"Sternness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to her she was both daunted and disappointed; the gravity, amounting almost to sternness, with which Mrs. Fisher received her, and explained to her the duties she was expected to perform, awed in the first place, and mortified in the second. The establishment of this fashionable modiste, with which Myra had associated nothing but laces and ribbons, dresses and trimmings, embroidery ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... brown, of the blue tinge of the white, and of the lustrous light that resided in them, but far more by their power of expression, sometimes so soft and melancholy, at other moments earnest, pleading, and almost flashing with eagerness. It was a good mouth too, perhaps a little inclined to sternness of mould about the jaw and chin; but that might have been partly from the absence of all softening roundness, aging the countenance for the time, just as illness had shrunk ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at his present age of something over fifty, he is tall and not robust, with an extremely sympathetic face that has about it little of his father's rugged cast and sternness. Perhaps it is this evident sympathy that commands the affection of so many, for I have been told more than once that he is the best beloved man in the Army, and one who never ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... and to warn against the folly of, struggle against what must be; yet they were kind eyes, and humourous, with many of the small lines of laughter at their corners. Reading the eyes and mouth together one perceived gentleness and sternness to be well matched, working to any given end in amiable and effective compromise. "Uncle Peter" he had long been called by the public that knew him, and his own grandchildren had come to call him by the same term, finding him too young ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... dolls and toys, when they began, about twelve, to use their minds (an epoch at which they ceased to laugh at Schmucke) they divined the secret of the cares that lined their father's forehead, and they recognized beneath that mask of sternness the relics of a kind heart and a fine character. They vaguely perceived how he had yielded to the forces of religion in his household, disappointed as he was in his hopes of a husband, and wounded in the tenderest ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... sternness. She adored his look of weariness. She longed hopefully and passionately for ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... had been carried after he had been shot. The sun had set, and a soft twilight was filling the room, but the light which still came in at the window fell full on Paul. Mr. Anketell, entering softly, saw the expression on the boy's face, the look in his eyes, and his heart ached, and all his sternness vanished. "My boy," he said, oh, so tenderly, "tell me what it is that is troubling you; tell me all about it, I know there is something. Can't you bring yourself to trust me not to ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... for your heart, is as important an element in education as gymnastics, and, strange as it may sound, has an equal share in effecting the perfection of both body and mind. The man who devotes his attention exclusively to music will, if he be of a violent disposition, lose his savage sternness at first; he will become gentle and pliable as metal in the fire. But at last his courage will disappear too; his passionate temper will have changed into irritability, and he will be of little worth as a warrior, the calling ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and sensitive. Was it the new love which had flung off its shield of sternness and left it exposed to every lash that flew? The misery of others afflicted him. Thoughts of injustice grew into motives of action, the loss of faith into the gain of unutterable longing. Who were these gods who heard not the cry of the weak and were ever on the side of ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... reverently uncovered his head, saluting an invisible Habeas Corpus Act. He took his daughter by the hand, with a certain parental sternness: his voice trembled with emotion as ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... in, in a vain effort to amuse, as the singing-master in the former of these same stories, or the naturalist in the latter. Humor, Cooper certainly had; but it is the humor that gleams in fitful flashes from the men of earnest purposes and serious lives, and gives a momentary relief to the sternness and melancholy of their natures. The power of producing an entire (p. 240) humorous creation he had not at all, and almost the only thing that mars the perfectness of "The Pathfinder" is the occasional effort to make one out of Muir, the character ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... a simulated sternness: "I hope you haven't let that son of yours run away with my ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... don't say a word. I'll make your excuses at Carlton House; and the better to cover your retreat, I'll employ you on service. Here, Gordon, let Captain O'Malley have the despatches for Sir Henry Howard, at Cork." As he said this, he turned towards me with an air of affected sternness in his manner, and continued: "I expect, Captain O'Malley, that you will deliver the despatches intrusted to your care without a moment's loss of time. You will leave London within an hour. The instructions for your journey will be sent to your hotel. And now," said he, again ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... There was no sternness or smartness in my expression, but the gaze was mathematical. I was measuring her candor, and ...
— A Christmas Story - Man in His Element: or, A New Way to Keep House • Samuel W. Francis
... Diana noticed, the man's face was grave almost to sternness, and there was a slightly worn look about it as of one who had passed through some fiery discipline of experience and had forced himself to meet its demands. The lines around the mouth, and the firm closing of the lips, held a suggestion of suffering, but there was no ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... Seminary for Chaplains, Girard began, through his seeming sternness and his real dexterity, to win for the Jesuits an ascendant over monks thus compromised, and over parish-priests of very vulgar manners and ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... stood speechless, wringing her hands. Her own passion was puny beside the sternness, the reality, and the intensity of the quiet rage before her. She was completely mastered by it. She forgot all but the evident agony she ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... Paul. He had passed his mother's door without entering or even calling out to her, and had climbed on doggedly to the top floor. Now he was shut in his sanctuary, his room, sitting at his table. His head rested on a hand, his dark eyes had an expression of confused anguish, a look of guilt and sternness mingled.... He could no more have visited his mother, he told himself, than he could voluntarily have chopped off his hand. And yet he was amazed at the cruelty in himself, a hard cold cruelty which prompted the thought: ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... humanity. The crews of the whole fleet now retired from the guns, and immediately after they were seated around their kids, indulging ravenously in the food for which the exercise of the morning had given keen appetites. Still there was something of the sternness of battle in the merriment of this meal, and the few jokes that passed were seasoned with a bitterness that is not usual among the light-hearted followers of the sea. Here and there, a messmate was missed, and the vacancy produced some quaint ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 16. It was then the senate and the people unanimously agreed to send deputies to him, with proposals for his restoration, in case he would draw off his army. 17. Coriola'nus received these proposals at the head of his principal officers, and, with the sternness of a general that was to give the law, refused ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... Hester was not deceived. Debby Alden came from a race who had for generations looked upon the expression of love and sentiment as a weakness. Whenever Debby felt her emotions conquering her, she unconsciously resorted to the ways of her forbears; she lashed herself into a semblance of sternness in an endeavor to ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... a religious character, whilst in the Fronde the religious element did not intervene at all, thanks to the enlightened protection enjoyed by the Protestants. It seemed, indeed, like a demoniacal caricature of our British troubles at that moment. No sternness, no reality; love-letters and witty verses supplying the place of the Biblical language and awful earnestness of the words and deeds of the Covenanters and Independents; the gentlemen of France utterly debased ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... dislike of the radicalism of the Parisian proletariat caused riots and outbreaks in such important and widely separated cities as Lyons, Marseilles, and Bordeaux. With the same devotion and thoroughness that had characterized their foreign policy, but with greater sternness, the officials of the National Convention stamped out all these riots and insurrections. By 1795 all France, except only the emigres and secret conspirators, had more or less graciously accepted ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... a note of sternness in his voice that Milly had never heard before, and she saw a hard look come into his averted face which was new to her. When she spoke ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... bare and barren. The precipitous parts of the cliffs are very grand; the whole scene, indeed, might be characterized as one of stern grandeur with an embroidery of rich beauty, without lauding it too much. All the sternness of it is softened by vegetative beauty wherever it can possibly be thrown in; and there is not here, so strongly as along Windermere, evidence that human art has been helping out Nature. I wish it were possible to give any idea of the shapes of the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... better not to go," Maria replied. Her tone was at once stern and pitiful. Evelyn noticed only her sternness. She ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... incipient child-development, is to stand outside as a final authority and make the necessary adjustments. Where there is too much sympathy, then the great voluntary centers of the spine are weak, the child tends to be delicate. Then the father by instinct supplies the roughness, the sternness which stiffens in the child the centers of resistance and independence, right from the very earliest days. Often, for a mere infant, it is the father's fierce or stern presence, the vibration of his voice, which starts the frictional and independent activity of the great ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... things do not count. It is right enough she should feel so, and she will lead a useful life. But how could it ever accord with mine? She is Lady Bountiful, and rules through love and wisdom. I am officer on a man-of-war, and command with sternness and inflexibility, never bending to coaxing or cajolery. Her ambition is to serve and uplift; mine to hold down with a steady hand, that my men may do my bidding like intelligent machines. We both may do good in our spheres, but we would inevitably pull apart, if we tried to unite them. ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... was not strictly true. He was one of the boys of the village, and was of a wild and reckless character. This was, however, partly his father's fault, who never gave him any kind and friendly instruction, and always treated him with a great degree of sternness ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... to the grave; but that enthusiasm which had impelled them to emigrate, preserved all its force; and they met, with a firm unshaken spirit, the calamities which assailed them. Our admiration of their fortitude and of their principles, sustains, however, some diminution from observing the sternness with which they denied to others that civil and religious liberty which, through so many dangers and hardships, they sought for themselves. Their general court decreed that none should be admitted as freemen, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... impossible;" and his features, which had relaxed from their habitual sternness while he spoke to her, suddenly assumed an expression of severity which almost terrified her; the color mounted to her fair face, as she felt that, perhaps, her request had been unwarrantable to a perfect stranger. He saw her ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... most pious sovereign enjoined it, as because his high view of the papal office prompted him to employ the temporal power for the benefit of his spiritual authority. A meek man and a benevolent prince, Pius IX was, as a pontiff, lofty even to sternness. With a soul not only devout, but mystical, he referred everything to God, and respected and venerated his own person as standing in God's place. He thought it his duty to guard with jealousy the temporal sovereignty of the Church, because he thought it essential to the safe-keeping ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Thomas Stevenson remains; what we have lost, what we now rather try to recall, is the friend and companion. He was a man of a somewhat antique strain: with a blended sternness and softness that was wholly Scottish, and at first somewhat bewildering; with a profound essential melancholy of disposition and (what often accompanies it) the most humorous geniality in company; shrewd and childish; passionately ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... von Hemelstein, did you say?" He spoke with a touch of sternness. "I do not think that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting you, sir. I did meet a Count Heinrich ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... indeed, but choked up with the bodies and heads of countrymen, who, though no members of the council, felt no scruple in intruding themselves upon deliberations in which they were so deeply interested. By expostulation, by threats, and even by some degree of violence, Burley, the sternness of whose character maintained a sort of superiority over these disorderly forces, compelled the intruders to retire, and, introducing Morton into the cottage, secured the door behind them against impertinent curiosity. At a less agitating moment, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of the island, his attire was of a description much superior to that of his poorer fellow-countrymen.[1] His countenance was open and dignified, and so calm that it appeared like a rock which nothing could move. Not that it had any character of sternness in it; on the contrary, it possessed a placidity, blended with firmness, which was anything but forbidding. The moment Miaoulis came on deck, he cordially shook hands with Lord Cochrane, and a broken conversation commenced between them in ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... were bestirring themselves to strike a good stroke for Florence that night. I found him standing quietly alone, with his hand resting in a kindly command upon the neck of the steed that he had chosen, and a look of great happiness softening the native sternness of his regard. I stood by him in silence till we rode, for after our first salutation he chose to be taciturn, and that in no unfriendly seeming, but as one might that had great thoughts to think and counted very certainly upon the acquiescence of a friend. And I was ever a man to respect ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... troops, and give free rein to the military genius that inspired their critical dissertations. Wellington, however, has been rightly termed of iron, and never did he show himself more of iron than in those trying days of 1810. Stern, but with a passionless sternness, he pursued his way towards the goal he had set himself, allowing no criticism, no censure, no invective so much as to give him ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... I believe, of King Frederick of Prussia.' These remarks being offered to Mr George Sampson, who had not the courage to come out for single combat, but lurked with his chest under the table and his eyes cast down, Mrs Wilfer proceeded, in a voice of increasing sternness and impressiveness, until she should force that skulker to give himself up. 'Mamma would appear to have had an indefinable foreboding of what afterwards happened, for she would frequently urge upon me, "Not a little man. Promise me, my child, not a little man. Never, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... region of masculine imaginative art. We feel Simone's charm mostly in single heads and detached figures, some of which at Assisi have incomparable sweetness. "Molles Senae," the delicate and femininely variable, fond of all things brilliant, and unstable through defect of sternness, was the fit mother of this ingenious and ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... been treating Frontenac with equal sternness. The danger from New England had for a time relieved him of domestic troubles; but with the failure of Sir William Phipps, his clerical enemies at Quebec once more began their machinations, in spite of which the versatile old Governor still contrived to hold his way and course. Politically, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... gesture. He saw the sternness of her eyes, and he had not the heart to tell her the truth. Mrs. Crowley ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... to you? I should n't be alive at this moment if it were not for your treatment. Oh, Grace!" She began to cough again; the paroxysm increased in vehemence. She caught her handkerchief from her lips; it was spotted with blood. She sprang to her feet, and regarded it with impersonal sternness. "Now," she said, "I am sick, and I want ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... became so distinguished in the days of the Commonwealth, was at this time becoming the most influential leader of the army. He was not the commander-in-chief in form, but he was the great planner and manager in fact. He was a man of great sternness and energy of character, and was always ready for the most prompt and daring action. He conceived the design of seizing the king's person at Holmby, so as to take him away from the control of the Parliament, and transfer him to that ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... retirement, thinking that virtue could be safe wherever it went in its own courageous heart; and so she armed her countenance with pride, and pleased herself with making it stern, but not to the effect she looked for, for the sternness itself pleased. While yet a child her little right hand would control the bit of the charger, and she wielded the sword and spear, and hardened her limbs with wrestling, and made them supple for the race; and then as she grew up, she tracked the footsteps of the bear ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... then?" asked the captain with affected sternness, for, although by nature disinclined to admit that he could be wrong, he had no objection to be ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... do not see by what right you interfere with either me or my amusements," says Cecil, hotly, after a decided pause. Never has he addressed her with so much sternness. She raises her eyes to his and colors richly all through her ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... been crushed by machinery, or caused by shot, sword, and spear. So the Hakim toiled away hour after hour till his last patient had left the space in front of his tent and he had leisure to re-examine the chief's son, the father looking anxiously on in spite of an assumed sternness, and waiting till the keen-eyed surgeon rose from ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... Italy, which gave Marius time to discipline the bodies of his men and to confirm their courage; and what was most of all, it gave the soldiers an opportunity of knowing what kind of a man their general was. For the first impression created by his sternness and by his inexorable severity in punishing, was changed into an opinion of the justice and utility of his discipline when they had been trained to avoid all cause of offence and all breach of order; and the violence of his temper, the harshness of his voice, and ferocious expression of his countenance, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... the relaxation of a moment, and exhibited a pale, care-worn countenance—and, though still young, a head over which were thickly scattered the silver tokens of age. A sad smile played over his intelligent features, a smile meant to shake the sternness of the man who was troubling his peace, as he replied in ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... the patient, nurse?' braced my faltering nerves in a moment, and enabled me to answer him without embarrassment. He had his grave professional air, and looked hard and impenetrable. I had reason afterwards to think that this sternness of manner was assumed for my benefit, for once, when I was preparing some lint for him, I looked up inadvertently and saw that he was watching me with an expression that was at ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... bearing the little child in the same position in which it rested when he passed me at the door of the hotel. The same fixed look of independence was in his face and his position. There was much of sternness on the face of the woman, but it was marked by pain, referable perhaps to her situation, and to the marks of recent grief. Something was to be done, but what I could not yet determine. As I pressed nearer to the man the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... been staggered at the austerity of Christ's morality not less has it been shocked at the quality of His mercy. His gentleness to the sensual sinner has been compared, with amazement, to the sternness of His attitude to the sins of the spirit. Not the profligate or the harlot but the Pharisee and the scribe were those who provoked His sternest rebukes. And perhaps the most characteristic of all His dealings ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... view to this profession, and, therefore, was not tormented with unsatisfied desires. He did not hold his present occupations in abhorrence, because they withheld him from paths more flowery and more smooth, but he found in unintermitted labour, and in the sternness of his master, sufficient occasions for discontent. No opportunities of recreation were allowed him. He spent all his time pent up in a gloomy apartment, or traversing narrow and crowded streets. His food was coarse, and his lodging ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... the note of a little flute, sounded from the farther side of the stream, was reiterated many times. Nigel's face relaxed. The sternness vanished from it, and was replaced by an ardent expression that made it look almost like the ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Upon his countenance sternness has replaced sorrow; the soft lines have become rigid; the melancholy glance is gone, replaced by one ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... misunderstandings through explanation volunteered when possible,—not apologetically, but as it were casually, yet appealing to men's reason. Watchfulness and sympathetic foresight were with him as constant as sternness, though less in evidence. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... orthodox tradition; a European disguise, purchased at a slop dealer's by the precious Harry, a rope, a midnight flitting, a passage taken on board an English ship; the anchor weighed; and the lovers were free on the bounding main. A most refreshing story! I put on a sudden air of sternness, and shot a question at her like ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... dressing on the following morning, Thorndyke entered my room. His face was grave even to sternness, and he held a ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... observed Dr. Theophilus, with sternness, "for every disrespectful allusion to the ladies, I shall give you an extra ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... one respect the doctor had shown a certain sternness. He had told his son, with some emphasis, that, until he accomplished some creditable work in the world, he must never expect one penny more than his present allowance of L150 a year. There were good ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... Dionis. "The actual case of the bequest of an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been presented for trial; but when it is, the sternness of French law against such children will be all the more firmly applied because we live in times when religion is honored. I'll answer for it that out of such a suit as I propose you could get a compromise,—especially if they see you are determined ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... out of the room together. Yes, it was self-evident; the man idolized the child. Strange mixture of sternness and softness! The supposed sin of the father was never to be pardoned; but natural affection was to have its way, and be lavished upon the son; and the son could not return it, because the influence of the banished scapegrace was too strong—he had won it all for himself, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... his fame, he was seen in his true colours, as well of weakness as of amiableness, on strangers and such as were out of this immediate circle, the spell of his poetical character still continued to operate; and the fierce gloom and sternness of his imaginary personages were, by the greater number of them, supposed to belong, not only as regarded mind, but manners, to himself. So prevalent and persevering has been this notion, that, in some ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... that medicines may assuage pain, that skill may close wounds, that those who are incontestably dying may be snatched from the grave. The Jewish physician became a living, an accepted protest against the fatalism of the Koran. By degrees the sternness of predestination was mitigated, and it was admitted that in individual life there is an effect due to free-will; that by his voluntary acts man may within certain limits determine his own course. But, so far ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... youthful widow and her aged husband's son did not long continue. The people of England were very much shocked at such a marriage, and a great prelate, the Bishop of Winchester, remonstrated against it with such sternness and authority, that Ethelbald not only soon put his wife away, but submitted to a severe penance which the bishop imposed upon him in retribution for his sin. Judith, thus forsaken, soon afterward sold the lands and estates which ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... have flung herself at Juliet's feet; but the latter drew back, and said, with a sternness ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... his walk, and faced his son with some sternness of look and tone. "Max, you haven't learned to smoke? tell me: have you ever smoked a cigar? or tobacco ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... Pathfinder, and the solemn dignity which he had assumed, under a purely natural impulse, disappeared in the expression of the earnest simplicity inherent in all his feelings. He met the grasp of his young friend with a squeeze as cordial as if no chord had jarred between them, and a slight sternness that had gathered about his eye disappeared in ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... unhurried motion, in her extended hand, in the sightless effect of her grey eyes luminous in the half-light. He had never seen such an expression in her face before. It had dreaminess in it, intense attention, and something like sternness. Arrested in the doorway by Heyst's extended arm, she seemed to wake up, flushed faintly—and this flush, passing off, carried away with it the strange transfiguring mood. With a courageous gesture she pushed back the heavy masses of her hair. The light clung to her forehead. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... resembles rather a substantial, well-fed farmer, than one who has wielded the destinies of this mighty Confederation, and been bred in the ceremony and etiquette of an European Court. In fact, he appears to possess none of that sternness of character which you would suppose to belong to one a large part of whose life has been spent in political warfare, or, at any rate, amidst scenes requiring a vast deal of nerve ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... him; and he advanced within five miles of the city, ravaging the lands of the Plebeians, but sparing those of the Patricians. The city was filled with despair. The ten first men in the Senate were sent in hopes of moving his compassion. But they were received with the utmost sternness, and told that the city must submit to his absolute will. Next day the pontiffs, augurs, flamens, and all the priests, came in their robes of office, and in vain prayed him to spare the city. All seemed lost; but Rome was saved by her women. Next morning the ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... in dealing with his children. He seemed to feel that nearly every kind of amusement that young people delighted in was sinful, and he held up before his children such sober ways of living that Washington at least came to think that everything pleasant was wicked. No amount of sternness, however, could keep the five boys of the family and their three sisters wholly out of mischief, nor hinder them from having many a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... changed into mock sternness. "Very well, Miss Baker; having heard your confession and remembering a promise to exercise clemency, this court is about to impose sentence. Are you ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... not ventured to look at him; if she had she would have seen his face grow suddenly pale, then assume an expression of mingled sternness and pain. ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... which Dante left, on those who beheld him was far different. In allusion to his own personal appearance, he used to relate an incident that once occurred to him. When years of persecution and exile had added to the natural sternness of his countenance, the deep lines left by grief, and the brooding spirit of vengeance; he happened to be at Verona, where, since the publication of his Inferno, he was well known. Passing one day by a portico, wherein several women were seated, one of them whispered, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... broad, spreading picture slowly impressed itself upon his brain, effacing and taking the place of personal animosity. In so fair a world Hope is ever a returning angel with healing in his wings; and Winston's face brightened, the black frown deserting his forehead, all sternness gone from his eyes. There surely must be a way somewhere, and he would discover it; only the weakling and the coward can sit down in despair. Out of the prevailing silence he suddenly distinguished voices at hand, ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... Cinna, as consul, received the embassy, sitting in the curule chair, and returned a kind answer to the messengers; Marius stood by him and said nothing, but gave sufficient testimony by the gloominess of his countenance, and the sternness of his looks, that he would in a short time fill the city with blood. As soon as the council arose, they went toward the city, where Cinna entered with his guards, but Marius stayed at the gates, and, dissembling his rage, professed that he ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... is a third light in which God's holiness is shown to us, and that is in the sternness with which He recoils from guilt. When Christ died for man, I know what God's love means; and when Jesus wept human tears over Jerusalem, I know what God's compassion means; and when the stern denunciations ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... to tell her lover; this so-called pride, for which she has been censured, is clearly only a very wise precaution to protect her from herself. Being aware that, unfortunately, her own temperament is inflammable, she dreads the least spark, and keeps out of reach so far as she can. Her sternness is due not to pride but to humility. She assumes a control over Emile because she doubts her control of herself; she turns the one against the other. If she had more confidence in herself she would ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... nothing more than a paralytic or nervous affection; yet one might fancy that it had its origin in some unspeakable wrong, perpetrated half a lifetime ago in this old gentlewoman's presence, either against herself or somebody whom she loved still better. Her features had a wonderful sternness, which, I presume, was caused by her habitual effort to compose and keep them quiet, and thereby counteract the tendency to paralytic movement. The slow, regular, and inexorable character of the motion,—her look of force and self-control, which had the appearance of rendering it voluntary, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Swedes sang as they advanced towards the enemy. The king had given orders to march straight on Lutzen. "He animated his men to the fight," says Richelieu, "with words that he had at command, whilst Wallenstein, by his mere presence and the sternness of his silence, seemed to let his men understand that, as he had been wont to do, he would reward them or chastise them, according as they did well or ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... almost felt that he was too gentle and indulgent, and the thought she would have liked a confessor who was severe, who would have inflicted heavier penances, compelled her to fast and pray, who would have listened in deeper sternness to the sins of thought which she with averted face shamefully owned to having entertained. She was disappointed that he did not warn her with the loss of her soul, that he did not invent specious expedients for her use, whereby the Evil ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... in your senses or out of them?" demanded Mr. Carlyle, a certain sternness in his tone. "Your lady miserably unhappy! ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... even do that, a little better than you could lay your hand in his and promise to be his wife, I should think!" said the other, and there was even some sternness ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... essential progress. The world had been too pleasant to him to allow of his giving many of his hours to work. His father was one of the best men in the world, revered on the bench, and loved by all men; but he had not sufficient parental sternness to admit of his driving his son well into harness. He himself had begun the world with little or nothing, and had therefore succeeded; but his son was already possessed of almost everything that he could want, and therefore ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... he said with a new sternness in his voice. "Aunt Ray, it was necessary for Jack and me to leave that night. I can not tell you why—just yet. As to where we went, if I have to depend on that as an alibi, I shall not tell. The whole thing is an absurdity, a trumped-up ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... dear Mr. Pleydell," continued Lucy, "how much Miss Mannering and I were alarmed, when a ruffian, equally dreadful for his great strength, and the sternness of his features, rushed ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... you say!" and his voice had a ring of sternness in its mellow tone—"If I know what you think I know, on what ground do you suppose I have built my knowledge? Only on that faith which you call 'conventional'—that faith which has never been understood by the ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... his father and mother may be the sternest Protestants. He cannot help it; it is his nature! And you"—she looked up at him with infinite tenderness in her brown eyes,—"you were born a Presbyterian, dear; you can't help it. Perhaps you need the sternness and the horror of some of the doctrines as a balance for your gentleness. I never knew any one ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... princess Mary herself was at first the object of his hopes or wishes: but if this were really the case, she must speedily have quelled his presumption by the lofty sternness of her repulse; for it is impossible to discover in the history of his life at what particular period he could have been occupied ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... a strange mixture of sternness in his countenance and pity in his voice; "well, mother, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... patience, whatever the cause of its sufferings, brings with it a blessed sense of the faithful sternness, the fruitful lovingness of God, who will not let even the feeblest of sinners be satisfied with less than he can attain, in whose hands the punishment, like fire, runs swiftly and agonisingly to and fro, consuming the baser ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... down as a devout Christian of the Cromwellian type, and he certainly was a man of remarkable intellectual powers, both in art and in theology. His Christianity might have taken a form of less domestic sternness, but I remembered my own father too well to find it inconsistent with genuine piety, though not even my mother ever inspired the awe Linnell and his religious severity excited ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... in prison is quite limitless. I remember once in Reading, as I was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly lit cell opposite mine a small boy. Two warders—not unkindly men—were talking to him, with some sternness apparently, or perhaps giving him some useful advice about his conduct. One was in the cell with him, the other was standing outside. The child's face was like a white wedge of sheer terror. There was ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... when this letter was published in Darwin's Life, the authorship of the review was not actually mentioned; but it is necessary to mention it, as it justifies the sternness with which Huxley exposed Owen on an occasion shortly to be described. The review in the Quarterly was written by Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, in July, 1860, and almost at once the authorship of it became known to Darwin's friends. In connection with this, Huxley wrote in 1887, in Darwin's ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... as we know, was imaginative, exuberant, unrestrained, and, like some of the greatest actors on the stage of human affairs, he had associated his own personality with the prevalence of right ideas and good influences. In Turgot, on the other hand, we discern something of the isolation, the sternness, the disdainful melancholy of Tacitus. He even rises out of the eager, bustling, shrill-tongued crowd of the Voltairean age with some of that austere moral indignation and haughty astonishment with which Dante had watched the stubborn ways of men centuries before. On one side Turgot shared the ...
— Burke • John Morley
... Netherlands had passed through as many as five hands. The Duchess of Parma's indecision soon imparted itself to the cabinet of Madrid, which in a short time tried in succession almost every system of policy. Duke Alva's inflexible sternness, the mildness of his successor Requescens, Don John of Austria's insidious cunning, and the active and imperious mind of the Prince of Parma gave as many opposite directions to the war, while the plan of rebellion remained the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sternness he said, "If the dying have supernatural insight, why could not Mr. Walton see what kind of a man Hunting is? Please leave me now. I know how kind and well-meant your words are, but they are mockery to me;" and he turned his face to ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... disappeared into the kitchen, a small tent at the rear of the cook tent. They were gone for some time. Finally, Mrs. Livingston and Miss Partridge returned. Miss Elting was not with them. The Chief Guardian's face wore an expression of sternness such as none of the girls ever ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... interrogatively; and, as she waited for an explanation of the American's presence, surprise gave way to a look of great sternness and severity, almost of dislike. Nay more, Madame de Lera's attitude was instinct with protest—the protest of an honest woman drawn unwillingly into what she feels to be an atmosphere of untruth and intrigue. She was ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... her hands together above her head, and burst into a flood of tears. Her father looked upon her with such sad sternness as his tender nature was capable of. He laid hold of one of her arms to draw a hand from the face ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... them,—especially those thick-legged, romping, cherry-cheeked damsels, of whom, no doubt, his son would marry one. They were all of the earth earthy, without an idea among them. And yet he did not dare to forbid his son to go to the house, lest people should say of him that his sternness was unendurable. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... said he, "my strength would become sternness. Nature gave me a despotic disposition. I have had, and have still, many times the greatest difficulty to control it; but with God's help I shall succeed! My Elise, we will improve ever. On the children's account, in order to make them happy, we will endeavour to ennoble ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... gratified. Once again she gazed upon the face of her only and beloved son. He was little changed—somewhat sunburned, it was true; but there was less of the old pride and sternness, a kindly smile playing round his lips. There was, too, a shade of sadness that plainly would never leave him; Lord Earle could never ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... my cousin," replied Atterbury with strange sternness. "And, since the fellow is here in disguise, it ought to be our business to ask him some questions. Come ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... Jake's eyes, as he grasped the Colonel's hand and looked into the face which had relaxed from its sternness, and was quivering in every muscle. The proud man was moved, and felt that if he were alone he would have knelt in the hot sand by Eudora's grave, and asked pardon for the wrong he had done her. But Jake was there, and the child looking on with wide-open eyes, and though she did not understand ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... eyes filled with tears, and he stooped as if to give her the coveted caress, but hastily drawing back again, said with much of his accustomed sternness— ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... for untainted fruit never blossomed from a dunghill. Remember that the Lord loveth all his creatures even the same as he loveth thee. As thou hast good and evil both within thee, so have others; wherefore judge them in mercy as thou wouldst thyself. And judge thyself in sternness as thou wouldst them; so shalt thou keep the balance true. Now thou art sleeping through my preaching—well, never mind! Kiss thy mother, dear one, and I ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... I done?" I asked, amazed at the sternness she had suddenly thrown into her voice. And she burst into a ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... suppose, to disgust me; to tire me out; to make me withdraw from the debate, and give him the opportunity of saying he had put me to flight. He was mistaken. I kept my ground. And I kept my temper. And I kept my gravity. I rebuked him at times with becoming sternness, and then went on with my task. It is probable that I spoke more strongly against the Bible, and that I said harder things against the church and the ministry, than I should have done, if he had conducted himself with any regard to truth and decency; but I did not raise my voice ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... snow-cloaked, the trees chilly and naked, the houses standing out as though they were freezing and longing for their summer wrap of ivy. And naked were the rattling trees on their side of the river, on the Palisades. But the cold breeze enlivened them, the sternness of the swift, cruel river and miles of brown shore made them gravely happy. As they tramped briskly off, atop the cliffs, toward the ferry to New York, five miles away, they talked with a quiet, quick seriousness which discovered them to each other. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... sentiment of individual attachment—attachment was chiefly for their own sex [78]. The Ionians, on the contrary, were susceptible, flexile, and more characterized by the generosity of modern knighthood than the sternness of ancient heroism. Them, not the past, but the future, charmed. Ever eager to advance, they were impatient even of the good, from desire of the better. Once urged to democracy— democracy fixed their character, as oligarchy fixed the Spartan. For, to change is the ambition of a democracy—to conserve ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... strange stirring in Rhoda in response to Cartwell's gaze. He was looking at her with something of tragedy in the dark young eyes, something of sternness and determination in the clean-cut lips. Rhoda wondered, afterward, what would have been said if Katherine had not chosen this moment to come out on ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... anxiously. "And my father—and Aura?" The Big Business Man thought her face looked years older than when he had last seen it. Her expression was set and stern, but her eyes stared into his with a gentle, sorrowful gaze that belied the sternness of her lips. ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... said Magdalen. "But how are we to teach her? that is the difficulty—the least severity or sternness which does good to other children, seems to rouse her very worst feelings and only to harden her. She is not hardened now, poor little soul, she is perfectly humble. Oh, how I do wish I could find her ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... the gold collar about his neck and the gold bracelets upon his arms, marked the chief. Standing by the rheda, he met Marcia's look of proud defiance, for a moment; then his eyes shifted and seemed to wander; but, cloaking with martial sternness the embarrassment of the barbarian, he spoke ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... a pause—they were now in the parlour—said, speaking very slowly, that they were in a sore affliction of Satan, and that they must withstand him with a good courage—"and look you," he added, turning with a great sternness to the three, "if there be any mortal sin upon your hearts, see that you confess it and be shriven speedily—for while such a thing lies upon the heart, so long hath Satan power to hurt—otherwise have no fear ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... are black and still, the tearful sky is dreary gray. All Nature is like the grief of manhood in its soft and thoughtful sternness. Shall I lend myself to its influence, and as the heaven settles down into one misty shroud of 'shrill yet silent tears,' as if veiling her shame in a cloudy mantle, shall I, too, lie down and weep? Why not? for am I not 'a part of all I see'? And even now, in fasting and mortification, ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... She saw signs of a new sternness about the closely-drawn lips, the steel-grey eyes, from which a momentary tenderness seemed to ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... slowly, and with a slight touch of sternness, 'is indeed contained in a book; but I wish to ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the making of maps with inky fingers—a bootless toil, as it always hath seemed to me. Next to her sat SALLY, the little milkmaid, casting coy glances at mother, who would have none of them, but with undue sternness, as I thought then, and still think, tossed them back to the shame-faced SALLY. Lower down sat JOHN TOOKER, "GIRT JAN DOUBLEFACE" he was ever called, not without a sly hint of increasing obesity, for JOHN, though a mighty ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... he had expended all his sternness, but his caution remained. With a significant glance toward his prisoner, the dwarf, ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... so unpopular in American literature? Is it because she is, after all, just what that loftiest if not most impeccable of Puritans called her, stern daughter of the voice of God? Is there to be no more sternness in our morals now we understand their psychology, no voice commanding us to do this or not to do that because there is a gulf set between worth and worthlessness? Is it true that because we are not to be damned for playing golf on Sunday, nothing can damn ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... Grimaldi occasionally looked at the quiet and apparently contrite Maso, and stretched his arm towards the Leman, in a way to give the observers an inkling of his subject. The countenance of the Herr Hofmeister changed from official sternness to an expression of decent concern as he listened, and ere long it took a decidedly forgiving laxity of muscle. When the other had done speaking, he bowed a ready assent to what he had just heard, and returned ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... disproportionate length of limb and development of muscle, which ripened later into the rarest union of activity and strength that I have ever known. His features were very dark and pale, too strongly marked to be called handsome; about the lips and lower jaw especially there was a set sternness that one seldom sees before the beard is grown. The eyes were very dark gray, nearly black, and so deeply set under the thick eyebrows that they looked smaller than they really were; and I remember, even at that early age, their expression, when angered, was any thing but pleasant to meet. ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... Old Testament is everywhere represented as the direct author of Evil, commissioning evil and lying spirits to men, hardening the heart of Pharaoh, and visiting the iniquity of the individual sinner on the whole people. The rude conception of sternness predominating over mercy in the Deity, can alone account for the human sacrifices, purposed, if not executed, by Abraham and Jephthah. It has not been uncommon, in any age or country of the world, for men to recognize the existence of one God, without ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... a region like this, beauty must be looked for below the surface. There is a probability of finding hollows of repose, sunken spots of loveliness, hidden away altogether from the general aspect of sternness, or perhaps sterility, that meets the eye in glancing over the outspread landscape; just as in the natures of stern men you may expect to find, if opportunity should be afforded you, sunny spots of tender verdure, kept ever green by that very sternness which is turned towards the common gaze—thus ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... they looked at each other without speaking. She saw the dancing spirit in his eyes turn grave and darken to a passionate sternness. He stooped and kissed her, and she sat ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... feudal baron ever dismounted with more assuredness at his own hall, to toss careless rein to a retainer. He stood now, tall and straight, a trifle rough-looking in his careless planter's dress, but every inch the master. A slight frown puckered up his forehead, giving to his face an added hint of sternness. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... and her beautiful face grew anxious, for the sternness of her husband's voice, in answer to those feeble plaints, gave little hopes of conciliation. Directly Mellen came through the boudoir and sat down on a couch near his wife, shading his face with one hand, not wishing her to see how ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... mother consumed with grief and white as a ghost. He had felt a pitying surprise. But that, of course, was of no importance. Mothers did not matter. He could not shake off the poignant impression of that silent, quiet, white-haired woman, but a sort of sternness crept into his thoughts. These were the consequences. Well, what of it? "Am I then on a bed of roses?" he had exclaimed to himself, sitting at some distance with his eyes fixed upon that figure of sorrow. He had said all he had ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Jersey mourns an only son, and she a widow," he interrupted, his voice implacable in its sternness. "Miss Harriet, I lament the cruel necessity which alone can induce so distressing a measure. It is my desire not only to soften the inevitable calamities of war, but even to introduce on every occasion as great a share of tenderness and humanity as can possibly ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... Signora Buonatti was forgotten! The people were amazed at the nonchalant manner of the young favorite, who actually received a burst of enthusiasm, such as rarely had greeted any singer, with such coolness-who and what was this slender, youthful being, that was neither awed by their sternness, nor delighted ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... cried, as he staggered, and caught at a backstay to save himself from falling. He sat down on the house and tried to keep back a sob. Madge stooped, and looked anxiously into his face. She had known him for two years as a man of unusual sternness and self-control; obstinate, reserved, willful, and moody, yet one that gave always the impression of unflinching courage and resolution. It was inexplicable now to see him crying like a woman, his square shoulders bent and heaving, his sinewy ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... only the first, but the only object of his public action: and with this patriotic loyalty there mingled something of a personal feeling, more akin to romance in its paternal tenderness than seemed consistent with the granite-hewn strength and sternness of his general character. A thorough soldier, with a soldier's contempt for fine-spun diplomacy, he had been led into many a blunder when acting as a chief of party and of State; but his absolute single-minded honesty had more than redeemed ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... which distinguished the senator's abode in times of security, still prevail over it in the time of imminent danger which now threatens rich and poor alike in Rome, Vetranio himself appears far from partaking the tranquility of his patrician household. His manner displays an unusual sternness, and his face an unwonted displeasure, as he sits, occupied by his silent reflections and thoroughly unregardful of whatever occurs around him. Two ladies who are his companions in the apartment, exert all their blandishments to win him back to hilarity, but in vain. The services of his expectant ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... to think it the stateliest of cities. The Exchange and other public buildings, and the shops in Buchanan Street, are very magnificent; the latter, especially, excelling those of London. There is, however, a pervading sternness and grimness resulting from the dark gray granite, which is the universal building-material both of the old and new edifices. Later in the forenoon we again walked out, and went along Argyle Street, and through the Trongate and the Salt-Market. The two latter were formerly the principal ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was reached on her return, Edith found Lady Oxford in the parlour. The sternness with which the Countess had treated Aubrey was quite laid aside. To Lady Louvaine she showed a graceful and grateful mixture of sympathy and respect, endeavoured to reassure her, hoped there would be no search nor inquiry, thought it was almost too late, highly approved of ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... to these compliments the other bade him hold his tongue, and keep his noise to himself, and laid upon him many similar injunctions, with great fluency of speech and sternness of manner. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... ribboned eye-glass; his hair was arranged differently; he closely resembled an average plain man,—he, the unique Ozzie! With all his faults, he had previously been both good-natured and negligent, but his expression was now one of sternness and of resolute endeavour. Sissie had already metamorphosed him. Even now he was obediently following her lead and her mood. Mr. Prohack's women had evidently determined to revenge themselves for being asked to meet Miss Fancy at lunch, and Ozzie had been set on to assist them. ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... believe it! Only slander, malice, lies. Well, take my word for it, the love that comes out of the brandy flask will never get into the teapot. I wish you both a very good morning; ay, better one than this, a great deal;" and with a sternness of manner quite unusual, the old man took ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... upon the kneeling man before her, and suddenly the wild look of hatred and unrelenting sternness died out ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... this unfortunate affair of Alice Hook's is laid remotely to me?" he said, with a sternness, which he could not help, in his tone. "People are saying that if I gave them decent dwellings, decent conduct would ensue. It is so. God knows that I feel its truth more keenly than ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... away from her, recovering his sternness, felt cut by that mocking laugh and said ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... forget herself entirely; her little ambitious projects should be wholly thrown aside, that no effort might be spared for the accomplishment of her one great duty. Tenderness and sympathy and example should do their utmost, but she would not spoil her boy: there should be sternness if it were needed; and she felt that this would try ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... of irreproachable and voiceless servants he moved about his silent house. The hush of death seemed to him to lie heavy in the lovely rooms that had been Rachael's delight, and over the city that was just breaking into the green of spring. He dressed, and left directions with unusual sternness; he would be at the hospital, or the club, if he was wanted. He would come home to ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... constantly to amuse, as well as instruct. I soon found that the constant demand on my stock of animal spirits reduced them to the lowest state of exhaustion; at times I felt—and, I suppose seemed—depressed. To my astonishment, I was taken to task on the subject by Mrs. Sidgwick, with a sternness of manner and a harshness of language scarcely credible. Like a fool, I cried most bitterly. I could not help it; my spirits quite failed me at first. I thought I had done my best, strained every nerve to please her; and to be treated in that way, merely because I was shy and sometimes melancholy, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... the music changed. It became soft and low. It appealed to the better and higher nature. It was like the revivifying breath of spring after winter's sternness, and the sun's radiant smile following the raging tempest. It affected Joe. The light in his eyes changed, and his face softened. His body relaxed. Then the player knew that the victory was won. Gently he drifted off to the ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... vain And an unthinking grief! The tenderest mood [1] Of that Man's mind—what can it be? what food Fed his first hopes? what knowledge could he gain? 'Tis not in battles that from youth we train 5 The Governor who must be wise and good, And temper with the sternness of the brain Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood. Wisdom doth live with children round her knees: Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk 10 Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk Of the mind's business: these are the degrees By which true Sway doth mount; this is the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... not by so much as the flicker of an eyelash did he betray that this was so. He had considered himself such a public character since the night of the McBride murder that he now deemed it incumbent to preserve a stoic manner; the admiration of his fellows could win nothing from the sternness of his nature, so he ignored the neighbors, while he was barely civil to the landlord. The big roll of bills which, with something of a flourish, he produced from the pocket of his greasy overalls, settled the rent, and the neighbors noted ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... landscapes of Velasquez could not be more Spanish than they are; and, disagreeing with those who say that he had no feeling for nature, the bits of countryside and mountain Goya shows are truly peninsular in their sternness. It may be well to remark here that the softness of Tuscany is not to be found in the lean and often arid aspects of Spain. Spain, too, is romantic—but after its own fashion. Goya revived the best traditions of his country's art; he was the last of the great masters and the first of the moderns. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker |
