"Stern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wild, was peculiarly romantic and nourished the poetry in his soul." Even a creature of a lower order than philosophers, poets, or even us poor tourists, has been known to feel the chilling influence of Nature in these her wildest forms, and though weaned from softer airs, perhaps reconciled to its stern lot, has cherished in its innermost bosom a memory so warm, so strong, as to assert itself at last with a force that fired and burst the little breast in which it had unconsciously smothered. Witness Campbell's little poem, "The Parrot," the incident of which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... no heed paid to his remark, and at last the boy drew a breath full of relief, for he heard steps on the stairs, the sentry's piece rattled, and then the key turned in the lock, and Captain Murray entered, looking very stern. ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... turned his weary steps, there stood in his path the genius of the time, not beautiful, not romantic, to his eyes; not even grand—but stern enough and in grim earnest, demanding of him what he could not give,—the heart and voice of an American citizen in ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... Stern and erect the buskin'd dame In high dramatick wrath appears, With energy supports her claim And seems to thunder in his ears; While the inveigling comick Fair, With aspect sly and artful air To draw her favourite to her arms Strains every nerve; but as she strives, With the sweet attitude contrives ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... everything else in France bowed down. He had the spirit to tell Lewis the Fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that his Majesty knew Nothing about poetry, and admired verses which were detestable. What was there in Addison's position that could induce the satirist, Whose stern and fastidious temper had been the dread of two generations, to turn sycophant for the first and last time? Nor was Boileau's contempt of modern Latin either injudicious or peevish. He thought, indeed, that no poem of the first order would ever be written in a dead language. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... gold unbless'd of man or heav'n. 'Mid all the tyrants of our age and clime, He stands alone in infamy and crime; Not e'en Thersites of the cunning tribe, Gloried in guile like him we now describe. Born of a race where thrift, with iron rod, Taught punic faith and mocked the laws of God; Where stern oppression held her impious reign, And mild dissent was death with torturous pain; His youth drank in the lessons of his race, Which stamp'd their impress on ...
— The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons • James Fairfax McLaughlin
... undoubtedly will be that of F. M. Fling, projected in three volumes, of which Vol. I, The Youth of Mirabeau, was published in 1908; the most recent and convenient French treatment is by Louis Barthou (1913); a standard German work is Alfred Stern, Das Leben Mirabeaus, 2 vols. (1889); and for a real insight into Mirabeau's character and policies, reference should be made to his Correspondance avec le comte de la Marck, 3 vols. (1851). Hilaire Belloc has written very readable and suggestive ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... above all, that to each there were sixty minutes in the hour, and twenty-four hours in the day, and years and years of these days. This was the Secret, and he was its custodian. None of the others knew of it; but its awfulness made him sad and stern. He checked the days, he numbered the hours, he counted the minutes rigorously lest one escape. One did escape, and he turned back to catch it, and pursued it far away from the stone doorway and the dull twilight, and even the sound of the bell, ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... still, hares and foxes, badger and otter; the otter, indeed, makes grievous depredations among the salmon that come up the river to spawn, for, like a dingo among sheep, he slays promiscuously what he does not eat. It is, I suppose, a lingering tradition of our old stern game laws that imposes a severe penalty for poaching when a man picks up a salmon which an otter has killed ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... dead man from Trevna, and laid him carefully in the bows. The others jumped in, and Peter, sooner than be knocked on the head or left behind, sulkily followed, and sat himself on the extreme edge of the stern as far away from the dead man as ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... culprits were incorrigible, caused him to maintain that the gallows-tree was the most efficacious as well as the cheapest instrument that could be invented for protecting society against malefactors. Another of his stern dicta was, that previous good character was a reason for increasing rather than a reason for lessening a culprit's punishment; "For," he argued, "the longer a prisoner has enjoyed the good opinion of the world, the less are the excuses ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... cheer, not very hearty—a cheer propitiatory, for they did not know what we meant to do. The colonel made them a brief speech, promising peace, security, liberty, plenty, and all the goods of heaven. In a few stern words he cautioned them against "treachery," and announced that any rebellion against the Provisional Government would meet with swift punishment. Then he posted his army in companies, to keep watch till all was quiet. And ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... from the living by the law of Biogenesis and denied forever the possibility of resurrection within itself. So very strange a thing, indeed, is this broad line in Nature, that Science has long sought to obliterate it. Biogenesis stands in the way of some forms of Evolution with such stern persistency that the assaults upon this law for number and thoroughness have been unparalleled. But, as we have seen, it has stood the test. Nature, to the modern eye, stands broken in two. The ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... pictures and tapestries, and paid the price of his merciless arrogance towards all men—and women—by folding his wan hands upon his breast and exclaiming, somewhat unconvincingly: "Thus do I give myself to God." As if recalling himself to the stern reality of things he added: "I have no enemies but ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... wondered if she had not had a little tenderness for one of them, but I believe it was almost elder-sisterly. She told me much in their excuse. My father had never been the fond, indulgent father to them that I remembered him, but a strict, stern authority when he was at home, and when he was absent leaving them far too much to their own devices; while Prometesky was a very attractive person, brilliant, accomplished, full of fire and of faith in his theories ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... down on the stern of his boat and was kicking his heels against the planks, waiting to hear what I had to answer. ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... monarch stood stark and stern in all its solitude, with one branch lifted like a skeleton arm ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... his attempts at cool analysis of his own sensations failed, as would those of a priest who, worshipping before the altar, tried at the same time to give an analytical account of his state of mind. Ruskin is the stern high priest of the worshippers of mountains; to him they are cathedrals designed by their glory and their gloom to lift humanity out of its baser self into the realization of high destinies. The fourth volume of Modern Painters was the fount ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... Sakai Uta no Kami and Doi Oi no Kami of the ro[u]ju[u] (council of state) were keen to urge the match. She was young, and they plead the cruelty of forcing celibacy on her. She was the centre of the ill disposed and most willingly so. The stern old soldier Aoyama Hoki no Kami took the opposite ground. It was for her to cut short her hair and pray for the soul of the husband perished in the flames of O[u]saka-Jo[u]. Such was the precedent, and, he hinted with good ground, the disposition of the princess, ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... a bunny or anything that was required of him. So silent was he and so stern that even Winny saw that there was something wrong. She knew by the way he let Stanny down from his shoulder to the ground, a way which implied that Stanny was not so young nor yet so small and helpless as he seemed. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... he stepped into the entry, "he's a wonder." Then he stopped, glanced around, and turned a stern face on Simmonds. "Where's the man I left on guard ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... suddenly there was an alarm of a night attack. Firing commenced all round the town, which was a most unusual occurrence for a Sunday night. In an instant the man who had been masquerading as a buffoon was again the commanding officer, stern and alert. The tramp of many feet was heard in the streets, which proved to be the reserve squadron of the Protectorate Regiment, summoned in haste to headquarters. A Maxim arrived, as by magic, from somewhere else, the town guard were ordered to their places, and an A.D.C. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... men in the scow. One sat at the oars, and the other stood on a bench in the stern and held in his hand a short spear which was coarsely barbed. The one who rowed was apparently a poor fisherman. He was small, dried-up and weather-beaten, and wore a thin, threadbare coat. One could see that he was so used to being out in all sorts of weather ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... in the person of a clergyman who died some years since at the advanced age of eighty. I never saw him except once—at the consecration of a church—when I was a child of ten years old. I was then struck with his appearance, and stern, martial air. At a subsequent period, I heard him talked about in the neighbourhood where he had resided: some mention him with enthusiasm—others with detestation. I listened to various anecdotes, balanced evidence ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... guess.... Nobody belonging to me had ever been rack-rented. I had never seen any of my own people evicted. No great judge of assize had ever looked down on me from his bench to the dock and addressed to me stern words. I had never heard the clang behind me of a prison door. No royal hand of an Irish constabularyman had ever brought a baton down on my head. No carbine had ever butted the soft places of my body. I had no scars that might redden with memories. The ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... wanted to start with a clean sheet; not out of love of confidence, for he was self-contained, but he would have enough to do to shepherd his future without shepherding his past. He saw that Lady Belward had a sickly fear in her face, while Sir William had gone stern and hard. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of supplying cord-wood to steamboats, Mr. Hill had a partner, grizzled and gray, by the name of Griggs. Griggs was a typical pioneer: he was always moving on. He bought a little stern-wheel steamboat, and shipped its boiler and engine across to Breckenridge, where he had the joy of running the first steamboat, "The Northwest," ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... heartfelt approbation. To every theory of society or government, whether the offspring of feverish ambition or of morbid enthusiasm, calculated to dissolve the bonds of law and affection which unite us, I shall interpose a ready and stern resistance. I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the States where it exists are entitled ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... stop laughing. Say your lesson, for this will be your last," was the stern reply, though Amy's face dimpled ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... he went, smothered beneath the weight of numbers, yet struggled up again. His great head was torn and dripping; his eyes a gleam of rolling red and white; the little tail stern and stiff like the gallant stump of a flagstaff shot away. He was desperate, but indomitable; and he sobbed ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... isn't an unmixed blessing by any means. Look at the photographs of the wild Indians—the ones that carried their lives in their hands every minute—and there's something stern and noble about their faces. Put an Indian on a reservation and he takes to drinking whisky. It was the same way with the chaps that lived in the Middle Ages and had to wear shirts of chainmail. It kept 'em guessing. That's merely ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... Guert was apt to be very Dutch, when much excited. We did remember the dead; and I have often thought, but never knew precisely, that each of us sacrificed a victim to the manes of our lost companions, on that stern occasion. Our rifles rang, or cracked would be the better word, almost simultaneously; a yell arose from the savages around the fire; our own shouts mingled with that yell, and forward we went, endeavouring to make our numbers appear as if ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... tide; Thus rose fair Leila's whiter neck:— Thus arm'd with beauty would she check Intrusion's glance, till Folly's gaze Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise. Thus high and graceful was her gait; Her heart as tender to her mate; Her mate—stern Hassan, who was he? Alas! that name was ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... from it a harvest of many tears. Do ye then bear Athens and the land of Greece in mind, and let no man, despising what is his and coveting another man's goods, so bring great wealth to ruin. For Zeus is ever ready to punish them that think more highly than they ought to think, and taketh a stern account. Wherefore do ye instruct the King with counsels that he cease to sin against the Gods in the pride of his heart. And do thou that art his mother go to thy house, and take from it such apparel as is seemly, and go to meet thy son, for the many rents ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... savage. Their skin was copper colored, their long, straight hair was tied and worn in a braid, and their faces were very stern; for, you know, an Indian never laughs ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... good-sized one, and it had a cabin and everything neat and comfortable. The Reformed Pirate managed it beautifully, all by himself, and Corette sat in the stern and watched the waves, and the sky, and the sea-birds, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... ready to take her place by his side, and drive him across the hills as if it were the best fun in the world, with the frightened country-boy clattering behind on his bare-backed steed. The moon rises late and they come home just before daybreak, and though the doctor tries to be stern as he says he cannot have such a piece of mischief happen again, he wonders how the girl knew that he had dreaded for once in his life the drive in the dark, and had felt a little less ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the earth, Julius, the invader of Rome and of the world, who, the first in war and arts, assumed universal empire under his single rule, faithful Fabricius and stern Cato, would now have been unknown to fame, if the aid of books had been wanting. Towers have been razed to the ground; cities have been overthrown; triumphal arches have perished from decay; nor ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... leaned against the mantel-piece. Her face had become hard and stern. Harriet started to leave the room, but Mrs. Floyd suddenly stepped between her and ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... abreast, winds up the rock, which has three terraces formed by nature, and favorably situated for defence. Around in the near distance rise other less elevated rocks and cliffs, some of them tufted with oaks and beeches, others naked and time-stained, and all together forming a scene of such stern wildness as was well fitted for a hiding-place of liberty, ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... on 't, Jack," says I, "we must show her that she can't ride rough-shod over us any longer. We must be stern to be kind." ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... counterfeit of him Whom Arno shall remember long, How stern of lineament, how grim The father ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... and Colin—a Cornal—and both of Keils. The Sheriff's lady might leave me out of her routs if she pleasured it, but she has no cause to put my brothers to an insult like this." She said "my brothers" with a high hard sound of stern and proud possession that was very fine to hear. Even Gilian, as yet only beginning to know the love and pride of this little woman, had, at her accent, a sudden deep ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... only one. In fact, there is not much "kick" in her kind. The tail of the cow is of less protection to her than is that of the horse to him. Her great need of it is to fight flies, and, if attacked in the rear, it furnishes a good hold for her enemies. Then her bony stern, with its ridges and depressions and thin flanks, is less fit in any encounter with storm or with beast than is her head. On the other hand, the round, smooth, solid buttocks of the horse, with their huge masses of muscles, ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... prevailed upon him to stop, for the sake of observing a canoe or boat, with several natives of the country in it. He could not, at a distance, forbear admiring the form of this little vessel, which seemed inclining to a semicircle, the stern and prow standing up, and the body sinking inward; but much greater was his wonder, when, upon a nearer inspection, he found it made only of the barks of trees, sewed together with thongs of sealskin, so artificially, that scarcely any ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... from the shore and the voyage is fairly and auspiciously begun, the good lady seated in the prow in charge of the tender object of her unremitting care, and giving it the shelter of her parasol from the advancing rays of the sun, and the skilful Palinurus himself squatted in the stern, with a small paddle in his hand, giving alternate strokes, first to the right and then to the left, and thus, with the aid of the slow current propelling his diminutive barque at the rate of about six knots an hour, and enjoying the simultaneous pleasure of 'paddling his ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... business before you talk of arrests. Besides, this baby! Why, she's the prettiest little innocent I've seen in a week's beat," said the rough voice, and now regarding the lips through which it issued, the young "Elbower" perceived that they were no longer stern ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... quarters: and, in their stead, appeared gloves, bands, scarfs, hair-pins, and many other little devices, almost as ingenious in their way as rats and mice themselves, for the tantalisation of mankind. About and among them all, moved Kate herself, not the least beautiful or unwonted relief to the stern, old, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... made by the cloak falling a little aside, had no great opinion of the faculty of this chance patient to make reimbursement, had no sooner seen his case espoused by a substantial citizen, than he showed some reluctance to quit possession of it, and it needed a short and stern hint from Master George, which, with all his good-humour, he was capable of expressing when occasion required, to send to his own dwelling this Esculapius of ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... for such a heavenly pastime," I just as solemnly announced to Gershom, who studied me with a stern and guarded eye, and having partaken of his eleventh flap-jack, escaped to the stable and the matutinal task of harnessing ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... his hand tightened on Scott's arm. Under the street light beside them, he could see the colour rush into the face of his companion, as if in answer to the touch and the appeal; could see the thin lips waver, then set themselves into a stern, hard line. Then,— ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... repairing machinery and helping to erect a new crusher, nursing peons with broken legs, and riding cow-ponies down black mountain trails at night under an exhilarating splendor of stars. It never seemed to him that the machinery desecrated the mountains' stern grandeur. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... of tableaux showing events of American history. The first represented Washington Crossing the Delaware. The sponson, a flat-bottomed canoe with air tanks in the sides, came into view around the cliff propelled by one paddler in the stern. In the bottom sat two devoted patriots carrying hatchets. The great George stood in the bow, in defiance of all canoe laws, with one foot up on the bow point, his hand on his sword, his eyes on the distant shore. His hair had turned bright ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... circumstances. Mrs. Shaw knew me well, but I had not seen her for many years, when this strange event took place:—I was captain of the Dock Company's steamer, and on going one dark night into the Victoria Dock, I found a deep timber-laden vessel, with her stem upon the bank and her stern in the channel, and she was rapidly filling with water. I at once went to her assistance, and having fastened a strong rope to her, and then to my packet, I tried, first in one way and then in another, to pull her off, but she seemed ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... would take his pills. Meanwhile, he gave me a catalogue of grievances, the sum and substance of which was, "he had nothing to eat." I questioned him over and over again, and then, coming to the same stern conclusion, I gave him some supper. Some weeks ago the Rais gave each soldier 3 Tunisian piastres, about 1s. 10d. Since then they had had nothing. Substantially, I believe, he spoke the truth, for these poor fellows are kept just above ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... rises up in stern Promethean revolt against the decrees of Fate. The second spirit deliberately allies itself in wanton, bitter glee, with the humorous provocation of humanity, by the cruel Powers of the Air. The psychology of all this is not hard to unravel. The same abnormal sensitiveness that ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... Yet their way is exceeding longsome, and all must be done first at London." So far as Broghill's communications with London might serve, the Resolutioners, therefore, might count on him as their friend. And by this time he had reasons to show. Had he not succeeded, where the stern Monk had failed, in inducing the Resolutioner clergy to give up public praying for King Charles and otherwise to conform; and was it not on this ground that Monk was believed still to befriend the Protesters? But perhaps it hardly needed Broghill's representations to induce Cromwell ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... considered herself fit to be seen by him till she herself was neat and tidy. Like all the women of her class and generation, the Tosswills' old family nurse was full of self-respect, and also imbued with a stern sense of duty. Timmy stood far more in awe of her than he ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... black hull, bright waist, and wales painted white. Her bows flare very much, and are sharp and symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted by a gilt scroll, or, as the sailors call it, a fiddle-head. The black stern is ornamented by a group of white figures in bas relief, which give a lively air to the otherwise sombre and vacant expression, and beneath the cabin-windows is painted the name of the ship, and her port of register. The ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... later the billowly clouds swept across the vessel, and a sudden darkness overspread them. Then there was a glow of white light, a line of foam approached as fleet as a race-horse, and with a shriek the gale was upon them. The vessel shook from stem to stern as if she had struck against a rock, and her bow was pressed down lower and lower until she seemed as if she were going to dive head-foremost. But as she gathered way, her bow rose, and in a minute she was flying along at some eighteen knots ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... Darnley Island near the Torres Straits, news was brought that Dzum was under the stern in a canoe, shouting out loudly for Dzoka (MacGillivray's native name), and, on going up I found that he had brought off the barit, which after a deal of trouble I struck a bargain for and obtained. It was a very fine specimen ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... do not pass in heedless haste, Nor all your time in needless folly waste; But, if with you a solemn thought doth dwell, Pray lend it here, and think it may be well Awhile to set aside the world's stern care, And for a true, though passing, glance prepare Upon a theme which is too often hid By pleasure's streams and vanities which thread The onward path which through the wide world wends, Which chequered is, and many a snare attends. The theme I speak of is the aim of ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... the poor child, quite heart-broken at this stern rebuke; "indeed, indeed, I never meant to disobey you, but my foot was so painful, and I felt so faint, and Erle was so peremptory ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... tommy, soldiers, pipes, and backey, rotten apples, stale pies, needles and threads, and a hundred other things; besides a fat old woman sitting in the stern sheets." ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... their long and intimate knowledge of each other, at no time had she ever betrayed a weakness that promised to undermine her high sense of duty; and as time increased her means of judging of what those duties were, her submission to them seemed to be stronger and stronger. Had there been anything stern or repulsive in Mary's manner of manifesting the feeling that was uppermost in her mind, one of Roswell Gardiner's temperament would have been very apt to shake off her influence; but, so far from this being the case, she ever met him and parted from him with a gentle and ingenuous interest in his ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... mountains shrouded in clouds, or capped with snow; I have, loitering in its smiling valleys, seen its waterfalls, and floated on its crystal torpid lakes, and rushing rivers; yet this old land of Norway yields not in all to them, but bears on her stern and rugged brow the soft impressions of a beneficent creation impartially dispensed. Such reflections failed not, day by day, to force themselves upon me; for I knew, that every step I now took removed me farther and farther from a country, whose mighty mountains ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... fresh air, the singing of the birds, until the sound of a gong called him to the house. On his entrance he found the whole company already assembled in the dining room. Valentina Mihailovna greeted him in a friendly manner; she seemed to him marvellously beautiful in her morning gown. Mariana looked stern and serious as usual. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies, were altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's visage; and even if the Great Stone Face had assumed his look of stern command, the milder traits would still have ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... by some harmonious combination of syllables the loves that would be expended there. Rocomadour imitated too obviously the sound of sucking doves, and was rejected for that reason. Cahor tempted us, but it was too stern a name; its Italian name, Devona, appealed to us; but, after all, we could not think of Cahor as Devona. And for many reasons were rejected Armance, Vezelay, Oloron, Correz, Valat, and Gedre. Among these, only Armance gave us any serious pause. Armance! That evening and the next we ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... stained its current two thousand and sixty-three years ago, when the combined consular armies of Livius and Nero encountered and crushed near its banks the varied hosts which Hannibal's brother was leading from the Pyrenees, the Rhone, the Alps, and the Po, to aid the great Carthaginian in his stern struggle to annihilate the growing might of the Roman republic, and make the Punic power supreme over all ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... mocked the host of Israel, and challenged any of their stern warriors to single combat, what human being could have imagined that the gigantic heathen would be successfully met in the mortal struggle by a youth 'ruddy and of a fair countenance?' who unarmed, except with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... doubt she does." The corners of Mrs. Schuneman's mouth were pulled down farther than they had been and she looked very, very stern until Jenny Lind broke into joyous song again, when the corners of Mrs. Schuneman's mouth tilted up, slightly. "Well, well," she said again, but not quite so crossly. "So long as you behave yourself and aren't a nuisance I shan't say a word. Where I lived before my brother left ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... and stripping it of every visible pomp of circumstance. Hence the great flatness of the fifth act. What a different impression would have been produced had Horatius, in presence of the king and people, been solemnly condemned, in obedience to the stern mandate of the law, and afterwards saved through the tears and lamentations of his father, just as Livy describes it. Moreover, the poet, not satisfied with making, as the history does, one sister of the Horatii in love with one of the Curiatii, has thought ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... having been manned, he seated himself in the stern sheets, a large flag trailing in the water behind him. Lauritz Seehus, creeping in behind him, took the yoke lines, so that everything should be done man-of-war fashion. The six men pulled with a long stroke, their oars dipping along the surface ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... thy dungeons, Sir, I forgot the meaning of that word. For ten long years no gentle accents soothed me, No tears with mine were mixed—no bosom sighed That anguish tortured mine! King, king, thou know'st not, How solitude makes the soul stern and savage! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... from the manuscript at the British Museum, that Macaulay's sentence about Mr. Gladstone as the rising hope of the stern and unbending tories, which later events made long so famous and so tiresome, was a happy afterthought, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... the Swan there was a small saloon, extending across the stern, and two cabins on either side of the passage leading to it. These were occupied by the captain, the two mates, and Roger; and they took their meals together in the saloon. In a cabin underneath this, the three petty ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... disdaining to amuse the imaginations of his audience with discussion of dark points of divinity, or warm them by a flow of sentimental devotion, he rushes at once to the point of moral depravity, and upbraids them with their favourite and predominant vices in a tone of stern reproof, bordering upon reproach. In short, he tears the bandages from their wounds, like the hasty surgeon of a crowded hospital, and applies the incision knife and caustic with salutary, but rough and untamed severity. But, alas! the mind must be already victorious ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... that there be men in the world beside themselves."—Then allowing his charger to resume its caracolling, to give time to his startled friend to recover from the glow of consciousness burning on his cheek,—he resumed with a less stern inflexion. "It is the vexation of this conviction that hath brought my face to the meagreness and sallow tint that accused the scorching sun of Barbary. I love the rush of battle. The clash of swords or roaring of artillery is music to me. There is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... that to the dogs, and would have done so but for Mr Maguire. She felt that she would like to have allowed herself to love him in spite of the tearing of the verses. She felt this, and was very angry with Mr Maguire. But the facts were stern, and there was no hope ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... hills. 'It may be pertinacity,' said he at length; 'but to my eye, these gray hills, and all this wild Border country, have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back again among my own honest gray hills; and if I did not see the heather, at least once a year, I think I should die!' The ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... lasting some months, was very prosperous for Egypt. Herhor pacified the outbreaks of the people, and, in accordance with former times, he gave the seventh day for rest to the working man. He introduced stern discipline among the priests; he extended protection to foreigners, especially Phoenicians, and concluded a treaty with Assyria, not yielding Phoenicia, however, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... to remove the native population entirely from Leinster and Munster lest the soldiers and "adventurers" might be contaminated, and stern measures were taken to prevent any of the officers or men from taking Irish wives. Ireton laid it down that any officer or soldier who dared to marry an Irish girl until she had been examined by a competent board to see ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... to learn that these were indeed the soldiers whose fame and prowess had been the camp-fire talk of every army in Christendom. Very still and silent they stood, leaning upon their bows, while their leaders took counsel together in front of them. No clang of bugle rose from their stern ranks, but in the centre waved the leopards of England, on the right the ensign of their Company with the roses of Loring, and on the left, over three score of Welsh bowmen, there floated the red banner of Merlin with the boars'-heads of the Buttesthorns. Gravely and sedately ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... can be so difficult to induce our fellow-men to make the short step from hesitant desire to definite decision. The truth is, of course, that in the making of almost any important decision there is a stern conflict between conflicting desires. Take, for example, a man buying an automobile. Under the skilful persuasive power of the salesman, he has vividly pictured to himself enjoying possession. But this is ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... particularly comfortable on the Irrawaddy. The boat sped down the river, smoothly and noiselessly. For all that the sun shone, the shore-lines were still black. The dust had not yet risen. Elsa passed through the dining-saloon to the stern-deck and paused at the door. The scene was always a source of interest to her. There were a hundred or more natives squatting in groups on the deck. They were wrapped in ragged shawls, cotton rugs of many colors, and woolen blankets, and ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... at the stern of the ship, they cut off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water." —THOMAS EDGE'S TEN ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... he pointed to a tall derrick temporarily rigged up at the stern of the vessel for the purpose of working the sounding apparatus, and surrounded by a group of busy men. Through a block pulley strongly lashed to the derrick, a stout cord of the best Italian hemp, wound off a large reel placed amidships, was now running rapidly and ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... for the Fashionable World to sharpen its wits upon," he continued, keeping his stern gaze perseveringly averted. "And so, my lady—because I cannot any longer cheat folks into accepting me as a—gentleman, I shall in all probability ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... hand, her veil fell away from her face, and he saw its beauty with the benevolent admiration of an old man whose blood has cooled. He was so tall that the erect, thin figure reminded Victoria of a lonely desert palm. The young girl was no stern critic, and was more inclined to see good than evil in every one she met; therefore to her the long snowy beard, the large dreamy eyes under brows like Maieddine's, and the slow, benevolent smile of the Agha meant nobility of character. Her heart was warm for the splendid old man, and he ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... she drew it; that could not be prevent; At once to slay the champion was Kriemhild's stern intent. High with both hands she heav'd it, and off his head did smite. That was seen of king Etzel; he ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... the King of Sardinia as envoy and plenipotentiary at the Russian Court, maintaining his dignity in cruel distress upon the salary of a clerk. Amiable in his private life, he was remorseless—with the stern charity of an inquisitor—in dogma. In a style of extraordinary clearness and force he expounded a system of ideas, logically connected, on which to base a complete reorganisation of European society. Those ideas are set forth most powerfully in the dialogues entitled Les Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as it was possible to do so in that sunshiny climate, he introduced the grey, sombre influence of the land of mists and east winds. His household was ruled with stern gravity; his ranch was a model of good management; and though few affected his society, he was generally relied upon and esteemed; for, though opinionated, egotistical, and austere, there was about him a grand honesty and a sense of strength that ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... this is what we need—a stern adherence to law. If men will not be good, they must at least be made to behave. No one will pretend, however, that an adjustment on such a basis is finally satisfactory. Above the law of the state—above all law of man—is the law of God. It was given ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... hired subordinates. All those qualities which the facile and genial Raffaello possessed in such abundance, and which made it possible for that young favourite of heaven and fortune to fill Rome with so much work of mixed merit, were wanting to the stern, exacting, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... when he had with difficulty prevailed upon them to urge the king to confer with him, the only answer they could bring was that Guatemozin was ready to die where he was, but would hold no communication with the Spanish commander. 'Go then,' replied the stern conqueror, 'and prepare your countrymen for death. Their last moment is come.' Still, however, he postponed the attack for several hours; but the troops were impatient at the delay, and a rumour spread that Guatemozin was preparing to escape by the lake. It was useless to hesitate: the ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... rich and varied tints of the bracken contributing their share to the similitude of a glorious sunset; and the whole picture is rendered complete to the eye by being set in that massive rocky framework, known as the Aberuchill range, whose stern and rugged sides add to the feeling of the picturesque and beautiful ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... would have formed a study for a Wilkie. The disturbed dinner-table; the consternation of those assembled at it; Mr. Channing (whose sofa, wheeled to the table, took up the end opposite his wife) gazing around with a puzzled, stern expression; Mrs. Channing glancing behind her with a sense of undefined dread; the pale, conscious countenances of Arthur and Constance; Tom standing up in haughty impetuosity, defiant of every one; the lively terror of Charley's face, as he clung to Arthur; and the wide-opened ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and hence it was, that not a Murray seemed astir when they took the cattle from the byres, and drove them towards Oakwood. But, through the moonlight, there were eyes beheld every step they took—their every movement was watched and traced; and amongst those who watched was the stern old knight, with fifty followers at ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... stick or a stone. Soon it will take the civilisation of America, as it has taken that of the Indians. Centuries will pass, millenniums will pass, mankind will have come and gone, and still the river will flow and the sun shine, and they will communicate to one another their stern immortal joy, in which there is no ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... Dorn girl?" he asked himself. He felt like a reckoning with him, and chafed at the impossibility of it. When the couple rose to go Anderson met the young man's salutation with such a surly response and such a stern glance that he fairly started. The men stared as the two went out, their shoulders touching as they passed through the door. The girl was round-shouldered from careless standing, but she moved with a palpitating grace of yielding, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... contributing to our pleasures. We owe them a debt which we ought to pay. The beds of such men are not of roses, but of very artificial flowers indeed. Their lives are lives of care and privation, and hard struggles with very stern realities. It is from among the poor actors who drink wine from goblets, in colour marvellously like toast and water, and who preside at Barmecide beasts with wonderful appetites for steaks,—it is from their ranks that the most triumphant favourites have sprung. And surely, besides ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... the cold comes in a gust, and the trees are stripped in an hour, what a bracing feeling it is, the feeling that here is the first breath of winter, that it is time to pull ourselves together, that the season of work, and discipline, and severity is upon us, the stern season that forces us to look facts in the face, to put aside our dreams and languors, and show what stuff we are made of. No one can possibly love the summer, the dear time of dreams, more passionately than I do; yet I have no desire to prolong it by running off south when the winter approaches ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... her. She is ominously sad during the lonely journey: she is almost stern by the time she arrives in New York. In place of the summer's sweetness and gayety, there is a wintry and almost icy expression in her face, as if she were about to encounter trials to which she had been long accustomed, and which she had learned ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... well as the reluctant if not the niggard nature of his muse. He would no doubt have been only too glad to do more than he did for the money, but actually if not literally he could not do more. When it came to literature, all the gay improvidence of life forsook him, and be became a stern, rigorous, exacting self-master, who spared himself nothing to achieve the perfection at which he aimed. He was of the order of literary men like Goldsmith and De Quincey, and Sterne and Steele, in his relations with the outer world, but in his relations with the inner world he was one of the most ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was not without reason that the people of Canada rejoiced to have him back as their leader. All that the Indians imagined the Great White Father to be towards themselves he was in reality towards both red man and white. Stern, when the occasion forced him to be stern, just in all his dealings between man and man, dignified and courteous in all his ways, a soldier through every inch of his stalwart six feet, he was a ruler with whom no one ever dreamt of taking liberties. But neither ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... Charles Rambert with so stern and determined an expression that Etienne Rambert felt a moment's fear. "I want to know first of all how you managed to save my life and make out that I was dead. Was that just chance, or was it ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... Morris, turning to go; and his cold, stern manner stung the boy, whose mind was now flooded with the recollection of all that Singh had told him, and a feeling of resentment sprang up ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... sincerity in his tone that I maintained a stern and stony silence, whilst his eyes met mine with a doubtful, deprecating ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Will Dawes in that Harvard class who were heard from in later years. Ed Twitchell for one, and "Sam" Caldwell, who was one of the nominees for vice president in '92. I sat next to Sam in "Bull" Warren's Greek class. THERE was one of the finest scholars this country has ever produced—a stern taskmaster, and a thorough gentleman. It would be well for this younger generation if they could spend a few hours in that old classroom, with "Bull" pacing up and down the aisle and all of us trembling in our shoes. But Delenda ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... with great precision, "an unfortunate man at this moment incarcerated in the cell behind the guard-room, under the stern keeping of the Provost Sergeant I hope that way of saying ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham |
