"Solemnity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... taking pleasure in dozing off with any little roll of linen clasped in her arms. It was rather singular, for she had a vivid imagination, but it had balked at a doll. When, as sometimes happened, she saw a little girl of her own age, wheeling with solemnity a doll in a go-cart, she viewed her with amazement and contempt, and thought privately that she was not altogether bright. But this baby was different. It did not have to be laid on its back to make ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... dear but rapidly ageing creature "well on in her thirties," whom they must cherish and preserve. They both had such solemn thoughts as they looked at Edith in her chair. But as Roger watched them, with their love and their solemnity, their guilt and their perplexity, with quiet enjoyment he would wait to see the change he knew would come. And it always did. The sudden picking up of a book, the vanishing of an anxious frown, and in an instant their young minds had turned happily back into themselves, into their own engrossing ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... The solemnity of the funeral procession, of which we formed the mainmast, almost entirely disappeared from our mind, to be succeeded by the spirit of revolt against this impious persecution as these things came before us. What have our people done to these colonists, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... his colleagues on the Central Modernist Committee. For some months it had been a settled thing that Meynell should preach the sermon in Dunchester Cathedral on the great occasion in January when the new Liturgy of the Reform was to be inaugurated with all possible solemnity in one ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for their freedom, regretted the price they had paid for it, or wished to return to their old masters, they should say—Aye. "The gentleman from Africa," perhaps for the first time in his life had a vote. He realized the solemnity of the moment. A dead silence fell upon the crowd, and no voice was lifted in that important affirmative. "Very well, boys," again spoke the clear, kind voice of Mrs. Fenn. "Each of you who is glad to be free, proud ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Then, with a solemnity that appalled her miserable listener, "I'd give all I'm worth if you had taken her at her word that minute. But that is the way with you gentlemen; you let the occasion slip; and we that be women never forgive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... excellently seen in the laws and customs of that nation. Amongst other discourses one day I told him, I was much affected with the relation I had from some of the company of their custom in holding the feast of the family, for that, methought, I had never heard of a solemnity wherein Nature did so much preside. And because propagation of families proceedeth from the nuptial copulation, I desired to know of him what laws and customs they had concerning marriage, and whether they kept marriage well, and whether they were tied to one wife? For ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... it were best that she communicate them at once. That evening the children were called in, one by one, to receive her blessing and farewell. Mother was an earnest Christian character, but at that time I alone of all the children appeared religiously disposed. Young as I was, the solemnity of the hour when she charged me with the spiritual welfare of the family has remained with me through all the years that have gone. Calling me to her side, she sought to impress upon my childish mind, not the sorrow of death, but ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... single grave!—we half forget How sunder human ties, When round the silent place of rest A gather'd kindred lies. We stand beneath the haunted yew, And watch each quiet tomb, And in the ancient churchyard feel Solemnity, not gloom! ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... Margaret died on board a ship in the harbor of Flensburg, at the age of fifty-nine, after an active and notable reign of thirty-seven years. Her funeral was attended with the greatest solemnity, and her corpse was brought to the Cathedral of Roeskilde, where Eric of Pomerania, her successor, in 1423, caused her likeness to be carved in alabaster. Her acts show her character. She displayed judiciousness united with circumspection; wisdom in devising plans, and perseverance ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... national greatness than when the poor see the rich governed only by pecuniary considerations—leaving nothing for the mind and the soul, or undervaluing virtue and talents. He thankfully acknowledged the deep solemnity of his feelings, when for his humble self, such solemn manifestations were observed; and while commending his bleeding country to their love, he could only refer them to the Saviour's words as the guide for ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... formally announced by the parlor-maid. Tony, who was looking at pictures with his mother, rose from her side, prepared to take a hop, skip, and jump and land with his arms around Tims's waist. But he stopped short and contemplated her with round-eyed solemnity. The ginger-colored man's wig had developed into a frizzy fringe and the rest of the coiffure of the hour. A large picture hat surmounted it, and her little person was clothed in a vivid heliotrope dress of the latest mode. It was a handsome dress, a handsome ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... hereof, the Jews, in all their synagogues, have a like ark or coffer,[60] of the same size or form, in which they keep the Scriptures belonging to the {55} Synagogue; and whence they take it out with great solemnity, whenever they use it, and return it with the like when they have done with it. What became of the old ark, on the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, is a dispute among the Rabbins. The Jews—and herein they are supported by the ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... difficult. He is impervious to criticism, because he bears it with meekness. He has so good a conscience that he cannot believe himself in the wrong. If he makes an egregious blunder, he says to himself with infinite solemnity that it is right that his self-satisfaction should be tenderly purged away, and glories in his own humility. A far wholesomer frame of mind is that of the philosopher who said, when complimented on the mellowness that advancing years had brought him, that he still reserved to himself ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was evidently a picture-dealer, was exclaiming in tones of rapture, and nodding his head with an air of awe and solemnity. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... well knew for why They were carried in such solemnity, And saw the Saint and his banners before 'em They behaved with the greatest ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... told with coarse words and oratorical flourishes of his own. Yet this commonplace of civilized life jarred sadly among such simple men, with the grand solemnity of the ocean around them; in the glimmering of midnight, falling from above, was an impression of the fleeting summers of the far ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... approached the Indians, their leader, an old man apparantly about sixty years of age, with a singularly cunning and wicked looking countenance, came towards us and extended his hand for a shake; while, with much solemnity, he announced himself as Cuchillo, a Comanche chief, and a great friend of ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... therein, he rejoiced exceedingly, since he bestowed great pains and contributed greatly towards it. Thereupon he commanded William the Dean to cite all the canons to be present on the day of S. Michael following, at the joyful solemnity of their mother church, that is to say, at the first celebration of divine service therein. According on the vigil of S. Michael, which happened on a Sunday, the bishop came in the morning and consecrated three altars, the first in the east part, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... exterior of Durham is in any way disappointing, the interior more than compensates for its shortcomings. The general impression on entering the church is one of simple dignity and solemnity. The great massiveness of the structure and absence of elaborate ornament no doubt contribute to this feeling. The pious builders of old have certainly contrived to stamp on their work their own feeling of awe ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... Justice of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Israel W. Putnam, D.D., a graduate of the class of 1809, so long and so favorably known in New Hampshire as a clergyman. John H. Church, D.D., a graduate from Harvard, a man of apostolic solemnity and dignity of character, whose praise is in all the churches. John Wheeler, D.D., an accomplished scholar, afterwards President of the University of Vermont. Bennett Tyler, who was still a Trustee, although ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... had these remains piously collected as the relics of so many martyrs who had fallen in the cause of the faith. They were interred with great solemnity in the mosques of Moclin, which had been purified and consecrated to Christian worship. "There," says Antonio Agapida, "rest the bones of those truly Catholic knights, in the holy ground which in a manner had been sanctified by their blood; and all pilgrims passing through those ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... even now the practice in the interior of the western states. I was much amused at reading an English critique upon a work by Judge Hall (a district judge), in which the writer says, "We can imagine his honour in all the solemnity of his flowing wig," etcetera, etcetera. The last time I saw his honour he was cashier to a bank at Cincinnati, thumbing American bank-notes—dirtier work than is ever practised in the lowest grade of the law, as any one would say if he ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... forth a roll of manuscript which he opened, and rising read in a rich, deep, full, sonorous voice his opening address to Congress. His enunciation was deliberate, justly emphasised, very distinct, and accompanied with an air of deep solemnity as being the utterance of a mind conscious of the whole responsibility of its position, but not oppressed by it. There was ever about the man something which impressed one with the conviction that he was exactly and fully equal to what ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... a good voice and ear, and a special delight in the exercise of them. To county magnate or parson or stranger seated by him on the box he could be as decorous as a churchwarden, and talk of politics or cattle or county business with all due solemnity. But he was only at his best when "the front" was occupied by boys, or at any rate with a strong sprinkling of boys, amongst whom he was quite at his ease, and who were even more eager to hear than he to sing and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... were, so far as we can gather, tolerably happy. They had abundant holidays, mostly of religious origin; but, like our own, so frequently added to, and so far diverted from religious thoughts, that they were more marked by jollity and sport than by any solemnity of spirit. The workmen of a particular calling formed their guilds, "city companies," or clubs, in the interests of their trade and for mutual benefit. There was a guild of bakers, a guild of goldworkers, and a guild of anything and everything else. Each ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... kindness and brotherly affection distinguish your conduct as men and as Masons. Within your peaceful walls may your children's children celebrate, with joy and gratitude, the annual recurrence of this auspicious solemnity; and may the tenets of our profession be transmitted through this Lodge, pure and unimpaired, from generation ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... accordance with the freedom of manners then prevalent. Sir James Melville relates in his memoirs how he was present when Robert Dudley was made "Earl of Leicester and baron of Denbigh; which was done at Westminster with great solemnity, the Queen herself helping to put on his ceremonial, he sitting upon his knees before her with a great gravity. But she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck, smilingly tickling him, the French Ambassadour and I standing by. Then she turned, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... morning, caparisoned in diamonds, full of the solemnity that perfect beauty wears, had come out of the purple mist and shamed the hovel where Hazel dressed for her bridal. The cottage had sunk almost out of recognition in the foam of spring. Ancient lilacs stood about it and nodded purple-coroneted heads ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... that the author is constantly endeavoring to produce the legitimate effect of mental and moral qualities by a careful enumeration of external attributes. Harper, under which name Washington is introduced, appears in only two or three scenes; but, during these, we hear so much of the solemnity and impressiveness of his manner, the gravity of his brow, the steadiness of his gaze, that we get the notion of a rather oppressive personage, and sympathize with the satisfaction of the Whartons, when he retires to his own room, and relieves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... no depressing solemnity in her tones, as she thus alluded to that event which comes to all; but a smiling cheerfulness ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... of a sort of gladness and expectation, for I didn't doubt that you could do it. I had a feeling that I was going to see—really to see, with mortal eyes—Him, my Redeemer, the Son of God! I wasn't afraid—only joyful with a great solemnity. I carried it with me, that joy, into the fog and darkness; it was all that I knew when the utter night surged up and gulfed me, and even life was forgotten. I was to see Him, like the pure in heart who are to see God. I had had that wonder in my mind since Sunday ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... scurf that they may rise and stand on their feet. He loved the very quarries of Carrara, those strange grey peaks which even at mid-day convey into any scene from which they are visible something of the solemnity and stillness of evening, sometimes wandering among them month after month, till at last their pale ashen colours seem to have passed into his painting; and on the crown of the head of the David there still remains a morsel of ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... as if dead; and as he looked at her immovable features, hallowed to solemnity by sorrow and suffering, his heart was touched with an ineffable solicitude, sympathy and pity; and, as a brother might bend over a sleeping sister, he bent over Selene and kissed her forehead. She moved, opened her eyes, gazed into his face—but her glance was so full of horror, so vague, glassy ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... His strong and solid temperament, dazzled with the luxuriance of life, its sanguine forces and moral health, diverted him from the artificial graces and painted chloroses of the past century, as well as from the hierarchic solemnity, the brutal ferocity and misty, effeminate dreams of the old orient. When he, too, had become obsessed by this nostalgia, by this need, which is nothing less than poetry itself, of shunning the contemporary world he was ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... admitted the said appeal, and set a time when it should be brought before the authorities at Roma. In order to serve better the interests of this province, we appeared, through our procurators, within the allotted time at Roma, and furnished official statements presented by us, with all due solemnity. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... through the heavy darkness. And he marvelled, as he had marvelled before, at the machine-like perfection of these minions of the Iron Hand. Even in the face of their awful danger and amid the solemnity of the black night, the odd thought came to him that this stiff form turning about like a faithful and tireless weathercock to peer into the darkness roundabout, might be indeed a huge carved toy fresh from the quaint handworkers ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... sense of an untold loss. Looking back upon the fading figure, so dear to so many, and a light for years to come, shining still in many homes and many hearts and many lands, Johnson, in his sacred solemnity, said: "Poor Goldsmith! He was a ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... took part. Each speaker was conscious of the powers of his opponent; posterity, in the presence of the skilful reporter, as well as the existing generation represented by some of the ablest men, were the spectators of the combat; and a visible air of solemnity pervaded the manner of each. The question was precisely that which sprung from the repeal of the judiciary act of 1800 by the Congress of 1802, and is the nicest of all our party questions. It was a magnificent ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... for having deceived me. I waited for the news that your wedding-day was fixed; and I intended on that day, with solemnity, to take down Charlotte's profile from the wall, and to bury it with some other papers I possess. You are now united, and her picture still remains here. Well, let it remain! Why should it not? I know that I am still one of your society, that I still occupy a place uninjured in Charlotte's heart, ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... Philadelphia to the machinery: in Paris it is as strongly pronounced in favor of the fine arts. Paris is, indisputably, the capital of modern art, and her title to this proud distinction is to-day confirmed by the assembled peoples with all the solemnity and authority ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... in the morning following our brush with the Malays the hands were mustered for church parade, as on Sundays, and Kennedy's body was committed to the deep with all solemnity. Monroe read the burial service so impressively that even the lad Julius was visibly affected, while Mrs Vansittart and her daughter—both of them attired in black for the occasion—wept freely. Three days later we arrived in Singapore, and on the following day ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... the breathless silence of the congregation, "this thought of Friendship has for us a special solemnity. It is consecrated by the memory of one whom we have just lost. You, who are leaving the school, have been the friends and contemporaries of Henry Julius Desmond; his features are fresh in your memories, and will remain fresh as long as ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... support that that dignified person almost pitched head first into the opening, and was saved from an ignominious tumble by one of her attendants. This was too much for the others, who, forgetting the solemnity of their office, shrieked with mirth, in which the spectators were ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... pressing unremittingly the principles omitted in the late capitulation of the King, and watching the occasions which the course of events will create, may get those principles engrafted into it, and sanctioned by the solemnity of a national act. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... warm and still; in the interval of work it seemed to have paused and be sleeping. The tiger-cat, with his paws folded under him, lay beside the hearth, and Mary on her little bench nursed her doll peacefully. Calista began to sing a German hymn; the words were awful, but their very solemnity made ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... shell-shape. This head-dress, joined to a thin pair of whiskers, cut crescent-wise from the ear to the nose, gave my friend a regular bourgeois physiognomy, wax-doll-like: he looked a great deal too well; and, added to this, the solemnity of his prefectural costume, gave his whole appearance a pompous well-fed look that ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The admiral's consciousness of his own services, the repeated assurances he had received of high consideration on the part of the sovereigns, and the perpetual prerogatives granted to him under their hand and seal, with all the solemnity that a compact could possess, all forbade him to consider the transactions at San Domingo otherwise than as outrages on his authority by some ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... it would be of no use to us if we did, does not sound very encouraging. It reminds one of the description of the horse that had only two faults—one that it was hard to catch, and the other that it was no good when it was caught. We repeat with all solemnity the formula that all things proceed from an infinite and eternal energy, and that this is the Ultimate Reality, and then find that in relation to any and every question we are precisely where we were. Its acceptance in certain ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... aim is to make the book in its English dress not only absolutely literal in text but Oriental in tone and colour. He knows the tales almost by heart, and used to keep the Bedouin tribes in roars of laughter in camp during the long summer nights by reciting them. Sheiks to whom a preternatural solemnity of demeanour is usual were to be seen rolling on the ground in paroxysms of uncontrollable mirth. It was also Burckhardt's custom to read the stories aloud, but the Arabs would snatch the book from his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... skies deepened; in the shadows below the villages were lost altogether; and the mountains, growing more and more sombre under the rich gold above began to be almost fine. One half forgot the Cockneyism and familiarity of the place, and for a moment had a glimpse of the true loneliness and solemnity of the hills. ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... must explain, on behalf of the lady, that when she first joined me she had no other view than that of seeing the banks of the Jordan in that guise which she had chosen to assume, in order to escape from the solemnity and austerity of a disagreeable relative. She had been very foolish, and that was all. I take it that she had first left her uncle at Constantinople, but on this point I never got certain information. ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope
... invariably followed the habitual neglect of the cultivation of the elementary decencies of public life. The paper disclaimed any sympathy with either of the belligerent parties, and pointed out with sorrowful solemnity that if the principles sedulously inculcated upon its readers in its own columns were persistently flouted and contemned by those who claimed the position of national representatives, little else except a repetition at frequent intervals of the painful and humiliating scenes of the night before could ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... Middleton's, Stonecutter's Street, which pleases me less than the rest, it is to find that the six pair of gloves are to be returned, that they are only lent, or, as the bill expresses it, for use on the occasion. The hood, scarfs, and hat-bands, may properly enough be given up after the solemnity; the cloaks no gentlemen would think of keeping; but a pair of gloves, once fitted on, ought not in courtesy to be redemanded. The wearer should certainly have the fee-simple of them. The cost would be but trifling, and they would be a proper memorial ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... considered the baptism and blessings (endowments) bestowed vicariously on the living for the benefit of the dead. There also is added solemnity in a temple marriage, for it is for eternity and not merely for time. Due to this is the unusual activity of the Church members in genealogical research. It is believed that the Mormon Church is the only denomination that marries for eternity, this marriage also binding ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because he was the only one who could not ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Miss Julia Bertram," said he, "not to engage in the part of Agatha, or it will be the ruin of all my solemnity. You must not, indeed you must not" (turning to her). "I could not stand your countenance dressed up in woe and paleness. The many laughs we have had together would infallibly come across me, and Frederick and his knapsack would ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... say, and say with truth, and solemnity, that the idee didn't scare me none. And as my companion looked down in my face as the time approached, I could see the same thoughts that wuz writ in my ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... before partially unfolded, that God, under the gospel, having given us general principles and laws touching benevolence, has left the amount and frequency or our contributions to our own decision. The position we occupy under the new dispensation is full of interest and solemnity. As it is one of peculiar dignity, it is one of peculiar peril. God has now raised us to the true platform of intelligent and moral beings; given our reason and consciences free scope to exercise their own energetic and controlling powers. He has, indeed, always given man this prerogative, but ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... Washington was introduced by the secretary and conducted to a chair. After a short pause the President, General Mifflin, informed him that "the United States in Congress assembled were prepared to receive his communications." With native dignity, improved by the solemnity of the occasion, Washington rose and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... pas seul as if for a competitive examination, but left him unthrilled amidst all the enthusiasm that thundered from most parts of the house. It is true that there were faces there—and young men's faces—quite as solemn as his own, but then theirs was the solemnity of an enjoyment too deep for expression, while Mark's face was blank from a depression ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... knew nothing of Anne's austere and impressive attributes. She protested against anything so dreary as the other people's view of her. They and their absurd pedestals! She refused to regard her sister-in-law as an established solemnity, eminent and lonely in the scene. Pedestals were all very well at a proper distance, but at a close view they were foreshortening to the human figure. Other people might like to see more pedestal than Anne; she preferred ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... was one of those men who take the ceremony of introduction with a measured solemnity. It was his practice to grasp the party of the second part firmly by the hand, hold it, look into his eyes in a reverent manner, and get off some little speech of appreciation, short but full of feeling. The opening ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... lunch under a stone wall, and I, becoming an hilarious, rallied my companions unmercifully upon the solemnity with which they had marched in cautious silence, and with stern countenances as to attack some formidable foe—and all to slaughter sundry braces of inoffensive grouse-birds—truly ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... this tablet with some solemnity, in presence of Uttakiyok and his family, as representatives of the people of Ungava, and of our own company, and hoisted the British flag alongside of it, while another was displayed at the same time in the boat. We ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... see him, with his little dreadful air of fervid solemnity—and I don't know whether I dreamed it or whether it was really there—very spruce and strutting about the lawns of Amerley Park at that garden-party ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... giddy, I fear," continued Betty with comical pretense of solemnity. "I think it behooves ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... poured something into a glass from time to time and swallowed a little, yet I heard him very well for the most part. In the last portion of his speech he became animated and inspiriting, and his closing words were uttered with an impressive solemnity: "Think, I beseech you, think well, think wisely, think not for a moment, but for the years that are to come, before you reject ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... country where gold grew on the trees, as some would like; but no man need be afraid to go there if he had a will to work—and so on for a long time; and so close grew the crowd and so eager the questioning, there was some danger that the solemnity of the occasion might be forgotten in the growing interest, for more people were coming in by twos and threes, and not one of them all but was glad of a word ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... and talked to him again, telling him plainly, and impressing upon him, that his business was the care of the baby; that he must give himself up to her; that he must watch and tend, and, if needful, fight for the little one. When at length he left him, it was evident to Clare, by the solemnity of the dog's face, that he ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... with all solemnity, I must straightway proceed to hedge. If Lamoureux had not the qualities which give Richter and Mottl their pre-eminence, he had qualities which they do not possess, and his playing had qualities which one cannot find in theirs. If he had not absolutely a genius for music, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... infinite care like lacquer, and wrought like filigree work to the last point of conscious and perfected art. He was not a great thinker; the thoughts which he embodies in his philosophical poems—the Essay on Man and the rest, are almost ludicrously out of proportion to the solemnity of the titles which introduce them, nor does he except very rarely get beyond the conceptions common to the average man when he attempts introspection or meditates on his own destiny. The reader in search of philosophy will find little to stimulate ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... the seventeenth century, hollowed out the Earth in his magnetic speculations. Men were invited to believe that a subterranean freely-rotating nucleus occasions by its position the diurnal and annual changes of magnetic declination. It has thus been attempted in our own day, with tedious solemnity, to clothe in a scientific garb the quaintly-devised ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... whereas Master Ciappelletto lay dead, they held high and solemn vigil over him and on the morrow, clad all in albs and copes, book in hand and crosses before them, they went, chanting the while, for his body and brought it with the utmost pomp and solemnity to their church, followed by well nigh all the people of the ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... There were smiles on almost every face; and a hum of low but joyous greetings was heard without, till the loud voice of the priest, reciting the Creed, hushed every other. The only countenance of great seriousness present was that of Toussaint, and his bore an expression of solemnity, if not of melancholy, which struck every one who looked upon him—and he always was looked upon by every one. His personal qualities had strongly attracted the attention of the Spanish general. Jean Francais watched his every movement with the mingled triumph and jealousy ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... touching it, giving forth a series of mysterious thuds of varying intensity, some of which might have been made with a muffled sledge-hammer, all indicating intelligence—an intelligence that showed itself by deliberation, or eagerness, or stately solemnity according to the nature of the communication. Around the table three persons sitting with a hush of expectation, and faces (if they could have been seen) of awe-stricken earnestness.... The room shrouded in darkness, except at one end, where shifting masses of luminous vapour now and again gathered ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... and wields a distinctive influence, it being a point of honour with him that his teaching should differ in some way (usually in but a trivial detail) from the teaching of any other of his kind. The solemnity of their discussions and the heat of their dissensions about the minutiae of their creeds would be laughable were ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... the maxim which precedes it,—that Jesus must have intended to disallow something that had been previously permitted. If so, not trivial or profane oaths alone, but oaths made in good faith and with due solemnity must have been included in the precept, "Swear not at all."(13) It is historically certain that the primitive Christians thus understood the evangelic precept. They not only refused the usual idolatrous forms of adjuration, but maintained that all ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... history—so entirely unknown, with hieroglyphics explaining all, but perfectly unintelligible, I shall not pretend to convey any idea. Often the imagination was pained in gazing at them. The tone which pervades the ruins is that of deep solemnity." ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... the modern sings hymns, that is he flatters. There is still a great deal of the charlatanry of the magician in the construction of the houses of prayer, with the sunlight shut out and only filtering through the leaded and multi-colored panes, the semidarkness, the solemnity, the rise and swell of the organ; all things combined to overcome the senses, to play upon the emotions, and ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... night-mare— "they are only penciled in: no final touches as yet!" And he had a way of ending every sentence with a sudden smile, which spread like a ripple over that vast blank surface, and was gone in a moment, leaving behind it such absolute solemnity that I felt impelled to murmur "it was not he: it was somebody ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... meeting; about forty members were present, and among them some of the most distinguished members of the Association. Some foreigners were invited (the Prince of Casino, Buonaparte's nephew, among others), and were not a little astonished to see the grave professors, whose English solemnity and gravity they had doubtless commented on elsewhere, giving themselves up to all sorts of fun. Among the Red Lions we have a custom (instead of cheering) of waving and wagging one coat-tail (one Lion's tail) when we applaud. This seemed to strike the Prince's ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... days. The 300 who obtain the greatest number of votes will be publicly announced, and out of them there will be a second election of 100; and out of the 100 a third and final election of thirty-seven, accompanied by the solemnity of the electors passing through victims. But then who is to arrange all this? There is a common saying, that the beginning is half the whole; and I should say a good deal more than half. 'Most true.' The only way of making a beginning is from the parent city; and though in ...
— Laws • Plato
... deed of sale, and the parents of the girl parted with her only in exchange for a proportionate gift from the bridegroom. One girl would be valued at a silver shekel by weight, while another was worth a mina, another much less;* the handing over of the price was accompanied with a certain solemnity. When the young man possessed no property as yet of his own, his family advanced him the sum needed for the purchase. On her side, the maiden did not enter upon her new life empty handed; her father, or, in the case of his death, the head of the family at the time ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... francs in gold, methodically arranged in little piles. Gavard, who had prudently deposited the bulk of his fortune in the hands of a notary, had kept this sum by him for the purposes of the coming outbreak. He had been wont to say with great solemnity that his contribution to the revolution was quite ready. The fact was that he had sold out certain stock, and every night took an intense delight in contemplating those ten thousand francs, gloating over them, and finding something ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... deaconlike attitude of the dentist, the conventional solemnity of the schoolteacher and of the immobile Swede, the shaking, quavering terror of Mrs. Ducharme, mumbling to herself the words of the service. Why should the old woman be so upset, he wondered. But his vagrant thoughts always came back to the woman near the coffin, the woman he loved. How ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and with a countenance strongly expressive of horror, begged to be informed if this were really the stream. I received an answer in the affirmative, the solemnity of which was too much, first, for the risible faculties of my young companion, and then for my own. We literally roared with laughter. But we checked ourselves as soon as possible, and having explained to our guide how widely different were our notions of ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... the candles!" he cried with a sudden shout so loud and insistent that we seemed all of us to be shouting at once. However, we still went on silently regarding the punch-bowl and the white shirt of the Dorpat student, with a feeling that a moment of great solemnity was approaching. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... Fox wuz like some chilluns w'at I knows un," said Uncle Remus, regarding the little boy, who had come to hear another story, with an affectation of great solemnity. "Bofe un um wuz allers atter wunner nudder, a prankin' en a pesterin' 'roun', but Brer Rabbit did had some peace, kaze Brer Fox done got skittish 'bout puttin' ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... was performed with all honour and due solemnity, and the desired night came; and soon after the feast was ended, and the young people had withdrawn after having taken leave of the newly married couple,—the mother, cousins, neighbours, and other lady friends led the bride to the chamber where she ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... literature and common schools. Instead of a rattle or a drum the operator talks about "destiny" and "duty," or molds into easy phrases the sentiments which are popular. It is only a difference of method. Solemnity, unction, and rhetorical skill are needed. Often the phrases embody only visionary generalities. "Citizenship," "publicity," "public policy," "restraint of trade," "he who holds the sea will hold the land," "trade follows the flag," "the dollar of the fathers," "the key of the Pacific," ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... professors' chairs honored by all men. For achievements of this sort we need hardly use as strong language as Emerson does in describing contemporary literature: "It exhibits a vast carcass of tradition every year with as much solemnity as ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... the solemn vow which makes a man a monk or a religious. Such a vow is subject to the ordinance of the Church, on account of the solemnity attached to it. And since the Church considers what happens in the majority of cases, a profession made before the age of puberty, however much the person who makes profession may have the use of reason, or be capable of guile, does not take effect so ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... stroking it, and whenever his feelings became too much for her put her head down on his waistcoat. At such times the captain glared fiercely at the ex-pilot, who, being of a weak nature, was unable, despite his anxiety, to give his risible faculties that control which the solemnity of the occasion demanded. ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... loudly called on to examine well our foundations. If any thing be there unsound and hollow, the superstructure could not be safe, though its exterior were less suspicious. Let the question then be asked, and let the answer be returned with all the consideration and solemnity which a question so important may justly demand, whether, in the grand concern of all, the means of a sinner's acceptance with God, there be not reason to apprehend, that the nominal Christians whom we have been addressing, too generally entertain very ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... steeled against the appeal, which might have been expected, to their compassion for a poor and honest old man. A kind of innocent and benign cunning has been the most engaging quality in not a few great characters. It is tempting, though at the risk of undue solemnity, to look for the secret of Lincoln's cunning in this instance. We know from copybooks and other sources that these two young men, starting on the down grade with the help of their blackguardly legal adviser, were objects for pity, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... after a tremendous legal battle, conducted with the relishing solemnity with which Americans like to take their fooling, it was decided to call in an expert on brands, and a certain California rancher ten ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... land had sunk on the horizon the intro-circumvolutions of a large family, or rather a little world, began. There was a birth on board, an engagement, ay, and a death; yet neither the interest of the first, nor the romance of the second, nor the solemnity of the last, could check for more than a few hours the steady development of the family characteristics of love, modesty, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... religious state seems to have fluctuated considerably. Family jealousies and jars deadened the fervour of her devotion. Preparations for her first Sacrament under her sister's guidance, and the actual participation in that ordinance, had for a time a beneficial effect. But the solemnity of the Supper passed away without permanent ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... words came out with solemnity. Laura, at the other end of the kitchen, turned open-mouthed to look at the pair. Not a feature moved in either face. She sped back into the dairy, and ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Listen, chillun!" said Katie, in a voice of such awful solemnity that Ishmael again smiled at what he was inclined to characterize as the absurdity ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the Iliad. If Romance be the name for the sort of imagination that possesses the mystery and the spell of everything remote and unattainable, then Romance is to be found in the old Northern heroic poetry in larger measure than any epic or tragic solemnity, and in no small measure also even in the steady course of the Icelandic histories. Possibly Romance is in its best place here, as an element in the epic harmony; perhaps the romantic mystery is most mysterious when ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... identical the inspiration. The same huge boulders, oblong or egg-shaped, formidable, impressive, are raised aloft on massive supporting stones; there are the same circles of stones hardly less gigantic, with the same mysterious faces, the same silent solemnity. Following this line, we find them again in Minorca, Sardinia and Malta; everywhere under warm blue skies, in lands of olives and trailing vines, with the peacock-blue of the Mediterranean waves twinkling ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... in solemnity and silence, waiting for General Butler, who, it was announced, had started from Washington, and was either already in the city or expected every moment. Nearly a hundred generals, judges, statesmen, lawyers, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and grew amidst these enchanting scenes. From his infancy, he went almost annually to the feast at Jerusalem.[1] The pilgrimage was a sweet solemnity for the provincial Jews. Entire series of psalms were consecrated to celebrate the happiness of thus journeying in family companionship[2] during several days in the spring across the hills and valleys, each one having in prospect the splendors of Jerusalem, the solemnities of the sacred courts, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... some sweeties to the child, he despatched the mother with some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and the Orangeman's Bible. I was a little amused at his abrupt manner, for he was still a young man, and had somewhat the air of a navy officer; but he tackled me with great solemnity. I could make fun of what he said, for I do not think it was very wise; but the subject does not appear to me just now in a jesting light, so I shall only say that he related to me his own conversion, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... citizens of Memphis tore down the Stars and Stripes from its staff upon the Court-House, formed a procession, and with a band of music bore the flag, like a corpse, to a pit, and buried it in mock solemnity. They went into the public square, where stands the statue of General Jackson, and chiselled from its pedestal his memorable words: "The Federal Union,—it must be preserved." They went to the river-bank, and seized all the steamboats they could lay their hands upon ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... leaning from their windows, or hurrying with feverish haste in the direction of the New Chapel of St. Mary's, the parish church of the city. There a number of them congregated in twos or threes to await the procession of notables, who would soon approach with great solemnity and dignity from the opposite ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... crabbed;—whatever the case, it concerns not the representative of the State or the Church; it is not for them to look into that. The marriage bond is "blessed,"—as a rule, blessed with all the greater solemnity in proportion to the size of the fee ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... There was a solemnity and determination in the voice and manner of the soldier that paralyzed the intimidated soul of the governor; he trembled violently, and repeating the oath of leaving Grimsby unmolested, at last obtained ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... assurance Captain Paget filled his own large breakfast-cup with a careful hand and a tender solemnity of countenance. If he was a trifle less considerate in the pouring out of the second cup, and if some "grounds" mingled with the second portion, Valentine Hawkehurst was ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... of singular coincidence and diversity between the two nations appears in this, that the goat was common in the religious observances of both; a similar ritual required the sacrifice of this animal: but with the Jews the creature was an emblem of solemnity, while with the Greeks he was significant of joy; the Jews sacrificed him on their fasts,—the Greeks in their feasts. And here we may observe, that tragedy, the most dignified and the primitive form of the drama, deduces its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... assembly be, 295 And with great solemnity Declare with measured words that ye Are, as ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... together in their long, backward swish. Very soon the sleeping country, now wrapped in shadows, would take form and outline in the light of the rising moon; hedges would divide the square fields, the black woods would take shape and the hills their mystic solemnity. But those few minutes were minutes of suspense. Lessingham was to some extent conscious of ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... heart of man. Balder had looked forward to condemnation with a wholesome solemnity which cheered while it chastened him. But the thought of acquittal, and at Gnulemah's hands, appalled him. The implicit consequences to humanity seemed more formidable than the worst which condemnation could bring upon himself. So much had he lately changed his point of view, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the post office and handed it to her with exaggerated solemnity. "For Miss Melissa ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... upon his new term of office well aware that a hard road lay before him and his country. As he took the oath he opened and kissed the Bible at the passage "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." His address was imbued with a sense of the dread solemnity of the times. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... Mr. Birney used to ridicule them without mercy; so, one day, by way of making a point, I said with great solemnity, "Is it good breeding to make fun of the foibles of our fellow-men, who have not had our advantages of culture and education?" He felt the rebuke and blushed, and never again returned to that subject. I am sorry to say I was glad to find him once ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... instead of THAT," remarked Miss Heywood, with solemnity, "he had despatched those soldiers, whom I see there fully armed, to the rescue of my poor father. Perhaps he might be saved yet—the house is strong, and might be defended for some time, even by a couple ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... old, Dr. Allen saw him sitting on the churchyard gate at Harrow, with great gravity, whilst his school-fellows were all at play. "Sam. why don't you play with the others?" cried Allen. "Do not you know, sir," said he, with vast solemnity, "that I am to be a parson?" And Parr himself used to tell of Sir W. Jones, another of his school-fellows, that as they were one day walking together near Harrow, Jones suddenly stopped short, and, looking hard at him, cried out, "Parr, if you should have the good luck to live forty years, you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... hour and a quarter. The steady hum of her mother's voice was interrupted occasionally by brief replies from Ernest. At last, Chicken Little heard a movement and roused herself joyously. But her mother began to speak again—this time with reverent solemnity. Chicken Little forgot ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... ordinary corpse, but as little resembling the flush of natural life. The eyelids were but partially drawn down, and showed the eyeballs beneath; as if the deceased friar were stealing a glimpse at the bystanders, to watch whether they were duly impressed with the solemnity of his obsequies. The shaggy eyebrows gave sternness to the look. Miriam passed between two of the lighted candles, and ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was an immense solemnity, like a dark ocean beneath the vast dome of the sky, and something quivered in every fibre of his being, like moonlit ripples on the sea. He felt at the same time a portentous stillness ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... to his place in silence. His face looked firm and earnest. This action and all the preceding conversation, which was so surprising from Ivan, impressed every one by its strangeness and a certain solemnity, so that all were silent for a moment, and there was a look almost of apprehension in Alyosha's face. But Miuesov suddenly shrugged his shoulders. And at the same moment Fyodor Pavlovitch jumped up ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... morning air has been productive of a surplus amount of animal spirits, and I feel like doing something funny; so I volunteer to cure his " sick foot" by sundry dark and mysterious manoeuvres, that I unbiushingly intimate are "heap good medicine." With owlish solemnity my small monkey-wrench is taken from the tool-bag and waved around the " sick foot" a few times, and the operation is completed by squirting a few drops from my oil-can through a hole in the blanket. Before going I give him to ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the sunshine and festivity at a bridal, there is to me more of solemnity, almost sadness, in the scene than in any other we are called upon to witness, save that more mournful rite, when dust is returned to dust. There is a young and often thoughtless maiden, taking upon herself vows which but few understand, in the depth of their import, vows lasting as life, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... in the hand,'" said the gentleman, reading his last entry with great solemnity, "'is worth ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... aside, and stood at the head of the grave, he was evidently trying to remember the something that ought to be said. He removed his hat, placed it carefully on the grass, held his hands out from his sides and a little to the front, drew a long deep breath, and said with a solemnity that greatly disturbed Five Bob: "Hashes ter hashes, dus ter dus, Brummy—an'—an' in hopes of ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... like an infidel who intrudes upon the celebration of strange rites. This was Man's hour, and women must keep in the background. She had the sensation of being very small and yet very much in the way, like a puppy who has wandered into a church. The novelty and solemnity ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... look for her miraculous herb, still, however, attended by the Saracen, who would not let her go out of his sight. She soon found it; and then going with him into his house, passed the rest of the day and the whole night in preparing the mixture with busy solemnity,—Rodomont always remaining with her. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... where Saint Veronica held out the cloth which took the miraculous likeness. We examined our souls before Good Friday; we went to the special yearly Holy Communion now invested with a strange and awful solemnity. There was the prostration before the Cross at Golgotha on Good Friday, the receiving of the Sacred Fire, symbol of the Resurrection, on Holy Saturday, and then the night of the year and the Great Morning. It seemed when we all kissed one another on Easter Morning that we had outlived ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... does hear and see; one cannot but judge of the ceremony by the manner in which one sees it performed—uttered, that is—and listened to. Clergymen there are—one meets them now and then—who endeavour to give to the dinner-table grace some of the solemnity of a church ritual, and what is the effect? Much the same as though one were to be interrupted for a minute in the midst of one of our church ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... he came not that joust to see, Accepts the challenge of the cavalier; For when occasion serves, it cannot be An evil use to make our worth appear: Then questioned more of that solemnity; — If 'twere a wonted feast, held every year, Or new emprise; by which, in martial course, The monarch would assay his ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... her part, and attended with a great improvement in her character, ended in her bringing home a young man, with straight, sandy hair, brushed so as to stand up steeply above his forehead, wearing a pair of green spectacles, and dressed in black broadcloth. His personal aspect, and a certain solemnity of countenance, led me to think he must be a clergyman; and as Master Benjamin Franklin blurted out before several of us boarders, one day, that "Sis had got a beau," I was pleased at the prospect of her becoming a minister's wife. On inquiry, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... multitude stood in altered relations— they were again a reverent flock, and he once more a solemn pastor; the natural play of his nation's mirthful sarcasm was absorbed in a moment in the sacredness of his office; and with a solemnity befitting the highest occasion, he placed his hands together before his breast, and raising his eyes to Heaven he poured forth his sweet voice, with a tone of the deepest devotion, in that reverential ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... grander funeral solemnity. In every place through which the deceased was borne in regal attire, with his well- known standards and fasces before him, the inhabitants and above all his old soldiers joined the mourning train: it seemed as if the whole army would once more meet round ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the majestic solemnity of that stairway, admirably placed as it is to produce a solemn effect. It rises, beyond the outer peristyle which adorns the courtyard of the Palais, from the centre of a gallery leading, at one end, to the vast hall of the Pas Perdus, and at the other to the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... wise; they are honorable; they are virtuous; their cultivation is not merely innocent pleasure, it is incumbent duty. Obedient to their dictates, you, my fellow-citizens, have instituted and paid frequent observance to this annual solemnity. And what event of weightier intrinsic importance, or of more extensive consequences, was ever selected ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... audience, and which accordingly descended, by way of experiment, leaving Miss Farren between the lamps and the curtain. The fair speaker informed the audience, that should the fire break out on the stage (where it usually originates), it would thus be kept from the spectators; adding, with great solemnity - ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... incontrovertibly established by the celebrated Langles, that this oil, which even in the four Asiatic countries just mentioned, ranks with the greatest rarities, and in Shiras itself is valued at its weight in gold, was discovered by mere accident, on occasion of some festival solemnity in the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... to this time had been quite affable, now seemed suddenly to be caught by the solemnity of the place, and stood like a man at the ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... to give due solemnity to the ceremonial. The leaden coffin was fastened down, and enclosed in an outer case of oak, upon the lid of which stood a richly-chased massive silver flagon, filled with burnt claret, called the grace-cup. All the lights were removed, save two lofty wax flambeaux, which were ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... regulations for visiting and calls; and they were announced to any young people who might be staying in the town, with all the solemnity with which the old Manx laws were read once a ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Easter approached, Patrick considered that there was no place more suitable to celebrate the high solemnity of the year—i.e., the Easter—than in Magh-Bregh, the place where the head of the idolatry and druidism of Erinn was—viz., in Temhair. They afterwards bade farewell to Dichu, son of Trichim, and put their vessels on the sea; ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... desired to be received by her, she did not hesitate a moment, but expressed her willingness at once. Punctually as the gun of Sant Angelo roared out the news that the sun was on the meridian, Cardinal Antonelli entered Corona's house. She received him in the great drawing-room. There was an air of solemnity about the meeting. The room itself, divested of a thousand trifles which had already been sent into the country, looked desolate and formal; the heavy curtains admitted but little light; there was no fire on the hearth; Corona stood ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... despair. She had fancied him a man of power and ambition, a doer, a man of action. But he was no more than a creature of words and sentiment, graceful manners, and an engaging appearance. The despised Mr. Stocks was the real worker. She had laughed at his incessant solemnity as the badge of a fool, and adored Lewis's light-heartedness as the true air of the great. But she had been mistaken. Things were what they seemed. The light-hearted was the half-hearted, "the wandering dilettante," Mr. Stocks had called ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... cries of the sufferers, the Archbishop assumed a bolder tone, which terrified his enemies, and compelled the court of Rome to come forward to his support. By a sentence, promulgated with more than the usual solemnity, he cut off from the society of the faithful such of the royal ministers as had communicated with the antipope, those who had framed the Constitutions of Clarendon, and all who had invaded the property of the Church. At the same time he confirmed by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... replied Ranulph; "but you are right, I will endeavor to snatch a little rest. Something within tells me all is not yet accomplished. What remains?—I shudder to think of it. I will rejoin you at midnight. I shall myself attend the solemnity. Adieu!" ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... but it was as much the fashion for gentlemen of the cloth to affect a mighty solemnity in those days as it was for the laity to let out an oath at every other word, and the young divine only frowned ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... absorbing vein until the meeting was opened, much to my relief; for I had been surfeited with the subject of money finding for that day, at least. But that was not all; for, during the solemnity of the opening exercises, I heard some one telling, in an undertone, of a negro who had found a roll of old bank notes in a log which had been hauled to a saw mill to ...
— Money Island • Andrew Jackson Howell, Jr.
... expressing the image of the poet's conception are employed at once. We have tragedy without music and dancing; and music and dancing without the highest impersonations of which they are the fit accompaniment, and both without religion and solemnity. Religious institution has indeed been usually banished from the stage. Our system of divesting the actor's face of a mask, on which the many expressions appropriate to his dramatic character might be moulded into one permanent and unchanging ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... dying man—for a dying man I feel myself to be—however long or short the interval which stands between me and the scaffold. It is not with a childish hope that any assertion of mine can avail before the tribunal of the law against the evidence adduced this day, that I, with all the solemnity befitting a man whose days are numbered, declare to you that I am wholly innocent of the crime laid to my charge. I have no such expectation; I seek only that you, in pity of my youth and untimely fate, should convey to her whom I have madly presumed to worship ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... his soul to heaven through a slip about his neck." Whether this suggestion is founded in truth, we have no other evidence than an obscure hint in the epitaph hereafter inserted, which was written by the author himself, a short time before his death. His body, with due solemnity, was buried near that of Dr. Robert Weston, in the north aisle which joins next to the choir of the cathedral of Christ Church, on the 27th of January 1639-40. Over his grave was soon after erected a comely monument, on the upper pillar of the said aisle, with ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... him read "Josh Billings," particularly "On the Mule," from the New York Weekly columns. It was as "good as a play," the stenographers said, to see the President dart a glance over his spectacle-rims at some demure counselor whose molelike machinations were more than suspected, and with mock solemnity declaim: ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... little heat, thinking of the bloody dirk he had hidden in his pocket and designed, in his ill thoughts, to end me with. He, for his part, took a great draught of the wine and spoke with the most unusual solemnity. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The solemnity of his manner intimidated the Widow, and she hastened to say: "Of course I am always happy to oblige you, Mr. Gordonmammon; and since you have set your mind on Tom's having Chloe, I have no objection to your ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... choice of phrases he frequently uses words with great solemnity, which every other mouth and pen has appropriated to jocularity and levity! The Rhodians gave up the contest, and, in poor plight, fled back to Rhodes.—Boys and girls were easily kidnapped.—Deiotarus was a mighty believer of augury.—Deiotarus destroyed his ungracious ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... about to leave you for eight days." "What do you tell me?" interrupted he. "Every year," replied she, "at the approach of Holy Week, I go to pass some time in a convent, to prepare myself for the solemnity of Easter." Oswald advanced nothing in opposition to this intention; he knew that at this epoch, the greater part of the Roman ladies gave themselves up to the most rigid devotion, without however on that account troubling themselves very seriously ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... sorry," repeated Bob, with that same strange solemnity, "because I can't offer to come and stay here while you are away. Father is going away too, and of course I couldn't leave the mater and Trix. If only ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield |
