"Stern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Many even had only two large cloths which were hung about the stage, one green, which was to be used when the scene was in the open air, and the other yellow, which was used to represent an interior. Shakespeare's "Poor Players" were certainly a stern reality in Germany. In order to attract the public the plays had to consist for the most part of the grossest subjects imaginable, it being barely possible to smuggle some small portion of serious drama ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... face grew stern and his eyes rested sadly on Odo. "You speak," said he, "of bringing light into dark places; but what light is there on earth save that which is shed by the Cross, and where shall they find guidance who close their eyes to that ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Turpin and Kitty Poythress; and then Erskine and his betrothed, he with fresh feathers of the hawk and the scarlet tanager gleaming in his cap above his swart, stern aquiline face. Then Peter, beside the widow Babcock; he openly aflame and solicitous; she coy and discreetly inviting, as is the wisdom of some. Then others and others and others—a long gay pageant, filling the woods ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... gaze on these appeared the peers. Stern looked the king, and, when the court was met,— The lady and her lover in the midst,— Spoke to his lords, demanding them of this: "What merits he, the servant of the king, Forgetful of his place, his trust, his oath, Who, for his own bad end, to hide ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... his errand, but General Lodge looked up from the maps and plans before him with a faint smile. He had a dark, stern face and ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... afterwards, the sails were furled, and they cast anchor about a hundred fathoms from the little harbor. The gig was already lowered, and in it were four oarsmen and a coxswain. The traveller descended, and instead of sitting down at the stern of the boat, which had been decorated with a blue carpet for his accommodation, stood up with his arms crossed. The rowers waited, their oars half lifted out of the water, like birds drying ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... before a marble-faced man, whose expression never changed except when speaking of his imbecile machines! "How can he! How can he!" muttered Jack, riding through the woods. His face was sombre, almost stern; and always he beat the devil's tattoo on his boot ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... right on 't, Jack," says I, "we must show her that she can't ride rough-shod over us any longer. We must be stern to ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... stammer, Iron heart, by sin's dread hammer Ground to better dust than golden, May thy prophecy be true. Melt the stern, the weak embolden; Teach what Luther ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... searchlights came on, bathing her quarry in light. It was the Jan Smuts; the name, and the figure-head-bust of the old soldier-philosopher, were plainly visible. Her forward gun had been knocked out, and she was trying to swing about to get a field of fire for her stern-gun. ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... threats. With this case the hands of persecution began to hang down, for it was evident that persecution alone would neither improve these Gipsies nor yet drive them out of the country. The tide of events now changed. Law, rigid, stern justice alone could do no good with them, and consequently handed them over to the minister of love and mercy. This step was a bound to the opposite extreme, and as we go along we shall see that the efforts put forth in this direction alone met with but little more ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... in Eunice's heart and she turned towards her tormentor. She parted her lips and the oaths of stern men were upon the eve of bursting forth, but she repressed them and was soon out of the hotel. The railroad station was not far away and she preferred walking to submitting to the indignities that might attend riding on the cars. Appearing at the railroad ticket office ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... I, putting on my stern look which I call up but once a year. "Well, eat and grow fat, become ugly, asthmatic and die of melted fat. I will make a note of your case and you shall figure in my second edition. Ah! I see, one phrase has overcome you, and you beg me to suspend the thunderbolt. Be easy, I will prescribe your ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... incentive to make him speak out; while as for the Englishmen, though they would gladly have taken his advice, they hesitated to give away the secret of Saidee Ray's husband to a representative of Ben Halim's stern judge, France. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Who shield the soldier on the deadly scarp, The horse wild-plunging o'er the crimson field, The ship that, disregarding in her pride Star-set and star-rise, meets disastrous gales:— Such gales as pile the billows mountain-high, E'en at their own wild will, round stem or stern: Dash o'er the hold, the timbers rive in twain, Till mast and tackle dangle in mid-air Shivered like toys, and, as the night wears on, The rain of heaven falls fast, and, lashed by wind And iron hail, broad ocean rings again. Then can they ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... valley, in which the river Finnin runs between high and craggy mountains, which are inaccessible to every species of carriage, and only to be surmounted by travellers on foot. At each end of the vale is a lake of about twelve miles in length, and behind the stern mountains which enclose the glen, are salt-water lakes, one of them an arm of the sea. The river Finnin empties itself into the Lake of Glenshiel, at the extremity of the glen. On the eighteenth of August Prince Charles crossed this lake, slept at Glensiarick, and ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... the busiest or the idlest times. At length, in some engagement with a Dutch ship, the particulars of which I forget, Lieutenant Campbell was mortally wounded: his last words were—'Walsingham, comfort my father.' That was no easy task. Stern as Captain Campbell seemed, the loss of his son was irreparable. He never shed a tear when he was told it was all over, but said, 'God's will be done;' and turning into his cabin, desired to be left alone. Half ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... thou sing'st not in the day, As shaming any eye should thee behold, Some dark deep desert, seated from the way, That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold, Will we find out; and there we will unfold To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds: Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... hastily moved. He had never been easy to offend; his careless good-humour, and an unbounded proud self- respect, made him look rather with contempt than anger upon the things that fire most men; though when once moved to displeasure, it was stern and abiding in proportion to the depth of his character. The same good-humour and cool self- respect forbade him even then to be eager in showing resentment; the offender fell off from his esteem, ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to us. As they came nearer I saw the first Altrurian costumes in the lovely colors that the people wear here, and that make a group of them look like a flower-bed; and then I saw that the boats were banked with flowers along the gunwales from stem to stern, and that they were each not manned, but girled by six rowers, who pulled as true a stroke as I ever saw in our boat-races. When they caught sight of us, leaning over the side, and Aristides lifted his hat and waved it to them, they ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... towards which, through all these stormtost seas, French Revolutions, Chartisms, Manchester Insurrections, that make the heart sick in these bad days, the Supreme Powers are driving us. On the whole, blessed be the Supreme Powers, stern as they are! Towards that haven will we, O friends; let all true men, with what of faculty is in them, bend valiantly, incessantly, with thousandfold endeavour, thither, thither! There, or else in the Ocean-abysses, it is very clear to me, we ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... honor of the son Of Jove, Apollo, archer of the skies.[3] At once the voice of all was to respect The priest, and to accept the bounteous price; But so it pleased not Atreus' mighty son, 30 Who with rude threatenings stern him thence dismiss'd. Beware, old man! that at these hollow barks I find thee not now lingering, or henceforth Returning, lest the garland of thy God And his bright sceptre should avail thee nought. 35 I will not loose thy daughter, till old age Steal on her. ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... acquainted with that stern thing called misery, which pursues man, and strangely enough, as it seems at first, pursues him with no vague or uncertain method, but with a positive and unbroken pertinacity. Its presence is not absolutely continuous, else man must cease to live; but its pertinacity is without any break. ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... made of the most stern republican materials, a visit from a nobleman, and an ostensible favourite of Cromwell's, was a high gratification. He received his guest with boisterous hospitality, and without any regard to his diminished strength, dragged him over his demesne, and shewed him all its beauties. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... occupations, my pleasures are not everything; I must think of you also. A day may come when, seeing me irrevocably sundered from you, you will be entitled to reproach me with not having warned you at the decisive hour in which I felt that I was going to pass judgment on you, one of those stern judgments which love cannot long resist. You see, your Nuit de Cleopatre (what a title!) has no bearing on the point. What I must know is whether you are indeed one of those creatures in the lowest grade of mentality and even of charm, one of those contemptible creatures who ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... seen him once more! If he had parted with me in kindness, it would not be so intolerable. But to remember his stern, sad face, as last I saw it; oh, how can I bear it I To have it haunting me through life, like a horrible specter; no friendly words to cherish; no final message; all gloom and anger. Oh, how shall I bear it!" And she fell on ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... the senate and on a point of religion) rejected. Messalla as yet is strongly for severe measures. The loyalists hold aloof owing to the entreaties of Clodius: bands of ruffians are being got together: I myself, at first a stern Lycurgus, am becoming daily less and less keen about it: Cato is hot and eager. In short, I fear that between the indifference of the loyalists and the support of the disloyal it may be the cause of great evils to the Republic. However, your great friend[82]—do you know ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... member of the audience who did not take part in that third encore. He sat squarely in his seat throughout the uproar, watching the stage with piercing grey eyes that never varied in their stern directness. His brows were drawn above them—thick, straight brows that bespoke a formidable strength of purpose. He was plainly a man who was accustomed to hew his own way through life, despising the trodden paths, overcoming all obstacles ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... to begin a life of honest industry. Thirdly, we must promote the circulation of labour, and obviate morbid congestions of the great industrial centres. Fourthly, we must improve the condition of the agricultural poor." Stern as such suggestions may seem, there are few who have really thought as well as worked for the poor without feeling that sternness of this sort is, in the highest sense, mercy. Ten years in the East of London had ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... horrible origin for such a heavenly pastime," I just as solemnly announced to Gershom, who studied me with a stern and guarded eye, and having partaken of his eleventh flap-jack, escaped to the stable and the matutinal task of harnessing ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... its charms, because we have an indistinct apprehension of something arbitrary and tyrannical in the prohibition. To be a spy upon Mr. Falkland! That there was danger in the employment, served to give an alluring pungency to the choice. I remembered the stern reprimand I had received, and his terrible looks; and the recollection gave a kind of tingling sensation, not altogether unallied to enjoyment. The further I advanced, the more the sensation was irresistible. I seemed ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... thoroughly disgusted with their captain, as indeed they had some reason to be, and their valour being wondrously excited by their passionate fondness for water-melons, came to a stern resolution of spending the remainder of their lives on this agreeable island; at any rate, they determined to sail no farther in our company. The captain was ashore, settling his accounts and receiving his papers; ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... represented three old-fashioned French men-of-war with high castles, like pagodas, on the bow and stern, such as you see in Froissart; and snug little turrets on top of the mast, full of little men, with something undefinable in their hands. All three were sailing through a bright-blue sea, blue as Sicily skies; and they were leaning over on their sides at a fearful angle; and they must have been ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... off before they had done much damage; but he had never failed to deliver his charges at their destination better in condition and in greater numbers than could be expected under the circumstances. It speaks well for the man's stern sense of duty that, though he was a captive in a camp of the wildest savages in Australia, and liable to death at any time, he worried, not about his own safety, but about ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... was younger, and the dress plainer, something seemed to make her still more unapproachable. There was less beauty, less gentleness, and the expression of her countenance had something fixed and stern. Now and then there was a sort of agitation of the muscles of the face, and her eyes were riveted on Arthur, excepting that if he looked towards her, she instantly looked out of the window. She neither spoke nor moved: Violet thought that she had not ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... foundation. It is of importance, therefore, in attempting to forward the science of education, that we should profit by the experience of those who have gone before us. They succeeded by a strict observation of facts, and a stern rejection of every species of mere supposition and opinion;—by an uncompromising hostility to prejudice and selfishness, and a fearless admission of truth wherever it was discovered. Such must be the ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... had power to leave the Pyramid, they must pass The Examination, and Be Prepared; and some of this have I set out already. And so stern was the framing of the Law, that there were yet the metal pegs upon the inner side of the Great Gate, where had been stretched the skin of one who disobeyed; and was flayed and his hide set there to be a warning in the Early ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... man who saw the boat pass under the bridge that she made one long leap down, as she came thither; that her funnel was at once knocked flat on the deck by the force of the blow; that the waters covered her from stem to stern; and that then she rose again, and skimmed into the whirlpool a mile below. When there she rode with comparative ease upon the waters, and took the sharp turn round into the river below without a struggle. The feat was done, and the Maid was ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... abrupt in this affair; but the joy occasioned by a distinction so unmerited on your part, ought to overcome the little feminine weakness you might otherwise indulge. Retire and compose yourself; and observe,' continued he, in a stern voice, 'this is no time for finesse.' These words roused Julia from her state of horrid stupefaction. 'O! sir,' said she, throwing herself at his feet, 'forbear to enforce authority upon a point where to obey you would be worse than death; if, indeed, to obey ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... The stern manner he had assumed gave her no hope of eluding him. With an inward gasp, and a sensation of nakedness altogether new to her, dismal, and alarming, she felt that she could not lie. Like a creature forsaken of her staunchest friend, she could have flung ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... P. Hunt, was one of these few exceptions. His was a very strange experience. After ceasing to edit a "selected" magazine, he went to and fro for many voyages to Haiti, where, singular as it may seem, his experiences of the blacks made of him a stern Abolitionist. He married a connection of mine, and lived comfortably in Philadelphia, I think, until ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... I cower, I strive to flee; Though oft I watched without affright, The stern magnificence of night, ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... surprise deepened to dismay when, looking up, he saw the stalwart hunter with stern face looking down ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... but there are, who merit other palms; Hopkins and Stern hold glad the heart with Psalms." British Poets, Lond., 1800, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... himself with dignity. He is of a rather serious turn and even given somewhat to ratiocination. He speaks in a voice neither too loud nor too low and says neither too much nor too little. Every word of his counts. He has the typical hard stern features of the official who has worked his way up from the lowest rank in the arduous government service. Coarse in his inclinations, he passes rapidly from fear to joy, from servility to arrogance. He is dressed in uniform with frogs and wears Hessian boots with spurs. His hair with ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... steady to his Trust, Inflexible to Ill, and obstinately just, May the rude Rabble's Insolence despise, Their senseless Clamours and tumultuous Cries; The Tyrant's Fierceness he beguiles, And the stern Brow, and the harsh Voice defies, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... let him go because she pitied him. Then she stood up, stern and straight, and demanded ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... this Polar Sea voyage must have been a very remarkable one. For shortly before the start, leaks, which had to be stopped, were discovered at many different places in it, and of its power of sailing Rossmuislov himself says: "So long as the wind came from the stern the large sail helped us exceedingly well, but, as soon as it turned and became a head wind, we were compelled to hoist another smaller sail, in consequence of which we were driven back to the point from which we ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... parting was not as simple and straightforward a procedure as Costigan's speech would indicate, but finally he did seek his own room and relaxed upon a pile of cushions, his stern visage transformed. Instead of the low metal ceiling he saw a beautiful, oval, tanned young face, framed in a golden-blonde corona of hair. His gaze sank into the depths of loyal, honest, dark-blue eyes; and ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... take the lives of his fellowmen, to shed their blood for whom that Blood had been shed, was henceforth for him impossible. He unbuckled his sword, and resigning his captaincy in Oliver's conquering army, just when victory was at hand after the stern struggle, he followed his despised ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... to?" whispered a teamster to Jack Long. Long's face was stern, but the teamster's was chalky and tight drawn. "Say," he repeated, insistently, "what are we going ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... some of his ships she took fire. In this situation, Botello gave orders for his ships to draw off from the danger, and on going up in his galliot to bring off Antonio Mascarennas, the Dutch ship blew up while Botello was passing her stern, by which his galliot was instantly sunk. His body was found and taken to Malacca, where it ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... old," said Aramis; "the noise and bustle of a city no longer suit me. At fifty-seven we ought to seek calm and meditation. I have found them here. What is there more beautiful, and stern at the same time, than this old Armorica. I find here, dear D'Artagnan, all that is opposite to what I formerly loved, and that is what must happen at the end of life, which is opposite to the beginning. A little of my odd pleasure of former times still comes to salute me ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... mulled wine at an hotel where I was staying, and waited a long time for it; at length it was put upon the table with an apology from the landlord that he feared it wasn't 'fixed properly.' And I recollect once, at a stage-coach dinner, overhearing a very stern gentleman demand of a waiter who presented him with a plate of underdone roast-beef, 'whether he called THAT, fixing ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... Secretary, with his inhuman veracity and his cold frenzy, which made him so easily make war on the anarchists, and yet so easily pass for one of them. Syme was scarcely surprised to notice that, amid all the ease and hospitality of their new surroundings, this man's eyes were still stern. No smell of ale or orchards could make the Secretary cease to ask a ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... something which we took to be the submarine. In fifteen minutes the Triumph was keel up, the water spurting from her different vent pipes as it was expelled by the imprisoned air. She lay thus for seventeen minutes, gradually getting lower and lower in the water, when quietly her stern rose and she slipped underneath, not a ripple remaining to show where she had sunk. I have often read of the vortex caused by a ship sinking, but as far as I could see there was in this case not the slightest ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... dimmed its clear expression—something to stir a doubt or awaken a feeling of concern. The eyes, that were deep and intense, had a shadow in them, and the curves of the mouth had suffering and passion and evidences of stern mental conflict in every line. This was no common man, no social drone, but one who in his contact with men was used to making ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... Phinuit's narrative the black disks of night framed by the polished brass circles of the stern ports had faded out into dusky violet, then into a lighter lilac, finally into a warm yet tender blue. Now the main deck overhead was a sounding-board for thumps and rustle of many ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... contempt. He glared about him fiercely for a moment, then leaving the two nationals, who sneaked away like whipped hounds, he went up to the young officer who commanded the cavalry, and who had been active in raising the cry of the constitution, and to him he addressed a few words with an air of stern menace; the youth evidently quailed before him, and, probably in obedience to his orders, resigned the command of the party, and rode away with a discomfited air; whereupon Quesada dismounted and walked slowly backwards and forwards before the Casa de Postas with a ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... after a bit, we were kicked, and they made signs for us to get on our feet and to cross over into their ship. The crew were sent down into the forward hold, and some men went down with them to tie them up securely. John Wilkes, Pettigrew, and myself were shoved down into a bit of a place below the stern cabin. Our legs were tied, as well as our arms. The trap was shut, and there we were in the dark. Of course I told Pettigrew that, though he had failed in his duty, and it had turned out badly, he wasn't to be blamed as if he had gone to sleep ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... own imagination, for the towns do not look particularly Indian, nor do the forests suggest the tropical luxuriance of Brazil: perhaps the small three-masted ships alone, with their high bows and stern, represent the reality. ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... around her, and said gently: "Poor child; it is cruel to make you suffer so. But rest assured Dr. Hartwell will never wound your feelings. I have heard that he was a very stern and eccentric man, though a remarkably learned one, yet I confess there is something in his manner which fascinates me, and if you will only be like yourself he will always speak kindly to you. But I am staying too long. Don't look so forlorn and ghostly. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... the distressed travellers are half suffocated by the dust and flying sand which cut the skin like knives. Little wonder, therefore, if these hardy desert tribes are taciturn and reserved, for they see nature in its stern moods, and know little of that ease of life which may be experienced among the green crops and pastures of ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... serenely aloft from all memories of youth, of romance, of passion, smote him in the midst of the new hopes of the new career, as the look on the skull of the woman he had so loved and so mourned, when disburied from her grave, smote the brilliant noble who became the stern reformer of La Trappe. And while thus gloomily meditating, the letter of the poor Louise Duval was forgotten. She whose existence had so troubled, and crossed, and partly marred the lives of others,—she, scarcely dead, and already forgotten by her nearest kin. Well—had she not forgotten, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... undignified. He did not seem muscular, or active, or clever, or agreeable, or to have good eyes. He was not even well dressed. But upon further examination there was a hardened wiry look about the man, and a stern determined appearance in the lines of his countenance, while the eyes that did not seem to be good, so sunken were they beneath his brow, and so deeply shaded, were evidently keen and piercing. They seemed to flash as they met those of the old lawyer, to look defiant ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... Lady Arabella Stuart was confined. Belmont House (C. A. Hanbury, Esq., D.L., J.P.) marks the site where stood Mount Pleasant, once the property of the Belted Will Howard, Warden of the Western Marches, referred to in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel". Little Grove, a house on Cat Hill (Mrs. Stern), stands where stood formerly the house of the widow of Sir Richard Fanshawe, Bart., Ambassador to Spain in the reign of Charles I. The whole neighbourhood is varied and undulating; the eastern extremity of the ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... in the stern of the boat, another splintered the end of an oar, and then the rifleman's nerves must have got the better of him. The succeeding shots fell wide, and I whooped like a madman as I drove the boat on to the green tongue of land. Springing ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... father yields, and the stern principle of justice, as expressed in my countenance and manners, prevails. My look and action denote the passing of the sentence of death on the offenders, and the ordering them away ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... time testify their respect for his memory. The most influential and wealthy of the class to which he belonged were present, and habituated as they were to look at every thing in a commercial point of view, their general opinion was that their old companion in trade had made a good bargain. "He was stern and harsh," they said, "but honest and upright; and too shrewd altogether to make a bad speculation in the end, and doubtless he had sought only his best interests in the step he ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... who had come to Mary in her need. He was prepared to shower all kinds of benefits on Mr Whittlestaff,—diamonds polished, and diamonds in the rough, diamonds pure and white, and diamonds pink-tinted,—if only Mr Whittlestaff would be less stern to him. But even yet he had no fear ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... want to go with me?" the latter asked, pretending to be a bit stern, but liking the youngster all ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... five-and-thirty, had a far more striking countenance. His complexion was of the kind which used to be called adust—burnt up with inner fires; his visage was long and somewhat harshly designed, very apt, it would seem, to the expression of hitter ironies or stern resentments, but at present bright with friendly pleasure. He had a heavy moustache, but no beard; his hair tumbled in disorder. To matters of costume he evidently gave little thought, for his clothes, though of the kind a gentleman would wear in travelling, had ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... see that his laughing boyish face had become suddenly grim and stern, and that his ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... and Indians had in consequence been sent to find out what had caused them. [Footnote: Hamilton's "brief account" in the Haldimand MSS. The party was led by Lt. Schieffelin of the regulars and the French captains Lamothe and Maisonville.] These men were not made of such stern stuff as Clark's followers, nor had they such a commander; and after going some miles they were stopped by the floods, and started to return. Before they got back, Vincennes was assailed. Hamilton trusted so completely to the scouting party, and to the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... approached, a thick flurry of snow and a sudden darkening of the weather further concealed the movements of the outlaws from all possible espial. In a trice they had leaped upon the heaving deck, and the skiff was dancing at the stern. The Good Hope ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of a fair estate in Scotland, attended with the improvement of a good education. ... He hath written some excellent tracts, but not published in his name; and hath a very fine genius; is a low, thin man, brown complexion, full of fire, with a stern, sour look, and 50 years old.—Swift. A most arrogant, conceited pedant in politics; cannot endure the least contradiction in any of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... smile passed over his face, illuminating the dark, stern lines of it like a ray of heavenly light. Then the dusky eyelids slowly closed, as though by their own weight, his head fell back, and his lips turned white. She felt the burden of his body in her arms, and but for her strength he would have fallen to the floor. ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... quite dark in the room except for the light from the open fire. She could hear in the sitting-room a subdued murmur of voices, and now and then Irving's giggle, promptly suppressed by the stern Molly. As she lay there in drowsy comfort Melina stole into the room and coming softly to the bed ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... head from the pulpit, only excited my indignation—it was so unjust—nor did the God of the Old Testament fill me with aught save indignation and disgust. Lost in a quagmire of doubts and perplexities, I inquired of my preceptors as to the authorship of the book that held up for adoration a being so stern, relentless, and unjust as God; and in answer to my inquiries was told that I was very wicked to talk in such a way about the Bible; that it was God's own book—divinely inspired—in fact, written by God Himself. Then I inquired if the original manuscript in God's handwriting was ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... twenty-eight men to hold Quebec through the winter. One would think that the cruel sufferings endured by Carder on the same spot, seventy-three years earlier, would have intimidated him. But he was made of stern stuff. Soon the rigors of a Canadian winter settled down on the little post. For neighbors the Frenchmen had only a band of Indians, half-starving and wholly wretched, as was the usual {125} winter ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... pushed off from the Tower Bridge, below the iron gateway. It gleamed with red and gold; flags and sails flapped lazily in a gentle breeze. The Cardinal sat on the stern-deck surrounded by his little court; most of his attendants he had left at home in York Palace, later known as Whitehall. His face was red both from the reflection of his red dress as from the wine which he ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... I laugh at my stern guest, and am still fond of him; because he cleareth my house of flies, and quieteth many ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... reft," quoth he, "my dearest pledge!" Last came, and last did go The pilot of the Galilean Lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain); He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: "How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake Creep and intrude and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest; Blind mouths! ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... JUNIOR, who saved the Vraibleusian Party after the battle of Bahborough. By sending a stern and staccato epistle to the "Jupiter Tonans"; by praising (and imitating) Colonel DE CAUCUSINE, the real inspiring spirit in the camp of the victorious GRANDOLMAN, the march of the Hubbabub army was stopped—the menaced empire of Vraibleusia was saved from the flowing ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... was the king's lieutenant who was quartered on us; and he, although a military person, had only to settle civil occurrences, disputes between soldiers and citizens, and questions of debt and quarrels. This was the Count Thorane, a native of Grasse in Provence, not far from Antibes: a tall, thin, stern figure, with a face much disfigured by the small-pox; black, fiery eyes; and a dignified, reserved demeanor. His first entrance was at once favorable for the inmates of the house. They spoke of the different apartments, some of which ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... leaves. Old Mr. Bell not unfrequently joined in these excursions. His white hair, and long silky white beard, formed a picturesque variety in the group; while all recognized at a glance the thoroughbred aristocrat in his haughty bearing, his stern mouth, his cold, turquoise eyes, and the clenching expression of his hand. Mrs. King seemed to have produced upon him the effect Gerald had predicted. No youthful gallant could have been more assiduous at her bridle-rein, ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... board; and Eyjolf did as Aron asked him. Eyjolf waded after, pushing the boat, for the shallows went far out. And when he saw the right time come, Eyjolf caught up a battle-axe out of the stern of the boat, and gave a shove to the boat ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... enough; nature was beholden to that charity of art which hides a multitude of failings; but the face, where native man looks forth in all his unadornment, that it was which so seldom pre-possessed the many who had never heard of Jenning's strict character and stern integrity. The face was a sallow face, peaked towards the nose, with head and chin receding; lit withal by small protrusive eyes, so constructed, that the whites all round were generally visible, giving them a strange and staring ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the listener's face grew stern, and when Polly came to the end of her story he fingered the little silver elephant upon ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... Quanto id diligentius in procreandis liberis observandum? And how careful then should we be in begetting of our children? In former times some [1344]countries have been so chary in this behalf, so stern, that if a child were crooked or deformed in body or mind, they made him away; so did the Indians of old by the relation of Curtius, and many other well-governed commonwealths, according to the discipline of those times. Heretofore in Scotland, saith [1345]Hect. Boethius, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... shoot we shall shoot back. And as for the field-pieces, why, we have got wheels and may roll down cannon from Castle Weissenstein to Windisch-Matrey. But come, my dear friends, I see the Bavarian tax-collectors walking across the market-place yonder. They look very grim and stern, as if they meant to devour us all. Let us go out and see what is ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... man, an Englishman, a stranger. Bending over Coke, and wringing his hands in incoherent sorrow, was another elderly Briton. A fear that Philip had never before known gripped his heartstrings now. He was pale and stern, and his forehead ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... discovered. The man had utterly disappeared. With a heavy heart, Hilary Joyce wrote an official report of the matter and forwarded it to Assouan. Five days later there came a curt order from the chief that he should report himself there. He feared the worst from the stern soldier, who spared others as little as he spared himself. And his worst forebodings were realised. Travel-stained and weary, he reported himself one night at the general's quarters. Behind a table piled with papers and strewn with maps the ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the dwarf; "but," and his countenance grew stern as he spoke, "the water which has been refused to the cry of the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every saint in heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy is holy, though it had been ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... V. had succeeded to the throne of England,—a bright and vigorous young man, eager to be stirring in the world, brave and fearless, with a stern grasp of things beneath all,—a very sheet-anchor of firmness and determined character. Almost at the very opening of his reign, the moment he had secured his throne, he began a negotiation with France which boded no good. He offered to marry Catharine, the King's third daughter, and therewith ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Girondins applied the torch. The mass of the French nation had little means of appreciating what passed in Europe; they took their facts from their leaders, who considered it no very serious thing to plunge a nation into war for the furtherance of internal liberty. Events were soon to pass their own stern and mocking sentence upon the wisdom ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... throwing back his head, he laughed long and heartily. I watched him, half prepared to feel offended, until he had satisfied his mirth; and then, "You must have no pity on these animals," said he; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, he began to lace Modestine about the stern works, uttering a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, and without exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as long as the peasant kept beside us. Her former panting and shaking had been, I regret to say, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the introductory luncheon, almost equalling in removes the dinner. A day of this kind you would imagine sufficient; but a to-morrow and a to-morrow—A never-ending, still-beginning feast may be bearable, perhaps, when stern winter frowns, shaking with chilling aspect his hoary locks; but during a summer, sweet as fleeting, let me, my kind strangers, escape sometimes into your fir groves, wander on the margin of your beautiful lakes, or climb your rocks, to view still others ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... down a sob and looked at him with dry eyes. Papa Sherwood had never seemed so stern before, and yet his own eyes were moist. She began to see that this decision was very ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... upon its smoking walls, and at the stars that shone through roof and floor upon the heap of crumbling ashes. Solomon glanced timidly in his face, but his lips were tightly pressed together, a resolute and stern expression sat upon his brow, and not a tear, a look, or gesture indicating grief, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... grim and stern. The winter fell early upon the mountain wilderness; the lake would freeze over, and the roads block up with snow, and after that they would live upon what they had raised in the summer, with what Dan and Adam—Samuel's half- brothers—might bring in from ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... this Marie broke out into a cry, so wild, so piercing, that he paused, and Abby ran to her and took her in, her arms, and pressed her to her kind breast, and comforted her as one comforts a little child. Then she turned to the stern-eyed bridegroom. ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... should frown with displeasure at the recital of incidents which once made those brows bright and joyous; dreading also those stern voices which might condemn as boyish, trivial, or wrong an attempt to glean a few grains of philological lore from the hitherto unrecognized corners of the fields of college life, the Editor chose to regard the brows and hear the voices from ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... come over him, but not of a softening nature. His hard, stern, set face was, if possible, more stony ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Now, for instance, I can remember that there was somebody called 'Mother Isel': but whether she were my mother, or yours, or who she was, that I do not know. Again, I recollect a man, who must have been rather stern to my childish freaks, I suppose, for he brings with him a sense of fear. This man does not come into my life till I was some few years old; there is another whom I remember better, an older friend, a man with light ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... window and was looking at the polling place so intently that he took no notice of me as I stood beside him. I know now why he was absorbed and why his face was stern and sad. I can shut my eyes and see that court-house yard, the long line of men going up to vote, single file, each man calling out his name as he handed in his ballot, and Tom Weedon—who shot an escaping prisoner when he was deputy sheriff—repeating the ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... credulous of our early historians) to have founded the University of Cambridge. The latter had probably greater abilities than his predecessor; and a thousand pities it is that William of Malmesbury should have been so stern and squeamish as not to give us the substance of that old book, containing a life of Athelstan—which he discovered, and supposed to be coeval with the monarch—because, forsooth, the account was too uniformly flattering! Let me here, however, refer you to that ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Porridge-Pot," and, the rest of my party having been induced to accept the hospitalities of the place, and mount my triumphal car, declared your intention to light a fire beneath and have the finest stew in all England? The castle is a stern place, perhaps; but how can I ever think it grim, with such a jolly old flatterer as you stationed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... anything—not money, anyway—a little sugar, or cake, or honey, or something like that, that "Marse Percy wouldn't mind or miss" but not money—never a cent of money. They were eloquent in their protestations, but Mr. Driscoll was not moved by them. He answered each in turn with a stern ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Indians proved most effectual, for the portion of the nation to which they belonged had never before encountered disciplined troops; and so stern was the lesson they received, that, though predatory parties were seen from time to time, it was quite a year before any ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... cloudless. Now the waves Lap languorously along the foamless sand, And till the far horizon swims in mist. Out of this murk, across this oily sweep, Might lost armadas grandly sail to shore; Jason might oar on Argo, or the stern Surge-wanderer from Ithaca's bleak isle Break on the sight, or Viking prows appear, And still not waken wonder. Aye, the sound Of siren singing might drift o'er the main, And yet not fall upon amazed ears! The soul is ripe for marvels. O great deep, ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard
... experience a certain feeling of discouragement. Then, the humorous papers have taught you to look upon the Suburban Furnace as part of the machinery or property of a merry jest; and you will be shocked to discover that to the new-comer it is a stern and cold reality. I use the latter adjective deliberately and advisedly. There will surely come an awful night when you will get home from New York with Mrs. Modestus in the midnight train, too tired for anything but a drowsy chat by the lingering embers of the library fire over ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... determination in the building of Ugarte's ship[8]? William Penn's honest treatment of the Indians is a household word to people who never knew of the existence of Galvez or Junipero Serra. The story of the hardships of the New England pilgrims in the first winter on the "stern and rock-bound coast" of Massachusetts, is not more pitiful than that of the fate of the immigrants at Donner Lake. The thoughtful magnanimity of Captain Philip of the "Texas" in the moment of victory, in the sea-fight at Santiago, when he checked ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
... agitated. "You are a-tempting me, Mr. Percombe. You go on like the Devil to Dr. Faustus in the penny book. But I don't want your money, and won't agree. Why did you come? I said when you got me into your shop and urged me so much, that I didn't mean to sell my hair!" The speaker was hot and stern. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... of No. 23 is a modified form of "Zahm" shape, the radius of the bow portion being twice the diameter of the parallel portion, while the stern radius is ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... returned, And to his own my father came again. I've seen how much he suffers in his heart. Thy name he never utters without tears— He never hath forgotten thee. Forgive Him, then, in what he was remiss. Except For stern necessity he never would ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... effects of a stern resolve on the part of theatrical managers to simplify the scenic appliances and to reduce the supernumerary staff when they are producing Shakespearean drama? The replies will be in various keys. One ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... through scenes of trial. An investigation had been gone into regarding the Calle de Plateros affair—private, however, before Santa Anna himself, the world not being made the wiser for it. Its results were all in their favour, thanks to the stern, stubborn fidelity of Jose, who lied like a very varlet. Such a circumstantial story told he, no one could suspect him of complicity in the escape of the forsados; far less that his mistress, or the Condesa Almonte had to do ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... kingdom-come. All was life and animation around the fleet. On the decks the officers were pacing up and down. One on each vessel carried a long telescope, with which he almost constantly swept the horizon. Numberless small boats, each rowed by neatly-uniformed men, and carrying a flag in the stern, darted hither and thither, carrying officers on errands of duty or pleasure. It was such a scene as enabled me to realize in a measure, the descriptions I had read of the pomp and circumstance ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... of the Battle of Porus, without entering into the character of that fierce gallant man,[145] and being accordingly spurred to an emulation of his constancy and courage? When he is falling with his wound, the features are at the same time very terrible and languishing; and there is such a stern faintness diffused through his look, as is apt to move a kind of horror, as well as pity, in the beholder. This, I say, is an effect wrought by mere lights and shades; consider also a representation made by words only, as in an account given by a ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... At these stern words the grand vizier began to be in greater confusion than before, and was thinking how to extricate himself. He endeavoured to pacify the prince by good words, and begged of him, in the most humble and guarded manner, to tell him if he ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... the other occasion. Mr. Caswall's eyes were as usual fixed on Lilla. True, they seemed to be very deep and earnest, but there was no offence in them. Had it not been for the drawing down of the brows and the stern set of the jaws, I should not at first have noticed anything. But the stare, when presently it began, increased in intensity. I could see that Lilla began to suffer from nervousness, as on the first occasion; but she carried herself bravely. However, the ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... fishing in still waters, a small boat, called montaria, is universally used. It is made of five planks; a broad one for the bottom, bent into the proper shape by the action of heat, two narrow ones for the sides, and two small triangular pieces for stem and stern. It has no rudder; the paddle serves for both steering and propelling. The montaria takes here the place of the horse, mule, or camel of other regions. Besides one or more montarias, almost every family has a larger canoe, called igarite. This is fitted with two masts, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... which beset the missionaries did not spring from the fury of the Iroquois alone, for Nature herself was armed with terror in this stern wilderness of New France. On the thirtieth of January, 1646, Father Anne de Nou set out from Three Rivers to go to the fort built by the French at the mouth of the River Richelieu, where he was to say mass and hear confessions. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... understands there 's like to grow Some wars between us and the Duke of Florence, In which he hopes employment. I never saw one in a stern bold look Wear more command, nor in a lofty phrase Express more knowing, or more deep contempt As if he travell'd all the princes' courts Of Christendom: in all things strives t' express, That all, that should dispute with him, may know, Glories, like glow-worms, ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... feeling or passionate impulse was never permitted to slip the elegant mask of polished suavity. She was surprisingly like Mrs. Murray, but not one line of her face resembled her cousin's. Fixing her eyes on Edna, with a cold, almost stern scrutiny more searching than ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... breakfast for she would not have considered herself fit to be seen by him till she herself was neat and tidy. Like all the women of her class and generation, the Tosswills' old family nurse was full of self-respect, and also imbued with a stern sense of duty. Timmy stood far more in awe of her than ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... Illustrated" (1820), we encounter a work not without elegance. Its designs, as we see by the examples reproduced on page 9, are the obvious prototype of Miss Greenaway, the model that inspired her to those dainty trifles which conquered even so stern a critic of modern illustration as Mr. Ruskin. On its cover—a forbidding wrapper devoid of ornament—and repeated within a wreath of roses inside, this preamble occurs: "The purpose of this little book is to obviate the reluctance children evince to the irksome and insipid ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... give up her school. Her father's manners were singularly disgusting, as was his appearance, for he wore a silvery beard, which reached to his breast, and a kind of Persian robe, which gave him the external appearance of a necromancer. He was of the Anabaptist persuasion, and so stern in his conversation, that the young pupils were exposed to perpetual terror; added to these circumstances, the failing of his daughter became so evident, that even during school-hours she was frequently in a ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... hated it, and yet had an unpleasant sense that my hatred could do it no harm. If I could have lightened and thundered, its rocks would have come down with a crash; but it stood immovable, scornful, and eternal. There is a poetry in the great mountains, but the poetry may be stern as well as benevolent. If, to the weary Londoner, they speak of fresh air and healthful exercise and exciting adventure, they can look tyrannous and forbidding enough to the peasant on whose fields they void their ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... herself and she knew it. There was no absolute need for her to have sacrificed her affection to her sister's: she had done so of her own will, and at times not unnaturally she was regretful. Self-denial is a stern-faced angel. If only we hold him fast and wrestle with him long enough he will speak us soft words of happy sound, just as, if we wait long enough in the darkness of the night, stars will come to share our loneliness. Still this is one of those things ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... next appointment as if he had still a child, and his sermon was as full and straightforward. He announced his bereavement from the pulpit when he had done, and the whole country was alarmed and excited. He bore the tidings to his desolate home, and his stricken wife heard it with a stern resignation. Thenceforward he preached more of the burning pit, and less of the golden city; his eyes were full of fierce light, and his visage grew long and ghastly. He denied himself all joys and comforts; his prayers rang in the midnight through the gloomy parsonage; and he toiled ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... was a great deal to me then, and is so still. Though his words do not abide in memory, his presence does: serene, courtly, of darting hazel eye, a self-sufficient grace, and an appreciation of the world of stern realities, sometimes pathetic, never tragic. He is the natural man of the world; he is what he ought to be, and his darts never fail of their aim. There is a perfume and raciness, too, which makes life a banquet, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Letitia, much scandalized, speaking in a very superior tone, which she fondly but erroneously believes to be stern and commanding, "I beg you will pursue the subject no further. We have no desire whatever to learn any ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... long time Jack stood watching Miss Gladden, as, having thanked him for the interview, she walked slowly up the winding road. His eyes grew strangely wistful and tender, very unlike their ordinary expression, and a smile, sad but sweet, played about the usually stern lips. ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... by Michelozzo and George of Sebenico, but altered in 1538), the Torre Leverone (built in 1539 to defend the harbour and the road to Breno), and Fort S. Margherita (1571). The French built Fort Imperiale on Monte Sergio and the battery on Lacroma. The cliff-like masses of stone are stern and forbidding, and one thinks the citizens must have been glad to escape from them on to the wooded slopes of Monte Sergio (bare and stony now), though their apparent impregnability must have been comforting in those days; when ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... that? For the first time he was tense, as if a stern hand had been laid upon his shoulder. He looked fearfully around. Not a soul was present. Not a sound. Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk. He took the box and the money and put it back in the safe. Then he partly closed ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... strike near the water-line between the main and mizzen masts, explode within board, or passing through burst afar off. Crippled and torn the Alabama moves less quickly and begins to settle by the stern, yet relaxes not her fire, but returns successive broadsides, ever without disastrous effect. Captain Semmes witnesses the dreadful havoc made by the shell, especially by those of the after-pivot gun, and offers a reward for its silence. Soon his battery is turned upon the particular ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... the tribunal of the proconsul, who exhorted him to respect his own age, to swear by the genius of Caesar, and to say: "Take away the impious," meaning the Christians. The saint turning towards the people in the pit, said, with a stern countenance: "Exterminate the wicked," meaning by this expression either a wish that they might cease to be wicked by their conversion to the faith of Christ: or this was a prediction of the calamity which befell their city in 177, when Smyrna was overturned by an earthquake, as ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... was anything stern or severe in the lady's appearance to cause the hush, for a look of calmness and great sweetness was in her countenance, but through it there was also an appearance of sadness that touched every heart, and although it would not silence any true young joy, had ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... original impulse of Yeh. Surely, in speculating on the conduct of the war, either as probable or as reasonable, the old oracular sentence of Cato the Elder and of the Roman senate (Delenda est Carthago) begins to murmur in our ears—not in this stern form, but in some modification, better suited to a merciful religion and to our western civilization. It is a great neglect on the part of somebody, that we have no account of the baker's trial at Hong-Kong. He was acquitted, it seems; but upon what ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... mail-boat for some years past. I remembered him on a brighter trip in summer-time when I was a good deal younger and took the languors of the voyage less slumberously. Now it was winter-time on the home-side of the Line, and I was sailing under a cloud of news grave and stern. So I was rather prone to see most things as much alike in a sort of dream of neutral colors. My seafaring friend had helped me in the sultry nights further south, had shown me a sleeping place high up among the ropes, had called me in the grey dawn, or warned me when lightning flashed ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... United States Bank managers were politicians, and active ones. They perverted the trust reposed in their hands to such an extent that the indignation of the people was aroused, and under the lead of a stern old patriot the bank was swept out of existence. Shall we restrain corporation management within proper limits and make corporations serve the public welfare, or shall we let the abuses go on until the people, under the lead of another Jackson, demand emphatically the ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... in a stern voice, "that is not the way to deliver a message here. Just step inside and make believe that you are Dean Swift. I will go out and make believe that I am bringing him a present. I will show you how a ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... Gretchen, who expected every instant to be led forth to execution, was on her knees in her cell. She heard the noise, little suspecting the cause. At that moment the door opened, and a monk appeared. She looked up, and beheld the stern features of Father Quixada. There was a glance in his ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... Tayoga in repose had disappeared. Unnumbered generations were speaking in him now, and the Indian, often so gentle in peace, had become his usual self, stern and unrelenting in war. His strong sharp chin was thrust forward. His cheek bones seemed to be a little higher. His tread was so light that the grass scarcely bent before his moccasins, and no leaves rustled. He was in every respect the wilderness hunter and warrior, fitted perfectly by the ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... have been like a cannon-peal announcing their engagement. There was a subtler sweetness in this sense of a secret, apart from the fact that neither cared to break the news to the master tailor, a stern little old man. Leibel's chalk marks continued indecisive that afternoon, which shows how correctly Rose had ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... on upholding discipline in her new hostel, considered that she had successfully squashed an incipient flirtation, and kept a stern eye on all the elder girls, and most particularly on Winona, for fear some repetition of the offense might occur. ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... patriotism are his readiest instruments for kindling a glowing reflection of these magnanimous passions in the breasts of his readers. That Englishman is hardly to be envied who can read without a glow such passages as that in the History, about Turenne being startled by the shout of stern exultation with which his English allies advanced to the combat, and expressing the delight of a true soldier when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to rejoice greatly when they ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... its bareness, impressive in its conciseness; the true language of history, instinct with the spirit of nations and not with the passions of individuals; breathing the maxims of the world, and not the tenets of the schools; one and uniform in its air and spirit, whether touched by the stern and haughty Sallust, by the open and discursive Livy, by the reserved and ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... unsuccessful business arrangements, recalled their representatives to France and gave their officers orders to sell the company's land and all its servants. Esquemeling then a servant of the company was sold to a stern master by whom he was treated with great cruelty. Owing to hard work, poor food and exposure he became dangerously ill, and his master seeing his weak condition and fearing to lose the money Esquemeling had cost him resold him to a surgeon. ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... was a large, stout man, sixty-two years of age, with a smooth, plump face, long iron-gray hair and fiery blue eyes. He was high-tempered, kind, and generous, with a youthful smile and a formidable, stern voice that did not always mean what it sounded like. Mr. William was a milder man, correct in deportment and absorbed in business. The Weymouths formed The Family of Weymouthville, and were looked up to, as was their right ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... MARY). Some other time, miss, let us go now. There's a mistake, miss, I can't explain. Some other time, miss! See, miss, how cold and stern he looks! another time, miss! (Struggling.) For God's sake, ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte |
