"Severity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conditions of feeling, may adequately express what music needs time and many tones to convey. Poetry wins beauty by concentration, whereas music gains by expansion. There is also a similar relation between prose and poetry in this respect; the severity of the form imposes upon poetry a simplicity which contrasts with the breadth and complexity of prose. As Schopenhauer remarked, every good poem is short; long poems always contain stretches either of unmusical verse or unpoetic music. Yet, in comparison with prose, the tempo ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... mass, as he returned, he learned from a librarian called Seney, at the porter's lodge, as he was taking a glass of wine, that judgment had been given, and that Madame de Brinvilliers was to have her hand cut off. This severity—as a fact, there was a mitigation of the sentence—made him feel yet more interest in his penitent, and he ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... better had greeted him with a merry laugh as he came down to breakfast, and an "Oh, la, la!" which had elicited a rebuke from the proprietor. Indeed, a wave of human sympathy flowed upon Mr. Greyne, whose ashy face and dull, washed-out eyes betrayed the severity of ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... not, however, imagine that it was prompted by a spirit of generosity at all. It was policy. A seeming generosity was, in this case, exactly what was wanted to answer his ends. Hannibal was mercilessly cruel in all cases where he imagined that severity was demanded. It requires great sagacity sometimes in a commander to know when he must punish, and when it is wisest to overlook and forgive. Hannibal, like Alexander and Napoleon, possessed this sagacity in a very high degree; and it was, doubtless, ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... officers, under whose control those prisoners were more immediately placed, * * * too often frustrated the purposes of their superior officers, and too often disgraced humanity, by their wilful disregard of the policy of their Government, and of the orders of their superiors, by the uncalled-for severity of their treatment of those who were placed in their custody, and by their shameless malappropriation of the means of support which were placed in their hands for the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... if the demand be not instantly complied with will never hesitate at violence. Indeed, when we remember how many horrible outrages have within the last few years been committed by ruffians of this kind, it is quite easy to understand the severity necessary in less civilised times. Only recently the Spaniard Garcia murdered an entire family in Wales; and some few years ago, at Denham, near Uxbridge, a small household was butchered for the sake of a few shillings and such little plunder as ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... went on whisking the twigs in every direction across his buttocks, till the red smacks showed all over the surface, and little drops of blood oozed from the excoriated skim; I could see he winced under her severity, but his Prick swelled visibly at every stroke, and Gert heaved up to meet each thrust, as he plunged on with erotic fury, throwing her pretty stockinged legs over his loins, giving me a splendid view of her luscious Cunt as the vermilion ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... complexion or it might have been the bold luster of her eyes (as the women considered it), that dazzled the lords of creation generally, and made them all alike incompetent to discover her faults. Still, she had compensating attractions which no severity of criticism could dispute. Her smile, beginning at her lips, flowed brightly and instantly over her whole face. A delicious atmosphere of health, freshness, and good humor seemed to radiate from her wherever she went and whatever she did. For the rest her ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... poet announced that he relinquished the task, that it was a mere loss of precious time to himself, and of no use to the boy, who neither could nor would learn anything. In reality, he was by no means unwilling to abandon the iron rules he had established, and which pressed with severity on himself as well as on the child. Ida, or rather Charlotte, made no remonstrance. She preferred to think her boy incapable of study rather than endure the daily scenes, and the incessant lectures and tears ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... inherent in all hybrids, however fanciful and graceful. They were sterile and unprocreative. The warring elements, so deftly and beautifully blent in them, began at once to fall asunder. The San Galli attempted to follow classical precedent with stricter severity. Some buildings of their school may still be reckoned among the purest which remain to prove the sincerity of the Revival of Learning. The Sansovini exaggerated the naivete of the earlier Renaissance manner, and pushed its picturesqueness over into florid luxuriance ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... been considered the hardiest of all flowers. In the account of the Great Frost of 1608, "this one infallible token" is given in proof of its severity. "The Leek whose courage hath ever been so undaunted that he hath borne up his lusty head in all storms, and could never be compelled to shrink for hail, snow, frost, or showers, is now by the violence and cruelty of this ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... the Act of 1900 (63 & 64 Vict. 50), and has been much altered by the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1906 (6 Edw. VII, c. 56), which has treated the landlord with a degree of severity, which considering the excellent relations that have for the most part existed between English landlords and tenants for generations, is utterly unwarranted. In several respects indeed he has been treated by the Act as if the land did not belong to him, while freedom of contract, until ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... parents he was at liberty to refuse, but that a daughter, on the contrary, was compelled to assist them, and, on refusal, was amenable to law. But we may question the truth of this statement; and, drawing an inference from the marked severity of filial duties among the Egyptians, some of which we find distinctly alluded to in the sculptures of Thebes, we may conclude that in Egypt much more was expected from a son than in any civilized nation of the present day; and this was ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... little tome. Then he remained about five-and-twenty minutes on the ladder absorbed in the perusal of the volume, when the customer, growing impatient, began to rap on the counter with his stick. Thereupon Mr. Tomlins came down the ladder. 'If you think,' he remarked, with calm severity, to the intending purchaser, 'that any considerations of vile dross will induce me to part with this rare and precious little volume, you are very much mistaken. It is like your impudence. Be off with you!' A not altogether dissimilar anecdote is related by Lord Lytton in that curious ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... greedy of power and property; of great courage, but not acquainted with the way of winning the favour of the people; zealous in governing, and severe in their revenge. King Olaf forced the people into Christianity and good customs, and punished cruelly those who disobeyed. This just and rightful severity the chiefs of the country could not bear, but raised an army against him, and killed him in his own kingdom; and therefore he is held to be a saint. King Harald, again, marauded to obtain glory and power, forced all the people he could under ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... I cried, as soon as I had got my wind. As luck would have it, I had run into a pair of daredevil young Kentuckians who had more than once tasted the severity of Clark's discipline,—Fletcher Blount and Jim Willis. They fairly shook out of me what had happened, and then dropped me with a war-whoop and started for the prairie, I after them, crying out to them to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... language—which is, after all, the language of epigram—if I were setting any new precedent. But all epigrammatists, Catullus, Marsus, Pedo, Gaetulicus, have availed themselves of this licence of speech. But if any one wishes to acquire notoriety by prudish severity, and refuses to permit me to write after the good Roman fashion in so much as a single page of my work, he may stop short at the preface, or even at the title. Epigrams are written for such persons as derive pleasure from the games at the Feast of Flowers. ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... thoughts down to the spreading of a sheet or the hemming of a towel; and to this exact standard she feels it her duty to bring every one in her household. She does not often scold, she is not actually fretful, but she exercises over her household a calm, inflexible severity, rebuking every fault; she overlooks nothing, she excuses nothing, she will accept of nothing in any part of her domain but absolute perfection; and her reproofs are aimed with a true and steady point, and sent with a force that makes them felt by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... and Cherry Valley. Battle of Rhode Island. Raids. Wayne takes Stony Point. Paul Jones and his Naval Victory. The War in the South. Lincoln Surrenders. All South Carolina Gone. Clinton's Severity. Bravely withstood by Southern Leaders and People. Washington Sends Aid. Gates and De Kalb. Battle of Camden. Exit Gates. De Kalb's Valor and Death. Arnold's Treason. The South Prostrate. Colonial Victory of King's Mountain. General Greene to the South. His ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... strange to those who are accustomed to the severity of penal laws, which in most instances inflict punishment exceeding by many degrees the measure of the offence, how a society can exist in which the greatest of all crimes is, agreeably to established custom, expiated by the payment of a certain sum of money; a sum not proportioned to the rank ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... deep buzz as of discontent. A few whose eyes were bright, and either piercing or steady, and whose ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridge-like, above the eyebrows, bespoke observation followed by meditative thought; and a much larger number, who were 115 enraged by the severity and insolence of the priests in exacting their offerings, had collected in one tumultuous group, and with a confused outcry of 'This is the Temple of Superstition!' after much contumely, and turmoil, and cruel maltreatment ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of four Dominican monks under their Prior, Pedro de Cordoba, had been increased until their community numbered twelve or fifteen men, the severity of whose rule had been much augmented in the New World in order to maintain the just proportion between their penitential lives and the hard conditions of the colony in which they lived. Their observation ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... believe, also free. Altogether there are about 400 seats free and tolerably easy in the building. There are many pretty stained glass memorial windows in the church; indeed, if it were not for these the building would have a very cold and unpleasantly Normanised look. They tone down its severity of style, and cast gently into it a mellowed light akin to that of the "dim religious" order. They are narrow, circular-headed; and occupy the front, the sides, the transept, and the chancel. All the lower windows in the building, except two ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... relation, but the boy had only half-heartedly met his advances. Now and then he himself made an overture, but it was the almost timid advance of a puppy that has been beaten. It left Clayton discouraged and alarmed, set him to going back over the past for any severity on his part to justify it. Now and then he wondered if, in Graham's frequent closetings with Natalie, she did not covertly undermine his influence with the boy, ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... seat and glanced round upon them all with solemn unrecognizing severity, while the mourners came down the creaking pine stairway in proper ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the notary, in a tone of great severity, 'take care what you say. The offence of depreciating the credit or money of the Republic ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... until nearly exhausted by hunger. Seeing the Governor of Canada passing by, and despairing of being able to effect his escape, he came forth from his hiding place, and surrendered himself, invoking his clemency. He was remanded to prison, but experienced no additional severity. He was subsequently shipped by the governor from Quebec to England, and never returned to Virginia. It is this treatment of Van Braam, more than any thing else, which convinces us that the suspicion of his being in collusion ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... picturing of the North, however, that Mr. Ervine turns in "The Magnanimous Lover," which indicts the self-righteousness of the Ulster Protestant with a severity such as is possible only to a man bitter against a weakness of his own people. It is an old theme Mr. Ervine has to handle, the refusal of the wronged woman to wed her betrayer, when, after years of disloyalty, he is willing, by marrying her, to make her again an "honest woman." ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... Lady Hardwicke, 'who have seen the anguish of disappointment caused by such a termination of the cherished ambition of a whole life, can at all appreciate the severity of this blow. This statement of facts engraven on the tablet of my heart I have drawn up with a view of placing in the hands of my dear children the means of vindicating their beloved father's memory in case upon any future occasion they should ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... all being anxious that the enemy should not obtain the expected advantage, they enabled him to secure a greater; for having abandoned the siege of Furli to go to the relief of Zagonara, on encountering the enemy they were soon routed, not so much by the bravery of their adversaries as by the severity of the season; for, having marched many hours through deep mud and heavy rain, they found the enemy quite fresh, and were therefore easily vanquished. Nevertheless, in this great defeat, famous throughout all Italy, no death occurred except those of Lodovico ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... but your readers can't disprove it.—"'Coridon,' said he, surveying his attendant from head to foot, and ultimately assuming a severity of countenance, 'Coridon, you are becoming gross, if not positively what the people call fat.' The Swiss attendant fell back in graceful astonishment three steps, and arching his eyebrows, extending his inverted palms forward, and raising his shoulders above the apex of his ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... be severe; your last letter taught me as much. Well! I shall try to extract good out of your severity: and besides, though I am now sure you are a just, discriminating man, yet, being mortal, you must be fallible; and if any part of your censure galls me too keenly to the quick—gives me deadly pain—I shall for the present ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... have had the most wretched weather: but this to me is a blessing; for, during my residence here, not a single fine day has beamed from the heavens, but has been lost to me by the intrusion of somebody. During the severity of rain, sleet, frost, and storm, I congratulate myself that it cannot be worse indoors than abroad, nor worse abroad than it is within doors; and so I become reconciled. When the sun rises bright in the morning, ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... of their polished melodies, their modern endings, their incoherent accompaniments arranged for the organ, he found himself in the presence of a chant, thin, sharp and nervous, like the work of an early master, and saw the ascetic severity of its lines, its sonorous colouring, the brightness of its metal hammered out with the rude yet charming art of Gothic jewels, he heard under the woven robe of sound, the beating of a simple heart, the ingenuous love of ages, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... moment everything seemed changed. All the severity had faded from the old people's faces; they could not have looked more delightfully "grannyish" if they had tried. The dreadful barriers of formality were broken down; no noisier, freer family party had ever gathered in the Queensland home ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... all freedom even at fair time. The guild laws of the different trades, exclusive and jealous as they are, are enforced with the utmost severity. Jews, in general, and certain trades in particular,—shoemakers, for example,—are not allowed the same privileges as the rest; for their liberty to sell is restricted to a shorter period, and woe to the ambitious ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... force. The identification, for instance, of the dead after a big battle. Others are subject to doubt, unless you insert "lorsque les circonstances le permettent, s'il se peut, si possible, s'il-y-a necessite," or the like. This will give them that elasticity without which the bitter severity of actual warfare will break through ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... think you know very much about it, after all,' she said with severity. 'I suppose you put all you knew into the story. But you're quite sure there was no fairy inside the figure ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... and from the new settlement of Montreal to Tadoussac, vessels were packing away the precious freight. Champlain had gone with a body of soldiers to help defend a town the Iroquois had threatened to attack. The missions thus far had borne no fruit. Indeed the new teaching of the Recollets in its severity was not pleasant. The Hurons were seized with a panic after losing several of their leaders and the Sieur was wounded. All winter the people at Quebec waited anxiously for their leader, and parties set out to see if they could find any tidings. At last they were sighted, and great was ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... with a hole in the middle, and was fastened at the edge to a pliable handle. The blistering pain inflicted by this brutal instrument can well be imagined. At another school, whipping of unlucky wights was done "upon a peaked block with a tattling stick;" and this expression of colonial severity seems to take on additional force and cruelty in our minds that we do not at all know what a tattling stick was, nor understand what was ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... in December 1839. It was bitter winter. The day we sailed, such was the severity of the gale and snowstorm, that we had to put back and anchor at St. Helens in the Isle of Wight. The next night we were at sea. It happened to be my middle watch. I had to turn out of my hammock at twelve to walk the deck till four in the morning. Walk! I could ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... that, in this portrait, some of the darker features and harsher lineaments of Byron himself are very evident, but with a more fixed sternness than belonged to him; for it was only by fits that he could put on such severity. Conrad is, however, a higher creation than any which he had previously described. Instead of the listlessness of Childe Harold, he is active and enterprising; such as the noble pilgrim would have been, but for the satiety ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... principal towns of the Pashalik of Akka; its inhabitants are industrious, because they are treated with less severity than those of the country towns in general; two-thirds of them are Turks, and one-third Christians; there are about ninety Latin families; together with a congregation of Greek Catholics and another of Maronites. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... Serafina intervene, recalling her wonted severity of voice: "Giacomo, you will please stay here." And to her niece she added: "That's enough childishness! I ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Barrow; "give the man a chance." He turned, and said with some severity, "Tracy, what's the matter with you? What kind of foolishness is this you've been talking. You ought to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Strachey), Thomas Love Peacock (author of "Headlong Hall"), Mr. Harcourt, and Mr. James Mill; the selection of the last-named being all the more creditable to them, because, in his "History of British India," he had animadverted with much severity on some parts of the Company's administration. Two years afterwards, in 1823, the historian's son, the illustrious subject of these brief memoirs, then a lad of seventeen, obtained a clerkship under his ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... said the Rector, affecting a great appearance of severity, "you're my Brownie, not his. Supposing Tommy Trout had gone and weeded Farmer Swede's garden, and brought back his weeds to go to seed on the Tailor's flower-beds, how do you think he would ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... starting out from principles, evident of themselves, develops science by way of conclusions drawn, after the manner of the geometricians. The apparent severity and simplicity of this method are very seductive, and very dangerous, when we have to deal not with figures, but with men; when the varied, complex and delicate exigencies which accumulate when human nature comes into play do not exactly square with the formula; ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... about to enter the sacred precincts of Assembly Hall. I feel that on account of my years of experience I must make myself responsible for the behavior of you children. Smother that giggle, Nora O'Malley," he commanded, looking at Nora with an expression of severity that set oddly on his fat, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... which is so indispensable in Song is precisely all that with which she has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. He must be blind indeed ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... Greek studies, and this tendency on his part was at once suspected as heretical by the orthodox doctors of the Sorbonne. The favor of King Francis was not at all times sufficient to protect him from persecution, and an increasing severity of censorship arose, the full force of which began to be evident in the ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... flattery than a man's dumb acknowledgement of her unattainability. He talked when she bade him talk, but she was not positive whether she was vexed or not because their conversation was of common-place things: The work he was doing, upon which he was aggravatingly reticent, or the severity of the last storm, or the amazing clarity of the night. Certainty, however, was hers that he was no longer sure of himself—that he was fighting silently against a growing conviction that she ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... and embittered by the severity of the Edinburgh Review, he was not crushed. He rallied, collected his unsuspected strength, and shattered his opponents by one of the wittiest, most brilliant, and most unscrupulous satires in our literature, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... way to start, Mr. Hagan," amended Tollman with some severity of manner, "is that which will most quickly bring you to the point and the conclusion. I'm a very busy man and can spare ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... approach, hoped to fall in with some part of our ships, with their cargoes, but found them empty; and having taken about thirty, vented on them his rage at his own remissness, and set them all on fire: and, with the same flames, he destroyed the mariners and masters of the vessels, hoping by the severity of the punishment to deter the rest. Having accomplished this affair, he filled all the harbours and shores from Salona to Oricum with his fleets. Having disposed his guard with great care, he lay ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... This plain memorial, and her children plac'd A mother's near, to tell succeeding years Their talents and their virtue. They themselves More forcibly express the worth of both, For they are wise and good, without a shade Of cold severity ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... and admired few pictures so much as this," observed the sculptor. "No wonder; for there is hardly another so beautiful in the world. What an expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel's face! There is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust at being brought in contact with sin, even for the purpose of quelling and punishing it; and yet a celestial tranquillity pervades ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... licentious stage as is here described well deserved the severest attacks: but what is there to justify severity now? at this day not only the success of every new play so much depends upon its purity, but so scrupulously correct in that particular is the public taste, and so abstinent from every the slightest indelicacy are the authors of plays and even farces, that not a word is uttered upon the stage from ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... to decide the question of attacking us. Having reached the resting-place of the Vegas de Santa Clara, we had complete relief from the heat and privations of the desert, and some relaxation from the severity of camp duty. Some relaxation, and relaxation only—for camp-guards, horse-guards, and scouts, are indispensable from the time of leaving the frontiers of Missouri until we ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... the Aerated Bread Company, where a chill has apparently been imparted to their bearing by the temperature of the food they serve. It is very wholesome, however, and it may be rather that a New England severity in them is the effect of the impersonal relation of served and ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... been conferring with my learned clerk and chaplain in what manner I may, with the least severity, rid the county ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... had been a fine day between the showers, and hoped that the morrow would be either wet or dry; upon which the lean young lady, having slapped him, asked admiringly of the fat young lady if he wasn't a "silly fool;" to which the fat young lady replied, with somewhat unnecessary severity, I thought, that no one could help being what they were born. To this the lean young lady retorted that it was with precisely similar reflection that she herself controlled her own feelings when tempted to resent the fat young lady's "nasty ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... not the Jack who had come over the ledge in the energy of his passion yesterday to find her gone. He had turned gentle and was smiling with craved permission for a respite from her evident severity as he dropped to a half-lying posture near her. Overhead, the Eternal Painter was throwing in the smoky purple of a false thunderhead, sweeping it away with the promise of a downpour, rolling in piles of silver clouds and drawing them out into filmy fingers ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... children, young, buoyant, and mischievous, were about her, should sympathize with and care for them when sick. He could not understand her conscience-stricken misery when little Jacques drooped after her severity towards him. Monsieur was a kind husband, however, and a wise man in many things. He had studied much in his youth, chiefly medical works, of which he had quite a collection. He could not understand the whimsical nervousness of women, but, when so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Game regulation for Thursday was lax indeed. He never had departed from it, and he never would depart from it. If any fellow took it into his head to slip out of his house after lights out at ten on any pretence whatever he was expelled. There was some legend in connection with this severity, what exactly none of us rightly knew, but according to the tale the escapade of two fellows years ago, when Corker was new to the place, had resulted in one of the fellows being shot. Twice had he expelled fellows ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... few years of their residence in the bush; but they doubtless experienced their share of the privations and discouragements which fell to the lot of the first settlers of a new section of country. The first winter they passed in their new home was one of unusual severity for even the rigorous climate of Eastern Canada, and poor Mrs. Ainslie often during that winter regretted the willingness with which she bade adieu to her early home, to take up her abode in the dreary wilderness. They found the winter ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... both between the Federal and Confederate capitals. It is true, footholds had been secured by us on the sea-coast, in Virginia and North Carolina, but, beyond that, no substantial advantage had been gained by either side. Battles had been fought of as great severity as had ever been known in war, over ground from the James River and Chickahominy, near Richmond, to Gettysburg and Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania, with indecisive results, sometimes favorable to the National army, sometimes to the Confederate army; but in ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Probably this is a symptom of their return to a more moderate degree of faith than they used to evince prior to the French Revolution, which has altered the tone of opinion and manners throughout the world. And after the severity and rigid observance of all the church high-days and holydays formerly prevalent among them, the tide of opinion appears to have run into the ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... force in case of revolt, while in peace they became centres of outrage and defiance to the law. Edward had ordered the dissolution of these military households in his Statute of Liveries, and the statute was enforced by Henry with the utmost severity. On a visit to the Earl of Oxford, one of the most devoted adherents of the Lancastrian cause, the king found two long lines of liveried retainers drawn up to receive him. "I thank you for your good cheer, my Lord," said Henry as they parted, "but I may not endure to have my ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... much preoccupied by his terror to understand, or at any rate to heed, the severity of his father's remark. Collecting his scattered thoughts, he proceeded to narrate all that had occurred to him, not only on that day, but since his first meeting with the incognita near the church of San Moyses, on the very same spot whither he had conveyed her in his gondola ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... reasoning, was to prevent such catastrophes for the future. It was not that pity was misplaced when shipwreck came, nor that charity ever failed. She understood, without being conscious of it, the ironic severity of Jesus, who would have no sudden pity and heart-searching on account of His poor. He had come into the world for righteousness and for judgment, and the judgment and righteousness both declared, not at the time of disaster ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... payments, and were levied on the peasantry as pecuniary imposts for the benefit of prelates and lay lords, who, by virtue of their nobility, were exempt from taxation. The collection of the taxes was enforced with unrelenting severity. On one occasion, in the reign of Louis XIV., the troops sent out against the recreant peasants made more than 3,000 prisoners, of whom 400 were condemned to the galleys for life, and a number so large that the government ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... majority of them, unless one does grave injustice to their common sense, voted for such candidates owing to dissatisfaction with the policy of the Government and present conditions generally—the high cost of living, the pressure of taxation, the severity of class distinctions, and like grievances, real or imaginary. These people are Socialists in the English or international sense of the word, not Social Democrats strictly speaking; and with these people the Emperor is most angry because ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... Heathknowes till I had made sure of a better reception. I began to count it a certainty that Irma, feeling that she had gone too far and too fast with me before I went off, was now getting out of the difficulty by a regime of extraordinary coldness and severity. And if that were the case, I was not the man ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... in a Methodist church. A certain Episcopalian conceit prevented my straying into the one at Edenton. And I was shocked now at the Old Testament severity of this one. There was no compromise with human desires in it, not a touch of color except the brown that time gives unpainted wood, not an effort anywhere to appeal to the imagination or suggest ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... and repented,—am repenting still, and that if we are unhappy she too helped to bring that unhappiness on both. She is bound to absolve me in her heart, regret the past and dream what the future might have been but for my misdeeds and her severity. Even then I was reading in her face that she felt frightened at her own thoughts and visions, and tried to drive them away by a conversation upon indifferent subjects. My aunt is so full of the approaching races and the ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... illiterate, and tended only to insurrection and violence. Mr. K. animadverted upon the speeches and opinions of eminent Southern men, quoted by the traverser's counsel, to show that their objects were different from those of the abolitionists. Mr. Key remarked, with great severity, on the abstract proposition of the sinfulness of slavery, and the declaration in the libels of the "South being awakened from their snoring by the thunder of the Southampton massacre." He contended that Crandall ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... to those who offer them money without any concealment. Moreover, he forbade men to sell their sisters and daughters, except in the case of unchastity. Now to punish the same offence at one time with unrelenting severity, and at another in a light and trifling manner, by imposing so slight a fine, is unreasonable, unless the scarcity of specie in the city at that period made fines which were paid in money more valuable ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... dreadfully she rewards my kindness!... She taunts me for my over-great trust in you!" The Knight fixes his eyes sternly upon the offender, who somehow cannot look back bold insult as she would wish, but stands spell-bound under the calm severity of his glance. "Stand off from her, you fearful woman. Here shall you never prevail!—Tell me, Elsa," he bends over her tearful face, "tell me that she tried vainly to drop her venom into your heart?" Elsa hides her face against his breast without answering. But the gesture ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... on a large and informal scale, is probably the most depressing meal in existence. There is a chill discomfort in the round of beef, an icy severity about the open jam tart. The ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... mails. This was quite enough; from the attitude of the military men it promised to go hard with him. But he sprung a surprise by boldly proclaiming himself an English citizen and warning his captors not to treat him with the contempt or with the severity they reserved for Americans. Curiously his words had an effect. Judgment for the moment was suspended, and the two prisoners were led away, after which another ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... out the decree of War to Death immediately, nor did he do so constantly. Whenever he found any opportunity to exercise mercy, he did so; and when he was forced to let the severity of this law fall upon his enemy, there was generally an immediate reason for his action. In San Carlos, a few days after the issuance of this decree, when addressing the Spaniards and the Natives of the Canary Islands, ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... When the king heard this, his anger was kindled mightily, and he commanded that Saint Kiaranus should be enslaved to his service. And so for this cause was blessed Kiaranus led into captivity, and was a slave in the house of King Furbithus. A task chosen for its severity was laid upon him, namely, to turn the quern-stone daily for making flour. But in wondrous wise Saint Kiaranus used to sit and read beside the quern-stone, and the quern-stone used to turn swiftly of itself, without ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... has been accomplished, "men of present valor, stalwart, brave iconoclasts." They were men who were content with the order of the universe as it is, and seek only to place their own actions in harmony with this order. They have no complaints to urge against "the goodness and severity of God," nor any futile wish "to remould it nearer to the heart's desire." The "Fanaticism for Veracity" is satisfied with what is. Not the ultimate truth which is God's alone, but the highest attainable truth, is the aim of ...
— The Philosophy of Despair • David Starr Jordan
... search of Centeno. As the latter had a considerably stronger force, it was believed by many that Carvajal would be unsuccessful in this expedition, more especially as most of his followers acted more from force than good will, because he allowed them no pay and treated them with much severity. In his whole conduct and deportment Carvajal acted in a brutal and passionate manner, evincing himself on all occasions the enemy of good men; for he was a bad Christian, constantly addicted to blasphemy, and of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... sometimes spoke "unadvisedly with his lips" in reply to the unjustifiable suspicions of his "friends," God stands on his side, and defends him in his rectitude and integrity. He rebukes with severity Bildad the Shuhite and his two companions, because of their uncharitable suspicions uttered against His servant. He was "angry" that they had not spoken truthfully "as His servant Job;" "and they were ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... changes in the room since Gerard's occupancy of it. Bright rugs and coverings mitigated the severity of the horse-hair furniture, a couple of easy-chairs stood there like velvet-clad cavaliers in a Puritan meeting. If the hues ran to vivid scarlets and unexpected contrasts, why, Rupert had done the shopping and had consulted his own taste. In the midst of his artistic ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... the familiar household object of to-day may become sacred relics to-morrow. Let us walk softly; let us forbear and love; none ever repented of too much love to a departed friend; none ever regretted too much tenderness and indulgence, but many a tear has been shed for too much harshness and severity. Let our friends in heaven then teach us how to treat our friends on earth. Thus by no vain fruitless sorrow, but by a deeper self-knowledge, a tenderer and more sacred estimate of life, may our heavenly friends prove ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... nearly white, but his eyes were still bright, and the handsome well-cut features of his fine face were not reduced to shapelessness by any of the ravages of time, as is so often the case with men who are infirm as well as old. Were it not for the long and heavy eyebrows, which gave something of severity to his face, and for that painful stoop in his shoulders, he might still have been accounted a handsome man. In youth he had been a very handsome man, and had shone forth in the world, popular, beloved, respected, with all the good things the ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... see if her sister were in earnest, and meeting a glance of great severity she rose and advanced towards Dottie sideways, with one finger in her mouth, and holding the doll by the legs, head downwards. Dottie, still sniffing and sobbing, made ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... teaching them to keep whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19, 20.) And in another place He says: "If he will not hear, tell it to the Church" (Matt. xviii. 17); and again: "Ready to punish all disobedience" (2 Cor. x. 6); and once more: "I shall act with more severity, according to the powers which our Lord has given me unto edification and not unto ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... said, who had been declining in health for a considerable time past, had latterly become much worse. No doubt her failure to stamp out Christianity must have aggravated her complaint, for the effect of her extreme severity was rather to advance than hinder the good cause. The persecutions—the banishments—the murders—of twenty-five years, instead of checking, had spread the Gospel far and wide over the land, for, as in the first days, 'they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word,' ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... first from the trolly-car, the second from a steam-trailing automobile; a booming roar from the ground accompanying the first, a buzzing rattle the second. Just a block away a far louder rattle still comes from the elevated railway. Here, down town, the streets are paved with cobble stones, and the severity of the climate in the winter is given as the excuse for the irregularity of the surface. Heavy lorries and wheels of horsed vehicles jangle over them, but the general uproar is so great that the bells on the horses' collars are inaudible, and sight is the only sense that makes their approach ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... their chairs, and, taking along with them the servants, whose duty it was to be on night watch in the garden, and other domestics as well, they visited each place on their round. Such was the control exercised by these three inmates that signs were not wanting to prove that greater severity was observed than in the days when the management devolved on lady Feng. To this reason must be assigned the fact that all the servants attached inside as well as outside cherished a secret grudge against them. "No sooner," they insinuated, "has one patrolling ogre come ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... to believe that he has done all the cruel things he is accused of, but says that his sternness and severity were necessary for the occasion, and that Spain should be very grateful to have found such a leader at ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 40, August 12, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... and he are intimate; I 've often seen them play When heaven looked upon us all With such severity, ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... poor thing for any life-sitting!" remarked Mr. Raymount rather gruffly, for he found that the easier way of speaking the truth. He had thus gained a character for uncompromising severity, whereas it was but that a certain sort of cowardice made him creep into spiky armor. He was a good man, who saw some truths clearly, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... a picture will be more or less overlaid with the truths of nature, and all the rich variety of natural forms, according to the requirements of the subject. Thus, in large decorative work, where the painting has to take its place as part of an architectural scheme, the severity of this skeleton will be necessary to unite the work to the architectural forms around it, of which it has to form a part; and very little indulgence in the realisation of natural truth should be permitted ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... rapture, the applause bestowed upon his musical talents, his master earnestly deprecated, and violently opposed the cultivation of them. In the contentions between this applause and that opposition—between the charming flattery of the one, and the mortifying severity of the other, the boy took that side which it was natural for him to prefer; and genius, the parent of courage and enterprise, suggested to him from time to time a variety of expedients for baffling all his master's designs, and eluding his sharpest vigilance. He collected around him ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... occasion from thence to do the same, and they had an hundred times more opportunity of revenge than he; that being necessitated to get their livelihood by fishery, they should hereafter always be in danger of their lives. By these reasons he was persuaded to bridle his anger, and remit the severity ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... must not leave you in ignorance of the multiplied outbreaks we have in all parts of my jurisdiction. The impunity with which they flatter themselves, because the judges are afraid of irritating the people by examples of severity, only emboldens them. Mischief-makers, confounded with honest folks, spread false reports about particular persons whom they accuse of concealing grain, or of not belonging to the Third-Estate, and, under this pretext, they pillage their houses, taking whatever ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to certain beds of the slaty coherents, which are both vast in elevation, and easy of destruction. In Wales and Scotland the same groups of rocks possess far greater hardness, while they attain less elevation; and the result is a totally different aspect of scenery. The severity of the climate, and the comparative durableness of the rock, forbid the rich vegetation; but the exposed summits, though barren, are not subject to laws of destruction so rapid and fearful as in Switzerland, and the natural colour of the rock is oftener developed in the purples and greys which, ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... embittered too by the severity of certain words which her husband had spoken to her. Isabel had appealed to her father when her step-mother had reproached her with being a burden in ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... the fissure; when it did so the cold seemed likely to be added to his other physical discomforts. In the higher altitudes the nights were distinctly chilly even in mid-summer, and he had on only a light outing shirt, above his waist. As the hour grew late, the cold increased in severity until Wade was forced to walk up and down his narrow prison in the effort to keep warm. He had just turned to retrace his steps, on one such occasion, when his ears caught the soft pat-pat of a footfall on the ground above. He instantly became motionless and tensely alert, ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... after the issue of his anti-Christian decree at Hakata, Hideyoshi maintained a tolerant demeanour. But in 1597, his forbearance was changed to a mood of uncompromising severity. Various explanations have been given of this change, but the reasons are obscure. "Up to 1593 the Portuguese had possessed a monopoly of religious propagandism and oversea commerce in Japan. The ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... near to Albany, another piercing shriek from Willie arose even above the noise of the train. The paroxysms of pain had returned with such severity that the poor infant's face became a livid purple, while Adah's tears dropped upon it like rain. Again the sympathetic women gathered around, again Dr. Richards, aroused from his uneasy sleep, muttered invectives against children in general and this one in particular, while again Irving ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... delusion and her fears would have vanished together, and she would have perceived, that the figure before her was not human, but formed of wax. The history of it is somewhat extraordinary, though not without example in the records of that fierce severity, which monkish superstition has sometimes inflicted on mankind. A member of the house of Udolpho, having committed some offence against the prerogative of the church, had been condemned to the penance of contemplating, during certain hours of the day, a waxen image, made to resemble ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... people except in the third book of Mosaic writings, the 'Crookbackt' or dwarfs are warned not to come nigh the altar-fires where sacrifices are offered. A severe banishment, truly, but as a good Presbyterian, I attribute the severity of such a decree to the grudging envy of the jealous old 'kettle-tender' who maybe scorched the stew; and I get my solace in the comforting words of the Master who pledges that 'the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers—large or small—shall be called ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... character and evident ability set himself to rule and drill boys, holding no unnecessary converse with them, working them to the height of their powers, insisting on the work being done, not fearing to punish with severity, using terrible language on occasion, dealing with every boy alike without favour or partiality, giving rare praise with enthusiasm, and refraining always from mocking sarcasm—which boys hate and never forgive—and he will have his reward. They will rage against him in groups on the playing-fields ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... Constance of Aquitaine, her successor, proved a penitential infliction second only in severity to the anathemas of the Church. Troops of vain and frivolous troubadours from her southern home, in all kinds of foreign and fantastic costumes, invaded the court at Paris and shocked the austere piety of the king. He ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... the impediments which the pathless swamps and forest offered, together with the severity of the climate and hostility of the natives, that his force was reduced by death, sickness, and desertion to the number of five hundred when he lined up his men before the large army of the powerful Kutchum Khan. Like Cortez and Pizarro, Yermak had unbounded ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... man, or a woman, as one or two of my critics profess to have discovered. I take the imputation in good part, as a compliment to the just delineation of my female characters; and though I am bound to attribute much of the severity of my censors to this suspicion, I make no effort to refute it, because, in my own mind, I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are, or should be, written for both ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... entirely at the mercy of the other party into whose custody they had been given. The latter would, in such cases, imprison them, torture them, or put them to death, with a greater or less degree of severity in respect to the infliction of pain, according to the degree of exasperation which the real or fancied injury which he had received awakened ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... said of the resolution that "the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on man and woman." "Of all the notable pronunciamentos at Seneca Falls no resolutions shows a finer spiritual audacity than this. A delicious flavor of transcendentalism from beginning to end marks the phraseology. Like the Brook Farm experiment the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... more frivolity to complain of. We finished our stage and came to the inn-door with decorum, to find the house still alight and in a bustle with many late arrivals; to give our orders with a prompt severity which ensured obedience, and to be served soon after at a side-table, close to the fire and in a blaze of candle-light, with such a meal as I had been dreaming of for days past. For days, you are to remember, I had been skulking ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and therefore his punishment, is irremediable, necessary, endless; and thereby destroy the whole purpose, and we should say, the whole morality, of his punishment. If that punishment be corrective, our moral sense is not shocked by any severity, by any duration: but if it is irremediable, it cannot be corrective; and then, what it is, or why it is, we cannot—or rather dare not—say. We, too, believe in an eternal fire. But because we believe also ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... seeing them carried out. The most severe instrument of chastisement is a knob-stick, sharpened at the back, like that used in Uganda, for breaking a man's neck before he is thrown into the N'yanza; but this severity is seldom resorted to, Kamrasi being of a mild disposition compared with Mtesa, whom he invariably alludes to when ordering men to be flogged, telling them that were they in Uganda, their heads would suffer instead of their backs. In the day's work at the palace, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... caused me to bear it with a degree of patience which I have often since wondered at. I was fearful if I left this place I could not readily obtain another, and I toiled on, never informing my mother of the trials to which I was daily subjected. For a whole year I endured the caprice and severity of Farmer Judson. I had long felt that I could not much longer endure a life, which (to me) had become almost intolerable; and on the day of the incident noticed in the opening chapter of my story, my naturally high temper rose above control, and I left Farmer ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... bankers were one day introduced to the President by the Secretary of the Treasury. One of the party, Mr. P—— of Chelsea, Mass., took occasion to refer to the severity of the tax laid by Congress ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... and, when they wanted provisions, supplied themselves by depredation and rapine. This lasted for two years till, many being struck with compunction at the dissolute life they led, his sect was much diminished; and through failure of food, and the severity of the snows, he was taken by the people of Novarra, and burnt, with Margarita his companion and many other men and women whom his errors had seduced." G. Villanni, l. viii. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... with the garrison at Verona, in command of three or four hundred men-at-arms who had been lent to the Emperor by the King of France, he had some stirring adventures. It was winter time, and that year, 1509, was long remembered for its severity. The soldiers in the town were obliged to send for their horses' forage sometimes to a great distance, and they were constantly losing both horses and varlets, who were waylaid by the enemy, so that ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... magnanimity and impressiveness. Her eyes are light blue and piercing, her forehead high, her temples broad. Her hair, already gray and thin is plainly parted in the middle. From time to time she strokes it gently with her finger tips. The expression of her face betrays kindliness and seriousness without severity. About her eyes, her nose and her mouth there is a ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... cautiously avoid occasions of diminishing it, instead of studiously seeking, or needlessly multiplying them, as seems sometimes to have been the practice of worthy but imprudent men. There will be no capricious humours, no selfish tempers, no moroseness, no discourtesy, no affected severity of deportment, no peculiarity of language, no indolent neglect, or wanton breach, of the ordinary forms or fashions of society. His reputation is a possession capable of uses too important to be thus sported away; if sacrificed at all, it shall be sacrificed at the call ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... like experience. This was only the idea of a boy, but, as far as he ever knew, it was also the idea of his Government. For once, the volunteer secretary was satisfied with his Government. Commonly the self-respect of a secretary, private or public, depends on, and is proportional to, the severity of his criticism, but in this case the English campaign seemed to him as creditable to the State Department as the Vicksburg campaign to the War Department, and more decisive. It was well planned, well ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... darling's strength showed no signs of rallying. She had an attack of ague and fever a few days before; on the third day or so thereafter, it returned, and attacked her every second day with increasing severity for a fortnight. Diarrhea ensued, and symptoms of pneumonia, with slight delirium at intervals; and then in a moment, altogether unexpectedly, she died on the 3d March. To crown my sorrows, and complete my loneliness, ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... soldiers were treated with marked severity by their leaders. On June 17, 1898, Aguinaldo issued an order to the military chiefs of certain towns in Cavite providing that a soldier wasting ammunition should be punished with twelve lashes for a first offence, twenty-four for a second, and court-martialled and ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Dryden's literary production just fill the last half of the seventeenth century. It was a period bristling with violent political and religious prejudices, provocative of strife that amounted to revolution. Its social life ran the gamut from the severity of the Commonwealth Puritan to the unbridled debauchery of the Restoration Courtier. In literature it experienced a remarkable transformation in poetry, and developed modern prose, watched the production ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... convinced that there is not upon Earth a more impertinent Creature than an importunate Lover: We are daily complaining of the Severity of our Fate, to People who are wholly unconcerned in it; and hourly improving a Passion, which we would persuade the World is the Torment of our Lives. Notwithstanding this Reflection, Sir, I cannot forbear acquainting you with my own Case. You must ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... partiality. Never was there a character which it was easier to read than that of Cicero. Never was there a mind keener or more critical than that of Middleton. Had the biographer brought to the examination of his favourite statesman's conduct but a very small part of the acuteness and severity which he displayed when he was engaged in investigating the high pretensions of Epiphanius and Justin Martyr, he could not have failed to produce a most valuable history of a most interesting portion of time. But this most ingenious and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... generally very lazy and thievish, and will not work except forced by Hunger. This laziness is natural to most Indians; but these People's lazinesz seems rather to proceed not so much from their natural Inclinations, as from the severity of their Prince of whom they stand in awe: For he dealing with them very arbitrarily, and taking from them what they get, this damps their Industry, so they never strive to have any thing but from Hand to Mouth. They are generally proud, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... and cannot distinguish between one set of methods and another. When the man in the street sees two other men in the street fighting, he doesn't care to know the cause of the combat: he simply wants the smaller man to punish the bigger, and to punish him with all possible severity. When a party with a large majority appeals to the country, its appeal falls, necessarily, on deaf ears. Some years ago there happened an exception to this rule. But then the circumstances were exceptional. A small nation was fighting a big nation, and, as the big ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... able, can acquire such an acquaintance with the language and people as will enable him to do his work in a satisfactory manner. When one has fully entered on the work, there is frequent interruption from illness and weakness induced by the severity of the climate. When I transfer myself in thought to my first two years in Benares, and from my vivid remembrance of the vicissitudes of our mission during these years look down through all the succeeding years not only of our mission, but of other missions in Northern India with which ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... terrible and crushing blows. Profiting by his prowess, the Scotch procured the heavy stakes of their sleds, tough poles, pieces of firewood, and similar ponderous weapons, and, headed by the hero of the day, made a charge, returning with terrible severity the comparatively slight damage inflicted by the ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... floor; but others seem to be probable examples: shaw and lore, and I think maw, are truly obsoletes, while hoar and daw are heard only in combination. Awe is heard only in awful, and has there lost its significance. I should guess that this accident has strengthened its severity in literature, where it asserts its aloofness sometimes with a full spelling [aweful] as in speech two pronunciations are ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... was blissfully unconscious of the severity. "Risks!" he said. "Why, it wasn't wide enough for anything to happen, bar a ducking. If you rush it, the horses are pushed across before they know they're ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... but the majority are foreigners and Mohammedans. This is accordingly done. They transfer him to a division stationed on the Zacaspian border, and in company with convicts send him to a chief officer who is notorious for his harshness and severity. ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... in the neck he smote her tho,* *there The tormentor,* but for no manner chance *executioner He might not smite her faire neck in two: And, for there was that time an ordinance That no man should do man such penance,* *severity, torture The fourthe stroke to smite, soft or sore, This tormentor he durste ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... in the humour for wantonness, but Rigerboos was disposed to be merry; his sweetheart was at first inclined to be prudish on his taking liberties with her, but as I began to follow his example the ladies relaxed their severity; we went first to one and then the other, and before long they were both in the state of Eve before ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and the reality of a solid body, she was seized by the indignant astonishment with which a mathematician might regard the differential calculus if it ceased suddenly to behave as he expected it to do. She had always controlled her own feeling with severity, and it was beyond the power of her imagination to conceive a possible excuse—unless it was a disordered liver—for another person's inability to do the same. Besides, as she had often asked herself, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... who were still robbing in all places.' Upon this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal) said, 'There was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for, as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life; no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... severity gathered heaven knows whence—I cannot think they taught it to her in the convent—"you have told me so twice since you became aware of my continued existence at the ball last month. But you are hopelessly serious to-day. Let us go back ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... a Marshal of many years' standing, and with whom he had never had any previous difference, Mr Dorrit comported himself with severity. That officer, on personally tendering his congratulations, offered the free use of two rooms in his house for Mr Dorrit's occupation until his departure. Mr Dorrit thanked him at the moment, and replied that he would think of it; but the Marshal was no sooner gone than he sat down and wrote ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... lie despondent and desperate in the anguish and torments of hell, if he touch them but a little with the terrors of his anger. These are experiences through which the saints also pass, and concerning whose severity they make lamentation. "For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine indignation," Ps 38, 2-3. "For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping. Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... was seated a member of the ghostly company was written the name which he or she had borne during life. Judges, magistrates and police officers were there, who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the gang, in years past, by vigilance in detecting, or severity in passing sentences upon many of its members. These individuals had been waylaid by their ruffian enemies, and made to die a lingering death in that dungeon; their fate was never known to their friends, and their sudden and ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... to be alter'd; to sit down with this disgrace, would argue me a Peasant, and not born Noble: all rigour that the Law, and that increase of power by favour yields, shall be with all severity inflicted; you have the King's hand for't, no Bail will serve, and therefore at your perils, Officers, ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... of the bishop. She lays down social, moral, religious and ecclesiastical laws with equal readiness and severity.—Anthony Trollope, Framley ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... and a mystic. But Teresa was not withdrawn from the world. She travelled incessantly from one end of Spain to the other, establishing new foundations, visiting her convents, and dealing with all classes of men, from the soldier to the priest, from the prince to the peasant. The severity of her discipline was tempered by a tolerant and half-amused insight into the pardonable foibles of humanity. She held back her nuns with one hand from "the frenzy of self-mortification," which is the mainstay ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... St. John's day, to the great sorrow and grief of the country. Especially did the king of Terrenate show and express his grief, for he had always received great honor and kind treatment from the governor. It was suspected that his death had been violent, because of the severity and the symptoms of his illness. The suspicion increased, because the physicians and surgeons, having opened his body, declared, from the signs that they found, that he had been poisoned, which made his death more regrettable. [34] The Audiencia buried the governor in the monastery of St. Augustine ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... himself. The effect of this was so far good that, not passing through the hands of many ignorant and weak persons as so many do at preparatory schools, I was put at once under discipline of considerable severity, and, at the same time, had a more than ordinarily high standard presented to me. My father was a man of business, even in literature; he had been a high scholar at college, and was warmly attached to all he had ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... early New England dressed very simply and sternly, but the odor of musk would make them seem to belong to this world, which has beauty as well as severity. ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... abandon?—in Miss Hamm's bearing, aspect and general demeanour. To the casual eye the effect of this was far from being displeasing. I was about to venture as much to Miss Primleigh and had, in fact, cleared my throat as a preliminary to making the statement, when she broke in, speaking in a tone of severity. I quote her: ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... said the Commander-in-Chief, with some severity—for discipline was strict in the Italian Army. "It is for me to command, not you!" The Prisoner lowered his head at the just reproof, and then his superior officer continued, "Why do you ask ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... the principal transactions of the voyage, in which, we hear (for we have never seen it) he blames the officers, and Captain Cook in particular, for several instances of precipitate and incautious conduct, not to say severity, towards the various natives with whom they were brought in contact. It was to this want of caution, and a due consideration for the habits and feelings of the Sandwich Islanders, that he imputed the death of this celebrated navigator. The late Admiral Burney, who ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... Dick's care and Mrs. Brundage's wardrobe had worked transformation. From the dust and mud on the thick little shoes, up over five visible inches of coarse grey stocking to clumsy amplitude of washed-out, pink-striped cotton skirt, and thence by severity of blue-linen blouse to the face lurking in the pale lavender of the quilted sun-bonnet, the eye met nothing which was not proper to the country-girl, dressed a little older, when the tail of hair swung to her body's movement, ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... 22 It also spake a few words concerning his fathers. And his first parents came out from the tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people; and the severity of the Lord fell upon them according to his judgments, which are just; and their bones lay scattered ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... been modest enough to consider absolutely free from fault, a dreadful thought comes over me that I may have been guilty of the immoral effeminacy of using trochaic and tribrachic movements, a crime for which a learned critic of the Augustan age censures with most just severity the brilliant if somewhat paradoxical Hegesias. I grow cold when I think of it, and wonder to myself if the admirable ethical effect of the prose of that charming writer, who once in a spirit of reckless generosity towards the uncultivated portion ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... least was the general theory,—carried out with great severity in many, both of the drawings and pictures executed by him during the period: in others more or less modified by the cautious introduction of color, as the painter felt his liberty increasing; for the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... year." The reproach was uppermost in her voice now, but she mitigated its severity by allowing him to retain possession of the hand he ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... of Livia, the wife of Augustus, that Cinna was pardoned. "Do" said she to Augustus, "what physicians are accustomed to do, who, when the remedies they have employed do not succeed, try others which are entirely different. You have done no good by severity—Try now the effect of clemency. Forgive Lucius Cinna. Now that he has been discovered, he cannot injure you, but he can advance your reputation"—Seneca ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... delighted Elizabeth, for, according to the letter of the law, it finally gave her rival's life into her hands. Orders were immediately given to Sir Amyas Paulet to seize the prisoner's papers and to move her to Fotheringay Castle. The gaoler, then, hypocritically relaxing his usual severity, suggested to Mary Stuart that she should go riding, under the pretext that she had need of an airing. The poor prisoner, who for three years had only seen the country through her prison bars, joyfully accepted, and left Tutbury between ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... moreover, in theology. His personal piety was remarkable. When he became emperor he bestowed all his private goods on churches, and ruled his house like a monastery. In Lent, his life approached that of a hermit in severity. He ate no bread; drank only water; for his nourishment he contented himself every other day with a portion of wild herbs, seasoned with salt and vinegar. We have sure testimony respecting his fasts and mortifications, since he has taken pains in his last laws, the ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies |
