"Sober" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her," I cried. "I don't want to love her. I don't want to see her. Her name isn't Hermine, I know. I will never think of her again, nor make a fool of myself by putting nose-gays into her keyhole, if you will only not look so sober any more." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... before. Never to become the property of the profane, the C sharp minor Scherzo, notwithstanding its marked asperities and agitated moments, is a great work of art. Without the inner freedom of its predecessor, it is more sober and self- contained ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... the house spun to her clamour. She caused fowls to be slain; she sent for vegetables, and the sober, slow-thinking gardener, nigh as old as she, sweated for it; she took spices, and milk, and onion, with little fish from the brooks—anon limes for sherbets, fat quails from the pits, then chicken-livers upon a skewer, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... he said, as he went on unpacking the birds; "the difference is that while our British finches are sober coloured, those of hot countries are brilliant in plumage. So are the crow family and the thrushes, as you will see, while some of the sparrows ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... 'because they have nothing to do with the matter. The question is, what is the cause of the lifelong poverty of the majority of those who are not drunkards and who DO work? Why, if all the drunkards and won't-works and unskilled or inefficient workers could be by some miracle transformed into sober, industrious and skilled workers tomorrow, it would, under the present conditions, be so much the worse for us, because there isn't enough work for all NOW and those people by increasing the competition for what work there is, would inevitably cause ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... old Greek epigram (Anthol. iii. 25, 51), may have been as purely professional in the two last cases as in the first, and his private character on such points was probably neither much better nor worse than that of his contemporaries. Athenaeus remarks acutely that he seems at least to have been sober when he wrote; and he himself strongly repudiates, as Horace does, the brutal characteristics of intoxication as fit only for barbarians and Scythians (Fr. 64). Of the five books of lyrical pieces by Anacreon which ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... thousand men and their employer were sober and happy—had some imagination about each other and ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." If you will be true to your better selves, if you will listen to, and obey the spirit of God, when He puts into your hearts good desires, and makes you long to be just and true, pure and sober, kind and useful. If you will cast away and trample under foot animal passions, low vices, you shall live. You shall live. Your very soul and self shall live, and live for ever. Your humanity, your human nature shall live. All that is humane in you shall live. All that is ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... heartily I thank thee, for the sober conclusion of thy last!—I have a good mind, for the sake of it, to forgive thy till now absolutely ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... all October, And days were gray with mist, On woodways, sad and sober, Grave memory kept her tryst; Then life was all October, And ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... and loved his wife and babies, and in his deepest consciousness he knew that he was the one at fault. We have heard much about the sufferings of the wives and children of men who are overtaken with drink; but what is not so well understood is the sufferings of the men themselves in their sober moments, when they feel that they are becoming a curse to all that are dearest to them. John's very soul was wrung within him to think of the misery he had brought on his wife and children—the greater miseries ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of colonial life, great changes had come over New England. Many men of honest and Christian character—"sober persons who professed themselves desirous of renewing their baptismal covenant, and submit unto church discipline, but who were unable to come up to that experimental account of their own regeneration which would sufficiently embolden ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... after year before my time this part of the year had been turned to profit in this way. The wealthy cities used to pay large sums of money not to have to find winter quarters for the soldiers. Cyprus paid more than L48,000 on this account; and from this island—I say it without exaggeration and in sober truth—not a single coin was levied while I was in power. In return for these benefits, benefits at which they are simply astonished. I will not allow any but verbal honors to be voted to me. Statues, ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... felly as a fund on t' fell side, just as one as if he were drunk; but he's sober enough, a reckon, only summat's wrong i' ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... coming home from school. She was as quick as a bird, and as shy in her little pink gown, and balanced herself on one foot, like a flower. The brother was the elder of the two orphans; he was the old man's delight and dependence by day, while his hired man was afield. The sober country boy had learned to wait and tend, and the young people were indeed a joy in that lonely household. There was no sign that they ever played like other children,—no truckle-cart in the yard, no doll, no bits ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... lickit my winnins, O' marrying Bess to gie her a slave: Blest be the hour she cool'd in her linens, And blythe be the bird that sings on her grave. Come to my arms, my Katie, my Katie, An' come to my arms and kiss me again! Drunken or sober, here's to thee, Katie! And blest be the day I did ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... sat and laughed till he had laughed himself tired and sober, came to the rescue, with a stroke of genius. Nodding covertly to Lockett, he approached the Old Squire from behind, and in a tone, as intended only for his private ear, murmured, "Say, Gramp, d'ye know this Lockett charges six dollars an hour for ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... than ten minutes he offered to take leave, and no one urged him to stay longer. Mr. Moxey made sober expression of good wishes, and hoped he might hear that the removal to London had proved 'advantageous'. This word sufficed to convert Godwin's irritation into wrath; he said an abrupt 'good-evening', raised his hat as awkwardly as usual, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... must know that I'm the captain of the ship now, and you must be packing from this here cabin. We are bound to Madagascar, to make all of our fortunes, and if you're a mind to ship for the cruise, why, we'll be glad to have you, if you will be sober and mind your own business; if not, there is a boat alongside, and I'll have ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... man and the dragon in that strange little valley, with its perpetual evening twilight and calm, its meadows crusted with lilies, its herd-boy with his quiet song, close upon the precincts of hell. It fades back, the valley and the battle, dim enough, from the sober freshness of this summer morning. Look out of the window here, at the hubbub of the early streets, the freckled children racing past to school, the dewy shimmer of yonder willows in the sunlight, like drifts of pale green vapor. Where is Apollyon? does he put ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... passed. His few belongings had been sold to pay the funeral expenses; the remainder had gone for drink. Another family lived in the home now. Mr. Wilson, a kind neighbor, had given him a home, and he worked for him when he was sober enough. One evening as he was making his way to the saloon as usual, he heard singing. "That's strange," he muttered; "wonder what's going on?" He turned and walked toward the singing and soon found a large tent filled with ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... Bridge, which the Editor, by Heaven's blessing, has now seen himself enabled to conclude if not complete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope, that many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, overspanning the Impassable with paved highway, could the Editor construct; only, as was said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... tribes were converted they perceived the evils attendant on their former state of ignorance and vagrancy. They began to work, which they had never done before; they recognised the advantage of cultivating the soil; they gave up drinking, to which they had been greatly addicted, and became sober, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... are governed by other motives, ought not to be led on by him. When we meet, we will discuss this subject—You will listen to reason, and it has probably occurred to you, that it will be better, in future, to pursue some sober plan, which may demand more time, and still enable you to arrive at the same end. It appears to me absurd to waste life ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... The Prefect's love of peace and sense of public duty, united with extreme fairness of mind, helped him to make large allowances for his fellow-official. He knew that Ratoneau's vapouring talk was oftener in coarse joke than in sober earnest. He had, in truth, a very complete scorn of him, and hardly thought him worthy of a gentleman's steel. As to veiled threats such as that which had just fallen from his lips, the Prefect found them altogether ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... there were a dozen sober men in camp. He had recognized the big man standing at the barrel. It was Ben the Englishman. Mundy and Peters, obviously drunk, stood close to him. The little San-Franciscan was standing in the body of the wagon, trying to put his two short arms about the barrel. He had the grotesque ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... against the distinction, and allow every year {266} from 1847 to 1863 to add a year to 1735, we should say that the arithmetical writers divide at 1751. This rough process may serve, with sufficient certainty, to show that the proportion of paradoxes to books of sober demonstration is on the increase; and probably, quite as much as the proportion of heterodoxes to books of orthodox adherence. So that divinity and medicine may say to geometry, Don't you sneer: if rationalism, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... me, the mere notion of resuming my daily work at the Cedars was almost too delightful to contemplate. I had an odd idea, that missing them all had something to do with my sober feelings. I felt it when I went up to kiss Flurry in her little bed; the darling child ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to the 'Magna Charter' steamer, and was watchman for the night. When I went on board I was not quite sober, and I lay down on the forecastle. After a while I thought I heard something fall overboard, when I ran on to the deck, but could not see anything. I listened with bated breath, but not a sound could I hear; at length ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... your home," Dick had said, several times, while at the actual parting Sam had had to do his best to keep back the tears which welled up in his eyes. Even fun-loving Tom had stopped a good deal of his whistling and had looked unusually sober. ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... Saints,' said the commander-in-chief; 'they are always sober and to be depended upon, and Havelock himself ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... as the soldier became sober, and saw himself placed under such an unwieldy animal, he was so terrified that he scarcely durst move either hand or foot; but the elephant soon caused his fears to subside by caressing him with his trunk, and thus tacitly ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... anxious consideration. Not a week ago the early post brought me my character. Imagine the incessant parental watchfulness of an authority which can testify concerning one two hundred and fifty thousandth of its charge that he is "a good soldier, willing and industrious, honest, sober, trustworthy and well-conducted." Think of the kindly interest which prompted the O. i/c Records to insert a form of receipt—"to guard against impersonation." My character might have got into base hands; some unworthy person might have gone about professing to possess that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... first place Banker was a little smaller than Skimmer. Then too, he was not nearly so handsome. His back, instead of being that beautiful rich steel-blue which makes Skimmer so handsome, was a sober grayish-brown. He was a little darker on his wings and tail. His breast, instead of being all snowy white, was crossed with a brownish band. His tail was more nearly square across the end than is the case with other members of the ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... rightly decided that Socialists everywhere should do all in their power to combat alcoholism, to end the ravages of intemperance among the working classes of all nations. For drunken voters are not very likely to be either wise or free voters: we need sober, earnest, clear-thinking men to bring about better conditions, Jonathan. But the Socialists, while they adopt this position, do not mistake results for causes. They know from actual experience that Solomon was right when he attributed intemperance to ill conditions. ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... by both arms. "Isn't it enough that my hair has turned grey? Must you make me bald as well? I thought Lancy was going to sober you down before he brought you back. I'll have to call him ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... be polite and affable in her manners, sober and chaste, not given to passion, liberal and compassionate towards the poor, and not greedy of gain when she attends the rich. She should have a cheerful and pleasant temper, so that she may be the more easily able to comfort her patients during labour. She must never be in a hurry, though ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... Orange lodge, we not only aided him, as was our duty, but we placed the circumstance in its proper light—a mere giddiness in the head, accompanied by a total prostration of physical strength, to both of which even the most temperate, and sober, are occasionally liable. The defect of speech, accompanied by a strong tendency to lethargy, we accounted for at the time, by a transient cessation or paralysis of the tongue, and a congestion of blood on the brain, all of which frequently attack persons ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... critic, Schlegel, once sneered at the brothers Jacob and William Grimm, for what he styled their "meditation on the insignificant." These two brothers, says a wiser student, an historian of German literature, were animated by a "pathetic optimism, and possessed that sober imagination which delights in small things and narrow interests, lingering over them with strong affection." They explored villages and hamlets for obscure legends and folk tales, for nursery songs, ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... a vast polyglot nation, has restored financial stability and pursued sober fiscal policies since the Asian financial crisis, but many economic development problems remain, including high unemployment, a fragile banking sector, endemic corruption, inadequate infrastructure, a poor investment climate, and unequal resource distribution ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... refreshment arrangements would be on such a scale, that a husband and wife could have a 70-mile ride through the green fields, the new-mown hay, the waving grain or fruit laden orchards; could wander for hours on the seashore, have comforting and nourishing refreshment, and be landed back at home sober, cheered and invigorated for the small sum of 3s. A couple of children under 12 might be added at 1s. 6d.—nay, a whole family, husband, wife and four children, supposing one is in arms, could have a day ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... trotting along with demure Sabbath faces on their way to church. The Butterfly Man looked out, waved gaily to the passing children, who waved back a joyous response, nodded to their smiling parents, followed the flight of a tanager's sober spouse, and sniffed the ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... dead drunk after his hard run. What more likely than that Oswego has been taken by that rascally Montcalm, or that he should send important despatches across country this way? I know this Indian fellow well: he is trustworthy enough when sober, and he says he not only saw the French officer and his guide start from Oswego after the disaster there, but left them not two hours ago on a path that must bring them either along here or take them over the hill, in which latter ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... explained and tried to smooth the matter over, but the Captain continued very sober all that evening. Mell thought it was because he was angry with her, but her step-mother knew very well that she also was in disgrace. The truth was that the Captain was thinking what to do. He was not a man of ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... glittering wine-cup in his hand and at a glance I saw that he was drunk, as it is the fashion for these Easterns to be at their great feasts, for he looked happy and human which he did not do when he was sober. Or perchance, as sometimes I thought afterwards, he only pretended to be drunk. Also I saw something else, namely, Bes, wondrously attired with the gold chain about his neck and wearing a red headdress. He was seated on the carpet before the throne, and saying things that made the King ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... which made Charley dumb on the subject of his own distresses made Mrs. Woodward inquisitive about them. She knew that his life was not like that of Harry—steady, sober, and discreet; but she felt that she did not like him, or even love him the less on this account. Nay, it was not clear to her that these failings of his did not give him additional claims on her sympathies. What could ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... prattled aimlessly, voicing platitudes, conventionalities, banalities, inanities—anything to gain time and to cover her embarrassment: to all of which the man listened in sober silence, watching ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... she reverence her husband.' Ah, it is easy for me to do that with such a husband as mine," she added. "Also, I remember that in Paul's epistle to Titus there is a passage, where the aged women are bidden to teach the younger ones to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children. And in the next verse to be obedient to their husbands. I think I have kept that command as far as I could without getting any orders from mine," she concluded, smiling ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... that he had not stopped to consider all the phases of his own relationship to the situation. Out here in the cool night air, talking to Owen, who was ambitious on his own account and anything but sentimentally considerate of Cowperwood, he was beginning to sober down and see things in their true light. He had to admit that Cowperwood had seriously compromised the city treasury and the Republican party, and incidentally Butler's own private interests. Nevertheless, he liked Cowperwood. He was in no way prepared to desert ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... anxious to secure Maginn's services for a contemplated literary undertaking of magnitude, and the Doctor was to dine with him to arrange the affair. Kennedy was resolved, that, at all events, he should go to the dinner sober, and so called upon him before he was up, never leaving him for a moment all day, and resolutely resisting every imploring appeal for a dram. The hour of six drew near, and they sallied out. On the way, Kennedy found it almost impossible, even by main force, to prevent the Doctor entering a public-house. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... virtue, youth, Unblemish'd probity, and truth, Just unto all relations known, A worthy patriot, pious son; Whom neighb'ring towns so often sent To give their sense in Parliament; With lives and fortunes trusting one Who so discreetly used his own. Sober he was, wise, temperate, 9 Contented with an old estate, Which no foul avarice did increase, Nor wanton luxury make less. While yet but young his father died, And left him to a happy guide; Not Lemuel's mother with more care Did counsel or instruct ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... small brougham was standing at the corner, the liveries and horse of which, though quiet enough, caused him a moment's surprise as being superior to the ordinary equipages of the neighborhood. He passed on to the sober-fronted house where he lived, and entering with his latch-key made his way to his study. Immediately he entered he was conscious of a man comfortably seated in his easy-chair, and apparently engrossed in ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cause the acutest suffering to the idealist, had come this fresh aspiration of Mark's after a life more completely perfect in itself. Strong instincts were entirely in accord with the older man's sober judgment of the situation. And yet he wished it could be otherwise. He had no opinion of the world that Mark wanted to give up. He would most willingly have shut any cloister door between that world and his cherished son in the spirit. It was with no light ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... again through the pine woods in the valley, and cross the Arve; then up the mountain side to where a tiny cascade throws up its feathery spray in a brilliant jet d'eau. Every body knows, even in our sober New England, that mountain brooks are a frisky, indiscreet set, rattling, chattering, and capering in defiance of all law and order, tumbling over precipices, and picking themselves up at the bottom, no whit wiser or more disposed to be ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... up at Warren's Grove from the time she was a little child. Her mother had been cook before her, and when her mother got too old, Jane, as a matter of course, stepped into her shoes. Active, honest, quiet, and sober, she was a valuable servant. She was essentially a good girl, guided by principle and religion in all ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... looking back with amazement at the infatuation which could for a moment tolerate such a sore evil. To a man of sober inclinations it must have been an intolerable nuisance to join a dinner party at many houses, where he knew he should have to witness the most disgusting excesses in others, and to fight hard to preserve himself from a compliance with the example ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... enterprise,—no holiday adventure, no pastime for boys. It was sober, serious, dangerous work,—and work for men, for cool, earnest, fearless, determined men, who relied on God, who thought more of their object than of their lives, and who, for truth and their country, were ready to meet the prison or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... treated in that matter entirely, and others in a great degree; if he does not prepare the ears of his hearers before he begins to work up the case in an inflammatory style, he seems like a madman among people in their senses, or like a drunken man among sober men. ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... rock smooth, so that it glistens like glass in the morning sun, for, as if aware of the folly of urging on its regiments of well-mounted cavalry to come dashing in upon the wild white-maned sea-horses, or the more sober lines of heavy infantry in uniforms of green and blue, the sea has for countless ages bombarded Carn Du with stone-shot in the shape of great boulders. These have ground and polished off every scrap of seaweed, every barnacle, limpet, and sea-anemone, leaving the ...
— A Terrible Coward • George Manville Fenn
... a maudlin fashion when the door closed behind her, and Parson Downs' great face was curving upward with smiles like a wet new moon, but the rest were sober enough in spite of some over-indulgence, for in truth it was a grave matter which they had met to decide, and might mean the loss of life and liberty to ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... diamond sleeve-links, and only three rings—a gold snake, a seal ring, and a ring set with turquoises. This was a modest toilet, suited, surely to the taste to the English, which he remembered to have heard of as sober. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... neatly worked, and his wrists were loaded with bracelets of silver and copper. The countenance of the chief betrayed much seriousness and solidity, and the diverting laugh of his countrymen was suspended by a sober cheerfulness. Many of his wives sat behind him in rows, some of whom were of a bright copper colour, indeed a great number of the inhabitants of Larro have fairer complexions than mulattoes. The yard ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... she saw a great surge of the human tide advancing on her she hugged the walls and house-fronts, and by dint of address and perseverance slipped through, somehow. The fold of black lace that half concealed her fair hair and small, pale face, the sober gown that enveloped her slight form, made her an inconspicuous object among the throng; she went her way unnoticed by the by-passers, and nothing ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... the face of each warrior, from the eldest to the youngest; while they, putting their hand funnel-wise round their mouths, draw into the sinuosities of the brain that more than Delphic vapor of prophecy; which boy presently falls down in a swoon, and being dragged out by the heels and laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out likewise; and so on till the tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom has sprouted in every soul into the tree of meditation, bearing the flowers of eloquence, and in due time the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... half-sober, had huddled a friar's frock over his green cassock, and now summoning together whatever scraps of learning he had acquired by rote in former days, "Holy father," said he, "'Deus faciat salvam benignitatem vestram'—You are welcome ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... came a hearty and somewhat loud voice from below; and I saw Murphy, Elerson, and Mount, arm in arm, swaggering past with that saunter that none but a born forest runner may hope to imitate. They were not sober. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... whether I'd better resign first and report afterwards, or just take my chances that maybe after he'd slept on it he wouldn't be so keen about seein' this Captain Killam again. Then the whole thing hit me on the funnybone. Haw-haw! Auntie, the sober old girl with the mixed-pickle disposition, suddenly comin' to life and pinchin' Old Hickory's find while he's tryin' to make up his mind whether it's phony or not. Auntie, of all people! More ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... something I must tell you . . . ' There she stopped, Wondering what he'd say . . . What would he say? 'Spring it, kid! Don't look so serious!' 'But what I've got to say—IS—serious!' Then she could see how, suddenly, he would sober, His eyes would darken, he'd look so terrifying— He always did—and what could she do but cry? Perhaps, then, he would guess—perhaps he wouldn't. And if he didn't, but asked her 'What's the matter?'— She knew she'd never tell—just say she was sick . . . And after that, when would she ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... men and women of Galena filled with faith in the new President. They say he is a sober, honest, true man; that he will entirely revolutionize affairs at Washington, send the old political hacks to their homes, drive bribery and corruption from high places, and draw a new order of statesmen about him. May the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... benignant gaze. Over against him stood a great wooden shop, painted brilliant blue; along the street was another, of bright red; but most of the buildings were a sober stone-colour or some shade of modest grey or brown. One side of the street was verandah'd along its whole length, and the walks on either side of the macadamised road were asphalted. Benjamin, wearing the air of Bacchus courting the ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... a dark complexioned, foreign looking man, with gold rings in his ears, which he said enabled him to look through the wind "ohn his een watered." Unlike most of his fellows, he was a sober and indeed thoughtful man, ready to listen to the voice of reason from any quarter; they were, in general, men of hardihood and courage, encountering as a mere matter of course such perilous weather as the fishers on a great part of our ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... If the sober and deliberate appraisal of pre-war civilization makes it seem a worth-while inheritance, then with patience and good courage it will be preserved. There never again will be precisely the old order; indeed, I know of no one ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding
... long been at war with the pontiff. If anywhere it was in the cells of the philosophers, in that retreat where Ficino burned his lamp to Plato, in that hall where the Academy crowned their master's bust with laurels, that the more sober-minded citizens found ghostly comfort and advice. But from this philosophy the fervent soul of Savonarola turned with no less loathing, and with more contempt, than from the Canti Carnascialeschi and Aristophanic pageants of Lorenzo, which ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... negatived or withdrawn; and by the 9th of May the report was brought up. Sir G. Burrell moved that the report should be received that day six months; but after a long discussion, which was more distinguished for personal attacks than for sober argument, the amendment was withdrawn, and the bill was ordered to be printed, and to be read a third time on the 12th. The third reading was on that day moved by Sir James Graham, and the final struggle in the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... glowing like a dark-tipped yet delicate ivory-tinted flower in the warm sunlight of content, thinking of any possible grief as part of that life with Deronda, which she could call by no other name than good. And he watched the sober gladness which gave new beauty to her movements; and her habitual attitudes of repose, with a delight which made him say to himself that it was enough of personal joy for him to save her from pain. She knew nothing of Hans's struggle or of Gwendolen's pang; for after the assurance that Deronda's ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... animals under domestication are indeed a suggestive field for study, but machines are the manner in which man is varying at this moment. We know how our own minds work, and how our mechanical organisations—for, in all sober seriousness, this is what it comes to—have progressed hand in hand with our desires; sometimes the power a little ahead, and sometimes the desire; sometimes both combining to form an organ with almost infinite capacity for variation, and sometimes comparatively ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... impishness in Gilbert, especially in his youth, that encouraged the idea of his enmity to science. Where he saw a long white beard he felt like tweaking it: an enquiring nose simply asked to be pulled. It was only in (comparatively) sober age that he bothered in The Everlasting Man to explain "I am not at issue in this book with sincere and genuine scholars, but with a vast and vague public opinion which has been prematurely spread from certain imperfect investigations."* ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... beginning of your House and will see its end. Oh, yes, as you say, I am a witch, and I know, I know! Come, I am spent. You men weary me, as men have always done, being but fools whom it is so easy to make drunk, and who when drunk are so unpleasing. Piff! I am tired of you sober and cunning, and I am tired of you drunken and brutal, you who, after all, are but beasts of the field to whom Mvelingangi, the Creator, has given heads which can think, but ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... his discourse he seems to be and my hearty [friend]; and he did plainly tell me that at the Council of War before the fight, it was against his reason to begin the fight then, and the reasons of most sober men there, the wind being such, and we to windward, that they could not use their lower tier of guns, which was a very sad thing for us to have the honour and weal of the nation ventured so foolishly. I left them there, and walked to Deptford, reading in Walsingham's Manual, a very ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... has dared to suggest that certain of his opponents had come into the House not wholly sober. Who does not remember the epigrams which were based on Pitt's addiction, real or supposed, to intoxicating liquors? Porson is said to have composed one hundred such 'paper pellets' in ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... du Petit-Bourbon-Saint-Sulpice, on the second floor of a dignified old house, in an appartement decorated with large panels where painted shepherdesses danced in panniers, before whom fed the sheep of our nineteenth century, the sober and serious bourgeoisie,—whose comical demeanor, with their respectful notions about the nobility, and their devotion to the Sovereign and the Church, were all admirably represented by Ragon himself. The furniture, the clocks, linen, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... went to the hole which the negroes had dug, and there was a long Something wrapped up in canvas. Mother wore her best dress which was black, and father and all the boys had shaved their faces and looked very sober. The negroes stood back in a group by themselves, and every few minutes Buddy saw them draw their tattered shirtsleeves across their faces. And father—Buddy looked once and saw two tears running down father's cheeks. Buddy was shocked into a stony ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... full of diversions. One has all sorts of preparations to make. To begin with, they lunched. Then it happened to be old Bazouge, the undertaker's helper, who lived on the sixth floor, who brought the coffin and the sack of bran. He was never sober, the worthy fellow. At eight o'clock that day, he was still lively from the booze ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... liked it no way but your way," he said with a slight smile and look at her, which Diana could not answer, and which cut her sharply. She had noticed, she thought, that Basil was more sober than he used to be. She thought she knew why; and she wanted to tell him part of what had gone on in her mind of late, and how free she was of the feelings he supposed were troubling her; but a great shyness of the subject had seized Diana. She was afraid to broach it at all, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... by a yell of applause and then someone proposed a cheer, and it was given. It died off short on the lips of the applauders, however, for it was seen that Mac Strann was not yet done with his work, and he went about it in a manner which made men sober suddenly ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... terrible terminal wail, A retributive black ding-dong? And ask of thyself: This furious Yea Of a speech I thump to repeat, In the cause I would have prevail, For seed of a nourishing wheat, IS IT ACCEPTED OF SONG? Does it sound to the mind through the ear, Right sober, pure sane? has it disciplined feet? Thou wilt find it a test severe; Unerring whatever the theme. Rings it for Reason a melody clear, We have bidden old Chaos retreat; We have called on Creation ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... why are bells mightily and stopped because food is not refused because not any food is refused, because when the moment and the rejoicing and the elevation and the relief do not make a surface sober, when all that is exchanged and any intermediary is a sacrificed surfeit, when elaboration has no towel and the season to sow consists in the dark and no titular remembrance, does being weather beaten mean more weather and does it ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... myself. It is like feeling your grave turn over. But I fancy the poor old earth is like the people on her; she gets tired of being good and is all the naughtier for having been sober too long. Don Vincente Rivera is an example; he is cold, haughty, solemn, stern to others and himself, as you see him; but once in a while—Madre de Dios! The Presidio does not sleep for ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... "I know not the head or tail of this quarrel. But this man Priske is my brother's servant, and if he told the lady what she alleges, for the credit of the family I must correct him. In sober truth he's a bachelor, and no more the father ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... the sort that staggers in as soon as the gates are open, and spends the day sleeping itself sober. But you are not that sort at all, and you have spent the night here contrary to the rules. Who are you, and what's the matter ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... for it now. He knew that the ex-prizefighter would denounce him. A daredevil spirit of recklessness flooded up in his heart. A smile both gay and sardonic danced in his eyes. Thus does untimely mirth in the hour of danger drive away a sober, prayerful gravity from the mien of such light-hearted sons of nature ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... and Clara's immediate relatives. On leaving the church Francis handed his bride into his own carriage, which conveyed them to their new residence, amidst the good wishes of his parishioners, and the prayers of their relatives and friends. Dr. and Mrs. Ives retired to the rectory, to the sober enjoyment of the felicity of their only child; while the baronet and his lady felt a gloom that belied all the wishes of the latter for the establishment of her daughters. Jane and Emily acted as bridesmaids to their sister, and as both the former and her mother had insisted there should be two groomsmen ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... the latter having, as he declared, by way of climax to his eulogies, quite the principles of a white woman. Perhaps she imbibed them from his excellent influence over her. Frank is a serious, sad, sober-looking, very intelligent man; I should think he would not relish having his wife borrowed from him even by the white gentleman, who admired her principles so much; and it is quite clear from poor Renty's speech about ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... drinker of wine; Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side. Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave I must make merry before the Spring is spent. To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams; In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks. While we were sober, three shared the fun; Now we are drunk, each goes his way. May we long share our odd, inanimate feast, And meet at last on the ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... "The missus ain't lettin' me range like I used to. So long. Keep sober, old-timer. Don't play none with strangers. Say, d'you ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... and here his face clouded a little, "unless, indeed, you tricked us. But I have pumped you well on that point, and, drunk or sober, it ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... old self. She began frivolously, but in rather a dull, make-believe way; and when she heard that Widdowson had parted from his wife, when a few vague, miserable words had suggested the domestic drama so familiar to her observation, she at once grew quiet, sober, sympathetic, as if really glad to have something serious to ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... their way," said Mr Lawrie. "Keep your own people sober, and if the Frenchmen get drunk, you will the more ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... superintendent of schools that the compulsory education law was but an empty mockery where it was most needed, the knocking of uncounted thousands of children for whom there was no room,—uncounted in sober fact; there was not even a way of finding out how many were adrift,[13]—brought only the response that the tax rate must be kept down. Kept down it was. "Waste" was successfully averted at the spigot; at the bunghole it went on unchecked. In a swarming ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... and bright without, was gray and sober within this apartment of a family of strangers, where each face bore evidence of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... to think capable of any wickedness, no one can seriously suggest that men like Lord Macnaghten, like the late and present Primates of Ireland, like the late Provost of Trinity, like many other sober thinkers who supported Ulster, were men who would lightly lend themselves to "rebellion," or any other wild and irresponsible adventure. As The Times very truly observed in a leading ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... it transcends all that is capable of being apprehended by the senses, and rises to that which is perceptible only by the intellect. And there, seeing in their surpassing beauty the original ideas and archetypes of all the things which sense finds beautiful, it becomes possessed by a sober intoxication, like the Corybantian revellers, and is filled with a still stronger longing, which bears it up to the highest summit of the intelligible world till it seems to approach to the great king of the intelligible world himself. And while it is eagerly seeking ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... slaves. But there arose the criticism that the real evil could hardly be cured "until a thorough search was made in the circumstances of such Friends as kept Negroes with respect to the uprighteousness of their motives in keeping them, that impartial justice might be administered throughout." Sober thought prevailed. Many assented to the proposition, and others declared that liberty was the Negro's right. Before the meeting closed, John Woolman, John Scarborough, Daniel Stanton, and John Sykes were appointed a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... Ellieslaw made a formal apology to the others, who, with Westburnflat and the old smuggler, continued to ply the bottle stanchly, for leaving the head of the table, as he must necessarily hold a separate and sober conference with the coadjutors whom they had associated with him in the command. The apology was the more readily accepted, as he prayed them, at the same time, to continue to amuse themselves with such refreshments ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... place, I say that the whole thing is a mistake. That there is a certain relation between capital and labor, I admit. That it does exist, and rightfully exists, I think is true. That men who are industrious, and sober, and honest in the pursuit of their own interests should after a while accumulate capital, and after that should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and also, if they should choose, when they have accumulated it, to use it to save themselves from actual labor, and hire other people to labor ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... a sea of grinning delight, the boxes a tier of beaming juvenility, the galleries, piled up to the far-receding roof, a mass of happy laughter which a clown's joke brings down in mighty avalanches. In the pit, sober people relax themselves, and suck oranges, and quaff ginger-pop; in the boxes, Miss, gazing through her curls, thinks the Fairy Prince the prettiest creature she ever beheld, and Master, that to be a clown must be the pinnacle of human happiness: while ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... March 18, and before his steamer had reached half her course, he had revived, almost as gay as when he first lighted on the Markoe house in I Street forty-four years earlier. The clouds that gather round the setting sun do not always take a sober coloring from eyes that have kept watch on mortality; or, at least, the sobriety is sometimes scarcely sad. One walks with one's friends squarely up to the portal of life, and bids good-bye with a smile. One has done it so often! Hay could ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... talking too much; yet I rarely remember to have seen five people together, where some one among them hath not been predominant in that kind, to the great constraint and disgust of all the rest. But among such as deal in multitudes of words, none are comparable to the sober deliberate talker, who proceedeth with much thought and caution, maketh his preface, brancheth out into several digressions, findeth a hint that putteth him in mind of another story which he promiseth to tell you when ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... to all hours, smoking, talking, and, I dare say, drinking. As I gather from his letters, Murray drank nothing stronger than water. There was a certain kind of humour in drink, he said, but he thought it was chiefly obvious to the sober spectator. As the sober spectator, he sang of violent delights which have violent ends. He may best be left to illustrate student life for himself. The 'waster' of whom he chants is the slang name borne by the ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... were drowning, and scrambling for life-buoys. I knew from the way Mother spoke when I set out for the hall that she would like me to pledge myself. Someway I didn't see any use in it, but that lecturer made me see lots of things, so I up and followed old man Potter who hadn't drawn a sober breath ever since I could remember. Claude clung to my coat-tails. "I want a ribbon, too!" he screamed. The lecturer gave one look at the little shaver and the crowd roared as he pinned a badge on the boy's coat. Ah, here ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... should convene the senate, and invest it with the power of election. And it is not improbable that, neither of the emperors then bearing the title having really any reputation, such purposes were really entertained among the genuine, serviceable, and sober-minded part of the soldiers. For what could be more odious and unreasonable than that the evils which the Roman citizens had formerly thought it so lamentable to inflict upon each other for the sake of a ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... friend, whose shining wit Sets all the room a-blaze, Don't think yourself a "happy dog," For all your merry ways; But learn to wear a sober phiz, Be stupid, if you can, It's such a very serious thing To ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... in no danger," said Dorothy, in a sober voice. "We are falling so slowly that we can't be dashed to pieces when we land, and this country that we are ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... description vivid as lightning, though there is not a properly-constructed sentence in it. Gruesome, cruel, horrible! Is it not enough to make the women of our sober sensible race declare for ever against the flaunting stay-at-homes who would egg us on to war? By all means let us hold to the old-fashioned dogged ways, but let us beware of rushing into the squalid vortex of war. And now let us see what follows the brilliant charge and bayonet fight. How ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... as we were in sight of the pack we kept up a good hard pace, but on reaching cover we settled down at once to a somewhat more sober jog- trot, in anticipation of the ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... ballad-singer sang profane songs, and the maidens danced with light-footed step, and it was all very wrong because they were breaking the Sabbath; and the ale was strong, and sometimes people drank too much, so the critics said. But all reasonable and sober-minded folk were not opposed to them, and in reply to some inquiries instituted by Archbishop Laud, the Bishop of Bath and Wells made ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... address. These children, however, were of a class above the Arab type, being generally well dressed. I passed on thence to what was then Mr. Brock's chapel, where I found my veritable Arabs, whom I had seen in bed the previous evening, arrayed in a decent suit of "sober livery," and perched up in a high gallery to gather what they could comprehend of Mr. Brock's discourse—not very much, I should guess; for that gentleman's long Latinized words would certainly fire a long way over their heads, high ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... th' name iv Egan, a man that had th' County Clare thrip an' was thought to be th' akel iv anny man in town. Fr'm that he growed till he bate near ivry man he knew, an' become very pop'lar, so that he was sint to th' council. Now Dochney was an honest an' sober man whin he wint in; but wan day a man come up to him, an' says he, 'Ye know that ordhnance Schwartz inthrajooced?' 'I do,' says Dochney, 'an I'm again it. 'Tis a swindle,' he says. "Well,' says th' la-ad, 'they'se five thousan' in ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... almost any fair man in almost any circumstances." It is in a great measure from the want of this simple exercise of attention, or of what in common language we call calm reflection, that men are led away, by passion, prejudice, and distorted moral habits, into courses of action which their own sober judgment would condemn;—and when a man, who has thus departed from rectitude, begins to retrace his way, the first great point is that where he pauses in his downward career, and seriously proposes to himself the question, whether the course he has followed be worthy ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... one black smoke-like rolling volume—the place of dismal pools and screaming kites, full of bogs, concealed by a sickly yellowish herbage in the midst of the russet waste, boundlessly wearying the eye with its sober monotony of tint. If a pool or lake relieve it by reflecting the sky, on approach it is found choked all round by high rushes, and shadowed by low strangely-shaped rocks, tinted by mosses of dingy hue; the water that glistened pleasantly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... to Cousin John Hampden: "Old, decayed serving-men and tapsters can never encounter gentlemen. To match men of honor you must have God-fearing, sober, serious men who fight for conscience, freedom, and their wives, children, aged parents, and their farms. Give me a few honest men and I will not demand numbers— save for enemies." And he gathered around him a thousand picked Puritans, men with moles, farmers and herdsmen, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... was really sober was Mrs. Rover, for she hated to see her husband start on such a journey, which was bound to, be full ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... Yet, in sober earnest, the first useful thing that ever this naked fellow set his hand to was the making of his own apron. The world, as we know and love it, began—your pardon, Mr. Kipling, ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... came still evening on, and twilight grey Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament With living sapphires; Hesperus ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... indeed, we know they were; but they could not have Milton among them for seven years without discovering that he was something above the ordinary undergraduate. Wood, who died in 1695 and therefore writes as a contemporary, says of Milton that while at Cambridge he was "esteemed to be a virtuous and sober person yet not to be ignorant of his own parts." Such young men may not be popular, but if they have the real thing in them they soon compel respect. By the undergraduates Milton was called "The ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... for the reception of the bridal pair. During these necessary arrangements, a happy fortnight elapsed at Deerhurst—thrice happy to Mary, because its tranquil hours imparted to her long-doubting heart "a sober certainty of that awaking bliss" which had so often animated with hope the visions of her imagination, when contemplating the mystery of such a mind as that of Thaddeus having been destined to the humble lot in which she had found him. Morning, noon, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... cresting of the tower, and the perfectly natural way in which its lines continue easily into the graceful spire itself, are triumphs of successful design. The silhouette of the mass against the sky so precisely reaches the ideal effect that it is difficult to restrain oneself to sober criticism in describing it, yet the result is achieved so naturally that until we compare it with others, especially with modern ones, we hardly do justice to the subtle beauty that gives it a right ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... draperies and corduroys and ermines and purple things, with presumably good-looking women inside. We men run to purple ties this year, quite a plucky contrast to our regulation toppers, black coats and sober tweed trousers. And one unto the other says, "Hillo—you here again! Who'd have expected to see you, dear fellow! What sort of bag did you get; good sport, eh?" "Oh, good—good—awfully good! Such a good year all round, you ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch |
