"Sobering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hero! Haw! haw!" roared the engineer, letting fall his knife and fork in his merriment. "I'd cut a figger at the head of an army, or speakin' in Congress, or a-setten' on a gold throne, wouldn't I? No! no! my man!" sobering down suddenly, into a sort of sad dignity. "Yer father ain't got the brains nor the eddication for nothin' of that kind! All he ken do is to live clean an' honest in the sight o' the Lord, an' to run his ingine 'cordin' to the ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... aisle was thick with people, but by no means uncomfortably crowded; altogether that assembly must have numbered many thousands. They were brilliantly, even fantastically dressed, the men as fancifully as the women, for the sobering influence of the Puritan conception of dignity upon masculine dress had long since passed away. The hair of the men, too, though it was rarely worn long, was commonly curled in a manner that suggested the barber, and baldness had vanished from the earth. ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... being cleared of the husks and soon the merry notes of the fiddle speedily dissipated the sobering influence of the recent fracas. Desire danced once with her brother and once with old Israel, who positively beamed with pleasure. But Hubbard, who was now pretty drunk, followed her about, every now and then taking the red ear out of his pocket and shaking it at her, so that between the ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... Virginia's heart like tightening fingers. The import of his words burned deep within her. She got to her feet—but reseated herself at once at a wave of her father's hand. The thought of death always had a sobering effect upon her—it filled her with longing, yet dread. The beautiful young mother, whose picture hung in the best room, and whose eyes followed her in every direction, was dead. Matty had told her many times just how her ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... to sober me, with all these happy faces around, I should like to know?" was the hearty retort. "I am having a better time every day, and mean to go on so ad infinitum. You're a good one to talk about sobering down, when you laugh more than ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... devil hurried me into a saloon, where I began to drink recklessly, and knew nothing more for two or three days. Then I awoke, I knew not where. Some of my friends found me and sent me home. I now suffered more mental torture than I experienced on sobering up from any other spree I was ever on. I believed firmly that I was saved; that my appetite for liquor was forever gone. I felt now that there was no hope for me. Oh, the despairing days and long black nights of agony unspeakable ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... impression left from "Tractarian" days as to the intellectual pre-eminence of the Catholicizing party in the Anglican Church, which pre-eminence might make amends for their numerical insignificance, is gradually giving way to the recognition of the sobering fact that at present that party in no exclusive sense represents the cultivated intellect of the country. It is no disrespect to that party to say that while scholarship and intelligence are therein well represented by scattered individuals, yet it is ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... it," said Gypsy, sobering down, "and I came up-stairs on purpose to put everything to rights, and then I was going to live like other people, and keep my stockings darned, and—then I had to go head first into a box of beads, and that was the end of ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... a while things quieted down. They had to. The police left after sobering up long enough to give me a serious warning against letting such a thing happen again. Mr. Miller, who had come home to see what all the excitement was, went back to work and Mrs. Miller went back to the house and the reporter and photographer drifted off to file their ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... our principal witness, and doesn't his statement fit in with all the facts we have been able to gather? Well, the murder of Sir Horace, no matter how it was committed, was committed in cold blood. But immediately Birchill had done it the fact that he had committed a murder would have a sobering effect on him. Although he bragged before he left the flat for Riversbrook about killing the judge if he came across him, he had no intention of jeopardising his neck unnecessarily, and after he had shot down the judge in a moment of ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... was a tremor in his voice, a veil seemed to fall upon his youth, arresting its carelessness, sobering ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the middle of the building. Oh, how brilliantly does the spirit of invention manifest itself in the Protestant Church! For who would think it! The numbers on this board are those of the Psalms for the day, which are generally chalked on a common black tablet, and have a very sobering effect on an esthetic mind, but which, in the form above described, even ornament the church and fully make up for the want of pictures by Raphael. Such progress delights me infinitely, since I, as a Protestant and a Lutheran, am ever ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... an earlier page, when Abe grew to be a big, strong boy he saved a drunken man from freezing in the mud, by carrying him to a cabin, building a fire, and spent the rest of the night warming and sobering him up. Instead of leaving the drunkard to the fate the other fellows thought he deserved, Abe Lincoln, through pity for the helpless, rescued a fellow-being not only from mud and cold but also from a drunkard's grave. For that tall lad's love and mercy revealed to the poor creature the terrible ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... time Jane Withersteen felt Venters's real spirit. She wondered if she would love this splendid youth. Then her emotion cooled to the sobering sense of the ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... the head!" Nana read all of the reports of accidents in the newspapers, and made reflections that were unnatural for a girl. Her father had such good luck an omnibus had knocked him down without even sobering him. Would ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... happened to be chosen for a performance or twa because there's a theatre or a hall that's big enough. They'll come in their motor cars; they'll come driving in behind a team o' horses; aye, and there's some wull come on shanks' mare. And it's a sobering thing tae think they're a' coming, a' those gude folk, tae hear me sing. You canna do ought but tak' yourself seriously when they that work sae hard to earn it spend their ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... saw only her face, radiant, animated, and glowing with excitement, and her arms and shoulders, whose mobile, expressive gestures made her always the outstanding figure in any group. He was fascinated and his fascination exercised a sobering effect on him. With a growing clarity the events of the day came back—rage rose within him, and with a half-formed intention of taking her away from the crowd he started toward her—or rather he elongated slightly, ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... father had warned him. He was of age; parental authority could no longer be exerted for his protection. He had his way, and as long as his money lasted he found plenty of associates willing to help him spend it; the "boys" had what the wicked call "a good time." Then came the sobering up, the repentance, the humility, the return, the father's welcome, the very natural complaint of the other son and the parental rebuke—all so lifelike and all designed to give emphasis to the love of the Heavenly Father and the joy in Heaven when a wanderer ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... was religious, but this business is changing me and many thousands more," so writes a soldier. From another soldier's letter we get, "War is the most sobering influence I know ... it sobers their every day. They listen more attentively to the religious services. Sometimes I wish for the sake of the morals of our army that we ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... The anguish of spirit occasioned by parting with a much-loved people, and the solemn consciousness of entering on a more arduous sphere, both tended to make him thoughtful, and that thoughtfulness was deepened by a dangerous sickness. Nor in this sobering discipline must we leave out of view one painful but salutary element—a mortified affection. Mr. Doddridge had been living as a boarder in the house of his predecessor's widow, and her only child—the little ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... be well if our German friends would ponder and meditate those sober and sobering utterances. It would be well if they would try and give their own explanation of their tragic isolation and of their universal political unpopularity. It would be well if they in turn would ask themselves why political Germany is left without a friend ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... Iraqi long-range rocket bombardments of Tehran that amounted to a reign of terror. Given that both sides were exhausted at that point, a show of force could have been convincing. Strong U.S. action in response to Iran's mining of neutral waters may also have had a sobering effect on the mullahs. Not only were Iran's vulnerable oil-producing platforms in the Gulf boarded and destroyed with impunity by the U.S., but Iranian naval forces that had come out to challenge the U.S. Navy were destroyed. Iraq's reign of terror, and the strong American message ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... will point out some principal defects." And I went through it carefully, noting every error, and demonstrating why they were errors, and how the words or phrases ought to have been written. In the course of this sobering process she became calm. I now ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... right!" said Tantillion, sobering and wiping his own eyes. "To put their heads into such hornets' nests would make a lot of them behave more decent." And then he picked up the letter again and made brotherly comments ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Prywell has no eye for your windows and he has no ear for your doors. If your servant is a leaky slave, Prywell, of all your neighbours, has no ear for his idle tales. This man is no eavesdropper; your evil secrets have only a sobering and a saddening and a silencing effect upon him. Your house might be full of skeletons for anything he would ever discover or remember. The beam in his own eye is so big that he cannot see past it to speak about your small mote. 'The inward Christian,' ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... seen our county drunk with prosperity —drunk and disorderly. And we had seen also these same revellers chastened by low prices, dry seasons, and commercial stagnation. But we had yet to witness the crowning sobering effect of a ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... of the wild gorge changed to reflect his mood. There was no stain of savagery upon the delight we had in coming to this spot. As he said, once listened rightly to, the music of the falling waters gave suggestions which, if they were sobering, were ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... was a source of dismay to the man, who had suddenly become aware that she was again dressed in the tailored suit which had so caught his fancy earlier in the day. His dismay became evident to Kate, the onlooker. Helen, too, noted the effect in his sobering eyes, and ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... with that spirit of hatred against all things Christian; in him it had become a mania. Egremont's eirenicon had been a hard saying to him; he had tried to think it over, because of his respect for the teacher, but as yet it had resulted in no sobering. His mind was not sufficiently prepared for lessons of wisdom; had Egremont witnessed this scene, he might well have groaned in spirit over ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... a very bad lot!" said she, in high good humor, "but 'tis no joke for the boys," she went on, sobering quickly. "They wint on strike a week ago. Mr. Oliver presided at a meeting two weeks come Friday night, and the next day the boys ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... with big game at Oxford to have that trouble about such quarry as I," the young man said lightly, "and the Gainer is not likely to stir far from Edmund while land is being distributed." Then, sobering, he gave the other a grave glance over his shoulder. "Even though the errand for danger could not be accomplished, how could I do less than undertake it? Did not the boy go through some risk for me when he betrayed his own countryman to get me out of a hard place? Had they ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... to realize in the present day, when we contemplate these events through the sobering light of the deplorable sequel, how immense and wide-spreading was the enthusiasm that at this particular juncture seemed to put the fervent soul of a George Sand or an Armand Barbes into the most ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... sobering influences of middle age had touched him, and a wife and children bound him with the quiet ties of home, he had (at long intervals) his "restless times," when his good "missis" would bring out a little store laid by in one of the children's socks, ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... that this terrible event would have had a sobering effect upon Matthew Quintal, but instead of that it made him worse. The death of his wife, too, by a fall from the cliffs about the same time, seemed only to have the effect of rendering him more savage; insomuch that he became a terror to the ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... belied or confirmed various forecasts, fulfilled some few hopes, blasted many others, and obliged the allied peoples to carry forward most of their cherished anticipations to another year's account. Meanwhile the balance as it stands offers ample food for sobering reflection, but will doubtless evoke dignified resignation and grim resolve on the part of those who confidently looked for ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... can help it; only you do look so like a fat, speckled frog, I may not be able to hold in. I'll pull you out pretty soon; but first I'm going to talk to you, Sam," said Ben, sobering down as he took a seat on the little point of land nearest the ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Louis Akers' name had a sobering effect on Anthony Cardew. After all, more than anything else, he wanted Akers defeated. The discussion slowly lost its acrimony, and ended, oddly enough, in Willy Cameron and Anthony Cardew virtually uniting against Howard. What Willy Cameron told about Jim Doyle fed the old man's ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it looked as though a clash was inevitable. Just for a moment it seemed as if the man's half-drunken madness was about to drive him to extremes. But the girl's cool nerve, or more probably, perhaps, the presence of her rifle, seemed to have a sobering effect. There was the snick of Little One Man's razor-like knife as he released his bound comrade from the flogging post, then Nicol, with a filthy oath, flung his quirt on the ground, and, turning, thrust his way through ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... had fallen upon Jimmy in the road came to him again, now, as sobering as a blow. Something which he could not define had changed the atmosphere. Suddenly in an instant, like a shallow stream that runs babbling over the stones into some broad, still pool, the note of ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... him an amused smile. "'I thank the gods for a saving sense of humor,'" she quoted. Her face instantly sobering she said: "We ought to see Aunt Rose at once about this newspaper affair. Perhaps the three of us ought to go up to her house before dinner. We ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... through a white mist of milk, the Englishman had a vision of the business end of two rifles pointed at him at short range, held by rough bearded customers, and of a white-faced girl convulsed in laughter. The sobering effect of the metal throat of a rifle a few inches removed from your breast is considerable, and the Intelligence officer was a captured man. But for a moment only. Something swished past his ear, and a great star appeared in the white-washed plaster, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... expression, a cheery voice, a hearty laugh, and a cordial way with him which some thought too lively for his cloth, but which children, who are good judges of such matters, delighted in, so that he was the favorite of all the little rogues about town. But he had the clerical art of sobering down in a moment, when asked to say grace while somebody was in the middle of some particularly funny story; and though his voice was so cheery in common talk, in the pulpit, like almost all preachers, he had a wholly different and peculiar way of speaking, supposed to be more acceptable ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... came from outside the noise of much shouting and shuffling of naked feet, and anon the sound of a voice, loud and harsh, asking for leave to speak with the praetorian praefect. Caius Nepos paused, tablets in hand. Strangely enough the voice, though well-known, seemed to have a sobering effect on all these ebullient tempers. Marcus Ancyrus, who was the most calm among them all, threw a quick glance of inquiry on his host, one or two furtive glances were exchanged, a look that was half-ashamed crept into some of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... All America ceased smiling. Morse's telegraph was sobering an exultant land by telling how its great magistrate lay dead within the White House, at Washington. And men were demanding a funeral car, dignified and handsome enough to carry the body of Abraham Lincoln from Washington to Springfield. Suddenly ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... giving to others. That is, his pleasure is twofold. The teacher who is deprived of some response of joy in the work he is doing is a workman deprived of his rights. To those girls who are thinking of becoming teachers this should be a sobering thought. ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... stumbled forward, the native's falls became less frequent. "Sobering up," was Phi's mental comment. "We'll soon strike a place where the path leads down the side of the cliff. I wonder if he can make that alone or will he ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... those, and must begin at once to get them, but Aunt Jessie can help you there better than I can, or Aunt Jane, for she has very 'firm' ones, I assure you," said Rose, sobering down as quickly ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... seemed to begin the process of sobering up. His eyes lost something of their bleary, misunderstanding look, and took on a dangerous glint. The detectives knew him for a spendthrift, who had been in more than one questionable escapade. He had a violent ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... letters from officers of rank in San Francisco, who said he was incorruptible, even when he drank, whereas my clerk, who had been a model of sobriety, robbed right and left. Case has gone off now, somewhere down among the willows, I reckon. He'll be drunk for three days, sobering three days, and straight the seventh. If you hadn't started him last night he'd be sober now. And if you hadn't come into it that family game would have stopped at one, with nobody the worse nor wiser. You said you had no use ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... sub-conscious (and therefore more or less unanalyzable) influences due to the ripening experience of life. The extent to which this is true [i.e. the extent to which experience modifies logic][36] is seldom, if ever, realized, although it is practically exemplified every day by the sobering caution which advancing age exercises upon the mind. Not so much by any above-board play of syllogism as by some underhand cheating of consciousness, do the accumulating experiences of life and of thought slowly enrich the judgement. ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... that the words of his mouth are but vain words, powerless, and unhonoured; but with him who is seen to regard truth, the case is otherwise. He can achieve by his words what another achieves by force. If he seeks to bring the foolish to their senses—his very frown, I perceive, has a more sobering effect than the chastisement inflicted by another. Or in negotiations the very promises of such an one are of equal weight ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... me, Silvertip," interrupted the White Chief. "You remember telling me about stopping for water on the Island of Kon Klayu when you were whaling? Yes? . . . Well, while you are lying here sobering up, I want you to think about that island, Silver. I want you to remember every little thing about it that you can, and after the Potlatch I'll be in to talk to you—perhaps. I'll go and hunt up Harlan now. Damned fool! He ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... Through her sobering maturer years she had passed from one set of hands to another, until finally, in her declining days, she found asylum in the affectionate ownership of Judge Priest, with Jeff to curry her fat sides and ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... point, seeing presently ways of escape and relief which the besotted brain beside him had been quite incapable of devising for itself. They walked on into the open country, and what with the discipline of the rector's presence, the sobering effect wrought by the shock to pride and habit, and the unwonted brain exercise of the conversation, the demon in Henslowe had been for the moment most strangely tamed after half an hour's talk. Actually some reminiscences of his old ways of speech and thought, the ways of the once prosperous ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... vigilant guardian of the purity of his undergraduates' Protestantism, received the information with thankfulness, and perhaps asked the informer to dinner. It cannot be denied that in some cases this course of action succeeded in frightening and sobering the parties towards whom it was directed. White was thus reclaimed to be a devoted son and useful minister of the Church of England; but it was a kill-or-cure remedy, and not likely to answer with the more noble or the more able minds. What effect ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... suddenly finding herself up against the logical outcome of her desires had sobered her; and, faced with the prospect of an immediate flight involving the abdication of her assured social position and the surrender of a home, she was able to visualise the consequences of her actions. The most sobering reflection was the thought that by so doing she would be casting herself to the female wolves of her world—and she knew the extent of their mercy. There were others of her acquaintance besides Mrs. Trevor who would ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... they packed his clothes and books and carted them off from his lodgings. The next year the king was forced to make him a secretary of state. Though gambling continued common, it became less extravagant and was more widely condemned. In 1796, when the war with France was sobering people, some ladies of rank created a scandal by keeping a faro-bank at their houses. Chief-justice Kenyon threatened the pillory, and Gillray expressed and stimulated public opinion by a caricature representing two of "Faro's daughters" ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... the sight which greeted his eyes, as they met those of the sick man, a sobering change came over him. He had seen death sometimes, and the sight of it had always painfully affected him. He hated to be brought up short, as it were, and forced to see the serious, the solemn, the awe inspiring in life. He wanted to live in the present; he did not want to be forced ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... nor anything worse than wax somewhat over-confident and self-opiniated; and a year or so before his father's death he became associated with Felix O'Beirne in the management of an illicit still off away in the bog, which gave him an object in life, and had a sobering and settling ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... now, my man. You're going to your room, and to bed. You got up too early. Listen,"—as the sobering man began to resent the interference,—"there's an officer looking at us. He will do nothing if you will go along quietly with me, but if you make a scene I'll hand ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... outdoor man, and he was wont to tell his friends that the rough life was the life for him; but as a matter of fact he spent much more time in San Antonio than he did at home, and each of his sojourns at Las Palmas was devoted principally to sobering up from his last visit to the city and to preparing for another. Nor was he always sober even in his own house; Ed was a heavy and a constant drinker at all times. What little exercise he took was upon the back of a horse, and, as no one knew ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... Coke, scowling as if he were inclined to repeat the assault, though he was not then aware of the more strenuous method adopted by the rock as a sobering agent. "I didn't know you was there. But 'e fair gev' me a turn, 'e did, singin' 'is pot-'ouse crambos w'en we was in the very jors of death, so ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... had been seen freely in the makeshift saloons and other places on both sides of the street. It seemed, from what they could glean and put together, that he had stopped drinking when he had arrived at a certain point in his boasting and had announced his intention of sobering up before he "took the bloody, hog-bellied cow-puncher apart, providin' the latter showed." This suited Mormon, who wanted fairly to whip a live opponent, not fight a staggering drunkard. But they could not find him. They had several ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... no idea what to do now. He did not wish to return to the storehouse. And he believed that the alien was not going to let him go off alone. The ferocity of the creatures now heaped about them had been sobering, an effective warning against venturing ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... suppose a man so packed with healthy-mindedness as never to have experienced in his own person any of these sobering intervals, still, if he is a reflecting being, he must generalize and class his own lot with that of others; and, doing so, he must see that his escape is just a lucky chance and no essential difference. He might just as well have been born to an entirely different fortune. And then indeed ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... of recognition brought him to his senses,—temporarily. He was even able to indulge himself in a quiet, sobering grin at his own folly. He passed the policeman with a nod and a cool word in response to the man's good-natured, "Good-night, sir." Number 9 was on the other side of the street; and he favored its blank and dreary elevation with a prolonged and frank stare—that profited him nothing, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed!—wealth to the heart!—a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, bright, vivid, and exhilarating;—not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now clapped my hands in sudden joy—my pulse bounded, my ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... all at once a seditious dinner-party, under the shade of the pale Crescent. Had we been in Paris, that pinnacle of liberty and civilization, we should all immediately have been conveyed off, without finishing our dessert and the wine which made us such patriot Greeks, to the sobering apartment of the Conciergerie. Happily we were in The Desert, under the rule of barbarians. Coletti was mentioned, but I forget what was said of him. In Jerbah, a Greek merchant protested to me, that the only way to regenerate Greece was ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... and do something great, something worthy of her—this is such a purpose in life as I need! With her, only with her I know I could achieve it; without her, or with that gilded toy Katharina, old age will bring me nothing but satiety, sobering and regrets—or, to call it by its Christian designation: bitter repentance. As Antaeus renewed his strength by contact with mother earth, so, father do I feel myself grow taller when I only think of her. She is salvation and honor; the other is ruin and misery ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... eh?" sneered the governor, who was sobering rapidly now. "Let me ask a question or two. How much was that security debt your son-in-law let ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... rattling over the stones towards Baker Street, Portman Square, where Major Stewart resided. As I left the office I heard Martin beg the clerk to lead him to the pump previous to sending him off—no doubt for the purpose of sobering himself somewhat previous to reappearing before the major, whose motives for hiring or retaining such a fellow in his modest establishment ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... his mind than his wife.... Moyra was like some troubled cloud, a thing that blotted out sunshine for a while, through no fault of its own, but the mother was sinister. An old woman keening, and the breath of whisky on her, and her eyes sobering in a bitter greed.... Why should Moyra have died? Fate: the act of God: whatever you care to call it. Why should he have been dragged into it, Shane wondered. If he hadn't, what would have happened? He didn't know. But ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... white chintz curtain covering the clothes underneath. On the bed lay an umbrella and a big straw hat, and on the table, a music-roll unfurled, an ink-stand, and sheets of ruled paper. Behind him stood a wardrobe faced with a mirror, but somehow he did not care to see his own face just then. He was sobering. ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... stay. About Marian there was something more congenial than about her city friends, and day after day found her there, watching while Marian fashioned into shape the beautiful little garments, the sight of which had over Katy a strangely quieting influence, sobering her down and maturing her more than all the years of her life had done. Those were happy hours spent with Marian Hazelton, the happiest of the entire day, and Katy felt it keenly when Wilford at last interfered, telling her she was growing quite too familiar with that sewing woman, and ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... a former occasion she had learnt what interval of repose was required, before the sobering influence of the mixture could successfully assert itself. For the present, she had only to return to the other room. The waiter presented himself, asking if there was anything he could do for her. Familiar with the defective side of her husband's character, he understood what it meant when she ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... still, small voice, which softens a man and sobers him for a moment, and makes him yearn after good, and say in his heart, 'Ah, that I were as when I was a child upon my mother's knee.' Oh! listen to that softening, sobering voice. Through very small things it may speak to you: but it is Christ himself who speaks. Whenever your heart is softened to affection toward parent, or child, or your fellowman, then Christ is speaking to you, and showing you the things which belong ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... part of Ulster could have been truthfully described as remarkable for its sobriety. But by the universal testimony of those qualified to judge in such matters—police, clergy of all denominations, and workers for social welfare—the political movement had a sobering and steadying influence on the people, which became more and more noticeable as the movement developed, and especially as the volunteers grew in numbers and discipline. The "man in the street" gained a sense of responsibility from the ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... forsaken by all knowledge, that he had been able to seek death, that this wish, this wish of a child, had been able to grow in him: to find rest by annihilating his body! What all agony of these recent times, all sobering realizations, all desperation had not brought about, this was brought on by this moment, when the Om entered his consciousness: he became aware of himself in his misery and ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... sobering effects of experience," Hadria explained. She was grieved to find Henriette at variance with those who had practical knowledge of education. As the child grew up, one could easily explain to him that the ideas ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... last, and then in a very perturbed state of feeling Madam Conway waited for her carriage, which was not forthcoming, and upon inquiry George Douglas learned that, having counted upon another day in the city, Mike was now going through with a series of plunge-baths, by way of sobering himself ere appearing before his mistress. This, however, George kept from Madam Conway, not wishing to alarm her; and when after a time Mike appeared, sitting bolt upright upon the box, with the lines ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... was surrounded by a crowd, eager to see and to hear how he would receive the news; and the work of sobering him up was at once commenced. It took a long time to make him comprehend their meaning, but after a while the name of his sister, coupled with that of John Burrill, brought him staggering to his feet, and a few moments later, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was not mistaken," he said at last, sobering. "You are the same lad the train hands put off the Atlantic Express at Vernon ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... he does not send it, whatever shall we do?" cried Sylvia, who had to be told, if only for the sake of sobering her and making her more keenly alive to the responsibilities ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... Cheyenne was just sobering up after its brief and tempestuous reign as headquarters town, and though depleted and thin, it was now making a bid for permanency. But the sting and wildness of life had departed with the construction operations, and now Benton had become the ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... I build another," corrected Hawkins, sobering suddenly, "I shall be careful not to use that rear arrangement at all. I shall place the valve of the balloon where I can get at it more ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... He adopts for curing opposite diseases, and bringing both back to the same state of health. He stimulates the too sluggish, He represses the too willing (if such a paradox may be allowed). His treatment is at once spur and bridle. To the one man He administers a sobering representation of what he is undertaking with so light a heart; to the other He gives the commandment that sounds so stern: 'Leave the highest duty, if you cannot do it without conflicting with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... I was proportionately gratified when the doors of "Mon Repos," as the signorina called her residence, were opened to me. My curiosity, I must confess, was not unmixed with other feelings; for I was a young man at heart, though events had thrown sobering responsibilities upon me, and the sight of the signorina in her daily drives was enough to inspire a thrill even in the soul of a bank manager. She was certainly very beautiful—a tall, fair girl, with straight features and laughing eyes. I shall not attempt more description, because all ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... 'im!" cried the sailor in hoarse alarm. "'E done it 'isself, sir. Went clean crazy, kilt hisself—'orrible!" As the sailor gasped out "horrible" they entered the cook's galley where a dim light burned and a group of silent, sobering men stood in ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... conquests: "Kraft des Gesetzes dass das zum Staat entwickelte Volk die politisch unmuendigen, das civilisirte die geistig unmuendigen in sich aufloest." The same idea was imparted into the theory of ethics by Kirchmann, and appears, with a sobering touch, in the Geschichte Jesu of Hase, the most popular German divine: "Der Einzelne wird nach der Groesse seiner Ziele, nach den Wirkungen seiner Thaten fuer das Wohl der Voelker gemessen, aber nicht nach dem Maasse der ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... of sobering down our lively friend, who then put us in the way of what we were to do; and, all of us lending willing hands, we soon had the place as trim as it was before we had sat down ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... the man with the burden on his back, 'that I cannot go so fast as I would.' 'Christian,' says Mr. Kerr Bain, 'has more to carry than Pliable has, as, indeed, he would still have if he were carrying nothing but himself; and he does have about him, besides, a few sobering thoughts as to the length and labour and some of the unforeseen chances of the way.' And as Dean Paget says in his profound and powerful sermon on 'The Disasters of Shallowness': 'Yes, but there is something else first; something else without which that inexpensive brightness, ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... by the way, had during the holidays quite recovered from the sobering effect of his grandmother's visit to the school) was always on a look-out for escaping the eye of the constituted authorities. He hardly ever saw the Doctor from one month's end to another; but somehow, to know he was away—to know any one was away who ought to be there to look after him—was a ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... enthusiasm; next, I fancied that Mowbray, in explaining about the tapestry-chamber, Sir Josseline, and the bastinadoed Jew, had said something that might have hurt Mr. Montenero's Jewish pride. From whichever of these causes his displeasure arose, it had the effect of completely sobering my spirits. My poetic fit was over. I did not even dare to ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... arouse him; and he had perforce to remain on deck the whole night through. And when at length, at the expiration of the morning watch, he again went below, hoping to find that the man had at all events so far slept off the effects of his over-night debauch as to be capable of coming on deck and sobering himself by taking a douche under the head pump, he discovered, to his intense disgust, that this glib maker of promises had somehow obtained a further supply of rum during the night, and was at that moment in a more ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Jot cried, suddenly sobering down and going through the motions of turning a crank with airy ease. "It's ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... friend! when one thinks of the miseries and the misfortunes, the sorrows and the losses, the broken and bleeding hearts that began life buoyant, elastic, hopeful, perhaps boasting, like you, there ought to be a sobering tint ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... River had hardly made the extraordinary exit related in the last chapter, before Hans and Schwartz came roaring into the house, very savagely drunk. The discovery of the total loss of their last piece of plate had the effect of sobering them just enough to enable them to stand over Gluck, beating him very steadily for a quarter of an hour; at the expiration of which period they dropped into a couple of chairs, and requested to know what he had ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... his face sobering. "I don't care. I'll show them yet," he gritted, urging old Jinny along with sundry coaxes and promises of a real meal ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... the giant rubbed his hands together and softly chuckled; but sobering, he said that he could never hope to equal her in thought and quickness of expression, though by reading he would make an effort ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... uncertain eyes of the camel, saw only her face, radiant, animated and glowing with excitement, and her arms and shoulders, whose mobile, expressive gestures made her always the outstanding figure in any gathering. He was fascinated and his fascination exercised a strangely sobering effect on him. With a growing clarity the events of the day came back—he had lost forever this shimmering princess in emerald green and black. Rage rose within him, and with a half-formed intention of taking her away from the crowd he started toward her—or rather he elongated slightly, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... failed to convince my friends that prudence is my besetting virtue, but whether it was the sobering effect of those long hours of chilly thinking, or whether my good angel came to my rescue, I know not; anyhow I shook my head as firmly ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... Unless—" (suddenly sobering down), "unless I forgot to put my other letter into the envelope, and only sent you the rat-poison one! I was in such a hurry! Oh, good-night! Isn't it just like me! Poor old Everard, I never meant to give you such a scare! I'm frightfully ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... obligation to her aside in deference to what he assumed to be the immutable realities. In the sun-warming excursion came another of those precious moments of insight; a moment in which he was given a sobering glimpse of the deathless Philistine within. Who was he to be setting his machine-made ideals above the living, breathing, human fact whose very limitations and shortcomings might figure as angelic virtues when weighed in any balance save that of the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... millennium struck chill upon her. She went back to her own table, and putting on her spectacles with a curious expression of quiet humility, addressed herself for the first time that morning to the task before her. The shock with an unsympathetic world had a sobering effect on her. For once, her industry surpassed her daughter's. Katharine could not reduce the world to that particular perspective in which Harriet Martineau, for instance, was a figure of solid importance, and possessed of a genuine relationship ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... sobering into a browner mood the feelings of Mr. Jackson, the merchant turned his steps slowly towards his home. Naturally, the smiling image of his daughter came up before his mind, and he quickened his pace instinctively. He remembered how nearly he had ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur |
