"Sober" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well enough that thou mightest be trusted when thou wer't sober, Bill," his wife said gently; "but as about four nights a week at that time thou wast drunk, and might ha' blabbed it out, and had known nowt in the morning o' what thou'dst said, Jack and I were of a mind that less said ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... a laugh at the tragic tone in which she said it. Yet his face was perfectly sober and he continued with his breakfast without ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... not innocent of one of them. General Miller offered to present us at court, but he had to give several days' notice in order that his Majesty might be sufficiently sober to receive us. A negro tailor from the United States fitted us out with suits of black, and on the appointed day we put ourselves under the shade of the old General's cocked hat, and marched in a body to the palace. A native band, in which a big drum had the leading part, received ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... foreboding held him back. A sour and vacuous incredulity swept over him. What was the use of all this struggling and vexation. What gain in living on? Once dead his sluggish spirit at least would find its rest. Dust to dust it would indeed be for him. What else, in sober earnest, had he been all his daily stolid life but half dead, scarce conscious, without a living thought, or desire, in ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... lurked. It was a reputable place enough, affording good entertainment in the way of meat, drink, and fumigation; and there, in my young and idle days and nights, when I was neither nice nor wise, I had often amused myself with watching the staid humors and sober jollities of the ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... two persons Robin's glances for ever wandered. The laughing blue eyes of the girl, the queer little toss of her head which she gave in her unheard answers to her sober father, heartily pleased young Fitzooth, and in some way vaguely disturbed his memory. She was of about fifteen summers; and her hair was black as a winter's night—and curled all waywardly around her merry face. Blue were ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... experimental. In four generations, whose representatives are placed before us with uncommon plasticity and lifelikeness, the decaying family slowly passes across the stage. From generation to generation the robust, sober business sense is poisoned with a greater and greater infection of morbid feelings and hypersensitive nerves, until finally the vitality of the family goes out ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... it seemed to me a very forward thing to do," Dolly replied, looking very sober; "but if you think it's all right, I'd like to meet Mr. Coriell. You see, I'm going to be an opera singer myself, some day, and there are a few questions ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... nourish tenderly, and chose good grapes, That rare old wine may pass from sire to son! Peace! who doth keep the plow and harrow bright, While rust on some forgotten shelf devours The cruel soldier's useless sword and shield. From peaceful holiday with mirth and wine The rustic, not half sober, driveth home With wife and ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... a different matter. As soon as they had got drunk on the wines and spirits they had brought from the wreck, and then had got sober because they had drunk all the liquors up, they began to be more manageable; when their provisions ran short, and they were made to understand that they would not be allowed to plunder the fields and woods, ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... did come to be better understood, and was treated as a joke, and some of the more sober men entered into the fun, and would go out on parade, and take part in the ceremony. We paraded with a band composed of men beating tin buckets, frying pans, and canteens, with sticks, and whistling military music. It made a noisy and impressive procession. It attracted much attention ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... asked me to tell him what was wrong. When I told him I wished you girls were going, too, he surprised me by saying, 'Why not?' For a moment I thought he was joking—he's always doing that, you know—but when I saw he was in sober earnest I could ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... his fortunes before the mast, and fell overboard in a gale off Hatteras. "Lost at sea," says the chubby marble slab in the Old South Burying-Ground, "aetat 18." Perhaps that is why no blue-jacket, sober or drunk, was ever repulsed from the ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... almost involuntarily. It had suddenly occurred to him that he would give much to be alone with this half-drunken man for a few hours—as McKenna. He might last long enough in that disguise to discover things. But not with Hauck watching him, for Hauck was four fifths sober, and there was a depth to his cruel eyes which he did not like. He watched the effect of his words on Brokaw. The tenseness left his body, his hands unclenched slowly, his heavy jaw relaxed—and David laughed softly. ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... by the Shipley family at the next morning's breakfast table. Flossy had come down a trifle late, looking pale and somewhat sober, and was rallied by Kitty ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... be withdrawn from us, yet by the lively and virtual contact of his spirit, he is always kindling, cheering, quickening, warming, and enlivening hearts. Nay, this divine life begun and kindled in any heart, wheresoever it be, is something of God in flesh, and in a sober and qualified sense, divinity incarnate; and all particular Christians, that are really possessed of it, are so many ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... "I'm going to steer clear of that stuff until I know where I'm at, and you're a fool for not doing the same, Wixy. First thing you know you'll be soused, and if you are, and anything turns up, what'll I do? I got all I can do to take care of you sober." ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... bad," continued the artist, as soon as the Vicar had related the incident that had passed. "Poor fellow! He doesn't drink, I know: sober as a judge. Temper—that's ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... his wings to the sun. They were brown and white and pink, beautifully shaded, and his body was covered with rings of brown satin. Blacky and Greeny were not so handsome. They had orange-spotted bodies, great wings of sober gray, and carried long flexible tubes curled like a watch-spring, that could be stretched out to suck honey ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... additional vividness to the picture. The ladies of the party, half of whom spoke English, were costumed quite in keeping, and endeavored by the graciousness of their manner to add to the good impression already formed by their more brilliant companions. Here and there the more sober uniform of an American army or navy officer might have been seen, brought thither on demand of his lady. The ladies themselves were out in force, and in their most brilliant array. The doors had not been opened for a half hour before all prophecies were more ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... accustomed to find the legendary and the miraculous gathering, like a halo, around the early history of religious leaders, until the sober truth runs the risk of being altogether neglected for the glittering and edifying falsehood. The Buddha has not escaped the fate which has befallen the founders of other religions; and as late as the year 1854 Professor Wilson of Oxford read ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... his poor nose. 'Tis merely unction to the exile. Sober struggles below. He drinks to rock his heart, because he has one. Now let ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the more for my being in it?" Certainly there are many ways by which servants may become blessings. Let your studies with your continual prayers for the welfare of the family to which you belong: and the example of your sober carriage render you such. If you will but remember four words and attempt all that is comprised in them, Obedience, Honesty, Industry, and Piety, you will be the blessings and Josephs of the families in which you live. Let these four words be ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... enlarge. We have little occasion to wonder at the errors and mistakes of grammar makers, when our lexicographers tell us for sober truth, that to act, to be in action, not to rest, to be in motion, to move, is v. n. a verb neuter, signifying no action!! or v. i. verb intransitive, producing no effects; and that a "neuter verb expresses (active transitive ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... oft hast bid the World attend, Fond to forget the statesman in the friend; For SWIFT and him despis'd the farce of state, The sober follies of the wise and great; Dext'rous the craving, fawning crowd to quit, And pleas'd to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... addressed to those who, desponding of this aid, despond therefore of the object itself.—Incitement to individual exertion.—Reference to the sublimest Example.—Imputation of extravagant hope.—Repelled; first, by a full acknowledgment how much the hopes of sober-minded projectors of improvement are limited by what they see of the disorder in the essential constitution of our nature; and next, by a plain statement, in a series of particulars, of what they nevertheless judge it rational to expect from a general ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... does it much disturb my rest, when I see such great Lords and tall Personages as hereafter follow;—such, for instance, as my Lord A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all of a row, mounted upon their several horses,—some with large stirrups, getting on in a more grave and sober pace;—others on the contrary, tucked up to their very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and scampering it away like so many little party-coloured devils astride a mortgage,—and as if some of them were resolved to break ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... dumb, But suffered him to go. Now in our sight He rises to proclaim his searing doubt, His hot destroying passion, and tears down Our fairest altars. I, who was his friend, Hereby renounce him; and in sober words Counsel all men to flee the company Of one who hates the great ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... from which, in our theatres, nothing but cupids and snowstorms are accustomed to descend. There is a poetry in the very life of a Venetian, which, in its common course, is varied with those surprises and changes so recommendable in fiction, but so different from the sober monotony of northern existence; amusements are raised into duties, duties are softened into amusements, and every object being considered as equally making a part of the business of life, is announced and performed with the same earnest indifference and gay assiduity. The Venetian gazette ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... preparing the preceding lecture for the press, a passage referring to this subject, because it appeared to me, in its place, hardly explained by preceding statements. But I give it here unaltered, as being, in sober earnest, but too weak to characterize the tendencies of the "accursed" ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... I was back with mamma," he thought, and drew a long and exceedingly sober breath. "I don't ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... entertainment was given in the palace. Aladin was naturally sober; but, while he sought only to participate in the pleasure of the guests, he indulged himself in drink, with so much the greater security that he was not accustomed to it, and was ignorant of its effects. At the end of the repast he wanted to retire to his own ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... went down, the logging-band came in to supper, which was all ready for them. Those who remained sober ate the meal in peace, and quietly returned to their own homes; while the vicious and the drunken stayed to ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... there!" which the boys eagerly join in, to eke out their bliss a little longer by keeping away even the appearance of anything transitory in it. The country-jake comes stumbling awkwardly into the ring, but he is perfectly sober, and he boldly leaps astride the mule, which tries all its arts to shake him off, plunging, kicking, rearing. He sticks on, and everybody cheers him, and the owner of the mule begins to get mad and to make it do more things to shake the country-jake off. At last, with one ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... dough, the only food of the poorer peasants in the winter. But now every man who could handle pickaxe and bore, and sledge-hammer and spade, was out upon the road from dawn to dark, and every Saturday night each man took home a silver scudo in his pocket; and where people are sober and do not drink their wages, a silver scudo goes a long way further than nothing. Yet many a lean and swarthy fellow there would have felt that he was cheated if besides his money he had not carried home daily ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... upon this argument, with a very profound face; having done so, he seized Sikes by the hand: and declared he was a real good fellow. To which Mr. Sikes replied, he was joking; as, if he had been sober, there would have been strong reason to ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... And what then? "And they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness, and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it" (Jer 33:8,9). Alas! there is a company of poor, light, frothy professors in the world, that carry it under that which they call the presence of God, more like to antics, than sober sensible Christians; yea, more like to a fool of a play, than those that have the presence of God. They would not carry it so in the presence of a king, nor yet of the lord of their land, were they but receivers of mercy at his hand. They carry it even in their most eminent ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... infamous for their debaucheries, and became so fond of the Spanish wines, after having once tasted them, that to purchase a small quantity they would give all their gold, and were never sober as long as they had wine to drink. But their crimes, which justly provoked the anger of heaven, could not justify the cruelty of their European enemies, in whom avarice seemed to have extinguished the sentiments both of humanity and religion. The missionary ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... she ate carefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it irritated Birkin. They were all drinking champagne. Maxim, the prim young Russian with the smooth, warm-coloured face and black, oiled hair was the only one who seemed to be perfectly calm and sober. Birkin was white and abstract, unnatural, Gerald was smiling with a constant bright, amused, cold light in his eyes, leaning a little protectively towards the Pussum, who was very handsome, and soft, unfolded like some red lotus in dreadful flowering nakedness, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... The fiery liquid percolated through him down to his very toes. He felt better at once, more ambitious, less conscious of his constitution. And simultaneously, he lost something of that indolent good-nature which was the badge of all his sober hours. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... on Marian my sister, and her husband [fictitious persons]. They should, I do know, be right willing to be set in charge; and Simon Pendexter (that is my brother) can right well read and write, for he hath been a schoolmaster; and is (though I say it) a sad and sober honest man, such as I do know you should be willing to use ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... me," said Will. "Even if you loved me as well as I love you—even if I were everything to you—I shall most likely always be very poor: on a sober calculation, one can count on nothing but a creeping lot. It is impossible for us ever to belong to each other. It is perhaps base of me to have asked for a word from you. I meant to go away into silence, but I have not been able ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... composed of the whole body of freemen. It was not until 1639 that they established a House of Representatives. The qualifications of a freeman were, that he "should be twenty-one years of age, of sober, peaceable conversation, orthodox in religion [which included belief in God and the Holy Scriptures, but did not include any form of Church government], and possess rateable estate to ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... contrary, with sounder discretion, generally kept their "travellers' histories" distinct from their sober narratives, and whilst the marvellous incidents related by adventurous seamen were received as materials for the story-tellers and romancers, the staple of their geographical works consisted of truthful descriptions of the countries visited, their forms of government, their ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the mystic sweets of "syllabub," a Southern concoction of which my sober Scotch folks had never heard. Whoso takes it may not look upon the wine when it is red, for its glow is muffled by various other moral things; but the wine, waiting patiently at the bottom, cometh at last unto its own; and the glow which ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... established in Yloilo, the town was policed, trade resumed its normal aspect, the insurgents in the Island gradually increased, but the Philippine Republic in Panay was no more. It was clear to all the most sober-minded and best-educated Ylongos that Aguinaldo's government was a failure in Panay at least. The hope of agreement on any policy was remote from its very initiation. Visayos of position, with property and interests at stake, were convinced that absolute ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Flora thought of the words "tete exaltee" and considered herself alone to have sober sense enough to see things in a true light—not that she went the length of believing that Norman had any underhand motives, but she thought it very discreet in her to think a prudent father would not have been satisfied with such a desire to ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Perhaps I love the flocks and the shepherds a little too much. That would not seem right amongst you. There is a maxim to which I endeavour to conform my actions, "Nothing too much." More even than my feeble health my philosophy teaches me to use things with measure. I am sober; a lettuce and some olives with a drop of Falernian wine form all my meals. I have, indeed, to some extent gone with strange women, but I have not delayed over long in taverns to watch the young Syrians dance to the sound of the crotalum.* ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... court, and at night by a single lamp suspended in the middle of the passage by a strong iron chain. The pavement of this passage was of broad stones, once smooth and even but now worn and made irregular by long use. The rooms for the guests were carpeted with sober colours and warmed by high stoves built up of glazed white tiles. The furniture, as has been said, was simple, but afforded all that was strictly necessary for ordinary comfort, each apartment consisting of a bedroom and sitting-room, small in lateral dimensions but ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... my word, my dear. The only stipulation he made when I engaged him was that he should not be required to drive on Sundays and Wednesday evenings, and, when I hear people complaining about their surly, incapable coachmen, I consider it is a light price to pay. Pompey is as sober as a church and as pleasant-tempered in a rain storm as a water-spaniel,—no matter what hour of the night you keep him waiting; so it is the least we can do to let the poor fellow be sure of one evening ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... in the least inclined to reproach you for the past," was the sober answer. Geoffrey was distinctly perplexed, for he had acquired a clearer perception of Millicent's character since he left England, and now he felt almost indignant with himself for wondering what she wanted. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... must wag as it will. Yet must we repine therefore? Out upon thee for a sober, long-legged, doleful wight. Now harkee! Here sit I—less fool! A fool who hath, this day, been driven forth of my lord's presence with blows and cruel stripes! And wherefore? 'Twas for setting a bird free of its cage, a small matter methinks—though there be birds—and birds, but ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... was it, then? some mystic turn of thought, Caught under German eaves, and hither brought, Marring thine eye For the world's loveliness, till thou art grown A sober thing that dost but mope and moan, Not ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... Seamstress and their Cook. Unmask them well; their Honours and Estate, As well as Conscience, are Sophisticate. Shrive but their Titles, and their Money poise; A Laird and Twenty Pence,[27] pronounc'd with Noise, When constru'd, but for a plain Yeoman go, And a good sober Two-pence, and well so. Hence then,'you Proud Imposters, get you gone, You Picts in Gentry and Devotion, You Scandal to the Stock of Verse, a Race Able to bring the Gibbet in Disgrace. Hyperbolus by suffering did traduce The Ostracism, ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... imperious Townsends who terrorized everybody. David Townsend terrorized nobody. He had gotten his little competence from his store by honest methods—the exchanging of sterling goods and true weights for country produce and country shillings. He was sober and reliable, with intense self-respect and a decided talent for the management of money. It was principally for this reason that he took great delight in his sudden wealth by legacy. He had thereby greater opportunities for the exercise of his native shrewdness ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... exclaiming, after each new display of Gillespie's learning and power of argument; 'That singular ornament of our Church'; 'He is one of the best wits of this isle,' and so on. And good John Livingstone, in his wise and sober Characteristics, says that, being sent as a Commissioner from the Church of Scotland to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, Gillespie, 'promoted much the work of reformation, and attained to a gift of clear, strong, pressing, and ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... table opposite the door, and this contained the celebrated snuff. They ordered punch. They drank it. It was hot rum punch. The pen falters when it attempts to treat of the excellence thereof; the sober vocabulary, the sparse epithet of this narrative, are inadequate to the task; and pompous terms, jewelled, exotic phrases rise to the excited fancy. It warmed the blood and cleared the head; it filled the soul with well-being; ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies! How dumb the tuneful! horror wide extends Her desolate domain. Behold, fond man! See here thy pictur'd life; pass some few years, Thy flow'ring spring, thy summer's ardent strength, Thy sober autumn fading into age, And page concluding winter comes at last, And shuts ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... can assure you that I am neither 'dead, absconded, or anything worse.' I have involved myself in no 'foolish scrape,' as you say all my friends suppose; but ever since my misfortune I have been as steady as a sign-post, and as sober as a deacon, have been in no 'blows' this term, nor drank any kind of 'wine or strong drink.' So that your comparison of me to the 'prodigious son' will hold good in nothing, except that I shall probably return penniless, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... craving. It raged like a hungry fire. I talked to him, his mother pled with him, but it was no use, liquor was his master, and when he couldn't get liquor I've known him to break into his pantry to get our burning fluid to assuage his thirst. Sometimes he would be sober for several weeks at a time, and then our hopes would brighten that Charley would be himself again, and then in an hour all our hopes would be dashed to the ground. It seemed as if a spell was upon him. ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... was unfortunate in business. After an illness of two years, he died on the 9th August 1849, at the early age of twenty-nine. He was possessed of much general talent; was fond of society, fluent in conversation, and eloquent as a public speaker. His habits were sober and retiring. He left a widow and four children. A thin 8vo volume of his "Literary Remains" was published in 1850, for the benefit of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... you go back to your office and stay sober to-day, while I get my work done, or will I have to hire a couple o' huskies to follow you around and knock the whiskey out o' your hand if they see you tryin' to ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... seemed too little after death, while men vainly affected precious pyres, and to burn like Sardanapalus; but the wisdom of funeral laws found the folly of prodigal blazes and reduced undoing fires unto the rule of sober obsequies, wherein few could be so mean as not to pro- vide wood, pitch, a mourner, ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... vision of the world. Maupassant's vision was of solid superficies, of texture which his hands could touch, of actions which his mind could comprehend from the mere sight of its incidents. He saw the world as the Dutch painters saw it, and he was as great a master of form, of rich and sober color, of the imitation of the outward gestures of life, and of the fashion of external things. He had the same view of humanity, and shows us, with the same indifference, the same violent ferment of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... know, Dr. Sandford—" Daisy answered in a strangely tender and sober voice. It was strange to her ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... small business and became insolvent; then she entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work,—never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged. She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with her. And so she had dropped into the workhouse, from which Mr. J—— had taken her, to be placed in charge of the very house which she had rented as mistress in the first ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... soothing Caroline's wounded pride, it was very easy for her to disguise her repeated insinuations of Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton's injustice and caprice towards the Viscount, and tyranny towards herself. The veil she had thrown over Caroline's sober judgment became thicker and more blinding, and Caroline could sometimes scarcely restrain even before her parents the indignation which so continually filled ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... convict, had informed me that the term of his transportation expired on the 16th of January; and having taken the oath administered on that occasion, he signified a wish of becoming a settler: as he was a sober, industrious man, I gave him time to consider of it, and to look out for a situation where he would like to settle at: he informed me on the 22d, that he still was desirous of fixing on the island, and had found a spot where he wished to reside; on which, I sent some labourers to build ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... trooper knew that his man would slide Like a dingo pup, if he saw the chance; And with half a start on the mountain side Ryan would lead him a merry dance. Drunk as he was when the trooper came, To him that did not matter a rap — Drunk or sober, he was the same, The ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... impudence, and feeling that he had deserved this rebuke pulled out his purse, paid for the dinner, and did what he should have done at first—wrote to the members of Talbot's family, and obtained for him such assistance as enabled him to quit Paris and return home, where he afterwards led a more sober life. ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... Confident that he was ordinarily saner than most people, he perceived that since he was capable of doing a thing like this, other men did even more idiotic things, in secret. And he had a fleeting vision of sober-looking bankers and manufacturers and lawyers, well-dressed church-going men, sound citizens—and all as queer as the ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... fellow-citizen," said the man, "I bid you farewell. Keep your temper; these sober arts should have taught you this kind of self-command. You will soon be free. As for your arms, I dare not untie them now, but I will send the guard to you. Now, holloa, guard without there!" and he left ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... stomach to engage. These repeated disappointments, as they broke the spirit of the crew, had a very bad effect on Captain Clipperton, who now began to take to drinking, which grew at last to such a pitch that he was hardly ever quite sober; owing to which unhappy propensity he committed many errors in his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... we do. Thoughts of childhood, says the poet, are long, long thoughts; but who supposes childhood knows they are? Nor is this altogether a fault. To feel the sublime sequence of all we did would burden us as Atlas was burdened by holding up the sky. Life might easily come to be sober to somberness, which is a thing unwholesome and undesirable. Sunlight must have its way. Darkness must not trespass too far; and every morning says to every night, "Thus ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... spectacle would be intolerable; and even the pretence which we allow on our stage is ridiculously destructive to the illusion of the scene. Yet pugilists and gladiators will actually fight and kill in public without sham, even as a spectacle for money. But no sober couple of lovers of any delicacy could endure to be watched. We in England, accustomed to consider the French stage much more licentious than the British, are always surprised and puzzled when we learn, as we may do any day if we come ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... through new and incontestable successes. He has always distinguished himself as well by the manner, grand and magisterial, with which he renders the masters' works, as by his style, together elegant and sober, when he interprets music of our time. In order to be more than a virtuoso of note, there was only one thing wanting in him; and that was to cause himself to be appreciated ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... Fritz Winter, Ritter von Wallishausen, was lying between burning wax candles upon his bier. Nobody could be made responsible for the terrible accident. Why did he go to the bears when he was not sober? ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... most pleased and confidential way, as if we were talking about a mutual friend, "I saw him not long ago. And, do you know, he's a good man now—really, he is. Sober and hard-working. And, say, would you believe it, he told me that I was the cause of it—just that miserable old pair of rubber boots—what do you think ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... markets, burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together." Such, sir, is a description of industrious, sober, civilized, religious Scotland. Such is a description of what that country was at the end of the seventeenth century. Dare we, sir, say that the particular laws—that the particular state of a country—has ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... a moment, "Is it my fault if your shilly-shallying committees can't say yes or no to L15? You'd say yes to it, wouldn't you, sooner than go to bed sober?" ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... judge what we do. 'Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.' Actions are the true test of a man. Conduct is the best revelation of character, especially in regard to ourselves. So let us 'watch and be sober'—sober in our estimate of ourselves, and determined to find every lurking evil, and to drag it forth into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... time for sober, second thought, I had also determined not to relinquish my search for the little brunette and her secret, nor for Messrs. Bob Delbras and company. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... my kind nurse, to your uncle's care; to yours I entrust the dearest relic of my better self. Be to Adrian, sweet one, what you have been to me—enliven his sadness with your sprightly sallies; sooth his anguish by your sober and inspired converse, when he is dying; nurse him as you ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... as we have before observed, was very superstitious, and very fond of his bottle. In the morning he would be sober and pray; in the afternoon he would be drunk, and swear at the very saints whose protection he had invoked but a few ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... delicate traceries of the organ screen, the swelling notes of the organ, the mellow shafts of light filtered through the stained-glass windows whose hues were as those of emeralds and rubies and amethysts, the stainless purity of the surplices of clergy and choir, the sober richness of Sunday bonnets in the transept, the faint yet heavy fragrance exhaled from the hot-water pipes—all these familiar things, appealing, as he sometimes felt, almost too strongly to that sensuous side of his nature which made him so susceptible to the paintings of Mr. Leader, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... upon the elephant, and remained there placed beside his august mother-in-law. Agelastes, on a sober- minded palfrey, which permitted him to prolong his philosophical harangues at his own pleasure, rode beside the Countess Brenhilda, whom he made the principal object of his oratory. The fair historian, though she usually travelled in a litter, preferred upon this occasion ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Knudson and Herr Bernhoft, were obliging enough to provide another guide for me; a difficult task, as it is a rare occurrence to find an Icelander who understands the Danish language, and who happens to be sober when his services are required. At length a peasant was found who suited our purpose; but he considered two florins per diem too little pay, so I was obliged to give an additional zwanziger. On the other hand, it was arranged that the guide should also take two horses, in order ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... rate, he appeared at the studio on the following afternoon, completely sober and excessively critical. He examined the canvases which Kirk had hauled from shelves and corners for his inspection. One after another he gazed upon them in an increasingly significant silence. When the last one was laid aside ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... That they all remained sober at the end of the evening seemed to do great credit to their heads, for Tamara, completely unaccustomed to the smoke and the warm room, feared even to ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... the past, whose long forgotten music Still fills the wide expanse; Tingeing the sober twilight of the present, ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... seen to play the last, and doubtless the hardest act of his part, because there may be disguise and dissimulation in all the rest, where these fine philosophical discourses are only put on; and where accidents do not touch us to the quick, they give us leisure to maintain the same sober gravity; but in this last scene of death, there is no more counterfeiting; we must speak plain, and must discover what there is of pure and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... her—she will be worth watching," said Weil, with one of his laughs at the sober face before him. "She is worth almost as much to a rising author as the negro—not quite, but nearly. Then there is the pater-familias; is there anything in him? No, he will be of no service to you. ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... find some one to share the expenses, we would lodge and feed him, do his washing and all, and it would not be a bad thing for him, any more than for us. Where there is enough for two there is always enough for three, you know! The difficulty is to find some one who is orderly and sober, and won't make too ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... ambassadors or victorious generals, distributions of awards, annual sacrifices, and state banquets: they were even obliged, in accordance with an ancient and inviolable tradition, once a year to set aside their usual sober habits and drink to excess on the day of the feast of Mithra. Occasionally they would break through their normal routine of life to conduct in person some expedition of small importance, directed against one of the semi-independent ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Guentz, the more expansive nature, soon opened his whole heart to his friend; though Reimers, partly from a kind of timidity, still kept his deepest and innermost feelings somewhat hidden. For Guentz, with his sober sense and terrible logic, must necessarily, since he could never be otherwise than sincere, destroy most of the ideals and illusions to which Reimers passionately clung, and without which he believed ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... would have you look at them for yourselves, where they are well represented, in the Dulwich Gallery; I would have you notice also how, as travellers declare of the splendour of tropical flowers, that they are deficient in the tender sweetness and grace of our more sober-tinted and less lavishly-blossoming English flowers; so these Flemish and Dutch full blown flower pieces have not a trace of the sentiment which modern flower painters cannot help seeking, with good result or ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... stair-case heard them, and fully expected the immediate apparition of some bulldog, dean, or proctor. It was nobody's affair, however, but Bruce's, and he must do as he liked. Suton, who "kept" near Bruce, was one of those whom the uproar puzzled and disturbed, as he sat down with sober pleasure to his evening's work. His window was opposite Bruce's, and across the narrow road he heard distinctly most of what was said. The perpetual and noisy repetition of Hazlet's name perplexed him extremely, and at last he could have ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... When Mr. Sumner entered the Senate twenty years before, the pro-slavery leaders who then controlled it had determined at one time in their caucus to exclude him from all committee service on account of his offensive opinions in regard to slavery, but upon sober second thought they concluded that a persecution of that kind would add to Mr. Sumner's strength rather than detract from it. He was therefore given the ordinary assignment of a new member by the Southern men in control and was thence regularly advanced ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... and took up a newspaper to read; but after vainly endeavouring to interest myself in its pages, and feeling painfully affected by the noisy hilarity of some gay young students in a neighbouring box, I drank off my sober beverage, and walked home to my solitary chambers. Oh, how dreary they appeared that night!—how desolate seemed the uncomfortable, dirty, cold staircase, and that remarkable want of all sorts of conveniences, for which the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... overturned by the shepherds of the North; and their arms have spread terror and devastation over the most fertile and warlike countries of Europe. On this occasion, as well as on many others, the sober historian is forcibly awakened from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance, to confess, that the pastoral manners, which have been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a military life. To illustrate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... in his eyes. When the maid, leaning back in the canoe while the men halted at the bank to make fast for the passage, saw the torrent that tumbled and pitched merrily down toward them, she laughed. To hold a sober mood for long was not in her buoyant nature, and she welcomed a dash of excitement as a relief from the strained relations of the two days ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... over of the tea; again in unwise fervor, he would counsel assassination as a proper expedient. Warren, too, could rush into extremes of rashness and ferocity, wishing that he might wade to the knees in blood, and had just reached sober, self-reliant manhood when he was ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... hungry for the wind, When fail the silver-kissing waves to unbind The music bedded in the drowsy strings Of the sea's golden shells— That, sometimes, with their honeyed murmurings Fill all its underswells: For o'er the sunshine fell a shadow wide When Lyra died. When sober Autumn, with his mist-bound brows, Sits drearily beneath the fading boughs, And the rain, chilly cold, Wrings from his beard of gold, And as some comfort for his lonesome hours, Hides in his bosom stalks of withered flowers, I think about ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... not expected this development. She thought: "Is he not sober yet?" But the query had no conviction in it. She wanted to believe that he was sober. At any rate he had removed the absurd towels ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... what they had done, and promised all his protection to the archbishop for correcting his prebends. The archbishop did not choose to avail himself of this aid, because he intended to bring them back to sober judgment by means of kindness and gentle treatment. He therefore replied to his cabildo with another pastoral letter, couched in affectionate terms, and full of learning and paternal affection in which he gently admonished ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... 1866.—The chief came early, and sober. I rallied him on his previous loquacity, and said one ought to find time in the morning if business was to be done: he took it in good part, and one of his wives joined in bantering him. She is the wife and the mother of the sons in whom ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... band was awful. Miss Potter's millinery establishment worked night and day. Of a morning you couldn't find a lady on a front veranda who wasn't stitching and sewing and basting and cutting out. And the men! Why, in the social whirl few of them had time to sober up, and the sale of Leonard's ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... the day. At first the French force was too much despised. Now it is too much dreaded. As inconsiderate courage has given way to irrational fear, so it may be hoped, that, through the medium of deliberate, sober apprehension, we may arrive at steady fortitude. Who knows whether indignation may not succeed to terror, and the revival of high sentiment, spurning away the delusion of a safety purchased at the expense of glory, may not yet drive us to that generous despair ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... laugh if you should be doubled up, and put over the stove! You needn't think Fel and I are babies, and don' know what you said about her boiling her mother up the chimney, with a jug on her nose; but we do know, and it's so, and sober true, for we've seen ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... all about it, my daughter," the bishop said, and the woman poured out her story—the old story of a husband who provided for his family after a fashion, when he was sober, but left them to starve when the drink demon possessed him. He had been away now for three weeks, and there was no money for medicine for the sick child, or food for ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... ostentation of their wives and children, who "devote themselves," it may be, "to expense regardless of pleasure"; but we ought not to misunderstand even that, or condemn it unjustly. The masters of industry are often too busy with their own sober and momentous calling to have time or spare thought enough to govern their own households. A king may be too faithful a statesman to be a watchful father. These men are not fascinated by the glitter of gold: the appetite for power has got hold upon them. They are in love with ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... the parting from home. "Farewell" is never an easy word to say when seas are to separate those who love each other, but the Young family uttered it bravely and resolutely. Lionel, who was impatient to get to work and to his beloved High Valley, was more than ready to go. His face, among the sober ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... was a hard worker, and he was more sober than most the men in them days, and he never tell me to do nothing. He jest let Miss Mary tell me what to do. They have a log house close to the shop, and a little patch of a field at first, but after awhile he git more land, and then Miss Mary tell ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... with commerce in the development of the prairie "town." It was a lurid little place. Medora, in comparison to it, might have appeared almost sober and New-Englandish. It had no "steady" residents save a half-dozen railroad employees, the landlord of the terrible hotel south of the tracks, where Roosevelt had had his encounter with the drunken bully, and a certain Mrs. Nolan and her daughters, ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... went on stamping, and jumping up and down stairs, as his way was when he was very much excited, till Milly appeared. Presently down she came, a sober fair-haired little maiden, with blue eyes and a turn-up nose, and a mouth that was generally rather solemn-looking, though it could laugh merrily enough when it tried. Milly was six years old. She looked older than six. At any rate she looked a great deal older than Olly, who was nearly five; ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... probable cause, believed in, is a justification notwithstanding malice; /2/ that, on the other, "it is not enough to show [142] that the case appeared sufficient to this particular party, but it must be sufficient to induce a sober, sensible and discreet person to act upon it, or it must fail as a justification for the proceeding upon general grounds." /1/ On the one side, malice alone will not make a man liable for instituting a groundless prosecution; on the other, his justification will ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... holy days of the English Church were as a stench to the Puritan nostrils, and their public celebration was at once rigidly forbidden by the laws of New England. New holidays were not quickly evolved, and the sober gatherings for matters of Church and State for a time took their place. The hatred of "wanton Bacchanallian Christmasses" spent throughout England, as Cotton said, in "revelling, dicing, carding, masking, mumming, consumed in compotations, in interludes, in excess of wine, ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... fable which Carpini heard in the camp of the Great Kaan, that in one of the Mongol sieges in Cathay, when the army was without food, one man in ten of their own force was sacrificed to feed the remainder.[8] But we are told in sober history that the force of Tului in Honan, in 1231-1232, was reduced to such straits as to eat grass and human flesh. At the siege of the Kin capital Kaifongfu, in 1233, the besieged were reduced to the like extremity; ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Georgia was not ready to make resistance, and at most advocated some form of retaliatory legislation. It was evident that even in the Cotton- belt and the Gulf States there was in the minds of sober people the gravest objection ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... would wait his turn among the three or four proud and respectable members that the going and coming seemed always to leave in the room. The modest blue-yellow gas, the vast table and ledgers, and the two sober heads behind; the polite murmurings, the rustle of leaves, the chink of money, the smooth sound of elegant pens: all this made something not merely impressive, but beautiful; something that had a true if narrow dignity; ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... child. There needs no other proof that happiness is the most wholesome moral atmosphere, and that in which the immortality of man is destined ultimately to thrive, than the elevation of soul, the religious aspiration, which attends the first assurance, the first sober certainty, of true love. There is much of this religious aspiration amidst all warmth of virtuous affections. There is a vivid love of God in the child that lays its cheek against the cheek of its mother, and clasps its arms about ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... "Oh, no, they were sober enough. I did not see it, so I do not quite know exactly how it was, but I understand that they committed themselves most absurdly, absolutely took hold of his coat and tore it, and—; but they did such ridiculous things that ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... and deep-coloured apricot ones, with crinkled outside leaves faintly kissed by the frosty dew. In sheltered spots the purple clematis still lingered, whilst the dahlias, brilliant of hue, seemed overbearing in their gorgeous insolence, flaunting their crudely colored petals against sober backgrounds of mellow leaves, or the dull, mossy tones of ancient, ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... with superior understanding or with any stock of what is called imagination. He was cold, silent, sad, sober, fond of no pleasure except the chase, fearing society, fearing himself, unexpansive, a recluse by taste and habits, rarely touched by others, of good sense nevertheless, and upright, with a tolerably good knowledge of things, obstinate when he liked, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... massive cage; a crimson carpet and curtains of almost barbaric gravity contributed to the admirable temperature and deadened unruly noise. A brace of shaded candles to each small table made up nine several nebulae, whose common radiance provoked an atmosphere of sober mystery, dim and convenient. Light so subdued subdued in turn the tones of the company of hosts and visitors. Conversation became an exchange of confidences; laughter was soft and low; the murmurous blend of talk flowed unremarked, yet comforted the ear. The flash of silver, the sparkle ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... Speak'st thou in sober meanings? Ros. By my life I do, which I tender deerly, though I say I am a Magitian: Therefore put you in your best aray, bid your friends: for if you will be married to morrow, you shall: and to Rosalind if you will. Enter ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Bagley," added Mr. Jones, in his dry, caustic way, "think soberly. I hope you are sober. I'm not one of the threatening barkin' sort, but I've reached the p'int where I'll bite. The law will protect us, an' the hull neighborhood has resolved, with Mr. Durham here, that you and your children shall make no more trouble than he ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... a different Lucy who met them all in the morning. She showed no ill effects except a slight languor, and when Charlotte had established her in a hammock on the porch, she lay there with a quiet, sober face, which showed that she had been ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond |
