoni, or Weepers. The citizens adopted sober attire; a spirit as of England under the Puritans prevailed; and Savonarola's eloquence so far carried away not only the populace but many persons of genius that a bonfire was lighted in the middle of the Piazza della Signoria in ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... halyards, dances and flickers like a flame, and at last perches, with dainty hesitation, at the mast-head. A tint of salmon-color, burnished into long undulations of lustre, overspreads the shallower waves; but a sober gray begins to steal in beneath the sunset rays, and will soon claim even the brilliant foreground for its own. Pile a few more fragments of drift-wood upon the fire in the great chimney, little maiden, and then couch yourself before it, that I may have your glowing ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... had seven learned counsellors whom he consulted on all the affairs of State. The day after the feast, when all were sober once more, they held a cabinet council to discuss a proper punishment for the rebellious queen. Memucan, Secretary of State, advised that she be divorced for her disobedience and ordered "to come no more before the king," for unless she was severely ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Indonesia, a vast polyglot nation, has restored financial stability and pursued sober fiscal policies since the Asian financial crisis, but many economic development problems remain, including high unemployment, a fragile banking sector, endemic corruption, inadequate infrastructure, a poor investment climate, and unequal resource distribution among regions. Indonesia became ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... worthy of remark that the word occurs in two passages of the Bible, both in Ecclesiasticus, and both places in connexion with directions and exhortations to a sober temperate mode of living, which is still recommended as the ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... the line for other staff duty, such as ordnance officer, commissary of musters, etc., and there was no lack of good material. The general officer who sought for sober, zealous, and bright young soldiers for his staff could always find them. They were his eyes and his hands in the responsible work of a campaign, yet their service was necessarily hidden a good deal from view, and their opportunities for personal distinction ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... eye. He consented and both this corrected draft and the copy as finally approved are now in Braithwaite's despatch box more modestly headed "Mediterranean Expeditionary Force." None of the drafts help us with facts about the enemy; the politics; the country and our allies, the Russians. In sober fact these "instructions" leave me to my own devices in the East, almost as much as K.'s laconic order "git" left me to myself when I quitted Pretoria for the West thirteen ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... aside from the execrable boot that Sir Shakleton had dreamed into existence, he himself possessed more warm clothing than he liked to carry around with him. But not a few soldiers forgot to look around and take sober stock of their actual situation and fell prey to this sob-stuff. Fortunately for the great majority of them, and this goes for every company, the great rank and file of officers and men never lost their heads and their ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... the wealth accumulated by the industrious and sober habits of the Jews, and to deprive them of the important positions which they had, by their uprightness and ability, obtained, was the object their adversaries had in view in raising this accusation in the ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... would not have wished that the same equal justice had been done to Christianity; that its real character and deeply penetrating influence had been traced with the same philosophical sagacity, and represented with more sober, as would become its quiet course, and perhaps less picturesque, but still with lively and attractive, descriptiveness? He might have thrown aside, with the same scorn, the mass of ecclesiastical fiction which envelops the early history of the church, stripped off the legendary romance, and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... have taught them to live religiously,' is Penn's sentiment, and perhaps not too unfaithful to the original. No one could have a more thorough contempt for the mystical element in Quakerism than Landor; but he loves Quakers as sober, industrious, easy-going people, who regard good-humour and comfort as the ultimate aim of religious life, and who manage to do without lawyers or priests. Peterborough, meanwhile, represents his other side—the haughty, energetic, cultivated aristocrat, who, on the ground ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... himself for him? It was just this reason: It was because he loved him. Again and again the story had said that Jonathan loved David as his own soul. I thought it was a mere hyperbole at first. I thought it might be a kind of poetic way of putting it, but it was only sober truth. And David spoke sober truth in that noble and manly lamentation when he said, "Thy love was wonderful to me, passing the love ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... night. He found bivouacking was not suitable to the character of the English soldier. He got drunk, and lay down under any hedge, and discipline was destroyed. But when he introduced tents, every soldier belonged to his tent, and, drunk or sober, he got to it before he went to sleep. I said, "Your grace, the French always bivouac." "Yes," he replied, "because French, Spanish, and all other nations lie anywhere. It is their ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... doubt that Henley expected him to come to try on the dress that night after the performance, which would account for his being such a long time changing. The victim did not come; by the look of him in death I should say he had not been sober, which would account for his not coming. Next morning Henley goes to find him, takes him to the tent, not through the door, which would be fastened probably in some way, but surreptitiously, through some weak spot in the pegging ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... of sober lives, and unblemished characters, were committed to prison; and the public prejudices had already pronounced their doom. Against charges of this nature, thus conducted, no defence could possibly be made. To be accused was to be found guilty. The very grossness ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... one he does hold. He has an impediment of the speech which at all times causes him to stammer badly. When he is excited it is only by a tremendous mental and physical effort and after repeated endeavours that he can form the words at all. In other regards he is a first-rate officer, sober, trustworthy ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... was not immediate with his answer, Peter Lumley, one of the group, a lazy ne'er-do-weel, who had known better days, but never better manners, and was seldom quite drunk, and seldomer still quite sober, struck in with, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... creatures are to enjoy its benefits. Here also, as among the English latitude-men, the conviction grew that the essentials of a Christian belief must be few and simple and these such as plain men could understand and discuss; and here, as among the sober Dissenters at home, men looked askance ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... faint odor of alcohol emanated from the cage in which he performed his labors and lent an atmosphere of cheerfulness to what might otherwise have seemed to Broadway clients an unsympathetic environment, though there were long annual periods during which he was as sober as a Kansas judge. The winds of March were apt, however, to take hold of him. Perhaps it was the spring in ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... to seem incredible even to minds more sober than those of Porteous and his companions, but it was perfectly true. Edinburgh had risen in the most mysterious way. From all parts of the town bands of men had come together; the guard-house ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... time were silent spectators, while viewing the persecution of their editor, and attack upon their own rights and privileges; they fondly hoped, that time would cure the evil, and sober reflection convince them of their error; but in this hope they were disappointed, their persecutions encreased; and to them more certainly to effect their object, and encouraged by the smiles of federalists, they secretly brought a new printing press into ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... a hard worker, and he was more sober than most the men in them days, and he never tell me to do nothing. He jest let Miss Mary tell me what to do. They have a log house close to the shop, and a little patch of a field at first, but after awhile he git more land, and then Miss Mary tell me and ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise as the rest. This man interested me at once; and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a sleeping-partner ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... appreciably. Since every member of the club possessed one or more of these valuable editions, they were all manifestly interested in keeping up the price. The publication, however, which brought the highest prices, and, but for the sober second thought, might have wrecked the ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... eat and drink a great deal to keep up their natural heat, which is constantly diminishing as they advance in years; and that it is therefore their duty to eat heartily and of such things as please their palate, be they hot, cold, or temperate, and that if they were to lead a sober life, it would be a short one. To this I answer; Our kind Mother Nature, in order that old men may live to still greater age, has contrived matters so that they may be able to subsist on little, as I do; for large quantities ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... answered as quietly as I could, that I did not apprehend my having written poetry rendered me incapable of speaking common sense in prose, and that I requested the audience to judge of me not by the nonsense I might have written for their amusement, but by the sober sense I was endeavouring to speak for their information, and only expected [of] them, in case I had ever happened to give any of them pleasure, in a way which was supposed to require some information and talent, [that] they would not, for that sole reason, ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... this way. Four months of ridiculous masquerade—made idiotic by the incredible fact that everyone took him for exactly what he pretended to be, and never challenged him—not even Terry Fisher, who drunk or sober always challenged everything and everybody! But the four months had told on his nerves, in his reactions, in the hollows under his quick brown eyes. There was always the spectre of a slip-up, an aroused suspicion. ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... circumstances, has enormously different strength, and very few men can fully realise the strength of a passion which they have never themselves experienced. To repeat an illustration I have already used, how difficult is it for a constitutionally sober man to form in his own mind an adequate conception of the force of the temptation of drink to a dipsomaniac, or for a passionless man to conceive rightly the temptations of a profoundly sensual nature! I have spoken in a former chapter of the force ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... treat love as if it were a passing whim; whereas in sober reality it is (or should be) a ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... if I bid thee To be my seneschal, and here with prayers, With sober thrift, and noble bounty shine, Alone and peerless? And suppose—nay, start not— I only said suppose—the war was long, Our camps far off, and that some winter, love, Or two, pent back this Eden stream, where now Joys upon joys like sunlit ripples pass, Alike, yet ever ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... his wife one day: "What a genial, sociable, humorous companion Penloe is; while of course, he is thoroughly in earnest and has but one purpose in all he does, which is to manifest what he calls the Divine, yet he is not serious, sober, and grave all the time; he is so joyous, hopeful, and full of good-natured fun, but he never lets it overcome him. I like him because he never says and does anything for effect or to be considered smart; he is so simple, humble, and unassuming ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... old gal. Sometimes, you know, when he's blind drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. Thar! I told you so!—thar he is,—coming this way, too,—all by himself, sober, and his face a-shining. ...
— Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte
... minister's son had hard work to push along his full wheelbarrow; rich Mr. Jones was laughing from the top of his piled-up cart; Tom Scraggs was trying to get help in carrying his baskets. Such a laughing, such fun, was never heard in Spinville, which is a sober place. And they all nodded to Mrs. Dyer, and gave shouts for Mr. Dyer, and offered Jedidiah rides in all their carts, those that had them, and asked Mrs. Dyer what they could do for her in Spinville. ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... laurels for roses, leaf by leaf, with any lady of the court who would make a fair exchange—and of these there were not a few, and the time seemed short to them. There were also ecclesiastics, but not many, in sober black and violet garments, and they kept together in one corner and spoke a jargon of Latin and Spanish which the courtiers could not understand; and all who were there, the great courtiers and the small, the bishops and the canons, the stout princesses ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... and weeds, there is yet, in all hearts born into this God's-World, a spark of the Godlike slumbering. Awake, O nightmare sleepers; awake, arise, or be forever fallen! This is not playhouse poetry; it is sober fact. Our England, our world cannot live as it is. It will connect itself with a God again, or go down with nameless throes and fire-consummation to the Devils. Thou who feelest aught of such a Godlike stirring in thee, any faintest intimation of it as through heavy-laden ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... over the ground at first, she gradually slackened her pace, and slowed down to a very sober walk until she came to a three-storied so-called "cottage" overlooking the Bay, then with a sigh she opened the gate, and went into the house ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... and recreations, was close upon us. Before it had fairly set in, however, an event of extraordinary importance was to occur in our little household. There had been premonitions of it for some time, which had a tendency to soften and soothe all asperities, and cause a rather sober and subdued air to pervade the little cottage, and now there were active preparations going on. Of course, the widow was gradually assuming the management of the whole affair, and it was a matter in which I could hardly venture ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... bubbles float therein, with more varied gorgeousness than the Queen of Sheba dreamed of putting on when she courted the eye of Hebrew Solomon! Sunday, this noise is still. Broadway is a quiet stream, looking sober, or even dull; its voice is but a gentle murmur of many waters calmly flowing where the ecclesiastical gates are open to let them in. The channel of business has shrunk to a little church-canal. Even in this great Babel of commerce one day in seven is given up to the minister. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... corrupt, and that Sir Thomas was not; that the borough was rotten as a six-months-old egg; that Glump had acted under one of Trigger's aides-de-camp; that intimidation was the law of the borough; and that beer was used so that men drunk might not fear that which sober they had not the courage to encounter. All this was known to everybody; and yet, up to the last, it was thought by many in Percycross that corruption, acknowledged, transparent, egregious corruption, would prevail even in ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... silent, sullen day, With a Sirocco, for example, blowing, When even the sea looks dim with all its spray, And sulkily the river's ripple's flowing, And the sky shows that very ancient gray, The sober, sad antithesis to glowing,— 'T is pleasant, if then anything is pleasant, To catch a glimpse even of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... bed! These houses are filled with beds from cellar to garret, four, five, six beds in a room; as many as can be crowded in. Into every bed four, five, or six human beings are piled, as many as can be packed in, sick and well, young and old, drunk and sober, men and women, just as they come, indiscriminately. Then come strife, blows, wounds, or, if these bedfellows agree, so much the worse; thefts are arranged and things done which our language, grown more ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... speech produced a singular effect on Grantaire. One would have said that he had had a glass of cold water flung in his face. He seemed to be rendered suddenly sober. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... for much, Madge," answered David honestly, "but I am more grateful to you than you can know for putting me on that list. Some day——" The young man hesitated, then his sober face relaxed and a brilliant smile lighted it. "It's pretty early for a fellow like me to be talking about some day, ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... a very sober lot of girls at school that afternoon. The jest was all taken out of recess. Hester sat on the steps reading a little pocket Testament. The others huddled together and shook their heads mysteriously, saying just ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... uplifted by the mystic effluence, the very emanation of the Middle Ages, for ever lost; and yet their works have retained a certain pomp, and in spite of all are pretentious, as opposed to the humble magnificence, the sober splendour of the Gregorian chant—with them the whole thing came to an end, for ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... great a happiness, and no charitable means to release him; since they who have lived most loosely, by reason of their bold accustoming, prove most successful in their matches, because their wild affections, unsettling at will, have been as so many divorces to teach them experience; whenas the sober man, honouring the appearance of modesty, and hoping well of every social virtue under that veil, may easily chance to meet ... often with a mind to all other due conversation inaccessible, and to all the more estimable and superior purposes of matrimony ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... comparatively quiet; and, moreover, since her last interview with Varney, in which, at all events, he had shown some feeling for the melancholy situation to which, he had reduced her, she had been more able to reason calmly, and to meet the suggestions of passion and of impulse with a sober judgment. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... When he was sober he locked the door, and when drunk he left it open, and Rhoda looted at will. And now comes the more important part of the confession. You remember that Clyne left the stiletto from Berwin ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... disappointment. The earth is convulsed with a universal sob, and the roads are muddy with tears. But I do not call to mind a more touching picture of unavailing misery and ruin, and hopeless chaos, than the plug hat that has endeavored to keep sober and maintain self-respect while its owner was drunk. A plug hat can stand prosperity, and shine forth joyously while nature smiles. That's the place where it seems to thrive. A tall silk hat looks well on a thrifty man with a clean collar, but it ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... the corps," replied the lieutenant, with some warmth. "Those blue eyes might easily win a man to gentler employments than this trade of ours. In sober truth, I can easily imagine such a girl might tempt even me to quit the broadsword and saddle, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... here in Philadelphia before Sir William came," her voice lowered, yet earnest, "and they are not playing at war; grim, silent, sober-faced men, dressed in odds and ends, not pretty to look at; some tattered and hungry, but they fight hard. Mr. Conway was telling us yesterday of how they suffered all winter long, while we danced and feasted here, Washington himself sleeping with the snow drifting over him. You do not know the ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... over to the chauffeurs and said, "On behalf of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Fishermen, which from time immemorial has held the palm for large, generous, and unrestricted stories of exploits, we confess the inadequacy of our qualifications, the bald literalness of our narratives, the sober and unadorned realism of our tales, and abdicate in favor of the new and most promising Order of Chauffeurs; may the blessing of Ananias rest ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... Miss Lady, suddenly sober, turned toward him a face grave and thoughtful. A certain portion of the old morbidness returned to her. "It's not kind of you, Colonel Cal," said she, "to remind me that I'm nobody. I'm worse than an orphan. I'm worse than a foundling. How I endure ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... we toward the court, my lords: I hear the king my father is sore sick: Our news shall go before us to his majesty, Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him, And we with sober speed will follow you. ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... all the other States of the Union, is undergoing the increasing pressure of democracy:[AJ] one of its features—which is peculiarly obnoxious to the more sober-minded of the community—is the new arrangement for the division of the electoral districts, and which goes by the name of "Gerymander." In the early days of the Republic, all divisions were made by straight ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... for their invincible courage and rapid conquests. The thrones of Asia have been repeatedly overturned by the shepherds of the North; and their arms have spread terror and devastation over the most fertile and warlike countries of Europe. On this occasion, as well as on many others, the sober historian is forcibly awakened from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance, to confess, that the pastoral manners, which have been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a military life. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... real. There is, also, close by the grotto, a dogs' burial-ground, in which more than a hundred animals, the favorites of the late duchess, lie buried. Over each is a tombstone, inscribed with a rhyming epitaph, written by the titled lady herself, and which is in sober sadness in every instance doggerel, as befits the subject. In order to degrade the associations of religion and church rites as effectually as possible, there is attached to these graves the semblance of a ruined chapel, the stained-glass window of which ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... somewhere at our journey's end Fu-Manchu awaited us was sufficient to sober my reflections—Fu-Manchu, who, with all the powers represented by Nayland Smith pitted against him, pursued his dark schemes triumphantly, and lurked in hiding within this very area which was so sedulously patrolled—Fu-Manchu, whom I had never seen, but whose ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... respected. One Neapolitan lady of distinction, he said, had been carried off by these corsairs, with eight children, two of whom had died, and she had been seen but a short time ago by a British officer in the thirteenth year of her captivity. These things were not exaggerations, they were sober truths; and he held that the toleration of such a state of things was a discredit to humanity, and a foul blot upon the fame of civilised nations. It is refreshing to hear men speak the truth, and call things by their right names, in plain ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... greater material comfort and a wider life for Anne. He himself counted for little in his schemes. At thirty-five he found himself, with all his flames extinguished, settling down into the dull habits and the sober ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... be odd if you don't kiss Ellen; and it will be odd if I arn't made second mate after we get home from this thundering long voyage; and, finally, it will be most especially odd if we find all our boat's crew sober when we get down to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... I conceived a wild notion of declaring myself to him; but a moment's reflection showed the absolute uselessness of this course. It was not one Simard with whom I had to deal, but half a dozen or more. There was Simard, sober, half sober, quarter sober, drunk, half drunk, quarter drunk, or wholly drunk. Any bargain I might make with the one Simard would not be kept by any of the other six. The only safe Simard was Simard insensible through over-indulgence. I had resolved to get Simard insensibly ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... and then, above the chatter of the people and the music of the orchestra, sounded the growl of a bear or the shrill screech of a paroquet, and the people all stopped and listened and laughed. This little titillation of the unusual in the midst of their sober walk of life affected them like champagne. Most of them were of the poorer and middle classes, the employes of the factories of Rowe. They moved back and forth with dancing steps ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... brought up in the rear by the dead body of Bruin borne on poles by six-and-twenty powerful serfs. Refreshments in the mean time have been administered to every body of high and low degree, and by the time they reach the depot there are but two sober individuals in the entire procession—his royal majesty and the bear. Farther refreshments are administered all round during the journey back to St. Petersburg, and, notwithstanding he is rigidly prohibited by his physician from the use of stimulating ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... great deal of imbecility about the closing scenes of the Ashburnham tragedy. Neither of those two women knew what they wanted. It was only Edward who took a perfectly clear line, and he was drunk most of the time. But, drunk or sober, he stuck to what was demanded by convention and by the traditions of his house. Nancy Rufford had to be exported to India, and Nancy Rufford hadn't to hear a word of love from him. She was exported to India and she never heard a ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... Hollenby manner,—had attached themselves here. Behind them was Nan Lawton, too boisterous even for the open air. At the head of the procession, now nearly topping the hill beneath the house, was that silent married couple, the heavy, sober man and the serene, large-eyed woman, who did not mingle with the others. He had pointed out to her the amiable Senator and President Beals, both well-known figures in the railroad world where he worked, far down, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... veil. I took it off. Then he threw his gun down—pushed the padre out of the door. That was just before the vaqueros approached with Bonita. Padre Marcos must have seen them—must have heard them. After that Stewart grew quickly sober. He was mortified—distressed—stricken with shame. He told me he had been drinking at a wedding—I remember, it was Ed Linton's wedding. Then he explained—the boys were always gambling—he wagered he would marry the first girl who ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... little Lewy Loses all his pretty smiles; He says they're very far away; At least a hundred miles. He looks as sober as a judge, As stately as a king, As solemn as a parson and As still as anything. And then our little Bertie, The witching willow bringing, Sends all the smiles safe home again, By waving it ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... were alone in the sitting-room a little later, when Mrs. Cory came in. Grandmother glanced at the sober face. "Is ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... a fool, Ikey; I can't deny it. I can't even lift my voice in protest. No man in his sober senses would have sold that necklace of glorious gems for such a miserable pittance. Here, Ikey, take back your money ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... new temper, proposed a rival theory of the origin of government. "Thou," he wrote to the Pope, "by the papal authority granted thee by men, thinkest to prevail over the authority of the royal dignity committed to me by God." The wisest of the churchmen of England used more sober language than all this. "Ecclesiastical dignity," wrote Ralph of Diceto, later the Dean of St. Paul's, "rather advances than abolishes royal dignity, and the royal dignity is wont rather to preserve than to destroy ecclesiastical liberty, for kings have no salvation without the Church, nor can ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... Finneston cried. "The drunken old reprobate! I'd forgotten he was alive. Wonderful constitution. Never drew a sober breath except when he was shipwrecked, and, when I remember him, into every deviltry afloat. He must be ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... flowers. Another cage, apart from all the rest, held an inmate that; so far as appearance went, you would have said had no right to be thus distinguished in having a house all to himself. He was of a sober grey colour, somewhat of the wagtail shape, with long black legs, and claws of a dirty hue; and was altogether an ill-favoured bird, not any better-looking than a common house-sparrow. Had you known nothing more about him than his outward appearance, you would hardly have ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Very sober to outward seeming, but in a frenzy within, he went down to the station one night, and, stooping to the pigeon-hole, he asked the ticket-clerk, in the suavest voice, whether he could tell him how far it was to London. The official put forward his face to reply ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... correspondents were already accustomed to this 'heavenly mingle.' Few of the letters, those works of nature, and almost more wonderful than works of art, are to be taken on oath. Those elaborate lies, which ramify through them into patterns of sober-seeming truth, are in anticipation, and were of the nature of a preliminary practice for the innocent and avowed fiction of the essays. What began in ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... mind was eased, and, being now at the entrance of the banqueting hall, he thanked his conductor, and ran hastily with joyful eyes to Margaret. He came in sight of the table—she was gone. Peter was gone too. Nobody was at the table at all; only a citizen in sober garments had just tumbled under it dead drunk, and several persons were raising him to carry him away. Gerard never guessed how important this solemn drunkard was to him: he was looking for "Beauty," and let ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... verisimilitude naturally and properly varies with the seriousness of the theme under treatment. Improbabilities are admissible in light comedy, and still more in farce, which would wreck the fortunes of a drama purporting to present a sober and faithful picture ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... sun, and we know ourselves, in its absence, how sombre existence becomes. Their complexions too, were very sallow, and their deportment struck us as sadly sober. A few of the women might possibly have been called pretty, notably two of their number, who possessed clear pale skins, good features, blue eyes, and lovely fair hair, which they wore braided in two long plaits, ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... the pleasant thought that I was a graduate of Tuskegee, that I little thought of the great responsibilities that awaited me, but when my more sober thought came I realized that I was going from most pleasant surroundings not to return the next year; that I was going out not to return and meet indulgent and persuasive teachers, loving classmates, and devoted friends. I then realized the full meaning of the phrase we had ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... joking; you know that. But in sober earnest, Lotte is advising me to marry. She wants me to marry Mrs Bold. She's a widow with lots of tin, a fine baby, a beautiful complexion, and the George and Dragon hotel up in High Street. By Jove, Lotte, if ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... frailties of the living, than he does of the instructions of departed characters. The family connections and the power of purse, with which the students are aided, embolden them to assume an unbounded license, and to set at complete defiance all sober rules and regulations; and it may be justly remarked that our public seminaries are admirably situated for the indulgence of their propensities: for instance, Westminster School is fortunately situated in the immediate neighbourhood of a famous place ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... wuck—he done twice so much as any hand on de plantation; but de next monfh, when he wuck fur me, he don't do nuffin but lay 'bout, an' git drunk. I stood dat till de monfh wus up—fur I neber did take ter whippin' de nigs, an' master Robert know dat—an' den w'en Cale wus clean sober, I tied him up to gib him a floggin'. Well, w'en he wus a stripped, an' I was jess gwine to lay on de lashes, Cale say to me, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the silvery tones of the orator, and the exhilarating fumes of the liquor which inspired it. The inhaler of the bewildering gas bends his slow steps at length to his sorry domicile, or wakes therein on the morrow, in a sober and practical mood. His very exaltation, now past, has rendered him more keenly susceptible to the deficiencies and impediments which hem him in: his house seems narrow, his food coarse, his furniture scanty, his prospects ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... gentleman chosen by Dr. Raymond to witness the strange experiment of the god Pan, was a person in whose character caution and curiosity were oddly mingled; in his sober moments he thought of the unusual and eccentric with undisguised aversion, and yet, deep in his heart, there was a wide-eyed inquisitiveness with respect to all the more recondite and esoteric elements in the nature of men. The latter tendency ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... pecuniary emolument to be derived by remaining in either situation. It was very probable that, provided I continued to keep an account of the hay and corn coming in and expended, the landlord would consent to allow me a pound a week, which at the end of a dozen years, provided I kept myself sober, would amount to a considerable sum. I might, on the retirement of old Bill, by taking his place, save up a decent sum of money, provided, unlike him, I kept myself sober, and laid by all the shillings and sixpences I got; but the prospect of laying up a decent sum of money was not of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... the Ottawa with several rafts, some two hundred miles or more. My own raft was manned by Canadians,—steady boys, who stuck to our laws, whatever they do to those of other people, and kept sober till they brought their raft safe into dock. Another raft was manned chiefly by Irishmen,—who, although I warned them, would indulge in strong drink. We were nearing the Chaudiere Falls, and I had brought my raft safe to shore, where it was taken ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... which is recorded of Socrates, that he was able both to abstain from, and to enjoy, those things which many are too weak to abstain from, and cannot enjoy without excess. But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... she works for life; But necessary 'tis for her to act, When thou art out, or naught would be exact. No pleasure ever yet received have I; But take my word, to get it now I'll try. Gallants are plenty; husbands should have wives; That, like themselves, lead gay or sober lives. ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... Excellencie[172] and do secretly bragg of their much prevailinge. Two of myne own Followers I have found corrupted, the one in such sorte as he refused to come to Prayers, whom I presently discharged; the other being an honest and sober young Gentleman, and one that denieth not to be present both at Prayers and Preachinge, I continue still, having good hope that I ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... wanted only a longer life to equal, if not to surpass it. With the bravery of the soldier, he united the calm and cool penetration of the general and the persevering fortitude of the man, with the daring resolution of youth; with the wild ardour of the warrior, the sober dignity of the prince, the moderation of the sage, and the conscientiousness of the man of honour. Discouraged by no misfortune, he quickly rose again in full vigour from the severest defeats; no obstacles could check his enterprise, no disappointments conquer his indomitable ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... which makes it a sin to partake of any liquor, however prudently, it was then never heard in the land. On the whole, the clergy of all denominations might be set down as brandy-and-water men, a few occasionally carrying out their principle to exaggeration. But the Rev. Mr. Whittle was a sober man, and, though he saw no great harm in enlivening his heart and cheering his spirits with brandy taken in small quantities, he was never known to be any the worse for his libations. It was the same with the deacon, though he ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... realities,—when he thought of the manner in which he became acquainted with Avis Gurley; how he persisted in gaining her affections, and kindling into an over-mastering flame his own fancy-lit love; and finally, how, against the known wishes of his family, and the dictates of his own sober judgment, he had urged her into an engagement of marriage, which he could now see had, as his mother predicted, in all probability led to a renewal of the intimacy between his father and Gaut Gurley, and that last intimacy to the present disaster, and a new quarrel, whose consequences ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... a little. "Nothing would convince me of it. The man who should have brought it was not sober. ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... have lost the distinctive attribute of human nature: they were treated as rational beings, were operated upon by rational motives; and they repaid this treatment by improved habits, by industry, and submission. They had been profligate, they were now sober and decent in their behaviour; they had been idle, they were now actively and usefully employed; they had disobeyed the laws, they now submitted (armed as they were with all kinds of utensils) to the government of a single turnkey, and the barrier ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... day where he got it, and his folks all temperance people), and how he stood out in the road and swore at the folks coming out of meeting, and how Melody came along and took him by the hand, and led him away down by the brook, and never left him till he was a sober man again? And every one knew Joel had never touched a drop of liquor from ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... their dislike was made more pronounced because of the fact that the more sober-minded men turned gladly to the irreproachable abode of Mrs. Huzzard, and the "bosses" of several "gangs" of workmen had arranged with her for their meals. Besides, the river men directed any strangers to her house; whereas, before, the saloons had been the first point ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... kicking, and pinching, and punching the bystanders, a malady well known under the name of hysterics; but being little more than a privileged mode, among certain ladies, of paying off some scores, which it is not thought decent to do in their more sober moments. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... which was to be used for the first time on this occasion. It was a ponderous machine, with drab body and wheels, and curtains of drab camlet looped up under its stately canopy. When it appeared at the gate, the Doctor came forth, spotless in attire, bland, smiling, a figure of sober gloss and agreeable odors. He led Mary Barton by the hand; and her steel-colored silk and white crape shawl so well harmonized with his appearance, that the two might have been taken for man and wife. Her face was calm, serene, and full of quiet gratitude. They took their places in the chair, the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... deductions therefrom, dissipate those senseless prejudices and extravagant delusions which have excited such a tempest in the public mind. It is clear enough to me that if he cannot, if vanity and resentment are too strong for sober reason and sound policy, no concessions we could make would save him from downfall, or save Europe from the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the accent of the compliment which unmistakably was begrudged. Nevertheless, the laugh stopped short at his lips, and his gray eyes were sober as they looked down upon his friend. The "puffic' fibbous" was distinctly worse for wear, that morning. His eyes were heavy, and his wavy hair clung limply about the temples where the hollows were showing ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... afterward he stood erect, confronting Hermann; and so total an alteration of countenance in so short a period I certainly never saw before. For a moment I even fancied that I had misconceived him, and that he was in sober earnest. He appeared to be stifling with passion, and his face was cadaverously white. For a short time he remained silent, apparently striving to master his emotion. Having at length seemingly succeeded, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... peoples, the child has occupied all sacerdotal positions from acolyte to pope—priest he has been, not in barbarism alone, but in the midst of culture and civilization, where often the jest begun has ended in sober earnest. In the ecclesiastical, as well as in the secular, kingdom, the child has often come to his throne when "young in years, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... say was the character of the Shetland people with regard to sobriety?-I should say that, on the whole, they are very sober and steady; and I may give an illustration of that. It is well known that the Shetlanders as seamen are very highly prized at ports in the south, such as Liverpool and Shields; and very often a shipmaster, when desiring a crew, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... writes after her return from one of them in 1868: "I don't think I ever enjoyed Boston so much as in this visit. Why was it! Every cloud seemed to turn out its silver lining, everybody was delightful, and the music has really done me good. I feel it all over me now. I think of it with a sober certainty of waking bliss! our little 'hub' is a grand 'hub.' Three cheers for it!... I have had sent me through the War Department a French poem which I think is full of real nerve and strength of feeling. I undertook the reading only as ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... the gospel does not so teach us." [58:5] In these letters Ignatius speaks as a vain babbler, drunken with fanaticism; Polycarp, in his Epistle, expresses himself like an humble-minded Presbyterian minister in his sober senses. Ignatius is made to address Polycarp as if he were a full-blown prelate, and tells the people under his care, "He that honoureth the bishop is honoured of God; he that doth aught against the knowledge of the bishop, rendereth service to the devil" [58:6] Polycarp, on the other ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... see me! We'll descend from the dream ... to the business; and have everything clear to our own satisfaction before we let in all the others. I always vowed I wouldn't accept a proposal after supper! If you're ... intoxicated, you might wake sober—disillusioned!" ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Christians had suffered by the hand of the executioner, except on account of their religion. [85] Their serious and sequestered life, averse to the gay luxury of the age, inured them to chastity, temperance, economy, and all the sober and domestic virtues. As the greater number were of some trade or profession, it was incumbent on them, by the strictest integrity and the fairest dealing, to remove the suspicions which the profane are too apt to conceive against ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... quit the search, and sat me down Beside the brook, irresolute, And watched a little bird in suit Of sober olive, soft and brown, Perched in the maple branches, mute; With greenish gold its vest was fringed, Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, With ivory pale its wings were barred, And its dark eyes were tender-starred. "Dear bird," I said, "what ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Morse was not content. He did not like the laziness and the disinclination for sober, legitimate work of this prospective son-in-law of his, for whose ideas he had no respect and of whose nature he had no understanding. So he turned the conversation to Herbert Spencer. Judge Blount ably ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... degree in some of his associates and followers. Leaving Boston, he sent, to succeed to his work, Gilbert Tennent, then glowing with the heat of his noted Nottingham sermon on "An Unconverted Ministry." At once men's minds began to be divided. On the one hand, so wise and sober a critic as Thomas Prince, listening with severe attention, gave his strong and unreserved approval to the preaching and demeanor of Tennent.[169:2] At the other extreme, we have such testimony as this ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... asserted, by the rabid ones, that General Sherman had given up all that we had been fighting for, had conceded every thing to Jos. Johnston, and had, as the boys say, "knocked the fat into the fire;" but sober reflection soon overruled these harsh expressions, and, with those who knew General Sherman, and appreciated him, he was still the great soldier, patriot, and gentleman. In future times this matter will be looked at more calmly and dispassionately. The bitter animosities ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... not complain. The truth was that, despite the dark thread of sober purpose which ran through those tolerably purple hours, he was being excellently entertained. Not by this sad business of scampering from one place of dubious fame to another; not by any reckless sense of rejuvenation to be distilled from ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... obeying some impulse, looked up, and saw the back of the young priest. He was running. As her dull gaze was about to fall again, it encountered for a moment the indignant blue eyes of a red-haired, hard-featured, but distinguished-looking young man, clad in sober gray. She knew him to be the American, Malcolm Sturges, the guest of the Governor. But her mind rapidly shed all impressions but the wretched horror of her own plight. In another moment she felt the shears at her neck, and knew that her disgrace ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... that surrounded the newly-decorated hall, the liberated farms, the lands upon which no creditor had now any claim. He was the most popular man in the district when Parliament was dissolved, and he was elected for the county almost without opposition, he, at whom all the sober people had shaken their heads only a few years before. The very name of "Sir Tom," which had been given rather contemptuously to denote a somewhat careless fellow, who minded nothing, became all at once the sign of ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... still in a brown study. The room was silent save for the ticking of a Louis Seize clock on the chimney-piece; and Mr. Simeon, standing attentive, let his eyes travel around upon the glass-fronted bookcases, filled with sober riches in vellum and gilt leather, on the rare prints in black frames, the statuette of Diane Chasseresse, the bust of Antinous, the portfolios containing other prints, the Persian carpets scattered about the dark bees'-waxed ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... suspiciously at the sober-faced young left end. "Now, what on earth does 'duck' mean, unless you refer to a web-footed species ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... said sharply. "Get off to the quarters where you belong, and don't let me see you again until you are sober," and he shunted the fellow out of the way before he had ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... laws of the Territory, in some unaccountable way had got gloriously tipsy, which caused a loss of time that disgusted me greatly; but as we could not well do without Joe, I put off starting till the next day, by which time it was thought he would sober up. But I might just as well have gone at first, for at the end of the twenty-four hours the incorrigible old rascal was still dead drunk. How he had managed to get the grog to keep up his spree was a mystery which we could ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell—but the imagination of man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity its every cavern. Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he appeared at the studio on the following afternoon, completely sober and excessively critical. He examined the canvases which Kirk had hauled from shelves and corners for his inspection. One after another he gazed upon them in an increasingly significant silence. When the last one was laid ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... as in women. [Sidenote: Deut. 22. Titus. 2.] Bat if honesty, modesty, and sobernes, be required in apparaile, & adorning of mens selues, as we see that it is commended and commaunded in Deuteronomie, & seing that S. Paule also in his epistle to Titus, willeth that there should be among us a sober and holy countenaunce, singularly and specially in women, which ordinarily be very curious in their garmentes, it is certayne and sure, that there is some poyson or venym hidden under the grasse. [Sidenote: I. Pet. 3.] And because it is so, S. Peter in his first canonicall ...
— A Treatise Of Daunses • Anonymous
... who carry banners, who disport the epaulette, and the gold lace. And sometimes, we who help swell the ranks of those who watch and wait, grow discouraged, almost thinking that life is a failure because it holds no gala-day for us, nothing but sober tints and quiet duties. What chance for any one, and a woman especially, to make a career for herself, tied down to a lot of precious babies, or lassooed by ten thousand galloping cares! As well expect a rose to blossom in midwinter hedges, or a lark to sing in a snowstorm, as to look for bloom ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... these same secular writers any theologists whom I repute to be men of profound learning and sober manners, and therefore hold in great esteem and veneration; yet it vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment. It is true that theology is the queen of all the sciences, but queen only ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... evaporation be somewhat less, phantasms appear, but distorted and without sequence; thus it happens in a case of fever. And if the evaporation be still more attenuated, the phantasms will have a certain sequence: thus especially does it happen towards the end of sleep in sober men and those who are gifted with a strong imagination. If the evaporation be very slight, not only does the imagination retain its freedom, but also the common sense is partly freed; so that sometimes while asleep a man may judge that what he sees is a dream, discerning, as it were, between things, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... shall make the Easterne Seas his bed, When Wolves and Sheepe shall be together fed,... When Venus shal turn Chast, and Bacchus become sober, When fruit in April's ripe, that blossom'd in October,... When Art shal be esteem'd, and golden pelfe laid down, When Fame shal tel all truth, and Fortune cease to frown, To Cupids yoke then I my necke will bow; Till then, I will not feare loves fatall ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... appearance, full of "thoughtful grace and quiet dignity," impressed every honest observer most favourably. We can imagine Baron Stockmar watching keenly in the background to catch every furtive glance and remark, permitting himself to rub his hands and exclaim, with sober exultation, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... sober, even stately. But soon, either from the steep, insecure nature of the ground or from less obvious and material cause, her pace quickened until it became a run. She ran neatly, deftly, all of a piece ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... in the shade, which was a matter for congratulation on such a day. He had a cigarette between his lips, which made for comfort; and he still felt the exhilarating effects of his unpremeditated boldness, without having come to the point of sober thinking. He sat there, and blew occasional mouthfuls of smoke into the quivering heat waves, and stared down at the river rushing over the impeding rocks as if its very existence depended upon reaching as soon as possible the broader ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... Lincoln was possibly more sensitive to pressure than he afterwards became, more prone to treat himself as a person under the orders of the people, but there is no reason to doubt that he acted on his own sober judgment as well as that of his Cabinet. Whatever degree of confidence he reposed in Scott, Scott was not very insistent; the risk was not overwhelming; the battle was very nearly won, would have been won if ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... not forget to tell, how they likwise broke open the chapterhouse, ransack'd the records, broke the seals, tore the writings in pieces, specially such as had great seals annexed unto them, which they took or mistook rather for the popes bulls. So that a grave and sober person coming into the room at the time, finds the floor all strewed and covered over with torn papers, parchments and broken seals; and being astonisht at this sight, does thus expostulate with them. Gentlemen, (says he,) what are ye doing? they answered, ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... governor, Vaudreuil, says that about this time some of the Abenakis were killed or maltreated by Englishmen. It may have been so: desperadoes, drunk or sober, were not rare along the frontier; but Vaudreuil gives no particulars, and the only English outrage that appears on record at the time was the act of a gang of vagabonds who plundered the house of the younger Saint-Castin, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... Bridge, which the Editor, by Heaven's blessing, has now seen himself enabled to conclude if not complete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope, that many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, overspanning the Impassable with paved highway, could the Editor construct; only, as was said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. Alas, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... now late December, and in contrast with its leafy retirement the old homestead stands out with a sharp distinctness in the white landscape; and yet its sober hue harmonizes with the dark boles of the trees, and suggests that, like them, it is a natural growth of the soil, and quite as capable of clothing itself with foliage in the coming spring. This in a sense will be true when the greenery and blossoms of the ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... serious an aspect by this time that the scholars were quite sober, otherwise they would have laughed at this ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... as a soldier, dreaming of war and victory, and honour and wealth; but has returned a meek disciple of Jesus, glory to God and peace with men radiating like sunlight from all his spirit and all his life. A young female, chafed and fretting under the enforced dulness of a sober home, has received and accepted an invitation which promises to set her free from restraint for a time, and permit her to flutter at will in the midst of a fashionable throng. At the threshold of the prepared festivities a message meets her,—a message ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... those days writes: "He was much given to spinning yarns so funny that his hearers were convulsed, and yet all the time his own face was perfectly sober. Occasionally some of his droll yarns got into the papers. He may ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... they kept up with the program of English political parties as their fathers had. And they quoted their opinions as authority for a younger generation. On the shelves of the library could be seen the classics in sober bindings and sprinkled with them a few ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... court he has little of the usual protection afforded in a British or American Court. It is for him to prove his innocence of the charge. His judge is the nominee of the Government-General and is its tool, who practically does what the Government-General tells him. The complaint of the most sober and experienced friends of the Koreans is that they cannot obtain justice unless it is deemed expedient by the authorities ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... may have been, the heads of his next Sabbath's discourse. His heavy eyebrows, throwing into shade his spacious eyes, and indeed the whole contour of his face, marked him as a man of great firmness of character and of much moral and personal courage. His suit of sober black and full-bottomed periwig also added to his dignity, and gave him an appearance of greater age. He was then verging on sixty. The time and the place gave him abundant exercise for the qualities we have mentioned, for many of his parishioners obtained ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... of atheism, blasphemy, and profaneness." But it would seem that these efforts had but a qualified success, for on February 12th, 1720, the Lords condemned a work which, "in a daring, impious manner, ridiculed the doctrine of the Trinity and all revealed religion," and was called, A Sober Reply to Mr. Higgs' Merry Arguments from the Light of Nature for the Tritheistic Doctrine of the Trinity, with a Postscript relating to the Rev. Dr. Waterland. This work, which was the last to be burnt as an offence against religion, ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... Parliament, or perhaps some sturdy cobbler holds out, and refuses to part with his stall, and the whole plan is disconcerted. Long may such impediments exist! But then we should conform to circumstances, and assume in our public works a certain sober simplicity of character, which should point out that they were dictated by utility rather than show. The affectation of an expensive style only places us at a disadvantageous contrast with other nations, and our substitute of brick and plaster for freestone resembles ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... his conduct at Laval was unimpeachable, he always proved a nice susceptibility in his return. A cab carried him within a discreet distance of his home, whence, having exchanged the grey for the more sober black, he would tramp on foot, and thus creep in tranquil and unobserved. But simple as it is to enjoy, enjoyment must still be purchased, and the Abbe was never guilty of a meanness. The less guilty scheme ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... these three did, but I haven't told you yet what Elizabeth Ann did. And it is worth telling. As Cousin Ann stepped in, glancing suspiciously from her sober-faced and abstracted parents to the lamb-like innocence of old Shep, little Elizabeth Ann burst into a shout of laughter. It's worth telling about, because, so far as I know, that was the first time she had ever laughed out heartily in ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... issued from those conventions, startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the novelty and presumption of the demand. But on returning home to spend her vacation, she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents and sisters having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as very profitable and interesting, and the demands made as proper and reasonable. She was already interested in the anti-slavery ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the Albany in sober frame, for all our recent levity, thinking at least no evil for once in our lawless lives. And there was our good friend Barraclough, the porter, to salute and welcome us ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... Now let us pass to literature, and see our own Rabelais, a sober man who drank nothing but water, but is held to be, nevertheless, an extravagant lover of good cheer and a resolute drinker. A thousand ridiculous stories are told about the author of one of the finest books in French literature,—"Pantagruel." Aretino, the friend of Titian, and the Voltaire of ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... churches or museums, whither Mr. Allen's Guide accordingly conducts you, and tells you what to look at if you want to understand the art treasures of the city. The books, in a word, explain rather than describe.... Such books are wanted nowadays.... The more sober minded among tourists will be grateful to him for the skill with which the new series promises to ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... and trembled under the heavy feet, the scattered cotton seed whirled away in little eddies, and baskets of cotton standing about tipped a little break-down of their own. Even the girl on the bag, whose sober, earnest face seemed out of keeping with the gayety, beat time with her bare feet. But by the time the miller threw his banjo aside, its strings still quivering, she was standing up, and the look ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... awhile;—let not the chill October Plant spires of glinting frost about his bed; Nor shower her faded leaves, so brown and sober, Among ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... benediction the best trained voice, the most threadlike of the choir, the voice of the smallest of the children, sang forth the short lesson taken from the first Epistle of Saint Peter, warning the faithful that they must be sober and watch, not allow themselves to be surprised unexpectedly. A priest then recited the usual evening prayers; the choir organ gave the intonation, and the psalms fell, chanted one by one, the twilight psalms, in which before the ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... something the matter, for, when I started upstairs, he drew me back and asked me to tell him what was wrong. When I told him I wished you girls were going, too, he surprised me by saying, 'Why not?' For a moment I thought he was joking—he's always doing that, you know—but when I saw he was in sober earnest I could have danced ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield |
