"Earnestness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... damn what it means," rejoined Keith with deadly earnestness, "and if you don't get out of here I'll ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... a stern earnestness, and he added: "I tell you he will never show himself here! I know what ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... matter for discussion. In the chapter on Vedic gods such particulars as can be ascertained will be given. Roughly speaking, the religion is mainly, though not wholly, a cult of departmental gods, originally, in certain cases, forces of Nature, but endowed with moral earnestness. As to fetishism in the Vedas the opinions of the learned are divided. M. Bergaigne(1) looks on the whole ritual as, practically, an organised fetishism, employed to influence gods of a far higher and purer character. Mr. Max Muller remarks, "that stones, bones, shells, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... speaking aloud in her earnestness, "I believe that that is what Miss Panney meant. She has spoken so well of him to me; she has heard about that girl, and she said, yes, she certainly did say, 'It shall be done.' She wants it, I truly believe; she wants me ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... far West, where the 121st Psalm which I just quoted, was a favourite, and more than a favourite. Whenever it was given out in church—and the congregation used often to ask for it—all joined in singing it, young and old, men and maidens, with an earnestness, a fervour, a passion, such as I never heard elsewhere; such as shewed how intensely they felt that the psalm was true, and true for them. Of all congregational singing I ever heard, never have I heard any so touching as those voices, when they joined in the old words ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... nothing could more naturally cause a certain degree of self-content than to belong to a nation whose brilliant deeds in war as in politics, in commerce as in manufactures, have astonished the world. A second and not less characteristic trait of the American is seen in a certain earnestness, which appears to strangers to indicate a want of sociable feeling—and yet perhaps in no country is true noble sociability as developed in domestic life, so much at home, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... part of the Wilderness in which the cry had arisen for sheer Levelling in the State and sheer Voluntaryism in the Church; and Cromwell, starting in that key himself, addressed the Parliament, with noble earnestness, in what would now be called a highly "conservative" speech. Glancing back to the Barebones Parliament and beyond, he sketched, the proceedings of himself and the Council and the great successes of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Harrington—she surely has," and Edith dropped her work in her earnestness to defend Grace Atherton. "She is sorry for what she made you suffer; she has loved you through all, and would be yours now if you wish it, I am sure. You DO wish it, Richard. You will forgive Grace Atherton," and in her ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... woman as she was, nodded her head, woman-like, approvingly, carried away perhaps by the young man's earnestness, and by ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... make education a matter of reality and life, and not merely a knowledge of signs and forms. Here will be needed a spirit and principle of devotion which will be fruitful in humility, patience, earnestness, energy, good words and works for all. Here must be strictness, possibly sternness of discipline; but this is not incompatible with the qualities mentioned. It is a principle at Mettray to combine unbounded personal kindness with a rigid ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... that we had got everything comfortable for the winter, which now, about the middle of October, began to set in with severe earnestness, with heavy falls of snow and strong northerly winds. Our house, on which we had so much prided ourselves, did not keep out the cold blast as we expected; and though we covered ourselves up with blankets, and sails, and skins, and kept ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... gesture of repulsion, aversion, dismissal. To shake the fist at one signifies anger and defiance and threatening. The hands are clasped or wrung in deep sorrow, and outstretched with the palms inward to indicate welcoming, approving, and receiving. In shame, the hand is placed before the eyes; in earnestness and ardor, the hands reach forward; in joy, they are thrown up, widely apart; in exultation and triumph, the right hand is waved above ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... cook brought out the last words with great earnestness, as if wishing to impress Fritz with the fact that, although the dish might not be quite what he expected, yet it would be certainly "tasty"—that ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... man's earnestness. Did he really feel some kind of benevolent interest in the fate of a helpless woman, or was it only a vulgar love of the marvellous and horrible that moved him? Gilbert leaned to the latter opinion, and was by no means inclined to give Stephen ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... set it off with jewels, though now fantastically masquerading in a garb of tatters, wholly unfit for her to handle. I recognized her, over and over again, in the groups round a door-step or in the descent of a cellar, chatting with prodigious earnestness about intangible trifles, laughing for a little jest, sympathizing at almost the same instant with one neighbor's sunshine and another's shadow, wise, simple, sly, and patient, yet easily perturbed, and breaking into small feminine ebullitions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... her brother, Hugh Bonner—you told her about so many cures—Oh, sir, if you would undertake to cure her—why, I haven't any money now, but I'd pay you some day if it took me a lifetime, and I'd—I'd work my fingers to the bone for you!" cried the lad, forgetting in his earnestness the dignified speech he had prepared, and speaking with all the ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... struck with the earnestness with which his son persevered in the demand; and, as he was both very rich and liberal, he determined to hazard the experiment, and comply with his request. He accordingly went and fetched him the ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... military spirit of their ancestors showed no deterioration in their constitutions. During the second week in January, 1775, a district congress was held by the inhabitants of St. Andrew's Parish (now Darien), at which a series of resolutions were passed, embodying, with great force and earnestness, the views of the freeholders of that large and flourishing district. These resolutions, six in number, expressed first, their approbation of "the unparalleled moderation, the decent, but firm and manly, conduct of the loyal and brave people of Boston and ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... earnestness, the child spoke quite loud, and from a dark corner in the shadow of a pillar suddenly arose a very old man in a black monk's robe, with snow-white hair, and drew close to him, and laid his hand on his ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... Calhoun and Mr. Crawford, members of his cabinet. At the request of the latter he drew up a memoir on the reorganization of the western mines, which was well received. Some legislation appeared necessary. Meantime Mr. Calhoun, who was struck by the earnestness of his views and scientific enterprise, offered him the situation of geologist and mineralogist to an exploring expedition, which the war department was about dispatching from Detroit to the sources of the Mississippi under the orders of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... what He lived believing and died believing. In the weariness of so much of the modern world, and in the hopelessness of its outlook, I see an age ready to receive anew the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I see a temper ready to grasp with fresh earnestness the thoughts of the "Living Lord and Supreme Teacher of our race." Men to-day are dreaming like dreams as shone before the souls of the ancient prophets, and in the visions of men who have wrought ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... answer for a little, but, with his eyes bent on the floor, appeared to be deeply pondering. Then he looked up, and said slowly, in a voice tremulous with earnestness (with what sympathy he was heard may be imagined): "I am taking thought of it. I am in love beyond all telling with the dearest and best girl in the whole world. I don't suppose she will marry me. I can't ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... in his voice,—a deep thrill of earnestness which carried conviction with sweetness. Cardinal Bonpre looked at him with ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... unaccountable pitch of spirits. Adventure had taken hold of him like liquor. He made a start for the door as if to carry out his expressed intention in all earnestness. Lambert stopped him. ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... impulse when she broke free from Scawthorne and began her upward struggle in independence. Whatever books were obtainable she read greedily; she purchased numbers of plays in the acting-editions, and studied with the utmost earnestness such parts as she knew by repute; no actress entertained a more superb ambition, none was more vividly conscious of power. But it was not only at stage-triumph that Clara aimed; glorious in itself, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... Everything he did was for her. She waited for his coming home in the evening, and then she unburdened herself of all she had pondered, or of all that had occurred to her during the day. He sat and listened with his earnestness. The ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... eyes twinkled with amusement as he beheld the sudden change of poor Katie's expression to intense earnestness, but before he could reply the door was thrown open; "cousin Fanny" rushed in, the cat rushed out, the two young ladies rushed into each other's arms, and went in a species of ecstatic waltz up-stairs to enjoy the delights of a private interview, leaving Mr Durant to sink into the arms of his ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... and witnessed the effects which followed. At once the tidings spread that a young girl was come who was appointed of God to save France. The common people flocked in crowds to look at her and speak with her, and her fair young loveliness won the half of their belief, and her deep earnestness and transparent sincerity won the other half. The well-to-do remained away and scoffed, but that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a separate and important trade, than men began to discuss with earnestness the question whether it would be expedient to erect a national bank. The general opinion seems to have been decidedly in favour of a national bank; nor can we wonder at this; for few were then aware that trade is ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and serene as a summer sky, and as pure. "You are the man, the Moses, raised up by God, to deliver his modern Israel from bondage," was the spontaneous feeling of my heart, as I sat away back in the hall and listened to his mighty words; mighty in truth—mighty in their simple earnestness. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... most impressive appearance which any portion of his career has yet presented either to the House of Commons or to the country. Though a nominee of Lord Palmerston, and like his patron anything but an advanced Liberal, he displayed an apparent breadth of view and an earnestness of purpose in his new sphere of Ministerial labour which were exceedingly creditable to him. Some of his speeches on education were admirable, and their tone may be guessed from the fact that they made ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... grave young minister became as frolicsome as a school-boy. Mary, too, the rosebud, forgot that her twin-blossom had ever been torn from the stem, and trampled in the dust. And as for Robert Moore, he gazed at Prudence with the bashful earnestness of love new-born, while she, with sweet maiden coquetry, half smiled upon and half ...
— John Inglefield's Thanksgiving - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rendered those acts valid and binding, and had given them all the force and authority of an express contract. [197] Such discussion of constitutional questions, confined at first to the few, spread among the many after Leland's attack upon the charter, and were debated with great earnestness. Leland's attack gained him, at the time, comparatively few adherents, but it brought the question of disestablishment fairly before the people, demonstrating to the discontented that there was very little hope for larger liberty, for greater justice, ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... listless cast in the village of Tully-Veolan: the curs aforesaid alone showed any part of its activity; with the villagers it was passive. They stood, and gazed at the handsome young officer and his attendant, but without any of those quick motions and eager looks that indicate the earnestness with which those who live in monotonous ease at home look out for amusement abroad. Yet the physiognomy of the people, when more closely examined, was far from exhibiting the indifference of stupidity; their ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... lark; he quite agreed also that he was an awful fraud and an idle beast and a sorry dunce. And he never said a word to her against her mother—he only remained dumb and discouraged in the face of her ladyship's own overtopping earnestness. There were occasions when he even spoke as if he had wrenched his little charge from the arms of a parent who had fought for her ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... up into his face, and somehow in the earnestness of her disclaimer, the feminine soul of her rose to her eyes, so that again Bob saw the tender, appealing helplessness, and once more there arose to full tide in his breast the answering tenderness that would care for her ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... had a note of disdain, and then took one of deeper earnestness; it sank into his chest. He extended his hand; his eyebrows twitched. He looked—he ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... of these worshippers of antiquity still holds its seances at Concord, Mass., and publishes its amazingly dry Journal of Speculative Philosophy. With the unconscious solemnity of earnestness, it still digs into Aristotle's logic and speculations—the dryest material that was ever used to benumb the brains of young collegians, and teach them how not to reason, for Aristotle never had a glimmering conception of what the process ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... that a person commending a matter to God with great love and earnestness may think that he hears in some way or other whether his prayer will be granted or not, and this is quite possible; but he who has heard the divine locution will see clearly enough what this is, because there is a great ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... better grip on life than the cynics and dreamers like you. You call them plebeian and bourgeois and Philistine and limited—all the bad names in your select vocabulary. But they know how to feel in the good, old, common-sense way. You've lost that. I like plebeian earnestness and push. I like success at something, and hearty enjoyment, and good dinners, and big men who talk about a million as if it were a ten-spot in ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... very earnestly; but before the first year was ended, the earnestness had passed away. Friends would induce him to spend his evenings at their rooms, or at some public place of amusement, and each time Frank would try to satisfy his conscience with, 'It will be only ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... with such apparent earnestness of voice and gesture that the color came into her cheek. For a moment she scarcely dared to lift her conscious eyes to his. When she did so, she suddenly glanced her own aside with a flash of ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... Guelphic distinction was adopted, 'he should be a Ghibelline.' He ended by saying that all he asked for was a repeal of the Copyright Act which took from the families of literary men the only property they had to give them, and this 'I ask for with the earnestness of one who is conscious that he has laboured for posterity.' ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... which was delivered with great earnestness, Captain Forrester made a suitable response; and intimating his willingness to accept the proffered hospitality of his uncle's companion in arms, he rode forward with his host and kinswoman towards the Station, of which, when ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... tell you, with all the earnestness of which I am capable, that upon each one of you rests not only the reputation of your school, but, in a measure, the reputation of the profession. No one needs to be told how much more widely known is an inconsistent Christian ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... great emphasis and earnestness. Her long, slender hands were clasped tightly together. She had drawn off her gloves and was bending forward in her chair. Her big, childish, and somewhat restless blue eyes were fixed ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... you with earnestness to give your most sincere attention to this matter. It is of the utmost importance to every one of you. Let your next object be to obtain as soon as may be, a competency of the good things of this world; immense wealth is not necessary for you, and would but diminish your real happiness. ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... issue was before the House, Madison had been prominent in debate, and had spoken with great power and earnestness; but up to this time he had said nothing on the issue now pending. He now remarked that he did not believe that the danger apprehended by some really existed, but twice in his speech he admitted that "there is a small possibility, though it is but small, that an officer may derive ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... beloved dear lady, for my company, I hope, will very soon be answered. My papa was so pleased with your sweet earnestness on this occasion, that he joined with my mamma; and both, with equal cheerfulness, said, you should not be many days in London before me. Murray and his mistress go on swimmingly, and have not yet had one quarrel. The only person, he, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... many distinct types of religious thought, when biblical and historical science was founded, and Catholicism was presented in its most winning guise. The character of Odescalchi impressed him, by his earnestness in sustaining a strict morality. Fragments of this projected work reappeared in his lectures on Louis XIV., and in his last publication on the Casuists. The lectures betray the decline of the tranquil idealism which had been the admiration and despair of friends. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... ten years. Two hands were held up. Was that doctrine proclaimed last Sunday in any evangelical church? Was it proclaimed for a year past, or ten years past? I doubt it. But if it is believed, would it not be preached—yes, preached morning, noon, and night, with the earnestness of frenzy? ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... be attainable through the pleading of the Virgin, and that therefore beneath the figure of the Redeemer is seen that of the weeping Madonna in the act of intercession, may indeed be matter of sorrow to the Protestant beholder, but ought not to blind him to the earnestness and singleness of the faith with which these men sought their sea-solitudes; not in hope of founding new dynasties, or entering upon new epochs of prosperity, but only to humble themselves before ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... visualizes his dreams that he can plan the great things that to other men would seem impossibilities; and then his intensely practical side his intense efficiency, his power, his skill, his patience, his fine earnestness, his mastery over others, develop his dreams into realities. He dreams dreams and sees visions—but his visions are never visionary and ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... and a keen appreciation of the humorous, King was much esteemed among persons of a rank superior to his own. His mind was of a fine devotional cast, and his poetical compositions are distinguished by earnestness ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... forgot: but your books were not in a state to be got at then, and Mrs. H. is to let me know when she packs up. They will be sent by sea; and my little praecursor will come to you by the Whitehaven waggon accompanied with pens, penknife &c.—Mrs. Howell was as usual very civil; and asked with great earnestness, if it were likely you would come to Town in the winter. She has a friendly ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... together to cover his bald crown, his was a fine, striking head yet, to my boyish fancy. I loved to sit at his feet, and hear him tell the events of sixty years of toil and danger, suffering and well-earned joy, as he leaned with both hands upon his stout staff, his body swaying with the earnestness of his speech. His labors and perils were now ended, and in his age and infirmity he had found a quiet haven. He had built a small house by the side of the home of his childhood, and his son, who followed his father's vocation, lived under the same roof. This son and ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... communications with his ancestors. He spoke of a day of regeneration for the Indians; of liberty and happiness not far distant, when the yoke of the Spaniard would be thrown off their necks, and the race of their Inca should again wear the crimson borla of their monarchy. There was an air of earnestness and sincerity in his manner which convinced me that he at all events was deceiving himself as well as his hearers. In his dreams he had truly seen what he hoped would come to pass. I afterwards had good reason ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... how they all hung on the words of that unconscious messenger from a dead and gone age, who himself knew nothing of the import of the words he was uttering. Methuselah laughed at their earnestness, shook his head once or twice, and seemed to think to himself. Then he remembered afresh the point he had ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... have the same rates, same guarantees, and the same twenty-four hours in each day, and yet are doing twice the business. In other words, making more money. What really makes this difference? I will tell you. They put heart into their work. There is an enthusiasm and earnestness about them that carries conviction. They are business through and ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... kneel down together this morning, girls, there are some thoughts which I would like to impress upon you all. We are in trouble, and it behoves each one of us to ask in all earnestness that the cloud may be lifted, and that courage and truthfulness may be given where it is most needed. An accident, however regrettable, is not a serious offence, but in this instance it has been turned into one by the ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the subject, would probably reply that the record of Japan for over thirty-eight years past is the practical interpretation of the Emperor's cryptic utterance. Be that as it may, the ink was hardly dry on the Imperial edict before Japan laid herself out with earnestness, not to say enthusiasm, to carry into effect the principles enunciated in the edict. The whole country was quickly in a positive ferment of energy. The brightest intellects among its youth were despatched to foreign lands to acquire knowledge and wisdom to be applied at home in ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... this time I would come upon them in the small writing-room where the studies were conducted, to find the little one standing by the father's knee, as he held the book for her, or sitting in his lap looking up at him with a funny earnestness, as though they were ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... according to Mercier, under what varieties of figure this great business of dancing goes on. 'The women,' says he, 'are Nymphs, Sultanas; sometimes Minervas, Junos, even Dianas. In light-unerring gyrations they swim there; with such earnestness of purpose; with perfect silence, so absorbed are they. What is singular,' continues he, 'the onlookers are as it were mingled with the dancers; form as it were a circumambient element round the different contre-dances, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... an expression of his peculiar faith. It is therefore a religious work, though free from that meaningless and timid solemnity which we associate with religion. Mozart, in this world, was like an angel who could not but laugh, though without any malice, at all the bitter earnestness of mankind. Even the wicked were only absurd to him; they were naughty children whom, if one had the spell, one could enchant into goodness. And in The Magic Flute the spell works. It works in the flute itself and in Papageno's lyre when the wicked ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... but with some earnestness under the sparkle of her bright eyes; and immediately afterwards rose, saying, "I suppose Bella cannot leave Bob, and Lucia will not leave Bella, so I must go to them; and if Lucia ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... has been begun, it behoves you, my beloved sons, to fulfil the good work which, by the help of the Lord, you have undertaken. Let not, therefore, the toil of the journey, nor the tongues of evil-speaking men, deter you: but with all possible earnestness and zeal, perform that which by God's direction you have undertaken." He furnished them with letters to the bishops of Tours, Marseilles, Vienne, and Autun, and also to the metropolitan of Arles. After the lapse of a year they slowly continued ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... therefore, gained nothing further by this piece of policy, than only to engage the house, for the sake of decency, to join the question of the queen's marriage with that of a settlement of the crown; and the commons were proceeding with great earnestness in the debate, and had even appointed a committee to confer with the lords, when express orders were brought them from Elizabeth not to proceed further in the matter. Cecil told them, that she pledged to the house the word of a queen for her sincerity in her intentions to marry; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... began instantly, with the utmost earnestness, to deprecate the execution of the Caesar's doom, and to conjure Alexius, as he hoped for quiet in his household, and the everlasting gratitude of his wife and daughter, that he would listen to their entreaties in behalf of an unfortunate man, who had been seduced into ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... which might possibly be construed into presumption, if I were addressing strangers and elder brethren, I am sure that I shall fall under no such imputation when communicating my thoughts to you. I wish to express my thoughts familiarly, as we used to do to each other, and at the same time with the earnestness and solemnity which one ought always to feel when pleading ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... drawn strength from the ax and the log-pole, but as yet it had not become heavy with decades of hard labor. He still stood slender and gracefully tapering from shoulders to waist and just now there was something trance-like in his earnestness which made wild prophecies seem almost inspired. The hard-headed father ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... our affairs. You may suppose I inculcated the Northern views. We spoke in his vernacular, and he asked me afterwards if I was a German. I mention this not from vanity, but because he asked it with earnestness, and as if it had a political significance. Of course I undeceived him. His appearance interested me, and his manner ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of thought on questions connected with government and education. These advantages were attained in spite of a worthless king, of corrupt ministers, and a licentious court, and they are due to the earnestness and vigor of the great body of the English people, qualities which have remained unchanged through every national vicissitude or success. While Pepys and Grammont supply full details of the moral degeneration ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... of them with respectful attention, was a study worthy the most thoughtful student of human nature. Some of them listened, no doubt, for the first time to an argument in favor of this innovation, but the most unbelieving were evidently impressed with the earnestness and strong feeling displayed in the advocacy of the cause. The room was well filled with spectators, drawn together, some from sympathy, others from idle curiosity, but all were compelled to respectful ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... did king, clothed in robes of royal purple, exhibit greater pride than did Patsey in his buckskin suit. But, alas! pride must have a fall; and, within a very few hours, I saw him sitting on the ground, clothed in his new suit, and protesting with maudlin earnestness that he was the ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... artificial, and the eye cold and stealthy. About her formal precision there was an eternal consciousness of self, a breathing egotism. Her laugh was displeasing,—cynical, not mirthful; she had none of that forgetfulness of self, that warmth when gay, that earnestness when sad, which create sympathy. Her beauty was without loveliness, her character without charm; every proportion in her form might allure the sensualist; but there stopped the fascination. The mind was trivial, though cunning ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the heavenly bodies, induced him to adopt astronomy as a pursuit congenial to his tastes, and capable of exercising his highest mental powers. Having this object in view, he applied himself with much earnestness to the study of mathematics; he had, however, to rely mainly upon his own exertions, for at that time no branch of physical or mathematical science was taught at Cambridge, and consequently he obtained no ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... woman, with singular earnestness, yet smiling strangely at her own folly, "I want one of you, my children, when your mother is dressed and in the coffin,—I want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face. Who knows but I may take a glimpse at myself and see ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and out, like a tame cat, in a household of women, without having, or being supposed to have—ahem!—intentions. I assure you"—and he swung himself on the arm of her chair, and looked into her face with an angry earnestness quite unmistakable—"I assure you, I never go into the club without being asked, twenty times a day, which of the Miss Moseleys Mr. ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... if he were but twenty. The smith, who had watched everything closely and attentively, invited them all to supper. He, however, had an old half-blind crooked, mother-in-law who went to the youth, and with great earnestness asked if the fire had burnt him much. He answered that he had never felt more comfortable, and that he had sat in the red heat as if he had been in cool dew. The youth's words echoed in the ears of the old woman all night long, and early next morning, when the Lord had gone on his way again and ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... with all earnestness, feeling our way first with fear and delicacy, as conscious of our own delinquency, to gather judgments which should be wiser than our own, and correct ourselves, if it proved that we required correction, with whatever severity might be ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... not at all better than St. Francis, and that they themselves are not at all better than Lacordaire. Yet, [l] in spite of all this, so noble and divine a thing is religion, so respectable is that earnestness which desires a prayer-book with one strain of doctrine, so attaching is the order and discipline by which we are used to have our religion conveyed, so many claims on our regard has that popular form of church government for which Nonconformists contend, so perfectly compatible ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... and she began telling him with feeling and earnestness that they had a farm in the Gadyatchsky district, and that her mamma lived at the farm, and that they had such pears, such melons, such kabaks! The Little Russians call pumpkins kabaks (i.e., pothouses), while their pothouses they call shinki, ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to Csar, which is not at all improbable, considering the earnestness with which his friends labored to dissuade him from his purpose of meeting the senate on the approaching Ides of March, it is very little to be doubted that it had a considerable effect upon his feelings, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... after lunch,—a game of which I am a poor performer. Phyllis Derrick and I played the professor and Tom Chase. Chase was a little better than myself; the professor, by dint of extreme earnestness and care, managed to play a fair game; ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... wringing her hands in her earnestness, "don't make any mistakes. Keep your heads, all of you. I am convinced we are better players than the juniors, even if they did get the pennant last year. For one thing I don't think they work together as well as we do, and that's really the main thing. Miriam, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... he talked to her with the inspiration of young earnestness, getting his reward in an attention accorded perhaps for the very reason that the earnestness was young. "I think I must run off now," he finished, when he thought her slightly comforted, "but I'll send you something ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... his staff, however, in his office or in the mess-room, he showed to less advantage than in the society of strangers. His gravity of demeanour seldom wholly disappeared, his intense earnestness was in itself oppressive, and he was often absent and preoccupied. "Life at headquarters," says one of his staff officers, "was decidedly dull. Our meals were often very dreary. The general had no time for light ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... not my mother, Uncle Joseph," Angelot said, laughter struggling with earnestness, while his arm slid round Helene. "Let me present you to ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... she sat between her father and mother, now helping the one in her delicate fancy-work, now arranging the lamp for the other's reading, continually in request by both, or when left quiet for a minute, watching both with anxious earnestness, there was quite enough in Olive's manner to show that she had entered on a woman's life of care, and had not learned a woman's ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... and drew herself up, while a suspicious glance shot from her eyes;—but the stranger seemed not to understand or perceive it, for he went on quite innocently, and with increasing earnestness of tone ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... was a boy, was brushed carefully into a thick crest over his white forehead, which had, like a child's, a bold and innocent fulness of curve at the temples. He had not usually much color, but that night his cheeks were glowing, and his black eyes, commonly somewhat stern from excess of earnestness, were brilliant with the joy ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... clothes or fine society. It is not long since our whole country was shocked by the dire results of a similar abandonment to vanity and wantonness, about which the usual amount of commonplace and cant was uttered. It is time that the very truth was told about this matter, in sad earnestness and singleness of purpose. We hoped to find the whole truth in "Out of the Depths"; but, finding only a part of it, we can greet it only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Cosmo, with yet greater earnestness, "what'll ye gar fowk think o' me,'at wad hae a lassie to gang hame wi' me, for fear the win' micht blaw me intil the sea? Ye'll bring me to ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... it was preposterous. Four days before the affair, Ivan went through a highly unpleasant scene with old Nicholas Rubinstein, who came to beg him to give up his acquaintance in the Akheskaia, and remained to beseech, with an earnestness a trifle startling, that he would, at least, put off this supper. When finally his defeated friend had gone, though he had preserved towards him a courtesy that was as admirable as it had been cutting to old Nicholas, Ivan sat down to his piano feeling ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... at him attentively. The color had gone out of his face, and with it the effect of earnestness and mental elevation which, a minute before, had caught her fancy. "Somehow, I fear that I do not like you quite so much just now, my ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... drew his revolver, and stepping up to Moriarity, placed the cold muzzle to his temple. His eyes, cold as steel and sharp as an arrow, were fastened upon Dan's very heart, and speaking with terrible earnestness, he said: ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... bring the reader closer to the man himself, would accentuate the points of a striking individuality. There are few of these letters, we think, by which such expectations have been fulfilled to any appreciable degree. In one or two of them Stanley writes with his genuine sincerity and earnestness on the state of his mind in regard to the new spirit of ecclesiasticism that had arisen in Oxford nearly sixty years ago; we see that he saw and felt the magnitude of a coming crisis, and we can observe the formation ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... was in the Bible, as I found by questioning him; but I doubt whether I know any Christian on whom a Bible oath would be more binding than was to him his own by the dead. To me there was something deeply moving in the simple earnestness ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... how they run!" exclaimed Lieutenant Brown of the Grenadiers, who supported him. "Who run?" demanded the General like one roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir," responded the subaltern. "Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned Wolfe, with an earnestness that detained the spirit in his almost lifeless body; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down to the St. Charles to cut off ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... about to tell you. Do you remember the first conversation we had together concerning Reine? You spoke of her with so much earnestness that I then suspected you of being in love ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet |
