"Solemn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... off the solemn preparation. Be not deceived or deluded with the mocker's presumptuous challenge, "Where is the promise of His coming?" See to it that the calls of an engrossing world without, do not foster this procrastinating spirit within. It may be now or never with ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... had solved the question of the succession by placing Kwang-su on the throne, a measure which was not only in itself arbitrary, but also in direct conflict with one of the most sacred of Chinese traditions. The solemn rites of ancestor-worship, incumbent on every Chinaman, and, above all, upon the emperor, can only be properly performed by a member of a younger generation than those whom it is his duty to honour. The emperor Kwang-su, being a first cousin to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... Aachen, in imperial state, In that time-hallow'd hall renown'd, At solemn feast King Rudolf sate, The day that saw the hero crown'd! Bohemia and thy Palgrave, Rhine, Give this the feast, and that the wine; The Arch Electoral Seven, Like choral stars around the sun, Gird him whose hand a world has won, The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... Maria, laying her hand on Eleanor as she rose, whilst with a solemn and startling tone she cried, "Not yet!" She sat down; Eleanor, pale and trembling, sat down too; but her cousin was silent, evidently unwilling to resume ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... however oracular. The Chancellor knows that any clear, outspoken utterance on the peace aims of the German Government would seal the doom of the Government; he knows that any statement of terms would reveal the glaring discrepancy between those terms and the solemn promises so often made to the German people. The people still passionately believe in the promises and assurance of an early and final victory. Only such a belief is still sustaining the drooping spirits of the nation, only such an assurance enables them ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... down the garden to the potting-shed, so he made no objection, and, arrived there, Peter, with solemn emphasis, told how he had gone in search of the squirrel, and that there was something ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... I imagined it," said Sir Henry. "Is it not the very picture of an old family home? To think that this should be the same hall in which for five hundred years my people have lived. It strikes me solemn to ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... wife entered into a solemn compact, now, to never mention the great news to any one while the relative lived, lest some ignorant person carry the fact to the death-bed and distort it and make it appear that they were disobediently thankful ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... of Troy, and no one said anything to him. I alone recognised him and began to question him, but he was too cunning for me. When, however, I had washed and anointed him and had given him clothes, and after I had sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the Trojans till he had got safely back to his own camp and to the ships, he told me all that the Achaeans meant to do. He killed many Trojans and got much information before he reached the Argive camp, for all which things ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... life. For it was there he met the Boy—there in the Ozark hills, with their great ridges clothed from base to crest with trees all quivering and nodding in the summer breeze, with their quiet valleys, their cool hollows and lovely glades, and their deep and solemn woods. And the streams! Those Ozark streams! The Doctor wonders often if there can flow anywhere else such waters as run through that ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... said Cordova, with a solemn air, "built huts, collected fuel, carried corn, and driven cattle. We've worked harder than the ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... the Love of Liberty into the Spirit of Faction. Let each Citizen remember, at the Moment he is offering his Vote, that he is not making a Present or a Compliment to please an Individual, or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn Trusts in human Society, for which he is accountable ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... commands, of their conqueror. The Chamavians submissively retired to their former habitations beyond the Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess their new establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of the Roman empire. [82] The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks, with the authority of enforcing the strict observance of the conditions. An incident is related, interesting enough in itself, and by no means repugnant to the character ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... entreated the great Father of all, "to supply in strength of spirit what must needs be wanting in outward instruction." The gray-haired man, who had lived to see the maturity of his boy, could now express his solemn thankfulness, that "God had heard the ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... wou'd have you love, and after that You need not be instructed what to do. Give me your Faith, give me your solemn Vow To be my Wife, and I shall be ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... Katterle, he exacted a solemn promise of secrecy and then motioned to her to follow him. Meanwhile the maid had been informed how the duel between Wolff Eysvogel and Ulrich Vorchtel had ended, but while she still clasped her hands ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... except Rathbone, who is wise, acourse, begin to nudge each other and snicker. I oughta warned 'em what was comin', but I didn't have no time, it come to me so quick. So I pretended to read from the book, and sez, in a low voice and very solemn, like I was openin' the funeral, 'If any you birds here starts laughin' I'll see him after the show and I'll knock the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... renowned Silenus. And when they had established themselves at a little table he developed further this gracious thought. "You are not even a doctor. But you are funny. Your notion of a humanity universally putting out the tongue and taking the pill from pole to pole at the bidding of a few solemn jokers is worthy of the prophet. Prophecy! What's the good of thinking of what will be!" He raised his glass. "To the destruction of what is," he ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... expected nobody; as if it was here itself because it could not help it, and would rather not be here; as if it had seen so many generations come and go that it had ceased to care much about new faces. Every thing in the house looked somber and solemn, as if it had not forgotten its old mistress, who had been so many years in it, and was such a little while gone out of it. They had supper in a long, low room, with furniture almost black, against whose windows heavy roses every ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... window stands confessor with his hands outstretched to bless me, And on bended knee I listen to his low "Absolvo te." Ne'er was mass more sacramental, ne'er confessional more solemn, And the benediction given ne'er shall leave ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... that it should be one name more than another. When he discovered further that her Christian name was Avice the phenomenon became stupendously bewildering. They two were in the last of the party to descend. On reaching bottom he separated her with promptness and guile from two solemn young men, copies of each other, and they were presently alone. In the distance they could see the others following ghostly lamps. From far off mysterious recesses came the muffled musical clink of the sledges on the drills. An employee who had come down with ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... cards, were arranged on each table. The fire was made up; the neat maid-servant had received her last directions; and there we stood, dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hands, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties in Cranford were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely elated as they sat together in their best dresses. As soon as three had arrived, we sat down to "Preference," I being the unlucky fourth. The next four comers ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... had only just left when another bell tinkled, and the cattle from another farm tramped to the mountain top. These came in the same order as the first and marched past the Wood-nymph, who stood there, stern and solemn, indicating animal ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Would any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans irresponsible? Have the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings no practical influence, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of full twelve hundred leagues; and that, if they wished to reach it, they would have to content themselves with one ounce of bread and a quarter of a pint of water a day. They all readily agreed to this allowance of food, and made a most solemn oath not to depart from their promise to be satisfied with the small quantity. This ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... another. But even while he was writing on French models, his judgment could not be blinded to their defects. "Look upon the 'Cinna' and the 'Pompey,' they are not so properly to be called plays as long discourses of reason of State, and 'Polieucte' in matters of religion is as solemn as the long stops upon our organs; ... their actors speak by the hour-glass like our parsons.... I deny not but this may suit well enough with the French, for as we, who are a more sullen people, come to be diverted at our plays, so they, who are of an airy and gay temper, come thither ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... ceased; and he found her standing by the open window, and gazing on the skies that were now bright and serene. Far in the deep stillness of midnight crept the waters of the lake, hushed once more into silence, and reflecting the solemn and unfathomable stars. That chain of hills, which but to name, awakens countless memories of romance, stretched behind—their blue and dim summits melting into the skies, and over one higher than the ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and chafing from the breeze of yesterday, rolled in with solemn grandeur on the storm-beaten sides of the islands; each heaving swell carrying the ship nearer towards the almost fatal opening. Her motions, however, as if she was conscious of the fate that threatened ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... our homage deep We drain to thee, though all too fast asleep In Death's intoxication art thou sunk To know the solemn revels that ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... her Liesl, as if she had been his sister. The path led upwards first through the pine-woods, with moss a foot deep on either side, where the wood was damp with the dividing arms of the stream, and the moss on the trees hung in solemn grey clusters, like banners swinging from the branches. And then the path grew steeper and runnels of water dripped down the rocks, all covered with ferns and saxifrage. Down below on one side lay the rushing stream and the valley where the village was, and up above ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... even a glance upon any others whom they may pass: having reached the hut the man at once seats himself at the fire without taking the least notice of anyone in it, whilst his wives crouch upon the earth at a respectful distance behind him, keeping their eyes fixed upon the ground; solemn silence now ensues, all countenances wear an unspeakable gloom and gravity and all eyes are directed to the earth; in about ten minutes the nearest blood relation of any individual who has died since the stranger has visited his ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... just got my dander up, for I was determined to know about it, and I knew very well he c'ud tell me if he'd a mind to. I says, 'Do ye think Edith is gittin' ready to be married?' and says he, real solemn like—I thought for sure he was goin' to tell me somethin'—says he, 'Mrs. Steadman, I believe every girl is gittin' ready for her weddin' sometime. Maudie here is doin' an ocean-wave huckaback cushion now, I see. What's that ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... the solemn, splendid Past O'er thy early widened earth Made grandeur, as on sunset cast Dark elms near take mighty girth. Hands and feet were tiny still When we knew the historic thrill, Breathed deep breath in heroes dead, Tasted ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Nubra and return to Leh we were obliged to cross the great fords of the Shayok at the most dangerous season of the year. This transit had been the bugbear of the journey ever since news reached us of the destruction of the Sati scow. Mr. Redslob questioned every man we met on the subject, solemn and noisy conclaves were held upon it round the camp-fires, it was said that the 'European woman' and her 'spider-legged horse' could never get across, and for days before we reached the stream, the chupas, ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... and maintained that he was a well-conducted, philosophical old water-sprite, who showed his good taste in wanting to take up his abode in our conservatory. We even defended his personal appearance, praised the invisible green coat which he wore on his back, and his gray vest, and solemn gold spectacles; and though he always felt remarkably slimy when we touched him, yet, as he would sit still, and allow us to stroke his head and pat his back, we concluded his social feelings might be ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... and which was falsly called a Commonwealth, frightning them out of the true Construction of the Word. But Queen Elizabeth, and many other of our best Princes, were not scrupulous of calling our Government a Commonwealth, even in their solemn Speeches to Parliament. And indeed if it be not one, I cannot tell by what Name properly to call it: For where in the very Frame of the Constitution, the Good of the Whole is taken care of by the Whole (as 'tis in our Case) the having a King or Queen at the Head of it, alters ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... Jejunus-a-um—empty—so called because there was really nothing in it; a thoroughly empty bird—except for stuffing. Old Javvers has the thing now, and I suppose he is almost as proud of it as I am. It is a masterpiece, Bellows. It has all the silly clumsiness of your pelican, all the solemn want of dignity of your parrot, all the gaunt ungainliness of a flamingo, with all the extravagant chromatic conflict of a mandarin duck. Such a bird. I made it out of the skeletons of a stork and a toucan and a job lot of feathers. Taxidermy of that kind is just pure joy, Bellows, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... was Thursday, the 28th September. On that very day, twelve months before, the Sultan's eleven-year-old son had died. The day was therefore kept as a solemn day of mourning, and a general cessation of martial exercises throughout the host was proclaimed by ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... of a solemn conclave at the Rathaus, an ultimatum was delivered by the Cabinet; and Ludwig was informed, without any beating about the bush, that unless he wanted to plunge the country into revolution, Lola Montez must leave the kingdom. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... cigarette, Deppy?" interposed Browne, seeing that something was amiss with Saunders. In solemn order the silver box went the rounds. Drusilla alone refused to take one. Her husband ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... gazed after his friend with a grave, solemn expression of countenance till he disappeared; then he looked at the ground ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... Martyrs, the little plain where thirty-three years before, the EMIGRES taken at Quiberon had been shot, despite their capitulation. When Madame appeared on the consecrated field, the crowd cheered her, then became still, and amid solemn silence, sang ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... who wanted to be put in prison, we were reluctantly admitted to the outer gate of the building, where British subjects are kept. When the keeper of the dungeon came out, I explained to him that the butler had been detained, but would be along in the course of the afternoon, whereupon the solemn jailer earnestly replied, "Please tell him that he must be here not later than three o'clock, or he can't get in!" And nobody cracked a smile until I let my feelings get ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... operations; but this provision being seized upon to cover evasions of the embargo, they were ultimately included. When war was finally declared, the protests of the Nantucket people almost reached the point of threatening secession. A solemn memorial was first addressed to Congress, relating the exceedingly exposed condition of the island and its favorite calling to the perils of war, and begging that the actual declaration of war might be averted. When this had availed nothing, and the young nation had rushed into battle ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... present and timeless, there is a sense in which the suffering of the Lord Jesus for the sins of which we have not repented is present too. What a vision it is when we see these sins wounding and hurting Him now! May this solemn thought break our proud hearts in repentance! For it is only when we have seen these sins of ours in the heart of Jesus, so that we are broken and willing to repent of them and put them right, that the Blood of the Lamb cleanses us from them and ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... leather; it ran before it; and then!—one sudden jerk of that enormous head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise,—and the bright and fierce little fellow is dropped, limp and dead. A solemn pause; this was more than any of us had bargained for. I turned the little fellow over, and saw he was quite dead; the mastiff had taken him by the small of the back like a rat, ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... The enormous size of the stones struck the AEsir with astonishment, and they saw clearly that the horse did one half more of the toilsome work than his master. Their bargain, however, had been concluded in the presence of witnesses, and confirmed by solemn oaths, for without these precautions a giant would not have thought himself safe among the AEsir, especially when Thor returned from an expedition he had then undertaken towards the east against ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... have not as yet, in terms, demanded the overthrow of our free State constitutions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. It is nothing ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... poem are conceived in the very spirit of the poems of "Twelfth Night," and in the last lines Shakespeare puts to use that divine imagination which lifts all his best verse into the higher air of life, and reaches its noblest in Prospero's solemn-sad lyric. ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... signal at dessert for the ladies to retire to the drawing room. Everybody rises, and the ladies leave the table in solemn procession, the man nearest the door opening it for them. A prettier custom, and one much in vogue in New York, is the escorting of the ladies by the men to the drawing room, the host leading the way. When the drawing-room door ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... stand up for everybody," Peggy complained, dropping Keineth's arm in vexation. But Peggy's sunny nature could not long carry a grudge of any kind. She had made a solemn vow, too, that she would never be unkind to Alice again! And there would be just time before dark to play one more ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... clouds or on a he-goat. Neither the place, the time, nor the day when they assemble is fixed. It is sometimes in a lonely forest, sometimes in a desert, usually on the Wednesday or the Thursday night; the most solemn of all is that of the eve of St. John the Baptist: they there distribute to every sorcerer the ointment with which he must anoint himself when he desires to go to the sabbath, and the spell-powder ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... confident of its entire verity, and gave a name, which, however, he begged I would submit for verification to an aged notary public in another street, a gentleman of the pure old Creole type. I went to him. He heard the story through in solemn silence. From first to last I mentioned no name, but at ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the Medici, the Sagrestia Nuova, is a ponderous and dismal toy. It is a huge mass of expensive, solemn, and insipid magnificence, erected over the carcasses of as contemptible a family as ever rioted above the earth, or rotted under it. The only man of the race, Cosmo il Vecchio, who deserves any healthy admiration, although he was the real assassin of Florentine and Italian ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... of his productions was that strange work entitled Sartor Resartus (1834), an extraordinary mixture of the sublime and the grotesque. The book quivers and shakes with tragic pathos, with inward agonies, with solemn ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... composed voice, went over every circumstance her mother had enumerated, and added a sacred promise never to disobey her last commands, in thought or deed. When she had so done, her mother, clasping her in her arms, gave her in a solemn manner that most precious of all gifts to a dutiful child, a dying mother's blessing. She then asked for a little jelly; and, on her husband's coming into the room, advised Helen to take a turn in the garden and recruit herself by getting a little fresh air. She obeyed, and after ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... now completed, the Bhurtote (no longer an aspirant, but an admitted member) bows down reverently in the dust before his Gooroo, and touches his feet with both his hands, and afterwards performs the same respect to his relatives and friends who have assembled to witness the solemn ceremony. He then waits for another favourable omen, when he unties the knot and takes out the rupee, which he gives to his Gooroo, with any other silver which he may have about him. The Gooroo adds some of his own money, with which he purchases ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Amid solemn silence the first few balls were bowled. The third ball of the first over came straight on to Wren's bat, who played it neatly back to the bowler. It was not a run, only a simple block; but it was the first ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... same protestations of fidelity and friendship, as they had already made to M. de Celoron; threw the blame on the English; said they were entirely fallen out with them, and had taken these two, and put them in his hands, as enemies. They protested, in the most solemn manner, they would for ever be friends of the French and of their friends, and enemies of their enemies; in fine, that they would make war on the English, if it was thought proper, in order to shew that ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... the fearful burden of woe borne by her parents, we placed those last mementos of her brief visit upon earth into the little black coffin that we had constructed, and gave the baby's garments a solemn burial alongside the mound of my partner, Peoria Red, and above the new mound we erected the other white cross to keep company with the first one, and tell its silent story to the passengers who flew past aboard swift trains, that two pitiful tragedies had been enacted at this lone section reservation ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... clerical career, and is trying to convince himself that he has reasonable grounds for a feeling which his father would be slow to approve. There is not the least trace of any objection upon grounds of dissent from the Articles; though he speaks of responsibility imposed by the solemn profession required upon ordination. His real reason is explained in a long comparison between the 'simple-minded' or 'sympathetic' and the 'casuistical' man. They may both be good men; but one of them possesses what the other does not, a power of at once placing himself in close ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... this subject without a further word of solemn warning. In my youth we had mesmerism with its cures, then we had and have spiritualism with its like pretensions. From time to time we have had faith-cures. They come and they go, and have no stable life. The evil they do lives after them in the many mental wrecks they leave. ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... themselves along the opposite side of the hall, and a solemn silence ensued. At length the door opened and the Earl of Leicester at the head of the barons bade him hear his sentence. "My sentence," interrupted the Archbishop; "son and earl, hear me first. You know with what fidelity I served the King, how ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... nothing, I think, better calculated to awaken the more solemn feelings of our nature (unless, indeed, it be the thrilling tones of sacred music) than these noble lakes, studded with innumerable islets, suddenly bursting on the traveller's view as he emerges from the sombre forest-rivers of the American ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... on a night; and I stood on Fifth Avenue outside a solemn restaurant and watched 'em. A process-server walked in and handed Vaucross the papers at his table. Everybody looked at 'em; and he looked as proud as Cicero. I went back to my room and lit a five-cent cigar, for I knew the $10,000 was as good ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... a matter of paramount importance for the British geologists (some of them very popular geologists too) here in solemn annual session assembled, to inquire whether the severe judgment thus passed upon them by so high an authority as Sir William Thomson is one to which they must plead guilty sans phrase, or whether they are ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... (John 13:1) "Before the festival day of the Pasch" are to be understood to refer to the fourteenth day of the moon, which then fell upon the Thursday: for the fifteenth day of the moon was the most solemn day of the Pasch with the Jews: and so the same day which John calls "before the festival day of the Pasch," on account of the natural distinction of days, Matthew calls the first day of the unleavened bread, because, according to the rite of the Jewish festivity, the solemnity began from the evening ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... side, be it said (since in our modern days every hero must have his weak heel), that now he had gone this distance it was difficult to recede. It would be no laughing matter to tell his solemn Harriet that he had been playing her a little practical joke. His temptations to give it up were incessant and most agitating; but if to advance seemed terrific, there was, in stopping short, an awfulness so overwhelming ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he was in his robe as a general! How did he shun all eyes, and the light of day, and the city, and the forum! How miserable was his flight! how shameful! how infamous! Splendid, too, were the decrees of the senate passed on the evening of that very day; very religiously solemn was the allotment of the provinces; and heavenly indeed was the opportunity, when everyone got exactly what he thought most desirable. You are acting admirably, therefore, O tribunes of the people, in bringing forward ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... friend from whom I received it, conscious that any aberration from her mode of telling the tale of her own life, would at once impair its accuracy and its effect. Would that, with her words, I could also bring before you her animated gesture, her expressive countenance, the solemn and thrilling air and accent with which she related the dark passages in her strange story; and, above all, that I could communicate the impressive consciousness that the narrator had seen with her own eyes, and personally acted in the scenes which she described; these ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... therefore he too finds himself in a particular state of the soul, the representation of which is intuitive and lyrical, and accompanies of necessity the development of his ideas. Hence the various styles of thinkers, solemn or jocose, troubled or gladsome, mysterious and involved, or level and expansive. But it would not be correct to divide intuition immediately into two classes, the one of aesthetic, the other of intellectual or logical intuitions, owing ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... first moment, making him forget his love for the human form. For some time his enthusiasm for the nude was calmed. He worshiped the old palaces, the solitary canals, the lagoon with its green, motionless waiter, the soul of a majestic past, which seemed to breathe in the solemn old age of the dead, ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... recorded in memory, and attributed to this sole cause. The dupati of Gunong Selong and his family have afforded an instance that is often quoted among the Rejangs, and has evidently had great weight. It was notorious that he had, about the year 1770, taken in the most solemn manner a false oath. He had at that time five sons grown up to manhood. One of them, soon after, in a scuffle with some bugis (country soldiers) was wounded and died. The dupati the next year lost his life in the issue of a disturbance he had raised in the district. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... owing to the rise in Whirlpool real estate, and nothing is too good for Lavinia's garden. Even more, he has of late let the dust rest peacefully on human genealogy and is collecting quaint garden books and herbals, flower catalogues and lists, with the solemn intent of writing a book on Historic Flowers. At least so he declares; but when Lavinia is in the garden, there too is Martin. To-day, however, he joined my men before noon at the lower brook. Fancy a house-reared man a convert to fishing when past threescore! ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... either side and obscured the steps and the platform. Through the smoke came the distant sound of Chopin's Marche Funebre, and as the air became clearer white figures could be dimly seen moving around the black pall in a solemn dance of mourning. Behind them the columns shone ghostly and unreal against the glimmering mauve rays of ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... Clegg put her handkerchief back in her pocket and turned a sad and solemn, yet tender look ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... afterward she found herself lying in bed, awake, conscious, clear-minded. Yet she thought as little as possible, for that was pain; but she listened gladly, for without she heard the solemn beating of the sea, the mighty rhythmic beating of the sea. Long days she lay, and sat and walked beside those vast and speaking waters, till at last she knew their voice and they spoke to her and the sea-calm ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a silent soul, my brother, Take at my hands this garland, and farewell. Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell, And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother, With sadder than the Niobean womb, And in the hollow of her breasts a tomb. Content thee, howsoe'er, whose days are done; There lies not any troublous thing before, Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more, For whom all winds are quiet as the sun, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... proceedings?—But this is what I have told the widow before her kinswomen, and before your new servant—'That indeed we were privately married at Hertford; but that you had preliminarily bound me under a solemn vow, which I am most religiously resolved to keep, to be contented with separate apartments, and even not to lodge under the same roof, till a certain reconciliation shall take place, which is of high consequence to both.' And further that I might convince you of the purity ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... squarely-built little boy of seven years old, with hair so light that it looked almost grey, and very solemn blue eyes. He spoke seldom, and took a long time to learn things, but when once that was done he never forgot them; and in this he was unlike Nancy, who could learn quickly, but forget almost as soon. Miss Grey always felt sure ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... write something." But no tomorrow came to him.—In the course of the night he had another spell of strangling, and soon after expired, without much pain and without a groan. He was about twenty-six years old.—How solemn was this scene to us! Here we beheld the ravages of death commenced upon us. More than one of us considered death a happy release. For myself I thought of my wife and children; and wished to live if God should so order it, though extreme thirst, hunger and exhaustion had ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... support my dying father. There was a pause, again my father spoke: I heard him speak of Minden, and of Meredith, the old Minden sergeant, and then he uttered another name, which at one period of his life was much on his lips, the name of—but this is a solemn moment! There was a deep gasp: I shook, and thought all was over; but I was mistaken—my father moved and revived for a moment; he supported himself in bed without my assistance. I make no doubt that for a moment he was perfectly sensible, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... turned to the solemn traveller; but my eyes had no sooner met his than he twisted his visage into so wry a smile—if smile it could be called—that wherever there was a horse collar he must have won the prize. To hide my amusement, I asked them what they ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... of all depend upon our remaining at liberty," coldly interrupted Featherwit. "Without this means of conveyance, how can your loved ones escape? Now, your solemn pledge to maintain utter silence, or I will take you back to yonder wilderness, leaving you to shift for yourself as best you can. ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... stand in solemn rows, And not a child is seen; The blinds are drawn, the doors are shut, The walks are span ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... his chair, and lifted his hands and eyes to the ceiling. I was not in the least impressed by that solemn appeal to the unseen powers of arithmetic and money. I insisted positively on being ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... were looking for the effect of his solemn warning he was disappointed. Charlie's expression remained unchanged. The ghastly white of his features suggested fear, but it was not added to by so much as ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... mountain Mou-na-roa, where he still chafes in vain. The men now lived tranquilly on O Wahi, increased in numbers, and sought, by great sacrifices, to prove their love and thankfulness to their protector, Etua-Rono. To his honour were established the solemn yearly games called Makahiti, in which whoever obtained the victory in running, wrestling, and warlike evolutions, was crowned with a verdant wreath and presided as king over the ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... something outrageous from sheer happiness. These long, open cars, where people can see from end to end what everyone is doing, are hateful inventions. It is perfectly absurd, when one finds one's self the happiest fellow living, that one is obliged to look as demure and solemn as if one was ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Parliament, Boston Port Bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... stared through the unnatural light! And poor Rosalia, bless her tender heart, Looked like her mother's sainted ghost! Ah me, Her mother died long years ago, and took One half the blessed sunshine from our house— The other half was married off last night. My master, solemn soul, he walked the halls As if in search of something which was lost; The groom, I liked not him, nor ever did, Spoke such perpetual sweetness, till I thought He wore some sugared villany within:— But then he is my master's ancient friend, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... with this solemn speech, Mr. Hill settled himself in his arm-chair, to take his after-dinner's nap; and he dreamed of blowing up cathedrals, and of oak bark floating upon the waters; and the cathedral was, he thought, blown up by a man dressed in a pair of woman's Limerick ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... indescribable pathos and earnestness for the conversion and salvation of this and all saloon-keepers. When the amen was sobbed rather than spoken, Mrs. Washington Doggett's sweet voice began, "There is a fountain," etc., in which all joined; the effect was most solemn, and when the hymn was finished the ladies went quietly away, and that was the first saloon ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... his early youth was the out-of-door life at Elmwood. To the love of nature his soul was early dedicated, and no American poet has more truthfully and beautifully interpreted the inspired teachings of nature, whispered through the solemn tree-tops or caroled by the happy birds. The open fields surrounding Elmwood and the farms for miles around were his familiar playground, and furnished daily adventures for his curious and eager mind. The mere delight of this experience with nature, he says, "made my childhood ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... and he looked, as he lay in his coffin before the great altar with the candles burning on it, as if he were just ready to arise and begin a new "Introibo" in Heaven. The bells of the church wherein the Vicar-General lay asleep had called his people all the morning in a sad and solemn tolling. The people had come, as sad and solemn as the bells. They were gathered about the bier of their pastor. Priests from far and near had chanted the Office of the Dead; the Requiem Mass was over, and the venerable chief of the diocese, the Bishop himself, stood in cope and mitre, to give ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... name of the fair English nurse might well be claimed by many of our American heroines, but, when we think of Margaret's pure voice, singing hymns with the soldiers on the hospital-boat, filling the desolate woods along the Mississippi shores with solemn music in the still night, we feel that it belongs especially to her and that we may call her, without offense to the others, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... decided in solemn conclave that master did; and further, that the place was not what it had been; and moreover, that in the future it was likely to be still less like what ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... understood at all till I saw it. My admiration mounts every time I enter: it has a different gloom from any I have ever been in, more joyous and satisfying, not in the least moody as our own Gothic seems sometimes to be; and saints instead of devils look at you solemn-eyed from every corner ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... contemplation, seeing often in the things she looked at a great deal more than was there, and yet not seeing many of the items enumerated in her Murray. Rome, as Ralph said, confessed to the psychological moment. The herd of reechoing tourists had departed and most of the solemn places had relapsed into solemnity. The sky was a blaze of blue, and the plash of the fountains in their mossy niches had lost its chill and doubled its music. On the corners of the warm, bright ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... they saw the sun rise with a serenity and majesty which it rarely has outside of the theatre. The dawn began over that sea which was like the rumpled canvas imitations of the sea on the stage, under long mauve clouds bathed in solemn light. Above these, in the pale tender sky, two silver stars hung, and the steamer's smoke drifted across them like a thin dusky veil. To the right a bank of dun cloud began to burn crimson, and to burn brighter till it was like a low hill-side full of gorgeous ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... business has gone to his head, at any rate. If the murderer were a man of business like yourself, what you say might be sound. But this murderer is a mystic. He was driven by some fanatical fad about the trees. It's quite likely he thought there was something solemn and sacrificial about the ax, and would have liked to cut off Vane's head before a crowd, like Charles I's. He's looking for the ax still, and probably thinks it a ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... unceasing noises rise, Turmoil, disquietude, and busy fears. Within—there are sounds of other years, Thoughts full of prayer, and solemn harmonies." ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... was still again, and the cool darkness wrapped them in softly. They could hear the solemn tick-tock of the clock across the room. It was the same clock that used to say reproachful things to Glory when she was a little child and had been naughty. Once she had climbed on a chair and stopped ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... keener than lover's joys, who had the rage of the Titans and the calm of the gods, who had monstrous and marvellous sins, monstrous and marvellous virtues. To them she gave a language different from that of actual use, a language full of resonant music and sweet rhythm, made stately by solemn cadence, or made delicate by fanciful rhyme, jewelled with wonderful words, and enriched with lofty diction. She clothed her children in strange raiment and gave them masks, and at her bidding the antique world rose from its marble tomb. A new Caesar stalked through the streets ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... appointed a lieutenant, and then the Mission returned to Marseilles, without results. The fathers, however, soon afterwards sailed for Tunis, whence they brought back forty-two French captives, with whom they made a solemn procession, escorted by all the clergy of Marseilles, and sang a triumphant Te Deum, the captives marching joyfully beside them, each with an ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... clock striking the hour, but it sounded portentously through the solemn stillness of the night, and with quickened attention they all looked ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... shortly after this fiftieth birthday: "It was the most solemn day of my life. I devoted it to reflection and prayer. Of my active toils I then took leave. I was certain that before another fifty years should have elapsed, I should wake up amid far different scenes, and far ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... posts, waiting, with the well-known patience of the natives, for the signal which was to summon them to action. To the eyes of the anxious spectators who occupied the little eminence, already described as the position of the captives, the scene presented the broad, solemn view of a waste, dimly lighted by the glimmering rays of a clouded moon. The place of the encampment was marked by a gloom deeper than that which faintly shadowed out the courses of the bottoms, and here and there a brighter streak tinged the rolling summits of the ridges. As for ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... read by the grizzled old Captain, seemed very solemn and strangely touching. They were held on deck, where the rattling of shrouds and the soft lap of the water made a wonderful accompaniment to the familiar words of the prayer book. The boys could not help noticing that every man listened closely ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... us of all our present strength. Dr. Manning sings his paean with wild and premature delight, as if the evil was already accomplished. In his first letter he triumphed in the silence of Convocation, but that silence has since been broken. A solemn synodical judgment, couched in the most explicit language, has condemned the false teaching which had been our Church's scandal. But because a "very exalted person in the House of Lords"[1] (p. 4), with an ignorance or an ignoring of law, as was shown in the debate, which was simply ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... almost every great constituent body in the empire. With a confidence which discussion has only strengthened, with an assured hope of great public blessings if the wish of the nation shall be gratified, with a deep and solemn apprehension of great public calamities if that wish shall be disappointed, I, for the last time, give my most hearty assent to this noble law, destined, I trust, to be the parent of many good laws, and, through a long series ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it twines; [21] And Silence loves its purple roof of vines. The loitering traveller [22] hence, at evening, sees From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees; 90 Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids Tend the small harvest of their garden glades; Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad and blue, And track the yellow lights from steep to steep, 95 As up the opposing hills they slowly creep. [23] Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed In golden light; [24] half hides itself in shade: While, from ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... they are to the moderns; insomuch that not a word is to be found in any ancient record or history extant, of those curious astronomical representations, the Zodiacs, which adorn the ceilings of the temples in Egypt, nor of the paintings which cover the silent and solemn repositories of their dead. Even the royal sepulchres, surpassing all the efforts of art hitherto known, in brilliancy of colours and decorative sculptures, are recorded by no historian! Neither ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... then as her zone A lady's hands would clasp, My Lady's own Pressed at her yielding side; her solemn tone And forward eager face implored Me to kneel ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... agreeable to them, as highly as we do; but they consider only the present, and we take the future into our estimate. Children feel no interest in half the things that are committed, with the most solemn recommendations, to the care of their memory. It is in vain to tell them, "You must remember such a thing, because it will be useful to you when you grow up to be a man." The child feels like a child, and has no idea of what he may feel when he grows up to ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... the voting turned on the project of a picnic archery meeting to be held in Cardell Chase, where the evening entertainment would be more poetic than a ball under, chandeliers—a feast of sunset lights along the glades and through the branches and over the solemn tree-tops. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... necessity of things, because it might be foretold in auguries, being called providence. There was some intellectual confusion in all this; but contemplation, even if somewhat idolatrous, has a purifying effect, and the sad and solemn review of the cosmos to which the Stoic daily invited his soul, to make it ready to face its destiny, doubtless liberated it from many an unworthy passion. The impressive spectacle of things was used to remind the soul of her special and appropriate ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... boy, "what do you suppose makes father so quiet and solemn lately—more than usual? Has anything happened, or ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... this in his solemn, grave way, though the Sunday-school was in a storm of enjoyment when he finished. There still remains a doubt in Hannibal as to its perfect suitability, but there is no doubt as to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the end of his harangue, Warren had taken hold of his arm. "It was my paper your wife read it in," he said in tones as solemn as grace over meat. "I am the editor of the paper, and two dollars will get it every week ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... of God,—between that stirring up of the natural feelings which can be produced by the skilful use of outward means, such as music, pictorial representations and architectural grace and grandeur; and that solemn covering of the heart which is a fruit and an evidence of the extension of Divine ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends
... change, too, had come over the "ex-brave." He assumed a portentously solemn look; and when he spoke to me again, his speech was ornamented by no oaths, enforced by no finger-snapping, enlivened by no apostrophes ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... speak or move, which for the time wholly awed me. All that I could discover was, that the accused was charged with incivisme, and that, defying the court and disdaining the charge, he was pronounced guilty—the whole circle, standing up as the sentence was pronounced, and with a solemn waving of their arms and murmur of their voices, assenting to the act of the judge. The victim was then seized on, swept away into the darkness, and after a brief pause I heard a shriek and a crash; the sentence had been fulfilled—all was over. The court now covered their heads ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... portrait of her a finished work of art. The child enters the world amid shouts of joy, and the propitious genii who nourish both her and her double constitute themselves her nurses. At the appointed time, her earthly father summons the great nobles to a solemn festival, and presents to them his daughter, who is to reign with him over ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... sea," said the order, "the solemn hour of the nation's claims has struck. Following the example of my grandfather, I take to-day supreme command of Italy's forces on land and sea, with the assurance of victory which your bravery, self-abnegation, and discipline ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various |
