"Stern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the center boards, or other equivalent devices for the same specific purpose, in the extreme bow and stern of vessels, that is to say, the placing of the said boards forward of the foremast or aft of the mainmast, in two masted vessels, and forward of the foremast and aft of the mizzen mast in three masted vessels, substantially as shown and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... to the stern standards of adversity, Mary was fortunate. Almost at once, she procured a humble employment in the Emporium, the great department store owned by Edward Gilder. To be sure, the wage was infinitesimal, while the toil was body-breaking soul-breaking. Still, the pittance could be made to ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... ravine had also in large part drifted. How the combat was going down there, it was difficult to say. There were dead men behind every tree, it seemed. Commands were so broken up, and troops so scattered by the stern exigencies of forest fighting, that it could not be known who was living and ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... In both is developed the mood of passive or active hate, arising from mere instinctive dislike. But while in the earlier poem the theme is treated with boisterous sardonic humour, it is here embodied in the grave figure of a stern, single-minded, relentless hater, a tyrant in both senses of the term. Another poem, representing an act of will, though here it is love, not hate, that impels, is Mesmerism. The intense absorption, the breathless eagerness of the mesmerist, are rendered ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... all she said regarding his tardiness at the moment. She was a very pleasant featured woman of thirty-five, with kind eyes and a cheery, if grave, smile; but Enoch knew she could be stern enough if occasion required. Indeed, she was a far stricter disciplinarian than his father had been. They crowded into the house and Mrs. Harding went to the fire and hung the pot over the glowing coals to heat again the stewed venison which she had ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... Arslan rallied his troops, and at length succeeded in forming his main body in good order. Alroy and Asriel led on their divisions, and the battle now became general. It raged for several hours, and was on both sides well maintained. The slaughter of the Karasmians was great, but their stern character and superior numbers counterbalanced for a time all the impetuosity of the Hebrews and all the energy of their leaders. This day Alroy threw into the shade all his former exploits. Twelve times he charged at the head of the ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... presented by the slaughter was anything but agreeable, yet stern necessity compelled me to continue the butchery; and the success that attended my scheme far exceeded my expectations. The first herd that entered, in number about fifty, burst through the fence; but our works were immediately strengthened, so as to defy ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... ancient and by all conceivable methods,—is forever forbidden. High-treason is the name of that attempt; and it continues to be punished as such. Strange enough: here once more was a kind of Heaven-scaling Ixion; and to him, as to the old one, the just gods were very stern! The ever-revolving, never-advancing Wheel (of a kind) was his, through life; and from his Cloud-Juno did not he too procreate strange Centaurs, spectral Puseyisms, monstrous illusory Hybrids, and ecclesiastical ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... man about the middle height, and naturally of a thoughtful expression and rather reserved mien. The general character of his countenance was, indeed, a little stern, but it broke into an almost bewitching smile, and a blush suffused his face, as he sprang forward and welcomed an individual about the same age, who had jumped off ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Though a stern true-born Englishman[598], and fully prejudiced against all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candour enough to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen towards strangers: 'Sir, (said he,) two men of any other nation who are shewn into ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... calm with a happy phrase the agitated waters of debate. There were ASQUITH, strong in the affection of his friends, and LLOYD GEORGE, braced to action by the invectives of his foes. There were LAW and LANSDOWNE, staunch defenders of the citadel in which the last of the Tories, stern and unbending as ever, had sought refuge. Waterford had sent JOHN REDMOND, the pride and champion of a nation, the unwearied vindicator of Ireland's right to govern herself. Through years of contumely and depression he had borne aloft her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... our world with are passing through the same evolution as the trust-machines, and shall be seen at last through the dim struggle yielding themselves, bending their iron wills to the same indomitable human spirit, the same slow, stern, implacable will of the soul of man. ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... of us have, at one time or another, experienced in nightmares, the agony of attempting to fly from some pursuing phantom, when our limbs refuse to serve us. This, I fancy, is much what a fox suffers, only his pains are intensified by the grimness of stern reality. If he stops, he loses his life, therefore he rolls, and flounders, and creeps along when every movement has become a fresh torture. The cock, quail, dove, bull, ram, or fish, on the other hand, fights because it is his nature to do so, and when he has had his ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... tribe, southwest of Tanganyika, without a military campaign. In 1894, two humble Catholic fathers entered Lobemba, walked straight to the chief town, and were told that if they did not leave the country in one day they would be killed. As the stern message was delivered, they saw an old woman on the ground in great pain from a severe wound. The news soon spread that these unwelcome strangers had washed and dressed the wound, and made the old woman comfortable. "These people love men," was the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... boat and pushed out upon the water. Forester taught Marco how to use the paddle. He gave him his seat in the stern of the boat, and directed him to grasp the lower end of the handle with the other hand. Then, by dipping the blade in the water and pushing the water back, the boat was propelled forward. He also explained to him how, by turning the blade of the paddle, one way or the other, he could give ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... write and you who read get over six weeks as smoothly as we do over six days. But six weeks in grim, gray, yellowish, unplastered, limestone walls, that are so thick and so high and so rough that they are always looking at you in suspicion and with stern threat of resistance! Six weeks in May and June and July inside such walls, where there is scarcely a blade of grass, hardly a cool breeze, not even the song of a bird! A great yard so cursed that the little brown ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... herself. At the same instant her lee-quarter boat dropped into the water, with the crew in it, a boy of a mid-shipman scrambled down the ship's side and entered it also, a lieutenant followed, when away the cockle of a thing swept on the crest of a sea, and was soon pulling round under our stern. I stood on the lee quarter, examining my visiters, as they struggled against the swell, in order to get a boat-hook into our main chains. The men were like any other man-of-war's men, neat, sturdy, and submissive in air. The reefer was a ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... and I could not help shivering as I saw the stern looks of the men by me, even Mr Preddle's round smooth face looking fierce ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... great nation, growing slowly to manhood, as all great nations grow, through ignorance and waywardness, often through sin and sorrow; hewing onward a devious track through unknown wildernesses; and struggling, victorious, though with bleeding feet, athwart the tangled woods and thorny brakes of stern experience. ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... mine; he read my thoughts, and for a second held his breath. A cold shadow fell upon his sallow face, and then for an instant I thought that he would resist. But the stern countenances of La Trape and Boisrose, who had ridden up to his rein and stood awaiting his answer with their swords drawn, determined him. With a forced and mirthless laugh he took the cloak. "It is new, I hope," he said, as he threw it over ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... with sorrows as they first begun. No parent now remains, my griefs to share, No father's aid, no mother's tender care. The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire, Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire! His fate compassion in the victor bred; Stern as he was, he yet revered the dead, His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil, And laid him decent on the funeral pile; Then raised a mountain where his bones were burned; The mountain nymphs the rural tomb adorned; Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... them what he himself was. For that fierce manner of his in command, and inexorableness in punishing, when his men became used not to do amiss or disobey, was felt to be wholesome and advantageous, as well as just, and his violent spirit, stern voice, and harsh aspect, which in a little while grew familiar to them, they esteemed terrible not to themselves, but only to their enemies. But his uprightness in judging, more especially pleased the soldiers, one remarkable instance ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... barge-like vessels placed side by side, a platform being laid on the top, for the engine, passengers, and steersman; the latter, as in all American steam-vessels, of whatever size, being perched in an elevated round-house on deck. The stem and stern of this vessel were alike, the necessity of turning being thus altogether obviated, as in some of the ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... by the German ship, was set afire and left to burn. On February 20, 1915, the British ship Willerby was overtaken and nearly sank the Prinz Eitel Friedrich before being boarded. As the German ship passed across the stern of the other at a short distance the British captain, knowing that the end of his own ship was near, decided to take his captor down with him. He tried to ram the German ship with the stern of his ship, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... pillars, pyramids, the shepherd-bands That roamed through the young earth, the glory extreme Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam, The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands. Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong, As of a world left empty of its throng, And the void weighs on us; and then we wake, And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along 'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take Our own calm journey on for ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... one stern look and went on; though he felt that something ought to be done. The affair was not a personal one—patently, this was a child who played about the station and amused herself by making faces at everybody who passed the telephone-booth—still, the authorities ought not to allow ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... words, and Olive looked straight back at her with that withering look of the righteous condemning the ungodly which so often regarded a dumb but rebellious congregation through the Vicar's stern eyes. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... even of our best-trained Londoners who know the difference between the design of Whitehall and that of any modern club-house in Pall-mall. The order and harmony which, in his enthusiastic account of the Theatre of Epidaurus, Pausanias insists on before beauty, can only be recognized by stern order and harmony in our daily lives; and the perception of them is as little to be compelled, or taught suddenly, as the laws of still finer choice in the conception of dramatic ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... mind. She had tried married life, and had been disappointed; her old ideas of belief in human nature had passed away; in short, the girl who had been the belle of Melbourne as Miss Curtis and Mrs Villiers had disappeared, and the stern, clever, cynical woman who managed the Pactolus claim was a ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... [4:36]And dismissing the multitude, they took him as he was in the ship; and other ships also were with him. [4:37]And there was a great tempest of wind, and the waves beat over the ship, so that the ship was already filled. [4:38]And he was in the stern, on the pillow, asleep. And they awoke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we perish? [4:39]And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said to the lake, Hush! Be still! And the wind ceased, and there ...
— The New Testament • Various
... and therefore was six years older than Liszt, whom she met in 1834. It was not till six years later that the comtesse took up literature as a diversion, and made herself some little name as an art critic and writer, choosing, as did George Sand, a masculine and English pen-name, "Daniel Stern." ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... perceptible in her countenance, which gradually removed from it the character of youth. Paler the cheek could scarce become, nor more cold the discontented, restless eye. But it was as if some great care had settled on her brow, and contracted yet more the stern outline of the lips. Gabriel noted the alteration, but he did not attempt to win her confidence. He was occupied rather in considering, first, if it were well for him to sound deeper into the mystery he suspected; and, secondly, to what extent, and on what terms, it became his interest to aid the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... declivity a high pole is erected, to which hangs suspended the hat of the unfortunate King Erik. It is said of him, that having fled from the field of battle, he was here overtaken by one of his soldiers, whose stern reproaches so stung him to the heart that he drove his spurs into his horse's sides, and clearing the precipice with a bound, sank for ever beneath the waters of the lake. His hat, which fell from his head ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... I was so much better out of England; and so, when people invited me, I went with them—it saved expense at home, and we are so poor, oh! you cannot know how poor;" and Daisy clasped her hands together despairingly as she gazed up at the stern face above her, which did not relax in its sternness, but remained so hard and stony that Daisy burst out impetuously: "Oh, auntie, why are you so cold to me. Why do you hate me so? I have never harmed you. I want you for my friend—mine ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... With stern decision he therefore insisted upon demanding the entire sum in her possession. He could only do it so cheaply because her face and her lost foot showed that she was destined to suffer part of the eternal torture here ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... rebellion against his proposed induction into the priesthood showed, the boy had strong stuff in him. He had a mighty will of his own. And there was this in common between him and his grim uncle: a stern resolve, when duty was clear, to do duty and nothing else. Therefore it came to pass that Pedro, being entered into the hateful service of the customs preventive force, presently was recognized by his superiors as one of the very few men of the corps who, in all ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... Stay and destroyer, at whose just command Earth's kingdoms tremble and her empires reel! Who dost the low uplift, the small make great, And dost abase the ignorantly proud, Of our scant people mould a mighty state, To the strong, stern,—to Thee in meekness bowed! Father of unity, make this people one! Weld, interfuse them in the patriot's flame,— Whose forging on thine anvil was begun In blood late shed to purge the common shame; That so our hearts, the fever of faction done, Banish ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... mistress, Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,) Raise the fanged and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weaponed ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... that he did not want to be loved, or that he was indifferent to the feelings and opinion of others concerning him. On the contrary, he, of all men, was most anxious that others should think well of him. But his manner was stern, harsh and repellent, and he did not seem to have the capacity to gain the confidence or sympathy of those around him. Although generous even to extravagance where it gratified his vanity, of broad-minded charity in its higher ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... the precious tide. Amid the main, two mighty fleets engage Their brazen beaks, oppos'd with equal rage. Actium surveys the well-disputed prize; Leucate's wat'ry plain with foamy billows fries. Young Caesar, on the stern, in armor bright, Here leads the Romans and their gods to fight: His beamy temples shoot their flames afar, And o'er his head is hung the Julian star. Agrippa seconds him, with prosp'rous gales, And, with propitious gods, his foes assails: A naval crown, that binds his manly brows, The ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... from the ship's side; she had fired one of her big guns. Presently Baringa and his people saw that the boat which had gone ashore was pulling back fast, and that some of the crew who were sitting in the stern were firing their muskets at the Mano people, who were pursuing the boat in six canoes. Twice again the ship fired a big gun, and then the boat was safe, for the two twenty-four pounders, loaded with grape-shot, smashed two of them to pieces when they were ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... their absolute height. The sea was open before us, free from ice or land; and the Hecla pitched so much from the westerly swell in the course of the day, as to throw the water once or twice into the stern windows; a circumstance which, together with other appearances, we were willing to attribute to an open sea in the desired direction. More than forty black whales ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... these faades, and the medival look they seem to present to modern eyes, they marked a revolution in style and established a type frequently imitated in later years. The courtyard, in contrast with this stern exterior, appears light and cheerful (Fig. 162). Its wall is carried on round arches borne by columns with Corinthianesque capitals, and the arcade is enriched with sculptured medallions. The Pitti Palace, by Brunelleschi (1435), embodies the same ideas ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... powerful party of Vigilantes, stern and inexorable, made a raid on all the gambling dens, broke the tables and apparatus, and conducted the men to a distance from the town, where they left them with an emphatic and concise warning as to the consequences of any attempt to return. An exception ...
— The Denver Express - From "Belgravia" for January, 1884 • A. A. Hayes
... thou with pity on a brother's fall, But dwell not with stern anger on his fault; The grace of God alone holds thee, holds all; Were that withdrawn, thou too wouldst ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... across which a few pure hairs glittered. His chin was sunk on his breast, so that his sparse but strong-haired white beard, in which every strand stood distinct, like spun glass lithe and elastic, curved now upwards and inwards, in a curious curve returning upon him. He seemed to be sunk in stern, prophet-like meditation. As a matter of fact, he was asleep ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Livy and by others, that some of the noblest Roman families retained a resemblance of their ancestry, not only in their shapes and features, but also in their manners, their qualities, and the distinguishing characters of their minds. Some lines were noted for a stern, rigid virtue, savage, haughty, parsimonious, and unpopular: others were more sweet and affable, made of a more pliant paste, humble, courteous, and obliging, studious of doing charitable offices, and diffusive of the goods which they enjoyed. The last of these is the proper and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... round-backed, who showed her fifty-odd years unflinchingly to the world; Millie with her felt slippers and her overall and coarse hands; Millie, the possessor of a sugar-card—and the mighty War Lord, stern and implacable, trying to subdue the world to his will. And Millie only wished she could get near him to smash him up—"the KAYSER would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... take promises long enough to calculate interest," interposed Doctor Prescott, with stern pleasantry; "that's my rule, young man, and it's the one I expect others to follow in their business dealings with me. Don't give and don't take; then you'll ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Shorter Catechism, and of insisting upon punctual attendance upon the family devotions. The good Doctor hoped by these appointed means gradually to ripen the religious sensibilities of the little stranger, so that she might be prepared for that stern denunciation of those follies of the Romish Church amid which she had been educated, and that it would be his duty at no distant day to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... appeared Johannan, the first-born; Simon, with his calm intellectual brow; Eleazar, with his quick glance of fire; Jonathan; and Judas, third in order of birth, but amongst those illustrious brethren already first in fame. In stern silence the Asmonean family watched the preparations made by the Syrian priests to celebrate their unhallowed rites. Not a word escaped the lips of the Hebrews; they stood almost as motionless as statues, only their glances betraying the ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... Joe; you might have waited!" observed the outlaw. Slosson gave him a hardened grin. They crossed the clearing and boarded the keel boat which rested against the bank. As they did so, the cabin in the stern gave up a shattered presence in the shape of Tom Ware. Murrell started violently. "I thought you were hanging out in Memphis, Tom?" he said, and his brow darkened as, sinister and forbidding, he stepped closer to the planter. Ware did not answer at once, but looked at Murrell out of heavy bloodshot ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... flower-stem, some three feet high, still stands erect, though withered. On the green leaves, shaped like a sword-blade, swarm two newly-hatched families. The wee beasties are a dull yellow, with a triangular black patch upon their stern. Later on, three white crosses, ornamenting the back, will tell me that my find corresponds with the Cross or Diadem Spider ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... see the change in him. His face was ghastly white, his lips were blue, his massive and powerful head seemed to have sunk into his shoulders, and his limbs were so thin that his clothes seemed to hang on them; but the stern mouth was there still, and so was the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... white. Her bows flare very much, and are sharp and symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted by a gilt scroll, or, as the sailors call it, a fiddle-head. The black stern is ornamented by a group of white figures in bas relief, which give a lively air to the otherwise sombre and vacant expression, and beneath the cabin-windows is painted the name of the ship, and her port of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Violet went down to the landing to see them off, and to wish them Godspeed as they pulled away with Skipper Zeb and Toby at the oars and Charley settled snugly in the stern. ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... one battle in ten; those who ran counter to them in any particular saw their armies incontinently beaten and put to flight." Ts'ao Kung's notes on Sun Tzu, models of austere brevity, are so thoroughly characteristic of the stern commander known to history, that it is hard indeed to conceive of them as the work of a mere LITTERATEUR. Sometimes, indeed, owing to extreme compression, they are scarcely intelligible and stand no less in need of a commentary ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... while wishing to avoid harshness and cruelty in any form, to become too sentimental, and thus do harm in an opposite direction. Sentimental people too often forget the sufferings of the many innocent victims when contemplating those of a few culprits. War is too stern a thing for us to trifle with, and those whose duty it is to be engaged in it must be prepared to suppress with a strong hand anything in the ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... figure of Junipero drawn by Palou, the careful investigator will find that the impelling factor in the occupation of California was stern military necessity, not missionary zeal. From the time of Cabrillo, Spain had claimed the coasts of the Pacific up to forty-two degrees north latitude by right of discovery, but more than two hundred years had ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... out from close beside me in despairing tones, and I wrenched my head round, just catching a glimpse of him through the canes. Then I looked up in the stern faces of my captors, thinking that I had seen them before, though no doubt it was only a similarity of aspect that struck me, as I realised that we had fallen into the hands of the Indians ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... and exhaustions and its terribly small share of amusement. He was young and strong and evidently of not too refined a fibre to enjoy the Carnival; but, planted there with his face pale with fasting and his knees stiff with praying, he seemed so stern a satire on it and on the crazy thousands who were preferring it to his way, that I half expected to see some heavenly portent out of a monastic legend come down and confirm his choice. Yet I confess ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... and his voice was sad and stern, "I detest the slang you're using; will you never, never learn that correct use of our language is a thing to be desired? All your common bughouse phrases make the shrinking highbrow tired. There is nothing more delightful than a pure and careful speech, and the man who weighs his phrases always ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... the epithet and the unity of the mood. Wilde himself wrote some things that were not immorality, but merely bad taste; not the bad taste of the conservative suburbs, which merely means anything violent or shocking, but real bad taste; as in a stern subject treated in a florid style; an over-dressed woman at a supper of old friends; or a bad joke that nobody had time to laugh at. This mixture of sensibility and coarseness in the man was very curious; and I for one cannot endure (for example) his sensual way of ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... a liner. A few minutes later a factory shows up on the hilly north bank, which is Woermann's; then just beyond and behind it we see the Government Post; then Hatton and Cookson's factory, all in a line. Opposite Hatton and Cookson's there was a pretty little stern-wheel steamer nestling against the steep clay bank of Lembarene Island when we come in sight, but she instantly swept out from it in a perfect curve, which lay behind her marked in frosted silver on the water as she ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Trumpler was already on his feet and, after bestowing on the jury a stern hypnotic stare, he plunged into his reply with a really admirable air of conviction and sincerity. "My lord and gentlemen of the jury: The case which is now before this Court is one, as I have already remarked, in which human nature is presented in a highly unfavourable ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... You must, of course, be careful to avoid collisions with meteors and asteroids but if you do, they will be of use to you, for by attracting or repelling them you can change your course to suit yourself, and also theirs in inverse ratio to their masses. Jupiter's moons will be like head and stern lines in enabling you to choose the part of the surface on which you wish to land. With apergy it is as essential to have some heavy body on which to work, within range, as to have water about a ship's propellers. Whether, when apergy is developed, gravitation is temporarily annulled, or reversed ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... known that every year more than a thousand ships are wrecked on the shores of England. At sea a good ship seldom fears a storm. It is near the coasts that danger threatens—rough seas that shatter her stern-post, squalls that carry off her masts and sails, currents that render her unmanageable, reefs and sand banks on which ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... suddenly doth the sweet warmth of universal life, from brumal caves advancing, interfuse the vast abysmal air, or penetrate the deep heart of the frost-entranced Earth. Gentle, and in its very gentleness invincible, it moves, though ruthlessly stern Winter calls his rallied armies on, and snow-blasts violate the joyous prime. So is it, with the silent victories of Man's enduring spirit: we have seen Winter and Spring; and shall we not behold the full rejoicing ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... the ship, and round and round her (for the tide by that time had left her high and dry), and wondered at her long snake-like lines, and carven stem and stern. ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... and universal bloodthirstiness, were never found in a savage beast of the forest, and but rarely in a human bosom. His history was now to show that his previous thrift of human life was not derived from any love of his kind. Personally he was stern and overbearing. As difficult of access as Philip himself, he was even more haughty to those who were admitted to his presence. He addressed every one with the depreciating second person plural. Possessing the right of being covered in the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... own eyes. Her lively young imagination pictured vividly the desolation of the young hill girl betrayed so cruelly, the swift decline of her stern, broken-hearted father. The thought of the half-grown boy following the betrayers of his sister across the continent, his life dedicated for years to vengeance, was a dreadful thing to contemplate. It shocked her sense of all that was fitting. No doubt his mission ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... over now, and she could see only Stephen's stern face as he flung the despised turquoise ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... story can make a home east as well as west of the Atlantic. There is plenty of human nature—of the Scottish variety, which is a very good variety—in 'The Stickit Minister' and its companion stories; plenty of humour, too, of that dry, pawky kind which is a monopoly of 'Caledonia, stern and wild'; and, most plentiful of all, a quiet perception and reticent rendering of that underlying pathos of life which is to be discovered, not in Scotland alone, but everywhere that a man is found who can see with the heart and the imagination ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... merely, but peopling the wainscots—at which childhood ever and anon would steal a look, shifting its coverlid (replaced as quickly) to exercise its tender courage in a momentary eye-encounter with those stern bright visages, staring reciprocally—all Ovid on the walls, in colours vivider than his descriptions. Actaeon in mid sprout, with the unappeasable prudery of Diana; and the still more provoking, and almost culinary coolness ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... of falsehood. It may be—and I fear it even myself—it may be, that in this matter, I myself was the deceived one, but I dare not bring suspicion upon my tiara that I was the deceiver, and, therefore, I have to meet the stern necessity of disclosing the secret of a lady and ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... dead or alive, and will follow the ship until its desire is appeased. They are always, therefore, keen to kill a shark when opportunity offers. Fortunately, for our purpose, a calm came on while the shark was visiting us, and he kept moving about under the stern in a most friendly manner. The plan of operations was as follows:—A large junk of pork was made fast to a rope and suspended from the stern, letting it sink about a foot under the surface. C——, Smith, and I were in the captain's boat, with three sailors, ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... stern inexorable Republican patriot, who kills even his friend Fiesco when the latter refuses to throw aside the purple dignity he had assumed. See Schiller's Fiesko, act v., last scene (cf. ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... her hand, her veil fell away from her face, and he saw its beauty with the benevolent admiration of an old man whose blood has cooled. He was so tall that the erect, thin figure reminded Victoria of a lonely desert palm. The young girl was no stern critic, and was more inclined to see good than evil in every one she met; therefore to her the long snowy beard, the large dreamy eyes under brows like Maieddine's, and the slow, benevolent smile of the Agha meant nobility of character. Her heart was warm for the splendid ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of the course, snap the curb, and run riot. Sensible of the importance of his character, accustomed to hold the reins of arbitrary power; and seated where will is law, the mail-whip carries in his appearance all that may be expected from his elevated situation. Stern and sedate in his manner, and given to taciturnity, he speaks sententiously, or in monosyllables. If he passes on the road even an humble follower of the profession, with four tidy ones in hand, he views him with ineffable contempt, and would consider it an irreparable disgrace ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... girl, from thy plan! Thou art not yet to die. If thou wilt observe carefully all the directions which I shall give thee, thou shalt fulfill thy cruel mistress's stern behest. From a cave in yonder hill there leads a path, straight into the earth. No man has ever trodden it. Along this shalt thou journey, bearing in thy hand sops for the three-headed dog of Pluto, and money for the grim ferryman, Charon. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the rowboat from the creek to the river and leaped in. Dick, being the largest and strongest, took the board and using it as a sweep, sent the craft well out where the current could catch it. Down the stream went the boat, with Sam in the middle and Tom in the stern. There was no rudder, so they had to depend entirely upon Dick, who stood up near the bow, peering ahead for rocks, of which the river boasted ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... woodcut shews a portion of the King's room in Ford Castle, which still contains souvenirs of Flodden Field—according to an article in the Magazine of Art. The room is in the northernmost tower, which still preserves externally the stern, grim character of the border fortress; and the room looks towards the famous battle-field. The chair shews a date 1638, and there is another of Dutch design of about fifty or sixty years later; but the carved ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... and almost awe. The head stood out in the darkness with startling distinctness. It had the effect of being bathed in moonlight, although much more brilliant than even the light of the full moon. It seemed to him, indeed, almost as if a faint wavering light played around it, giving the stern face of the old Roman a ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... of an idea of public duty with a feeling of personal rancour is a strong incentive to the pursuit of a stern line of conduct; and the glimmer of self-interest superadded does not check the steps of the moralist. Nevertheless, Tinman held himself in. He loved peace. He preached it, he disseminated it. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... always has. And, of course, you 'belong' and so does Sam and so do I. We go out every other week and sit under these very same trees. Sam paints the branches wiggling down in the water, and I do leaky boats. When I get the picture home, I put Jane Hoggson fishin' in the stern." ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the boat. The ominous shores were without sign of life, save for a rare light every few miles, to mark some bend in the chasm. Once a canoe with two Indians shot out of the shadows, passed under our stern, and vanished silently down stream. We all became hushed and apprehensive. The night was gigantic and terrible. There were a few stars, but the flood slid along too swiftly to reflect them. The whole scene seemed some Stygian imagination of Dante. As we drew further and further into that ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... mournful story, he seemed like a sturdy oak riven by lightning and torn by whirlwinds; its foliage scorched, bark stripped, limbs tattered, even its very rootlets scathed; yet standing, a stern, proud, defiant, resolute wreck. A gushing tear he manfully tried but failed to suppress. His lips quivered and voice faltered. Perceiving his impending fate, he seemed to dread his future more than present; and hesitated between self-abandonment, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... suddenly flashing eyes, uplifted head, and a face as stern the face of Themis. He seemed for a moment fronting some invisible foe, then, smothering his wrath, he ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... so alarmed, that she wished for nothing but to get out of his reach. And no wonder. The stranger did not look remarkably good-natured, in spite of his smile; and as for his voice, its tones were deep and stern, and sounded as much like the rumbling of an earthquake underground than anything else. As is always the case with children in trouble, Proserpina's first thought was to ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... very stern. I said to my head mason, "I have ordered that thing removed half a dozen times. Be so good as to have those posts taken down before ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... it was going to be a stern chase, and laughed again. In order that he might not show ostensibly that he was running away, he resisted the temptation of having another peep through the back, and resigned himself to the chances of ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... chin, upon hearing this, edged away. He went to the stern, looking down for a long time upon the white path of foam left in the wake of the Fall of Rome and taking a harmonica from his waistcoat pocket began to play, "Darling, I Am Growing Old." This tune, played with emotional throbbings managed by spasmodic movements ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... necessary to health, the British locked their prisoner, after long marches, in the dungeons of ships affected with contagion, and reeking with the filth of crowded captives, dead and dying. * * * No reasoning, no praying could obtain from his stern tyrants the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... abstractedly, and when he reached the passage, he apparently could not remember what he had forgotten, as he walked deliberately to the end window, where, with his arms folded behind his back, he remained looking out into the street. A passer-by, glancing up, might have said he had seen the pale, stern ghost of Mr. Rushbrook, framed like a stony portrait in the window. But he presently turned away, and re-entered the room, going up to Grace, who was still sitting by the fire, in his usual strong ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... Could there be a closer touch! He fell asleep on a pillow in the stern of the boat one day crossing the lake. And the sleep was like that of a very tired man, so sound that the wild storm did not wake Him up. It was His tiredness that made Him wait at Jacob's well while the disciples push on to the village to get food. He wouldn't ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... efforts of love and intelligence from the white man, have been civilized and made a valuable ingredient in the new state, I will not say; but this we are sure of; the French Catholics, at least, did not harm them, nor disturb their minds merely to corrupt them. The French they loved. But the stern Presbyterian, with his dogmas and his task-work, the city circle and the college, with their niggard concessions and unfeeling stare, have never tried the experiment. It has not been tried. Our people and our government have sinned alike against the first-born ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... afresh each morning. It was not so much that all the world was a stage to him as that his stage was a world, a world of the "artistic temperament"—that is to say, a very childish world of which he was occasionally the stern but usually ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... the station, the former being luxuriously nested in a small hamper specially furnished for the occasion. About half-way on the road, just as we had mounted a long, steep hill, the cat managed to roll his residence from the stern of the dog-cart and trundle himself half-way home again. Luckily, he screeched blue murder at the tip-top of his voice, or we might not have missed the beast. As it was, his cyclical retrogression ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... subdued her, and the handsomeness of his face and his attire was like a moral intimidation. He had a large physical splendour that was well set off and illustrated by the brilliance of his linen and his broadcloth. She was as modest as a mouse beside him. The superior young woman, the stern and yet indulgent philosopher, had utterly vanished, and only a ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... spirit failed; he besought, he wept, to be taken ashore. "Oh, I'm woeful scared o' the sea!" he complained. Skipper Tom brought him in from the sea, a whimpering coward, cowering degraded and shamefaced in the stern-sheets of the punt. There were no reproaches. Skipper Tom pulled grimly into harbor. His world had been shaken to ruins; he was grave without hope, as many a man before him has fallen upon the disclosure of inadequacy ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... the prow, one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Choose, and do not err! For time but follows as you shape the mold, And finishes in marble, stern and cold, That statue of the soul, the character. By wordless blessing, or by silent curse, By act and motive,—so do you define The image which time copies, line by line, For the ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... shall be one day. As th' elements by circulation pass From one to th' other, and that which first was I so again, so 'tis with you; the grave And Nature but complot; what the one gave The other takes; think, then, that in this bed There sleep the relics of as proud a head, As stern and subtle as your own, that hath Perform'd, or forc'd as much, whose tempest-wrath Hath levell'd kings with slaves, and wisely then Calm these high furies, and descend to men. Thus Cyrus tam'd the Macedon; a tomb Check'd him, who thought the world ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... transformed the travelling half of himself into something that was more in conformity with the gay nature of his upper costume, complacently surveyed the result when finished, and hummed a chanson of Pierre Gringoire's, altogether unremembering the encounter in the wood, the dead robber, and the stern nature of his embassy here ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... Dr. Leroy's stern gaze did not falter, but compelled Penelope to go back to the couch, where almost immediately her tragic eyes ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett |
