"Sobering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which softens a man and sobers him for a moment, and makes him yearn after good, and say in his heart, 'Ah, that I were as when I was a child upon my mother's knee.' Oh! listen to that softening, sobering voice. Through very small things it may speak to you: but it is Christ himself who speaks. Whenever your heart is softened to affection toward parent, or child, or your fellowman, then Christ is speaking to you, and showing you the ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... something worthy of her—this is such a purpose in life as I need! With her, only with her I know I could achieve it; without her, or with that gilded toy Katharina, old age will bring me nothing but satiety, sobering and regrets—or, to call it by its Christian designation: bitter repentance. As Antaeus renewed his strength by contact with mother earth, so, father do I feel myself grow taller when I only think of her. She is salvation and honor; the other is ruin and misery in the future. My poor, dear ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... lost her power of answering in another peal of laughter, sobering off, and breaking down again before she could say, "I mean cut flowers ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... said Phronsie, sobering down at thought of Mamsie's being troubled, and beginning to pick her way carefully. And Jasper gathered up her fingers in his, thinking of the time when she toiled up and down the long stairway, when she first came to what was now her home, ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... the matter?" she inquired, her face sobering in an instant. "I wondered why father ran off by himself to see Aunt Mollie and Bab. I thought you would like ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... steadily bringing her mind to bear on a French verb, Sophia Jane knew it already, and could repeat it without a mistake. She showed indeed such zeal and attention throughout the lessons, that it had a sobering effect even upon Nanna and Margaretta, who were so employed in wondering at her that they did not giggle nearly so ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... name had a sobering effect on Anthony Cardew. After all, more than anything else, he wanted Akers defeated. The discussion slowly lost its acrimony, and ended, oddly enough, in Willy Cameron and Anthony Cardew virtually uniting against Howard. What Willy Cameron told about Jim Doyle fed the old ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fight it out among themselves," I muttered disgustedly as I turned and walked away. "They will get a sobering-up before very long that will astonish them, or ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... will not glibly dismiss institutions, habits, methods of life that are the slow accumulations of centuries. He will have a sense of the continuous efforts and energies that have gone into the making of contemporary civilization. He will have, in suggesting ruthless innovations, a sobering sense of the gradual evolution that has made present institutions, habits, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... rattling over the stones towards Baker Street, Portman Square, where Major Stewart resided. As I left the office I heard Martin beg the clerk to lead him to the pump previous to sending him off—no doubt for the purpose of sobering himself somewhat previous to reappearing before the major, whose motives for hiring or retaining such a fellow in his modest establishment I ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... brighter are the hopes I have ventured to cherish concerning the course of the American people in this emergency. I have thought there was encouragement for nations as well as for individuals in remembering the sobering and steadying influence of great responsibilities suddenly devolved. When Prince Hal comes to the crown he is apt to abjure Falstaff. When we come to the critical and dangerous work of controlling turbulent semi-tropical dependencies, ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... outcome of her desires had sobered her; and, faced with the prospect of an immediate flight involving the abdication of her assured social position and the surrender of a home, she was able to visualise the consequences of her actions. The most sobering reflection was the thought that by so doing she would be casting herself to the female wolves of her world—and she knew the extent of their mercy. There were others of her acquaintance besides Mrs. Trevor who would howl loud with triumph over her downfall. ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... discovered that this delight was founded not so much on the excellence of the constitution, as on the fact that putting it into force would enable France to get rid of the Convention, of the men of the Revolution. This was a sobering thought. ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... sobering," answered Graham gravely. "And now, madame, I'll trouble you to take a chair. Do you," with a glance of grim disfavor, "need this girl for the moment? If not, she ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... Porte St. Martin, where Mrs. Bingham and her daughter had engaged a box. Amid all the confusion which troubled thoughts and wine produced in me, I could not help perceiving a studied politeness and attention on the part of Mr. Edward Bingham towards me; and my first sobering reflection came, on finding that a place was reserved for me beside Miss Bingham, into which, by some contrivance I can in no wise explain, I found myself almost immediately installed. To all the excitements of champagne and punch, let the attractions of a French ballet ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... do, now isn't it—honestly? Think how lovely she's been to us, and how much it means to her, having people here. And we've got all our lives ahead of us, Jimsy! Be good! And besides"—she colored a little and hesitated—"it's—not kind to Cartie." Then, at the sobering of his face, "You know he—cares for me, Jimsy, and I don't believe it's just cricket for us to—to sort of wave our happiness in his ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... build another," corrected Hawkins, sobering suddenly, "I shall be careful not to use that rear arrangement at all. I shall place the valve of the balloon where I can get at ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... knew it. "He doesn't even hate me," she thought, bleakly. For sheer understanding of suffering she grew a little gentler to Blair; but her sympathy, although it gave him moments of hope, did not reach the point of helping him to decide what to do about the will. So, veering between the sobering reflection that litigation was probably useless, and the esthetically repulsive idea of using his mother's confession of regret to fight her, he reached no decision. Meantime, "investment" slipped easily into speculation,—speculation ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... of the Golden River had hardly made the extraordinary exit related in the last chapter, before Hans and Schwartz came roaring into the house, very savagely drunk. The discovery of the total loss of their last piece of plate had the effect of sobering them just enough to enable them to stand over Gluck, beating him very steadily for a quarter of an hour; at the expiration of which period they dropped into a couple of chairs, and requested to know what he had got to say for himself. Gluck told them his story, of which, of course, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... can help it; only you do look so like a fat, speckled frog, I may not be able to hold in. I'll pull you out pretty soon; but first I'm going to talk to you, Sam," said Ben, sobering down as he took a seat on the little point of land ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... to realize in the present day, when we contemplate these events through the sobering light of the deplorable sequel, how immense and wide-spreading was the enthusiasm that at this particular juncture seemed to put the fervent soul of a George Sand or an Armand Barbes into the most lukewarm and timid. "More than one," writes Madame d'Agoult, "who for the ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... my grief. I drank deeply for two days and two nights after having received the letter. I then resumed my work: and with a saddened heart and a weakened constitution, labored until three days ago, when, I again broke the bonds of my resolutions. To-day I am sobering off myself: and when my bottle is emptied of its contents, I shall drink ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... this wondrous and mysterious little thing called "a woman" should of her own accord put herself in his arms, to be by him and by him alone cherished and nurtured till death them do part—this indeed gives the mail heart a very sobering, a very ennobling thrill; for beneath the heaving breast he so passionately loves, behind the eyes into the depths of which he so passionately looks, there stirs, he knows, that ineffable, that indefinable thing, a woman's heart; and that TO HIM has been committed ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... be well if our German friends would ponder and meditate those sober and sobering utterances. It would be well if they would try and give their own explanation of their tragic isolation and of their universal political unpopularity. It would be well if they in turn would ask themselves why political Germany is left without a friend in the wide ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... religious fanaticism, like all other abnormal states, cannot long exist in a mass of human beings without some constant exciting cause. The vulgar necessities of everyday life, especially among people who have to live by the labour of their hands, have a wonderfully sobering influence on the excited brain, and must always, sooner or later, prove fatal to inordinate excitement. A few peculiarly constituted individuals may show themselves capable of a lifelong enthusiasm, but the multitude ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... said Coke, scowling as if he were inclined to repeat the assault, though he was not then aware of the more strenuous method adopted by the rock as a sobering agent. "I didn't know you was there. But 'e fair gev' me a turn, 'e did, singin' 'is pot-'ouse crambos w'en we was in the very jors ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... service, the spirit of sacrifice, is the eternal verity that forms their true complement; without whose compensation, hope were but idle dreaming, and laughter a hollow mockery. And self-denial, which is the keynote of service, is the great sobering, justifying, eternal factor that symbolizes humanity more perfectly than anything else. In the introduction to Romola, George Eliot pictures a spirit of the past who returns to earth four hundred years after his death, and looks down upon his native city of Florence. ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... he was surrounded by a crowd, eager to see and to hear how he would receive the news; and the work of sobering him up was at once commenced. It took a long time to make him comprehend their meaning, but after a while the name of his sister, coupled with that of John Burrill, brought him staggering to his feet, and a few moments later, a plain ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... mistaken," he said at last, sobering. "You are the same lad the train hands put off the Atlantic Express at ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... Haw! haw!" roared the engineer, letting fall his knife and fork in his merriment. "I'd cut a figger at the head of an army, or speakin' in Congress, or a-setten' on a gold throne, wouldn't I? No! no! my man!" sobering down suddenly, into a sort of sad dignity. "Yer father ain't got the brains nor the eddication for nothin' of that kind! All he ken do is to live clean an' honest in the sight o' the Lord, an' to run his ingine 'cordin' to the best o' ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... before, watching his opportunities, driving cunning bargains, spending nothing on himself, hoarding every penny that she might have what she wanted.... And, as he strode through the village, he seemed to foresee a general brightening of prospects, a sobering of the fever of speculation in sheep, a cessation of the insensate glutting, year after year, of the great winter marts throughout the North, a slackening of the foreign competition followed by a steady revival of the price of fatted stocks—a ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... Russia began her tremendous march eastward into Central Asia, just as France was solidifying her first gains on the littoral of northern Africa. In England the fierce fervor of the Chartist movement, with its violent rhetoric as to the rights of man, was sobering down and passing pervasively into numerous practical schemes for social and political amelioration, constituting in their entirety a most profound change throughout every part of ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... belonged; who, as a vigilant guardian of the purity of his undergraduates' Protestantism, received the information with thankfulness, and perhaps asked the informer to dinner. It cannot be denied that in some cases this course of action succeeded in frightening and sobering the parties towards whom it was directed. White was thus reclaimed to be a devoted son and useful minister of the Church of England; but it was a kill-or-cure remedy, and not likely to answer with the more noble or the more able minds. What effect it had upon Charles, or whether any, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... write to some of you, but you mustn't expect any great things for years yet. People don't grow famous in a hurry, and it takes a deal of hard work even to earn your bread and butter, as you'll find if you ever try it," answered Ralph, sobering down a little as he remembered the long and steady effort it had taken to get ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the eldest of so large a brood must have been a sobering thing for any little girl, but Grisell shouldered her responsibilities with a happy heart, and united with that happy, child-like heart the wisdom and discretion of a woman. She was only twelve when she was chosen as messenger from her father to his friend Mr. Baillie, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... "The first sobering episode in his life occurred when the Goebel murder echoed out of Louisville. He reported this historic assassination and covered the subsequent trials in the Georgetown court house. Doubtless the seeds of tragedy, which mark some of his present work, were sown here. Those who are familiar ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... Jot cried, suddenly sobering down and going through the motions of turning a crank with airy ease. "It's 'most ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... her friend's happiness, and was never tired of hearing about Mr. Jardine's virtues. Love had already begun to exercise a sobering influence upon Bessie. She no longer romped with the boys, and she wore gloves. She had become very studious of her appearance, but all those little coquettish arts of the toilet which she had learned last autumn at Bournemouth, the cluster of flowers pinned on her shoulder, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... contented, even happy, gentleman. And lo! the meaning of the wild gorge changed to reflect his mood. There was no stain of savagery upon the delight we had in coming to this spot. As he said, once listened rightly to, the music of the falling waters gave suggestions which, if they were sobering, were still ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... this careless gaiety with a sword hanging over his head? It was verily a puzzle to Arthur. A light, sunny nature was Hamish Channing's. This sobering blow which had fallen on it had probably not come before it was needed. Had his bark been sailing for ever in smooth waters, he might have wasted his life, indolently basking on the calm, seductive waves. ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a very sobering spectacle, but it seems to arouse the delighted enthusiasm of an American majority. For such an aberration there is but a single and efficient remedy: absorption in our own affairs, the discriminating study of efficient ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Cheyenne was just sobering up after its brief and tempestuous reign as headquarters town, and though depleted and thin, it was now making a bid for permanency. But the sting and wildness of life had departed with the construction operations, and now ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... the end of his career—he died next year—when he wrote these letters, and that the peace proposals which he deprecated, and which he did not a little to avert, were dictated on the one side by the sobering down of the first Revolutionary fervour under the Directory; on the other by the persistent ill-success of the Allies, and the conflicts of interest and principle ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... Marian there was something more congenial than about her city friends, and day after day found her there, watching while Marian fashioned into shape the beautiful little garments, the sight of which had over Katy a strangely quieting influence, sobering her down and maturing her more than all the years of her life had done. Those were happy hours spent with Marian Hazelton, the happiest of the entire day, and Katy felt it keenly when Wilford at last interfered, telling her she was growing quite too familiar with that sewing woman, and ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... forward, gathering speed to an extent that was a revelation in motoring to Ffrench. The keen air, the giddy rush through the dark, were a sobering tonic. After a while he spoke to the man beside him, nervously embarrassed by a situation ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... was a source of dismay to the man, who had suddenly become aware that she was again dressed in the tailored suit which had so caught his fancy earlier in the day. His dismay became evident to Kate, the onlooker. Helen, too, noted the effect in his sobering ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Effects and the New Outlook.—The European conflict will probably exercise a strong sobering influence upon the minds of the people. The gravity of the crisis, whatever victories may crown our arms, will be reflected in the gravity of the people. A new dignity, a greater self-respect, ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... indulge in gentle melancholy these closing days of autumn, and invite the weather in, without being taken to task for it? One should no more wish to escape from the sobering influence of the October days than from the joy of the June days, or the thrill in the wide ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... man. You're going to your room, and to bed. You got up too early. Listen,"—as the sobering man began to resent the interference,—"there's an officer looking at us. He will do nothing if you will go along quietly with me, but if you make a scene I'll hand ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... Moss, sobering somewhat, began to set forth his plan for making Chicago a new and greater Venice by bringing the lake into all the city boulevards and spanning these waterways with stately bridges of a new type, "designed by Joe Moss, of course," he added; "'twould ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... law practice or eke out a livelihood on the Chautauqua circuit in the discomfort of tiny hotels, travelling in upper berths instead of private cars and eating on lunch stools in small stations instead of in the sumptuous surroundings of presidential luxury. These are sobering prospects. ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... Bulgaria, with Turkey, and enabling Italy to return to normal life? Why should time and opportunity be given to the Turks and Kurds for the massacre of Armenian men, women, and children? This candid reminder is said to have had a sobering effect on the versatile delegates yearning for a holiday. The situation that evoked it will arouse the passing ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... and the drawling voice of Fred Thayer had a suddenly sobering effect on Houston, "that you weren't hurt very bad. Your memory came back awful quick, didn't it? I thought she'd ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... at Johnny's sobering face, with the pursed lips and the crease between his eyes that told of worry. Bland Halliday, once he was in the air, would be master of ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... trees, sitting on the ground, or standing in groups beneath the tall arches made by the overlapping boughs; the level rays of the declining sun, bringing out, in broad relief, their grotesque varieties of costume; the gradual creeping on of the sobering twilight; the alternating expressions of emotions visible on the countenances of the listeners, made the scene striking ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... the sobering influences of middle age had touched him, and a wife and children bound him with the quiet ties of home, he had (at long intervals) his "restless times," when his good "missis" would bring out a little store laid by in one of the children's socks, and would bid him "Be off, and get a ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... down the road to meet him after business! And the way she laughed when they were looking for a house. By Jove! that laugh of hers! At the memory he grinned, then grew suddenly grave. Marriage certainly changed a woman far more than it did a man. Talk about sobering down. She had lost all her go in two months! Well, once this boy business was over she'd get stronger. He began to plan a little trip for them. He'd take her away and they'd loaf about together somewhere. After all, dash it, they were young still. She'd got into a groove; he'd have to force her ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... street-boy with him. He was formidable by reason of a quick, sarcastic turn and a spiteful disposition. Perhaps David looked less strictly after him in Angouleme; or, perhaps, as the lad grew older, his mentor put more trust in him, or in the sobering influences of a country town; but be that as it may, Cerizet (all unknown to his sponsor) was going completely to the bad, and the printer's apprentice was acting the part of a Don Juan among little work girls. His morality, learned in Paris drinking-saloons, ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... all himself slowly, and was so very quiet and well-behaved all the time that Tommy hoped he was sobering down. They had gone a little way from the shop when he found that the ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... was thick with people, but by no means uncomfortably crowded; altogether that assembly must have numbered many thousands. They were brilliantly, even fantastically dressed, the men as fancifully as the women, for the sobering influence of the Puritan conception of dignity upon masculine dress had long since passed away. The hair of the men, too, though it was rarely worn long, was commonly curled in a manner that suggested the barber, and baldness had vanished from the earth. Frizzy straight-cut masses that would have ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... brought matters to a sobering climax.* When it was settled, resentment lingered, but the tension was never again so acute. Both Great Britain and in Canada the normal sympathy with the cause of the Union revived as the war went on. ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... making saucy comments, quite as of old. It was only when Dot Manning, toward the end of the visit, began a sober tale of the misfortunes which had come thronging into the life of one of their classmates, that Georgiana's face, sobering into sympathetic gravity, betrayed to her companions a curious change which had come upon it since ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... a procession of fashionable gowns parading the mountains to transform our women, while the sight of swallow-tails and silk hats might do as much for the men, for like the rest of the world we take up the superficial with ease, but"—sobering again—"to give our people a glimpse into the knowledge contained in books, to waken us to life's highest harmonies and open our eyes to nature's beautiful hidden colours, is going to take a long time, and as I said, somebody must work and sacrifice ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... worked by the action into an exuberance of pleasure. Glenn complimented her riding as well as her rosy cheeks. There was indeed a sweetness in working at a task as she had worked to learn to ride in Western fashion. Every turn of her mind seemed to confront her with sobering antitheses of thought. Why had she come to love to ride down a lonely desert road, through ragged cedars where the wind whipped her face with fragrant wild breath, if at the same time she hated the West? Could she hate a country, however barren and rough, if it had saved the health ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... face sobering. "I don't care. I'll show them yet," he gritted, urging old Jinny along with sundry coaxes and promises of a real meal upon ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... thoughtless and unconcerned as if it had never crossed his path. Such irrational elasticity and innocent improvidence would never put two and two together. Every morning there would be a new world with the same fool to live in it. But let some sobering passion, some serious interest, lend perspective to the mind, and a point of reference will immediately be given for protracted observation; then the laws of nature will begin to dawn upon thought. Every experiment will become a lesson, every event will be remembered as ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... little turgid life dwindled to its true proportions; and he saw himself (that great flame-hearted martyr!) stand like a speck under the cool cupola of the night. Thus he felt his careless injuries already soothed; the live air of out-of-doors, the quiet of the world, as if by their silent music, sobering and ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from the doorway; and through a white mist of milk, the Englishman had a vision of the business end of two rifles pointed at him at short range, held by rough bearded customers, and of a white-faced girl convulsed in laughter. The sobering effect of the metal throat of a rifle a few inches removed from your breast is considerable, and the Intelligence officer was a captured man. But for a moment only. Something swished past his ear, and a great star appeared in the white-washed plaster, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... wisely, and not in a censorious and Pharisaical spirit, this sordid record, which is yet interspersed with things so fragrant and beautiful, may have a sobering and uplifting effect. One sees a man hampered by ill-health, by a temperament childishly greedy of momentary pleasure, by irritability, suspicion, vanity and luxuriousness, again and again expressing a deep belief in unselfish ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... on what at best was a lamentable situation. Some said he was a traitor to his country. These were his enemies, personal, political and journalistic. Some called him a patriot who put humanity above nationality, a new John the Baptist come out of the wilderness to preach a sobering doctrine of world-peace to a world made drunk on war. And these were his followers. Of the first—his friends—there were not many left. Of the second group there were millions that multiplied themselves. Of the third there had been at the outset but a timorous and furtive few, and they mostly ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... scythe to the corn, and the student to his book; and no one been any the wiser of the loss. There are not many works extant, if you look the alternative all over, which are worth the price of a pound of tobacco to a man of limited means. This is a sobering reflection for the proudest of our earthly vanities. Even a tobacconist may, upon consideration, find no great cause for personal vainglory in the phrase; for although tobacco is an admirable sedative, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shouting and shuffling of naked feet, and anon the sound of a voice, loud and harsh, asking for leave to speak with the praetorian praefect. Caius Nepos paused, tablets in hand. Strangely enough the voice, though well-known, seemed to have a sobering effect on all these ebullient tempers. Marcus Ancyrus, who was the most calm among them all, threw a quick glance of inquiry on his host, one or two furtive glances were exchanged, a look that was half-ashamed crept into some of the faces, and there were hurried, ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... violently surprised, and tried hard to get at his true reasons. She saw with the piercing eye of a relation—that eye from which hardly anything can ever be hidden—that something had happened and that the something was sobering and unpleasant. She could not imagine what it was, for she did not know he had been to Creeper Cottage the night before and all the afternoon and at dinner he had talked and behaved as usual. Now he did not talk at all, and his behaviour was limited to a hasty packing of portmanteaus. Determined ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the general, your honor," said the sergeant of the regiment, upon whom the mention of his officer's name seemed at once to have a sobering influence. Assisting me to rise (for I was weak as a child), he led me through the dense crowd, who, such is the influence of example, now formed into line, and as well as their state permitted, gave me a military salute as I passed. "Follow me, sir," said ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering reality of things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit, and as I shaved I argued why I of all men should leave the woman I loved to go back to fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous north. Even if Evesham ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... was agreeably surprised to find the sobering effect which her rebuke seemed to have upon her husband's native tenants. She knew her influence over them, especially over the old native families, but in all her dealings and close association with them she could not remember an impromptu speech of ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... the shock of recognition brought him to his senses,—temporarily. He was even able to indulge himself in a quiet, sobering grin at his own folly. He passed the policeman with a nod and a cool word in response to the man's good-natured, "Good-night, sir." Number 9 was on the other side of the street; and he favored its blank and dreary ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... never himself observed the descent of the Spirit, or anything like it. The ceasing of special manifestations of the Spirit in and after baptism, and the enforced renunciation of seeing baptism accompanied by special shocks, must be regarded as the first stage in the sobering of ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... of that mad ride, she could not tell. No doubt it sprang from both, owing a part to each. She controlled herself, however. A shy, upward glance at the stern, set face of the man whose arm encircled and held her fast had a curiously sobering effect upon her. Their eyes met, and he smiled a friendly, reassuring smile, such as a father might have bestowed upon ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... on the mountains now, Mr. Bray," said Eugenia, taking her handkerchief at last from her sobering ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... Double-Crank, until it had come to be looked upon as an inalienable right. The Glorious Fourth had been celebrated, come rain, come shine. Usually the celebration was so generous that it did not stop at midnight; anywhere within a week was considered permissible, a gradual tapering off—not to say sobering up—being the custom with the more ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... if you'd fell down and had a fit." And then he rocked on his heels, filled with joviality clear down to his rubber soles. Anon, though, he remembered the responsibilities of his position. "Still, at that, and even so," said he, sobering himself, "enough of a good thing's enough." He glared accusingly, yea, condemningly, at the unwitting cause ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... her carriage, which was not forthcoming, and upon inquiry George Douglas learned that, having counted upon another day in the city, Mike was now going through with a series of plunge-baths, by way of sobering himself ere appearing before his mistress. This, however, George kept from Madam Conway, not wishing to alarm her; and when after a time Mike appeared, sitting bolt upright upon the box, with the lines ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... Carr laughed—an unfortunate, high-pitched laugh with no mirth in it. "Let me present my wife," he said, sobering ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... later Rayder was stretched upon the lounge in the little back office, dead to the world. Amos sat by the window sobering up until the grey of the morning. The sleeping man roused, and Amos gave him another half goblet of whisky followed by a sip of water. He had drawn the blinds and left the coal-oil lamp burning when it grew ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... beat her, don't fight," faltered Yefrem, on whom this unexpected adventure began to have a sobering effect. ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... strangely from the urchin I remember on Winchester meads; and in the sobering he has grown exalted. A man might almost say," mused my father, "that the imp in him had shed itself off and taken flesh in that Master Fett I left snoring with his head on my dining-table. An earthy spirit, that Master Fett; earthy and yet somewhat inhuman. Your Nat Fiennes has the clue of life—if ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... her yet," said Betty, her face sobering a little. But it brightened again as she added with conviction: "I think we know enough about that little lady to be sure she'll take it standing up and be prouder than ever of ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... cries and the oaths that issued from the cabaret's open doors and windows. The Villerville fisherman loved Bacchus only, second to Neptune; when he was not out casting his net into the Channel he was drinking up his spoils. It was during the sobering process only that affairs of a purely domestic nature engaged his attention. Some of the streets were permeated with noxious odors, with the poison of absinthe and the fumes of cheap brandy. Noisy, reeling groups ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... may say everything without a fear of its harming them. He felt quite sure that, say what he would, Mary would always be hopeful and courageous; and he felt some secret idea that his own gloomy forebodings were of service in restricting and sobering what seemed to him her too sanguine nature. He blindly reverenced, without ability fully to comprehend, her exalted religious fervor and the quietude of soul that it brought. But he did not know through how many silent conflicts, how many ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... about household hygiene and how to keep out of debt. One of our Sunday Schools is in this village, too, so by this time the students are welcome visitors, and whether they do much good or not, they learn a great deal of sobering truth. Of course, only a few can go at a time, but others find some scope in the other Sunday Schools and in the little Day School which Miss Brockway instituted for the children of our servants. This last means real self-denial, as the work must be done every day. Still, ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... Judge," said he. "See what a heap of money I've got from this case. Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never had so much money in my life before, put it all together." Then, crossing his arms upon the table, his manner sobering down, he added: "I have got just five hundred dollars; if it were only seven hundred and fifty, I would go directly and purchase a quarter section of land, and settle it ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... underneath. On the bed lay an umbrella and a big straw hat, and on the table, a music-roll unfurled, an ink-stand, and sheets of ruled paper. Behind him stood a wardrobe faced with a mirror, but somehow he did not care to see his own face just then. He was sobering. ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... Davy. "Time was once when I thought money was just all and Tommy in this world. My gough, yes, when I was a slip of a lad, didn't I?" said he, sobering very suddenly. "The father was lost in a gale at the herrings, and the mawther had to fend for the lot of us. They all went off except myself—the sisters and brothers. Poor things, they wasn't willing to stay with us, and no wonder. But there's mostly an ould person about every Manx ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... an amused smile. "'I thank the gods for a saving sense of humor,'" she quoted. Her face instantly sobering she said: "We ought to see Aunt Rose at once about this newspaper affair. Perhaps the three of us ought to go up to her house before dinner. We ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... She was sobering, though, slowly and surely into a state of panic. At Broadway the swirl of the dinner-bound was already tightening. Lights began to pop out in the tall, narrow office and loft buildings of the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... except in the breast of a fool, Mommsen justifies the Roman conquests: "Kraft des Gesetzes dass das zum Staat entwickelte Volk die politisch unmuendigen, das civilisirte die geistig unmuendigen in sich aufloest." The same idea was imparted into the theory of ethics by Kirchmann, and appears, with a sobering touch, in the Geschichte Jesu of Hase, the most popular German divine: "Der Einzelne wird nach der Groesse seiner Ziele, nach den Wirkungen seiner Thaten fuer das Wohl der Voelker gemessen, aber nicht nach dem Maasse der Moral und des Rechts.—Vom Leben im Geiste seiner Zeit haengt nicht der ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... for pity. The houses were closed. Watchers lounged at the doors, drinking and smoking and jesting together, being by this time recklessly and brutally hardened to their office. They knew not from day to day when their own turn might come; but this knowledge seemed to have an evil rather than a sobering effect upon them. ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... deposited at one of the banks in Christminster, having fortunately been left untouched. To get to Marygreen, therefore, his only course was walking; and the distance being nearly twenty miles, he had ample time to complete on the way the sobering process begun ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... removed. Independently of that stability which the legalized framework of a rightly-constituted Establishment is almost sure to impart to its distinctive doctrines, the influence of its temporalities has in one special direction a sobering and wholesome effect. Men carefully weigh principles for the assertion of which they may be called on to sacrifice or to suffer, and are usually little in danger, in such circumstances, of becoming ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... the humorist's many, many squealings of that valentine's affectionate quatrain finally left her unable to decide which she hated the more, Wallie or Georgie. That was the worst of Wallie: he never "let up"; and in Florence's circle there was no more sobering threat than, "I'll tell Wallie Torbin!" As for Henry Rooter and Herbert Illingsworth Atwater, Jr., they would as soon have had a Head-hunter on their trail as Wallie Torbin in the possession of anything that could ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... me, with all these happy faces around, I should like to know?" was the hearty retort. "I am having a better time every day, and mean to go on so ad infinitum. You're a good one to talk about sobering down, when you laugh more than ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... followed the fateful interview with Dounia and her mother brought sobering influences to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch. Intensely unpleasant as it was, he was forced little by little to accept as a fact beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day before fantastic and incredible. The black snake of wounded vanity had been gnawing at ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sobering maturer years she had passed from one set of hands to another, until finally, in her declining days, she found asylum in the affectionate ownership of Judge Priest, with Jeff to curry her fat sides and no more arduous labor to perform than occasionally to draw the Judge about ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... the words of his mouth are but vain words, powerless, and unhonoured; but with him who is seen to regard truth, the case is otherwise. He can achieve by his words what another achieves by force. If he seeks to bring the foolish to their senses—his very frown, I perceive, has a more sobering effect than the chastisement inflicted by another. Or in negotiations the very promises of such an one are of equal weight ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... might," she returned, sobering. "It might, if those people weren't such frozen-faced smart Alecks. If they'd had the decency to come down off the perch a little I probably wouldn't think it was funny, but to see 'em sit up on their pedestal all the time they're eating dirt—well, I think it's funny! That girl ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... bride, too, Tappy," chuckled the Scarecrow with a wink at Dorothy. "And Tappy," he asked, sobering suddenly, "will you have my grandsons brought up like real children? Just as soon as I return, I shall send them all the Books ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... stared. Some soldiers behind laughed in a smothered fashion, sobering their' faces quickly when the captain turned ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... then I'm larfin' at," replied Rube, sobering down a little, "I wa'n't at Bent's three days when who do 'ee think ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... he does not send it, whatever shall we do?" cried Sylvia, who had to be told, if only for the sake of sobering her and making her more keenly alive to the responsibilities ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... everything before it. Also the lingering impression left from "Tractarian" days as to the intellectual pre-eminence of the Catholicizing party in the Anglican Church, which pre-eminence might make amends for their numerical insignificance, is gradually giving way to the recognition of the sobering fact that at present that party in no exclusive sense represents the cultivated intellect of the country. It is no disrespect to that party to say that while scholarship and intelligence are therein well represented by scattered individuals, yet it is cumbered, like most ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... as is scarcely ever spared worldly people of forty—threw a sobering shadow upon this event. The shadow crept forward too, and ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... I rolled slowly over, stretched my legs and my back, and stood up, with the last remnants of a dream playing quietly in my mind. But as I came to my feet and got a clear view of where I was, I realized it was not a dream that I had had at all, but something far more sobering. I found myself somewhere in the center of a very large prairie which covered the land for many miles around. From the sun's lowly position on the eastern horizon, it was evident to me that the new day was ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn |
