"Severity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her mistress with her. Ts'ui, this time, was languid and flushed, yielding and wanton in her air, as though her strength could scarcely support her limbs. Her former severity had utterly disappeared. ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... rejoined with slight severity: "I cannot conceive that such a thing can pass the human face by, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the closet and the public square, the large patience and the undying hopefulness! Do you think," the Easy Chair said, with a searching severity one would not have expected of it, "that you are fit ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... old man, changing at once from beaming benevolence to stern severity. "I'll be hanged if I do!" And he released Aunt Amanda's hand, and turned his back on the Old Codger with ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... A Fackeltanz. Bismarck's fits of despondency; remark by Gneist. Gneist's story illustrating Bismarck's drinking habits. Difficulties in German-American "military cases'' after Baron von Blow's death. A serious crisis. Bismarck's mingled severity and kindness. His unyielding attitude toward Russia. Question between us regarding German interference in South America. My citations from Washington's Farewell Address and John Quincy Adams's despatches. Bismarck's appearance in Parliament. His mode of speaking. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... kindly state approximate age, prevalent tastes,—and in case of invalidism, the presumable severity of illness. For price list, etc., refer to opposite page. Address all communications to Serial Letter ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... even among the royalists, who disapproved of the indiscriminate severity exercised by the parliament at Winchester; and a possibility was suggested of granting indulgence to the sufferers, and at the same time satisfying those who had profited by their forfeitures. With this view a committee was appointed of twelve prelates and barons, whose ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... hearing her confession, not only promised to keep her secret, but permitted her to continue her visits to my grove whenever I chanced to be playing there on the lute. Now the most mysterious part of this matter is, that the girl seemed—in spite of his severity towards her—to have a great affection for her surly; for, when I offered to deliver her from his custody, she declared that nothing could induce her to desert him—not even the attraction of living among fine pictures ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... less admire the candor with which they relinquished it, upon discovering its irremediable inefficacy. To found principles of government upon too advantageous an estimate of the human character is an error of inexperience, the source of which is so amiable that it is impossible to censure it with severity. We have seen the same mistake, committed in our own age, and upon a larger theatre. Happily for our ancestors, their situation allowed them to repair it before its effects had proved destructive. They had no pride of vain philosophy to support, no perfidious ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Westminster Hall, where, besides the Sessions of Parliament, which are often held there, are the Courts of Justice; and at stated times are heard their trials in law, or concerning the king's patrimony, or in chancery, which moderates the severity of the common law by equity. Till the time of Henry I. the Prime Court of Justice was movable, and followed the King's Court, but he enacted by the Magna Charta that the common pleas should no longer attend his Court, ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... knew that for insubordination or disobedience it was idle to plead excuse. They had thought their general harsh, and even cruel; but as their experience increased they recognised the wisdom of his severity, and when they looked upon that kindly face, grave and determined as it was, they realised how closely his firmness was allied to tenderness. They had learned how highly he esteemed them. Once, in his twelve months ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... the perpetual hills, hills. Everywhere around the bay save here, on island and main, the immitigable gneiss hills rise bold and sudden from the water, now dimly impurpled with lichen, now in nakedness of rock surface, yet beautified in their bare severity by alternating and finely waving stripes of lightest and darkest gray,—as if to show sympathy with the billowy heaving ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... composition a considerable play of light and shade, enhanced by the picturesque central pavilion which rises to a height of six stories in diminishing stages. The style is almost Palladian in its severity, but in general the Flemish architects disdained the restrictions of classic canons, preferring a more florid and fanciful effect than could be obtained by mere combinations of Roman columns, arches, and entablatures. De Vriendt's other works were mostly designs ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... horses, and especially for,—me. Why should I not be happy? For the first time in my life I have two men engaged to look after my wants. They did their duty well,—were almost painfully attentive at times. But to-day I thank them for their kind severity. ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... of one very important circumstance, relative to the strict discipline maintained by my father, in all cases where there was the slightest deviation from truth. A violation of truth was always sure to be punished by him with the greatest severity. As the circumstance to which I allude made a strong and lasting impression upon my mind, and in a great measure laid the foundation for my general rule of action ever since, I shall faithfully ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... leaders survived the effects of those terrible and crushing blows. Profiting by his prowess, the Scotch procured the heavy stakes of their sleds, tough poles, pieces of firewood, and similar ponderous weapons, and, headed by the hero of the day, made a charge, returning with terrible severity the comparatively slight damage inflicted by the ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... manufacturer, he will tell you that if workmen only put it into their heads to be lazy, all factories would have to be closed, for no measure of severity, no system of spying would be of any use. You should have seen the terror caused in 1887 among British employers when a few agitators started preaching the "go-canny" theory—"Bad pay, bad work"; "Take it easy, do not overwork yourselves, and waste all you can."—"They demoralize the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... suspense, then Eleanor Savell proudly rose from her seat. Her example was followed, until two thirds of the girls present were standing. The principal stood silently regarding them with an expression of severity that was ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... comely, caught the eye of Brother Michel. Why was she not at school?—she was done with school now. What was she doing here?—she lived here now. Why so?—no answer but a deepening blush. There was no severity in Brother Michel's manner; the girl's own confusion told her story. 'Elle a honte,' was the missionary's comment, as we rode away. Near by in the stream, a grown girl was bathing naked in a goyle between two stepping-stones; ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in saintliness ran high. Under its vigorous stimulus the May-pole and the Yule-log were alike branded as heathenish observances, the Christmas-pie became a "pye of abomination," and all amusements, from the drama to bear-baiting, were censured with impartial severity. Feast-days were abolished, and even to display the emblems of the Nativity was held to be sedition. The Established Church, cowed and shorn of its splendor, was treated with surly contempt; the Catholics ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... temples broad. Her hair, already gray and thin is plainly parted in the middle. From time to time she strokes it gently with her finger tips. The expression of her face betrays kindliness and seriousness without severity. About her eyes, her nose and her mouth there is ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... punished those who wronged us by requiring them to cease from doing wrong. The grand poetic justice by which Maryland, the first State to shed her brothers' blood, has been the first to be transformed into a condition of happy liberty, only symbolizes a like severity of kindness in store for all. Five years of devastating war will have only rounded the sublime cycle of retribution predicted so tersely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... one another, and had the audacity to laugh. Then Mrs. Bernard laughed and shook her head. My lady colored; she felt herself in a minority, and, though she did not positively laugh, her lips parted and her air of severity melted away. Bessie had cast off all fear of her with her old belief in her perfection. She loved her, but she knew now that she would never submit to her guidance. Lady Latimer glanced in the girl's brave, bright face, and said meaningly, "The nest-egg will not have ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... very cautious, lest while we think to regulate the passions, we should quite extinguish them; which is putting out the light of the soul; for to be without passion, or to be hurried away with it, makes a man equally blind. The extraordinary severity used in most of our schools has this fatal effect; it breaks the spring of the mind, and most certainly destroys more good geniuses than it can ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... principal; "but in this case, I think we need not treat it with the severity which prevails in the navy. The students below say, and probably believe, that the excursion to the Rhine has been abandoned, and that the ship is bound to Belfast. Though they are mistaken, we can only tell them ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... stern, hostile to all new light, imbued with the spirit of the Old Testament rather than of the New. They dislike and despise the Kafirs, whom they have regarded as Israel may have regarded Amalek, and whom they have treated with equal severity. They hate the English also,[78] who are to them the hereditary enemies that conquered them at the Cape; that drove them out into the wilderness in 1836; that annexed their Republic in 1877, and thereafter broke the promises of self-government ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... Holding Pads are made in over 115 different shapes and sizes, and are selected as the severity and nature ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... contact with that luxury which he had hitherto despised, and he had made up his mind beforehand that he would not allow himself to be dazzled by it, and therefore on his first introduction had made his best endeavour to put on an air of severity, and to show himself superior to its attractions. But now he was not only astonished by the well-ordered and unpretentious comfort of the house, but he was also shaken in his preconceived notions about the rich, when he came to make the acquaintance of ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... will never cease till it be restored; if his barn, where he bestows all his fruits and his goods, be out of repair, what diligence doth he use to make it perfect? If the stable for his horse, or the sty for his swine, be not able to exclude the severity of weather, when the rains fall, and the winds blow, how careful is he to incur the necessary cost? Shall we then be so mindful of our common houses, deputed to such low occupations, and be forgetful toward that house of God, in which are expounded the words of our eternal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... consistent conservative. Had the accident of birth made him an English squire, he would have been a stanch Tory, would have held the King's commission on the bench of justices, and would have administered the penalties of the law with exceeding severity against poachers. Having been born in the Blue Ridge Mountains, he staked his property in behalf of two scoundrels, for the sake of an inherited ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... ideas of justice, too; but they were not divinely beautiful and true ideas; they were something more resembling a grocer's, or tea-dealer's ideas of equal right. A little over-indulgence last night was to be balanced by a good deal of over-severity to-day; and this manner of rectifying previous ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a resonant clearness that enforced and aggravated their severity. That two persons so strongly resembling each other in capacity for rival exhibition, or for mutual exasperation, should have maintained so firm a friendship, often surprised their acquaintance; she explained it by saying that she and Kinglake sharpened one another like ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... as we have already seen, by many modern castes. Trade castes not only prescribe the one ancestral occupation to their members; they also, with equal distinctness and severity, prohibit to all within their ranks any other work or trade. So in all those legion castes not only has a man his social sphere and status assigned to him, he is also tied to the trade of his ancestors; yea, more, he is expected to confine himself to ancestral tools and methods ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... vicinity was occasionally visited by violent thunderstorms, with deluging rain. Such were always welcomed, for they laid the almost intolerable dust. Considering the severity of these storms there were but few accidents from lightning. However, I recall one occasion when three fatalities resulted from three successive flashes. One almost unbearably hot afternoon in 1872 a small, globular, solid looking cloud passed slowly over the mine. Otherwise, ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... arbitrary proceedings of the Governor with great boldness and a just severity; while it declared that the action taken by the intrepid House of Representatives, with rare unanimity, was supported by the almost universal sentiments of the people. The last act of the Governor, the prorogation of the General Court for six months, was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... occasion, as he seemed suspicious of the severity of the rule imposed on her by Christ, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... partially overflowed bottoms of the Platte, where our passage stirred up swarms of musquitoes, we came unexpectedly on an Indian, who was perched upon a bluff, curiously watching the movements of our caravan. He belonged to a village of Oglallah Sioux, who had lost all their animals in the severity of the preceding winter, and were now on their way up the Bijou fork to beg horses from the Arapahoes, who were hunting buffalo at the head of that river. Several came into our camp at noon; and, as they were hungry, as usual, they ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... for every hundred hearths. This decree was a return to feudal military service, occasioned, no doubt, by the general disaffection caused by the raising of the war supplies in money. As if to recompense all classes for the severity of the exaction, Philip published an ordonnance of reform for the protection of both laymen and ecclesiastics from the arbitrary encroachments ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... "'Severity' introduces a rhyme, which won't do at all; 'sternness' doesn't convey asceticism, as 'austerity' does. Give ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... the Confessor; in the dazzling radiance of his countenance, the exceeding glory of the ministration of righteousness; in the penitential robe, the sympathetic meekness whereby, restoring one overtaken in a fault, he considers himself lest he also be tempted; in the sword, the wholesome severity of his discipline; in the golden key, his divine authority; in the silver, the discernment of spirits whereby he denies absolution to the impenitent, the learning and discretion whereby he directs ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... animals and plants are also sure to differ in the two areas, and some species will almost always be absent in the smaller which are present in the larger country. These differences will act and react on the isolated portion of the species. The struggle for existence will differ in its severity and in its incidence from that which affects the bulk of the species. The absence of some one insect or other creature inimical to the young animal or plant may cause a vast difference in its conditions of ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... provinces in the interior of the kingdom?. . . My curate tells me that eight families, supporting themselves on their labor when I left, are now begging their bread. There is no work to be had. The wealthy are economizing like the poor. And with all this the taille is exacted with military severity. The collectors, with their officers, accompanied by locksmiths, force open the doors and carry off and sell furniture for one-quarter of its value, the expenses exceeding the amount of the tax. . . "—"I am at this moment on my estates in Touraine. I encounter ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... extended, were not without their faults. The faith which their founders professed was a gloomy faith, and left its mark in gloom upon the characters of the people and the tenor of their laws. The Ironside quality of their creed showed itself in the cruelties with which they visited the Indians; the severity of their tenets was felt by all who could not readily adapt themselves to the adamantine ethics of men of the type of Endicott and Mather. There was not wanting, too, a spirit of lawlessness in the English America, curiously in contrast with the law-abiding character of ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... have got something for her outward cargo. I refused to tell, and he ordered me into their boat, whither the captain had been sent before me. In doing all this, his manner wore an appearance, to me, of assumed severity. ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... orator, Mr. Turnbull, found himself compelled to rise in his seat, and ask whether the noble Duke at the head of the Government thought himself strong enough to rule without attention to Parliamentary details. The question was asked with an air of inexorable severity, and was intended to have deep signification. Mr. Turnbull had disliked the Coalition from the beginning; but then Mr. Turnbull always disliked everything. He had so accustomed himself to wield the constitutional cat-of-nine-tails, that heaven will hardly be happy ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... coach to whip up his horses and enter Angel's at that remarkable pace which the woodcuts in the hotel bar-room represented to credulous humanity as the usual rate of speed of that conveyance. At such times the habitual expression of disdainful reticence and lazy official severity which he wore on the box became intensified as the loungers gathered about the vehicle, and only the boldest ventured to address him. It was the Hon. Judge Beeswinger, Member of Assembly, who to-day presumed, perhaps rashly, on the strength ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... feel bad, and don't like to write or think about it. But, for fear of being misunderstood, it will be repeated that the fate of a spy, when caught, is death. It is a military necessity. The other side hanged our spies, with relentless severity, and were justified in so doing by laws and usages of war. Even the great and good Washington approved of the hanging of the British spy, Maj. Andre, and refused to commute the manner of his execution ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... necessary to pass. In this difficult and dangerous passage by an extremely narrow road, it snowed almost continually, and the cold was so extremely severe, that although every one put on all the clothes they had along with them, more than sixty men perished from the extreme severity of the weather. One of the soldiers happened to be accompanied by his wife and two young children, and seeing them entirely worn out with fatigue, while he was unable to assist them, he preferred to remain with them and perish, although he might have saved himself. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... 1895 was very severely felt in the Cotswolds. Next to an earthquake a bad thunderstorm is the most awe inspiring of all things to mortals. During last autumn the Cotswold district was visited by a thunderstorm of short duration, but great severity. A gale was blowing from the south; thunder and lightning came up from the same direction, and, travelling at an immense speed, passed rapidly over our house about ten p.m. The shocks became louder and louder; ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... nature of the allegorical subject demanded, but there is such beauty in the landscape, in the pure atmosphere, in the bright green of the grass, in the masses of trees and flowers, even in the single figures which stand out from the four great groups, that we no longer perceive either hardness or severity in this symmetry. The wing picture on the right, representing the holy pilgrims, is, in the figures, less striking than the others. Here St. Christopher, who wandered through the world seeking the ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... world, so long as he was left her without spot or blemish. Observing the foothold that Lauder had in the house and estimation of her relatives, she did not feel herself at liberty to treat him with all the contempt and severity that he deserved; so that she was too often, for appearances sake and out of respect for the feelings of those under whose roof she was, constrained not to notice in anger much that had escaped his lips regarding Nicholas, or, rather, the possible character which he had turned out to be under ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... impulse. And I repeat—for of this I am perfectly sure—that the best things are only to be done in this way. It is very difficult thoroughly to understand the difference between indolence and reserve of strength, between apathy and severity, between palsy and patience; but there is all the difference in the world; and nearly as many men are ruined by inconsiderate exertions as by idleness itself. To do as much as you can heartily and happily do each day in a well-determined ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... the operation of moral causes, have taken away from the poor slave his habit of loyalty and obedience to his master, which lightened his servitude by a double operation; beguiling his own cares and disarming his master's suspicions and severity; and now, like true empirics in politics, you are called upon to trust to the mere physical strength of the fetter which holds him in bondage. You have deprived him of all moral restraint; you have tempted him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, just enough to perfect him in ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... land of the Cherusci, enforcing there the rigid Roman laws, and chastising and executing free-born Germans for deeds which in their creed were not crimes. Varus, who had at first made himself loved by his kindness, now made himself hated by his severity. The Germans brooded over their wrongs, awed by the Roman army, which consisted of thirty thousand picked men, strongly intrenched, their camps being impregnable to their undisciplined foes. Yet the high-spirited ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... Alfred Succession to the throne of Wessex Danish invasions Humiliation and defeat of Alfred His subsequent conquests Final settlement of the Danes Alfred fortifies his kingdom Reorganizes the army and navy His naval successes Renewed Danish invasions The laws of Alfred Their severity Alfred's judicial reforms Establishment of shires and parishes Administrative reforms Financial resources of Alfred His efforts in behalf of education His literary labors Final defeat of the Danes Death and character of Alfred His services ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... religious and a mystic. But Teresa was not withdrawn from the world. She travelled incessantly from one end of Spain to the other, establishing new foundations, visiting her convents, and dealing with all classes of men, from the soldier to the priest, from the prince to the peasant. The severity of her discipline was tempered by a tolerant and half-amused insight into the pardonable foibles of humanity. She held back her nuns with one hand from "the frenzy of self-mortification," which is the mainstay of spiritual vanity, and ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... himself, Sir Charles began once more to relax in his severity towards this handsome young scapegrace. His absolute frankness disarmed criticism. It was in a more gracious voice that the older man continued ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from his thoughts and became a-whirl about another figure of which in the passing train he became suddenly aware. It was the cold, impassive, scrutinising face of an aged dame of such overweening pride and keenness that he seemed to feel himself pierced through by her gaze. He had heard of the severity of the Marechale de Noailles—"Madame l'Etiquette"—Cyrene's patroness, and knew intuitively that this was she. The danger of his situation became instantaneously real. The train, accustomed to confusion, continued their advance. ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... would sit smiling behind his hand, and would try his hardest to find "mitigating circumstances"; but when none could be dug out he passed sentence with the last limit of severity, and the man that was up for orders didn't come again if he knew ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... of the omission of the Preface: but in lieu of which, there is another and a short preface, by M. Crapelet, to the third volume, where, after telling his readers that his previous attempt had excited my "holy wrath," he seems to rejoice in the severity of those criticisms, which, in certain of our own public Journals, have been passed upon my subsequent bibliographical labours. With these criticisms I have here nothing to do. If the authors of them can reconcile them to their own good sense ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... hoped that the severity of the sentence would mitigate the King's anger; but Henry was implacable: he swore "by God's eyes" that they had favored De Brois on account of his clerical character, and required the bishops to make oath that they had done justice ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... the volume, a copy was sent to each Review, with a letter deprecatory of the severity of criticism, an act as ill judged as it was useless, since all that a young writer could properly say was to be found in the preface, in which he stated that his inducement to publish was, "the facilitation through its means of those studies which, from ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... the invading armies; the latter, as a patriotic and successful demonstration of the hatred of the Belgians for their temporary masters and of their determination to hinder them by every means in their power. It gave the spirit of the people a fillip, and, despite the redoubled severity of the Germans, the Liegeois went about their businesses with a prouder air, as if conscious that, though temporarily overcome, they were ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... were burned by the common hangman. Freedom of opinion was under interdict: even news could not be published without license... James II. and his infamous judges carried the Licensing Act into effect with barbarous severity. But the Revolution brought indulgence even to the Jacobite Press; and when the Commons, in 1695, refused to renew the Licensing Act, a censorship of the press was for ever renounced by the law of England.' There remained, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... merely a matter of testing a hypothesis; and you ought not to have to ask that question," he added, with mock severity, "seeing that you had what turn out to have been all the necessary facts, two days ago. But I will prepare a document and demonstrate ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... all the big words in the dictionary, with your high-flown language," warned Bandy-legs in mock severity. "But I get your meaning, all the same, and I also agree with your noble sentiments. Sure we're expecting to stand up for Obed and his pets; and we're likewise intending to make it hot for any old terrapin ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Heaven's sake, take care what you say," said Dona Perfecta, in a tone of marked severity. "But excuse him, Senor Don Inocencio, for he is not aware that you have a nephew who, although he has only lately left the university, is a prodigy in ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... what to do; the tone in which the king spoke was anything but that of a credulous man. On the other hand, it did not indicate any particular severity, nor did he seem to care very much about the cross-examination. There was more of raillery in it than menace. "And you say, then," continued the king, "that it was positively De Guiche's horse that ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the winter 1832—which was, as you will recollect, of most unusual severity—that I had gone up to Tom Draw's, with a view merely to quail shooting, though I had taken up, as usual, my rifle, hoping perhaps to get a chance shot at a deer. The very first night I arrived, the old bar-room was full of farmers, talking all very eagerly ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... engineer who was installing a service of electric light somewhere in the neighbourhood. The Doddses were friendly people and I had gradually come to entertain a warm regard for them in spite of the extreme severity of their bridge and Mrs. Dodds's habit of speaking plainly about my mistakes. I would not, except under great pressure, cause any inconvenience or annoyance to the Doddses. But Lalage is great pressure. ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... to spare about Mary's tears and the severity of Knox—here is a scene in which for once there is no severity, but everything cheerful, radiant, and full of hope. Was there in all Christendom a more hopeful princess, more gifted, more understanding, more wise? for it was not only that she had the heart to take (or seem ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... but he, instead of taking the remonstrance in good part and relaxing the severity of his proceedings, resented the interference of Idikut, and answered him in a haughty and threatening manner. This made Idikut very angry. Indeed, he was angry before, as it might naturally be supposed ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... was by the would-be reformers of that day alone that such sentiments were held, and it was only by the severity of the punishment attending non-conformity with these regulations that they were ever enforced. In 1796, "the sumptuary law relative to dress had fallen into neglect," and in the next year "it was found so obnoxious ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... region frequently visited by typhoons, in consequence of which a municipal law required houses to be but one story high. During the latter part of our residence in China we experienced the terrors of a storm remarkable for its severity and in the course of which a portion of the Consulate was blown down. After spending some anxious hours in an underground passage in the middle of the night, we were finally obliged to take refuge in the Hong of Augustus Heard and Company. I shall never forget, as we sat in this lonely cellar ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... extravagance of the king and the oppression of his officers, the preacher was put to the rack and interrogated, "before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture," in order to draw from him evidence of treason; but this horrible severity could wring no confession from him. His sermon was not found treasonable by the judges of the King's Bench and by Lord Coke; but the unhappy man was tried and condemned, dying in jail before the time set for his execution. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... many pine and murmur: substantial retribution, even in this poor dislocated world of wrong, not seldom overtakes the sinner, not seldom encourages the saint. Encourages? yea, and punishes: blessing him with kind severity; teaching him to know himself a mere bad root, if he be not grafted on his God; proving that the laws which govern life are just, and wise, and kind; showing him that a man's own heart's desire, if ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... An epidemic fever was raging in Seringapatam, and Swartz pitched his tent outside, where he could conveniently visit the many-pillared palace of the sovereign. He was much struck with the close personal supervision that Hyder Ali kept up over his officers, and with the terrible severity of the punishments. Two hundred men were kept armed with whips, and not a day passed without many being scourged, no rank being exempt, the Nabob's two sons and sons-in-law being liable to be whipped like the meanest groom. Swartz was the unwilling spectator of the punishment of the collector ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... know how it will get done, considering that the clerk upon whom I have to depend is Roland Yorke," answered Mr. Galloway, with severity. "One thing appears pretty evident, that Jenkins will not be able to ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... knight who was beaten to death by the servants of his household, and, though he admits that the knight had been cruel and overbearing, such an untimely fate brought home to him the insecurity of all masters—that insecurity which led the Romans to punish with such merciless severity any attack by a slave upon his owner. Not that Pliny had any cause for self-reproach! He tells us in a charming letter his rule of conduct with his dependants, and the theory on which he conducted his household. According to his view, "Servis respublica quaedam ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... he observed that his own honor, the duty he owed his country and his fellow-men, required his personal attention at his post, and also the severity of his orders. And if, in attending to his duties, he should be so unfortunate as to lose his life, the army could get along as well without him, but he could not get along without an army. Thus, with Roman firmness and a disinterested devotion of life to his country, ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... at her desk under the crystal chandelier, with a severity of expression that suggested nothing less than a court martial. Without speaking she waved Eleanor to a seat, and began searching through her papers. The light fell full on her high white pompadour and threw the deep lines about her grim ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... to the present time, appears sanctioned by the silence of the law. It is true that the magistrates demand force to put them down: but what should you do in such circumstances? I think that it would be an excess of severity to be inflexible to a fault, the origin of which is in your decrees: it would be an insult to the citizens to imagine they had any evil designs. It is said that this Assembly wishes to present an address ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... ministerial, and the chief consideration in the exercise of that discretion must be the likelihood of the prisoner failing to appear at the trial. This must be gauged from the nature of the evidence in support of the accusation, the position of the accused and the severity of the punishment which his conviction will entail, as well as the independence of the sureties. The Bail Act 1898 gives a magistrate power, where a person is charged with felony or certain misdemeanours, or where he is committed for trial for any indictable offence, to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... were contending together as to who, in fact, should be Bishop of Barchester. Each of these had now admitted to himself (or boasted to herself) that Mrs. Proudie was victorious in the struggle. They had gone through a competitive examination of considerable severity, and she had come forth the winner, facile princeps. Mr. Slope had for a moment run her hard, but it was only for a moment. It had become, as it were, acknowledged that Hiram's Hospital should be the testing-point between them, and now Mr. Quiverful was already in the hospital, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... IX., King of France, had been attacked by an illness of such severity that his life was despaired of; and at one time a lady, who was watching by his bed, thought him actually dead, and was about to cover his face. He soon opened his eyes, and, stretching out his arms, said, "The light of the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of January a royal declaration was confirmed by the Parliament against the Duc de Nevers, who, although not yet in open revolt, was condemned as guilty of rebellion and lese-majeste; and this premature act of severity caused general discontent throughout the capital. In vain did his sister the Dowager Duchess of Longueville and Bentivoglio the Papal Nuncio endeavour to effect his reconciliation with the Court. At the instigation of Richelieu, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Mrs. Norton.— Earnestly begs, for reasons equally generous and dutiful, that she may be left to her own way of working with her relations. Has received her sister's answer to her letter, No. XLV. of this volume. She tries to find an excuse for the severity of it, though greatly affected by it. Other ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... N. plainness &c. adj.; simplicity, severity; plain terms, plain English; Saxon English; household words V. call a spade "a spade"; plunge in medias res; come to the point. Adj. plain, simple; unornamented, unadorned, unvarnished; homely, homespun; neat; severe, chaste, pure, Saxon; commonplace, matter-of-fact, natural, prosaic. dry, unvaried,monotonous ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... dear. Here's wind, Ma. Look at this!' In a concluding round of great severity, the Reverend Septimus administered and escaped all sorts of punishment, and wound up by getting the old lady's cap into Chancery—such is the technical term used in scientific circles by the learned in the Noble Art— with a lightness of touch that hardly ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... by the voyage. He was troubled with a cutaneous complaint, of which he makes light, but which was abundant evidence that his physical condition was far from perfect; he was a victim of the gout, which attacked him frequently and with great severity, so that he was often obliged to keep his bed for days and weeks; when he was appointed sole minister of the States to France he remarked that there was "some incongruity in a plenipotentiary who could neither stand ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... room been closed that dry-rot had set in. The silk quilt on the four-poster was falling to pieces, the linen was as yellow as beeswax, and the sheets made one think of the Flying Dutchman's sails. This room was of almost monastic severity: an ascetic or a stern soldier might have occupied it. Besides the bed it contained four chairs, a clothes-press, a secretary, and a shaving-stand. On a small table near the bed were a Wedgwood mortar with a heavy pestle, a ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... placed his foot on the neck of chance—immediately prepared a new pile. So did a man with the air of an emaciated beau or worn-out libertine, who looked at life through one eye-glass, and held out his hand tremulously when he asked for change. It could surely be no severity of system, but rather some dream of white crows, or the induction that the eighth of the month was lucky, which inspired the fierce yet tottering impulsiveness ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... with their friends. The Carthusian monks were left undisturbed, although the attitude which they had assumed was notorious, and although the prior was known to forbid his penitents in confession to acknowledge the king's supremacy. If the government was at length driven to severity, it was because the clergy forced them to it in spite ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... lottery with the prize which he has drawn, but, in future ages, his honour will be only in proportion to his labours. If, on the contrary, he rushes again into the lists, he is sure to be judged with severity proportioned to the former favour of the public. If he be daunted by a bad reception on this second occasion, he may again become a stranger to the arena. If, on the contrary, he can keep his ground, and stand the shuttlecock's fate, of being struck up and down, he will probably, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... dissolute; whereas established habits and ancient belief still preserved some respect for morality amongst the other classes of society. Nor will it be contested that at the present day the remnants of that same aristocracy exhibit a certain severity of morals; whilst laxity of morals appears to have spread amongst the middle and lower ranks. So that the same families which were most profligate fifty years ago are nowadays the most exemplary, and democracy seems only to have ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... let the word of God dwell in you richly. Be much engaged in prayer. If troubles rise around you, the delightful thought that you have a Father, a Saviour, in heaven, with whom you are so happy as to hold communion, will not only soften their severity, but in a good degree elevate ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... celestial beauty, sung by the Angel ("Oh, rest in the Lord"), breathing the very spirit of heavenly peace and consolation,—an aria of almost matchless purity, beauty, and grace. Firmly and with a certain sort of majestic severity follows the chorus, "He that shall endure to the end." The next scene is one of the most impressive and dramatic in the oratorio. Elijah no longer prays for death; he longs for the divine presence. He hears the voice of the Angel: "Arise now, get thee without, stand ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... severity, all this furnishing of yours," was his constantly repeated criticism to Marianne, as he sat smoking his pipe on a divan, as was his custom in ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... which, for that very reason, became every day more the object of his hatred and jealousy. Not only a preference on all occasions, it was observed, was given to the Lancastrians, but many of the opposite party had been exposed to great severity, and had been bereaved of their fortunes by acts of attainder. A general resumption likewise had passed of all grants made by the princes of the house of York; and though this rigor had been covered under the pretence that the revenue was become insufficient ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... were in perplexity and disagreement. Some, in the recklessness of despair, were for marching to meet the foe and to risk a battle; others were for avoiding a conflict, and thus protracting the war till the severity of winter should drive their enemies from the field, when they would have some time to prepare for another year's campaign. These difficulties led Frederic to apply for a truce. But Ferdinand was too wise to lose by wasting time in negotiations, vantage ground he had already gained. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... several districts, and cause all such persons as are guilty of robbery, felony, or the like crimes, to be sent round to this place in order to take their trial at the annual assizes held here, as I am determined to proceed against all such with the utmost severity of the law. Given under my hand at St. John's, ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... friend's counsel, in his modes of thought; none in his theory, and none in his practice. He disliked his friend's counsel, and, in fact, disliked his society, for his friend was somewhat apt to speak to him in a manner approaching to severity. Now Roger Scatcherd had done many things in the world, and made much money; whereas his friend had done but few things, and made no money. It was not to be endured that the practical, efficient man should be taken to task by the man who proved himself to be neither ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... a plea for the freedom of love, or rather, for indulgence with regard to what are branded by society as the sins of love. Sarah Bernhardt was the young girl who, in her innocence, judges all moral irregularities with the utmost severity, until her eyes are opened to what the world really is. She is, without knowing it, the child of unlawful love, and the father's curse is that of not daring to be anything to his child—whom he has educated and over whom he watches—not daring to claim his right ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... the apartments mother and son were shut up alone in the agony of their misery and despair, for whatever might be the fate of the common people of the Pretender's army, the action of the King toward all who opposed him was known to be of merciless severity. The leaders of the rebellion could expect but one fate—death by ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... advocated the punishment of death for forgery, and "the satisfaction of thinking" in the teeth of mountains of evidence from bankers and other injured parties (one thousand bankers alone!) "that he was deterring persons from the commission of crime, by the severity of the law". Thus, Mr. Justice Coleridge delivered his charge at Hertford in 1845. Thus there were in the criminal code of England, in 1790, one hundred and sixty crimes punishable with death. Thus the lawyer has said, again and again, in his generation, ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... a slight sprain in his ankle, sat at ease in a little sitting-room in the back of the house. Mr. Ryan, being irritable and in some pain, the women-folk had relaxed the severity of their dominion, and allowed him to sit unchecked in his favorite costume for the home circle—shirt sleeves and a tall beaver hat. Beside him on the table stood bare and undecorated array of bottles, a ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... and severity, hopes and rebuffs, the clever egoist kept his three slaves faithful and close ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... of it again!" she commanded with kindly severity. "What you are to remember all the time is that you are now a man and honestly earning your own living, and no longer a—a leech battening on the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... Captain King to the good disposition of the Sandwich Islanders becomes the more worthy of credit, when we consider that the English always treated them with great severity, and that Captain Cook only fell a sacrifice to his own error. King has also defended them from the imputation of being cannibals, of which Anderson and several of Cook's companions had ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... were deficient in a reasonable severity, but as this was scarce ever exerted without just cause, I was more afflicted at their disapprobation than the punishment. Certainly the method of treating youth would be altered if the distant effects, this indiscriminate, and frequently indiscreet method produces, were more ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the air, drew the trigger: Fortunately for him it flashed in the pan: Mr Banks immediately took it from him, not a little surprised how he had acquired sufficient knowledge of a gun to discharge it, and reproved him with great severity for what he had done. As it was of infinite importance to keep the Indians totally ignorant of the management of fire-arms, he had taken every opportunity of intimating that they could never offend him so highly as by even touching ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... and passengers with lace work and post cards; and to the English in search of sunshine, with a rival to Madeira. It should be a successful rival, for it is a charming place, and on the day we were there the thermometer was at 72 deg., and every one was complaining of the cruel severity of the winter. In Santa Cruz one who knows Spanish America has but to shut his eyes and imagine himself back in Santiago de Cuba or Caracas. There are the same charming plazas, the yellow churches and towered cathedral, the long iron-barred ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... than cold, which destroyed the poor wretches left there to fight it out with winter; at Spitzbergen, as well as could be gathered from their journal, it appeared that they had perished from the intolerable severity of the climate,—and the contorted attitudes in which their bodies were found lying, too plainly indicated the amount of agony they had suffered. No description can give an adequate idea of the intense rigour of the six months' winter in ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... his office of Secretary. Spite of this he was soon afterwards ennobled, and his new title of Lord Baltimore is the name by which he is best known. Visiting his little settlement in 1627 he quickly came to the conclusion that the severity of the climate would make its failure certain. He therefore gave up this enterprise, but determined to repeat the attempt on the more favorable soil of Virginia. Confident of the goodwill of Charles I., to whom he had written for a grant ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... old scholar waited for the fluttering bird whom adverse Fate had driven into his dismal lair with all the pompous severity of ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Valentine emerged from the tower door followed wearily by Papa Bonneton, in full regalia, his mild face expressing all that it could of severity. ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... but of the Rhineland, and of little northern towns on the Kiel canal, went mad with joy; there was shouting and song and public festivity. Meantime in England, as the truth dawned, there were hushed voices and an intense solemnity. The day had come, and no one doubted the severity of the ordeal. Yet neither did any one, except an unhappy few who had been nursed in folly and illusion, doubt the necessity of taking up the challenge. The country was united. Not only was the safety and existence of the ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... sat glancing at his father from time to time, Syd noted that there was a scratch upon his forehead, and that a bit of sticking-plaster was on one of his knuckles, proofs these of the severity of ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... dignity, yet severity, "sich drabs of girls as I 'ave 'ad would 'ave prevoked a saint, and mayhap I was a little hasty; but takin' up a sauce-pan, and findin' it that dirty as were scandlus to be'old, I throwed the water as were hin it over 'er, and the saucepan with it, an' she declared ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the queen, "but I fear a struggle with the priests. It is true that thy father, who was mild beyond measure, has made those men insolent, but it is not wise to bring them to despair through severity. Besides, think of this: Who will replace them in counsel? They know everything that has been, that is, and that will be on earth and in heaven; they know the most secret thoughts of mankind, and they direct hearts as the wind directs tree leaves. Without ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... in their own diurnal prints, our parliamentary debates, and the general outline of most of our political schemes, which were furnished by people in the pay of the french government, who resided in England notwithstanding the severity of the legislative, and the vigilance of the executive authorities. Whilst I am mentioning the subject of newspaper intercourse, I cannot help lamenting, that since the renewal of national friendship, the public prints of both countries are not more under the influence ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... covered with a dense growth of fir, hemlock, and cedar. Pushing skyward in competition for the sunlight, trees attain great heights. Protected from winter's severity by the thickness of the growth, and from fire by the dampness of the soil, great age is assured, which means thick and heavy trunks. The Douglas fir, easily the most important timber-tree of western America, here reaches its two hundred feet in ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... approved, he was tortured with the most exemplary severity, notwithstanding which they could only get these words from him, It was the will of God that I should ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... a refusal of the oath of allegiance would give grounds for a war of extermination and free Scotland for ever from its dread of the Highlanders. He had provided for the expected refusal by orders of a ruthless severity. "Your troops," he wrote to the officer in command, "will destroy entirely the country of Lochaber, Locheil's lands, Keppoch's, Glengarry's, and Glencoe's. Your powers shall be large enough. I hope the soldiers will not trouble the Government with prisoners." But his hopes were ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... been changes in the room since Gerard's occupancy of it. Bright rugs and coverings mitigated the severity of the horse-hair furniture, a couple of easy-chairs stood there like velvet-clad cavaliers in a Puritan meeting. If the hues ran to vivid scarlets and unexpected contrasts, why, Rupert had done the shopping and had consulted his own taste. In the midst ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... next Easter, Ambrose, in his Master's name, pronounced the forgiveness of Theodosius, and received him back to the full privileges of a Christian. When we look at the course of many another emperor, and see how easily, where the power was irresponsible, justice became severity, and severity, bloodthirstiness, we see what Ambrose dared to meet, and from what he spared Theodosius and all the civilized world under his sway. Who can tell how many innocent lives have been saved by that ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... plastique,' to make an excellent 'tableau vivant,' and to wear Greek drapery, as if she had stepped down from a niche in the Acropolis. All this Miss Mary Anderson does to perfection. She is a living, breathing statue. A more beautiful object in its innocent severity the stage has seldom seen. But is this all that Galatea has to do? Those who have studied Mr. Gilbert's poem will scarcely say so. Galatea descended from her pedestal has to become human, and has to reconcile her audience to the contradictory position of a woman, who, presumably ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... conventional characters of the drama of her own time; it was even said of her that she could not speak its prose properly or tolerably. She disliked the hair-powder necessary to Adrienne Lecouvreur and Gabrielle de Belle Isle, although her beauty, for all its severity, did not lose picturesqueness in the costumes of the time of Louis XV. As Gabrielle she was more girlish and gentle, pathetic, and tender, than was her wont, while the signal fervor of her speech addressed to Richelieu, beginning, "Vous mentez, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... was very popular in its day, and a great advance upon the old academy. It was semi-military in its methods, and in its government there was great thoroughness without severity. Its teachers possessed superior qualifications, and all were men of great kindness as well as of marked ability. Among them were two men who especially had great influence in directing his energies and preparing ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... was mildly flirtatious, but looked upon emotional intensity in the personal life of the artist as a criminal waste of force. Halifax Bolton, who claimed to be the discoverer of the Younger Generation (in fiction) and was just twenty-eight himself, was a critic of formidable severity and the author of at least five claques. The intense concentration of writing routed his sense of humor, but he had as many droll stories in his repertoire as Todd. His wife, the famous "Alberta Jones," fierce Lucy Stoner, was the editor, at a phenomenal salary, of one ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... as possible, the musical and verbal accents shall coincide. But there are rigorists, unaware of the usages and conventions previously spoken of, who are very severe in their judgment when any deviation is made from the printed score with which they follow the performance of classic works. Such severity is unmerited, because unjust. Although such persons sometimes inveigh against any and every change from the strict letter of the printed music—ignorant of the possibility, that only in this way can ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... souls until no sense of humanity was left in them. In vain did some, not many, in that age make a stand against such terrible measures. In vain did the king and many nobles, enlightened in mind and spirit, demonstrate that such severity of punishment could but fan the flame of vengeance in the Cossack nation. But the power of the king, and the opinion of the wise, was as nothing before the savage will of the magnates of the kingdom, who, by their thoughtlessness ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... trespass and damages, real and exemplary. He was a money-lender, shaving notes or taking them for larger sums than he lent, with chattel mortgages for security. Foreclosure and sale were a perennial source of profit to him. He was tall and well past middle age, with a short, gray beard, a look of severity, a stoop in his shoulders, and a third wife whom nobody, within the knowledge of the townfolk, had ever seen. If he had no other to gossip with, he provided imaginary company and talked to his own ears. He thought himself a most powerful ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... intensely nervous organization, acute perceptions, and exacting taste made her in everything most keenly alive to our faults and deficiencies. The unsparing severity of the sole reply or comment she ever vouchsafed to our stupidity, want of sense, or want of observation—"I hate a fool"—has remained almost like a cut with a lash across my memory. Her wincing sensitiveness of ear made it all but impossible for ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... because the men have already got outfits?-Yes. They could not take lads who are insufficiently clothed; while the men are better clothed, and are more able to stand the severity of the climate. That fishing used to be a nursery for our young men, bringing them up to be able to take their position in the merchant service; but now it is not, and ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Mercers' Company. His theology was manifest in the image over the gate. It was neither Erkenwald nor Uncumber: it was not the Virgin or even St. Paul himself, but the Child Jesus with the simple and pregnant inscription, "Hear ye Him." The severity of his discipline, although a Pauline parent or pupil would now resent it, was adapted to those rough and hardy times, when people rose early and worked hard, and when corporal punishment was general and often, and irrespective of sex or age. William Lyly, an Oxford student who had studied in the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock |
