"Sternness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pius the Tenth as a Pope may be lofty to sternness, but as a man he is humble and simple and kind. Forget that he is a sovereign and a pontiff, and think of him as a tender and loving friend. Tell him everything. Hold nothing back. And if you must needs reveal the confidences ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... of the heavenward-ascending Virgin, all harshness and sternness are effaced, even to the last trace; and, indeed, does not Painting itself seem in it to soar upward, transfigured on its own pinions, as the liberated Psyche delivered from the severity ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... rushing—memories of the high and splendid moments they had spent together. First of all she remembered him as the cold, stern, handsome stranger of that first night—that night when she learned that his coldness was assumed, his sternness a mask. She realized once again that at this first meeting he had won her by his voice, by his hand-clasp, by the swiftness and fervor of his speech; he had dominated her, swept her ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... harsh lines of life had passed, and the sternness of the endless battle had given way to ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... was not strictly true. He was one of the boys of the village, and was of a wild and reckless character. This was, however, partly his father's fault, who never gave him any kind and friendly instruction, and always treated him with a great degree of sternness and severity. ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... voiceless servants he moved about his silent house. The hush of death seemed to him to lie heavy in the lovely rooms that had been Rachael's delight, and over the city that was just breaking into the green of spring. He dressed, and left directions with unusual sternness; he would be at the hospital, or the club, if he was wanted. He would come home to ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... sudden, Dr Porhoet raised his voice, and with a sternness they had never heard in it before, cried out in that unknown language. Then he called upon Margaret. He called her name three times. In the uproar Susie could scarcely hear. Terror had seized her again, but in her confusion ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... was the last I should have suspected. I must save him. Help me do it. The Church is supposed to be hard-hearted, but she is forgiving—too forgiving sometimes. My duty is to be stern, and a judge; but I cannot judge him with sternness. I would give my life to think that this was all a bad dream. Don't you see that he is the man I always thought would be my own bishop? How can I go ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... them,—especially those thick-legged, romping, cherry-cheeked damsels, of whom, no doubt, his son would marry one. They were all of the earth earthy, without an idea among them. And yet he did not dare to forbid his son to go to the house, lest people should say of him that his sternness was unendurable. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... was founded deep in the notions of mutual aid and dependence between the lord and cultivator of the soil. And herein I must say, the feudal system(as also in its courtesy towards womankind, in which it exceeded)herein, I say, the feudal usages mitigated and softened the sternness of classical times. No man, Caxon, ever heard of a Spartan attending the funeral of a Helotyet I dare be sworn that John of the Girnelye have heard of ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... if it were part of the natural trials of disease. It took but a few months of complete non-restraint to make of a shrewd, bright, half-educated, spoiled boy a little brute, as to whose sanity there seemed to be some doubt. He was easily made well, and has lived to thank the sternness which won back the health of mind and body his parents had so foolishly helped to ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... editor, the city editor, the production manager, the foreman of the composing room, and the leading editorial writer having all said to us with a great deal of sternness, "Your copy for Saturday has got to be upstairs by such and such a time, because we are going to make up the page at so and so A.M.," we ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... dismounted with more assuredness at his own hall, to toss careless rein to a retainer. He stood now, tall and straight, a trifle rough-looking in his careless planter's dress, but every inch the master. A slight frown puckered up his forehead, giving to his face an added hint of sternness. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... to betoken the futility of, and to warn against the folly of, struggle against what must be; yet they were kind eyes, and humourous, with many of the small lines of laughter at their corners. Reading the eyes and mouth together one perceived gentleness and sternness to be well matched, working to any given end in amiable and effective compromise. "Uncle Peter" he had long been called by the public that knew him, and his own grandchildren had come to call him by the same term, finding ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... in a tone of solemn sternness, "it is fitting that I should tell thee all. I have renounced the evil doctrines of thy brother-in-law, and his brethren in false prophecy. It was a hard struggle, Mary; the spirit was indeed willing, but the flesh was weak, exceeding weak, for I thought of thee, Mary, and of thy friends. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... its usual sternness; his stony features had taken an expression of peace and sweetness. He stretched his arms himself along the arms of the cross, to make the work easier, and, looking directly into heaven, began to pray earnestly. He seemed to ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... The Poilu, feeling an effort to be necessary, for the Good God has never relaxed His sternness throughout, becomes eloquent. Not only was he killed, but before that, he says, he suffered much. The hardships of war on the Western front are terrible. He had been famished, he had been frozen, he had been burned by the sun. He had been sleepless, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... and then another man in it, as though he were trying to think what such an one was thinking of, or what he were fit for. Sometimes he caught the eye of one or other, and then that kindly smile spread over his face, but faded off it into the sternness and sadness of a man who has heavy and great thoughts hanging about him. But when John Ball first mounted the steps of the cross a lad at some one's bidding had run off to stop the ringers, and so presently the voice of the bells fell dead, ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... were much plainer. And over his pillow leaned another woman wearing a snowy cap, far daintier in shape than had adorned Miss Lucy's gray curls. There were no gleaming glasses shading the kindly eyes which regarded him, and no sternness in the lips that said slowly ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... was dressed in a manner which was "a little equivocal," wore a broad hat and a thick moustache, which, joined with the sternness of his pale cheek and the piercingness of his eye, must indeed have suggested something extremely eerie to a well-shaven, three-corner hat, respectable man of the eighteenth century; so that we are not at all surprised to hear that the doctor's imagination was crossed by ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... Sir Roland's eyes blaze. Then, as his glance rested upon the stranger's starved, almost ashen face—it seemed to be gradually growing livid—the sternness of ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... his way, and threw her arms around him with a wild, sobbing cry, but he pushed her away also with sternness, and went to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. The four women—his wife, her sister, and the two neighbors—stood staring at him; his face was terrible as he dipped the water from the pail on the sink corner, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... eaten some of these? Tell the truth, now." They quailed before her sternness—quailed and confessed. All told, seven had swallowed the sweet pellets, in numbers ranging from two to a ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... she would go directly and build a chapel with five windows in it; four for the four cardinal virtues, and one for humility, in the middle, bigger than the rest. And Neith very nearly laughed quite out, I thought; certainly her beautiful lips lost all their sternness for an instant; then she said, 'Well, love, build it, but do not put so many colours into your windows as you usually do; else no one will be able to see to read, inside: and when it is built, let a poor village priest consecrate it, and not an archbishop.' ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... sternness she commands The high, the low, in great or little lands. She folds us all within her ample gown. A forward act is met ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... old man, in through the window came the Gouverneur Faulkner and the beautiful Madam Whitworth, and from his white face set in sternness and hers with its smile of the opening rose upon its red mouth I could not tell whether his honor had been slain or had been spared for ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... road they went; and by the road—retribution came. Nemesis in the form of Moses Jones; no longer in a mood to be "uncled" by any boy, not even Montgomery, and in his sternness grown almost unfamiliar. He was not alone. Two neighbors were with him, and, despite the fact that the moon was shining, all three men carried lighted lanterns. They were overcoated and muffled to a degree, and Moses' first ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... some of his old sternness, when condemning wrong; "there is a fever at your brain. You have come too long to this ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... Anjou, who had entered the room but did not dare say a word. Presently the other conspirators arrived—Guise, Nevers, Birague, De Retz, and Tavannes. Catherine alone ventured to interpose, and, in a tone of sternness well calculated to impress the mind of her weak son, she declared that there was now no turning back: "It is too late to retreat, even were it possible. We must cut off the rotten limb, hurt it ever so much; if you delay, you ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... this crude logic, rang the bell. The two articles were given with the sternness and precision of ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... region like this, beauty must be looked for below the surface. There is a probability of finding hollows of repose, sunken spots of loveliness, hidden away altogether from the general aspect of sternness, or perhaps sterility, that meets the eye in glancing over the outspread landscape; just as in the natures of stern men you may expect to find, if opportunity should be afforded you, sunny spots of tender verdure, kept ever ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... for Charles had no love for jesters, and kept none in his court. Unsparing, iron-handed, he had gone his way. But, perhaps, in her very fearlessness he recognized a touch of his own inflexible nature. At any rate, his sternness soon gave way to an ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... take his place at the head of the troops, and give free rein to the military genius that inspired their critical dissertations. Wellington, however, has been rightly termed of iron, and never did he show himself more of iron than in those trying days of 1810. Stern, but with a passionless sternness, he pursued his way towards the goal he had set himself, allowing no criticism, no censure, no invective so much as to give him pause in ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... have ease and rest; He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest Against his will the stifling load revealing, Though Nature forced; though like some captive guest, Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast, An alien's restless mood but half concealing, The sternness on his gentle brow confessed, Sickness within and miserable feeling: Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams, And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain, Each night was scattered by its own loud screams: Yet never could his heart command, though ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... best beloved:—I have marked this man: And that which hath scared others, draws me towards him: He has the graces which I want; his sternness I envy for its strength; his fiery boldness I call the earnestness which dares not trifle With life's huge stake; his coldness but the calm Of one who long hath found, and keeps unwavering, Clear purpose still; he hath the ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... and almost a terrified spectator, while Cromwell, assuming a firm sternness of eye and manner, as one who compels himself to look on what some strong internal feeling renders painful and disgustful to him, proceeded, in brief and interrupted expressions, but yet with a firm voice, to comment on the portrait of the late King. His words seemed less addressed to ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... The sternness of mild people is usually impressive. The twins found it so. For the rest of that day, either because of the novelty of their surroundings or their difficulty in mastering—without blows—the spelling of their new ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... king of Epirus, the townsman of Alexander the Great, made an expedition to Italy. This was the way it came about. The city of Tarentum was a Spartan colony at the head of the gulf that bears its name. It was as proud as its parent, but had lost all the grave sternness of manners, and was as idle and fickle as the other places in that languid climate. The Tarentines first maltreated some Roman ships which put into their gulf, and then insulted the ambassador who was sent to complain. Then when ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... was Bob MacNair different from other men. Just and stern beyond his years, with a sternness that was firmness rather than severity; slow to anger, but once his anger was fairly aroused terrible in meting out his vengeance. Yet, withal, possessed of an understanding and a depth of sympathy, entirely ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... his vest a pinch the despot took, Yet not a whit did he relax the sternness of his look: "Thou thoughtst the lion was afar, but he hath burst the chain— The watchword for to-night is France—the ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... messenger," said the other, with a touch of sternness in her look and tone. "He seems to me like a wolf in sheep's clothing. He does not refer all things to God as 'Our Father,' and in his use of the Word he does not seem sincere. I trust that he is ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... like some of the greatest actors on the stage of human affairs, he had associated his own personality with the prevalence of right ideas and good influences. In Turgot, on the other hand, we discern something of the isolation, the sternness, the disdainful melancholy of Tacitus. He even rises out of the eager, bustling, shrill-tongued crowd of the Voltairean age with some of that austere moral indignation and haughty astonishment ...
— Burke • John Morley
... the music changed. It became soft and low. It appealed to the better and higher nature. It was like the revivifying breath of spring after winter's sternness, and the sun's radiant smile following the raging tempest. It affected Joe. The light in his eyes changed, and his face softened. His body relaxed. Then the player knew that the victory was won. Gently he drifted off to the old, ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... in his police-detective days made use of the third degree, and when he next spoke his voice was firm almost to sternness. "I thought," he reminded the other, "we ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... mother, he feared he might have given them to understand that they would be unable to console him; now supposing that he had not shown himself sufficiently tender, and that had chilled them with his military sternness; and now repeating with bitter regret, that, having always lived away from them, he must be always a stranger to them. In a word, the most unlikely suppositions presented themselves by turns to his mind, and whenever such seeds of doubt, suspicion, or fear, are blended with a warm affection, they ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... and she watched him depart. Still standing where he had left her she looked through the graceful palms that from their setting of marble partially veiled the drawing-room from the hall and saw him standing, never so handsome as now in his pale sternness, fastidiously drawing on his gloves according to ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... stronger and fuller manhood, as if the great arteries of the vast universal world-life pulsed in his own being. The drowsy, indolent existence at home appeared like a dull remote dream from which he had awaked, and he blessed the destiny which, by its very sternness, had mercifully saved him; he blessed her, too, who, from the very want of love for him, had, perhaps, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... into the salon, and his sombre eyes passed from the Marquis to Mademoiselle. As they rested upon her some of the sternness seemed to fade from their glance. He found in her a change almost as great as that which she had found in him. The lighthearted, laughing girl of nineteen, who had scorned his proffered love when he had wooed her that April morning to such disastrous purpose, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... despairing mood, we can but resign ourselves to the awful Will of God, who sets us here, we know not why, and hurries us hence, we know not whither. Yet the very sternness and inexorability of that dread purpose has something that sustains and invigorates. We look back upon our life, and feel that it has all followed a plan and a design, and that the worst evils we have had to bear have been our faithless terrors about what should be; and ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... out of a human life, from infancy to boyhood, and from boyhood to manhood. The story has been told a million times, but never quite in this fashion before. For rough delicacy, for exquisitely tender sternness, ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... its sternness, shook and his face was red and working; for this was the most important moment of Inspector Brown's life, and it was little wonder that he was agitated and strung up. While the great detective from Scotland Yard was doing nothing, here had he, the ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... indulgence was demanded, and De Soto would have gladly been convinced of Barbara's orthodoxy under such difficult circumstances. But if it proved that the girl not only associated with heretics, but inclined to their error, then gentle inaction must be transformed into inexorable sternness, even though the rejuvenating power which she exerted upon the monarch were tenfold stronger than it doubtless was; for what danger might threaten the Emperor and Christianity from the bewitching woman who seemed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... there is no answer," Bettina repeated, with a sudden sternness. "Lord Hurdly is in his own house. He can come and go as he chooses. His asking permission of me ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... between him and Lieschen. They had been led to take this improper step by fear of her parents, who, had the attachment been discovered, would, it was thought, have separated them for ever. Herr Lehfeldt's sternness, no less than his superior position, seemed an invincible obstacle, and the good mother, although doting upon her only daughter, was led by the very intensity of her affection to form ambitious hopes of her daughter's future. It was barely possible that some turn in events might ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... force of streams. But, on the contrary, the action of years upon them is now always one of deterioration. The increasing heap of fallen fragments conceals more and more of their base, and the wearing of the rain lowers the height and softens the sternness of their brows, so that a great part of their terror has evidently been subdued by time; and the farther we endeavor to penetrate their history, the more mysterious are the forms we are required ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... good enough for me, sir," the boy returned, with a comical assumption of sternness—he looked so like a fat baby of three just ready for his bath—"is good enough for mortals. When I married Psyche, I brought her home to my mother's house, and for some nineteen thousand years we lived together. If Love can stand ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... a trot, and Madge's lips pursed, forming an avenue for the caressing sound that it was the will of her to send forth. But the caressing sound was not made. She was impelled to look at her husband, and she saw the sternness with which he watched her. The pursed lips relaxed, ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... on the sofa, his head crushed down upon his hands. Nathanael stood at a little distance, by the fireplace. The attitude of the elder brother indicated deep humiliation, that of the younger was freezing in its sternness. Agatha had never seen such an expression on ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... object of his public action: and with this patriotic loyalty there mingled something of a personal feeling, more akin to romance in its paternal tenderness than seemed consistent with the granite-hewn strength and sternness of his general character. A thorough soldier, with a soldier's contempt for fine-spun diplomacy, he had been led into many a blunder when acting as a chief of party and of State; but his absolute single-minded honesty had more than redeemed such errors; "integrity and uprightness had ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... maiden, art thou well?" "Art thou physician?" she replied; "my hand, My pulse, at least, shall be at thy command." She said—and saw, surprised, Josiah kneel, And gave his lips the offer'd pulse to feel; The rosy colour rising in her cheek, Seem'd that surprise unmix'd with wrath to speak; Then sternness she assumed, and—"Doctor, tell; Thy words cannot alarm me—am I well?" "Thou art," said he; "and yet thy dress so light, I do conceive, some danger must excite:" "In whom?" said Sybil, with a look demure: "In more," said he, ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... more to do with politics than with pedigree. Sydney Smith, though he was as whole-hearted a reformer as ever breathed, knew that sternness towards crime was an essential part of government, and after the Bristol Riots of 1831 he warned Lord Grey against flaccidity with great plainness of speech. "Pray do not be good-natured about Bristol. I must have ten people hanged, and twenty transported, and thirty imprisoned. You ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... activity and the lower parts of the town were in a dreadful state. Mrs. Nugent talked to Albinia, and she urged it in vain. To come out of his study, examine felons, contend with the Admiral, and to meet all the world at the quarter sessions, was abhorrent to him, and he silenced her almost with sternness. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fixed on Paris. The long, thin, lamb-like face was still further elongated, there was a sternness on its features, a grey shadow falling from its contracted brows. Thus even in death she retained the livid expression of a jealous woman. The doll, with its head flung back, and its hair dishevelled, seemed to lie dead ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... night, Jake crept off to a tree near the edge of the prescribed camp limits and threw himself down there. Presently a companion joined him, a boy not more than fourteen years of age, who was greatly awed by Sam's sternness, and who naturally sought to draw Jake ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... amiable temper, a less loving heart, than yours. It is well for parents to be sometimes a little blind to trivial faults. And I was so strict, so stern, so arbitrary, so severe. My dear, be more lenient to your child. But of course she will never find sternness in ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... of youth, was sufficient to make Leofric more urgent in his petition. The curse of family feud, which afterwards laid England prostrate at the foot of the Conqueror, was already felt, and felt so strongly that Hereward resented Godwin's intercession more than his father's sternness. ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... Grannie, looking up at the girl with her bright blue eyes, and a determined expression steeling her sweet old mouth almost to sternness. "Jest see the manager, Mr. Squire, and tell him the simple truth. Take him back this underclothing; it is finished beautiful all but the feather-stitching. I know he'll be put out, but I suppose he'll give me half pay—o' course, I don't expec' more. Ef ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... with his children. He seemed to feel that nearly every kind of amusement that young people delighted in was sinful, and he held up before his children such sober ways of living that Washington at least came to think that everything pleasant was wicked. No amount of sternness, however, could keep the five boys of the family and their three sisters wholly out of mischief, nor hinder them from having ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... now to attempt to do anything to free them. Thure raised his eyes and looked wildly around, at the face of the alcalde, the faces of the jury, and the faces of the surrounding crowd. On all was a look of ominous sadness and sternness that made his heart sink. Evidently the words and the actions of the cunning Ugger and the crafty Quinley had again completely turned the tide against them. But the worst ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... You told me you loved me." His voice was full of its curious mixture of gentleness and sternness, and she ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... alone. She was dressed as when he parted with her last. The dear cameo lay on her bosom, but not heaving proudly as of old. Her shoulders were drooped forward, and contracted her bosom in its heaving. She would have had a humbled look, but for the marble sternness of her eyes. They were fixed as eyes that see the way of death through ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and there was a note of sternness in the Colonel's voice, "I want you to be quiet. I thought you had more sense. The devil had nothing to do with this. It's the Lord's arrow, it seems to me. He sent the ravens of old to feed his faithful servant in the wilderness, ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... offered better security against the evils of life, and taught men how to take shelter from baseness and profligacy under the influence of virtue and courage. The doctrines of the Stoics suited the rigid sternness of the Roman character. They embodied that spirit of self-devotion and self- denial with which the Roman patriot, in the old times of simple republican virtue, threw himself into his public duties, and they enabled him to meet death with a courageous spirit in ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... Ecclesiastical Court, he had been a quarrelsome disputant rather than a statesman. His parsimony went to the extreme of meanness; his avarice was insatiable and restless. So long as he connived at smuggling, he reaped a harvest in that way; when Grenville's sternness inspired alarm, it was his study to make the most money out of forfeitures and penalties. Professing to respect the Charter, he was unwearied in zeal for its subversion; declaring his opposition to taxation by Parliament, he urged it with all his power. Asserting most solemnly ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... showed plainly that medicines may assuage pain, that skill may close wounds, that those who are incontestably dying may be snatched from the grave. The Jewish physician became a living, an accepted protest against the fatalism of the Koran. By degrees the sternness of predestination was mitigated, and it was admitted that in individual life there is an effect due to free-will; that by his voluntary acts man may within certain limits determine his own course. But, so far as nations ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... playing the same part toward Gildo that Gildo had played toward his brother Firmus. The undisciplined nomadic army of the rebel was scattered without labor at Ardalio, and Africa was delivered from the Moor's reign of ruin and terror, to which Roman rule, with all its fiscal sternness, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... the carriage broken!' cried Elfride. She was disappointed: Stephen doubly so. The vicar showed more warmth of temper than the accident seemed to demand, much to Stephen's uneasiness and rather to his surprise. He had not supposed so much latent sternness could co-exist with ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the cause of her shameful and dangerous position. By his side sat the two women who had searched her and the leading foreman of the store. Sick and faint from apprehension, she turned imploringly toward Roger, who was regarding the floor-walker with such vindictive sternness that she felt the wretch's hour of reckoning would soon come, whatever might be her fate. This added to her trouble, for she feared that she ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... handle this case," he said persuasively. "You have called in the police," and as McIntyre commenced some uncomplimentary remark, he added with sternness. "Don't interfere, sir. Now, Grimes, your statements imply one of two things—some member of the household either went downstairs after you had retired, and opened the window in the reception room to admit the person who afterwards attacked you in the library, or"—Ferguson paused ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... good Catholic is obliged to believe for the benefit of the priests, who reserve to themselves, as is very reasonable, the power of compelling by their prayers a just and immutable God to relax in his sternness, and liberate the captive souls, which he had only condemned to undergo this purgation in order that they might be made meet ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... Burgoyne had pointed out the possibility of an invasion, and the defenceless state of the coasts and of the country generally. The coup d'etat in France had also created considerable public uneasiness. The secrecy, sternness of purpose, swiftness of action, boldness, and indifference to bloodshed shown by the president of the French republic, caused most men to reflect upon the possibility of some terrible coup de main being ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of the Seminary for Chaplains, Girard began, through his seeming sternness and his real dexterity, to win for the Jesuits an ascendant over monks thus compromised, and over parish-priests of very vulgar ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... embarrassment, his face shone with sudden enthusiasm. He looked purposeful and aggressive, with a certain sternness that sat well upon his young manhood. Garavel ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... remarked to her that it would give him pleasure if in a day or two she would take her sisters to see their friend, and she replied that he should be obeyed. He held her hand a moment, looking at her with an argument in his eyes which presently hardened into sternness. He wanted to know that she forgave him, but also wanted to assure her that he expected her to mind what she did, to go straight. She turned away her eyes; she was indeed ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... character of God. You may say, These plagues of Egypt reveal God's mighty power, but what do they reveal of his character? They reveal this: that there is in God that which, for want of a better word, we must call anger; a quite awful sternness and severity; not only a power to punish, but a determination to punish, if men will not take his warnings—if men will not obey ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... you have ever addressed me by that name, or that any relationship exists between us, Mr. Eversleigh," answered Sir Oswald, with unaltered sternness. "Sit down, if you please. Our interview is likely to be a ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... been staggered at the austerity of Christ's morality not less has it been shocked at the quality of His mercy. His gentleness to the sensual sinner has been compared, with amazement, to the sternness of His attitude to the sins of the spirit. Not the profligate or the harlot but the Pharisee and the scribe were those who provoked His sternest rebukes. And perhaps the most characteristic of all His dealings ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... too, he recognized the face—it was only too public, alas! His own took a sternness, such as I had never before seen, and yet there was a trace of pity ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... changed into mock sternness. "Very well, Miss Baker; having heard your confession and remembering a promise to exercise clemency, this court is about to impose sentence. Are you ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... blossomed from a dunghill. Remember that the Lord loveth all his creatures even the same as he loveth thee. As thou hast good and evil both within thee, so have others; wherefore judge them in mercy as thou wouldst thyself. And judge thyself in sternness as thou wouldst them; so shalt thou keep the balance true. Now thou art sleeping through my preaching—well, never mind! Kiss thy mother, dear one, and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... out Barrow's sermons. It is difficult to understand how the sternest disciplinarian, being human, could have treated his own motherless boy with such severity. The Archdeacon acted, no doubt, upon a theory, the theory that sternness to children is the truest ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... seen in him of the approach of immediate fear. It was as if he were suddenly afraid of me—which struck me indeed as perhaps the best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang of the effort I felt it vain to try sternness, and I heard myself the next instant so gentle as to be almost grotesque. "You want ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... it is true, are not given to judging themselves, and therefore is it that fate passes judgment upon them. They are the slaves of a destiny of almost unvarying sternness, for it is only when man has been judged by himself that destiny can be transformed. Men such as these will not master, or alter within them, the event that they meet; nay, they themselves become morally transformed by the very first thing that draws near them. ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... it happened, scarcely had Phoebe's eyes rested again on the judge's countenance than all its ugly sternness vanished, and she found herself almost overpowered by the warm benevolence of his look. But the fantasy would not quit her that the original Puritan, of whom she had heard so many sombre traditions, had now stepped into ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to Rose's superior charms, in a breast as really generous and humane as that of Jack Tier's, such a feeling was not likely to endure in the midst of a scene like that she was now called to witness. The muscles of her countenance twitched, the hard-looking, tanned face began to lose its sternness, and every way she ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... his worshippers. It is not easy to conceive anything finer, simpler, more thoroughly unaffected, or more truly dignified, than the man himself. His noble head; his clear, honest, brown eye; his finely-traced mouth, beautiful as a woman's, and only strung up to sternness when anything ignoble or mean had outraged him; and, last of all, his voice contains a fascination perfectly irresistible, allied, as you knew and felt these graces were, with a thoroughly pure, untarnished nature. The true measure of the man lies in the fact ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... me withdraw from the debate, and give him the opportunity of saying he had put me to flight. He was mistaken. I kept my ground. And I kept my temper. And I kept my gravity. I rebuked him at times with becoming sternness, and then went on with my task. It is probable that I spoke more strongly against the Bible, and that I said harder things against the church and the ministry, than I should have done, if he had conducted himself with any regard to truth and decency; but I did not raise my voice ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... everywhere the same. All the transactions and communications between the richer and the poorer classes, have thus substituted for them the sternness of official agency, in the room of that kind and generous treatment which, let them meet unrestrained, the more prosperous children of the same parent would in almost every case pay to their less fortunate brothers. * * * Where the power of sympathy ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... enemy. The king had given orders to march straight on Lutzen. "He animated his men to the fight," says Richelieu, "with words that he had at command, whilst Wallenstein, by his mere presence and the sternness of his silence, seemed to let his men understand that, as he had been wont to do, he would reward them or chastise them, according as they did well or ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... While in India, his correspondence with those of his own family, evinced in a remarkable degree those right and kindly feelings which could hardly have been expected from Clive, considering the frowardness of early life and the inflexible sternness of more advanced age. When the foundation of his fortune was laid. Lord Clive evinced a praiseworthy recollection of the friends of his early days. He bestowed an annuity of L800 on his parents, while to other relations ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... is now giving us such miserable specimens of her government that we shall ever detest and avoid it, as a combination of robbery, murder, famine, fire, and pestilence." His humor could not be altogether repressed, but there were sternness and bitterness underlying it: "Tell our dear, good friend, Dr. Price, who sometimes has his doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and unanimous; a very few Tories and placemen excepted, who ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... moonlight I saw her face quite plainly. It wore an expression I had never before seen on it—a humble, wistful, tender look. Often in life Hester had looked lovingly, even tenderly, upon me; but always, as it were, through a mask of pride and sternness. This was gone now, and I felt nearer to her than ever before. I knew suddenly that she understood me. And then the half-conscious awe and terror some part of me had felt vanished, and I only realized that Hester was here, and that there was no terrible gulf ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of it. There is something exceedingly winning, to us, in that sturdy sense, that thirst for mathematical precision, that impatience of theory, that positive and self-reliant—we don't mind saying, somewhat dogmatical—air, that sternness of feature, thinness of lip, and coldness of eye, which belong to the best examples. We respect even the humbler ones; for they at least hate sentiment, they do not comprehend or approve of humor, and they never relish wit. What does a ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... recovery. There were curios which might be removed.... My thoughts were beginning to whirl once again; I pulled myself up sharply and watched. There was a look of infinite pity on the sun-stained, rugged face as he gazed at his friend, lying so helpless. The sternness of Mr. Trelawny's face had not relaxed in sleep; but somehow it made the helplessness more marked. It would not have troubled one to see a weak or an ordinary face under such conditions; but this purposeful, masterful man, lying before us wrapped in impenetrable ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... Underwoods did go to church very regularly, and thought much of the propriety and necessity of such Sunday exercises. They could remember that in their younger days their father always had been there with them. They could remember, indeed, that he, with something of sternness, would require from them punctuality and exactness in this duty. Now and again,—perhaps four times in the year,—he would go to the Rolls Chapel. So much they could learn, But they believed that beyond that his Sundays were kept holy ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... question. What they call sentimentalism is greater sensibility, greater sympathy, a keener sense of justice. What is the moral ideal but love? Every advance in the direction of universal love and brotherhood is a moral advance. The sternness of Stoicism or Puritanism was an imperfect morality. The grandeur and impressiveness of it were due to the fact that Stoics and Puritans for the most part took their ideal seriously; they aimed at something high and ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... son," she cried, with a wildly hysterical burst of tears, which she checked in a few moments. "There, your mother is very weak, you see, dear; but I am going to be strong now. Then that explains the sternness of the arrest. Let us look the matter in the face. Your father struck this German nobleman, the guest of the regiment. They fought this morning, and the cause of the trouble is badly hurt. The King and the Prince will be furious. They will look upon it as a mutinous attack upon one of ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... The Persians are notoriously the Frenchmen of the East; the same gaiety, the same levity, the same want of depth both as to feeling and principle. The Turks are much nearer to the English: the same gravity of temperament, the same meditativeness, the same sternness of principle. Of all European nations, the French is that which least regards truth. The whole spirit of their private memoirs and their anecdotes illustrates this. To point an anecdote or a repartee, there is ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... said Laurie. "Before you fellows go, there's one more little matter we've got to straighten out." They turned to him, and at the expression of utter devotion on the two faces the sternness left young Devon's eyes. "I was pretty mad about this business for a few minutes after Shaw explained it," he went on. "You folks didn't have much mercy, you know. You fooled me to the top of my bent. But now I feel that we've ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... too much for the doctor; his sternness and firmness instantly deserted him. "Mary," he said, "I will do anything that you would have me. If you wish it, I will make arrangements for ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... France. To these gentlemen I replied that I had left Florence on account of the events I have described above, and that I meant to go back after two or three days, in order to resume my service with the Duke. On hearing this, the Prior and Messer Lorenzo turned round on me with such sternness that I felt extremely uneasy; then they said to me: "You would do far better to return to France, where you are rich and well known; for if you go back to Florence, you will lose all that you have gained in France, and will earn nothing ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... not using light loads now. He was using the regular load of the bird hunter. Time had passed for temporizing. The sweat was standing out all over his face. The sternness in his eyes was terrible to see, for it was the sternness of a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... reserved, learned, unmarried, with set, rather stern features, and a thinning of the dark hair upon the top of his head, which was worth quite a hundred a year to him. He was particularly happy in his management of ladies. He had caught the tone of bland sternness and decisive suavity which dominates without offending. Ladies, however, were not equally happy in their management of him. Professionally, he was always at their service. Socially, he was a drop of quicksilver. In vain the country mammas spread out ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... demanded Max, throwing as much sternness into his voice as he could. "Give an account of yourself, and tell us why you were creeping about here like a thief ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... lower classes are lavish, not guarding it with reticence like people of the world, the Black Gentleman's face brightened, and seemed to renew its youth. His countenance by degrees lost the sadness that lent sternness to his features, and little by little they gained a look of handsome youthfulness which made Caroline proud and happy. The pretty needlewoman guessed that her new friend had been long weaned from tenderness and love, and no longer believed in the devotion ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... singing victory, constantly dragging in his 'Vintaging Girl,' the daring points of which he explained to the silent Chaine, the only one who listened to him; while Gagniere, with the sternness of a timid man waxing wroth over questions of pure theory, spoke of guillotining the Institute; and Sandoz, with the glowing sympathy of a hard worker, and Dubuche, giving way to the contagion of revolutionary ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... you," said Lydia, with some sternness. "He is your host, and therefore concludes that he ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... story—obviously founded on fact—of a fight between a British sloop-of-war and a slaver that gives a vivid idea of the desperation with which the outlaws could fight. But sometimes the odds were hopeless, and the slaver could not hope to escape by force of arms or by flight. Then the sternness of the law, together with a foolish rule concerning the evidence necessary to convict, resulted in the murder of the slaves, not by ones or twos, but by scores, and even hundreds, at a time. For it was the unwise ruling of the courts that actual presence of slaves on a captured ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... Felix Sweetsir," Moody answered, with a sudden sternness of tone, and a sudden coldness of manner, ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... much sternness on his wrinkled face as he could assume, he walked forward to demand a boat of Captain Kendall. As he was passing in the waist, a coil of signal line dropped down from the gaff above, square upon the top of his hat, forcing it far down upon his ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... he looks to find all others like himself; his dauntless spirit prompts him to engage in daring enterprises, and to insist on their being carried out. And this is certain, that where things hard to execute are ordered to be done, the order must be enforced with sternness, since, otherwise, ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... newer portion of Glasgow; and, really, I am inclined to think it the stateliest of cities. The Exchange and other public buildings, and the shops in Buchanan Street, are very magnificent; the latter, especially, excelling those of London. There is, however, a pervading sternness and grimness resulting from the dark gray granite, which is the universal building-material both of the old and new edifices. Later in the forenoon we again walked out, and went along Argyle Street, and through ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... could not be good except under torture, but that while suffering the purifying actions of the flames of hell they so realized the beauty of holiness that they submitted willingly to their agony and praised God for the sternness of his judgment. This poem gave me decided physical pleasure, yet I know that if my hand were held in a fire for five minutes I should feel nothing but the pain of the burning. To get the feeling of pleasure, too, I must, for the moment, revert to my old religious beliefs and my old notion ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... recovering from the surprise into which the first shock of recognition had plunged him, rushed forward and clasped his long-lost son to his bosom. The big tear-drops rolled down his manly cheeks, and, relaxing the dignity of the king, and the sternness of the warrior, all the energies of his nature were embodied in the one single feeling, that he was a happy and a ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... would serve you right if you did have to stay here alone awhile," Thad told him, with a sternness in his face which the merry twinkle in his eyes belied. "After being so shiftless as to let such an accident happen, you surely deserve to suffer. Isn't that right, Bumpus; ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... were younger, she was certainly not more simple. If the grey eyes were less shadowed, they were no less inscrutable. If the lips were softer, their serenity was as baffling as their sternness had been. If she seemed more plastic she was not less illusive. Nimble as were his mental processes, the professor was discomfited to find that hers were still ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... I done?" I asked, amazed at the sternness she had suddenly thrown into her voice. And she burst into a ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... hand in hand, and with no great show of fear or embarrassment. They had gotten off so many times before that they were perfectly confident of their power in this case to cajole the judge. But to their surprise he was all sternness and severity. ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... flight of shallow granite steps, flanked by balustrades of the same austere substance, terminating in huge, rough-hewn pillars, led up to an enormous door of ancient oak, studded with nails—destined, it would seem, to resist the onslaught of an armed multitude. The sternness of its aspect, when the great door was closed, seemed to add an increased warmth to the suggestion of welcome it conveyed when, as now, it was swung hospitably open, emitting a ruddy glow of firelight from the ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... their escape; and the intersected nature of the country forbade any continued pursuit. A few shots from our howitzers, which ripped up the ground after them, were all that we could send as our parting present; and the engagement, which began in such silence and sternness, finished in roars of laughter from all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... The terror-stricken slave was mute— Mercy would be denied, E'en could he ask it—so he deemed, And the poor boy half lifeless seemed. Speechless, bewildered—for a space They gazed upon that perfect face, Each with an artist's joy; At length Murillo silence broke, And with affected sternness spoke— "Who is your master, boy?" "You, Senor," said the trembling slave. "Nay, who, I mean, instruction gave, Before that Virgin's head you drew?" Again he answered, "Only you." "I gave you none," Murillo cried! ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... was better not to go," Maria replied. Her tone was at once stern and pitiful. Evelyn noticed only her sternness. She began to ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... so precipitate in his action. He could remedy it all, and relieve his mother's heart by going back. But here Ben's pride came in. To go back would be to acknowledge himself wrong; it would be a virtual confession of failure, and, moreover, knowing his father's sternness, he knew that he would be severely punished. Unfortunately for Ben, his father had a stern, unforgiving disposition, that never made allowances for the impulses of boyhood. He had never condescended to study his own son, and the method of training he ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... There was a sternness inflexible as steel in the brief sentence. Under it for an instant, though not visibly, Baroni flinched; and a fear of the man he accused smote him, more deep, more keen than that with which the sweeping might of the Seraph's fury had moved him. He knew now why Ben Davis had hated ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... little volume of poems by a deaf-blind lady, Madame Bertha Galeron. Her poetry has versatility of thought. Now it is tender and sweet, now full of tragic passion and the sternness of destiny. Victor Hugo called her "La Grande Voyante." She has written several plays, two of which have been acted in Paris. The French Academy ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... was alone, seated before a rough table with his head upon his hand, and he did not stir until De Lacy stood directly before him. Then raising his eyes he fastened them intently upon the young Knight's face, though without sternness. ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... day with tears in his eyes. Another day, Johnson accompanied her to London. 'His look was stern, though dejected, but when his eye, which, however shortsighted, was quick to mental perception, saw how ill at ease she appeared, all sternness subsided into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, while, with a shaking hand and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion from which they were driving; and when they faced it from the coach-window, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... his richer vesture and arms, but, above all, the gold collar about his neck and the gold bracelets upon his arms, marked the chief. Standing by the rheda, he met Marcia's look of proud defiance, for a moment; then his eyes shifted and seemed to wander; but, cloaking with martial sternness the embarrassment of the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... figure of Calvin is perhaps the least attractive. He was, so to speak, the constitutional lawyer of the Reformation, with vision as clear, with head as cool, with soul as dry, as any old solicitor in rusty black that ever dwelt in chambers in Lincoln's Inn. His sternness was that of the judge who dooms a criminal to the gallows. His theology had much in it that is in striking harmony with modern scientific philosophy, and much in it, too, that the descendants of his Puritan converts have learned to loathe as sheer diabolism. It is ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... race on the Pacific Slope may find vent in similar lawless demonstrations. All the power of this Government should be exerted to maintain the amplest good faith toward China in the treatment of these men, and the inflexible sternness of the law in bringing the wrongdoers to justice should be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... by his proceedings against them, reduced to a poor, miserable, and despised remnant. The Roman inhabitants of Italy, especially the nobles, found that he hunted up with wonderful keenness and assiduity, and enforced with relentless sternness all the claims—and they were probably not a few—which the easy-tempered Gothic kings had suffered to lapse. In their simplicity these nobles may have imagined that they could plead that they were serving the Emperor by withholding contributions from the barbarian. Not ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... sister's preface and her hearsay evidence, but, as he went farther, his upper lip curled, and a sudden gleam, as of exultation in a verified prophecy, lighted his eye, shading off quickly, however, and giving place to an iron expression of rigidity and sternness, the compressed mouth, coldly-fixed eye, and sedate brow, composed into a grave severity that might have served for an impersonation of stern justice. He looked through the letter a second time, folded it up, put it ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reinforced by the increase in our day of the number of people who have had the means of educating and training themselves to the point at which they are not afraid to look facts in the face, even such terrifying facts as sin and death. The result is greater sternness in modern thought. The conviction is spreading that to encourage a man to believe that though his sins be as scarlet he can be made whiter than snow by an easy exercise of self-conceit, is to encourage ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... did not reply. She was not a superstitious woman: she felt no remorse about her treatment of her stepson. There had been evil tongues, even in the church, to lay his ruined life at her door, and to say that bigotry and sternness had driven him to debauchery and a drunkard's death. She knew she had done her duty: she liked best to think of herself as a mother in Israel. Yet there had always been a dull, mysterious terror which linked Hugh Guinness and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... careful about getting him excited," he said at last, evasively. "You had better get along as easy as you can with him." The doctor's manner implied more than his words; he had his own opinion of Deborah Thayer's sternness of rule, and ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... bid farewell To the dim pictures of his parting spell! 20 No, BURKE! thy heart, by juster feelings led, Mourns for the spirit of high Honour fled; Mourns that Philosophy, abstract and cold, Withering should smite life's fancy-flowered mould; And many a smiling sympathy depart, That graced the sternness of the manly heart. Nor shall the wise and virtuous scan severe These fair illusions, ev'n to nature dear. Though now no more proud Chivalry recalls Her tourneys bright, and pealing festivals; 30 Though now on high her idle spear is hung, Though Time her ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... he flung back my accusation in my teeth, lacked neither vigour nor the semblance of innocence. While Henry was puzzled, La Varenne was appalled. I saw that I had gone too far, or not far enough, and at once calling into my face and form all the sternness in my power, I bade the traitor remain where he was, then turning to his Majesty I craved leave to speak to ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... frankness—and then he had turned his gaze away. He said to himself that all this was not for him; the beauty of women and the friendship of men were not for him. He accepted that feeling with a purposeful sternness, and tried to pass on. It was only her outstretched hand which brought about the recognition. It stands recorded in the pages of his self-confession, that it nearly suffocated him physically with an emotional reaction of hate and dismay, as though her appearance had ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... in prison is quite limitless. I remember once in Reading, as I was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly lit cell opposite mine a small boy. Two warders—not unkindly men—were talking to him, with some sternness apparently, or perhaps giving him some useful advice about his conduct. One was in the cell with him, the other was standing outside. The child's face was like a white wedge of sheer terror. There was in his eyes the terror of a hunted animal. The next morning I ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... who had behaved with the braveness of a lion the night before in that matter of the policeman; and it was he who had asked in stern tones of rebuke, when her courage seemed aflicker, whether she repented. "You do not repent?" she asked, imitating that sternness. ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Lerroux An offer Socialists Love of the workingman The conventionalist Barriovero Anarchists The morality of the alternating party system On obeying the law The sternness ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... were the words in themselves, they seemed doubly so in that lonely room; and Henry was glad to lock the door and return to the comparatively living world downstairs. But from that moment old Mr. Lingard was transfigured in his eyes. Beneath all the sternness of his exterior, the grimness of the business interests which seemed to absorb him, Henry had discovered the blessed human spring. And he came too to wear a certain pathos and sanctity in Henry's eyes, as he remembered how ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... beside his own board, and his own fireside, he was a man to be kindly esteemed by his guests, by his own family tenderly and reverently beloved. His wife was the comeliest matron in the parish, a woman of active habits and a strong mind, but tempering the natural sternness of her husband's character with that genial and jocund cheerfulness, that of all the lesser virtues is the most efficient to the happiness of a household. One daughter only had they, and we could charm our heart even now, by evoking the vanished from oblivion, and imaging her over and over again ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... they always continue so. Custom reconciles us to everything. After we have been used to the sight of black objects, the terror abates, and the smoothness and glossiness, or some agreeable accident of bodies so colored, softens in some measure the horror and sternness of their original nature; yet the nature of the original impression still continues. Black will always have something melancholy in it, because the sensory will always find the change to it from other colors too violent; or if it occupy the whole compass ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... her to be quiet, and she let her foot drop again on the leather upholstery. He looked at her with an intentionally exaggerated expression of sternness. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... time, she remembered all. Trembling—blushing scarlet, over face and neck—she perceived her husband's eyes rest on her glittering dress. He regarded her fixedly, from head to foot. She felt his expression change from joy to uneasy wonder, from love to sternness, and then he wore a strange, cold look, such a one as she had never beheld ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... devoted himself to the care of the victims. Having been accused of refusing to bury a Federal he was escorted by a file of soldiers into the presence of General Butler, who accosted him with great sternness: ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... once Deniska looked very grave, as he did not look even when Kuzmitchov gave him a scolding or threatened him with a stick; listening intently, he dropped quietly on one knee and an expression of sternness and alarm came into his face, such as one sees in people who hear heretical talk. He fixed his eyes on one spot, raised his hand curved into a hollow, and suddenly fell on his stomach on the ground and slapped the hollow of his hand down upon ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... with the quiet sternness more formidable than all his bluster, "have not I forbidden you to court ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade |
