"Soberness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... almost ludicrous to us. Can one imagine any foreign company able to present His House in Order without entirely destroying the stage illusion and losing the colour? There was a very fine performance at the St James's, with intense soberness of manner in important ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... his mood of irresponsible insouciance that the soberness with which he announced that it was his sister who was to join them at dinner sent Archie's thoughts darting away at a new tangent of speculation. He had so accommodated himself to the idea that the Governor was a man without ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... been reasoned with in his days of soberness, and had often promised to reform; but so many around him drank that he could not resist the temptation to drink also, and therefore broke his promise. This habit had so fastened itself upon him, that, like one in the coil of the serpent, the more he strove ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... that the best men in the host Be not such that use to brag most. If ye will avoid the danger of confusion, Print my words in heart, and mark this conclusion: Such gifts of God, that ye excel in most, Use them with soberness, and yourself never boast; Seek the laud of God in all that ye do: So shall virtue and honour come you to. But if you give your minds to the sin of pride, Vanish shall your virtue, your honour away will slide. For pride ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of the North, but I am here the friend, the firm friend and lover of the South and her institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully for yours, mine, and every other man's interest, the words of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand in the authentic records of the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the slave trade, or the importation of Africans ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... principles. That revolution established what Europe might well consider a democracy; and its statesmen were astonished not less at the vigilance with which America guarded against the growth of autocratic government, than at the soberness with which it checked the supposed weakness of the sovereign people. America made herself independent while what was best in Europe combined in enthusiastic applause; and it seemed as though the maxims of Rousseau had been taken to heart and that ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... seemed neither to carry her away nor even to affect her, remained an absolute mystery. For while I could discover nothing in the opera singers save the familiar stage caricatures and grimaces, this fair actress differed wholly from those about her in her unaffected soberness and dainty modesty, as also in the absence of all theatrical pretence and stiltedness. There was only one young man whom I could place beside Minna on the ground of qualities like those I recognised in her. This fellow was Friedrich ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... alone with God, how does the matter stand? The challenge of such a life and conviction as Canon Aylwin's is a searching one. It bids one look deep into one's self, it calls one to truth and soberness. What I seem to see is that he and I both approach Christianity with a prepossession, with, as he says, "a philosophy." His is a prepossession in favour of a system of interference from without, by Divine or maleficent ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... intercourse with them. Look to them if you purpose to give your hand to a Christian and make your home with him. There, my child, you will see all the blessings of the Saviour's teaching, love and soberness, pitifulness to the poor and a real heart-felt eagerness to forgive injuries. I have seen a Christian bestow his last crust on his hapless foe, on the enemy of his house, on the Heathen or the Jew, because they, too, are men, because our neighbor's woes should be as our own—I have seen them taken ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... approach to dishonesty. He was a thoroughly good man, but burdened and grave. I do not know that I ever heard him laugh, and he seldom, if ever, smiled. He worked hard, was faithful to every duty, and no doubt loved his family; but soberness was inbred. He read the Cultivator, the Christian Register, and the almanac. After the manner of his time, he was kind and helpful; but life was hard and joyless. He was greatly respected and was honored by a period of service as ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... prince!" said Howard, as, some few hours later, he leisurely climbed into the phaeton beside Stafford. "I have noticed with inward satisfaction that as we approach the moment of meeting with your puissant parent, the Sultan, an air of gravity and soberness has clouded that confoundedly careless, devil-may-care countenance of yours. I say with inward satisfaction, because, with my usual candour, I don't mind admitting that I am shivering in my shoes. The shadow of the august presence is already falling on me, and as the hour draws near I feel my ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... of the men of Thule be blotted in oblivion; for though they lack all that can foster luxury (so naturally barren is the soil), yet they make up for their neediness by their wit, by keeping continually every observance of soberness, and devoting every instant of their lives to perfecting our knowledge of the deeds of foreigners. Indeed, they account it a delight to learn and to consign to remembrance the history of all nations, deeming it as great a glory to set forth the excellences of others as to display their own. Their ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Corner stand forth and answer me. Drop that catechism! release that credo! take your lips from that crucifix! Now look me in the eye and speak the words of truth and soberness: Are you a property owner? Have you buildings rented to keepers of dives and bagnios? Do you come here on Sunday and pray the Lord to protect the young from temptation while you are the silent partner of criminals? Have you ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... my senses in the shape of that portrait, may have been just as near me, just as energetic, just as malignant, though I saw him not. What means the whole moral code of revealed religion regarding the due keeping of our own bodies, soberness, temperance, etc.? here is an obvious connexion between the material and the invisible; the healthy tone of the system, and its unimpaired energy, may, for aught we can tell, guard us against influences ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... it knew that a fair competition foreboded its defeat. But where could it now find an ally to save it from its own mistake? What I have next to say is spoken with no emotion but regret. Our meeting to-day is, as it were, at the grave, in the presence of eternity, and the truth must be uttered in soberness and sincerity. In a great republic, as was observed more than two thousand years ago, any attempt to overturn the state owes its strength to aid from some branch of the government. The Chief Justice of the United States, without any necessity or occasion, volunteered to come ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... otherwise," she answered, smiling at his soberness. But her tone was as earnest as his. "The speech of a great engineer should be as correct as ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... I see the perfect reasonableness of this Restraint, soberness, the matured thought, the unselfish a act, they are necessities of the barbarous state, the life of dangers. Dourness is man's tribute to unconquered nature. But man has conquered nature now for all practical purposes—his political affairs are managed by Bosses with a black police—and ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... furnished with ideas Would ye, O my sisters, really possess modesty, ye must remember that the possession of virtue, of any denomination, is incompatible with ignorance and vanity! Ye must acquire that soberness of mind which the exercise of duties and the pursuit of knowledge alone inspire, or ye will still remain in a doubtful, dependent situation, and only be, loved while ye are fair! The downcast eye, the rosy blush, the retiring grace, are all proper in their ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... men are year by year growing older. Experience and age together are giving a soberness and a steadiness otherwise unattainable. In the schools, in the government, in politics, and in the judiciary, and in the churches, men of years and of training in the new order are becoming relatively numerous, and erelong they will be in the majority. ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... surrendered her State sovereignty to the central Government, and consented that that central Government should have the power to coerce a State. But, if this power does not exist, if this sovereignty has not been surrendered, then, who can deny the words of soberness and truth spoken by your candidate this evening, when he has pleaded to you the cause of State independence, and the right of every community to be judge of its own domestic affairs? This is all we have ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... you what kept you down. It was conceit, idleness, drink, and cowardice; and I'll tell you what gave our brave captain his first lift in the service. It was his truthfulness, his good sense, his obedience to the orders of his superiors. It was his soberness, his bravery; and if you, with your learning and advantages, had been like him, you too might have been in command of a dashing frigate, and not stumping about on one wooden leg, with the other tied up to deceive the people. It's hard things I'm saying, I know, but I cannot stand by and hear a fellow ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... Tom's wonted soberness dissolved under this familiar, friendly treatment, and he said with characteristic blunt frankness, "I'm glad you came. You're just like I thought you were. I hoped all the ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... said: I am not mad, most noble Festus; but utter words of truth and soberness. (26)For the king knows well concerning these things, to whom also I speak boldly; for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this has not been done in a corner. (27)King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... settled and rooted was I in these things, that they became as a second nature to me; the which, as I also have with soberness considered since, did so offend the Lord, that even in my childhood he did scare and affright me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful visions; for often, after I had spent this and the other day in sin, I have in my bed been greatly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... step, but it must be done. She was face to face with the fact that the children were lost, and the chance of finding them that night was now small indeed. With a few inquiries she found her way to the police-station, and there she told her story—told it with a grim soberness on her face that might have passed for unconcern with those stupid people, who think that what they cannot read has ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... adjacent Quai du Rosaire, grand groupings of pinnacle, tower, and gable, more delightful even, in perfection of combination and in mellow charm of colour, than those "domes and towers" of Oxford whose presence Wordsworth confessed, in a very indifferent sonnet, to overpower his "soberness of reason." "In Brussels," he says elsewhere in his journal, "the modern taste in costume, architecture, etc., has got the mastery; in Ghent there is a struggle; but in Bruges old images are still paramount, ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris
... bound to confer this nature on man, is more than unjust, seeing he had full right to determine how much or how little he would give. Why he did not sustain him by the virtue of perseverance is hidden in his counsel; it is ours to keep within the bounds of soberness. Man had received the power, if he had the will, but he had not the will which would have given the power; for this will would have been followed by perseverance. Still, after he had received so much, there is no excuse ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... battle for him, not for the sake of justice alone, but for the sake of the tired-looking washerwoman he had seen bending over the tubs. This was an occupation she had to resort to only in her husband's times of indulgence, for he was a wage earner in his days of soberness. ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... quickly noticed my fears, and comprehended them. Stretching toward me his hand, with an air of increasing mildness, "Take it," said he; "fear not for thy own sake, nor for mine. The cup is gone by, and its transient inebriation is succeeded by the soberness ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... story-writers, militants, dramatists, social workers, and magazine editors should copiously impart all they know, or assume they know, to the world. The lack of restraint, the lack of balance, the lack of soberness and common sense were never more apparent than in the obsession of sex which has set us all ababbling about matters once excluded from the ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... persecutest thou me?' And did not Festus, Before whom Paul stood speaking for himself, Call Paul a mad man? Even while he spake Such words as none but men inspired can speak, As well as words of truth and soberness, Such as ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... which I should be sorry indeed to place in the hands of any young lady; and one against which I would forewarn every young man, who is not prepared to run the risk of sacrificing, at the shrine of genius, Christian faith, and Christian soberness, and Christian purity. ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... stedfast opposition to the courses that tend to take away the privilege of the same. 4th, Uprightness towards ourselves, in everything relating to the real good of our own souls and bodies; by walking in all the duties of soberness, temperance, and moderation; for as others are to have their due, so ourselves ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... bias of the moment. The temperament of our politician's mind is poetical, not philosophical. He is more the creature of impulse, than he is of reflection. He invents the unreal, he embellishes the false with the glosses of fancy, but pays little attention to "the words of truth and soberness." His impressions are accidental, immediate, personal, instead of being permanent and universal. Of all mortals he is surely the most impatient of contradiction, even when he has completely turned the tables on himself. Is not this very inconsistency ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... as he had read the letter Ralph went to look for Cicely. She had come down late to breakfast, and he had been surprised at her soberness of manner. On the other hand, Mrs. Drane had been surprised at Ralph's soberness of manner, and she found herself in the unusual position of the liveliest person at ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... which had hung about the men for days, and which lifted from time to time only temporarily, now silenced them again. Indeed, had there been anybody present to observe, he doubtless would have been impressed most of all with the unwonted soberness of the wagon's occupants, a gravity strangely at variance with the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of the North, but am here the firm friend and lover of the South and her institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully for yours, mine, and every other man's interest, the words of truth and soberness,) let me show the facts, I say, of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... she would suddenly become tired. The phenomenon never ceased to surprise her; she could not recollect that she had been tired before, and this must be the end of all things. She would fly to the country; to Dorsetshire, to Norfolk, to Haslemere, to what she called "the soberness of Ascot." Then would come letters describing the bliss of rural calm. "Here I am! Just in time to save my life. For the future, no clothes and early hours." That lasted a very short while. Then a letter signed "Your recluse, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... as a vital, moving, and spiritual power, he places also amongst the chaff for burning. This world is a serious world, and human life and business are also serious matters,—not to be trifled with, nor cheated by shams and hypocrisies, but to be dealt with in all truth, soberness, and sincerity. No one can thus deal with it who is not himself possessed of these qualities, and the result of a life is the test of what virtue there is in it. False men leave no mark. It is truth alone which does the masonry of the world,—which founds empires, and builds cities, and establishes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... make our own according to our capacities, and our share of which we would not barter for any goods which the law of the land can give or take away. "The intelligent man," says Plato, "will prize those studies which result in his soul getting soberness, righteousness and wisdom, and will less value the others." The studies which have this effect are those which teach us to admire and understand the good, the true and the beautiful. They are, may ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... perplexing; for they came, not from the class of religionists who usually deal in such productions, but from distinguished University scholars, picked men of a picked college; and from men, too, who as a school were the representatives of soberness and self-control in religious feeling and language, and whose usual style of writing was specially marked by its severe avoidance of excitement and novelty; the school from which had lately come the Christian Year, with its memorable ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... Epist. ad Philem. And elsewhere he affirmeth,—"Nor hath the grace of the Holy Ghost without cause left unto us these histories written, but that he may stir us up to the imitation and emulation of such unspeakable men. For when we hear of this man's patience, of that man's soberness, of another man's readiness to entertain strangers, and the manifold virtue of every one, and how every one of them did shine and become illustrious, we are stirred up to the like zeal." Chrys. in Gen. xxx. 25. Homil. 57, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... my wife in the soft spirit of afternoon friendliness, but with her usual martial determination. She marched into my room swinging her stick . . . but no—I mustn't exaggerate. It is not my specialty. I am not a humoristic writer. In all soberness, then, all I am certain of is that she had a ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... was formed by these sententious bits of not very profound wisdom would be absurd; but that a series of rules which most lads would have regarded as simply dull should have been written out and pondered by this boy indicates a soberness and thoughtfulness of mind which certainly are not usual at that age. The chief thought that runs through all the sayings is to practice self-control, and no man ever displayed that most difficult of virtues to such a degree as George Washington. ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... which it involves, and I realize that its accuracy will shortly be tested by the report of experts who are now examining the accounts. But it will be found that I have spoken the words of truth and soberness. When the Ring absconded I was asked by William C. Havemeyer, then the Mayor of New York, to become a trustee, in order to investigate the expenditures, and to report as to the propriety of going on with the ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... himself and Damaris, at times, of its presence? He must keep his feet on the floor, good God—keep them very squarely on the floor—for otherwise, wasn't it possible to conceive of their skirting the edge of unnamable abysses? In furtherance of that so necessary soberness of outlook he now ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... impatient for romantic discoveries; miracles were required, some were hinted at, while some were promised. In the ecstasy of imagination, they lost their soberness, forgetting that they were but the historians of nature, and not her prophets.[255] But amid these dreams of hope and fancy, the creeping experimentalist was still left boasting of improvements, so slow that they were not perceived, and of novelties so absurd that they too often raised ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... when they took leave. My Uncle Rawson need not fear my joining with them; for, although I do judge them to be a worthy and pious people, I like not their manner of worship, and their great gravity and soberness do little accord with ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... have granted to him an infinity of virtues, and naturally fine qualities—such as sensitiveness, generosity, frankness, humility, charity, soberness, greatness of soul, force of wit, manly pride, and nobility of sentiment; but, at the same time, they do not sufficiently clear him of the faults which directly exclude the above-mentioned qualities. The moral man does not sufficiently appear in their writings: ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... warmer was their reception by these representative Liberals. They would hardly listen to their old leaders, who had grown grey in fighting the battles of Liberalism. They treated with contumely any words of soberness or moderation. They applauded even speakers who were palpably selfish and insincere. As I listened to that debate, my eyes were opened, and I realised the fact that a great revolution had been suddenly and silently wrought, and that the ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... country in quarrels alike endless and aimless; and all this with a labouring after melodramatic stage effect, and a regardlessness of consequences perfectly unprecedented." We were, in the words of truth and soberness, fast losing our moral ascendency in Europe—by a series of querulous, petty, officious, needless, undignified interpositions; by the exhibition of a vacillating and short-sighted policy; by appearing (novel position for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... whom, in the end, nothing has meaning. He has not conceived a highest good, no ultimate goal is within his horizon, and it has never occurred to him to ask what he is living for. With all his pompous soberness, the worldly man is fundamentally frivolous; with all his maxims and cant estimations he is radically inane. He conforms to religion without suspecting what religion means, not being in the least open to such an inquiry. He ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... situation to feel the full force of the great sacrifice which the soldier makes for his country. He devoted himself, heart and soul, to the cause; and what was but an idle sentiment in the mind of the flowery speech-makers, was truth and soberness to him who was to meet the foe at the cannon's mouth and at the ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... said to herself that in all probability Lucy knew nothing of Manisty's discovery of the weapon in Alice's hand. While she was helping the girl to bed, Lucy, in her dazed and shivering submission, was true to her natural soberness and reserve. Instead of exaggerating, she had minimised what had happened. Miss Alice Manisty had come to her room,—had behaved strangely,—and Lucy, running to summon assistance, had roused Mr. Manisty in the library. No doubt she ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... observation and the clearness of her judgment. Moreover, she is always impartial: she has no preconceived theories to support, and consequently she is at liberty neither to extenuate nor set down aught in malice. In picturesqueness of description she has been excelled by many, in soberness and correctness of statement by none; and, after all, it is more important that our travellers should tell us what they have really seen, than what they would have wished to see; should trust to their intelligence as observers rather than ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... to feel Billy's enthusiasm. Almost he was believing that he was doing good work. It was not the "Face of a Girl," now. It was the face of a baby: smiling, laughing, even crying, sometimes; at other times just gazing straight into your eyes with adorable soberness. Bertram still went into Boston twice a week for treatment, though the treatment itself had changed. The great surgeon had sent him to still ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... trader's store, south of the post. Tradition had it that the track was worn by night raiders, bearing contraband fluids from store to barracks in the days before such traffic was killed by that common sense promoter of temperance, soberness and chastity—the post exchange. Along that bluff line, from the storehouse toward the hospital, invisible, doubtless, from either building or from the bluff itself, but thrown in sharp relief against that rectangular inlet of starry sky, two black figures, crouching and bearing some long, flat ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... and the deep ringing soberness of his voice startled the girl into suddenly uplifting her eyes to his face. What she read there instantly changed her mood from ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... which, during so many years of separation, they had nourished and kept warm by glowing assurances and fiery declarations, must now be removed from the hot-house of imagination, where it had been excited to false growth by the eloquence of letters, and transplanted into a world of truth and soberness. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Their own regiment had gone, but they had warm interest in its successors. They knew Downs, had known him ever since his younger days when, a trig young Irish-Englishman, some Londoner's discharged valet, he had 'listed in the cavalry, as he expressed it, to reform. A model of temperance, soberness, and chastity was Downs between times, and his gifts as groom of the chambers, as well as groom of the stables, made him, when a model, invaluable to bachelor officers in need of a competent soldier servant. In ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... "these columns of criticism to every line of writing; these endless books about books; these shrill praises and shrill denunciations; this silly worship of novelist Tom; this silly hate of poet Dick; this silly squabbling over playwright Harry. There is no soberness, no sense in it all. One would think, to listen to the High Priests of Culture, that man was made for literature, not literature for man. Thought existed before the Printing Press; and the men who wrote the best hundred books never read them. Books have their place ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... his soberness of humor and choleric upheavals, Mr. Hawke, because of his record as a House leader and a tariff maker—he had tinkered together that identical bill which, when Senator Hanway later revamped it in the Senate, produced the Obstinate ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... pony, or a misplaced prairie-dog hole, means a tumble, and a tumble means that a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of cattle, with hoofs like chopping knives, will run over him and make him look and feel and become as dead as a cancelled postage stamp; his troubles, his joys, his soberness in camp, his drunkenness in town, and his feuds and occasional "gun plays" are not to be disposed of in a preface. One cannot in such cramped space so much as hit the high places in a ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... with a blue gaze of admiration which gave the older woman a sudden happy consciousness of her long-forgotten social graces. It was agreeable to find herself attracting this young Charlotte Wynn, whose mother had been among her closest friends, and in whom something of the soberness and softness of the earlier manners had survived. But the little colloquy, broken up by the announcement of luncheon, could of course result in nothing more definite than this ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... feel the principle of God, to turn thy mind to the Lord God, from whom life comes; whereby thou mayest receive His strength, and power to allay all blustering storms and tempests. That is it which works up into patience, into innocency, into soberness, into stillness, into stayedness, into quietness, up to God with His power. Therefore be still awhile from thy own thoughts, searching, seeking, desires, and imaginations, and be stayed in the principle of God in thee, ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... correspondence, guessing least of all that that tress lay on a heart still living and throbbing for her. All this had made her a little forget her haste to assert her liberty of action by returning to the pedlar; but, behold, when she came back to the hall, it had resumed its pristine soberness, and merely a few lingering figures were to be seen, packing up ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... think so?" the artist said. Then, with a painful feeling of tightness about the throat, and a soberness of tone which he could not prevent, he added,—"That is a reason why I have always felt that I was one of those comparatively rare persons whom wealth would adorn, if somebody would only show me an ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... the day of Judgment, when He should come again, He might find it without spot or blemish, as He taught by His Apostle. And by the rule of its ordinances which may not be gainsaid, we who are priests and Levites are bound from the day of our ordination to keep our bodies in soberness and modesty, so that in those sacrifices which we offer daily to our God we may ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... working with his hands, Jacob Behmen's whole life was spent in the deepest and the most original thought; in piercing visions of GOD and of nature; in prayer, in praise, and in love to GOD and man. Of Jacob Behmen it may be said with the utmost truth and soberness that he lived and moved and had his being in GOD. Jacob Behmen has no biography because his whole life was hid ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... so earnestly in its defence), he "said with a loud voice—Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad." [140:2] But the apostle's self-possession was in nowise shaken by this blunt charge. "I am not mad, most noble Festus," he replied, "but speak forth the words of truth and soberness;" and then, turning to the royal stranger, vigorously pressed home his argument. "King Agrippa," he exclaimed, "believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest." [140:3] The King, thus challenged, was a libertine; and at this very time was believed ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... further defended with a river, which they all passed as if it had been dry ground. Seven gates conducted them into a meadow of fresh green, the resort of a race whose eyes moved with a deliberate soberness, and whose whole aspects were of great authority, their voices sweet, and their speech seldom.[8] Dante was taken apart to an elevation in the ground, so that he could behold them all distinctly; and there, on the "enamelled green," [9] were pointed out to him the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... could not avoid observing him with interest. He was apparently very aged. Long locks of white hair streamed on his shoulders and mingled with the hair of a beard equally as white. His robe was arranged with careful soberness, and in his hand he carried a staff, though his erect and firm figure did not seem to need its support. In his clear, bright eye, his ruddy cheek and benign expression, appeared intelligence, health and goodness, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... the last campaign; and the count, your father, had a very high opinion of his military abilities. At first he was looked upon somewhat doubtfully in our camp, seeing that he did not keep a long face, but was ready with a jest and a laugh with high and low, and that he did not affect the soberness of costume favoured by our party; but that soon passed off, when it was seen how zealous he was in the cause, how ready to share in any dangerous business; while he set an example to all, by the cheerfulness with which he bore fatigue and hardship. Next ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... each man's own heart was a little University Church, the pericardium a little University churchyard, wherein are buried the lust of the flesh, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world; the veins and arteries, little clergymen and bishops ministering therein; and the blood a stream of soberness, temperance and chastity perpetually ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... have conveyed to him. His own experience is so vivid, he is so superlatively conscious of himself, that if, day after day, he is allowed to hector and hear nothing but approving echoes, he will lose his hold on the soberness of things and take himself in earnest for a god. Talk might be to such an one the very way of moral ruin; the school where he might learn to be at ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that which they will never obtain, and that is, happiness independent of God. Some tell us that they mean to make the most of life, and to be happy while they live; therefore, begone, reflection! religion is not for the spring-tide of youth; mirth and merry days are for the young; soberness and the russet garb of autumn belong to the decline of life, which certainly to them, they think, is far off;—as though every material necessary for their last, long sleep, may not at this moment be in the warerooms and shops; as though they ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... and good works, in GOD'S holy dread, prepare thyself for food to strengthen thy nature which would else fail. And to this intent shall every Christian man clothe and feed his body; that it may the better serve his Lord, in whatsoever he does. In the morning, thou shalt go to thy meat, with soberness and measure; care for thy self in thy meat-time; and after meat, make thou praising to thy Lord that He has fed thee, and also before meat, and for all the good deeds that He has done to thee. First, or ever thou goest to meat, thou shalt mourn as holy Job did, who ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... of Barclay's writings, and especially of the "Ship of Fools," now lies. Nowhere so accessibly, so fully, and so truthfully will be found the state of Henry the Eighth's England set forth. Every line bears the character of truthfulness, written as it evidently is, in all the soberness of sadness, by one who had no occasion to exaggerate, whose only object and desire was, by massing together and describing faithfully the follies and abuses which were evident to all, to shame every class into some degree of moral ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... resolution, like a man with a task before him, who mutters, 'Well, it's got to be done, and I'll do it.' At a hazard, he was two- or three-and-thirty, but below his neck he looked older. He was dressed like everybody, but his costume had, somehow, an effect of soberness beyond his years. It was decidedly not smart, and smartness was the dominant note at ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... not re-opened in October with the other schools. The Principal writes us: "The joy of the people at witnessing the preparations is extravagant. One old man said to-night, 'There will be seven hundred scholars there when you open.' These are not 'the words of soberness,' probably, but the enthusiasm with respect to the re-opening of school is beyond all expectation." Five teachers have been sent and more ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... But Neeland's soberness was of volatile quality; before he arrived at his stateroom he had recovered his gaiety of spirit. He glanced ironically at the closed door of Golden Beard as he fitted his key into ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... good examples of Godliness, soberness, and righteousness in the performance of every duty due to ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... in some way—not-withstanding her plain dress—or rather, possibly, in consequence of it, for she was a girl characterized by earnestness and soberness of mien, with which simple drapery accorded well. Her face flushed, too, at the slight awkwardness of the meeting, and she passed him with her eyes bent on the candle-flame that she carried just below her ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... and gasping. But here came an unexpected developement. As soon as he had got back his wind, the mild Hamilton turned on his fellow passenger like a very fury, hitting, kicking, swearing, and almost gnashing with his teeth; and Cranze, stricken to a sudden soberness by his ducking, collected himself after the first surprise, and returned the blows with a ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Pusey dwells upon? He is, it seems to us, and he is not. No doubt the Roman Catholic system is in practice a wide one, and he has a right, which we are glad to see that he is disposed to exercise, to maintain the claims of moderation and soberness, and to decline to submit his judgment to the fashionable theories of the hour. A stand made for independence and good sense against the pressure of an exacting and overbearing dogmatism is a good thing for everybody, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... never had I dared hope I should return. And I set mine arm very swift and eager about the Maid, and pointed, so that she see quickly the wonder and safe Mightiness of that which did be our Refuge for all our life to come, if but that we to win unto it. And the Maid to look with a great and earnest soberness and a lovely gladness and utter soul and heart interest, unto that Place that bare me, and where I to have come from, ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... sportsman; not too fat, glossy as a raven's wing, swinging his ears and sporran like a little Highlander. We approached him silently. Suddenly his nose went up from its imagined trail, and he came rushing at our legs. From him, as a garment drops from a man, dropped all his strange soberness; he became in a single instant one fluttering eagerness. He leaped from life to life in one bound, without hesitation, without regret. Not one sigh, not one look back, not the faintest token of gratitude or regret at leaving those good people who had tended him for a whole year, buttered ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... opportunities for serious conversation with her. There was always some butterfly or another flitting about, and when Philip showed by his manner that he was not pleased, Ruth laughed merrily enough and rallied him on his soberness—she declared he was getting to be grim and unsocial. He talked indeed more with Alice than with Ruth, and scarcely concealed from her the trouble that was in his mind. It needed, in fact, no word from him, for she saw clearly enough what ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... up in the heart—treasures of charity, piety, temperance, and soberness. These treasures a man takes with him beyond death when he leaves ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... praised on all sides, Jim beamed like a proud boy. As for Julia, every day brought to her notice something new to admire in this wonderful lover of hers: his scowl as he fixed his engine, the smile that always met hers, the instant soberness and attention with which he answered any question as to his work from the older doctor—all this was delightful to her. And when he took her to luncheon, his careless big fingers on the ready gold pieces and his easy nod to the waiter were not lost upon Julia. She had loved him for himself, but ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... different pursuits and professions, educated in different parts of the world, and drawn together by grand national events,—statesmen born in the age when liberty had its first grand revival, and was guarded by soberness of thought, and tried by every variety and extent of sacrifice—by men who had no professional, exclusive interest to provide for, but who expected to fight and die for their convictions, who sought only to lay the foundation of a nationality for future generations, and for the ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams
... as to plead that his view of education and studies is in the general, as it seems to me, sound enough, and fitted for all sorts and conditions of men, whatever their pursuits may be. "An intelligent man," says Plato, "will prize those studies, which result in his soul getting soberness, righteousness, and wisdom, and will less value the others."[120] I cannot consider that a bad description of the aim of education, and of the motives which should govern us in the choice of studies, whether we are preparing ourselves for a hereditary seat in the English ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... sixteen men were certainly he. It was somewhat tantalizing that at least half of these men, when accused of the crime, openly avowed their guilt and said they would do it again. Prescott, who was left out of all these calculations, owing to the gravity and soberness of his nature, read the accounts with mingled amusement and vexation. There was nothing in any of them by which he could be identified, and he decided not to inquire how the story reached the newspapers, being satisfied in his own mind that he knew already. The first to speak to him of the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... promise for ourselves, our followers, and all others under us, both in public, and in our particular families, and personal carriage, to endeavour to keep ourselves within the bounds of Christian liberty, and to be good examples to others of all godliness, soberness, and righteousness, and of every duty we owe to ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... the Pope. The elegant Pagan, by this fire-decree of his, had kindled into noble just wrath the bravest heart then living in this world. The bravest, if also one of the humblest, peaceablest; it was now kindled. These words of mine, words of truth and soberness, aiming faithfully, as human inability would allow, to promote God's truth on Earth, and save men's souls, you, God's vicegerent on earth, answer them by the hangman and fire? You will burn me and them, for answer ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... More affirms that, before the days of Wycliffe, there was an English version of the Scriptures, "by good and godly people with devotion and soberness ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... their republican notions, essential to the completeness of every important transaction." Thus the Chorus represented idealised public opinion; not, of course, the shifting hasty public opinion of the moment—to that it was a conservative check, and it calmed it to soberness and charity—for it was the matured public opinion of centuries; the experience, and usually the sad experience, of many generations; the very spirit of ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... stature with a critical eye. "She's only about half as tall as you. How funny you'll look together!" With sudden soberness and sweetness, "But, seriously, David, I'm proud of your courage in taking a girl for herself regardless of her surroundings. So few men would be willing to face the ridicule and the criticism, and all the social difficulties." She nodded encouragingly. "Go in and win! ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... willing to forsake the thoughtful soberness of antique oak-panelling for the tinsel of Venetian gold and the richness of Genoa velvet, Florentine tapestry, and Persian arras? If so, we will ascend to the drawing-rooms and gallery. But stay a moment and permit this lady and oddly-dressed gentleman to pass us on their exit ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... human wisdom to face these awful problems of infinite depth without finding the strongest evidence of its utter incapacity and helplessness? Like a feather in the blast, our kingly and wise preacher (beyond whom none can ever go) is whirled, for the time being, from his soberness, and, in sorrow akin to despair, gives counsel that is in itself revolting to all soberness and wisdom. Nothing could so powerfully speak the awful chaos of his soul; and—mark it well—in that same awful ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... out of the civil wars, Tom o' Bedlams did travel about the country; they had been poor distracted men, that had been put into Bedlam, where recovering some soberness, they were licentiated to go a begging; i.e., they had on their left arm an armilla, an iron ring for the arm, about four inches long, as printed in some works.[179] They could not get it off; they wore about their necks a great horn of an ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... suitable mise-en-scene, and had to act a business man in an office before I could sit down to my book. Will you kindly question your memory, and find out how much you did, work or pleasure, in good faith and soberness, and for how much you had to cheat yourself with some invention? I remember, as though it were yesterday, the expansion of spirit, the dignity and self-reliance, that came with a pair of mustachios in burnt cork, even ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Lowe, "You see it is the mildest of the mild; it wouldn't hurt a child." And he prattled away of truth and soberness, so that the potion should have ample freedom for its work; till the planned and subtle mixture should have time to dethrone Hartigan's reason, blind his spirit, and unhinge his will. The ancient fury in his hot young blood was all too ready to be ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... have ye suffered from time's gnawing tooth, Yet, O ye spires of Oxford domes and towers, Gardens and groves, your presence overpowers The soberness of reason." WORDSWORTH. ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... authority, to hurt nobody by word or deed, to be true and just in all his dealings, to bear no malice or hatred in his heart, to keep his hands from picking and stealing, and his tongue from evil speaking, lying and slandering, to keep his body in temperance, soberness and chastity. Not to covet or desire other men's goods, but to learn and labor truly to get his own living and to do his duty in that state of life unto which it should please God to call him. We know this was the rule of his life. The Father of his Country found his solace, inspiration and help, ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple |
