"Earnest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the watchman in the execution of his office, and breaking his lantern. The justice perceiving the criminal to be but shabbily dressed, was going to commit him without asking any further questions, but at the earnest request of the accused the worthy magistrate submitted to hear ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... loft Lady Burton spent many hours examining her husband's papers, and in the autumn of 1902 she commenced in earnest to write his life—a work that occupied her about eight months. That she was absolutely unfitted for the task must be clear to all who have any knowledge of Burton. Indeed, she was quite incapable of doing literary work of any kind properly. The spirit ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... public in general is well posted on the subject and finds that the charity workers are in earnest, they are much ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... he had died, His critic friends had surely cried: "Death does us wrong, the fates are cross; Nor will this age repair the loss. Fine was the promise of his youth; Time would have brought him deeper truth. Some earnest of his wealth he gave, Then hid his treasures in the grave." And proud that they alone on earth Perceived what might have been his worth, They would have kept their leader's name Linked with a fragmentary fame. Forsooth the beech's knotless ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... for me to get off and take the train back, Frankie implored me to go on with her, urging how strange it would look to people, who all thought we were married, to see me disappear and have her go on alone. I railed at the idea, but she was in earnest, and when I told her positively that I couldn't—thinking more, I must admit, of the state of my affairs than of hers—she began to cry under her veil. That settled it. Of course I couldn't stand it to see the girl I loved cry, so I went home with her, fell deeper ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... pleasant to the ear, the tone being harsh and the key too high. As the speech progressed, however, the speaker seemed to get into control of himself; the voice gained a natural and impressive modulation, the gestures were dignified and appropriate, and the hearers came under the influence of the earnest look from the deeply-set eyes and of the absolute integrity of purpose and of devotion to principle which were behind the thought and the words of the speaker. In place of a "wild and woolly" talk, illumined by more or less incongruous anecdotes; ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... clusters of men who here and there stood by the carriage doors chatting with one another, ready to take their places; and as we passed by, my companion was the object of inquiring looks from those with whom he was on familiar terms. But this curiosity invariably gave way to evidences of more earnest interest when they were told that I was to sail for Vera ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... hasn't time to see that if the church holds itself as nothing but the symbol of the greater light it is life itself—as a symbol of a symbol it is dead. Many of the sincerest followers of Christ never heard of Him. It is the better influence of an institution that arouses in the deep and earnest souls a feeling of rebellion to make its aims more certain. It is their very sincerity that causes these seekers for a freer vision to strike down for more fundamental, universal, and perfect truths, but with such feverish enthusiasm, that they appear to overthink themselves—a subconscious ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... new home her only son, Ogden, a fourteen-year-old boy of a singularly unloveable type. Years of grown-up society and the absence of anything approaching discipline had given him a precocity on which the earnest efforts of a series of private tutors had expended themselves in vain. They came, full of optimism and self-confidence, to retire after a brief interval, shattered by the boy's stodgy resistance to education in any form or shape. To Mr. Pett, never at his ease with boys, ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... The men and women possessed of leisure cultivated a humanist state of mind, with which arose a critical spirit, a nicer taste and a cultured discrimination. They were offended by literalism, bored by crudeness however much in earnest, and disgusted with the illogical assertions of pietists. The imperative mandate of the meeting awakened in them only opposition. They found many to sympathize with their ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... mental ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its attacks are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time. He knows he is dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in earnest. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing-floor, and will gather the wheat into his storehouse; but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out." In this way, and with many other earnest words, he told the good news to ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... second the bold enterprises of the navigators. France was at that time agitated by various earnest and mighty passions; for a moment the Reformation, personified by the austere virtues and grand spirit of Coligny, had seemed to dispute the empire of the Catholic church. The forecasts of the admiral became more ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... sudden startling conviction that Von Holtz was in earnest. He might be mad, but he was in earnest. And there was undoubtedly a Professor Denham, and this was undoubtedly his home ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... real, nevertheless!—the countries of the earth were frantic in their acclaim. Only the men who formed the International Board of Defense failed to join in the enthusiasm. They sat by day and night in earnest ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness—of a mental disorder which oppressed him—and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said—it was the apparent ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... pit door, and sallied forth on his hind-legs to take a walk. The keepers of the garden had not risen; but the dogs were on the alert, and surrounded Martin, jumping and barking, half in play, and half in earnest. This roused the men, who, rushing out to see what was the matter, beheld the bear in the midst of the canine troop, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, and an expression of fun and enjoyment in his countenance, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... results in bringing the student into close brotherhood with the fruitful and cultured minds of every land. In fact, the possible applications of the study of literature are so many and varied that the ingenuity of any earnest student may devise such as the exigencies of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd with the new and old, Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome, Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously, Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church, Pleas'd with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, impress'd seriously at the camp-meeting; Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon, flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass, Wandering ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... wreck, with four or five spadoes or Spanish swords, which would afford him steel, and there could be no want of iron along shore; besides, that we should doubtless find many useful things when we came to work in good earnest. He desired therefore, that I would get some charcoal made for him, while he ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... his eyes, so that he might enjoy the comic vexation her lively sallies caused to Doctor Bartolo in the play, unknowing that she would be the innocent cause of a more serious provocation to himself, in downright earnest. He thought of this, himself, after it had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Extremely well, Mr. Nicknack, methinks my Cousin and you make a most suitable, agreeable Couple, 'tis pity but you were marry'd in earnest. ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... our earnest aims presume To renovate the Drama with the dome; The scenes of Shakespeare and our bards of old With due observance splendidly unfold, Yet raise and foster with parental hand The living talent of our native land. O! may we still, to sense ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... in earnest about her chagrin—half in earnest as she spoke. "I'd saved him for myself. Sometimes, I say, I don't know about this Charlie Dorenwald, even if he is crazy over me—I'm mostly being beware of foremen, me. And here's a chivalrous and well-to-do ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... darlings," said Captain Dene, in a solemn, earnest voice, after a pause, during which he wondered how he should answer his children's questions. "Mother has gone to live with God in heaven. Her body was tired and worn out, and in a way it had grown too small for the spirit ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... the war were now made in good earnest. Regiments were recruited for three years, and, on their arrival at Washington, were carefully inspected and organized into brigades and divisions, and officered by men of ability and military experience. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... tyranny over the other. Each should think, feel, and act in kindly independence; and each should encourage the other in independent thought and action with a view to individual culture and mutual benefit. But below all thought and back of all action there should be a strong, earnest, two-fold principle of benevolence and affection. Come what may, love should rule over all. This should pervade and magnetize the whole life. Love should utter its melodious tones and breathe its sweet spirit in every department of the united life. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... circumstances the dealers began to stir in earnest. From the first, indeed, the more enterprising had made efforts to import a plant which, as they supposed, must be a common weed at Rio, since men used it to "pack" boxes. But that this was an error they soon perceived. Taking the town as a centre, collectors ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... all the birthright given of the ardent north Where the fire of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south. Even such fire was this that lit them, not from lowering skies Where the darkling dawn flagged, stricken in the sun's own shrine, Down the gulf of storm subsiding, till their earnest eyes Find the relics of the ravening night that spared but nine. Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head, While the girl's hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain: Ah, but woe for one, the mother clasping fast her dead! Happier, had the ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... these solitary occupations, and that his head was filled with chimeras, which, being believed by himself and his stupid votaries, procured him the general character of sanctity among the people. He fancied that the devil, among the frequent visits which he paid him, was one day more earnest than usual in his temptations; till Dunstan, provoked at his importunity, seized him by the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, as he put his head into the cell; and he held him there till that malignant ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... the earnest desire of the Editor, that this narrative may be the means, under God, of awakening in the hearts of all who read it, a sympathy for the oppressed which shall manifest itself in immediate, active, self-sacrificing exertion ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... separation, however, especially in the last hundred years, the violent antagonism having largely quieted down, there has been in some Protestant bodies a slow but steady movement in the direction of ritualistic expansion; procedures that three centuries ago would have called forth earnest protest are now accepted and interpreted in accordance with Protestant ideas. Doubtless the temperament of a people has something to do with the amount of ceremonial it ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... looking forward to greater openings in his business career. My father, taking a great fancy to this enterprising, cheery young man, invited him to dine each day at our house for nearly a year. They were great friends and had a happy influence upon each other. There were many jolly laughs and much earnest talk. He met Miss Lucy Kimball of Flatlands, Long Island, at our house at a Commencement reception, and they were soon married. She lived ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... is Miss Ashton's price, I think," answered Mr. Bradford, wondering what this earnest little woman ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... to have to record that all Kate's persuasions with her cousin, all her own earnest attempts at conciliation, and her ably-planned schemes to escape a difficulty, were only so much labour lost. A stern message from her father commanded her to make no change either in the house or the service of the dinner—an ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... solemnly and sadly; and on his earnest face there was a deep and almost awful expression, that held Arvina mute and abashed, he knew not wherefore; and when the great man had ceased from speaking, he made a silent gesture of salutation and withdrew, thus gravely warned, scarce conscious if the statesman ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... heard her on any other, though she is the best and perhaps the cleverest friend I have at Paris; but that may be my fault, for I like to start it. It is a relief to the languid small-talk of society to listen to any one thoroughly in earnest upon turning ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an hour and a half, and did not appear to me very amusing. At last we heard loud cries from afar, and soon after we saw troops of animals pass and repass within shot and within half-shot of us; and then the King and the Queen banged away in good earnest. This diversion, or rather species of butchery, lasted more than half an hour, during which stags, hinds, roebucks, boars, hares, wolves, badgers, foxes, and numberless pole-cats passed; and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... permeates the teaching of the Bāb. It is a Ṣufism which consists, not in affiliation to any Ṣufi order, but in the knowledge and love of the Source of the Eternal Ideals. Through detachment from this perishable world and earnest seeking for the Eternal, a glimpse of the unseen Reality can be attained. The form of this only true knowledge is subject to change; fresh 'mirrors' or 'portraits' are provided at the end of each recurring cosmic cycle or aeon. But the substance is unchanged and unchangeable. As Prof. ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... very fine night, strolled out for a walk West End way. When we arrived opposite Covent Garden Theatre we found ourselves close to the "Globe Tavern," and recollected Bob Swinney's hospitable invitation. We never fancied that he had meant the invitation in earnest, but thought we might as well look in: at any rate there could be no harm in ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in this country. I have purchased a house, with an estate of about six hundred acres of land, in Buckinghamshire, twenty-four miles from London. It is a place exceedingly pleasant; and I propose, God willing, to become a farmer in good earnest. You, who are classical, will not be displeased to know that it was formerly the seat of Waller, the poet, whose house, or part of it, makes at present the farmhouse within an hundred yards of me." The details of the actual purchase ...
— Burke • John Morley
... person is engaged in earnest conversation, his voice spontaneously adopts a certain key or pitch. This is called the natural or middle key, and it varies in different persons. Pitt's voice, it is said, was a full tenor, and Fox's a treble. When a speaker is incapable of loud and forcible utterance on both high ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... He talked pleasantly on all sorts of questions. The nigger waited a while and then disappeared as on the other occasion. Mr. Caswall's eyes were as usual fixed on Lilla. True, they seemed to be very deep and earnest, but there was no offence in them. Had it not been for the drawing down of the brows and the stern set of the jaws, I should not at first have noticed anything. But the stare, when presently it began, increased in intensity. I could see that Lilla began ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... almost reached Nannie's before David said that—that he was afraid he would have to go away a month before he had planned. When he was most in earnest, his usual brevity of speech fell into a curtness that might have seemed, to one who did not know him, indifference. Elizabeth did know him, but even to her the ensuing explanation, which did not explain, was, through his very anxiety not ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... a false start, they began. Bobbing and circling, earnest, not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to the strains of that waltz. He watched them and the face of her who was playing turned smiling towards those ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the more reasonable. Their ranging grounds are in the central, northern, and eastern parts of the Territory. Most of them have long been hostile to the government, committing numerous robberies and murders. Earnest efforts have been made during the past year to settle them on reservations, three of which, viz., Camp Apache, Camp Grant, and Camp Verde, were set apart for their occupancy by executive order dated Nov. 9, 1871. ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... passing through a dimly-lighted street, but, occasionally, the street lamps threw flashes across two earnest faces. She ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... fought with an even more relentless determination than is usual when "armed nations" meet in battle. The duration of the war was due to the nature of the country and the enormous distances to be traversed, not to any want of energy, for the armies were in deadly earnest and their battles and combats (of which two thousand four hundred can be named) sterner than those of almost any war in modern history. The political history of the war, its antecedents and its consequences, are ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... trulie (O perpetuall parents and lords of mankind) require this of the immortall gods with most earnest supplication and heartie praier, that our children and their children, and such other as shall come of them for euer hereafter, may be dedicated vnto you, and to those whom you now bring vp, or shall bring vp hereafter. For what better ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... her in answer spake cloud-gathering Zeus: "Be of good cheer, Trito-born, dear child: not in full earnest speak I, and I would fain be kind to thee. Do as seemeth good to thy mind, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... you," returned Norah. Monarch might beat Bobs or yes, perhaps one other horse she knew of, in a small tree-grown paddock; at the thought of which she smiled happily to herself. But no other horse on Billabong could see the way Bobs went when he was in earnest. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... turned away with horror, murmuring: 'Idols of the Pagans!' The Belvedere, which was fast becoming the first statue-gallery in Europe, he walled up and never entered. At the same time he set himself with earnest purpose, so far as his tied hands and limited ability would go, to reform the more patent abuses of the Church. Leo had raised about three million ducats by the sale of offices, which represented an income ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... melancholy or jubilant, is one of presage and promise. She seems to be ever holding out to us an immortal invitation to follow and endure, to endure and to enjoy. She seems to say that what she brings us is but an earnest of what she holds for us out there along the vanishing road. There is nothing, indeed, she will not promise us, and no promise, we feel, she cannot keep. Even in her tragic and bodeful seasons, in her elegiac autumns and stern winters, there is an energy of sorrow and sacrifice ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... statement of matters which would have been better presented in a simpler way; thus, the fervid description of oxygen, however appropriate in Faraday's admirable lectures before the Royal Institution, is out of place in the "Iron-Manufacturer's Guide." We must also enter an earnest protest against the importation, upon any terms, of such words as "ironoxydulcarbonate," "ironoxydhydrate," and the adjective "anhydrate." Some descriptions of considerable imaginative power have found place even in the directory of works. From the description ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... expected that the generality of men should see that those things which are made the occasions of dissension and fomenting the party-spirit are really nothing at all: but it may be expected from all people, how much soever they are in earnest about their respective peculiarities, that humanity and common goodwill to their fellow-creatures should moderate and ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... clothes are worn out may come upon them, and be glad of them, some time during the summer; we may just as well let them lie here. Now, Luka, we must walk in good earnest. We ought to be able to make five-and-thirty miles a day over a tolerably level country, and at that rate we shall be a ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... of others, have perpetrated a most shameful deed. Rouse yourself, and follow the guidance of the gods, who portended that this head of yours would be illustrious by formerly shedding a divine blaze around it. Now let that celestial flame arouse you. Now awake in earnest. We, too, though foreigners, have reigned. Consider who you are, not whence you are sprung. If your own plans are rendered useless by reason of the suddenness of this event, then follow mine." When the uproar ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... intensely in earnest, and therefore neither popular nor successful was that young partner of Dr. Kingston. Had Harold been squire, the resignation of the patient into his hands would have been less facile; but as a mere Australian visitor, ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... if you have a talent for my art?" he asked kindly, looking into the pallid young face with its earnest uplifted look. "I think that had you the least gift that way, having lived in Rome, you would know it without my assistance. However, here is a bit of clay: we shall soon see. Try what your fingers can make of it—if a cup like this one." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... forming. And from far Japan, in these first days of the twentieth century, writes one Tomoyoshi Murai: "The interest of our people on Socialism has been greatly awakened these days, especially among our laboring people on one hand and young students' circle on the other, as much as we can draw an earnest and enthusiastic audience and fill our hall, which holds two thousand. . . . It is gratifying to say that we have a number of fine and well-trained public orators among our leaders of Socialism in Japan. The first ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... solicitations, which were certainly as earnest as most entreaties to ladies upon any occasion, and was graciously pleased to empower me to tell Dr. Johnson "that, all things considered, she thought he should certainly go." I flew back to him, still in dust, and careless ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Franz, laughing, "in token of your ingratitude." The jest, however, soon appeared to become earnest; for when Albert and Franz again encountered the carriage with the contadini, the one who had thrown the violets to Albert, clapped her hands when she beheld them in his button-hole. "Bravo, bravo," ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... though?" replied Ardan, apparently in earnest. "Let me show you how thoroughly. When I have been running hard and long, I feel myself perspiring like a bull and hot as a furnace. Why am I then forced to stop? Simply because my motion has been transformed into heat! Of course, I understand ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... didn't want to. Mamma! Mamma! Babes in the wood. Frightening them with masks too. Throwing them up in the air to catch them. I'll murder you. Is it only half fun? Or children playing battle. Whole earnest. How can people aim guns at each other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Only troubles wildfire and nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that. After getting better asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has. What do they ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... strength in it which do not belong to first youth. Hers was a fine face; it might even be called beautiful; but no one now would call it pretty—the skin was too colourless, the expression too earnest. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... in good earnest, some in order to embarrass me, and the red-sashed parson said, maliciously, "If you are a Hungarian, sir, as you claim, where ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... much larger than an ordinary woman. She was unusually earnest and modest-looking, father said. There was not so much fuss and feathers with her as with ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... moth's wings, or like a deep-toned rainbow mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like such tapestry as Eastern queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilion of an empress. Forth from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in shade and sunbeams, lean earnest, saintly faces—ineffably pure—adoring, pitying, pleading; raising their eyes in ecstasy to heaven, or turning them in ruth toward earth. Men and women of whom the world was not worthy—at the hands ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... as it were, in its twenty-first chapter, this treatise may fitly conclude with Black, the last of the series of colours. Let us hope the maxim of Sir Joshua Reynolds, that success in some degree was never denied to earnest work ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... guests than at school. That is, the things that have taken strongest hold of my mind young girls rarely hear or understand. Now I think I can tell you something that may be of value to you in official places where you are going. The North is not only in earnest—it is religiously in earnest. If you know Puritan history you know what that means. For example: if Jack had hesitated a moment or made delay to get rank in the army, I should have abhorred him. So would our mother, though she seems to be dismayed at his serving ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... not go to excuse the Quakers in all that they have done, nor to defend all their doctrines and practices, many of which I see no warrant in Scripture for, but believe to be pernicious and contrary to good order; yet I must need look upon them as a sober, earnest-seeking people, who do verily think themselves persecuted for righteousness' sake." Hereupon Mr. Ward struck his cane smartly on the floor, and, looking severely at my brother, bade him beware how he did justify these canting ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... fakir, began to dilate upon the fat woman and the snakes, upon the wild man from Borneo, upon the learned pig, and all the other accessories of side-shows. He went over the usual characteristic "patter," getting more and more in earnest, assuring his hearers that for the small sum of ten cents they could see more wonders than ever before had been crowded under one canvas tent. He harangued the crowd as they surged about the tent door. He pointed to a suppositious canvas picture. He ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... and you have seen the condemned article. It has nothing of raillery in it, but is serious and earnest. And I repeat to you that he who lent my client this book, and saw my client make the use of it that he has, has taken him by the hand with tears in his eyes. You see, then, Mr. Government Attorney, how rash—not to use an expression which ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... nevertheless there was something very singular in his appearance, something which is rarely found amongst that people, a certain air of nobleness which highly interested me. I approached him, and in a few minutes we were in earnest conversation. He spoke Polish and Jewish German indiscriminately. The story which he related to me was highly extraordinary, yet I yielded implicit credit to all his words, which came from his mouth with an air of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... from Joe and Sue had stirred me up all over again. I had doggedly resisted, I had told Sue almost angrily that I meant to keep right on as before. But now she was gone, I was not so sure. "I still feel certain Joe's all wrong," I said aloud. "But he and his kind are so dead in earnest—so ready for any sacrifice to push their utterly wild ideas—that they may get a lot of power. God help ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... many great talents as you and I put together make; but these forty minae he paid by way of earnest. (Pointing to the BANKER.) From him he received what we paid the other man. Do you quite understand? [8] For after this house was in such a state as I mentioned to you, he at once purchased another house ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... letters. They never suited one another either in habits, tastes, or opinions; in addition to which, Sir Robert appears to have been rather a harsh father to his youngest son. If such was the case, the latter nobly revenged himself, by his earnest solicitude through life for the Honour of his parent's memory.-D. [See ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... upon this occasion. How happy would it have made him to have been eye-witness of an assemblage which may fairly be regarded as a proof of the interest felt in his benevolent undertaking, and an earnest that the good work will not be done in vain. Sure I am, also, that there is no one present who does not deeply regret the cause why that excellent man cannot appear among us. The public spirit of Mr. Bolton has ever been remarkable ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... I," answered the man: "I have an earnest request to make to you. Do you think you can ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... She was a very big moose and she was in a very big rage; and very formidable she looked as she came plowing her way to shore, sending up the water in fountains before her. He knew well that a full-grown cow moose was an awkward antagonist to tackle when she was in earnest. This one seemed to him to be very much in earnest. He hesitated and stopped his rush when about halfway down the bank. Caution began to cool his vengeful humor. After all, it seemed there was really no luck for him in a fawn-colored calf. ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... gentlemen. That he was dignified, courteous, and prepossessing, very pleasant in conversation, a capital story-teller, and a tolerable—no, intolerable—punster, exceedingly impressive both in the pulpit and elsewhere, when much in earnest, and in after life a great lecturer and platform speaker, I am ready to acknowledge; but he wanted ease of manner—the readiness and quiet self-possession of a high-bred man, who cannot be taken by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Mrs. Bushy ventured carefully out to observe the extraordinary phenomenon, for the boys were actually making their way to the gate, the smaller ones with much noisy shouting, but the big boys soberly enough engaged in earnest conversation. It was their first day of the new master, and such a day as quite "flabbergastrated," as Don Cameron said, even the oldest of them. But of course Mr. and Mrs. Bushy knew nothing of ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... second. Then he said, like one ashamed "You caught me. I was napping. For a moment I thought you were in earnest." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... objects for himself, and think about them, and ask questions. Next he is taught to read; to effect this, he is candidly told that learning to read is not play, but work, and at first dry and hard work. It soon becomes easy, however, because it is undertaken in earnest, and then it becomes pleasant; and parents may take a hint from this, when they are afraid to allow letters and learning to wear any form but that of playthings and pastime to their children. In the third volume, Rollo is at work; in the fourth, ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... lecturers are women; many subordinate and even Pomona masters are women; Michigan's state lecturer is a woman who is revolutionizing the educational work of the order in that state; while Minnesota had for some years a competent and earnest woman as state master. Every delegate to every State Grange is a dual delegate—man and wife. The state master and his wife are delegates to the National Grange. Women serve on all committees in these gatherings, and a woman's voice is frequently heard in debates. And ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... plain, straightforward manner, Mr. Edward Stratemeyer endeavors to show his boy readers what persistency, honesty, and willingness to work have accomplished for his young hero, and his moral is evident. Mr. Stratemeyer is very earnest and sincere in his portraiture of young character beginning to shape itself to weather against the future. A book of this sort is calculated to interest boys, to feed their ambition with hope, and to indicate how they must fortify ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... my threat was not in earnest, but of pure impatience. And having no motive but downright jealousy for keeping Mrs. Price from me, he made up his mind at last to let her come. But he told me to be careful what I said; I must not expect it to be at all like talking to himself, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... most people would call pretty, but still having a fair share of beauty. Her features were, perhaps, a little too strongly outlined, but the brow was fair as a lily, and from it the great mass of dark hair was drawn back in a pleasing way. But her eyes—those earnest, grey eyes—were the most impressive of all in her unusually impressive face. They were such searching eyes, as though she had stood on the brink scanning the very Infinite, and yet with a certain baffled look in them ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... plead, to spend my money amongst lawyers, and to waste the time better given to pleasure, I felt as if I was going to execution. In this perturbed kind of life, so contrary to my inclinations, I resolved to set to work in earnest to make my fortune, so that I might become independent and free to enjoy life according to my tastes. I decided in the first place that I would cut myself free of all that bound me to Paris, make a second ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the hands of Congress, suggesting that it might help matters if the bank-notes which the Government has to redeem in gold shall only be paid out again in exchange for gold. He also asks that earnest attention be given to the plan of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 59, December 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... are easily imposed upon. A report emitted in jest, or in earnest, travels with alarming rapidity, and the consequences have not unfrequently been serious. The native rarely sees a joke, and still more rarely makes one. He never reveals anger, but he will, with the most profound calmness, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... propitious, and a people so actuated must enjoy ages of that liberty they have so dearly yet so nobly achieved. That this brilliant omen may be carried out into happy reality, through all courses of time, is our sincere wish, and our most earnest supplication to HIM who holds the destinies ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... Lumpy, with his eyes still fixed on the earnest little face of Eve. "Mister Jay sent me to say he wants to speak to you about the heel ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... encourage me to become, once more, a suitor; for I will confess that, in addition to the desire of doing you honor, I have come equally with the wish to urge your great influence in behalf of an earnest suit I have." ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... long-lost parents and of social friends, of those who, living, lent a lustre to the arts, of witty madcaps frost-bitten by the sable tyrant Death, nipped in the very bud of youth, while yet the sparkling jest was ripe upon the merry lip, and the ruddy glow of health upon the cheek gave earnest of a lengthened life———But, soft! methinks I hear my reader exclaim, "How now, madcap, moralizing Mr. Spy? art thou, too, bitten by the desire to philosophize, thou, 'the very Spy o' the time,' the merry buoyant rogue who has laughed all serious scenes to scorn, and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... heard what she said, and did not know why she said it, and she took the words too much in earnest and came over to him, and there was dread in her heart that she was going to lose so wonderful a poet and so good a comrade, and a man that was thought so much of, and that brought so ...
— Stories of Red Hanrahan • W. B. Yeats
... articles for trade; to which he answered that she was sufficiently furnished to trade for provisions, but nothing more: The chief replied, that whatever we wanted we should have. After this conference, which I considered as an earnest of every advantage which this place could afford us, the boats returned on board laden with water, and we went cheerfully on with our business on board the ship. In about two hours, however, we saw with equal surprise ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... I cannot; you must not ask me to tell you this." Elizabeth's voice quivered a little, but she was very much in earnest. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... bitterly, only urging him now and then to greater speed; till at length the feeling that she had something to do came to her help. She straightened herself, gathered up her reins, and by the time she reached Mrs. Hitchcock's, was looking calm again, though very sad and very earnest. She did not alight, but stopped before the door, and called Jenny. Jenny came out, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... As soon as he could get away, Matravers followed him. There was a strange pain at his heart, a sense of intolerable depression had settled down upon him. After all, what good had he done? Only a few more days and her name, which for the moment he had cleared, would be besmirched in earnest. His impeachment of Thorndyke would sound to these men then like mock heroics. There would be no one to defend her any more. There would be no defence. For ever in the eyes of all these people she was doomed to become one of the Magdalens of ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... besieged, they bestirred themselves in earnest. Corinthian troops were shut up within the walls, and they were afraid of losing the town; so without delay they invited the allies to meet at Sparta. There they inveighed against the Athenians, whom they affirmed to have broken the treaty ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... to the inn, spoke a few last earnest words to Berquin, handed the latter a few gold pieces, cast at him a threatening look at parting, and galloped off to rejoin M. de la Chatre, whose cavalcade was now out of our sight. De Berquin gave him an ironical bow, kissed the gold pieces before pocketing ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... true I ask you for the head of a person," said Catharine, in a tender, earnest tone, "but I wish not that head to fall, but to be lifted up. I beg you for a human life—not to destroy it, but, on the contrary, to adorn it with happiness and joy. I wish to drag no one to prison, ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... been long for the information contained, I will close with the earnest wish that it may at least be of service in bringing these important but often neglected subjects to the attention of the thinking and intelligent body of men, of whom many have had much longer and more general experience in relation to these matters, and whose views when ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... at fifteen, William amused himself for a couple of years on the farm, though, curiously enough, he never thought of becoming a farmer in good earnest; indeed, at this time he seems to have had no distinct bias towards any profession. Mr. Howitt had somehow become imbued with Rousseau's doctrine that every boy, whatever his position in life, should learn a mechanical handicraft, in ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... you believe me to be in earnest, mother! To be sure, you cannot know what I would do, unless I ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... navigate, stood boldly through the centre of where the battle had once raged, and escaped. The Capitana of Malta had been taken; and to the Sultan did Occhiali present the great standard of Saint John, as an earnest of his achievement. ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... quick as if the bands with which it had been bound were burned asunder, he began to address those who stood around, in a firm and audible voice. 'My brothers,' said he, 'the Great Spirit has deigned to hold a talk with his servant, at my earnest request. He has not, indeed, told me when the persons we expect will be here; but to-morrow, soon after the sun has reached his highest point in the heavens, a canoe will arrive, and the people in that will inform us when ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... now embody, shall be out of the reach of that great innovator, and applicable not to one age, but to all. To the sagacious reader, who has already discovered what portions of this work are writ in irony—what in earnest—I fearlessly commit these maxims; beseeching him to believe, with Sterne, that "every thing is big with jest, and has wit in it, and instruction too, if we can but find ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Solomon Eagle. The preacher's appearance was very remarkable, and attracted the attention of the grocer, who joined the crowd to listen to him. As far as could be judged, he was a middle-aged man, with black hair floating over his shoulders, earnest features, and a grey eye of extraordinary brilliancy. His figure was slight and erect, and his gestures as impassioned as his looks. He spoke with great rapidity; and his eloquence, combined with his fervent manner and expression, completely entranced his audience. He was habited in a cassock and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth |
