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More "Stern" Quotes from Famous Books



... merry with the hard-drinking old Peninsular veterans, and the noisy and swaggering subalterns of the ill-famed 102nd Regiment (or New South Wales Corps), she always shuddered and looked pale and ill at ease when she saw among my father's guests the coarse, stern face of the minister, and her dislike of the clergyman was shared by all we children, especially by my elder brother Harry (then sixteen years of age), who called him 'the flogging parson' and the 'Reverend Diabolical ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... weighed, the propeller begins to turn, and the vessel steers a course northwards through the Bosporus. With my field-glasses I settle down on a bench in the stern and take farewell of the Turkish capital. How grand, how unforgettable is this scene! The white, graceful minarets shoot up to heaven from the sea of houses, and the cypresses—tall, grave, and straight as ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... the water" for craw-fish. For this purpose, we procured a pair of grains, with a long staff like a harpoon, and making torches with tarred rope twisted round a long pine stick, took the only boat on the beach, a small skiff, and with a torch-bearer in the bow, a steersman in the stern, and one man on each side with the grains, went off, on dark nights, to burn the water. This is fine sport. Keeping within a few rods of the shore, where the water is not more than three or four feet deep, with a clear sandy ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... for his mind was relieved by Mr. Hawes's moderation; he looked up and saw a cold, stern eye dwelling on him with a meaning that had nothing to do ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... Fenwick," said she, still standing beside me, her countenance now hard and stern. "Look where I stand, I am the World! The World, not as satirists depreciate, or as optimists extol its immutable properties, its all-persuasive authority. I am the World! And my voice is the World's voice when it thus warns you. Should you make this marriage, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... meantime,' continued Dare, 'to lend a little romance to stern realities, I'll tell you a singular dream I had just before you returned to England.' Power looked contemptuous, but Dare went on: 'I dreamt that once upon a time there were two brothers, born of a Nonconformist family, one of whom became a railway-contractor, and the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... kind-hearted, honest man, albeit, by virtue of his office, somewhat strict and stern. You could read the Categories in the wrinkles of his colorless face, and contested passages of Thucydides in the crows'-feet round his eyes. The everlasting grind at the educational tread-mill had worn away all he might once ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... suspicions were suggested to Kamakura. The regent, Takatoki, who, though a careless libertine in his habits, living in the society of his thirty concubines, his troops of dancing mimes, and his packs of fighting dogs, was capable of stern resolution on occasions, threatened to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... feet, Those stern, impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

... retract that 'stern decree,'" exclaimed the baronet, "would you break the heart of the love-sick nymph, by chilling indifference to the potency of her charms and the magnitude of her fortune? However, all joking apart, my good friends, will you do my aunt and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... us, the Chimes, one note bespeaking disregard, or stern regard, of any hope, or joy or pain, or sorrow, of the many-sorrowed throng; who hears us make response to any creed that gauges human passions and affections, as it gauges the amount of miserable food on which humanity may pine ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various

... of white marble. At the end of this gallery stood a shape of exceeding brilliancy, the shape of a woman above mortal height, clad from head to foot in shining mail armour. In her right hand was a spear, on her left arm a shield. Her brow was hidden by a helmet, and the aspect of her face was stern,— severe even, I thought. I approached her, and as I went, my body was lifted up from the earth, and I was aware of that strange sensation of floating above the surface of the ground, which is so common with me in sleep that at times I can scarce persuade myself after ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... tempted to laugh at his apparition), but turned to James and bade him see to the rest and find beds somewhere. Then I went after Dolly and her father into the Great Chamber, still with my hat on my head and looking very stern. He was talking very swiftly in a low voice to Dolly; but he stopped when ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... still closer together as they reached the beginning of the sheep-path; and now the man's face may be said to have taken on two coats of expression—a stern judicial look with a smile underneath. The thought that he was about to execute Justice occupied his mind wholly as the old wether led them into the strait and narrow way. With the object of catching the ewe, he ran on ahead toward the path, beside which he stationed himself, ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... At her command, wherever she has been duly acknowledged, many of the evils of life have already fled. The prisoner of war is no longer led into the amphitheatre to become a gladiator, and to imbrue his hands in the blood of his fellow-captive for the sport of a thoughtless multitude. The stern priest, cruel through fanaticism and custom, no longer leads his fellow-creature to the altar to sacrifice him to fictitious gods. The venerable martyr, courageous through faith and the sanctity of his life, is no longer hurried to the flames. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... wonderful air-ship, the "Albatross," which he had constructed. He meant thus to prove to them beyond argument the correctness of his assertions. This ship, a hundred feet long, was upheld in the air by a large number of horizontal screws and was driven forward by vertical screws at its bow and stern. It was managed by a crew of at least half a dozen men, who seemed absolutely devoted to ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... characteristic of the understanding between these two that Patrick made no effort to "break the news," or soften it in any way. He had always been prepared to face facts himself, and he had trained Sara in the same stern creed. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... heart, rose suddenly and escaped to the back stairway. She left old Polly sitting in the kitchen so long that she fell into a comfortable drowse, from which she was recalled by Maria's reappearance with a bundle of discarded garments, but there was something stern and inhospitable in these last moments of the visit, and Polly soon shuffled off down the lane, mumbling and muttering and hugging the bundle with great delight. She always enjoyed her visits to the Haydon farm. But she had left Miss Durrant crying by the western window; ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... and clear, when, o'er the snows, Andes! thy melancholy Spirit rose,— A shadow stern and sad: he stood alone, Upon the topmost mountain's burning cone; And whilst his eyes shone dim, through surging smoke, Thus to the spirits ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... his life, yet he had a whole crew within himself as truly as the "elderly naval man" who had eaten one. There was therefore no occasion for extensive quarters. Fortunately, an available space at the stern was ample for the crew's ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... translations of parts of it, which we hope to print or reprint, and that most pleasantly jumbled abstract of its parts by Sir Thomas Maleor, Knight, which has long been the delight of many a reader,—though despised by the stern old Ascham, whose Scholemaster was to turn it out of the land.—There the glory of the Holy Grail will be revealed to him; there the Knight of God made known; there the only true lovers in the world will tell their loves and kiss their ...
— Arthur, Copied And Edited From The Marquis of Bath's MS • Frederick J. Furnivall

... sad for a moment and then stern. "Nevertheless, I think my aunt, the Cacica, should have met him. She would have seen that he was a man and would have used men's reasons with him. She made Medicine against him as though he were a god, and in the end his medicine was stronger ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... of the department, from whom she received her work, was a man of middle-age, of rather stern and forbidding aspect; and as she approached his desk, he pointed to the clock on ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... been acquainted with Mr. Brassey, and had once received a visit from him on official business of difficulty and importance. He expected, he says, to see a hard, stern, soldierly sort of person, accustomed to sway armies of working-men in an imperious fashion. Instead of this he saw an elderly gentleman of very dignified appearance and singularly graceful manners—"a gentleman of the old school." "He stated his case, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... stood near the water's brink, waist deep in the curling vines. As he gazed upon the scarecrow figure in the stern of the dory a sprightly interest ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... was, in prospect of a long siege, scanty. But the worst of all, indeed the only weak and therefore miserable fact, was, that the spirit, I do not mean the courage, of the castle was gone; its enthusiasm had grown sere; its inhabitants no longer loved the king as they had loved him, and even stern-faced general Duty cannot bring up his men to a hand-to-hand conflict with the ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... room opened, and Laura came forth with a pale and stern face. She looked at Pen with glances from which beamed pride, defiance, aversion. "Arthur, your mother is very ill," she said; "it is a pity that you should speak so ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... also, through a window in the floor of the pilot house, seen the hapless motor boat. The men in it were frantically waving their hands to those on the airship. "I'm going down as close as I dare," went on Tom. "You watch, and when it's time, have Koku drop from the stern a long, knotted rope. That will be a sort of ladder, and they can make it fast to their boat and climb up, hand over hand. It's the ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

... reefs of purple-black clouds. The river, below the Carewe homestead, was livid. Beyond it, the sea was dark and brooding. It was an evening to make most people shiver and forebode an early winter; but Thyra loved it, as she loved all stern, harshly beautiful things. She would not light a lamp because it would blot out the savage grandeur of sea and sky. It was better to wait in the darkness ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... danger, and we were in agony. The weather was wet and tempestuous, but the body is delicate only when the mind is at ease. We pushed through wind and rain, the anxiety of our sensations every moment redoubling. At last we read the word London on her stern. 'Pull away, my lads! she is from old England! A few strokes more, and we shall be aboard—hurrah for a belly full, and news from our friends!' Such were our exhortations to the boat's crew. A few minutes completed our wishes, and we found ourselves on ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... the travelling M.P. treasures up and the Anglo-Indian hastens to throw away? A. Erroneous, hazy, distorted first impressions. Before the eyes of the griffin, India steams up in poetical mists, illusive, fantastic, subjective, ideal, picturesque. The adult Qui Hai attains to prose, to stern and disappointing realities; he removes the gilt from the Empire and penetrates to the brown ginger-bread of Rajas and Baboos. One of the most serious duties attending a residence in India is the correcting of those misapprehensions which your travelling M.P. sacrifices his bath ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... between two and three o'clock when I was called to go on watch; and after I had been sitting in the stern smoking and thinking for an hour or more, I noticed that the light on the mast had gone out. It was, however, growing lighter, and, fancying that the fog was thinner, I trusted to the coming of the day and a breeze, and made no attempt to take down ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... land, headed by the king, and officered by his polluted courtiers; led on with all the pomp and splendour which royalty could display. The king and his ministers well knew that the most formidable enemies to tyranny, oppression, and misgovernment, were the piety and stern morality of the Puritans, Nonconformists, and the small classes of virtuous citizens of other denominations; and therefore every effort was made by allurements and intimidation to debauch and demoralize their minds. Well does Bunyan say that 'wickedness like ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... handled cleverly; but as they gained the middle of the stream it grew deeper and deeper, until at last they could only just reach the bottom. The ends of the poles were only a foot above the water, which rendered their use difficult. Michael and Nadia, seated in the stern of the boat, and always in dread of a delay, watched the ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... masses of oak of russet brown—the rich and varied tints of the bracken contributing their share to the similitude of a glorious sunset; and the whole picture is rendered complete to the eye by being set in that massive rocky framework, known as the Aberuchill range, whose stern and rugged sides add to the feeling of the picturesque and beautiful ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... will see me die before you bring me food!" Hark! something is clanking the chain on the door. It is being opened. From the dark night without a black figure crosses the threshold. * * * It is the guard. He comes to warn me of my fate. He tells me that tomorrow I must die. In his stern face I laugh aloud. I do not ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa

... so low, and gazed upon her with an air so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert the current of his thoughts, inquired if ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... grim and stern would that rock-river have been but for Italy, and the powers of the Italian soil. But the forest and its lovely undergrowths, its heaths and creepers, its ferns and periwinkles, its lichen and mosses had thrown themselves on the frozen lava, had decked and softened its wild shapes, had ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... intended to have written from Ireland, but alas! as some stern old divine says, 'Hell is paved with good intentions.' There was such a whirl of laking, and boating, and wondering, and shouting, and laughing, and carousing—" [He alludes to his visiting among ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various

... Luckily this tutor's stern rule did not last long; and when a severe illness attacked the youth (then advanced to be a student at Edinburgh College) and brought him under his mother's charge once more, the bed on which he lay was piled with a constant succession of works of imagination, and he was allowed to find ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... been worse had it not been for the pegged prices and other stern measures. The glut on the labor market was tremendous and wages reached the vanishing point in a currency which would buy little. Suddenly, the United States, which had so long boasted of being the richest country in the world, found ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... in confusion. She saw standing there a middle-aged woman of medium height, with a withered face and stern demeanor. ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... hatred of her tone, its cold stern sharpness, and its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I had seen her standing in the light. I saw the flashing black eyes, and the passion-wasted figure; and I saw the scar, with its white track cutting ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... one could fail to see—the change that day by day came over our reserved companion. The stern line of her lips relaxed. In amazement one day we heard her laugh. Then her laughter began to break forth on all occasions; and we listened to her singing above in her room, and we smiled at each other. That tightness ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall

... 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 looking deeper and deeper into those ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... as his chief historian entitles him, was a man of high military genius, rigid in discipline, skilful in administration, and daring in leadership; a stern, grave soldier, to whose face a smile rarely came except when shots were falling thick around him and when his staff appeared as if they would have preferred music of a different kind. To this intrepid chief fear seemed unknown, prudence in battle unthought of, and so many ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... Brandon's stern face softened as he looked at the old man, whose features were filled with the kindest expression, and whose tone showed the ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... stern and very busy whenever she came in, but she was wise in ways of men, and treated him as if he were a good comrade, and so gradually he came to talk to her almost as freely ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland

... leaning on the window, and weeping."' She had been in Prison, liberated once, but recaptured the same hour, ever since the first of June: in agitation and uncertainty; which has gradually settled down into the last stern certainty, that of death. In the Abbaye Prison, she occupied Charlotte Corday's apartment. Here in the Conciergerie, she speaks with Riouffe, with Ex-Minister Claviere; calls the beheaded Twenty-two "Nos amis, our Friends,"—whom we are soon to follow. During these ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue to them, had by degrees glowed with fire and assumed an impassioned force that infected Marianna and ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac

... studies or their lecture-rooms they may contrive for the time being to distort or to confuse for themselves the common view of the matter. But let the professor once forget his theories, and be forced to buffet against his life's importunate and stern realities: let him quarrel with his housekeeper because she has mislaid his spectacles, or his night-cap, or, preoccupied with her bible, has not mixed his gruel properly; and his conception of free-will will revert in an instant to the universal ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... person, our sense of the poetic is somewhat blunted; we feel that the lofty character drawn by Bulwer is in many respects a creation of the novelist, while the whole story of his love is demolished by the stern fact of his having a wife, of no reputable character, with whom he lived unhappily; but he was still a man of talent, of great mental, if not moral refinement, and of indomitable ardor in the pursuit of learning. The chief fault of his character until ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... it is not a hard name, for sailors make such a fuss about jaw-breaking words. An old coaster meant to name his vessel the Amphitrite, but he gave the name of Anthracite to the painter, and it was duly lettered upon the stern. However, it answered just as well, as the craft went into the ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... say. I'd start out all right, and I'd think I was going to get along beautifully. Then, all of a sudden, it would come over me, what I was doing—writing a letter to my father! And I could imagine just how he'd look when he got it, all stern and dignified, sitting in his chair in the library, and opening the letter just so with his paper-cutter; and I'd imagine his eyes looking down and reading what I wrote. And when I thought of that, my pen just wouldn't go. The idea of my writing ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter

... it up to me for that waltz you missed?" said Ruth Earp. She pretended to be vexed and stern, but he knew that she was not. "Or is ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... required, Otto gave his attention to the boat. It was a fine Indian canoe, buoyant enough to carry six or eight warriors, and furnished with three long paddles which, in skillful hands, could drive it with great speed through the water. It was made of bark, bow and stern being similar, curving inward toward the middle of the boat, and painted with rude designs outside, which showed more taste than did the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... year.... The Kalends festival banishes all that is connected with toil, and allows men to give themselves up to undisturbed enjoyment. From the minds of young people it removes two kinds of dread: the dread of the schoolmaster and the dread of the stern pedagogue. The slave also it allows, so far as possible, to breathe the air of freedom.... |169| Another great quality of the festival is that it teaches men not to hold too fast to their money, but to part with it and let it pass ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... remembrance whether I have put down that when we came first to the ship, we had found the stern window upon the larboard side to be shattered; but so it was, and the bo'sun had closed it by means of a teak-wood cover which was made to go over it in stormy weather, with stout battens across, which were set tight with wedges. This he had done upon the first night, having fear that some evil thing ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... raise the question of the ethics of slavery, — on the other hand they defended it on biblical grounds, — but they did enjoin upon masters the duty of kindness to slaves. Many of them were not cultivated men, but they laid the foundation for a better civilization in a stern and righteous social life which flowered in the next generation. "The only burning issues were sprinkling versus immersion, freewill versus predestination," and over these questions the churches fought with energy. Divided though they were on many points, ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... and done by strangers and white people, in ignorance, no ill-luck need befall the nation, as might be the case were the symbol of its veneration offended by its own people. The voice of the king was more stern ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... the cheers of the disappointed remainder. We mourn our sad lot at being left out of the detail, when presently comes a second detail: Second Lieutenant Treadwell, Sergeant Ogle, Corporal Funk, and twenty privates, of whom you, Jenkins, are one. As you get ready, you adopt stern resolves, stiffen that upper lip, and confide a short message for some one to one of the survivors, in case, as you proudly hint, you should not return. The survivor rewards you with a pressure of the hand, and a look of wonder at ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... photography ships who were about to board. With some difficulty Jordan focussed the instrument and observed the two pilots walk across the apron in front of the main operations building and climb into their small ships. A blue halo formed softly around the stern of each as they cut on the engines and brought ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy

... a match and bent low over the ghastly face of the man he had felled. The scoundrel was only stunned. Lennon's look of anxiety gave place to a stern smile. Though certain of the man's guilty intentions, he could not ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... Among the men desertions were very common; and on the occasion of a sudden alarm Wayne found that many of his sentries left their posts and fled. [Footnote: "Major General Anthony Wayne," by Charles J. Stille, p. 323.] Only rigorous and long continued discipline and exercise under a commander both stern and capable, could turn such men into soldiers fit for the work Wayne had before him. He saw this at once, and realized that a premature movement meant nothing but another defeat; and he began by careful and patient labor to turn his horde of raw recruits into ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... Janet's kiss, he was unhappy; and when he reached the store, the clerks and porters were all standing together talking. He knew quite well what topic they were discussing with such eager movements and excited speech. But they dispersed to their work at the sight of his sour, stern face, and he did not intend to open a ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... face now assumed a grave, stern expression, "you might have replied, for instance, that the pedestal of this beautiful column would have to be the corpse of the First Consul." [Footnote: Bonaparte's own words.—Ibid., vol. ii., ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... for the doom to which she was condemned? He whose bright eyes could beam on her so radiantly had just wounded her with angry glances, like a foe or a stern judge, and his indignation ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the center of European art, and to assemble within its borders all the attractions of the civilized world. He spared no temptation to induce the Italian cantatrice to remain. When she attended his commands at the Tuileries she trembled like a leaf before the stern tyrant, under whose gracious demeanor she detected the workings of an unbending purpose. "Ou allez vous, madame?" said he, smilingly. "To London, sire," was the reply. "Remain in Paris. I will pay you well, and your talents will be appreciated. You shall receive a hundred thousand francs ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... the dock stood Lord Blandamer dressed in full peer's robes, and with a coronet on his head. The eyes of all were turned upon him, Westray, with fierce enmity and contempt, and it was he, Westray, that a stern-faced judge was sentencing, as a traducer and lying informer. Then the people in the galleries stamped with their feet and howled against him in their rage; and waking with a start, he knew that it was the postman's sharp knock on the street-door, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... were silent. Then suddenly, without warning, there came a grinding crash that sent a shudder through the Kittlewake from stem to stern. ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell

... a stern veteran with a powerful brow, a shaggy eyebrow, and a piercing eye. He never rose, but leaned his chin on his hand, and his elbow on a table that stood between them, and eyed his visitor very fixedly and strangely. ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... clergyman denouncing Socialists for their "violent language." Poor fellow! He was quite unconscious that he was more bitter in his invective than the men he attacked. Of course Socialists use bitter and burning language—but not more bitter than was used by the great Hebrew prophets in their stern denunciations; not more bitter than was used by Jesus and his disciples; not more bitter than was used by Martin Luther and other great leaders of the Reformation; not more bitter than was used by Garrison and the other Abolitionists. Men with vital messages cannot ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... vicissitudes, and sufferings of life. No word occurs so frequently in their dramas as evils, ([Greek: kaka].) In witnessing the delineation of its miseries on the stage, they seem to have held somewhat of the same stern pleasure which the North American Indians have in beholding the prolonged torture inflicted on a condemned captive at the stake. Every one felt a thrill of interest at beholding how another could bear a series of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... for the back door again, and opened it, letting in the sunlight; but the sunlight fell in two slanting rays, one on either side of a dark object which all but filled the entrance, blocking out my view of the back court beyond. It was the stern of a tall boat. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... never seen his father exhibit so much emotion before. Usually, on such occasions, he was stern, if not passionate; more ready to threaten and punish than to appeal to the heart and conscience. Now, all this was changed, and sorrow seemed to have taken the place of anger. Oscar was somewhat affected by this unusual manifestation of parental anxiety. He was pretty well hardened ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell

... This was no quiet gentle tap, intimating a modest intruder; no redoubled rattle, as the pompous annunciation of some vain person; neither did it resemble the formal summons to formal business, nor the cheerful visit of some welcome friend. It was a single blow, solemn and stern, if not actually menacing in the sound. The door was opened by some of the persons of the house; a heavy foot ascended the stair, a stout man entered the room, and drawing the cloak from his face, said, "Markham Everard, I greet thee in ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... beside him, sat in the stern. He had never taken much interest in Rufus before; but now, seated facing him, with the giant muscles and grim, unresponsive countenance of the man perpetually before his eyes, the selecting genius in him ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... yard, where the surf was not so great as at any other part of the shore. Here the Duke landed, but not without a thorough drenching, for no sooner had the bows of the boat touched the shore than a heavy sea broke right over her stern, and completely saturated his Grace's apparel. The Duke, upon landing, all wet as he was, immediately mounted his horse, and rode off to Walmer Castle. A numerous assemblage of persons had congregated on the beach when the ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... be spent in rowing along that grand coast, in scrambling among the rocks, or visiting the numerous caves, was to Estelle the height of delight. As the boat pushed off from the sandy beach, and Thomas swung himself into the stern, she gazed about her in silent ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... vehemently. He cursed and swore at him and called him a variety of unpleasant and detestable things and then he began to punch him with his fist wherever he could hit. Finally he partly turned him around, and gave him a hearty kick in the stern and said: "Damn you, get away from here! You're not fit to be with my brave men." The fellow departed as fast as his short legs would carry him. I knew of no other man presenting an excuse or asking for leave of absence that day. I believe every man of us preferred to meet the ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller

... promise, the making bare of His arm. 'By terrible things in righteousness' did He answer the prayer of Hezekiah, and give to all humble souls who are oppressed and cry to Him a pledge that 'as they have heard, so' will they 'see, in the city of' their 'God.' How much more impressive is the stern, naked brevity of the Scriptural account than a more emotional expansion of it, like, for instance, Byron's well-known, and in their way powerful lines, would have been! To the writer of this book it seemed the most natural thing in the world that the foes of Zion ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... you, spite of all our vows and promises.... You do not need to woo me, you do not need to persuade me! Ere you could speak I should be yours, now, this very moment, for a look, a smile—were it not for that pale spectre of my own self which rises ever before me, stern, inexorable, blocking every path which leads to you, and leaving only that one path free where the sign reads 'honor.' ... And I—I am sometimes frightened lest, in an overwhelming flood of love, that sign be ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... about the ornament. They have also great holes in their ears, wherein they wear such stuff as in their noses. They are very dexterous, active fellows in their proas, which are very ingeniously built. They are narrow and long, with outriggers on one side, the head and stern higher than the rest, and carved into many devices—viz., some fowl, fish, or a man's head painted or carved; and though it is but rudely done, yet the resemblance appears plainly, and shows an ingenious fancy. But with what instruments ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... detestation for tattling and tale-bearing. He did not like to go on deck and inform the principal of the conduct of Pelham, but he could not submit to the indignity cast upon him. He went out into the cabin, and threw himself upon the cushioned divan, under the stern ports of the ship. ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... may, Peter's stern words to Ananias put all the stress of the sin on its being an acted lie. The motives of the trick are not disclosed. They may have been avarice, want of faith, greed of applause, reluctance to hang back when others were doing like Barnabas. It is hard to read ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... another?" The question came sharp and stern; but a moment later the Squire mollified it, turning to the priest and looking him straight in the eyes. "Excuse me; I ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of yore, as Ancient Stories tell, A King in love with a great Princess fell. Long at her feet submiss the Monarch sigh'd, While she with stern repulse his suit denied. Yet was he form'd by birth to please the fair, Dress'd, danc'd, and courted with a Monarch's air; But Magic Spells her frozen breast had steel'd With stubborn pride, that knew not ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Rakshasas, even if they hide themselves in deep oceans, can have peace. In the days of yore, Daksha, for performing a sacrifice, had collected the necessary articles. Mahadeva destroyed that sacrifice in wrath. Indeed, he became very stern on that occasion. Shooting an arrow from his bow, he uttered terrible roars. The celestials then became filled with anxiety and fright. Indeed, when Mahadeva became angry and the Sacrifice (in its embodied form) ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Commissiones meras, or mere displays.[25] In this expression he hit off, happily enough, the somewhat theatrical, the slightly pedantic and pedagogic and professorial character of Seneca's diction, its rhetorical ornament and antitheses, and its deficiency in stern masculine simplicity and strength. In another remark he showed himself a still more felicitous critic. He called Seneca's writings Arenu sine Calce, "sand without lime," or, as we might say, "a rope of sand." ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... the captain, remained on board, resolving to trust their fortunes to the jolly-boat at the stern. We lowered it without difficulty, although it was only by a miracle that we prevented it from swamping as it touched the water. It contained, when afloat, the captain and his wife, Mr. Wyatt and party, a Mexican ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... requested our captain to go with him in the gig, and bring them away before the ship was burned. They did go, and the boat being very small, they sat very close side by side, on a piece of board not much more than two feet long, which, for want of proper seats, was laid across the stern of the boat. One of the French ships was burning at the time; her guns went off as fast as the fire reached them; and a chance shot took the board from under the two captains: the English captain was not hurt; but the splinters entered the body ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... her now that she faced the steady radiance of his wonderful eyes, so near that she could trace the faint lines about his mouth, the strong, stern immobility of his perfectly shaped, ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... exclaimed Shelby, "and Shackelton, and Peary,—yes and old Doc Cook! What an outlook! If those breaking waves were looking for a stern and rockbound coast to dash on, they missed it when they chose the New England shore instead of this! I've seen crags and cliffs, I've climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, but this puts it over all the earth! How do we get ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... courage which shirks no danger, when the danger is the inevitable accompaniment of duty. You have preached the essential virtues, the duty to be both brave and tender, the duty of courage for the man and courage for the woman. You have inculcated stern horror of the baseness which finds expression in refusal to perform those essential duties without which not merely the usefulness, but the very existence, of any nation will come ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... an imperious gesture. He looked rather stern, and then, as though conscious that this was not the attitude to take, ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates

... it!" answered McLean. "The Bird Woman is working for success, and success along any line is not won by being scared out. She will be back on the usual day, and ten to one, the Angel will be with her. They are made of pretty stern stuff, and they don't scare worth a cent. Before I left, I told the Bird Woman it would be safe; and it will. You may do your usual walking, but those four guards are there to remain. They are under your orders absolutely. They are prohibited ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Milton and the rest of those who wrote with measure, purity, and temperance; and from whose poetry proceeded a spirit of order, of tranquillity, of clearness, of simplicity; who were reticent in ornament, in illustration, and stern in rejection of unnecessary material. None of these classic excellences belong to Browning, nor did he ever try to gain them, and that was, perhaps, a pity. But, after all, it would have been of no use had he tried for them. We cannot impose from without ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... into that gay company, to throw off his cagoule and to dance a saraband. From end to end the big Gladiateur was bright with bunting—flags set in clusters on the great paddle-boxes, on the bow, on the stern—and the company thronging on board was living up to the brightness of ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... soft as sponge, overgrown with reed and goose grass. Here are not even low banks; there are no banks at all. Canoes are on a level with the land, and reeds sixteen feet high line the aisled water channels. One can stand on prow or stern and far as eye can see is naught but reeds and waterways, waterways ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

... I stake a lamb, for stern is my father, and stern my mother, and they number all the ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... suddenly, and ere long one of the fierce gales which are so frequent in the Mediterranean burst upon them. The wind was behind them, and there was nothing to do but to let the galleys run before it. The sea got up with great rapidity, and nothing but the high poops at their stern prevented the two galleys being sunk by the great waves which followed them. The oars were laid in, for it was impossible to use them ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... it occurred to her to try working the dugout into the stream by loading the stern with ballast and then rocking the bow back and forth along the bank until the craft eventually worked itself ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... continuing on the island some days, obtained passage towards the place of their destination. The vessel on board which they sailed was a Turkish lumberman, and in no way adapted to the conveyance of passengers. But, submitting to stern necessity, they made the best improvement of the circumstances under which they were placed. Of the voyage Mr. Smith says, "The wind was high, and, being contrary to the current, raised a cross and troublous sea. The vessel was terribly tossed, and, ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy

... with a kiss, to-morrow. All in the child's mind is confusion; she knows not what to do, were she as docile and as obedient as an angel of light. There is a long series of actions, words, thoughts and feelings, connected with right and wrong, of which nothing is ever said, except to forbid them, by stern and absolute authority. That one is good, and another bad, except according to the whim or fancy of the parent or teacher, the child ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... difficult to describe; made up of contrary and even contradictory qualities, they are indolent, tranquil, quiet, humane in peace; active, restless, cruel, ferocious in war: courteous, attentive, hospitable, and even polite, when kindly treated; haughty, stern, vindictive, when they are not; and their resentment is the more to be dreaded, as they hold it a point of honor to dissemble their sense of an injury till they find an opportunity to ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... nor the woman of genius the common woman's overwhelming specialization. And that is why our scriptures and other art works, when they deal with love, turn from honest attempts at science in physics to romantic nonsense, erotic ecstasy, or the stern asceticism of satiety ("the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" said William Blake; for "you never know what is enough unless you know ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... genuine heart of terror. I thought of the dreary moors and hills outside, and the dark pine copses soughing in the wind of night; I remembered my companion's singular words up in my bedroom before dinner; and then I turned and noted carefully the stern countenance of the Colonel as he faced us and lit his big black cigar ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... said slowly, in a wondering voice; and so long grew the silence, and so plainly did there spread across "the Captain's" face the unspoken question, "Well, then what the devil are you applying here for?" that I felt all at once the stern necessity of putting in a word for myself or lose the ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... much to himself; he sent his beautiful wife on to the balcony twice a day to be saluted, and (more sparingly) let her work for him among the higher sort with her lips, her blushes, and her friendly grey eyes. He was humble in the Council, sober beneath the heaped-up honours of the popular voice, stern only with his mercenaries. A fortnight of this swept him to the top of his hopes. A deputation, with a laurel crown and the title of Dux in a casket, waited upon him. He had expected it for a week, and carefully dragooned ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... thousand — and overrun with the mongrel races from Syria, Greece, and Africa, and hiding away the remnants of its power in the Orient, became in a few centuries an easy prey to our ancestors "of the stern blue eyes, the ruddy hair, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... summons, a man of stern and moody aspect appeared, with his hair and dress in great disorder. He was sustained by two others, and the group paused at the foot of the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... family of singers, with the same cheerful, hopeful courage in their uplifted faces with which for twenty years they have sung of the good time almost here, of every reform; there stood William Lloyd Garrison, stern Puritan, inflexible apostle, his work gloriously done in one reform, lending the weight of his unwearied, solid intellect to that which he believes is the last needed; there was Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis, a Roman matron in figure, her noble head covered with clustering ringlets ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... return, were contemptuously dubbed mangeurs de lard,[198] "pork-eaters," because their pampered appetites demanded peas and pork rather than hulled corn and tallow. Two of the crew, one at the bow and the other at the stern, being especially skilled in the craft of handling the paddle in the rapids, received higher wages than the rest. Into the canoe was first placed the heavy freight, shot, axes, powder; next the dry goods, and, crowning all, filling the canoe to overflowing, ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner

... sandy hair brushed right back over the top of his head, and no hair at all on his face. He might have been thirty, or he might have been fifty. His eyes were very small and close together; his brow was stern, and his mouth a good deal pulled down at the corners. Altogether, I didn't take to him at first glance, still less when he broke into the conversation and distinctly took the part ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... painting of which, in one of the pictures, cost five guineas. Peter Oliver, who was crazy, used to fight with these family pictures in the old Mansion House; and the face and breast of one lady bear cuts and stabs inflicted by him. Miniatures in oil, with the paint peeling off, of stern, old, yellow faces. Oliver Cromwell, apparently an old picture, half length, or one third, in an oval frame, probably painted for some New England partisan. Some pictures that had been partly obliterated by scrubbing with sand. The dresses, embroidery, laces of the Oliver family are generally ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... with his thick muscular fingers spread over his brawny chest, with form erect, with head thrown back, and eyes fixed in stern resolve, I was impressed with an air of grandeur about him, and could not help thinking that in the black form before me, scantily clad in coarse cotton, there was the soul ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... 'Till near the brink of Charles's beauteous stream, They stop, and think the lingering boat to blame. Soon as the empty skiff salutes the shore, In with impetuous haste they clustering pour, The men the head, the stern the ladies grace, And neighing horses fill the middle space. Sunk deep, the boat floats slow the waves along, And scarce contains the thickly crowded throng; A gen'ral horror seizes on the fair, While white-look'd cowards only not despair. 'Till rowed ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... fought like certain cats in Kilkenny till both were "eaten up:" the Gudabirsi fix the event at the period when their forefathers still inhabited Bulhar on the coast,—about 300 years ago. If the date be correct, the substantial ruins have fought a stern fight with time. Remnants of houses cumber the soil, and the carefully built wells are filled with rubbish: the palace was pointed out to me with its walls of stone and clay intersected by layers of woodwork. The mosque is a large roofless building containing ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... in Southwest Harbor, a land-locked inlet that nearly cut the Island in two, and was the gateway through which the fishing-craft from the village at the harbor head found their way out into the great Penobscot Bay. There were many days during the stern winter and bleak spring months when the gate was blocked with ice or veiled in fog, but nature relented a little toward the Island folk in the fall and sent them sunny days for their late, scant harvesting, and ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... voices stilled to silence, and the crowd of gaily clad courtiers parted, making way with low bows for someone who had just entered. For a second I thought it was the King himself; but a look showed me not the King but the stern figure ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... lamps were lit; a party of wild young men, who got off next evening at North Platte, stood together on the stern platform singing The Sweet By-and-By with very tuneful voices; the chums began to put up their beds; and it seemed as if the business of the day were at an end. But it was not so; for the train stopping at some station, the cars were instantly thronged with the natives, wives and fathers, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... to the couch, Llyn and his tall, stern sons. Daurn knew them well and strove to curse them, but the Cadwallader's grave voice hushed ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... a tall, dark-featured man, smoothly shaven, as swarthy as an Indian, with stern dark eyes, thick coarse hair, and an abrupt manner born of long command. His companion, of lighter build and younger face, was attired in a travel-stained uniform of blue and buff; but he who was evidently the leader was ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... I moored the ship head and stern close to the north shore, at the head of the harbour; hauled up the cables on deck, and opened one of the ballast-ports. From this a slight stage was made to the land, being at the distance of about twenty feet, with a view to get clear of some of the rats that continued ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... that old day In Hampton town and its log-built church, Where side by side the coffins lay And the mourners stood in aisle and porch. In the singing-seats young eyes were dim, The voices faltered that raised the hymn, And Father Dalton, grave and stern, Sobbed through his prayer and wept ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... dock while Fred speedily turned over the cushions. He did not discover his missing knife, but he did find a large envelope lying directly beneath the cushion in the stern ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay

... for the sake of the whole Country, I ask, 'Can you, for your States, do better than to take the course I urge?' Discarding punctilio and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking only to the unprecedentedly stern facts of our case, can you do ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... informs me that the late Mr. Appold, the mechanician, used to combine two portraits of himself under the stereoscope. The one had been taken with an assumed stern expression, the other with a smile, and this combination produced a curious and effective ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... grow up together, their lives blending in childhood association and affection. It is interesting to think what the effect would have been upon the characters of both if they had been reared in close companionship. How would John's stern, rugged, unsocial nature have affected the gentle spirit of Jesus? What impression would the brightness, sweetness, and affectionateness of Jesus have made on the ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... don't see why I should be ashamed! Yes! He is my wise man, he is the real Humfrey Charlecote! His is the very nature I always thought some one must still have—the exact judgment I longed to meet with. Not stern like Robin's, not sharp like Mervyn's, nor high-flying like dear Miss Charlecote's, nor soft like Bevil's, nor light like Lucy's, nor clear and clever like Miss Fennimore's—no, but considerate and solid, tender and true—such as one can lean upon! I know why he ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... your grammar lesson in a few moments, Ruby," said Miss Ketchum, in a stern tone, and she went to her room, leaving Ruby with her grammar in her hand, trying to keep the tears out of her ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull

... finished he sat on, brooding into the dying flame of the fire. Slowly the worry went out of his eyes and resolve came in. Out of the chaos of his fortunes he had finally achieved a way. But it was not a pretty way. His face had become stern and wolfish, and the thin lips ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... not a man whom it was easy to turn hither and thither. He was a stern, hard, just man, of whom it may probably be said that if a world were altogether composed of such, the condition of such a world would be much better than that of the world we know;—for generosity is less efficacious towards permanent good than justice, and tender speaking ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... pictures could not last for ever, and when they were over there was Mrs. Morrison to face; and though Mrs. Morrison had a very kindly face, and had been very friendly and nice to Eva, whom she liked, the latter had a feeling that she could be very stern, and that she would disapprove of going to an entertainment on Sunday evening. To her surprise, when she came out there were no churchgoers to be seen in the streets, and when she passed Amy's church it was in darkness, and she guessed that it must be past nine ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin

... inspired men, who declared themselves invulnerable, and sent by God to drive away the infidels; the following year their death was forgotten, and their successors found no less credence. The Roman power, very stern on the one hand, yet little disposed to meddle, permitted a good deal of liberty. Those great, brutal despotisms, terrible in repression, were not so suspicious as powers which have a faith to defend. They allowed everything up to the point when they thought it necessary ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... left, that's this;— You know the rope, by which the cock-boat's tied, Goes down by the stern, and now, we are at anchor, There sits no pilot to discover us; My counsel is, to go down by the ladder, And, being once there, unloose, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... in conflict nor in flame, No laurel garland rests upon his tomb; Yet in stern duty's path he met his doom; A life heroic, though unwed ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... to sail anywhere," said Wilkins, as he hauled up the mainsail, which flapped idly in the still air. "For you see," he added, touching a button alongside of the tiller, "this button sets that big electric fan in the stern revolving, and the result is an artificial breeze which distends the sail, ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... A space of two hundred yards alone separates the steamers—the Belle is bounding upon the waves of the Magnolia. In less than ten minutes her head will overlap the stern of her rival. In less than twenty, and the cheer of victory rising from her deck will peal from ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... gently, lovingly over the boy's brow, and he watched him anxiously through his half-closed eyes. Paul recalled the master's grief when he first saw the boy after the accident, and other little traits of kindness—traits which had shown him that Mr. Weevil was not altogether the stern, harsh man he had one time thought him. None the less, he was sorry that he had entered the room at that moment. Hibbert had awakened his curiosity. What was it that was weighing on his mind? What had he to tell him about the man Zuker? He wished Mr. Weevil had kept from ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... his ships, reduced to mere wrecks, could no longer be kept afloat, and he ordered them to be run aground within bowshot of the shore, and fastened side by side. Here they soon filled with water to the deck. Cabins were therefore erected at the bow and stern, for the accommodation of the crews, and the vessels were placed in the best possible state of defence against any sudden attack ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... not a hard name, for sailors make such a fuss about jaw-breaking words. An old coaster meant to name his vessel the Amphitrite, but he gave the name of Anthracite to the painter, and it was duly lettered upon the stern. However, it answered just as well, as the craft went into ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... ignorance it could scarcely have been recognized. In order that it might exercise its proper influence over religion and philosophy, it was necessary that the God of Nature should cease to be a God of terrors, a personification of mere Power or arbitrary Will, a pure and stern Intelligence, an inflictor of evil, and an unrelenting Judge. The philosophy of Plato, in which this charge became forever established, was emphatically a mediation of Love. With him, the inspiration of Love first kindled the light of arts and imparted them to mankind; and not only the arts ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... needed a still greater 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

... should go who can afford it. Several countries had not opened when we were there; Turkey and Spain, for instance; and if Switzerland was ready we did not see it. The more I think of the groups I spoke of, the more I am lost in admiration. A young mother kneeling over a little dead baby, and the stern grief of the strong old grandfather, brought a lump into my throat; the young father was not capable of such grief as theirs, and sat by, looking subdued and tender, but nothing more. The artist must be a great student of human nature. I went, every day, to ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... her, and besought permission to return and try once more for her release but the stern ferryman repulsed him and refused passage. Seven days he lingered about the brink, without food or sleep; then bitterly accusing of cruelty the powers of Erebus, he sang his complaints to the rocks and mountains, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... indisposition, he ventured to inquire at the door, and, considerably to his surprise, was admitted. He found Hammond in his easy-chair, at a table, with writing-materials before him; and as Middleton entered, the old gentleman looked at him with a stern, fixed regard, which, however, did not seem to imply any particular displeasure towards this visitor, but rather a severe way of regarding mankind in general. Middleton looked curiously around the small apartment, to see what modification the character of the man had had upon ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... being implicated in the kidnapping is a base fabrication. I knew Joseph C. Miller from boyhood intimately, and I here take pleasure in saying that he was an honest, unassuming man, of good moral character and stern integrity, and would have spurned the idea of any complication, directly or ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... without constancy or capacity to bring to any degree of composition: but, what was very extraordinary in a female poet, there was not the least mention made of love in any of her performances. I counted fragments of five tragedies, the titles of which were "The Stern Philosopher," "The Double," "The Sacrilegious Traitor," "The Fall of Lucifer," and "The Last Day." From whence I gathered, that her disposition was gloomy, and her imagination delighted with objects of horror. Her library was composed ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... surprises of water and wood, pretty grottoes, rustic bridges and incomparable turf. He followed the windings of a stream, till, suddenly, he came out into a straight open valley, at the end of which were the massive ruins of the old abbey, with its stern Norman tower. He came on slowly thinking how strange it was that he, who had spent years in the remotest corners of the world, having for his companions men adventurous as himself, and barbarous tribes, should be here. His life, ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker

... domestic, so may it also survive these by a period as prolonged. If our descent from our present favored position be a gradual one, much may be done in the interval to adapt ourselves to the future outcome, but it is certain that nothing will be done except under the stern ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... up to, and recognised among his fellows as a superior genius, but upon Arthur Gride his stern unyielding character and consummate art had made so deep an impression, that he was actually afraid of him. Cringing and cowardly to the core by nature, Arthur Gride humbled himself in the dust before ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... spirituous liquors. Population. Floating Market. Spoons. Ladies appearing in public. Obeisance. Modes of addressing nobles. The use of yellow confined to the Royal Family. Umbrellas closed when passing the Palace. Nobles only can sit in the stern of a boat. Ceremonies at ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... the Beagle's head was slowly paying off from the shore. But her broadside becoming exposed to the swell, she was again driven in towards the point, and so close, that before the well-trimmed sails gave her way, as her stern went down with the swell, the assurance that she must strike, pervaded every shuddering frame. To myself, the sensation was just as if my feet were under the keel; and I almost expected to feel the bones crushing. Still we clung to hope, which can find a place even in the narrowest interval ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... interrupted, "I am ready to die. Yes, I am ready. I have had a hard life, Comyn, and few friends. It was my fault. I—I did not know how to make them. Yet no man ever valued those few more than! But," he cried, the stern fire unquenched to the last, "I would that God had spared me to see this Rebellion stamped out. For it will be stamped out." To those watching, his eyes seemed fixed on a distant point, and the light of prophecy was in them. "I would that God ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... a close, stern friendship. Dorothy worked at all things with the same passion, never sparing herself. She came closest to Ursula during the botany hours. For she could not draw. Ursula made beautiful and wonderful drawings of the sections ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... falling a little aside, had no great opinion of the faculty of this chance patient to make reimbursement, had no sooner seen his case espoused by a substantial citizen, than he showed some reluctance to quit possession of it, and it needed a short and stern hint from Master George, which, with all his good-humour, he was capable of expressing when occasion required, to send to his own dwelling ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... home, and carried such reports of the new city, and of the kindness, and hospitality, and gentle behavior of the inhabitants, that new visitors came continually to see for themselves. Every day the proportion of stern and suspicious men diminished, and that of gay and happy-looking youths ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... views of individuals, or to foment the divisions of party; if it promoted the interests of a few at the expense of the prosperity of the many; if its benefits were limited to place, or fugitive as to duration; then, indeed, it might be received with cold indifference or treated with stern neglect; but the overflowing blessings from this great fountain of public good and national abundance will be as extensive as our own country and as durable as time. It may be confidently asserted that this canal, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... Ware house was a silent sadness, silent because these were stern people, living in a stern time, and it was the custom to hide one's griefs. The oldest son was gone; whether he had perished nobody knew, nor, if he ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... of a ruddy complexion, with brown hair; of a well-made handsome form, but a stern visage. His height was about eight of his own feet, which were very long. He was of a strong robust make; his legs and thighs very stout, and his sinews firm. His face was thirteen inches long; his beard a palm; his nose half a palm; his ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... beauty which is everywhere apparent, must be reckoned as important factors in the formation of their character. And of that character, as I have said, the final note is playfulness. In spite of difficulties, their life has never been stern enough to sadden them. Bare necessities are marvellously cheap, and the pinch of real bad weather—such frost as locked the lagoons in ice two years ago, or such south-western gales as flooded the basement floors ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... delightfully of Agnes and her life, "as if by a generation of autocratic landowners, each with a wilful bee in his bonnet."[1] For Marblehead is no misnomer, and the early settlers had to plant their houses and make their streets as best they could. As a matter of stern fact, every house in Marblehead had to be like the wise man's in the Bible: "built upon a rock." The dwellings themselves were founded upon solid ledges, while the principal streets followed the natural valleys between. The smaller dividing paths led each and every one of them to the impressive ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would melt down ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... the little launch had noisily chug-chugged its way among the various craft, small and large, and had finally come to a standstill beside a beautiful boat, upon whose bow and stern was ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... be new-wedded there; For long had they been strangers to their bliss. So by the altar standeth she submiss And watchful, praying silent and intense To a strange-figured Goddess, to his sense Who knew but Aphrodite. "Love, what now? Who is thy God? What secret rite hast thou?" For grave and stern above that altar stood Here the Queen of Heaven. In dry mood She answered him, "Chaste wives to her do pray Before they couch, Blest be the strife! You say We are to be new-wedded. Pour with me Libation that we love not ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... steward, to help him to bring his trunk aboard. In the course of the evening we went on board, without being hindered by the quartermaster on guard. After having remained some time in the "gloria," (steward's quarters,) we went to the stern main deck. About fifteen to eighteen feet from the entrance to the "gloria," on port and starboard, respectively, I saw two guns of twelve to fifteen centimeters. They were covered with leather, but the barrel was distinctly to be seen. To satisfy my curiosity I unfastened the buckles ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... condemn the repeal of old ones in effect avers that their particular views of government have no self-extending or self-sustaining power of their own, and will go nowhere unless forced by act of Congress. And if Congress do but pause for a moment in the policy of stern coercion; if it venture to try the experiment of leaving men to judge for themselves what institutions will best suit them; if it be not strained up to perpetual legislative exertion on this point—if Congress proceed thus to act in the very spirit of liberty, it is at once ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... I sometimes turn My gaze, with introspection stern, Three persons there I seem to see, "I" and "Myself," they are, ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... permanent residents of Wrangell were engaged in trade. Some little trade was carried on in fish and furs, but most of the quickening business of the place was derived from the Cassiar gold-mines, some two hundred and fifty or three hundred miles inland, by way of the Stickeen River and Dease Lake. Two stern-wheel steamers plied on the river between Wrangell and Telegraph Creek at the head of navigation, a hundred and fifty miles from Wrangell, carrying freight and passengers and connecting with pack-trains ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... as he should have obeyed, Warren's orders, this catastrophe could not have occurred, and that he more than any other man on earth was responsible for the death of these gallant fellows, who, whether they looked up to him or not, were by the stern discipline of the service dependent on him for the expected support. If he could realize this, how much the quicker would others be to attach the blame to him! how much the more necessary must it be to lose no time in diverting suspicion elsewhere! The fatal propensity to distort or disobey, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... gifts and good looks. Nothing is asked of them, all their sins are forgiven; they are treated like perfect natures, others are blind to their defects, they are the world's spoiled children. And, on the other hand, the world is stern beyond measure to strong and complete natures. Perhaps in this apparently flagrant injustice society acts sublimely, taking a harlequin at his just worth, asking nothing of him but amusement, promptly forgetting him; and asking divine great deeds ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... used to making a landing through the surf. Arrived off shore, they waited till a big wave came directly at the stern, then with a shout gave way and rode in on its crest, jumping out into the water and pulling the dory high up on what proved to be a shingle beach backed by a high rock wall a hundred yards ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... asleep. This shocked me and I was at once wide awake. My uncle was sitting very erect and his arm around my waist had the tight grasp that usually preceded some sharp rebuke. I looked up and found his face grown suddenly so hard and stern, I was all affright lest my sleeping had offended him. His eyes were fastened on Lord Selkirk with a piercing, angry gaze. His Lordship was not nodding, not a bit of it. How brilliant he seemed to my childish fancy! He was leaning forward, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... south depend for protection from the insect hordes,—the very birds that are most near and dear to the people of the North. Song-bird slaughter is growing and spreading, with the decrease of the game birds! It is a matter that requires instant attention and stern repression. At the present moment it seems that the only remedy lies in federal protection for all migratory birds,—because so many states will ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... quivered and became an Afrit, whose head was in the clouds and his feet in the dust. His head was like a dome, his hands like pitchforks, his legs like masts, his mouth like a cavern, his teeth like rocks, his nostrils like trumpets, his eyes like lamps, and he was stern and lowering of aspect. When the fisherman saw the Afrit, he trembled in every limb; his teeth chattered and his spittle dried up and he knew not what to do. When the Afrit saw him, he said, 'There is no god but God, and Solomon is His prophet! O prophet of God, do ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... for Mr. Mohun happening to be at home, was dragged into the dancing-room by Emily and Ada. Once, when she thought he was looking another way, Jane tried to raise a smile, but a stern 'Jane, what are you thinking of?' recalled her to order, and when the lesson was over her father spoke gravely to her, telling her that he thought few things more disgusting in a young lady than impertinence towards her teachers; and then added, 'Miss Weston, I hope you ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... for stately tire, For frills and furbelows, When dainty humours should inspire Such vanities as those; So for stern hours of high ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various

... a loving heart from the depravity of a corrupt character. With the obstinacy of narrow-minded people, he had been looking at the whole thing in its worst light, and for several hours already he had decided upon his wife's guilt in his own mind; this served now as a foundation for his stern conduct. His features remained perfectly impassive as he listened to Clemence's words of justification, which she uttered ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... gone the tempest, which Julia's pride had enabled her to stern for a time, broke forth in a passion of tears and sobs, and, throwing herself on the shabby window-seat, she gave free vent to her grief. The happy future which the little bean had dangled before her eyes, absurdly as he had fashioned and bedecked ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... experiment in modern diplomacy-was made in a place which has sacrificed nothing to a love of that intoxicant known as the spirit of the age. It was, in truth, a strange sight that Portsmouth saw a brief two years ago. Before its troubled eyes the stern conference of hostile nations was turned to comedy. A hundred and twenty eager reporters publicly put up their support for sale in exchange for information to the highest bidder. The representative of a great country was heard ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... did not heed or hear him—dark and stern thoughts, thoughts in which were the germ of a mighty revolution, were at his heart. He woke from them with a start, as the soldiers were now arranging their bucklers so as to make a kind of bier for the corpse, and then burst into tears as he fiercely motioned them away, and clasped the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Sommers shivered. After he had reached the end of the lane, he turned back, and walked swiftly to the cottage. At the corner he looked into the room where they had been sitting. She was still in the same place where he had left her, by the lamp, her white, almost stern face, with its large, severe lines, staring fiercely into space. It made him uneasy, this long, tense look that betrayed a mind fixed upon one idea, and that idea! He crept away into the lane to flee from it, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... my pocket full of ship biscuit, and, after listening for a moment at the hatchway, tiptoed forward and climbed out upon the bowsprit. Then, having unloosed the cockboat's painter, I lowered and let myself drop into her, and, slipping a paddle into the stern-notch, sculled gently ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... leading the way, in a few moments the Padre detected the wash of waves, and presently his feet struck the firmer sand of the beach. Here the stranger paused, and the Padre perceived a boat lying in readiness hard by. As he stepped into the stern-sheets', in obedience to the command of his companion, he noticed that the rowers seemed to partake of the misty incorporeal texture of his companion, a similarity that became the more distressing when he perceived also that their oars in pulling together made no noise. The stranger, assuming the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... greeting of the ambassador by a scarcely perceptible nod, and strode, with head erect, into the middle of the room. There he stood still, and casting a stern and almost defiant glance on the ambassador, he said in a cold, dignified tone: "You requested an audience of me in a very unusual manner. I granted it to prove to you my desire to remain at peace with France. Now speak; What has the ambassador of the Emperor of the French ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... lashes. It was characteristic of Kellson that the prisoner's prepossessing appearance had the involuntary effect of making the sentence more severe, or rather, perhaps, of making the magistrate more stern in his estimate ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... and illustrating some of their story-books. No two people could be more unlike than those two uncles, who would probably be the guardians of Edward and Bertie Rivers. Mr. Gregory was a tall, portly gentleman, with grey hair and keen eager eyes; his voice was loud, his manner always stern and abrupt. People usually feared and respected him more than they loved him; he was always very busy and fussy and important, and had an idea that nothing in London would go on quite right without him. However, Mrs. Rivers had been his only sister; the ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various

... and bruised, and scurvily used, He went trudging along his track; The lesson was stern he had come to learn, And yet he ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... here, and if the gen'leman has a mind to be kind-hearted—" Then she intimated her own readiness to take any contribution to the good cause which the Senator might be willing to make at that moment. But the Senator buttoned up his breeches pockets with stern resolution. Though he still believed Lord Rufford to be altogether wrong, he was beginning to think that the Goarlys were not worthy his benevolence. As she came to the door with them and accompanied them a few yards across ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... into the chaff-shed. Carting the straw that streams from the thresher bows, are Michelmore and Neck—the little man who cannot read, but can milk and whistle the hearts out of his cows till they follow him like dogs. At the thresher's stern is Morris, the driver, selected because of that utter reliability which radiates from his broad, handsome face. His part is to attend the sacking of the three kinds of grain for ever sieving out. He murmurs: "Busy work, sir!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... beginners of the Oxford movement, from anything like personal display, any conscious aiming at the ornamental and brilliant, any show of gifts or courting of popular applause. Morbid and excessive or not, there can be no doubt of the stern self-containing severity which made them turn away, not only with fear, but with distaste and repugnance, from all that implied distinction or seemed to lead to honour; and the control of this austere spirit is visible, in language ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... She knew she was doing these things, yet she could not do otherwise; tears fell upon his hand, and the grief she expressed was so intense that he could not restrain his tears. But if she raised her face and saw his tears, his position as a stern father was compromised! She could only think of her own grief; the grief and regret of many years absorbed her; she was so lost in it that she expected him to answer her in Wotan's own music; she even smiled in her grief at her expectation, and continued the music of her intercession. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... American Regular makes tactics as he needs them; that the rules of war established by pen soldiers do not form the basis of actual operations in the field; that theories must go to the wall before the stern logic of irrefutable facts; and that deductions based on the drill-made automatons of European armies are not applicable to an army composed of American Volunteer Regulars, led ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... there were many years of happiness and usefulness in store for her husband and herself, things were never quite the same again. The recall seems to mark a turning-point in her life. Many of the dreams and enthusiasms of her youth were gone, though her life's unfinished work and stern reality remained. To use her own ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... the flag on the green, in a hard return that hits the back line of the tennis court. But a perfect "mate" irradiates the mind with the calm of indisputable things. It has the absoluteness of mathematics, and it gives you victory ennobled by the sense of intellectual struggle and stern justice. There are "mates" that linger in the memory ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... drew in, the man forward shipped his blades, and rising, scrambled to the bows in order to grasp an iron mooring-ring set in the wall. The other awkwardly took in his oars and, as the current swung the stern downstream, placed a hand palm downward upon the bottom step ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... the army filed out of the gold and silver doors in great numbers, and marched up a winding stairs and into the throne room, led by a stern featured Nome who was their captain. When they had nearly filled the throne room they formed ranks in the big underground cavern below, and then stood still until they were told ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... came to dinner. Calhoun fancied his manner rather cool toward him, while Dick and Walter were left in no doubt of his stern disapproval of them, until their Cousin Elsie said a few words to him in a quiet aside, after which there was a decided change ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... paused as though the majesty of the law could ask no more. "He is a young man of naturally high and somewhat—naturally, too, no doubt—bibulous spirits. Homoepathically—if inversely—the result was logical. In the untrammelled life of the liberty-breathing mountains, where the stern spirit of law and order, of which your Honor is the august symbol, does not prevail as it does here—thanks to your Honor's wise and just dispensations—the lad has, I may say, naturally acquired a certain recklessness ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.

... space it still endured, Until, upon a day when least of all The softened Cyclops, by his hopes assured, Dreamed the inevitable blow could fall, Came the stern moment that should all destroy, Bringing a pert young cockerel of ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... the warm, red blood suffusing her cheeks, her brow, her very neck; and he could have laughed aloud for joy at finding so simple that which he had feared would prove so hard. Some pity, too, crept unaccountably into his stern heart, fathered by the little faith which in his inmost soul he reposed in Jocelyn. And where, had she resisted him, he would have grown harsh and violent, her acquiescence struck the weapons from his hands, and he caught himself well-nigh ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... she had brought order out of chaos in the Scutari hospitals, that, from her own resources, she had clothed the British Army, that she had spread her dominion over the serried and reluctant powers of the official world; it was by strict method, by stern discipline, by rigid attention to detail, by ceaseless labour, and by the fixed ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... laid low, and her name among the list of vanished things. Probably she was his mother, for the dress was rich with pearls, and evidently that of a person in the highest rank of court beauties. I sighed as I thought of the stern melancholy of her son, if Maximilian were he, as connected, probably, with the fate and fortunes of this majestic beauty; somewhat haughty, perhaps, in the expression of her fine features, but still noble—generous— confiding. Laying the picture on the table, I awoke Maximilian, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... mentioned, and it is striking to see the various view-points taken. The loving nature which would lead, but never drive, a rebellious child; the puritan, who will smile at no infringement of the law, and whose stern eye has been even known to call the Principal to order; the quick glance of the woman whose type reveals an inevitable leader, the stern disciplinarian, and the easy-going, good-natured woman—all are here, their diversity of gifts revealing the unity of the One Spirit. Ling Ai and I alone know ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... name was Nina?" he asked in tones so stern and startling that Edith's senses all forsook her, and trembling with ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... was a hard-headed man of affairs—stern, sensible and reasonably amiable—that is to say, he never smashed the furniture, nor beat his wife. She submitted to his will, and all the fine, girlish, bubbling qualities of her mind and soul were soon held in check through that law of self-protection which causes a woman to give ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... stamped upon one of the earliest of the Grecian coins. The late coins of the Grecian series, with the portraits of Alexander, Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and others, have lent to the historian a fresh and life-like picture of those stern days, and have been silent but incontrovertible witnesses of the truth of the records which have come down to us. Cymbeline, of Shakspeare, dates back to the Cunobelin of an ancient Saxon coin, struck before Boadicea's time. Who would have known of the Grecian domination ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... bank, which was two hours and a half, she was continually striking; and at one time we heard a loud crash which gave us reason to fear that some serious damage had happened. At first it was thought either that the pintles of the rudder were broken or that the stern-post was rent; but upon examination both appeared to have escaped; and as no leak was observed during the night I indulged the hope that the noise was not occasioned by any accident that would inconvenience us, or oblige our premature return to Port Jackson. That this hope proved to be fallacious ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... you done, St. Lucia?' and he was about to hasten to Corte for help, when St. Lucia said in a stern tone: ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... first on to the stern, and then to the bow. He could hear the voices of men talking and singing in the forecastles, but could hear no movement on the deck of either ship. He went down and reported ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... f. Intimate f. Summist f. Hepatic f. Abridging f. Cupshotten and swilling f. Morrish f. Splenetic f. Leaden-sealed f. Windy f. Mandatory f. Legitimate f. Compassionate f. Azymathal f. Titulary f. Almicantarized f. Crouching, showking, ducking f. Proportioned f. Grim, stern, harsh, and wayward f. Chinnified f. Well-hung and timbered f. Swollen and puffed up f. Ill-clawed, pounced, and pawed f. Overcockrifedlid and lified f. Well-stoned f. Corallory f. Crabbed and unpleasing f. Eastern f. Winded and untainted f. Sublime f. Kitchen haunting f. Crimson ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... the endless throngs swirled and surged as I had seen the yellow waters curve and fret, contending, where the river pauses, rock-bound. Here were no bright costumes, no bright faces, none stayed to greet another; all was stern, and swift, and voiceless. London, then, said I to myself, is the city of the giants. They must live in these towering castles side by side, and these hurrying ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... name came floating down to him through the clear air, a change came over the Colonel's stern face. He stooped over the child. His hand trembled as he put it under her soft chin and ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston

... and stern exterior dwelt a very tender heart, the girl was sure. For the absent Cap'n Abe he appeared to feel a strong man's good-natured scorn for a weak one; but Louise saw him stand often before Jerry's cage, chirping to ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... at the old man at her side showed her the stern, commanding features of her sire molded in an expression of haughty dignity; only the slight movement of the muscles of the strong jaw revealed the tensity of the hidden emotions of the stern old warrior. He was ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... these tragedies; and their heroes, bursting with this extraordinary egoism, assume even more towering proportions in their self-abnegation than in their pride. Then the thrilling clarion-notes of their defiances give way to the deep grand music of stern sublimity and stoic resignation. The gigantic spirit recoils upon itself, crushes itself, and ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... five or seven moons of a night have suddenly arisen to warn some miserable sublunarian that orders had been issued that there should be no moon for him that quarter, or, in military and more precise phrase, that he should have no "quarters" during that moon. Even our venerable and stern old puritan saint, Milton—he who was blessed with the blindness of his earthly eye, that he should be more perfectly enabled to contemplate the Deity within—has given way to this superstition when he subjects universal ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... The stern unrelenting fortitude of Frank, in the cause of justice, and some symptoms of violence in the impetuous Clifton, have inspired me with apprehensions; and have induced me to behave with more reserve and coldness to Frank ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... river, having on board about one hundred passengers, men going to work on the Panama Railroad. At Chagres we found a small stern wheeled river steamer and took passage on it for Gorgona, as far as the steamer could well go up the river. While going up we met a similar boat coming down, and being near a short bend they crashed together, breaking down our guards severely, but fortunately with no ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... with his papers, and endeavoured to maintain his equanimity and show an indifference which his stern but fascinated glances at the youthful witness amply belied. He was biding his time, but biding it in decided perturbation of mind. Neither he nor any one else, unless it were Moffat, could tell whither this tale tended. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... emanated; and all under the 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. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... She closed with stern bitterness, compelled to it by the tone of his last bidding. A glorious beauty flashed in her face. Alas, Wilfrid Athel would never know the pride of seeing thus the woman he knew so noble. But Wilfrid was in her heart; his soul allied itself with hers and gave her double strength. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... painted white. Her bows flare very much, and are sharp and symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted by a gilt scroll, or, as the sailors call it, a fiddle-head. The black stern is ornamented by a group of white figures in bas relief, which give a lively air to the otherwise sombre and vacant expression, and beneath the cabin-windows is painted the name of the ship, and her port of register. The lower masts of this vessel are short and stout, the top-masts are ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... The tall mast is the mainmast, the short mast is the mizzen; some ketches carry square sails on the main, some carry a topsail on the mizzen—the distinctive mark of the ketch being that the mizzen is a pole-mast and stepped in front of the stern-post. If the mizzen be stepped abaft the stern-post the vessel becomes a "dandy" ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... Britain, Spain, North Africa. Latin Christianity found its centre in North Africa, where Roman culture had imposed itself on the hard, cruel Carthaginian world. It is Carthage, not Athens, that gives to Tertullian his harsh intolerance and to St Augustine his stern determinism. So the way was prepared for what I regard as the supreme tragedy of history—the falling apart of Eastern and Western Christianity. Then, in the West, the unity of the Church is broken by the conversion of the ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various

... shore, we fired a few grape shot into the woods, and the boats landed without seeing any of the natives; at the same time we warped the ship within a cable's length of the watering-place, and secured her head and stern for covering the party on shore; the covering boat was directed to fire whenever any of the natives were seen in the woods over the watering party, which, in the course of the day, they had frequent occasion ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... a question, and having once fixed Ethel's worldliness in his mind, and her brother's treason, to allow no argument of advocates of the other side to shake his displeasure. Hence the one or two appeals which Laura ventured to make on behalf of her friend, were checked by the good Colonel with a stern negation. If Ethel was not guiltless, she could not make him see at least that she was not guilty. He dashed away all excuses and palliations. Exasperated as he was, he persisted in regarding the poor girl's conduct in its most unfavourable ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the Face clad in glorious raiment, and therewith were Dallach and the men of Silver-dale, washen and docked of their long hair, after the fashion of warriors who bear the helm; and they were clad in gay attire, with battle-swords girt to their sides and gold rings on their arms. Somewhat stern and sad-eyed were those Silver-dalers yet, though they looked on those about them kindly and courteously when they met their eyes; and Face-of-god yearned towards them when he called to mind the beauty and wisdom ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... the moon had gone down, Frank seated himself in the stern of the canoe, and his companions stretched themselves out under the thwarts, as much out of sight as possible. As soon as all was ready, he moved their frail craft from the shore, with one silent sweep of the paddle, turning it ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... carriage with Molly, who opened her eyes wide when she saw me. We were soon in conversation. Molly was going to an aunt's in London who was to meet her at the Terminus. You may guess which way my talk ran. I kept whispering lewd things in her ear. An elderly stern-faced woman got in at a station, fixed her eyes on us, especially on me, and at length said, "Do you know that young woman?" Her coolness nearly settled me, but I said I did, kept on talking, and was delighted when about two or three stations further on she left with the remark to Molly, "Take ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... others we received into the boats, and conveyed them to the ship. Two trips had been made, when Mr Pincott, who was in the boat with me, said he did not think she would float till we came back. At that moment a person appeared at the stern of the vessel handsomely dressed. He was a fine-looking old gentleman. He must have seen his danger, and he seemed to be bidding his countrymen farewell. I could not bear the thought of leaving him; so I begged Mr Pincott to pull back, and ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... upon which its foundations were laid. Gloomy evergreens clung to the hill-sides. A mountain stream, often swollen to an impetuous torrent by the autumnal rains and the spring thaws, swept through the little verdant lawn, which smiled amid the stern sublimities surrounding this venerable and moss-covered fortress. Around the solitary towers the eagles wheeled and screamed in harmony with the gales and storms which often swept through these wild regions. The expanse around was sparsely settled by a few hardy ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... never been and there is but little danger that it ever can be abused. No President will ever desire unnecessarily to place his opinion in opposition to that of Congress. He must always exercise the power reluctantly, and only in cases where his convictions make it a matter of stern duty, which he can not escape. Indeed, there is more danger that the President, from the repugnance he must always feel to come in collision with Congress, may fail to exercise it in cases where the preservation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... promise well—a very bright man, who writes in the London papers and knows Paris nearly as well as Tristram. We knocked about for a week together, but he very soon gave me up in disgust. I was too virtuous by half; I was too stern a moralist. He told me, in a friendly way, that I was cursed with a conscience; that I judged things like a Methodist and talked about them like an old lady. This was rather bewildering. Which of my two critics was I to believe? I didn't worry about it and very soon ...
— The American • Henry James

... to reach New Orleans, I took a stern-wheel boat out of Wichita; and as it was late, the clerk said the only berth he could give me was in a state-room with another man. I crawled into the top berth, and towards morning I was awakened by a noise beneath me. Carefully looking over the ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... Magnificently stern and sombre are the streets of beautiful Florence; and the strong old piles of building make such heaps of shadow, on the ground and in the river, that there is another and a different city of rich forms and fancies, always lying at our feet. Prodigious ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... so deeply sympathetic, and at times so given to humor, when he was aroused he was terrible in his firmness, his resolution to win for the cause that was right, his stern rebuke for injustice, his merciless excoriation of falsehood and his relentless determination to see the truth prevail. False or careless witnesses dreaded his cross-examinations, and his opponents dreaded his effectiveness in handling a ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers

... a lovely landscape; and the Port Royalist nuns remarked, somewhat simply for their side of the argument, that they seemed as if warring with Providence, seeing that the favors which he was abundantly showering upon them, they, in obedience to the stern law of their lives, were continually rejecting. But it is better, surely, to be on the side of Providence against Pascal and the nuns, than on the side of Pascal and the nuns against Providence. The great Creator, who has provided so wisely and abundantly for all his creatures, knows what is best ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... suddenly and energetically added, with a stern look around and a bitter suggestiveness on the word as if it were enough to pronounce it; and in truth, it silenced both De La Lande and Chamilly, and appeared to make a completely ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... Some of the houses were nearly under water and large quantities of debris were afloat on the slowly moving current. Through the long weary hours of our boat ride, the sun poured its rays upon us with unmitigated fervor. Reaching Tigerville, we found an ugly little stern-wheeled boat tied up in what had been one of the thoroughfares of the village, and which the quartermaster at once ordered to take us to Brashear City. The captain of the craft, incidentally remarked that his boiler was in bad shape and might blow up at any time. ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman

... utterance Shefford read the death-blow to the old Mormon polygamous creed. In the uplift of his spirit, in the joy at this revelation, he almost forgot the stern matter at hand. Ruth and Joe Lake belonged to a younger generation of Mormons. Their nobility in this instance was in part a revolt at the conditions of their lives. Doubt was knocking at Joe Lake's heart, and conviction had come to this young sealed ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... Market, closely followed by Wright and Emory, their artillery on the pike and their columns on its right and left. Both sides moved with celerity, the Confederates stimulated by the desire to escape, and our men animated by the prospect of wholly destroying Early's army. The stern-chase continued for about thirteen miles, our infantry often coming within range, yet whenever we began to deploy, the Confederates increased the distance between us by resorting to a double quick, evading ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan

... was the son of his father and gloried secretly in his lineage: a Puritan of the Puritans in his outlook upon human life and destiny. Something of the rigid quality of rock-bound New England entered into his composition. He was a foe to all compromise—even with himself; to him Duty was the stern daughter of the voice of God, who admonished him daily and hourly of his obligations. No character in American public life has unbosomed himself so completely as this son of Massachusetts in the pages of his diary. There are ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... at the gallant, magnanimous young Frenchman with more interest and more care than before; he noticed how pale and haggard and weak he appeared. He appreciated it for the first time. A little change came over the hard, stern face of the old noble. He, too, had suffered; he, too, had been hungry and weak and weary; he, too, had eaten his heart out longing for what seemed impossible. After all, they had been friends and more than friends, these ancient houses, the high born and ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... the stern and waving, till she was under the Godsend's side: then turn'd, and mounting Molly, rode inland to ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... truce was accepted without explanations, and Roldan was hurried into the presence of Alvarado. That famous governor was sitting on a magnificent charger, caparisoned with carved leather, red velvet, silver, and gold. His black eyes were smiling, although the rest of his pale stern face ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... away boats and anchors, chopping up and heaving overboard the ponderous cables, together with spars and provisions, the enemy still gained; and the foremost pursuer, a razee, opened fire. The "President" responded with her stern-chasers, but her shot had no effect. "It is said that on this occasion," writes Cooper, "the shot of the American ship were observed to be thrown with a momentum so unusually small, as to have since excited much distrust of the quality of her gunpowder. It is even added, that many of these shot ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... mentioned. The two women looked at this person whose presence they had entirely forgotten, and retired; but, as she left the apartment, Julie gave the stranger a supplicating glance, to which he replied by a smile that an indifferent spectator would have been surprised to see on his stern features. The two men were left alone. "Well, sir," said Morrel, sinking into a chair, "you have heard all, and I have nothing further ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... old man with white hair and a gray, stern face, who sat beside a table on which were paper and lighted candles. A letter lay before him, but he was not reading it. When the sound of the rocking began, he started and turned pale. A little boy once used to rock in that way in ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... The stern Pelides' rage, O goddess, sing, wrath Of all the woes of Greece the fatal spring. Grecian That strew'd with warriors dead the Phrygian plain, heroes And peopled the dark hell with heroes slain; fill'd the shady hell with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... boat was waiting to receive him. He was encountered by many, but he only ran the faster the more they jeered, and, at last, arrived breathless at his goal, flew down the steps, jumped into the boat, and squatted on the stern sheets, much to the surprise of the officers and men, who thought him mad. He stated in a few words that somebody had stolen his trousers during the night; and as it was already late, the boat shoved off the men as well as officers convulsed ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... Stephen Frenelle left Nellie at the Rectory after the drive home from the dance, he had fought one of those stern, fierce battles which must come to all at some time in life. As Jacob of old wrestled all night long for the mastery, so did Stephen in the silence of his own room. Sleep fled his eyes as he paced up and ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody

... bless you, boy!" and patted him on the shoulder, and the schoolmaster wished him well and begged that now and then John would write to him. Willie Logan, hot and in a hurry, entered the station, eager to say good-bye to him, but the stern and disapproving eye of the minister caused him to keep in the background until John, understanding what was in his mind, went up ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... mist in my eyes, but at first sight Verdun did not look ruined, as I saw it towering up to its citadel in massive strength and stern dignity. The old houses on the slope stood shoulder to shoulder and back to back, like massed men fighting their last stand. It was only when we had started on again, and passing through the gate had slipped into the sorrowful intimacy ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... place and function to attend: I am left out; for me nothing remains. But long I will not be Jack out of office: The King from Eltham I intend to steal, And sit at chiefest stern of public weal. ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... shall call Prince Victor, was of a very different character from his august father. He had made the Wars of the Succession and Seven Years with great credit in the Empress's service, was of a stern character, seldom appeared at Court, except when ceremony called him, but lived almost alone in his wing of the palace, where he devoted himself to the severest studies, being a great astronomer and chemist. He shared in the rage then common throughout Europe, of hunting for the philosopher's stone; ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to his levity; and, as I had warned him of the possible effect of the poem he solicited, I could not be accused of want of consideration in reciting it. Besides, he deserved the lesson, the stern ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... right. Desborough had risen in the stern of the canoe, and now, stretched to his full height, called leisurely, through his closed hands, on the name of Henry Grantham. When he observed the attention of that officer had, in common with that of his companions, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... immovable as a Stonewall Jackson. His face is set in determined lines, the lips firmly closed, the head thrown back a little, and the eyes steadily fixed on the battle. Yet the face is not altogether stern; there is much that is kindly and noble in the expression. One can fancy it in another moment softening ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... Ere yet stern Azrael[10] cut the thread of life, While Death and Nature wag'd unequal strife, Spoke the expiring hero:—"Hither stand, Receive your dying sovereign's last command. When that the spirit from my frame is riven, (Oh, gracious Alla! be my sins forgiven, And bright-eyed Houris ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... I appointed ourselves an examining committee for the party, and walked down to the wharf where she lay. The captain, a bluff Americanised German, met us at the gangway and guided us through the little brig from stem to stern. Our limited marine experience would not have qualified us to pass an ex cathedra judgment upon the seaworthiness of a mud-scow; but Bush, with characteristic impudence and versatility of talent, discoursed ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... no one of them saw the moving cause in that tall, stern, silent Jewish youth, and the last idea that ever entered the mind of Richard de Clare was to associate this great grief of his life with the boyish trick he had played on Delecresse ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... sweeping above them and behind them. Half in the light, haff in the shadow, stand armed angels. Their armour is old and worn, and their drawn swords dim and dinted. They stand as if upon the air in formation of battle and look downward with stern faces. The PEASANTS cast ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats

... My western land, Outspread beneath the setting sun! Once more amid your swells, I stand, And cross your sod-lands dry and dun. I hear the jocund calls of men Who sweep amid the ripened grain With swift, stern reapers; once again The evening splendor floods the plain, The crickets' chime Makes pauseless rhyme, And toward the sun, The colors run Before the ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... beneath what sky, in the vast empire of Spain—in which, removed from the prejudices of birth and of class, and provided with other means, less precarious than those that depend on the sword, I might make Beatriz my wife. The polished duke was more inexorable than the stern hidalgo. I flew to Beatriz; I told her I had nothing but my heart and right hand to offer. She ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... connection with the factory laws. It was said at the time by the Radicals that his work was dictated by political expediency rather than by pure humane feelings. However, Bill is of opinion that the Radicals were mistaken. The Captain was a stern disciplinarian, but, under a rough exterior, Bill was sure there beat a warm heart for the weal of the poor, and especially of pity for those confined ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... no sunset lull of rest, No pomp and bannered pride of war; We hold stern labor manliest, The ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall

... broken that trust to gain a personal profit—and that was the unpardonable sin. He could have excused her if she had weakened or made some mistake, but she had betrayed him deliberately and willfully; and as he sat off by himself, mulling it over in his mind, his eyes became stern and hard. For the killing of Stiff Neck George he had no regrets, and the treachery of Blount did not surprise him; but he had given this woman his heart to keep and she had sold him for fifty thousand dollars. All the rest became as nothing ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... longer. As he paced the small room, the tears stood in his eyes, and he locked and unlocked his hands in a passionate effort to relieve his emotion. David looked at him with a stern curiosity. "You are mair than needfully anxious, sir. Do you think Maggie Promoter has no brother? ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... massive heaving swells coming in past Cape Spenser. For miles the sound is bounded by precipitous mural cliffs, which, lashed with wave-spray and their heads hidden in clouds, looked terribly threatening and stern. Had our canoe been crushed or upset we could have made no landing here, for the cliffs, as high as those of Yosemite, sink sheer into deep water. Eagerly we scanned the wall on the north side for the first sign of an opening fiord ...
— Stickeen • John Muir

... duty where interest has failed. And it is just here that there must be no failure, else we shall be mere creatures of circumstance, drifting with every eddy in the tide of our life, and never able to breast the current. Interest is not to supplant the necessity for stern and strenuous endeavor but rather to call forth the largest measure of endeavor of which the self is capable. It is to put at work a larger amount of power than can be secured in any other way; in place of supplanting the will, ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... all to powder plash, Fear and despair, flight and disorder, coast With hasty march before her murderous host, As burning, rape, waste, wrong, impiety, Rage, ruin, discord, horror, cruelty, Sack, sacrilege, impunity, pride. Are still stern consorts by her barbarous side; And poverty, sorrow, and desolation, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... Philippa, the elder, declaring and believing that Duncan had killed her father, strictly obeyed the injunction. But Eliza, being of a softer kind, and herself then in love with Captain Carnaby, would gladly have aided her only brother, but for his stern refusal. In such a case, a more gentle nature than ever endowed a Yordas might have grown hardened and bitter; and Duncan, being of true Yordas fibre (thickened and toughened with slower Scotch sap), was not of the sort to be ousted ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... the Septentrion. O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide! How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child, To bid the father wipe his eyes withal, And yet be seen to bear a woman's face? Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible; Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless. Bid'st thou me rage? why, now thou hast thy wish: Wouldst have me weep? why, now thou hast thy will; For raging wind blows up incessant showers, And when the rage allays the rain begins. These tears are my sweet ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... the triumph the rebels had boasted they wrought, But which lost to them Chattanooga, thus bringing their triumph to nought; The mountain-walled citadel city, with its outposts in billowy crowds, Grand soarers among the lightnings, stern conquerors of the clouds! For months, I say, had the rebels, with the eyes of their cannon, looked down From the high-crested forehead of Lookout, from the Mission's long sinuous crown Till GRANT, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... covers the bones of my own kinsfolk; it was their blood which reddened the long, green grass at Lexington. It was my own name which stands chiseled on that stone; the tall captain who marshalled his fellow farmers and mechanics into stern array, and spoke such brave and dangerous words as opened the war of American Independence,—the last to leave the field,—was my father's father. I learned to read out of his Bible, and with a musket he that day captured ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... meetings for special purposes, at the imminent risk of imprisonment; but whether, in these meetings, they exhorted, or preached to each other, does not appear. John Bunyan was applied to for advice, which he plainly gives. He was a stern advocate for scriptural authority in all things pertaining to divine worship; and one who, in regarding the invaluable virtues of women, most admired retiring modesty as the loveliest adornment of the female character. The terms he uses, and the spirit in which he writes, intimate plainly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... above 2 Indians who came to the bank and looked at us a about 1/2 an hour & went over the hills to the S W. we proceeded on under a verry Stiff Breeze from the S. , the Stern of the boat got fast on a log and the boat turned & was verry near filling before we got her righted, the waves being verry high, The Chief on board was So fritined at the motion of the boat which in its rocking caused Several loose articles to fall on the Deck from the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... of the Cove, the Southern Cross rode at anchor. A small boat had put off from the schooner, two seamen at the oars, and a woman seated in the stern. The boat reached the shore, the lady was lifted out upon the sands, the men jumped in again, pushed off and rowed briskly back to the schooner. Tom could not distinguish the lady's features, but from the style of her dress, cut in so different a fashion than that the ladies ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... boat shorewards suddenly, and pulled at the oars for dear life, and all the Cubs helped by cheering. "Crash—scrunch," the boat went ashore; the Cub in the bow leapt out, and held her nose steady while everyone else scrambled out. A few "white horses" jumped over the stern and made things a bit wet, but nobody minded. In scrambled the next boatful of Cubs, and, with a good shove, ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay

... together, their lives blending in childhood association and affection. It is interesting to think what the effect would have been upon the characters of both if they had been reared in close companionship. How would John's stern, rugged, unsocial nature have affected the gentle spirit of Jesus? What impression would the brightness, sweetness, and affectionateness of Jesus have made on the temper ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... bathing at a time. When age arrived he made no alteration in his bodily habits; but, at the same time, instead of putting away from him the thought of death, he was much taken up with it, and prepared himself for it with stern severity. He drew up, modified, and completed his will several times over. Three years before his death he made out the distribution of his treasures, his money, his wardrobe, and all his furniture, in the presence of his friends and his officers, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Miss Melvyn left her friend, but the vent she had given to her grief had greatly calmed her spirits and restored her to the power of reflection. At her entrance into the house, she met Lady Melvyn, who with a very stern countenance ordered her to go and entertain Mr Morgan, who waited for her in the parlour. She found him alone, and as he began to renew his addresses, which a repulse from her had not discouraged, since he hoped to succeed by the influence her parents had over her, she immediately ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... the Bible teaching as to Hell, but with modern inadequate conceptions of the evil and guilt of sin, and with many, the almost lost sense of justice, and of "stern moral indignation against ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin

... coal valleys of the Vermissa district were no resorts for the leisured or the cultured. Everywhere there were stern signs of the crudest battle of life, the rude work to be done, and the rude, strong ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... when Charles had exhausted his fury, he sat with his features fixed in stern and rigid immobility, like one who broods over some desperate deed, to which he is as yet unable to work up his resolution. And unquestionably it would have needed little more than an insidious hint from any of the counsellors ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... wonder. He lives hospitably but plainly, and in a palace with few ornaments or luxuries. He enshrouds himself in mystery, but not in gloom. Few dare approach him, for his manners are brusque and rough, and he is feared more even than he is honored. His aspect is stern and haughty, except when he occasionally unbends. In his family he is simple, frank, and domestic; but in public he is the cold and imperative dictator. Even the royal family are uncomfortable in his commanding and majestic ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... to dissuade me; but I set him down with a stern voice, striking the table at the same time with all my birr, as I said, "Sir, you have no voice here. Do you refuse to perform what I order? At your peril I command the ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... jostled, as people still do When the sitters be many, the seats scant and few; Here was babble of voices and merry uproar, For while some folk laughed loud, some lost tempers and swore. Until on a sudden this tumult and riot Was hushed to a murmur that sank into quiet As forth into the lists, stern of air, grave of face, Five fine heralds, with tabard and trumpet, did pace With their Lion-at-arms, or Chief Herald, before; And a look most portentous this Chief Herald wore, And, though portly ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... up 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

... that his Administration was to be marked by a policy of extraordinary vigor, that the standard of loyalty was to be held high, that the leaders of the Rebellion were to be dealt with in a spirit of stern justice. His position gave satisfaction to those who thought the chief conspirators against the Union could not be punished too severely; but it led to uneasiness among the anti-slavery philanthropists, lest, in wreaking vengeance upon white ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... was all to hope; and the community of Englishmen with whom he lived, though stern, fierce, intolerant, and at times cruel in their intolerance, did not embarrass his work nor corrupt the Indians by the grosser and coarser vices, when, in his biographer's words, "our Eliot was on such ill terms with the devil as to alarm him with sounding the silver ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... broke for their rooms to get their guns. I stepped out of the side door, and got under the pilot-house, as it was my favorite hiding place. I could hear every word down stairs, and could whisper to the pilot. Well, they hunted the boat from stem to stern—even took lights and went down into the hold—and finally gave up the chase, as one man said I had jumped overboard. I slipped the pilot $100 in gold, as I had both pockets filled with gold and watches, and told him at the first point that stood out a good ways to run her as close ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... man resolv'd and 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, And ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... the affair became even more intense, with an aroused desire to read the riddle. He convinced himself that from henceforth this was to be his only object—not the girl, nor any attraction she once had for him, but a stern determination to solve this crime, and bring its perpetrators to justice. If she was involved it could not be helped, she would have to suffer with the rest; ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... to leave behind only a memory of mingled pain and sweetness, recalled in after time with something of self-pity and something of surprise that such things had ever seemed real and not visionary, and had touched the warm springs in the heart now chilled, it may be, by the stern exigencies ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... members,—sorry relics of past pleasures,—one by one Miss Terry seized them between disdainful thumb and finger and tossed them into the fire. Her face showed not a qualm at parting with these childhood treasures; only the stern sense of a good housekeeper's duty fulfilled. With queer contortions the bits writhed on the coals, and finally flared into dissolution, vanishing up chimney in a shower of sparks to ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown

... or three stories that will make Dinah quake," said Lousteau. "Young man—and you too, Bianchon—let me beg you to maintain a stern demeanor; be thorough diplomatists, an easy manner without exaggeration, and watch the faces of the two criminals, you know, without seeming to do so—out of the corner of your eye, or in a glass, on the sly. This morning we will hunt the hare, this evening we ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... of a carnivorous animal with large erect ears but no body, clinging by arms and legs to the upper end of the canoe, and grinning horribly. The ears were painted green, the other parts red and black. The stern also rose about five feet in height, but had no figure carved on it. On each side of both stem and stern broad strips of wood rose about four feet, having holes cut in them to shoot arrows through. She had a high sprit-sail made of handkerchiefs ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... hers; they became stern. "We have settled all that. You know now that it can never be, and if I am to be your friend, you must forget all that you have ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... Noon—Driving on a lee shore stern foremost; getting anchors ready; sundown—let go both anchors as we got close in; dragged, and here we are, with every sea making a clean sweep over us; ark won't last long; getting out liferaft ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... full wide; Many a doughty they gard to die, which gain-ed them no pride. The Englishmen let their bows be, and pulled out brands that were bright; It was a heavy sight to see bright swords on basnets light. Thorough rich mail and manople many stern they struck down straight, Many a freke that was full free there under foot did light. At last the Douglas and the Percy met, like to captains of might and of main; They swapt together till they both swat, with swords that were of fine Milan. These worthy frekis for to fight thereto ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various

... before him, but he did not begin to eat. He looked at Rebecca's empty place, then at his wife's face, long and pale and full of stern rancor, behind the sugar-bowl and ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry, That babe or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock, And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd; and the pain, When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, 'reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimed life? The economy of Heaven is dark; And ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... late supporters. Just outside the town he tried to rally his men; but in vain, no fight was left in their scared hearts. Nothing remained but flight at panic speed, for the bloodhounds of war were on his track, and if caught by those stern Parliamentarians he might be given the short shriving of his beheaded father. Away went the despairing prince with a few followers, riding for life, flinging from him as he rode his blue ribbon and garter and all his princely ornaments, lest pursuers ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... that water alone would not upset the boat; that it would take a collision with a rock to do it. And each time we got through. Twice I almost had reason to reverse my impression of the power of water. First the stern rose up in front of me, as if squaring off at the tops of the cliffs, then descended, until it seemed to be trying to plumb the depths of the river. The waves, rolling over me, almost knocked me out of the boat, I lost my hold on the oars and grabbed the sides of the boat; ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... an even keel, and dashed forward amid the foaming seas, rolling, however, even more violently than before. So rapidly did the waves follow, that many struck her stern; not, however, before her dead lights had been closed. So tremendous were some of the blows, that it seemed as if her masts would be shaken out of her. The doctor and purser, who were sitting in the gun room, were thrown off their seats sprawling under the table, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... was so great that an anchor had to be thrown from the stern to keep the launch off shore, and two men remained on board to see that ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... rise, and the people through ignorance, and love of change, will follow them. Vast armies will be formed, and bloody battles fought. And after desolating their country with all the horrors of civil war, the guilty survivors will have to bend their necks to the iron yokes of some stern usurper, and like beasts of burden, to drag, unpitied, those galling chains which they have riveted ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... so 'fraid Lily Bell would be cross," he confided to her, as he sat sedately on his half of the stern-seat. "But she's all right, an' we're going to have ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... name is John Ford—by no means a romantic name—but I come of a good family. I am one of the world's unfortunates. I had neither brother nor sister; my father and mother died while I was quite young; they left me a large fortune, but no relations—no one to love me. My guardian was a stern, grave elderly man; my youth was lonely, my manhood more lonely still. I found a fair and dainty love, but she proved false; she left me for one who had more gold and a title to give her. When I lost her, all my happiness died; the only consolation ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... life had been 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 the chase. But ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair

... the legal profession. In due time he became a judge and served as such for ten years, so that when he entered public life as a Member of the House he was a trained lawyer, with strong convictions upon economic questions, and bold and earnest on all the stern ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... one of continued ovation. Crowds had gathered in every place to see the Sunbeam, and often trim her with flowers from stem to stern. Presents of parrots, and kittens, and pigs abounded, and Lady Brassey had cared tenderly for them all. Christmas was observed on ship-board with gifts for everybody; thoughtfulness and kindness had made the trip a delight to the crew as well as ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... neurotic creature, who had seen much of the late Mrs. Carlyle, but who had an almost morbid love of offensive tattle. Froude describes himself as a witness for six years, at Cheyne Row, "of the enactment of a tragedy as stern and real as the story of Oedipus." According to ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... of an excuse," said the Commandant in a stern voice. "You must remember that you are here in a military fortress and that we can't be too strict in ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... manner and tone of the shed, especially towards the end of the day. It was now the ding of the desperate fray, when the blood of the fierce animal man is up, when mortal blows are exchanged, and curses float upward with the smoke and dust. The ceaseless clicking of the shears—the stern earnestness of the men, toiling with a feverish and tireless energy—the constant succession of sheep shorn and let go, caught and commenced—the occasional savage oath or passionate gesture, as a sheep kicked ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood

... of the malcontents daily increased; and they even attempted by letters, (which were fortunately intercepted,) to seduce the armies on the Rhine and in Saxony. Neither the representations of Bernard of Weimar, nor the stern reproaches of his harsher associate in command, could suppress this mutiny, while the vehemence of Horn seemed only to increase the insolence of the insurgents. The conditions they insisted on, were that certain towns should be assigned ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... they converse with this large body of men. It is also more than probable that many of these men, trained to war, had more or less of a tendency to fling off every corrective band. Both Rev. John Borland and Rev. Alexander Shiels, author of the "Hynd let Loose," were stern fanatics who would tolerate nothing diverging a shade from their own code of principles. They treated the people as persons under their spiritual authority, and required of them fastings, humiliations, and long attendance on sermons and exhortations. Such pastors were treated with ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... cateran," said the armourer, in the deep stern voice which corresponded with the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... Bettina was game. She was a pretty girl in a white dress and bore no traces in her face of any stern religious proclivities. ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... air,—"I shall carry it to God!"—and so fled, up the broken stairway, out into the moonlight, across the meadow,—the three men following fast,—over the fallen boughs that winter had strewn along the shore, out under the crooked elm, swift as light, poising on the stern of the boat, that had swung out toward the channel,—and once more lifting her hand high into the white light, with one spring she dropped into the river, and its black waters rolled down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... said with a perfect rapture of chuckles in his voice, "now you look just as pretty as you do when you go to bed; all whity all over. You can kiss my kiss-spot a hundred times while I bear-hug you for that nice not-black dress," and before any stern person could have stopped us I was on my knees on the grass kissing my fill from the "kiss-spot" on the back of his neck, while he hugged all the starch out ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess

... and Leicester Beating oars 280 The stern was formed A gilded shell Red and gold The brisk swell Rippled both shores Southwest wind Carried down stream The peal of bells White towers Weialala leia ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot

... unto one's fathers" means to descend into Sheol and join there the hosts of the departed. A belief in the separate existence of the soul is also involved in the belief in necromancy, or divination, the prevalence of which is shown by the stern laws against those who engaged in its unhallowed rites, and by the history of the witch of Endor. She, it is said, by magical spells evoked the shade of old Samuel from below. It must have been the spirit ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... extend their kindness. Besides this, as they bribe the custom-house officers, they are able to offer many facilities, and to carry on an extensive contraband commerce. Those officers are sent to a vessel immediately on her arrival, and their boats, called hoppoo-boats are constantly attached to her stern while she remains in port; their consciences, however, are easily satisfied by the liberality of the comprador, and they pass their time in smoking, sleeping, and playing at cards; indeed, if any extraordinary ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... mighty wave that would sweep French feet for ever from their hold on German soil. Ulrich, for whom the love of woman seemed not, would at least be the lover of his country. He, too, would march among those brave stern hearts that, stealing like a thousand rivulets from every German valley, were flowing north and west to join the ...
— The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl • Jerome K. Jerome

... always distinguish a trim and well-ordered vessel of war from the clumsy and disorderly trader, was due entirely to his efforts. The crew, as we have seen, had chafed under the unusual restraints of this stern discipline; but they were unable, as, indeed, in the last resort they would have been unwilling, to oppose it. Some of the older men, too, and some of those who had sailed with Jones in his already famous cruises, held out the hope of large prize ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... he got into all came from throwing Pedro Hillary off the stern of the Harvest Moon, so that Pete went out with the tide, because no one thought him worth fishing out, till it was found that he was a member of some sort of Masonic Society among the negroes in Ferdinand ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... childhood, even his mother was wont to taunt him, might well have begotten a severity similar to that of Pope. The pressure of friends and creditors led him, while a mere stripling, to form an uncongenial alliance with a stern puritan, who, while enjoying his renown, sought to force his soaring genius into the trammels of commonplace conventionalities. On his refusing, a clamour was raised against him, and those who were too dull to criticise ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... as many varieties of temperament. Here all matters connected with the school are mentioned, and it is striking to see the various view-points taken. The loving nature which would lead, but never drive, a rebellious child; the puritan, who will smile at no infringement of the law, and whose stern eye has been even known to call the Principal to order; the quick glance of the woman whose type reveals an inevitable leader, the stern disciplinarian, and the easy-going, good-natured woman—all are here, ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... which was bent a new section of birch bark, thus forming a rude semicircular reflector. Three candles placed within the circle completed the jack. With moss and boughs seats were arranged,—one in the bow for the marksman, and one in the stern for the oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels was a good preparation, and, when darkness came, all were keenly alive to the opportunity it brought. Though by no means an expert in the use of the gun,—adding the superlative degree of enthusiasm to only the positive degree of skill,—yet ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... now he felt as though he hated the rulers of the church with a deep and implacable hatred. His boyhood seemed to have passed away from him during those weeks of harsh imprisonment; and he came forth a man, with a stern hatred of bigotry and intolerance, with no formulated plan of action or resistance, with no very definite opinions as to doctrine or dogma, but with a fixed resolve to cast in his lot with those who were fighting ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... it was about to say. "That law is permanence." The scene has resembled the forming and reforming, the blending and melting asunder of a pile of sunset clouds. Like these, when the sun has set, it is subsiding into a fixed repose, a stern and colourless uniformity. Temple, tower, and dwelling-house assume the form of one solitary granite pile, a Druid monument. This monument, as Mr. Browning describes it,[54] consists really of two, so standing or lying as to form part of each other. The one cross-shaped is supposed to have been sepulchral, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... arguing that it is wrong to fish on Sunday, they will be brought right close to the fish, and can see better than before, that if a poor man is rowing a boat across a lake on Sunday, and his hook hangs over the stern, with a piece of liver on, and a fish that nature has made hungry tries to steal his line and pole and liver, it is a duty he owes to society to take that fish by the gills, put it in the boat and reason with it, and try to show it that in leaving its devotions ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... theatre of feudal oppression. We have said that no habitation was visible; that no dwelling tenanted by man could be seen; but following the spur of the furthest mountain hill, some traces of a stone wall might be discovered; and upon a natural platform of rock stood a stern square tower, which had once been the donjon of the castle, the lords of which had called the four hills their own. A watch-tower then had crowned each eminence, every vestige of which had, however, long since disappeared. Sequestered in the vale stood the Priory before alluded to—a Monastery ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... monarch of the wood the lifting saplings bud and intertwine. So over the stern old postmaster these young people re-enacted the most primitive drama in the world. Indifferent to the jeers of his fellows, Roy devoted himself to the service of "The Badger's Niece," and was still in town when McCoy returned from "the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... Yet, even as hope told the flattering tale of her certain safety, there came racing up astern a sea, gigantic even in that giant sea, raced her, caught her, and, as it passed ahead, so tilted her bows that the ballast slid aft, and down she sank by the stern, so near to safety that betwixt ship and shore wife might recognise husband ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... am here," thought Thelma wearily. "She would listen to him if I were gone!" She had the strangest notions of wifely duty—odd minglings of the stern Norse customs with the gentler teachings of Christianity,—yet in both cases the lines of woman's life were clearly defined in one word—obedience. Most women, receiving an apparent proof of a husband's infidelity, would have made what is termed a ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... seat next to the stern," said the bishop, holding the boat so that it would be steady, "I think that will be better. Then the weight of the stake in the bow will put the ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton

... inharmonious title of "chief of a half-brigade" was one of those soldiers who, in critical moments, cannot be caught by the charms of a landscape, were they even those of a terrestrial paradise. He shook his head with an impatient gesture and contracted the thick, black eyebrows which gave so stern an ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... usual, secreted himself from the stern eyes of Experience, in the radiant emanations of a new dream. The Dickinson Press announced ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... certainly have justified her in a pony-chaise. Since Lucius had become master of the house he had presented her with such a vehicle, and also with the pony and harness complete; but as yet she had never used it, being afraid, as she said to him with a smile, of appearing ambitious before the stern citizens of Hamworth. "Nonsense, mother," he had replied, with a considerable amount of young dignity in his face. "We are all entitled to those comforts for which we can afford to pay without injury to any one. I shall ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... into our society. He was about thirty- five years of age, and therefore we looked upon him as an old fellow. His experience gave him great advantage over us, and his habitual taciturnity, stern disposition, and caustic tongue produced a deep impression upon our young minds. Some mystery surrounded his existence; he had the appearance of a Russian, although his name was a foreign one. He had formerly served in the Hussars, and with distinction. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... Sarah Orne Jewett the tone of faded gentility brooding over its miniature possessions in decaying seaport towns or in idyllic villages a little further inland; Mary E. Wilkins Freeman the tone of a stern honesty trained in isolated farms and along high, exposed ridges where the wind seems to have gnarled the dispositions of men and women as it has gnarled the apple trees and where human stubbornness perpetually crops out through a ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... 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

... Gefty Rammer was climbing down to the storage deck in the Queen's broad stern, the newly fashioned set of vault keys clanking heavily in his coat pocket. Kerim had remained with her employer who was getting back his color but still hadn't opened his eyes. She hadn't found the original keys. Gefty wasn't sure she'd tried too hard, though she seemed to ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz

... commands to this effect from one he dare not disobey. Before starting, his chief gave him instructions, to be carried out or disregarded at peril of his life. He has no intention to disobey them—indeed, no inclination. A stern old sinner, his weakness is not woman—perhaps for this very reason selected for the delicate duty now intrusted to him. Instead of paying court to his fair captive, or presuming to hold speech with her, he only thinks how he can best discharge it to the satisfaction of his superior. No need ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... the evening in question was somewhat stormy—"gusty," as was said of it by a traveller with a stern visage and remarkably keen grey eyes, who entered the coffee-room of an hotel which stood on the margin of Ramsgate harbour facing the sea, and from the upper windows of which the light ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... equestrian to Cortez, is the work of Charles Cary Rumsey. The grim, stern and epic history of the bold, arrogant adventurer who was merciless in success and dauntless in failure is ruggedly suggested by this figure, mounted upon a heavily armored charger and advancing with drawn sword. The fact that Pizzaro was a member of Balboa's party when that explorer ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry

... its slopes agleam with lonely ice-fields. It is a saw-toothed ridge, for the most part narrow, unbroken, and cruel, and the rival winter gales roar over it in a never-ceasing war. On the north lies the Forgotten Land, to the south are the tempered reaches of the Pacific. In summer the stern sweep of rock and tundra is soaked with weeping rains, and given over to the herding caribou or the great grass-eating bear; but when from the polar regions the white hand of winter stretches forth, the grieving seas lift themselves, the rain turns to bitter, hail-burdened hurricanes that charge ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... day faded; the lamps were lit; a party of wild young men, who got off next evening at North Platte, stood together on the stern platform singing The Sweet By-and-By with very tuneful voices; the chums began to put up their beds; and it seemed as if the business of the day were at an end. But it was not so; for the train stopping at some station, the cars were instantly thronged with ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... Eagle, a Golden Eagle, an Eagle-Vulture, and a White-tailed Sea Eagle. Twice as high as the boy they were, each one of them. And they stood on the rail of the ship, like round-shouldered soldiers all in a row, stern and still and stiff; while their great, gleaming, black eyes shot darting glances ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... a fact. Her English was strange. I was sure the words were not in my dictionary. But I would not appear stupid before this child who had no business to know more than I did. So I looked a little stern and said that my Sundays never seemed a treat; they were no different from week-days. If the other things she talked about were in a circus, I had never been to ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... it can be any comfort to thee, be assured that the very moment we met my heart was drawn towards thee. Now listen! Let us exchange a few quiet words. Tell me: is it the stern, the settled purpose of thy father to take ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... chateau is one of the finest specimens of the ancient Gothic castle to be found in Europe. The little river Cosson fills its deep and ample moat, and above it the huge towers and heavy battlements rise in stern and solemn grandeur, moss-grown with age, and blackened by the storms of three centuries. Within, all is mournful and deserted. The grass has overgrown the pavement of the courtyard, and the rude sculpture upon the walls is broken ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... Faustina (Sec. 9); 6. From Faustina to Marcus Aurelius (Sec. 10); 7. Marcus Aurelius's Answer (Sec. 11); and 8. A letter from Avidius Cassius to his son-in-law (Sec. 14); which ends the Life and enables the biographer to observe that "that letter showed what a stern and cruel emperor Avidius Cassius must have been": "haec epistola ejus indicat, quam severus et quam tristis futurus ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... leaning her forehead against the cool pane, footsteps sounded from around the transverse; and two figures, arm in arm, strolled nearer. They glanced at the dusky transom, laughed over the tardiness of their stern editor-in-chief, and sat down on a convenient box ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... a very short time to make himself at home in the regiment. The men sometimes looked at him with surprise, he was so different from themselves. They bore their hardships well, but it was with stern faces and grim determination; while this young soldier made ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... became the master of its policy, being the first of the gratae personae who in succession established themselves in the Court of James and brought him under their control. There is little wonder that the boy-king, who had passed through the stern hands of George Buchanan and had spent his time for the most part with men of our austere Scottish character, should have felt the seductiveness of the gay foreigner 'with his French fasons and toyes.' Esme ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... mighty perseverance! Oh, courage, stern and stout! That wills and works a clearance Of every troubling doubt, That cannot brook denial And scarce allows delay, But wins from every trial More strength ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... the prudent Ant thy heedless eyes, Observe her labours, Sluggard, and be wise; No stern command, no monitory voice, Prescribes her duties, or directs her choice; Yet, timely provident, she hastes away To snatch the blessings of a plenteous day; When fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... men—brawny, vigorous, and active; Grimes had somewhat the advantage of the other in height; he also fought with his left hand, from which circumstance he was nicknamed Kitlhouge. He was a man of a dark, stern-looking countenance; and the tones of his voice were deep, sullen, and ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... with a long veil. Luckily, he was not doomed long to such undignified concealment, for he soon managed, through his beauty and genius, to win favor in the eyes of the lady's mother, and she promised to intercede in his behalf with the stern old father. The latter, however, having eyes neither for beauty nor poetry, thought only to demand what means of support the bold intruder had to offer his daughter, and when he learned how small these were, withheld his consent until the suitor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... shoulders,—with short, loose jackets, shawls around the waist, and wide Turkish trousers gathered at the knee. Their gaunt brown legs are bare, and their feet protected by rude sandals. Tall, large-boned, and stern of face, they hint both of Vandal and of Moslem blood. The younger men are of inferior stature, and nearly all bow-legged. They have turned the flowing trousers into modern pantaloons, the legs of which are cut like the old-fashioned gigot sleeve, very big and baggy at the top, and tied with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... weary steps are homeward bent, The snow falls fast, the mire impedes our feet. Many the hardships we were called to meet, Ere the King's orders we had all fulfilled. No rest we had; often our friends to greet The longing came; but vain regrets we stilled; By tablets stern our hearts with fresh resolve ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... the uncle, Pats climbed into the little boat and assisted the lady to a seat in the stern. Then he turned about and held forth his hands toward the maid. She stepped back and shook ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... convenient to place a weight forward as a balance; but it should always be lighter than the weight aft. A skillful canoeman will paddle a light canoe even in a strong wind by kneeling at a point about one third of the length from the stern. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... yet I had not been bearded by the dread monster, at whose very name thousands have trembled and do still tremble. I sat awaiting him in stern silence. Four o'clock, and yet he had not come. Perhaps, it was suggested to me, the holders of the note had withdrawn it at the ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... He looked so stern, that my heart failed me, and I wished myself any where but there, though I had before been summoning up all my courage. Good Heaven, said I to myself, give me courage to stand before this naughty master! O soften him, or ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... the two sides minded. Then Hector seized the stern of the good ship that had brought Protesilaus to Troy, but never bore him back to his native land. Round this ship there raged a close hand-to-hand fight between Danaans and Trojans. They did not fight at a distance with bows and javelins, but with ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... after 'em—to fetch 'em, he said—an' was drowned. He took his compass with him, but that didn't make much odds. The boat was lighter now, an' we hadn' to bale. Pretty soon I got too weak to notice how the men went. I was lyin' wi' my head under the stern sheets an' only pulled mysel' up, now an' then, to peer out over the gun'l. I s'pose 'twas the splashes as the men went over that made me do this. I don't know for certain. There was sharks about: cruel things happen 'pon the sea. The boat was in a ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... celebration of this feast for eight days, was not compassed by that Spirit that Solomon and the captivity were directed by; which Spirit, when it dwelt more plentifully in Solomon, and in the prophets that stood at the stern of the captivity's dedication, than it did in Judas, it was in him so much the more presumptuous, as having a shorter leg than they, he durst in that matter overstride them, and his rashness is so much the more aggravated, as each of them, for the building of ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... assured them that all fever was gone, and agreed with her that the patient would soon be well, if she would only think so, Miss Clarendon deemed it high time to use something more than her milder influence, to become, if not a rugged, at least a stern nurse, and she brought out some of ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... slim, pale fellow, handsome in a queer, tight-lipped, stern-faced fashion. His close-fitting black silk jacket had a white neck ruching and white cuffs; he wore a wide white-silk belt, snug black-silk knee-length trousers and ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... before a huge crowd will assemble to see the list published. Then the successful candidates are the pride of their country side, and well do the survivors of such an ordeal deserve their credit. The case of those who are in the last selection and are left degreeless, for the stern reason that some must be crowded out, is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... and individualities were at work upon the molding of Bonbright Foote. One, and one only, he recognized, and that was the stern, ever-apparent, iron-handed wrenching of his father. There were times, which grew more and more frequent, when he fancied he had surrendered utterly to it and had handed over his soul to Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. He fancied he was sitting by apathetically ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... the Dean, and as they looked upon the stern countenance of the man who was so respected and loved throughout all that country, not a man moved. Reid himself involuntarily halted at ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... said Peggy, quite chilly in her turn. But now she had more to face than Marjorie. Francis, militant and stern, strode down the steps and planted himself before the girls. He fixed his eye on Peggy in a way that she clearly was not used to stand up under, and ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer

... reply than entreating Nicholas by a gesture to keep silent; and the uncle and nephew looked at each other for some seconds without speaking. The face of the old man was stern, hard-featured, and forbidding; that of the young one, open, handsome, and ingenuous. The old man's eye was keen with the twinklings of avarice and cunning; the young man's bright with the light of intelligence and spirit. His figure was somewhat slight, but manly and well ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... Marshall to witness it. The day away from school came as a welcome relief after the worry and brain-aching of the spring examination, and Joel, although he knew for a certainty that he had passed with the highest marks, was glad to obey Outfield's stern decree and accompany that youth to the ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... herself that her name was Levine, and that no woman after such an escape had the right to expect more. She finally compelled herself to admit that her avoidance of society was due to prudence as well as to her stern devotion to intellect, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... arrived, and yet I had not been bearded by the dread monster, at whose very name thousands have trembled and do still tremble. I sat awaiting him in stern silence. Four o'clock, and yet he had not come. Perhaps, it was suggested to me, the holders of the note had withdrawn it at ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... appear, the General was not among them. A tall, well-dressed young man saluted Romayne with stern courtesy, and said to a stranger who accompanied ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... room where now Zuleika was changing her frock—addressed the Fellows, and presented to them the Papist by him chosen to be their Warden, instead of the Protestant whom they had elected. They were not of so stern a stuff as the Fellows of Magdalen, who, despite His Majesty's menaces, had just rejected Bishop Farmer. The Papist was elected, there and then, al fresco, without dissent. Cannot one see them, these Fellows of Judas, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... bewilderment of mind. He asked searching questions sometimes, when, of an evening, perched on Mr. Gray's knee, and looking with his wondering, steadfast eyes into the face of that erewhile stern and impassible magistrate. The large justice-room, where the prisoners were examined, had an awful fascination to him; and so had the little "strong-room," in which sometimes they were locked up before ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... Mademoiselle, less stern than Kathleen had ever seen her, presided at supper, which was bread and treacle spread several hours before, and now harder and drier than any other food you can think of. Gerald was very polite in handing her butter and cheese, ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... was death the agony—death the physical torment. As to death the mystery, want of sensibility to the infinite and the shadowy had disarmed that of its terrors for him. Yet, on the contrary, how many are there who face the mere physical anguish of dying with stern indifference! But death the mystery,—death that, not satisfied with changing our objective, may attack even the roots of our subjective,—there lies the mute, ineffable, voiceless horror before which all human courage is abashed, even as all human resistance ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... mighty outburst of affection, he stepped toward his wife; but her face was so cold, so sad, so resolute, her despair was so plainly written in the stern indifference of her whole bearing, that he dared not take her in his arms as he longed to do, but simply murmured ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... city was at the forks of a river, like Tradetown on Tanith. Unlike it, this was a real metropolis. They should have gone there first of all. They spent two days systematically pillaging it. The Kheperans carried on considerable river-traffic, with stern-wheel steamboats, and the waterfront was lined with warehouses crammed with every sort of merchandise. Even better, the Kheperans had money, and for the most part it was gold specie, and the bank vaults ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper

... kindled in many a heart that living flame, which in their own has been smothered by the fatal homage of the lips and of the feelings only, while the actions of the life were disobedient. Often has such a writer or speaker stood in stern and truthfully severe judgment on the weak "brother in Christ" when he has acted or spoken with an inconsistency which the mere instinct of the beautiful would in his censor have prevented. Such censors, however, ought to remember that these weak brethren, though their instincts be less ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... in that region so remote from any body of Christians at the present day, and among a population very like savages dwelling amid stern hill-scenery. ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... opinions of those who ply on these inland waters for a subsistence. The Winkelried had the two low, diverging masts; the attenuated and picturesquely-poised latine yards; the light, triangular sails; the sweeping and projecting gangways; the receding and falling stern; the high and peaked prow, with, in general, the classical and quaint air of those vessels that are seen in the older paintings and engravings. A gilded ball glittered on the summit of each mast, for no canvass was set higher than the slender ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... the steamer's lee, and a line from the big ship pulls the little boat to the ladder, and the pilot nimbly climbs to the steamer's bridge, bringing the latest papers. The schooner drifts under the steamer's stern, takes in the yawl, and again sails to the eastward in search of ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... hears at dawn The far reveille die; Again he marches stern and wan Beneath a burning sky: He bivouacs; the night comes on; His comrades 'round him lie— O memories of the years long gone! O years ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... moment, looking downward thoughtfully. He felt his retreating chin. His smooth-shaven face, broad from bone to bone above the cheeks, quickly grew stern. His mind, which had the world for its toy and which planned the building or the treading down of empires, had turned its thought upon that little kingdom in the heart of the boy. And he was thinking whether ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller

... Robin,' said Honor, too true to let him think that he could stand beside Owen in her affections, but with intense pleasure at such unwonted warmth from one so stern and reserved; it was as if he was investing her with some of the tenderness that the loss of Lucilla had left vacant, and bestowing on her the confidences to which new relations might render Phoebe less open. It was no slight preferment to be Robert Fulmort's motherly friend; and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Palmerstown had been teazing, but as the narrative proceeded she became attentive, and at length absorbed, and once or twice she uttered ejaculations of pity or awe. When it was over, the old lady looked with a somewhat sad and stern abstraction on the table, patting her cat assiduously meanwhile, and then suddenly looking upon her son, the Major, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... blinded him to his own shortcomings gradually became less opaque, until finally he saw himself as his father must see him. He had come to college for the purpose of fitting himself to succeed in some particular way in the stern battle of life which must follow his graduation; for, though his father had ample means to support him in insolence, Jimmy had never even momentarily considered such ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... wee, wee stern that glints in heaven, may be a lowin' sun, Though like a speck o' light, scarce seen amid the welkin dun; The humblest sodger on the field may win the warrior's crest— The birdie sure to sing is aye ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Fuenen, across the Little Belt—three miles of ice, and a part of the sea open, which has to be crossed on planks; nay, forward from Fuenen, when once there, he achieves ten whole miles more of ice, and takes Zealand itself, to the wonder of all mankind: an imperious, stern-browed, swift-striking man, who had dreamed of a new Goth Empire: the mean Hypocrites and Fribbles of the South to be coerced again by noble Norse valor, and taught a new lesson; has been known to lay his hand on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... along to the great cage of the sea-eagles. The birds seemed to pay no heed to what was passing immediately around them. Ever and anon they jerked their heads into an attitude of attention, and the golden brown eye with its contracted pupil and stern upper lid, seemed to be throwing a keen glance over the immeasurable ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... lords, mistrust the people's hate, Till blood become a principle of state. Secured not by their guards nor by their right, But still they fear even more than they affright, Pardon me, sir; your father's rough and stern; His will too strong to bend, too proud to learn. Remember, sir, the honey's deadly sting! Think on that savage justice of the King, When the same day that saw you do before Things above man, should see ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... and thither, a coaster came in and brought tidings of how off in the Danish waters they had come on a water-logged brig, and had boarded her, and had found her empty, and her hull riven in two, and her crew all drowned and dead beyond any manner of doubt. And on her stern there was her name painted white, the 'Fleur d'Epine,' of Brussels, as plain as name could be; and that was all we ever knew: what evil had struck her, or how they had perished, nobody ever told. Only the ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... things as they were; and in the present emergency the battle whether the enemy had travelled by infection, or was the product of the Pond Buildings' miasma, was the favourite enlivenment of the disagreeing doctors, in their brief intervals of repose in the stern conflict which they were waging with the fever—a conflict in which they had soon to strive by themselves, for the disease not only seized on young Ward, but on his father; and till medical assistance was sent from London, they had the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... swift, even close to the shore as it is necessary to keep, but the water seems to be only a few inches deep, and the rocks are as thick as plums in a Christmas pudding. Yet two Indians, standing erect, one in the bow and one in the stern of the canoe, pole you up the stream against these terrible odds as easily and surely as a Harvard oarsman might row you across Seneca Lake. Then they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... streets to an accompaniment of scowls punctuated by feeble, forced cheers, he cut a goodly enough figure to win many an admiring, if reluctant, glance from bright eyes. With his broad shoulders, his erect, well-knit figure clothed in purple velvet, his stern, swarthy face crowned by a white-plumed hat, Christian ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... he sometimes expressed a preference for mere violence, passages which were a great deal more connected with his temperament than with his philosophy, they have finally imbibed the notion that Carlyle's theory of hero worship was a theory of terrified submission to stern and arrogant men. As a matter of fact, Carlyle is really inhumane about some questions, but he is never inhumane about hero worship. His view is not that human nature is so vulgar and silly a thing that it must be guided and driven; it is, on the contrary, that human nature is so chivalrous ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton

... They were chance acquaintances. The whole trip had been undertaken by him on the spur of the moment; and, as far as lay in his cheery, thoughtless nature, he had come to regret it. The work of the trail had taught him that he was mismated in this company, and the first stern test was stripping the masks from them. He saw three ugly ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... more were there; Some—from the sunny Southland, where The fragrant rose was blooming still, And green grass covered field and hill, And, free as ever, flowed the rill— Had come in answer to the call Of friends who at the North had staid, By stern old Winter undismayed, To see the dainty snow-flakes fall. These kindly greeted, with small head Held on one side, a sparrow said, "To choose a gift for Cecily We've met to-night. What shall it be?" A flute-like trill, in graceful pride, ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... absurdities would one day become verities. It is a large vessel; at the left is the helm with the pilot's box; at the prow, maisons de plaisance, a gigantic organ, and cannon to call the attention of the inhabitants of earth or of the moon; above the stern the observatory and pilot-balloon; at the equatorial circle, the barracks of the army; on the left the lantern; then upper galleries for promenades, the sails, the wings; beneath, the cafes and general store-houses of provisions. Admire this magnificent ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne

... compelled to take stern and it may even seem terrible measures to repress desertion, as will be seen in the following note which he ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... stranger begs from strangers he thereby confesses that he prefers to present his claims where their merits are unknown; and the act proclaims him as a fraud. To the beggar, to ourselves, and to the really deserving poor, we owe a prompt and stern refusal of all uninvestigated appeals for charity. "True charity never opens the heart without at the same time ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... Miss Fosbrook received a very pleasant civil greeting from a much younger man than she had expected to see, looking perhaps more stern about the mouth and sharp about the eye than his elder brother, and his clerical dress very precise; but somehow he was so curiously like his niece, Elizabeth, that she thought that his particularity might spring from ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Neither of them noticed a man who got out of the elevator just before Starr fell and walking rapidly toward the open door saw the whole action. In a moment more Mr. Endicott stood in the door surveying the scene before him with stern, ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... among them. He seemed to possess wonderful strength. They crossed the channel, and dragged out the great life-boat from its house. It hardly appeared possible to launch it in such a sea, but each man, in his excitement, had the strength of two, and without waiting to be bid, Wally leaped into the stern and grasped the helm. ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... with him, I can tell you, Miss, walking him about of nights, and jogging him till there wasn't a jog left in me, as you may say, from sleepiness. I often wonder if he thinks of this now, when I see him looking so grave and stern. But, you see, being jogged doesn't impress the mind like having to jog; and though I can bring that time back as plain as if it was yesterday, with the very nursery I slept in at Barlingford, and the rushlight in a tall iron cage on the floor, and the shadow of the cage on the bare whitewashed ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... poor circumstances. He was an upright man of refined tastes, but indolent—a failure in business, easy with the world and stern with his family. He had never taken an interest in his son's wildwood pursuits; and when he got the idea that they might interfere with the boy's education, ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Alan's launch in a few moments. He seated her in the stern of the boat, where she half reclined with her wings spread out a little behind her. So assiduous was she—and so facile—in her task of learning English, that before she would let him start the motor she had learned the names of many ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... admitted into our society. He was about thirty- five years of age, and therefore we looked upon him as an old fellow. His experience gave him great advantage over us, and his habitual taciturnity, stern disposition, and caustic tongue produced a deep impression upon our young minds. Some mystery surrounded his existence; he had the appearance of a Russian, although his name was a foreign one. He had formerly served in the Hussars, and with distinction. Nobody knew ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... the students that they meant it in real earnest. He was told to prepare for immediate death. The trembling janitor looked all around in the vain hope of seeing some indication that nothing was really meant, but stern looks met him everywhere. He was blindfolded, and made to kneel before the block. The executioner's axe was raised, but, instead of the sharp edge, a wet towel was brought sharply down on the back of the neck. The bandage was now removed from the culprit's eyes, but to the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... intimations that Putney Congdon might be dead had filled her with horror, and yet she had hinted at his sister's dinner that the taking of human life was a small matter. That a girl so wholly charming and persuasive at a dinner table could be so stern and unreasonable at a chance meeting afterward, shook his confidence in her sex, which that memorable meeting had done much to establish upon firm ground. He had been wholly stupid and tactless in pouncing ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... young leaves; blond boys of nineteen with very stern, conscientious expressions; men in the late twenties with a keen self-assurance from having taught out in the world for five years—several hundreds of them, from city and town and country in Maryland and Pennsylvania and Virginia ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... the sea was like molten silver, for the sunlight poured on it from beyond clouds, and the sun itself was not to be seen. But though this bay looks as if it had fallen from a poet's dream, it has been the scene of many stern events and disasters; for ships have mistaken the inlet for Dartmouth Harbour, with lamentable results. Many a time, too, it has been used by those who knew the coast well, but had their own reasons for wishing to land without attracting notice, for ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... forsaken by the fickle and the selfish, a solemn enthusiasm, a stern and determined depth of principle, a confidence in the sincerity of their own motives, and the manly English pride which inclined them to cling to their former opinions, like the traveller in the fable to his cloak, the more strongly ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... heaven every evil deed he had done arose gigantic, like those mountain-peaks, and breathed an icy breath upon him. O, let not the soul that suffers, dare to look Nature in the face, where she sits majestically aloft in the solitude of the mountains; for her face is hard and stern, and looks not in compassion upon her weak and erring child. It is the countenance of an accusing archangel, who summons us to judgment. In the valley she wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at us with tearful eyes, and a face ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... grammar-school, and now on his return to this good friend, a few more weeks were added to his scant school term. They proved the last of his school-days, and the boy went forth from the little brick building on the Mall to finish his education in the great workaday world, under those stern old masters, poverty and experience. By and by Lloyd was a second time apprenticed to learn a trade. It was to a cabinetmaker in Haverhill, Mass. He made good progress in the craft, but his young heart still turned to Newburyport and yearned for the friends left there. He bore up ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... Colonel advanced, gravely holding out his hand to Harry's elder brother. Perhaps Harry wondered that the two did not embrace as he and the Colonel had just done. But, though hands were joined, the salutation was only formal and stern on ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... masses of shrimp-food which had attracted the whales, and the great creatures were feeding quietly. The surface was not rough, but there was a long, slow roll which tossed the boat about like a cork. Presently Hank, who was in the stern, held ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... Petersburg; and to the south-west of Moscow lay Kutusoff, on a very strong position, with an army to which every hour brought whole bands of enthusiastic recruits. On every side there was danger; the whole forces of Russia appeared to be gathering around him. Meantime the season was far advanced; the stern winter of the north was at hand; and the determined hostility of the peasantry prevented the smallest supplies of provision from being introduced into the capital. Had the citizens remained there, the means of subsistence would of course have continued to be forwarded ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... Paris, which contains, more than any city in the world, the opposite poles of luxurious magnificence and of sordid, bestial poverty. The statistics of the Parisian working classes in the way of lodgings are not of an encouraging nature, and reflect great discredit on the powers that be, who can be stern enough in the case of any political question, but are blind to the spectacle of fellow creatures living the life of beasts under their very eyes. In 1880, the Prefect of Police gave licenses to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various

... affectionate as one might have anticipated from the beginning of the scene; then she beckoned slightly to my father, and withdrew two or three steps with him out of hearing; and talked to him with a fixed and stern countenance, not at all like that with which she had ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... thin forest for a little way, stumbling often, but growing stronger and less stiff as I went, though I must needs draw my belt tight to stay the pangs of hunger, seeing that one loaf is not overmuch for such a voyage and such stern work as mine had been, body ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler

... "Stern and dark—no wonder, sheltering him," cried Elizabeth. "It beckons to me; the branches look like giant arms tempting me to ruin. I must ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... chirography, and sumptuously bound and decorated; for, in all relating to the mechanical finishing, the Spanish Arabs excelled every people in Europe. But neither splendor of outward garniture, nor intrinsic merit of composition, could atone for the taint of heresy in the eye of the stern inquisitor; he reserved for his university of Alcala three hundred works, indeed, relating to medical science, in which the Moors were as pre-eminent in that day as the Europeans were deficient; but all the rest, amounting to many thousands, [21] he ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... been formed of Calvin's character. None, however, can dispute his intellectual greatness or the powerful services which he rendered to the cause of Protestantism. Stern in spirit and unyielding in will, he is never selfish or petty in his motives. Nowhere amiable, he is everywhere strong. Arbitrary and cruel when it suits him, he is yet heroic in his aims, and beneficent in the scope of his ambition. His moral purpose ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... acquaintances as well as he had, and, as I passed him with the young lady under my protection, I took off my hat, and made him a low bow. To my surprise, not only did he not return the salute, but he looked at me with a very stern countenance. I concluded that he was a very proud man, and did not wish the admiral's daughters to suppose that he knew midshipmen by sight; but I had not exactly made up my mind on the subject, when the captain, having seen the ladies into the admiral's house, sent one of the messengers ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... which lay the explosives. It was then 6.28. The ladder was crowded with sailors who were also returning to their ship. "Run, run for your lives," shouted Paolucci. At last his foot touched the deck, and then he and Rossetti ran as fast as they could to the stern. Hardly had they got there than a terrific explosion rent the air, and a column of water shot three hundred feet straight up into the sky. Paolucci and Rossetti were again in the water, and looking back they saw a man scramble up the side of the vessel, which had now ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... enclosing little oases of green vegetation, lighted up by occasional gleams of sunshine. Though all around was enveloped in gloom, there was in front a high blue arc of cloudless sky, between the beetling cliffs that formed the stern portals of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... Errington recognized it with delight. It was that in which he had seen the mysterious maiden disappear. High and dry on the sand, out of reach of the tides, was a neat sailing-vessel; its name was painted round the stern—The Valkyrie. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... hoar with damp and mould, Where I must creep and in the dark and cold Offer some awful incense at a shrine That hath no more divine Than that 'tis far from life, and stern, and old; ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... man's face peering round the oilcloth hood of the cart was darkened by a sudden cloud as he caught the words. His stern lips closed. He muttered something inaudible to Mrs. Thornburgh and whipped up his horse again. The cart started off, and Mrs. Thornburgh was left staring into the receding eyes of 'Jim the Noodle,' who, from his seat on the near shaft, regarded her with a gaze which had passed from benevolence ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... which was convulsed with love and pain, and found her stern as a priestess who defends her mystery from violation. Meekly he let his arms fall from her body and turned away, resting his head on his hand and ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... choicest that Paris can furnish," said Mary, "but seest thou, none other mode is so safe for conveying an answer to this suitor of mine! Nay, little one, do not fear. He is not at hand, and if he be so gout-ridden and stern as I have heard, we will find some way to content him and make him do the service without giving thee a stepfather, even though he be grandson ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... are not the man," I freely own, Yet often they express the stuff they hide, As yours, I like to fancy, take their tone From stern, ascetic qualities inside; Just as the soldier's heavy marching-gear Conceals a heart of high determination, Too big, in any ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various

... standing up in her short white petticoat. She hung the skirt by the hem over the oars, and immediately she had a very fair substitute for a tent, to shield her from the blazing sun. Then, apparently quite contented, she sat down in the bottom of the boat, adjusting the cushion from the stern seat, for a back. She had her face towards the island, and, when she was comfortably settled, she ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow

... the sailors call its battery, are very powerful. There are two nine-inch guns, and also two sixty-four-pounders, rifled, at the bow. There are two forty-two-pounders at the stern, and those upon the side are thirty-twos and twenty-fours. There are rooms for the officers, but the men sleep in hammocks. They take their meals sitting on the gun-carriages, or cross-legged, like Turks, ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... sternly; but it is my great misfortune, my prevalent weakness, that I cannot be stern when I ought to be. It is with me in life as in art. I never could on the stage have taken the part of a Norma or a Medea. If I attempt in fiction a character which deserves condemnation, I am untrue to poetic justice. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... murderously, thither he spurred his horse. He had two horses killed, but remained uninjured. It seems Fate was too unmerciful toward him: it had decreed that the King of Prussia should not die, but learn in the stern school of suffering and experience ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... against another of her sex. Her campaign against men, when once she takes up arms, is mimic warfare—a sham fight—compared to this. Against a man, she needs but a company of fascinations, and in one attack his squares—the stern veterans of determination—are driven to flight. But with a woman, whole regiments of cunning, whole battalions of craft, with all the well-trained scouts of intuition and all the dashing cavalries of charm, are needed to rout her absolutely from ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... leave his berth, if there is any danger of a ship foundering in a gale. But in Professor Tyndall's opinion we had a narrow escape. On arriving at Gibraltar, he wrote a glowing account of the storm to the London Times, in which he described the feelings of a philosopher while standing on the stern of a rolling ship in an ocean storm, without quite knowing whether she was going to sink or swim. The letter was anonymous, which gave Admiral Ommaney an excellent opportunity to write as caustic ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... contingencies, I added Unk Wunk to my bill of fare—a vile, malodorous suffix that might delight a lover of strong cheese. It is undoubtedly a good law; but I cannot now imagine any one being grateful for it, unless the stern alternative were ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... promise me Thy heart will never change, That tones and looks, so loving now, Will ne'er grow stern and strange? That thou'lt be kind, whatever faults Or failings may be mine, And bear with them in patient love, As I will bear ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... thou com'st with lover's speed, Thy once beloved bride to see; But be she alive, or be she dead, I fear, stern Earl, 's ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... the father-house at Paulerspury the new man in him could not be hid. His sister gives us a vivid sketch of the lad, whose going over to the dissenters was resented by the formal and stern clerk, and whose evangelicalism was a ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... details of the first high speed twin screw steamer built for the service. Of this vessel, named the Tynwald, we give a profile and an engraving of stern, showing the method of supporting the brackets ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various

... her face with uncomprehending sympathy. He was fond of her, in his stern, reserved fashion, and knew she must deeply feel ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... and a pair of clean hands is not easily ruined," returned Derrick a trifle hotly. "As to being rash or enthusiastic, I am neither the one nor the other. It is not enthusiasm which moves me, it is a familiarity with stern realities." ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... at a turn in the road, I found myself in face of Didier, Didier Larreya. He was walking fast, his face looked stern and troubled. He stopped suddenly on seeing me; it was not often of late that we had spoken to each other. He had not looked with favour on my new friends, who on their side had made fun of him (though I had noticed the day of the wedding that Odette ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth

... wearisome, onerous, burdensome, toilsome, tiresome, exhausting, difficult, knotty, intricate, puzzling, incomprehensible; irresistible, uncontrollable; severe, rigorous, unendurable, oppressive, unjust, grievous, calamitous, incompliant; stern, unyielding, obdurate, unfeeling, exacting, insensible, hard-hearted, callous, implacable, inflexible; repelling, constrained, inelegant; severe, inclement, rigorous; excessive, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... earned the name of being a "bad boy," and there is no use of pretending he did not deserve the reputation. He gave his parents and neighbors a good deal of anxiety, and Dr. Dewey, who knew how to be stern as well as kind, was compelled more than once to interpose his authority in a way that no ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... He was of gigantic stature—six foot six or seven, and looked taller still, as he had a very small head and high shoulders. He was not an Adonis, and could only see out of one eye—the other (the left one, fortunately) was fixed as if it were made of glass—perhaps it was—and this gave him a stern and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... squalls, he made bold to lift his head and look, and then by the light—a bluish color 'twas—he saw all the coast clear away to Manacle Point, and off the Manacles in the thick of the weather, a sloop-of-war with topgallants housed, driving stern foremost toward the reef. It was she, of course, that was burning the flare. My father could see the white streak and the ports of her quite plain as she rose to it, a little outside the breakers, and he guessed easy enough that her captain ...
— The Roll-Call Of The Reef • A. T. Quiller-Couch (AKA "Q.")

... their forts, and on being attacked and boarded by 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 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... another gondola that had withdrawn itself from the center of the channel close in to a small island. The man at the stern was doing nothing very picturesquely, but the man at the bow, a swarthy Venetian, was pouring out his soul in an aria from "Cavalleria Rusticana." His voice might not have passed muster at Covent Garden, but in the ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth

... She went off to starboard. The lead indicated shallow water. The same moment came the order, "Let go the anchor!" And to the bottom it went with a rush and a clank. There we lay with 4 fathoms of water under the stern and 9 fathoms in front at the anchor. We were not a moment too soon. We got the Fram's head straight to the wind, and tried again, time after time, but always with the same result. The attempt had ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... Puritan Sunday. Nothing ever did make a home more hateful than the strict observance of the Sabbath. It fills the house with hypocrisy and the meanest kind of petty tyranny. The parents look sour and stern, the children sad and sulky. They are compelled to talk upon subjects about which they feel no interest, or to read books that are thought good only because they are ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... was very stern, for time had not erased from his heart all love for the blue-eyed Matty, the gentle mother of the offending Maude, and more than all, the mother of his boy—"Helen, that woman was my wife, and you must not ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... Independents, who, if few in number, were yet distinguished by the superior talents and industry of their leaders; the lawyers, who looked with jealousy on any attempt to erect an ecclesiastical power independent of the legislature; and the men of irreligious habits, who dreaded the stern and scrutinizing discipline of a Presbyterian kirk. ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... by the missionary at this unfortunate event, and loud was the laughter with which it was treated by the captain himself, on being re-seated in the stern sheets. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... it at them, flung it fight in their faces, and laughed as she saw it strike home. A howl of rage greeted the taunt, and, listening to the wild, fierce yell—so different from the noisy bravado of a few minutes before, I shuddered; there was something so stern and purposeful about it. ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... is called in he finds it necessary to go back to first principles. He lays down the law in a definite, stern way, and the mother and the child must obey. Most parents know and admit they are doing wrong to give in to a whimsical child, and if they would only make up their minds to conquer when conquering is easy they would save themselves many heartaches, many regrets, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... your dreaming, To do with "people"? You may be the devil In your dead-reckoning of what reefs and shoals Are waiting on the progress of our ship Unless you steer it, but you'll find it irksome Alone there in the stern; and some warm day There'll be an inland music in the rigging, And afterwards on deck. I'm not affined Or favored overmuch at Monticello, But there's a mighty swarming of new bees About the premises, and ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... hills which have now become one of the favorite play-grounds of America, but which then frowned grimly even in summer, dark with trackless forests, and for the larger part of the year were sheeted with the glittering, untrampled snow from which they derive their name. Stern and strong with the force of an unbroken wilderness, they formed at all times a forbidding background to the sparse settlements in the valleys ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... prophesying with shrill voice the ceasing of the stormy winds; and Mopsus heard and understood the cry of the bird of the shore, fraught with good omen. And some god made it turn aside, and flying aloft it settled upon the stern-ornament of the ship. And the seer touched Jason as he lay wrapped in soft sheepskins and woke him at once, and ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... compassion and such grief, With eyes tear-dimmed, despondent, in stern words The ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... if he found them such, he would treat them accordingly. The servants obeyed his commands without the least suspicion of the intricacy of this affair, and soon came up with Mr. Carew, whom they forcibly brought up to my lord. His lordship accosted him in a very rough stern manner, asking where the other fellow was, and told him he should be made to find him. Mr. Carew in the mean time stood thunder-struck, expecting nothing less than a commitment to prison, but, upon examination, made out his story as ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... Head at 9:30 in the morning when I perceived the steamer Dunsley in difficulty. Going toward her, I observed a torpedo coming for my ship, but could not discern a submarine. The torpedo struck 100 feet from the stern, making terrible havoc of the hull. The vessel began to settle immediately and sank ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... nearly as handsome as I am myself—(she passed her hands lightly through her curls as she spoke). And you know I shall marry no one but a Douglas—only you must not ask me to wed my cousin William of Avondale, for he is so stern and solemn; besides, he has always a book in his pocket, and wishes me to learn somewhat out of it as if I were a monk. A Douglas should not be a monk, he should be ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... shoulders of the truth; which truth is so clear that I can almost say I have with my own eyes seen Amadis of Gaul, who was a man of lofty stature, fair complexion, with a handsome though black beard, of a countenance between gentle and stern in expression, sparing of words, slow to anger, and quick to put it away from him; and as I have depicted Amadis, so I could, I think, portray and describe all the knights-errant that are in all the histories in the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... they are enabled to push either against the bottom of the river or rocks, or branches of trees on the bank, for the canoe keeps close to the shore all the time in order to give the polemen an opportunity and also to avoid the swifter current running in the centre of the river. In the stern twenty or thirty paddlers sit on the sides of the boat and work together, while on the extreme end two or three stand up with long paddles to steer. The cook with his fire built on a heap of clay in the bottom of the canoe, sits among the paddlers and the sentries and ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... looming over the Twin Bear peaks and breathing an infinite calm over the mountains. The cloud took a faintly human shape—a shape somewhat like that of her father when he lived, for he could be both stern and gentle, as she well knew, and such ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... the Thames we paused to look at a steamer unloading great slabs of white and brown marble. A barge drifted under the steamer's stern and a lonely cow in that ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... 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 eye which made ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston

... Upon the stern of the gig still afloat may be read the name Pandora. The same word may be seen painted on the water-casks buoying up the big raft; and on the two planks forming the transverse pieces of the lesser one appears ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... glasses, and winked and nodded, and would be looking wise as though we might ken something about his wares that he would not be telling everybody, till indeed I could not keep back the laughing to see the grave stern man so far gone with ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... in foraminibus petrae: the words used to come back to me whenever I returned from a day's journey across the mountains, and looking down saw the blue lake far below, hidden in its hills like a happy secret in a stern heart. We were never envious of the glory of the great lakes. They are like the show pictures that some nobleman hangs in his public gallery; but our Iseo is the treasure that he hides in ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... man will have added fifty per cent, to the selling value of his property. The present thrift, wealth, genius, enterprise and intelligence of the people of the New England States is the legitimate outworking of the training bestowed on their sons by the stern, old Puritans that ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... Wolfskins, forward. No iron could hurt them, and when they charged nothing could withstand them. Thorir defended himself bravely and fell on his ship fighting valiantly. The whole ship from stem to stern was cleared and her fastenings were cut, so that she fell out of the line of battle. Then they attacked Onund's ship, in the forepart of which he was standing and fighting manfully. The king's men said: "He bears himself well in the forecastle. Let ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown

... horror-chilled; For this was his dear friend. With one swift thrust He pierced the sevenfold hides of Aias' shield, Yet touched his flesh not; stayed the spear-head was By those thick hides and by the corset-plate Which lapped his battle-tireless limbs. But still From that stern conflict Glaucus drew not back, Burning to vanquish Aias, Aeacus' son, And in his folly vaunting threatened him: "Aias, men name thee mightiest man of all The Argives, hold thee in passing-high esteem Even as Achilles: therefore thou, I wot, ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... ballast, high out of the water, black of hull and dingy of sail: still it is a ship, and there is always an interest about a ship. She is so near, running along but just outside the reef, that the deck is visible. Up rises her stern as the billows come fast and roll under; then her bow lifts, and immediately she rolls, and, loosely swaying with the sea, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... the cold coil of leather tighten round my neck. An hostler with a stable lantern had come out and was gazing upon the scene. In its dim light I saw stern faces breaking everywhere through the gloom, with the black caps and dark cloaks ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the dove-soft eyne Under the kisses that make them mine! Only of thee, of thee, my need! Only to thee, to thee, I speed!" The Cross flashed by at the highway's turn; In a beam of the moon the Face shone stern. ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone

... made every one tremble. Stern and choleric to the last degree, and even against inanimate objects; impetuous with frenzy, incapable of suffering the slightest resistance even from the hours and the elements, without flying into a passion that threatened to destroy his body; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... and go before them, which, with muffled grunts, and after two or three attempts, he succeeded in doing. He was evidently dazed yet and stiff from the cramped attitude in which he had been lying, but stern necessity was on him and he finally wobbled and staggered on ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... us. We can hear their light footfall and their soft whisperings, but the moment we turn round upon them they vanish. If they disappeared for good, they would be the easiest to deal with of all the ill things that beset our lives. But they do not. The moment we relax our bold, stern search for the face of the enemy, there the evil thing is again—the light footfall and the soft voice. It is terrible work fighting a suggestion. There are the thoughts that a man will not cherish and cannot slay. They may never enter ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth

... glowing, white teeth flashing and black eyes sparkling. He saw that they were carried away by the music and the dance, and as they floated over the turf they were dreaming of their far and sunny land and the girls they had left behind them. He had been reared in a stern and more northern school, but he had learned long since that a love of innocent pleasure was no sign of effeminacy ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... cheeks; and then he would suddenly recollect that it was time he was going on. The woman did not go on; she stayed right there—hour after hour, day after day, year after year, twisting sausage links and racing with death. It was piecework, and she was apt to have a family to keep alive; and stern and ruthless economic laws had arranged it that she could only do this by working just as she did, with all her soul upon her work, and with never an instant for a glance at the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... last August (that is in August, 1783), on my last voyage to this country (India) I had long and ardently desired to visit, I found one evening, on inspecting the observations of the day, that India lay before us, Persia on our left, while a breeze from Arabia blew nearly on our stern. A situation so pleasing in itself and to me so new, could not fail to awaken a train of reflections in a mind which had early been accustomed to contemplate with delight the eventful histories and agreeable fictions of this Eastern world. It gave me ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... of refined and gentle men of study; the youths in Botticelli's "Adoration of The Magi," for instance, are the ideal of Boiardo's chivalry, Rinaldos and Orlandos every one; the corseleted generals of the Renaissance, so calm and stern and frank, the Bartolomeo Colleoni of Verrocchio, the Gattamelata by Giorgione (or Giorgione's pupil), look fit to take up the banner of the crusade: that Gattamelata in the Uffizi gallery especially looks like a sort of military Milton: give him a pair of wings and he becomes at once ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... braves have perished in their pride and not one of them hath returned to me safe and sound. Now, an thy life be dear to thee, follow my counsel and fare no further, but rather turn thee back without stay or delay and make for house and home and family." Hereto Prince Bahman, stern in resolution, made reply, "Thou hast after kindly guise and friendly fashion advised me with the best of advice; and I, having heard all thou hast to day, do thank thee gratefully. But I reck not one jot or tittle of what ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... the author's life as to which, he showed, the public were not entitled to demand more than the mere historical mention of the facts. When he was writing this Life it was amusing to find how sturdily independent he became. The "Blacking episode" could not have been acceptable, but Forster was stern and would not bate a line. So, with much more—he "rubbed it in" without scruple. The true reason, by the way, of the uproar raised against the writer, was that it was too much of a close borough, no one but Boz and his Bear leader being allowed ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... time was much like that of the time of James I and Charles I, but was simplified wherever possible. There were no pomps and vanities in those stern days. ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop

... the photograph, expecting to see a woman with a stern, ill-tempered, forbidding countenance. To my surprise, the face showed the remains of great beauty; the expression, though remarkably firm, was yet winning, tender, and kind. The gray hair was arranged in rows of little quaint old-fashioned ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... defined by here and there a coat- collar turned up in self-defence; for neither the glass front door, nor the wooden porch, nor our massive porter can effectually keep out the weather. Dinner here is a stern bit of the day's work, to be discharged ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... behind the house and a deep-throated, baying bark resounded in a threatening roar. Juno, Squire Eliot's famous mastiff, the one that had taken a prize at the dog show, bounded out toward the marauders. They turned to fly, when a stern voice bade ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... over the threshold and drew him in. The Hall was stern and grim and somewhat dusky, for its windows were but small: it was all of stone, both walls and roof. There was no timber-work therein save the benches and chairs, a little about the doors at the lower end that led to ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... left in judicious silence by some modern commentators, such as M. Darmesteter in Les Cosmogonies Aryennes.(1) Indeed, if we choose to regard Apollonius Rhodius, an Alexandrine poet writing in a highly civilised age, as the representative of Orphicism, it is easy to mask and pass by the more stern and characteristic fortresses of the Orphic divine. The theriomorphic Phanes is a much less "Aryan" and agreeable object than the glorious golden-winged Eros, the love-god of Apollonius ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... roofed only by the heavens, resemble the floor of one of our old English churches, where the pavement is covered with sepulchral inscriptions. The contents of these sad records of mortality, the vain sorrows which they preserve, the stern lesson which they teach of the nothingness of humanity, the extent of ground which they so closely cover, and their uniform and melancholy tenor, reminded me of the roll of the prophet, which was "written within and without, and there was ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... sanctity And bearded wisdom, often have provok'd The hand of justice to fall heavy on her; Yet still, in kind compassion of her weakness, And tender memory of Edward's love, I have withheld the merciless stern law From doing outrage ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... down to the shore shortly after, and embarked in Quiller's boat. Mab sat in the stern under a scarlet sunshade and talked gaily to her two companions. She was greatly amused when Merefleet insisted upon doing his ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... saw two Jews that met by chance, One old, stern-eyed, deep-browed, yet garlanded With living light of love around his head, The other young, with sweet seraphic glance. Around went on the Town's satanic dance, Hunger a-piping while at heart he bled. Shalom Aleichem ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... an awful doom to Don Pedro, if he doesn't make them happy. The bag is opened, and several quarts of tin money shower down upon the stage till it is quite glorified with the glitter. This entirely softens the stern sire. He consents without a murmur, all join in a joyful chorus, and the curtain falls upon the lovers kneeling to receive Don Pedro's blessing in attitudes of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... Bible, and said in a stern voice: "Swear." I told him that I couldn't, that I never had sworn, that ladies didn't do it in America, wouldn't he ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... least, he lived up to his creed. "Honfleur is far—Monsieur Renard has not the good digestion when he is tired—he suffers. Il passe des nuits d'angoisse. Il souffre des fatigues de l'estomac. Il se fatigue aujourd'hui!" This, with an air of stern conviction, was accompanied by a glance at his master in which compassion was not the most obvious note to be read. He went ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... for occupation, his wife, already in a delicate state of health, took cold and died; leaving him with four children, the eldest of whom was six years old, and the youngest but an infant. Mr. S. is said to have been a shrewd and sensible man, of strict morals and unbending integrity; but withal stern and inflexible in disposition, pharisaic, and a bigoted churchman. His punctuality in the performance of outward religious duties, and the regular payment of his dues, with now and then a fat sheep given to the poor, secured ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... an emergency. The French, on the contrary, had brought all they could of Paris with them; their army was encumbered with women, wig-makers, barbers, and the like impedimenta, and confusion and gayety in their ranks replaced the stern discipline of Frederick's camp. After the battle, the booty is said to have consisted largely of objects of gallantry better suited for a boudoir than ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... in the girl's presence as she stood before them, some potent spell in her fresh girlish beauty, and in the dauntless spirit which shone in her eyes, that checked the words of stern reproof as they sprang to ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... object the amelioration of the condition of these poor people. Talk to me about the President being their friend! When did it ever happen before that a great measure of relief to suffering humanity on as broad a scale as this was met by the stern veto of the President of the United States, and without being able when he undertakes to make his obstruction to our measures to designate a single clause of the Constitution that ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... during the whole time in a dress composed of ropes made of alternate pumpkin-seeds and bits of reed strung together, and wound round the body in a figure-of-eight fashion. They are inured in this way to bear fatigue, and carry large pots of water under the guidance of the stern old hag. They have often scars from bits of burning charcoal having been applied to the forearm, which must have been done to test their power of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... held a couple of hundred persons. The Valamo pilgrim's boat did not fall far short in bulk and capacity of those old historic craft. Six oars on each side, and three or four men at each, with plenty of room in the well, or at the stern and bows, for another hundred persons to stow themselves away. We were not pilgrims, and the Igumen had kindly ordered a steam launch to tug us. Some fifty or sixty other visitors took advantage of the occasion and accompanied us on ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... come over (from the little town of his birth, in Picardy) until Frontenac's policy was well established. But Menard had lived hard and rapidly during his first years in the province, and he was a stern-faced young soldier when he stood on the wharf, hat in hand and sword to chin, watching New France's greatest governor sitting erect in the boat that bore him away from his own. Menard had been initiated by a long captivity among the Onondagas, and had won his ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... crooking all round these valleys, when it would be so easy to go across?' You see, we were just beginning to crook round, so as to make that long bend there is at Chamoguin; but right across the valley we could see the stern lights of Fisher's train: it was not more than half a mile away, but we should run eleven miles ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... and in a few moments the entire party, with one exception, were landed upon the adjacent bank. That exception was little Phil. In the confusion that ensued upon the collision of the two boats, the lad had quietly slipped overboard, and swam ground to the stern where his mistress sat. "Miss ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... Spartan slave. There are some volumes in which, at a chance opening, you are certain to find a mere platitude delivered in the most superb and amazing climax of big words, and others in which you have a like happy facility in finding every proposition stated with its stern forward, as sailors say, or in some other grotesque mismanagement of composition. There are no better farces on or off the stage than when two or three congenial spirits ransack books of this kind, and compete with each other in taking fun ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... floated us off from the shoal into deep water, upon which we all felt as men reprieved from immediate death, as the sea was calm and the water smooth. Casting the lead we found twelve fathoms water, and bye and bye we had only six fathoms, when we let go a small anchor which still hung at the stern, all the others having been lost during the storm. Our anchor parted next night, and our ship again grounded, when we shored her up the best we could, to prevent her from over-setting at the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... it is but a writhing skeleton. She cut it with one stroke of the pruning scissors. Why? That it might breathe out its fervent blue and mauve-colored soul? For like me, She delights in your dance, Fire, and chastises you when you're quiet, with a stern pair of tongs. Sitting there with her head bent and her arms hanging along her sides, what does She read, I wonder, in that fiery rose which is the labyrinthian heart of you?... She knows a great deal certainly, but not as much as ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette

... own admission, had "peculiar notions on the subject of money." Byron, on his part, was determined not to be "put upon," and doled out through his steward stated allowances to Hunt, who says that only "stern necessity and a large family" induced him to accept them. Hunt's expression that the 200l. was, in the first instance, a debt to Shelley, points to the conclusion that it was remitted on that poet's death. Besides this, Byron maintained the family till they left Genoa for Florence ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... into brotherhood and equality. You cannot strive against the unseen and the fearless. The Cause will triumph though all else fails. Georgian, I am sorry—" He was tottering now, but he held them back with a stern gesture, "I don't think I ever knew just what love was. ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... she shut it down tight and remained calm and cool. When he joked, when he smiled his charming smile, her heart turned over within her. When he had signed the typed letters, she would sometimes put her hand for a moment where his had rested on the paper. He was stern with her sometimes, spoke sharply and impatiently, and that, in a queer way, she liked. She had felt the same pleasure at school, when the head of the school, whom she had greatly and secretly venerated, had had her up to the sixth form room and rowed her. Why? That was for psycho-analysts ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... face there on the cover to controvert this awkward disclaimer! His beauty flaunted to famished hearts, what avail to protest weakly that they should put away his image or even to hint, as now and again he was stern enough to do, that their frankness ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... taking aboard a boss like the Commander-in-Chief, as well as that much bigger boss (in naval estimates) his own big brother, the Commodore, our Lieutenant-Commander would nip away presto. Not a bit of it! No sooner had he got us aboard than he came out boldly and very, very slowly, stern first, from the lee of the River Clyde and began a duel against Asia with 4-inch lyddite from the Wolverine's after gun. The fight seems quite funny to me now but, at the time, serio-comic would have better described my ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... sinister. It flows without foam or ripple. No white showed in the wake of the boat. The ominous shores were without sign of life, save for a rare light every few miles, to mark some bend in the chasm. Once a canoe with two Indians shot out of the shadows, passed under our stern, and vanished silently down stream. We all became hushed and apprehensive. The night was gigantic and terrible. There were a few stars, but the flood slid along too swiftly to reflect them. The whole scene seemed some Stygian imagination of Dante. As ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... He was of too stern a nature and too loyal to his ideals to vary a hair's breadth from his course, yet criticism embittered him. "Give me signboards to paint, if you will," he exclaimed, "but at least let me think out my subjects in my own fashion ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll

... a very different tone. You can no longer plead ignorance of the designs of the depraved person who besets you. You may not be able to forget him—but you can avoid him. If you see him alone again—if but for a moment—I cast you off for ever. Yes, for ever," he repeated, with stern emphasis. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... In German it is known as Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Be silent, do not talk). It is written for soprano, tenor, and bass solos and orchestra. Bach used as his text a poem by Piccander. The cantata is really a sort of one-act operetta—a jocose production representing the efforts of a stern parent to check his daughter's propensities in coffee drinking, the new fashioned habit. One seldom thinks of Bach as a humorist; but the music here is written in a mock-heroic vein, the recitatives and arias having a merry flavor, hinting at ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... is not." And Marmaduke Wharne came nearer to Leslie, and looked at her with a gentle look that was wonderfully beautiful upon his stern gray face. "Only, I would have a kindness that should go deep,—coming from a depth. There are two things for live men and women to do: to receive, from God; and to give out, to their fellows. One cannot be done without the other. No fruit, without the drinking of the sunshine. No ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... time they had reached the river shore. Mehmet, after rolling together the oil cloth that had covered the boat, helped the gipsy chief and his daughter to the stern. With one strong push of the oar on the shore rock, the Tartar slid his boat a hundred feet towards the middle of the stream. Then he seated himself, face towards his passengers, and rowed steadily without saying a single word. The gipsy chief lit his short pipe and looked over ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... Then, when they comprehended their purpose, either from pity or admiration, the enemy's battalions, which lined both sides of the road, called out to our men to halt; they entreated and conjured them to surrender; but the only answer they received was a more determined march, a stern silence, and the point of the bayonet. The whole of the enemy's fire was then poured upon them at once, at the distance of a few yards, and the half of this heroic column was stretched wounded or lifeless on ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... daily increased; and they even attempted by letters, (which were fortunately intercepted,) to seduce the armies on the Rhine and in Saxony. Neither the representations of Bernard of Weimar, nor the stern reproaches of his harsher associate in command, could suppress this mutiny, while the vehemence of Horn seemed only to increase the insolence of the insurgents. The conditions they insisted on, were that certain towns should be assigned to each regiment for the payment ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... would be desolated; not a woman would become less a lover and blesser of Home. On the contrary, woman would love her Home all the more, and make it all the purer and nobler. She would choose its sweet vocations, not from the stern dictation of society, but from her soul's choice. Every family must have a Home; and every Home must have a head, a heart, a guardian. Woman is nobly fitted to fill this responsible post of honor and trust; but let her do it from choice. Do not compel her to do it. Woman does not like compulsion. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... or to point to heaven: but it must have in its own walls the strength to do this; it is to be itself a bulwark, not to be sustained by other bulwarks; to rise and look forth, "the tower of Lebanon that looketh toward Damascus," like a stern sentinel, not like a child held up in its nurse's arms. A tower may, indeed, have a kind of buttress, a projection, or subordinate tower at each of its angles; but these are to its main body like the satellites to a shaft, joined with its ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... Mme Burle, leaning back in her old yellow velvet armchair and watching the last vine branch smoke, with that stolid, blank stare of the aged who live within themselves. She would sit thus for whole days together, with her tall figure, her long stern face and her thin lips that never smiled. The widow of a colonel who had died just as he was on the point of becoming a general, the mother of a captain whom she had followed even in his campaigns, she had acquired a military stiffness of bearing and formed for herself a code ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... done!—Joseph unveils himself! Jesus reassumes his proper character! The stern air and attitude of repulsion is dismissed—he smiles with ineffable affection—commends her faith, and with commanding authority bestows the wished-for blessing; and though at so great distance, expels the demon from the afflicted daughter. "Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... Father grew stern. "Since when did the rule of the order allow you to use such language to your superiors? If you are not thinking of evading your vows, you do evade them daily; and the throwing them off can be nothing but ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... This stern rebuke at once silenced the faction, and checked all further movement in the direction of king-making. How brightly did the patriotism of Washington shine out in this affair! At the head of a victorious army; beloved and venerated by it and by the people; with personal influence ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... middle-aged gentlemen round a table, some looking at him, some reading his testimonials, and one or two putting questions. Most of them indulgent to his embarrassment and even sharing it. Dr Ponsford, however, massive, stern, with his shaggy eyebrows and pursed mouth, was above any ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... requires of us; but if your Excellency will grant us our old oath, with an exemption for ourselves and our heirs from taking up arms, we will accept it."[77] The answer of Cornwallis was by no means so stern as it has been represented.[78] After the formal reception he talked in private with the deputies; and "they went home in good humor, promising ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... level continued under the cylindrical dome roof to the bow. The forward watch tower observatory was here, officers' cabins, Captain Carter's navigating rooms and Dr. Frank's office. Similarly, under the stern dome, was the stern watch tower and a series ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... feast on Ireland's shore and bay; And France, thy forward knights and bold, Rough Rollo's ravens croaked them cold. Sing, sing of earth and ocean's lords, Their songs as conquering as their swords; Strains, steeped in many a strange belief, Now stern as steel, now soft as grief— Wild, witching, warlike, brief, sublime, Stamped with the image of their time; When chafed—the call is sharp and high For carnage, as the eagles cry; When pleased—the mood is meek, and mild, And gentle, as an unweaned child. Sing, sing of haunted shores and shelves, ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... This propensity was carried to such an extent that the youth earned the name of being a "bad boy," and there is no use of pretending he did not deserve the reputation. He gave his parents and neighbors a good deal of anxiety, and Dr. Dewey, who knew how to be stern as well as kind, was compelled more than once to interpose his authority in a way that no lad is ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... afternoon at Bull Run, when all seemed lost, and the most vivid of his memories was the calm figure riding back and forth just beyond the pines among which he stood, and gathering for a fresh charge the stern ranks of his men who were to turn almost sure defeat into absolutely sure victory. The picture of the man in the heart of that red glare among the showers of bullets had been burned so deeply into Harry's memory that he ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... not popular. She had been first a fag and drudge, then had been withdrawn from the work-room to serve in the kitchen; from scullery-maid she had been promoted to the chambers of Sister Angelique, who was the stern right arm of the Superieure; and, finally, was transferred to the holy of holies of ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... for the love of Earth, and so the stars were thrown. I have gathered up a few, and, like children with their beads and berries, have threaded them upon this string. It will be seen that they do not all belong to the same constellation. Most of them shed their luster over the stern realities of life: a few glittered in the firmament of fiction. It matters little. A great romance is a portrait of humanity, painted by a master-hand. When the novelist employs the majestic words ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham

... them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson

... he began pacing backward and forward, his face very grave, but not so stern. Rose watched him askance, nervous ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... away, staring straight into his own. It must be an evil dream, he thought at first, but it had all the semblance of reality, and, when he turned his head in fear, he saw another face on the other side of him, carved in red bronze, it too only a foot away and staring at him in stern accusation. ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Fleeth grace and beauty's noon! Hast thou pride in cheeks aglow, Whereon cream and carmine flow? Ah! the loveliest rose turns sere! Therefore still I respond to God's high will. To the last stern fight I'll fit me; If to Death I must submit me, Dies a ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... "The letter is stern and short. Major Milroy dismisses the report as unworthy of credit, because it is impossible for him to believe in such an act of 'cold-blooded treachery,' as the scandal would imply, if the scandal ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... her turning movement, and she heeled over, yielding to the mighty power of the gale. For an appreciable instant her engines stopped. The mass of water that swayed the junk like a cork lifted the great ship high by the stern. The propeller began to revolve in air—for the third officer had corrected his signal to "full speed ahead" again—and the cumbrous Chinese vessel struck the Sirdar a terrible blow in the counter, smashing off the screw close to the thrust-block and wrenching ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... Some London wag, in a kindred spirit, has illustrated the cockney song, 'If I had a donkey as vouldn't go, do you think I'd wallop him?' etc., as follows: 'The herbaceous boon and the bland recommendation to advance, are more operative on the ansinine quadruped than the stern imprecation ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... Petrarch and his Laura may lack in dignity when compared with that of Dante and Beatrice, it certainly does not lack in grace or interest. While Dante early took an interest in the political affairs which distracted Florence, and was of a stern and somewhat forbidding character, mingling study with action, Petrarch, humanist and scholar as he was, represents also the more polite accomplishments of his time, as he was a most polished courtier ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... man stern and fearless; Of your curses and your ban they are careless. Every hand is on its knife; Every gun is primed for strife; Every palm contains a life ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... pleasure—in those hours when they came to her seeking to please or desiring to be pleased. In her Occupation she was coming to know them in their hours of toil, when there was no thought of gaining or giving pleasure, but only of the demands of their existence; when duty, pitiless, stern, uncompromising, duty held them in its grip; when need, unrelenting, ever present, dominating need, drove them under its lash. She had known them only in their hours of leisure—when their minds ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... that the stern of the boat was, when she was laid down bow foremost, fully fifteen feet ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... bestow, steward, or stoward; stead, steady, stedfast, stable, a stable, a stall, to stall, stool, stall, still, stall, stallage, stage, still, adjective, and still, adverb: stale, stout, sturdy, stead, stoat, stallion, stiff, stark-dead, to starve with hunger or cold; stone, steel, stern, stanch, to stanch blood, to stare, steep, steeple, stair, standard, a stated measure, stately. In all these, and perhaps some others, st denote ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... and I can fancy with what a stern joy an honest critic would arise and slay what he believed to be false and vicious. In no time was the need of strong criticism greater than it is at present. The press is teeming with rubbish and something ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... of pity! You have enthusiasm . . . poverty will rob you of it; you have inspiration . . . poverty will rob you of it; you have youth, talent, and beauty . . . poverty will rob you of it all!" declaimed Piesh in the stern ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... best because one sail would stop the wind from reaching another one in front of it. The best wind then, as ever since, was a "quartering wind," that is, a wind blowing on a vessel's quarter, half way between her stern and the middle of her side. Ships with better keels, sails, and shape of hull might have sailed with a "soldier's wind," that is, a wind blowing straight against the ship's side, at right angles to her course. But they must have ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... had struck—the rapids whirled her sideways and away she went down-stream—the men jumped out, but the current carried them to such deep water that they were clinging to the gunwales as best they could when, with another rip, the stern was torn clean out of the canoe. The blow sent her swirling—another rock battered the bow out—the keel flattened like a raft held together only by the bars. Branches hung overhead. The bowman made a frantic grab at these to stop the rush of the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... a portion of the King's room in Ford Castle, which still contains souvenirs of Flodden Field—according to an article in the Magazine of Art. The room is in the northernmost tower, which still preserves externally the stern, grim character of the border fortress; and the room looks towards the famous battle-field. The chair shews a date 1638, and there is another of Dutch design of about fifty or sixty years later; but the carved oak bedstead, with tapestry ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... meet um, little brother," said Mooka, her black eyes dancing; and in a wink crabs and sledges were forgotten. The old punt was off in a shake, the tattered sail up, skipper Noel lounging in the stern, like an old salt, with the steering oar, while the crew, forgetting her nipped finger, tugged valiantly at ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long

... and he raised and set on his head a casque of bronze, and took a spear in his strong hand. Then went he on his way to rouse his brother, that mightily ruled over all the Argives, and as a god was honoured by the people. Him found he harnessing his goodly gear about his shoulders, by the stern of the ship, and glad to his brother was his coming. Then Menelaos of the loud war-cry first accosted him: "Wherefore thus, dear brother, art thou arming? Wilt thou speed forth any of thy comrades to spy on the Trojans? Nay, terribly I fear lest none should undertake ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... which she was lying. Everything was bright as day about her, but everything seemed to be dyed the hue of blood. The next moment sense and memory returned. She realized that she was lying in the bottom of a boat, which men were rowing with steady strokes. She saw Lord Desborough sitting in the stern, only a few feet away, still clasping his wife in his arms. She knew that her head was lying in somebody's lap, and the next moment she ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... intervals of tranquillity and rest which he surreptitiously snatches from a stranger's doorstep. For a shrill whistle is heard in the streets, the boys are coming home from school, and he is startled from his dreams by a deftly thrown potato, which hits him on the head, and awakens him to the stern reality that he is now and ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... lover's speed, Thy once beloved bride to see; But be she alive, or be she dead, I fear, stern Earl, 's the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... Miss Anderson's rendition of the balcony scene, help feeling in the tones of her voice, an almost stern foreboding of their saddening fates—a foreboding stranger than that which falls as a shadow to all ecstatic youthful hope and joy. Other faults—as evident, undoubtedly, to her and to her advisers, as to us—are ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... village was ringing with gossip about Sophy and young Braelands, never a man or woman in it ventured to openly question the stern, sullen, irritable man who had been so long recognised as her accepted lover. And whether he was in the boats or out of them, no one dared to speak Sophy's name in his presence. Indeed, upon the whole, he was during these days what Janet Binnie called "an ill man to live ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... betrayed effort on the part of the oarsman. Now, for the first time, Nell felt herself borne along with a gliding movement, like that of a balloon through the air. The water was smooth as a lake, and Nell reclined in the stern of the boat, enjoying its gentle rocking. Occasionally the effect of the moonlight on the waters was as though the boat sailed across a glittering silver field. Little wavelets rippled along ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... moment a stern voice was heard outside. It was the first time that Alerta had heard human speech, but she ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... thinking with a hidden amusement of all the awesome prestige the name had once carried with it for his boyish ear. Thirty years back, what a gulf had seemed to yawn between the yeoman's grandson and the lofty owners of that stern and ancient house upon the Greet! And now, how glad was old Helbeck's daughter to sit or walk with him and his child!—and how plain it grew, as the weeks passed on, that if he, Stephen Fountain, willed ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... her lovely blue eyes, to see whether the countenance of the prince harmonised with his discourse; but although he was not actually ugly, his features wore an expression too stern and hypocritical to invite her confidence. She therefore walked silently forward, and when near the cottage felt so uneasy, that, for the first time, she invented a lie in order to get rid of him. "You seem to compassionate my sorrows," said she; "meanwhile ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... on the globe—from Lapland to the Orient. Tropical forests, with soft southern faces lookin' out of the verdant shadows. Frozen icebergs, with fur-clad figgers with stern aspects, and ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... drinking and gambling and wild "tears" in Detroit. And it was noted that the fast young men of Saint X—so every one called Saint Christopher—were going a more rapid gait. Those turbulent fretters against the dam of dullness and stern repression of even normal and harmless gaiety had long caused scandal. But never before had they been so daring, ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... centre; being blown through the axis, and lighting on an iceberg at the north pole, and all that sort of thing,—I looked back upon rather as a matter of course. But to find myself sitting here on the deck of a three-master, with the cabins and offices at the stern all in good order, and the caboose-house in the centre, with the little funnel sticking out of the top, and a big boat close by it, covered with canvas, and a huge anchor at the bows, and spare rigging and spare masts lying all along the sides, and a real bell ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark

... whole character of this portrait is widely different from that in the earlier one. Not a trace of the fire, the animation, which were so striking in the physiognomy of the youth of twenty, is discoverable in the calm, sedate, stately, yet somewhat stern expression, which seems immovably spread over the paler hue and the more prominent features of the man of about four or five and thirty. Yet, upon the whole, the face in the latter portrait is handsomer; and, from its air of dignity and reflection, even more impressive than that in ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... met us in the hall. He was the typical army officer who had seen service, real service, and found himself in the process. He was tall and well built, broad in the shoulders, but lean as a greyhound, with grave eyes, rather stern, and a moustache turning grey. I judged him to be about sixty years of age, but his movements showed a suppleness of strength and agility that contradicted the years. The face was full of character and resolution, the face of a man to be depended upon, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... his father look so stern. He was holding up the card, face outward. Keith knew that the damning figures were there, and he suspected what they were, though he could see only a blurred mass of indistinct marks. With one last effort he attempted still to ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter

... eccentricity ridiculous. Milburn had been willing to be hated for his hat, but Jack Wonnell made all unseasonable hats laughable, the more so that he was nearly as old a wearer of his bell-crowns as Milburn of the steeple-top. Although he had no such reasons of reverence and stern consistency as his rich neighbor, he seemed to have, in his own mind, and in plain people's, a better defence for violating the standard taste ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... said in a low stern tone; "no touch of yours for my Guilbert—for my son! Every minute of his life has been mine. He is mine—all mine—and so he shall remain. You who gambled with the name, the fame, the very soul of your wife, you shall not have one breath ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... if somewhat too restless and over-refining energy which belonged to him, Richard rapidly detailed the scheme of his profound and dissimulating policy. His keen and intuitive insight into human nature had shown him the stern necessity which, against their very will, must unite Warwick with Margaret of Anjou. His conversation with Montagu had left no doubt of that peril on his penetrating mind. He foresaw that this union ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... thus forming a rude semicircular reflector. Three candles placed within the circle completed the jack. With moss and boughs seats were arranged,—one in the bow for the marksman, and one in the stern for the oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels was a good preparation, and, when darkness came, all were keenly alive to the opportunity it brought. Though by no means an expert in the use of the gun,—adding the superlative degree of enthusiasm to only the positive ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... shop, the chief barber in command waltzed forward, as hairdressers always seem to waltz. At the sight of the poor girl, however, he assumed a stern appearance which, to tell the truth, was out of character with his style of beauty. His rich brown locks were curled and anointed in a way that might have aroused envy in the heart of an Assyrian dandy in ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... to his head he raised His brazen helmet, and with vigorous hand 35 Grasping his spear, forth issued to arouse His brother, mighty sovereign of the host, And by the Grecians like a God revered. He found him at his galley's stern, his arms Assuming radiant; welcome he arrived 40 To Agamemnon, whom he thus address'd. Why arm'st thou, brother? Wouldst thou urge abroad Some trusty spy into the Trojan camp?[2] I fear lest none so hardy shall be found ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... on the part of professedly loyal men shall be guided by any other feeling than love for the Union and a sacred regard for all the obligations of its Constitution, the preservation of the Union will be impossible. The non-slaveholding States may, perhaps, bind the seceded States to them by the stern power of military subjugation, as Poland is bound to Russia, or Hungary to Austria, but the subjugation of one section of the Republic by another will never unite their people in the fraternal bonds ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton

... about his "trunk," and gave himself more airs about it, than all the rest of the passengers put together. If the ship was "down by the head," and would not steer, he would go and move his "trunk" further aft, and then watch the effect. If the ship was "by the stern," he would suggest to Columbus to detail some men to "shift that baggage." In storms he had to be gagged, because his wailings about his "trunk" made it impossible for the men to hear the orders. The man does not appear to have been openly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... began their friendship. In that night was sown the seed of the new idea in her mind, which neither the wild passion of her love for Traill, nor all the stern preaching of Janet's philosophy had caused to take root before. A child—she knew that now—a child would save her. A child would make this life of hers worth while. And, having none, she set her heart, as you set a lure with ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... subordinate these to the narrow advantages of partisanship or the accomplishment of selfish aims is to violate the people's trust and betray the people's interests; but an individual sense of responsibility on the part of each of us and a stern determination to perform our duty well must give us place among those who have added in their day and generation to the glory and prosperity of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... Murray left a son, who must now be grown up, and who may have inherited some of his father's sinister talents. They have lived for many years in Paris. Sir Richard Wallace was the very type of a gentleman of the highest breeding—rather stern, melancholy, not at all humorous, and incapable of vulgarity ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... time when I used to think more of the love of Jesus Christ than of God the Father. I used to think of God as a stern judge on the throne, from whose wrath Jesus Christ had saved me. It seems to me now I could ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody

... the parent, and his voice was sad and stern, "I detest the slang you're using; will you never, never learn that correct use of our language is a thing to be desired? All your common bughouse phrases make the shrinking highbrow tired. There is nothing more delightful ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason

... mountain-peaks, and breathed an icy breath upon him. O, let not the soul that suffers, dare to look Nature in the face, where she sits majestically aloft in the solitude of the mountains; for her face is hard and stern, and looks not in compassion upon her weak and erring child. It is the countenance of an accusing archangel, who summons us to judgment. In the valley she wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at us with tearful eyes, and a face of pity ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... lay nearly becalmed at the entrance of the harbour, a small boat, rowed by two men, pulled towards her, and the occupant of the stern-sheets, as he came alongside, stated, in bad English, that he brought "present for captain," and was allowed to come up the side by the first-lieutenant, who was on deck. He was a native friar, and disgusting as the dress is, when worn by an European in a northern ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... away the boat, and swung it around so that the stern was headed towards the opening. But while the passenger and the seaman were delivering their blows with the axes as well as the uneasy motion of the vessel would permit, the brig rose on the sea, and came down with a most tremendous crash. Over went the mainmast, shattered at the heel by the bolt ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... into oblong iron frames, and are worked by machinery. They may be opened or closed, inclined to or from each other, at any angle, upwards or downwards. At each end of the vessel, near the stem and the stern, is a pair of screws, similar to the propellers of a steam-ship, and worked by a couple of small steam-engines of three horse-power each, one being placed just above and behind each pair of screws. Lastly, attached to masts projecting ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various

... That which hath made the[m] drunk, hath made me bold: What hath quench'd them, hath giuen me fire. Hearke, peace: it was the Owle that shriek'd, The fatall Bell-man, which giues the stern'st good-night. He is about it, the Doores are open: And the surfeted Groomes doe mock their charge With Snores. I haue drugg'd their Possets, That Death and Nature doe contend about them, Whether they liue, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... "It's mean," he admitted, "but I can't help but laugh when I think of how he looked kneeling there in stern resolve to be covered with glory, and the transformation when ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... still watching the troopers and their horses, when he heard a movement outside his door as if the sentries had presented arms; and directly after the general strode into the room, with his stern, thoughtful countenance lighting up as he encountered Roy's ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn

... conscious all the time she had been in the room of the presence of the portrait although she had not looked its way. The picture had caught the quiet passion and intensity of Godfrey Langrishe's gaze, as though he looked on deeds of glory and fought his way towards them. The face was less stern than she remembered it; it had yet some of the bloom and bonniness of his boyhood; renunciation had not written its deeper meaning in lines about ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... any such experiences—if she has anything to tell worthy of so marked a curiosity, she will tell it now," came from the gentleman just alluded to, in tones so stern and strange that all show of frivolity ceased on the instant. "Have you anything ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... bad advice in the king's ear; the courtiers murmured, with one consent, that Perseus had shown disrespect to their royal lord and master; and the great King Polydectes himself waved his hand, and ordered him, with the stern, deep voice of authority, on his peril, to ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... voice was stern, "when you put your cow into my pasture you knew that she would come ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... would go; she added with a little sigh that she did not know where. The duke profanely and contemptuously mentioned a locality which shall be nameless. The young lady made no reply. She believed in division of labour, and in former domestic affairs of this sort her stern parent had invariably said what he pleased, while she contented herself with merely ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... there is a rock to which vessels occasionally make fast their stern moorings. In the boat which I sent away with a line to this rock were several boys, natives of the island, who went with the crew for amusement. One of them, aged about ten, jumped out of the boat, and in his hurry fell on his hands and knees, right on ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... beauty of Newport quite surpassed herself to-night—that even the buds had better look to their laurels. The maids and the matrons, even the gentlemen, looked askance when they saw Victor Lamont and young Mrs. Gardiner dance every dance together, and the murmur of stern disapproval grew louder. ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... nutshell on the raging waters. The bowsprit raised itself high in the air, while the stern was buried in the trough of the sea. All clung to the ropes or whatever object presented itself expecting to be washed overboard, as the boat shook and creaked in ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman

... more Speed towards him; and taking Mr. Martin's Sword, desired him to stand aside, or follow the Ladies. He obey'd him; and Caesar met this monstrous Beast of mighty Size, and vast Limbs, who came with open Jaws upon him; and fixing his aweful stern Eyes full upon those of the Beast, and putting himself into a very steady and good aiming Posture of Defence, ran his Sword quite through his Breast, down to his very Heart, home to the Hilt of the Sword: The dying Beast stretch'd forth her Paw, and going to grasp his ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... A thick stick at once seized, And began her stern husband to beat; "O you monster," she cried, As her weapon she plied, "You deserve the ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown

... demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas? From these, four States have been carved, and ample territory for four more is to be added in due time, if you, by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope, and, perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation which may reasonably be expected ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... scene so great an aspect of wildness and desolation, as dead fir trees. There they stand on the most barren and inaccessible places, rearing their gaunt and whitened forms erect as ever, and though lifeless yet not decayed. Seared and blasted by a thousand storms, they stand stern and silent, ghostlike and immoveable, scorning the elements. No wind murmurs pleasantly through their dead and shrunken branches, the howling tempest alone can make them speak, and then with wild straining shriek and harsh rattle, they do battle with the whirlwind. It was getting hot and I ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster

... was cold and dead. Then her mother came in, with grannie and Robbie following in slow procession behind. They were dressed in beautiful white robes like angels, and as they passed to the bedside they each in turn looked at her with stern, reproachful eyes. Then her mother lifted Duncan in her arms and carried him away, closing the door after them, and leaving her quite alone. They had seen her, but would have ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... lifting its heavy wings as if about to scorn the earth, only to drop them again, and to utter one of those long dreary cries which seem to protest so eloquently against a barbarous destiny. Then he proceeded to tell us of the great raptor in its life of hopeless captivity; his stern, rugged countenance, deep bass voice, and grand mouth-filling polysllables suiting his subject well, and making his description seem to our minds a sombre magnificent picture never to be forgotten—at all events, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... himself, but was near starting up again when he saw his negro host preparing to take his place between his two quests, Papalier had never yet sat at table with a negro, and his impulse was to resent the necessity; but a stern look from the General warned him to submit quietly to the usages of the new state of society which he had remained to witness; and he sat through the meal, joining occasionally in the conversation, which, for his ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... the scene from her window, like a dream given out of sleep. She lay with both arms thrown up beneath her head on the pillow, her eyelids wide open, and her visage set and stern. Her bosom rose and sank regularly but heavily. The fluctuations of a night stormy for her, hitherto unknown, had sunk her to this trance, in which she lay like a creature flung on shore by the waves. She heard her brother's voice and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... breezes veer, Dark clouds incumbent on their wings appear: Ahead they see the consecrated grove Of Cyprus, sacred once to Cretan Jove. 60 The ship beneath her lofty pressure reels, And to the freshening gale still deeper heels. But now, beneath the lofty vessel's stern, A shoal of sportive dolphins they discern, Beaming from burnish'd scales refulgent rays, Till all the glowing ocean seems to blaze: In curling wreaths they wanton on the tide, Now bound aloft, now downward swiftly glide; Awhile beneath the waves their tracks remain, And burn in silver ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... would be very unpleasant now. No tops of eggs, no marmalade on toast, no skins of milk, no stories of "when I was a young girl," no sitting up five minutes "later," no stopping in the market-place for a talk with the banana woman—only stern insistence on every detail of daily life; swift judgment were anything left ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole

... have, besides U Mawlong Siem, other village gods (called "Ryngkew"). The name of the one is "U Rangjadong," and the name of the other "U Ramsong." Sacrifices are offered to these two also. U Mawlong Siem is a very great and stern god. The other gods dare not engage in battle with him. He has a daughter called "Ka Khmat Kharai" (i.e. the mouth of the abyss). The god of the Umwai people fell in love with this daughter, but he was unable ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... almost golden, in the sunlight. His eyes were gray, a lovely shade, though those who hated him swore 'twas green. A clever supple swordsman, and to the fore in all the rough games that men delight in. His face was very winsome, yet often swept by varying moods. I have seen it hard and stern, and again alight with the keenest appreciation of one of my Lord Kenneth's witticisms. And, too, I have seen it tender, pleading, and melancholy almost ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... finished this somewhat remarkable epistle, of which the children had been so proud, there were tears in his eyes, although his mouth was smiling, and the lines of worry did not seem so deep nor so stern. ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden

... manner. Offutt's boat had come to serious embarrassment on Rutledge's mill-dam, and the unwonted incident brought the entire population to the water's edge. They spent a good part of the day watching the hapless flat-boat, resting midships on the dam, the forward end in the air and the stern taking in the turbid Sangamon water. Nobody knew what to do with the disaster except "the bow-oar," who is described as a gigantic youth "with his trousers rolled up some five feet," who was wading about the boat and rigging up some undescribed contrivance ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... authority. He obeyed Emerson's maxim: "Speak as you think; be what you are." From the vice of envy he was entirely free. His generous spirit loved to praise others, and he was rather prone to self-depreciation. A lenient judge of the actions of other individuals, he was a stern and exacting critic of his own. He had a lofty sense of his personal duty and responsibility; and if ever, or in anything, he fell short of his self-prescribed standard he would, so to say, whip himself with cords. From his boyhood ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... fine as I had always fancied fine sea voyages would be. The rocking of the ship would never be less than about two feet up and down in its width of thirty feet. When the winds blew hard and the waves rolled high, it swung some, twenty or twenty-five feet up and down at its bow and at the stern. The highest waves that we saw in our outward passage were probably from twelve to eighteen feet. That the rocking or swinging of the ship, is the one and only cause of sea-sickness, may admit of a question; but that it is the principal cause, there can be little ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... of the great city grown stern and audible, grown verbose and insistent, speaks aloud in the courts. And here huddled on benches are the little troupes of mummers who have committed crimes. The mysterious sprinkling of marionettes not wound ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... baby, you silly boy!—you actually dare to raise your hand against him! Very well, very good. I am beginning to think that you cannot understand kind treatment, but require to be treated in a very different and humiliating fashion. Go now directly and beg his pardon," she added in a stern and peremptory tone as she pointed to St. Jerome, "Do ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy

... down upon him from the northwest a long, low craft. Four men stood in the forward part of the boat, and a fifth sat beside the motor. In the bright moonlight, Captain Brooks could see that all the men wore black masks. He also saw that all were armed, and that from the staff at the stern of the boat floated a jet-black flag on which was painted in white the skull and cross-bones that have always been the insignia of pirates. Even as he looked one of the men in the motor-boat raised his arm: Uncle Jerry saw a flash of fire, and another pane of glass at his side ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... to talk so to poor father. Of course, he is ten times better than I am, and knows ten times as much, but his disease, whatever it is, keeps his mind befogged. I mean to begin now to pray that light may shine into his soul. It would be delightful to see the peace of God shining in that pale, stern face. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... Adams was the son of his father and gloried secretly in his lineage: a Puritan of the Puritans in his outlook upon human life and destiny. Something of the rigid quality of rock-bound New England entered into his composition. He was a foe to all compromise—even with himself; to him Duty was the stern daughter of the voice of God, who admonished him daily and hourly of his obligations. No character in American public life has unbosomed himself so completely as this son of Massachusetts in the pages of his diary. There are no half tones in the pictures ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... soul will see things then as they are, no longer tricked out in false and flattering guise. There, in all their miserable littleness, and coarseness, and meanness, and cowardice, bygone sins will rise up before the stern tribunal of the unsparing memory, each as it was, each as it is, each as GOD saw it at the time, each as GOD ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson

... strange and interesting." The whole secret is in the manner and method of the two men. The captain is a little shy and diffident, and he states the simplest fact as if he were a little afraid of it, while the Scot delivers himself of the most abandoned lie with such an air of stern veracity that one is forced to believe it although one knows it isn't so. For instance, the Scot told about a pet flying-fish he once owned, that lived in a little fountain in his conservatory, and supported itself by catching birds and frogs and rats in the neighboring fields. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... But suddenly he stopped, and gazed intently upon Prince Eugene, who was standing at the stern of his gondola, only a few feet distant from the bucentoro of the Strozzis. The elector directed his gondoliers to approach that of the prince, and, springing from one boat to the other, he laid his hand ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... under the ordeal. Her expression was full of an unfathomable insight, a sorrow beyond the reach of words. How often have I recalled it since! But the son, even while he reddened, relaxed no whit the stern directness of his gaze at her, and it was clear enough that she felt obliged to avert her own eyes lest they should rouse him to defiant anger. Here, in sharp antithesis to one another, the two divergent tendencies and contrasted characteristics of ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... darkened, so that we moved as through an obscuring veil; and I dumbly wondered whether this was night (had it been morning or evening when I started for the pond?) or whether I was dying myself. I peered and again made out the sober, stern faces hedging me, but they gave me no answer to my mutely anxious query. Across a great distance we stumbled by the wagons (the same wagons of a time agone), ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... worked at all. He becomes as far as possible another person—a country gentleman who has never heard of his shop; one whose left hand holding a gun knows not what his right hand doeth in a ledger. He uses a peerage as an alias, and a large estate as a sort of alibi. A stern Scotch minister remarked concerning the game of golf, with a terrible solemnity of manner, "the man who plays golf—he neglects his business, he forsakes his wife, he forgets his God." He did not seem to realise ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... pile on the false point, and held on the cabin under Plum Point till I raised the reef—quarter less twain—then straightened up for the middle bar till I got well abreast the old one-limbed cotton-wood in the bend, then got my stern on the cotton-wood and head on the low place above the point, and came through ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... incautious confidence that sealed Barraclough's lips and made his movements on arriving at Southampton so secretive. It is known there was a fog over the Solent on the afternoon in question and that a small brown-sailed boat with a man sitting in the stern put out from the shore and was presently swallowed up in the white tasselled wreaths of mist. That same boat was discovered minus its passenger in the early hours of the following day. A coastal collier, racketing into port in the quiet of evening, brought the tale of a seaplane that narrowly missed ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... puissant Rosimond, Of Lancaster the heir, in rank succeed; Let none forget Obizo of Tuscain land, Well worthy praise for many a worthy deed; Nor those three brethren, Lombards fierce and yond, Achilles, Sforza, and stern Palamede; Nor Otton's shield he conquered in those stowres, In which a ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... dignity of official position requires that he should remain on shore for the space of one hour after the dropping of the anchor. He then musters his forces, marches them down to his war-skiff, from the stern of which waves the Danish flag, and, placing an oar in the hands of each man, he gives the order to advance and board the steamer. On his arrival alongside he touches his cap to the passengers in a grave and dignified manner, and expresses a desire to see our ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... beyond the reach of molestation; with what liberality she had advanced the money that freed Sophy from the manager's claim; and how considerately she had empowered her agent to give the reference which secured to Waife the asylum in which we last beheld him. In a few stern sentences she had acquainted Waife with her fearless inflexible resolve to associate her fate henceforth with the life of his lawless son; and, by rendering abortive all his evil projects of plunder, to compel him at last to depend upon her for an existence ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... room opened and Laura came forth with pale and stern face. She looked at Pen with glances from which beamed pride, defiance, aversion. "Arthur, your mother is very ill," she said; "it is a pity that you should speak so ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... four Englishmen who rode with the Duke were stern and drawn. Wolfe dismounted from his horse and reverently covered the face of the dead Jacobite ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... work vigorously, and the boats travel at a considerable pace. Each boat has a stroke peculiar to itself. Some paddle hard for six strokes and then easy for an equal number. Some will take two or three hard and then one easy. The steersman stands in the stern and steers with an oar. He or one of the crew keeps up a monotonous song, to which the crew reply in chorus, always in time with ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... saw her name in capitals, her photograph almost life-size, photographs of her trunk, the gorilla, Blount, in head-liners, too, and Harry, furious, too far away for moral suasion; stern, cold, unforgiving, worse still, disgusted. She realized as she had never realized before that Harry was what counted most, Harry was the one thing she could not live without. To the terrors of these hours was added the ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... the war-vessels were summoned on deck, the men ordered to wash, and afterwards served with a cup of coffee. All lights were extinguished except one on the stern of each ship, and that was hooded. All hands were at quarters; all guns loaded, with extra charges ready at hand; every eye was strained, and every ear on the alert to catch the ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... you the change to pay the driver?" asked a vision of stern loveliness floating into the room. With the winter's glow in her cheeks and eyes and the bronze sheen on her splendid hair, which was brushed in rippling waves from her forehead and coiled in a severely simple knot on her neck, she ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... is ample experience to go on. For seventy years we have had them with us—the stern disciples of the militant program. Greater fidelity to a task than they show it would be impossible to find—a fidelity so unwavering that it is often painful. Their care for detail, for order, for exactness, is endless. Dignity, ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell

... tracked, with some short portages around the worst places. Before entering them everything was lashed securely into the boat, as at the Porcupine Rapids, and the tracking line fastened a few inches back of the bow leaving enough loose end to run to the stern and this was tied securely there to relieve the unusual strain on the bow fastening. Ed took the position of steersman in the boat, while the other three were ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... exclaimed. "Do you see that boat lying on its oars in the middle of the stream? That man sitting in the stern is a foreigner, either from Southern Europe or ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... to have obeyed it would have been worse than quixotic. In the first place, the drowning man was close upon half a mile astern; in the second place, others had seen the hat and the white coat as clearly as I; among them the third officer, standing upright in the stern of the boat—which, with commendable promptitude, had already been swung into the water. The steamer was being put about, describing a wide arc around the little boat dancing on ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... this respect as though he were still a Minister. Some Ministers, it was asserted, not only enjoyed, but desired, the constant companionship of armed detectives, and amusing stories were told of the way in which they arrived at Mayfair dinner-parties accompanied by "stern-faced men" with revolvers in their pockets. I shall not repeat these stories, for I cannot bring myself to believe that any English statesman has been the victim of physical cowardice. Others, among whom Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster were conspicuous, loathed the ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... so sure of," replied the stranger. "Since the people in that village have forgotten how to be loving and gentle, maybe it were better that the lake should be rippling over the cottages again," and he looked very sad and stern. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... little bitter and uncharitable, excessively fond of applause without being very critical as to the quarter from which it comes, and strongly possessed with the love of domination. Tom Tulliver is hard, close, unimaginative, self-confident, repelling, with a stern rectitude of a certain kind, but with no understanding of or toleration for any character different from his own. Philip Wakem is a personage as little pleasant as picturesque. Maggie, as a child—although in her father's ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... to him in the garden. She had changed her travelling dress, and made herself pretty, as she well knew how to do. And now she dressed her face in her sweetest smiles. Her mind, also, was full of the Melmottes, and she wished to explain to her stern, unbending cousin all the good that might come to her and hers by an alliance with the heiress. 'I can understand, Roger,' she said, taking his arm, 'that you should ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... expressly avowed, no one doubted that "the goodman's croft" was set apart for some evil being; in fact, that it was the portion of the arch-fiend himself, whom our ancestors distinguished by a name which, while it was generally understood, could not, it was supposed, be offensive to the stern inhabitant of the regions of despair. This was so general a custom that the Church published an ordinance against it as an ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... rough, stern man, and he determined to punish the abettors of this rebellion with severity, which should appall all the discontented. General Gordon, in the battle, had slain three thousand of the insurgents and had taken five ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... and Chilo thought that he could always do what he liked with that man, who was terrible at the moment of his first outburst. So, wishing to know what happened at the seizing of Lygia, he asked further, in the voice of a stern judge,—"How did ye treat Croton? ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... upon the door-step. There Narcisse intimated that even twenty dollars for a few days would supply a stern want. And when Richling was compelled again to refuse, Narcisse solicited his company as far as the next corner. There the Creole covered him with shame by forcing him to refuse the loan of ten dollars, and ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... in the swift water at the foot of the last leap or descent. Into this swift water the Indians push their canoes. It requires great skill and dexterity for this. The fishing canoe is of small size. It is steered by a man in the stern. The fisherman takes his stand in the bows, sometimes bestriding the light and frail vessel from gunwale to gunwale, having a scoop-net in his hands. This net has a long slender handle, ten feet or more in length. The net is made of strong twine, open at ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... they must take the proper means, and see that their beneficent intentions are carried out with regard to this wretched remnant. It is not possible that a race so full of wild natural eloquence, of graceful imagery, of tender metaphor, of stern endurance, can be utterly lost and depraved. Be it our noble task to try to save these wild children of the forest, while throwing the most complete protection around our brave frontier population. Our nationality is now fully ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... little; isn't it enough that you're earning a livelihood for your dear little wife here, whom I'm glad to know at last and to receive as a worthy daughter? I may call you, Edie, mayn't I, my daughter? So this is your school, is it? A pleasant building! And that stern-looking old gentleman yonder, I suppose, is ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... boat beaches, and the two officers spring out upon the strand. One of them turning, says something to the coxswain, who has remained in the stern-sheets, with the tiller-ropes in hand. It is an order, with instructions about where and when he is to wait for them on return ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... shrewd. He was a magistrate of some repute in the district, a position which he had attained by sheer unswerving hard work in the police force, in which for years he had been known as "Bloodhound Hill." A man of rigid ideas and stern justice, he had forced his way to the front, respected by all, but genuinely liked ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... been the child of affliction: she is a stern, rugged nurse; but blessed often are the lessons she teaches. I have, says God, chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. It is God's ordinary way of drawing sinners to himself, either to dry up or imbitter the streams of worldly ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... Cuchullain, a look of compassion softening his stern features. He strode over to Ethne, and placing his hand gently on her head said: "Don't take your disappointment to heart, little woman; when any more birds come to the plains of Murthemney, I promise to get for you the ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... has not or has in an insufficient degree it finds in its counterpart, and it is only their union which makes of the world a whole thing, full, rounded, harmonious. The masculine nature, active, strong, and somewhat stern, even when merciful and bounteous, inclined to boisterousness and violence and often to cruelty, is well set off, or rather completed and moderated, by the feminine nature, not less active, but more quietly so, dispensing ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... do to think, or rather to feel. It is fortunate that the utmost shock of evil tidings often comes first. After that everything is for the better. Jack's name stood printed in that fatal column like a stern signal for despair. Lizzie felt conscious of a crisis which almost arrested her breath. Night had fallen at midday: what was the hour? A tragedy had stepped into her life: was she spectator or actor? She found herself face to face ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... a sullen look at the master ere he turned back to the crude oil motor whose mad pounding rattled the old bayou stern-wheeler from ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... tallboy chest to London in the Rolls met with stern opposition, but in the end I prevailed, and at six o'clock that evening it ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... misunderstood Paul: that was the trouble. Michael, so Mark Rutherford tells us, was a Puritan of the Puritans, silent, stern, unbending. Between his wife and himself no sympathy existed. They had two children—a boy and a girl. The girl was in every way her mother's child: the boy was the image of his father. Michael made a companion of his son; took him into his ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham

... the early days of the 17th century; a ruffling young theologue new to the city; a beautiful and innocent girl, suspected of witchcraft; a crafty scholar and metaphysician seeking to give over the city into the hands of the Savoyards; a stern and powerful syndic whom the scholar beguiles to betray his office by promises of an elixir which shall save him from his fatal illness; a brutal soldier of fortune; these are the elements of which ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... admitted to the room in which Emily sat, unconscious of his being there. She was displeased and alarmed at seeing him, but his words and his conduct after he entered, frightened and displeased her still more. He demanded secrecy in a stern and peremptory tone, and threatened with vague, but not ill-devised menaces, to be the ruin of her father and his whole house, if she breathed one word of what had taken place between them. He sought, moreover, to obtain from her a promise of secrecy; but that Emily would on no account give, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... "Write me," she sobbed—"I pray thee do— A book about the Prince di Giu— A book of poetry in praise Of all his works and all his ways; The godlike grace of his address, His more than woman's tenderness, His courage stern and lack of guile, The loves that wantoned in his smile. So great he was, so rich and kind, I'll not within a fortnight find His equal as a lover. O, My God! I shall be ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... beached ship. Her stern broke off and settled in the deeper water out from the shore. More smoke spurted out. Her bow split wide. There were the deep rumbles of black-powder explosions. Sergeant Walpole and his two followers stared blankly. More explosions, ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster

... was rent by the most terrifically vivid flash of lightning that he had ever seen, while simultaneously the air was shattered by a clap of thunder of such frightful volume that the cruiser jarred and shivered from stem to stern, as though she had taken the ground at full speed; indeed, for some seconds Frobisher was not at all sure that they had not happened upon some uncharted shoal. And while all hands were still cringing involuntarily from the shock, there ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... to me except to proffer my respectful homage," said Chatillon, who felt confused and ashamed beneath the stern gaze of Athos. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... audience that would brook neither denial nor excuse. Nor hoarseness, nor catarrh, nor sudden illness, certified unto by the friendly physician, would avail him now. The demand was irresistible; for when he hesitated, the persuasive though stern mouth of a musket hinted to him in expressive silence that he had better prevent its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... a low, faltering voice! I could not trust myself to speak again. A stern sense of duty toward Julia kept me silent; and we moved on, though ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... through the poem royally, playing on the emotions of her audience as she had so often played on ours in the old orchard. Pity, terror, indignation, suspense, possessed her hearers in turn. In the court scene she surpassed herself. She was, in very truth, the Florentine judge, stern, stately, impassive. Her voice dropped into the ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the darkness and the fire, and fame Avenged by misery and the Orphic doom, Bard of the tyrant-lay! whom dreadless wrongs, Impatient, and pale thirst for justice drove, A visionary exile, from the earth, To seek it in its iron reign—O stern! And not accepting sympathy, accept A not presumptious offering, that joins That region with a greater name: And thou, Of my own native language, O dread bard! Who, amid heaven's unshadowed light, by thee Supremely sung, abidest—shouldst thou know Who on earth with ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... was peculiarly romantic and nourished the poetry in his soul." Even a creature of a lower order than philosophers, poets, or even us poor tourists, has been known to feel the chilling influence of Nature in these her wildest forms, and though weaned from softer airs, perhaps reconciled to its stern lot, has cherished in its innermost bosom a memory so warm, so strong, as to assert itself at last with a force that fired and burst the little breast in which it had unconsciously smothered. Witness Campbell's little poem, "The Parrot," the incident of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... deep. "Every now and then," he went on to say, "as one watches the political storms in the United States, one is reminded of one's feelings as one lies in bed on a stormy night in an ocean steamer in a head wind. Each blow of the sea shakes the ship from stem to stern, and every now and then a tremendous one seems to paralyze her. The machinery seems to stop work; there is a dead pause, and you think for a moment the end has come; but the throbbing begins once ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... and persecuted sects. Many Jansenist families had joined the Little Church. The family to which this young girl belonged had embraced the equally rigid doctrines of both these Puritanisms, tenets which impart a stern dignity to the character and mien of those who hold them. It is the nature of positive doctrine to exaggerate the importance of the most ordinary actions of life by connecting them with ideas of a future existence. This is the source of a splendid and delicate purity of heart, a ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... the Tyrolian in the ribbed stockings was again holding forth on the steps, when, at sight of us, he interrupted his oration, and politely invited us to re-enter, and complete, free of cost, our inspection of the Albino. But Madame Thekla, pointing with stern dignity to her cloak, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... I go home?" came anxiously from small lips of the younger children. Older ones knew well that one step beyond the door they would be lost, for years of experience with blizzards and the stern directions of parents never to venture out in one was thoroughly impressed ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... where. All at once there was a cry of "Land!" and the ship struck on a bank of sand, in which she sank so deep that we could not get her off. At last we found that we must make up our minds to leave her and get to shore as well as we could. There had been a boat at her stern, but we found it had been torn off by the force of the waves. One small boat was still left on the ship's side, ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... were attached to the bow of the tug, and two to the stern. But those at the stern were not for pulling, as Joe at first supposed, for ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton

... such consideration was in his mind, I could not tell. It was not visible in his eye—nor in his features that, throughout the whole scene, preserved their stern statue-like rigidity. There was no help for it—no alternative but to shoot at him, and shoot him down—if possible, only to wing him; but, of course, a sense of my own danger rendered this last of less than ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... all thumbs to-day, Fraeulein?' Herr Schliefer would demand gloomily. Jill, who was really fond of the stern old professor, hung her head and blushed guiltily. She had no excuse to offer: her girlish dreams were sacred to her; they came gliding to her through the most intricate passages of the sonata, now with ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... 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 beheld the enemy; ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley

... and Anderson. Well, what can I do—Ha! Fighting, eh!" and the tone that had been a genial one became stern. ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him? At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and French officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how to avoid this officer's hospitality, ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens

... up the White Mountains. He was a stern old man, my father; but he was a righteous man. I remember how holy Sunday was kept in our family; how my mother cleaned us all, and put on our best clothes, and how we went to the chapel or church, I forget which they ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... stopped him with an imperious gesture. He looked rather stern, and then, as though conscious that this was not the attitude to take, ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates

... whispered the last words! A chill of awe fell over the lady of the feathers. She did not understand what he meant, and yet she felt as if he spoke the truth, as if this inexplicable mystery were yet indeed no fiction, no phantasy, but stern fact, and as if, strangely, she had at the back of her mind divined it, known it when she first knew Valentine, yet only realized it now that he himself told her. She did not speak. She only looked at him, turning white ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... suddenly small, or at least, defeated. It was really true that the whole modern world regarded his world as a bubble. No cruelty could have shown it, but their kindness showed it with a ghastly clearness. As he was brooding, he suddenly became conscious of a small, stern figure, fronting him in silence. Its eyes were grey and awful, and its ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... was a female, who had grievous ill Wrought in revenge, and she enjoy'd it still; Sullen she was, and threatening; in her eye Glared the stern triumph that she dared to ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... and weak. There is only a strange orifice in the wall, through which the traveller in distress may transmit his appeal. I fill it with incoherent sounds, and sounds more incoherent yet come back to me. I gather at last their meaning; they appear to constitute a somewhat stern inquiry. A hollow impersonal voice wishes to know what I want, and the very question paralyses me. I want everything—yet I want nothing—nothing this hard impersonality can give! I want my little corner of Paris; I want the rich, the deep, the dark ...
— The Point of View • Henry James

... out on the receding tide. It slid before the Lime Rock, blotted out Ida Lewis's little house, and passed across the turret in which the light was hung. Archer waited till a wide space of water sparkled between the last reef of the island and the stern of the boat; but still the figure in the summer-house ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... such a mahogany charmer as that! Add to all that the junior Osborne was quite as obstinate as the senior: when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in his resolution to get it; and quite as violent when angered, as his father in his most stern moments. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a point for Mrs. Colston to decide, but we'll let it drop. Out of consideration for you, I've answered your questions; but you have gone too far, and this must end." Prescott's expression grew as stern as the old man's and he looked about with pride. "I tell you it must stop! What right have you to fling these ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... light canoes, which they manage with great dexterity. They sit astride the stern, with their legs hanging down in the water, and if they cannot find any branches capable of being used as oars, they paddle with their hands. The Nouers, who inhabit this region of marsh and morass, seem to offer an illustration of the Darwinian ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... ship, and throwing up thin white volumes of spray, over which the sun's rays reflected with singular brilliancy. Nearer and nearer the boats approached the monster, the first officer's boat being a little ahead. Now the stern boat ceased pulling, and the men laid on their oars. Then the other slackened her speed, and began pulling with cautious and quiet stroke. The lookout announced that the head boat had made the whale, ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... which had no place in a Slavonic Greek-Orthodox monarchy, and which therefore ought to be combated. The Jews must be rendered innocuous, must be "corrected" and curbed by such energetic military methods as are in keeping with a form of government based upon the principles of stern tutelage and discipline. As a result of these considerations, a singular scheme was gradually maturing in the mind of the Tzar: to detach the Jews from Judaism by impressing them into a military service of a wholly ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... would have been justified in firing upon the robbers when he first perceived them in consultation at the door, still there is that feeling in a generous mind which prevents the taking away of life, except from stern necessity; and this feeling made him withhold his fire until hostilities had actually commenced. He now levelled one of the carbines at the head of the robber nearest to the door, who was busy examining the effect which the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... electric chandelier. And its Nineteenth-Century sponsor hopes that many curious and pleasant "fortunes" may be read by it; and that in its pages the ominous Spade, the mischief-working "Influencing-Card," the stern "Master-Card," the evil "Female or Male Enemy," and the "Vain and Amoratious Man" (who must be ever, indeed, a terrible combination to endure) may not be frequently encountered—in any case, that along with many other troubles and trials, such unpleasing ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson

... anything," laughed Eleanor. "Let's keep your surprise a secret from the others. It will be a delightful way to celebrate Madge's return. Do you know that we have a hundred and one things to do today?" she added, stirring her cake batter as fast as she could. "This boat must be cleaned from stem to stern. I told the boy from the farm to be here at nine o'clock this morning to scrub the deck. He hasn't put in his appearance yet. I wonder which one of us can be spared to go ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... benefactor with the confidence and tenderness of a favourite child. Now he felt that between him and the old man there arose a barrier, which became higher and stronger every day, and his heart yearned for the lost love and for a kind look from the old man, who now met his eyes with a stern and angry face. He approached him timidly, therefore, and said in ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... eyes and sneering lip of Catiline, and the veiled glance and voluptuous smile of his too seductive daughter, whirled still before him in a strange sort of human phantasmagoria, with the deep searching look of the consul orator, the wild glare of the slaughtered Volero, and the stern face, grand and proud in his last agony, of ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... high On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods against a stormy sky Their giant ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... the tee towards the flag on the green, in a hard return that hits the back line of the tennis court. But a perfect "mate" irradiates the mind with the calm of indisputable things. It has the absoluteness of mathematics, and it gives you victory ennobled by the sense of intellectual struggle and stern justice. There are "mates" that linger in the memory like ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... a magnificent gilded Bucentaur, presented to the late Duke's father by the Doge of Venice, and carved by his Serenity's most famous sculptors in wood. Tritons and sea-goddesses encircled the prow and throned above the stern, and the interior of the deck-house was adorned with delicate rilievi and painted by Tiepolo with scenes from the myth of Amphitrite. Here the new Duke seated himself, surrounded by his household, and presently the heavy craft, rowed by sixty galley-slaves, was moving slowly ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... are not chosen for their simplicity or general want of intelligence. Captain Gaultier eyed his questioner with some degree of stern suspicion as he said from ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... to men thou bringest care and toil; Yet art thou life's best, fairest spoil! O virgin goddess, for thy beauty's sake To die is delicate in this our Greece, Or to endure of pain the stern strong ache. Such fruit for our soul's ease Of joys undying, dearer far than gold Or home or soft-eyed sleep, dost thou unfold! It was for thee the seed of Zeus, Stout Herakles, and Leda's twins, did choose Strength-draining deeds, to spread abroad thy name: Smit with the love ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... sun is always shining and the roads are always dry. No stern parent rides behind, no interfering aunt beside, no demon small boy brother is peeping round the corner, there never comes a skid. Ah me! Why were there no "Britain's Best" nor "Camberwell Eurekas" to be ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... saw the face of his young comrade, and he was startled. He had never before beheld it so stern, so resolute, and so pitiless. He seemed to remember as one single, fearful picture all the ruthless and terrible scenes of the last year. Henry uttered again that cry which was at once a defiance and ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... rub your hands, pick your ears, retch, or spit too far. Don't tell lies, or squirt with your mouth, gape, pout,or put your tongue in a dish to pick dust out. Don't cough, hiccup, or belch, straddle your legs, or scrub your body. Don't pick your teeth, cast stinking breath on your lord, fire your stern guns, or expose your codware before your master. Many other improprieties a good servant will avoid.' 'Sir, pray teach me how to carve, handle a knife, and cut up birds, fish, and flesh.' 'Hold your knife tight, with two fingers ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... East and West there was no will to draw nearer. Each held apart. Those who had rebelled against that which their souls called tyranny, having struggled madly and shed blood in tearing themselves free, turned stern backs upon their unconquered enemies, broke all cords that bound them to the past, flinging off ties of name, kinship and rank, beginning with fierce disdain ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... admonitions and your stern reproofs sadly. Come back and reprove us again. Come back and admonish us once more, at so ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... heretics," was the stern reply, "and deliver you up to our Catholic Prince for punishment. ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... we had lost at the entrance of Spencer's Gulf, I contracted for a boat to be built after the model of that in which Mr Bass made his long and adventurous expedition to the strait. It was twenty-eight feet seven inches in length over all, rather flat floored, head and stern alike, a keel somewhat curved, and the cut-water and stern post nearly upright; it was fitted to row eight oars when requisite, but intended for six in common cases. The timbers were cut from the largest kind of banksia, which had been ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... much about it; it is not likely that they think very profoundly upon the social and legal questions involved; they are Abolitionists by the inexorable logic of their situation. However ignorant or thoughtless they may be, they know that they are here at the peril of their lives, facing a stern, vigilant, and relentless foe. To subdue this foe, to cripple and destroy him, is not only their duty, but the purpose to which the instinct of self-preservation concentrates all their energies. Is it to be supposed that men who, like the soldiers of the Guard, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... and imploringly at the angry lady. It was not without good reason that she concealed from her the fact of her father's captivity. The stern and inflexible Dansowich had ever viewed with an eye of disapproval the connexion between his people and the counsellors at Gradiska; and the latter, aware of this, would not have been likely to take much pains for the release of one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... man's somewhat stern features relaxed, and he sat back in his chair with a chuckle. "Do it at once," he requested, "and make it a stiff one. You know their characteristics; give it to them hard. I feel pretty sure of Cyrus, but Cornelius—" He shook his head doubtfully, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... looked up at him as though she thought he might be joking. His face had indeed undergone a change, but there was something stern, resolute, almost brutal in ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... and I was so much better out of England; and so, when people invited me, I went with them—it saved expense at home, and we are so poor, oh! you cannot know how poor;" and Daisy clasped her hands together despairingly as she gazed up at the stern face above her, which did not relax in its sternness, but remained so hard and stony that Daisy burst out impetuously: "Oh, auntie, why are you so cold to me. Why do you hate me so? I have never harmed you. I want you for my friend—mine and Bessie's; and we need ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... Stern necessity had leveled sexual and worldly distinctions, and manual labor was, at times, performed by all who were in the least physically fitted for it. All classes early became inured to makeshifts and ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... answered the captain, after a look through his glasses. "Private yacht—can't make out her name—there's a flag or something hanging over the stern. She's flying the French flag. There come the other press boats behind us, sir," he added. "And there's the Savoie just ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... determination, my words of March 4, 1933: "We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity; with a clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with a clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life. We do not distrust the future of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... exhortations to bear, to suffer, to be patient; it sorely lacks appeals to patriotism, to courage, to self-respect. "The heroes of Paganism exemplified the heroism of enterprise. Patriotism, chivalrous deeds of valour, high-souled aspirations after glory, stern justice taking its course in their hands, while natural feeling was held in abeyance—this was the line in which they shone. Our blessed Lord illustrated all virtues indeed, but most especially the passive ones. His heroism ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... these details tedious? Oh, no; she encouraged him to dilate on every feeling he expressed, till he laid bare the inmost corners of his heart to her. They spoke together of the archdeacon, as two children might of a stern, unpopular, but still respected schoolmaster, and of the bishop as a parent kind as kind could be, but powerless against ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... some height above the deck,—"and read this paper to the captains assembled." Mystified, but not yet guessing what was before him, Cumby took his seat, and, opening the paper, saw his own parody. His imploring looks were lost upon the admiral, who sat with his stern quarter-deck gravity unshaken, while the abashed lieutenant, amid the suppressed mirth of his audience, stumbled through his task, until the words were reached, "Then the Earl of St. Vincent was full of fury, and the form of his visage was ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... Sydney. The weather was wet and tempestuous but the body is delicate only when the soul is at ease. We pushed through wind and rain, the anxiety of our sensations every moment redoubling. At last we read the word 'London' on her stern. "Pull away, my lads! She is from Old England! A few strokes more, and we shall be aboard! Hurrah for a bellyfull, and news from our friends!" Such were our exhortations to ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... Harbour stretches along the distance like a mirror, and its molten silver-like appearance is broken here and there by small islands, among which Brownsea is conspicuous. Here we stood leaning over the northern battlement contemplating the face of a delightful country, smiling in peace,—from the stern and rugged ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various

... committed in the bagnios, brothels, gambling-houses, taverns, and other similar places. When, in 1396, Jean sans Peur led his Crusaders to destruction at Micopolis, their crimes and cynical debauchery scandalized even the Turks, and led to the stern rebuke of Bajazet himself, who as the monk of St. Denis admits was much better than his Christian foes. The same writer, moralizing over the disaster at Agincourt, attributes it to the general corruption of the nation. Sexual relations, he says, were an alternation of disorderly lust and ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... shall; I shall some day be revenged!" She pitched her voice still higher. "I cannot die till I have been! There is nothing that could kill me, I want my revenge so bad!" As suddenly as she had broken out, she hushed, unbarred the door, and with a stern farewell smile ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... a peace restored, we must pray that out of the epic experience of the great conflict something more than the stern negative of our victory shall be preserved for the time to come, something positive of good, something of that divine light of men's heroic sacrifice which shone out in the darkest hour, something of new strength and understanding of life ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... was calculated to harrow the feelings to the utmost. Arthur began to cry so nervously, that some considerate friend took him out, and Aunt Merce wept so violently that she grew faint, and caught hold of me. I gave her the flacon of salts, which revived her; but I felt as father looked—stern, and anxious to escape ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... inspiration while they lasted, and for a time I thought they must last as long as we did. But nothing pleasant endures forever, the bravest inspiration flickers and dies almost before we realize its flaring. The stern duty of Friday morning always haunted me in anticipation, for I have never been able to take lightly the work I do with so much difficulty, and Friday morning itself often brought even J. up with ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... the steady drum-beat of the engines, the broad swirl of water, churned into foam by the great propellers at the stern, marked their path as far back as the eye could reach. The weather was fitful, and the sky cleared somewhat toward sunset, but its light was cold, and threatening clouds hung close upon its edge. The treacherous weather predicted of the bay might be upon them soon, though as yet it ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... knights' valour with her smiles, lie just below the ramparts. Here James I lived, and James II was born, and it was a favourite residence of James III. From these walls the "Good Man of Ballangeich" made many an excursion, and here James V and James VI were indoctrinated at the feet of that stern preceptor, George Buchanan, and the seventh James and the second of England visited here in company with the future Queen Anne and the last ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... enigma," which was at that date laid before revolutionary France, and which is presented by Hugo to Tellmarch, to Lantenac, to Gauvain, and very terribly to Cimourdain, each of whom gives his own solution of the question, clement or stern, according to the temper of his spirit. That enigma was this: "Can a good action be a bad action? Does not he who spares the wolf kill the sheep?" This question, as I say, meets with one answer after another during the course of the book, and yet seems to remain undecided to the end. And something ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to me a very simple statement. Your air, in fine, is one that forces me to point out it is a statement I can permit nobody to deny." And Perion's honest eyes had narrowed unpleasantly, and his sun-browned countenance was uncomfortably stern. ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... and pious pilgrims at the shrine the sight of him might well seem to darken the fair landscape, as when a cloud suddenly blots the sun on a bright day. The dreamy blue of Italian skies, the dappled shade of summer woods, and the sparkle of waves in the sun, can have accorded but ill with that stern and sinister figure. Rather we picture to ourselves the scene as it may have been witnessed by a belated wayfarer on one of those wild autumn nights when the dead leaves are falling thick, and the winds seem to sing the dirge of the dying year. It is ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... was foreman of the composing- room, but took a hand anywhere and everywhere. A curious comment on the business acumen of the "Journal" men lies in their agreement that all should have an equal voice in the policy of the paper. Hence we infer that all were equally ignorant of the stern fact that in business nothing succeeds but one-man power. So the "Journal" went drifting on the rocks in financial foggy weather and the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... orange-peel. In two or three days the vessel was so horribly offensive as to be unbearable. THE PLAGUE HAD BROKEN OUT! We floated past the river Sobat junction; the wind was fair from the south, thus fortunately we in the stern were to windward of the crew. Yaseen died; he was one who had bled at the nose. We stopped to bury him. The funeral hastily arranged, we again set sail. Mahommed died; he had bled at the nose. Another burial. Once more ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... to the respectful greeting of the ambassador by a scarcely perceptible nod, and strode, with head erect, into the middle of the room. There he stood still, and casting a stern and almost defiant glance on the ambassador, he said in a cold, dignified tone: "You requested an audience of me in a very unusual manner. I granted it to prove to you my desire to remain at peace with France. Now speak; What has the ambassador of the Emperor of the French ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... higher up transporting the horsemen for the most part near their horses swimming beside them, in order to break the force of the current, rendered the water smooth to the boats crossing below. A great part of the horses were led across swimming, held by bridles from the stern, except those which they put on board saddled and bridled, in order that they might be ready to be used by the rider the moment ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... of the servant increased. Being a dutiful and watchful employe, his first impulse was to repel this nocturnal invasion of the house. But something in Britz's stern attitude convinced him that the unwelcome visitor would forcibly ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... swarthy face grew pale as he heard these ominous words. He knew something of the wild, stern justice of those days. He knew that more than one for an offense like his had expiated his ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... lashes—could feign to admiration all the kindling fires of voluptuousness. And yet, the burning impulses of love beat not in her frozen bosom; never could a surprise of either the heart or the senses disturb the stern and pitiless schemes of this intriguing, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... knight"—of the quill, not of the sword, albeit the letters which he writes after his name would once have indicated the possession of military rank and distinction. Sir Arthur Helps is not a man of few words or of a very stern or passionate temperament. It is the graces of chivalry, not its fiery ardor, that he cultivates and reflects, and though "arms and the man" have often been his theme, the soft and delicate strain ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... be readily persuaded to bring his boat, for an hour elapsed before he was seen rowing toward them with Bernulf lolling lazily in the stern. ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger

... mother!" I looked around at the bare walls, and down at the sanded floor, and could only bury my face in my hands and weep like a baby. What with all the day had brought, and Darthea and Jack, and now this stern old man silent, impassive, unmoved by what was shaking me like a storm,—although I loved him still for all his hardness,—I had no ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... he to get on in the world? Twenty years before he had thought less of getting on than of the interests of science or of doing good; now those ideas were gradually leaving him—life had become a stern hand-to-hand fight with hard necessity. The poor seemed to be growing poorer—the difficulty of getting a fee became greater—the ladies seemed more and more determined to show ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... the chairman of the Executive Committee seen in New Hanover County such grim and warlike activity on the part of the Democrats. The arming of the poor whites, the hiring of sterner implements of war, secret house-to-house meetings, and the stern refusal of dealers to sell a black man a deadly weapon of any description or as much as an ounce of powder meant something more than bluff. Yet so strong was the faith of Mr. Wingate in the integrity of ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... national honour sullied, an enlightened and flourishing people given over to the ferocity of ignorant savages. Though his opinions had no escaped the contagion of that political immorality which was common among his countrymen, his natural disposition seem to have been rather stern and impetuous than pliant and artful When the misery and degradation of Florence and the foul outrage which he had himself sustained recur to his mind, the smooth craft of his profession and his nation is exchanged for the honest bitterness ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... my readers will smile at the statement that a man in a boat on smooth water can pull himself across with the tiller rope! But it is a fact. If the jester had fastened the end of his rope to the stern of the boat and then, while standing in the bows, had given a series of violent jerks, the boat would have been propelled forward. This has often been put to a practical test, and it is said that a speed of two or three miles an hour may be attained. ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... swept along under the stern of the brig, each gun of their other broadside poured in its fire in succession, raking the crowded deck from end to end. A moment later, the mainmast was seen to sway, and a tremendous cheer broke from the Madras as it went over ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... work I had long ago learned to love; it warmed the blood, this constant certainty of imminent peril, this intense probability that any moment might bring a flash of flame into our very faces. Each step we took was now a stern, grim play with Fate, where the stakes were life and death. I felt my pulses throb as I rode steadily forward, fairly thrusting the darkness aside, my teeth hard set, my left hand heavy on ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... in silence. He looked at her once or twice, but her face was stern and rigid, and she would not give him even one glance. At the door she gave him her hand, with a matter-of-fact "I will say good-night now," and disappeared into her room, where she threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly; for the truth was that she was very, ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... and the use of such a major chord in the solemn minor tonalities is indicative of the superficiality of the Italian school—a desire for a change from the strict polyphonic music of the times. Even the stern ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... from their ancestors warns the Winnebagoes that their nation shall be annihilated at the close of the thirteenth generation. Ten have already passed, and that now living has appointed ceremonies to propitiate the powers of heaven, and mitigate its stern decree.[220-3] Well may they be about it, for there is a gloomy probability that the warning came from no false prophet. Few tribes were destitute of such presentiments. The Chikasaw, the Mandans of the Missouri, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Muyscas of Bogota, the Botocudos of ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... eaten the snow, we would not be able to tell the tale of the conquest of the Pole; for the result of eating snow is death. True, the dogs licked up enough moisture to quench their thirsts, but we were not made of such stern stuff as they. Snow would have reduced our temperatures and we would quickly have fallen by the way. We had to wait until camp was made and the fire of alcohol started before we had a chance, and it was with hot tea that we quenched our thirsts. The hunger for fat was ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson

... in number. Three are built of oak; stanch and firm; double-ribbed, with double stem and stern posts, and further strengthened by bulkheads, dividing each into three compartments. Two of these, the fore and aft, are decked, forming water-tight cabins. It is expected these will buoy the boats should the waves roll ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... yellow spots all over them. They called them trout, and they were beauties, really. At the shore near by the Indians were loading a large white birch bark canoe, putting their luggage along the middle lengthways, and the papooses on top. One man took a stern seat to steer, and four or five more had seats along the gunwale as paddlers and, as they moved away, their strokes were as even and regular as the motions of an engine, and their crafts danced as lightly on the water as an egg shell. They were starting for the Michigan shore some ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... 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 ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... came chiefly for love of Demosthenes and out of goodwill to the Athenians whose allies they were. These all lived on the Hellenic side of the Ionian Gulf. Of the Italiots, there were the Thurians and Metapontines, dragged into the quarrel by the stern necessities of a time of revolution; of the Siceliots, the Naxians and the Catanians; and of the barbarians, the Egestaeans, who called in the Athenians, most of the Sicels, and outside Sicily some Tyrrhenian enemies ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... aware that he had vast power, and yet used that power not for himself but for others; not for ambition, but for doing good? Surely the man who used his power for other people would be the greater-souled man, would he not? Let us go on, then, to find out more of his likeness. Would he be stern, or would he be tender? Would he be patient, or would he be fretful? Would he be a man who stands fiercely on his own rights, or would he be very careful of other men's rights, and very ready to waive his own rights gracefully and generously? ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... personalities of a disagreeable kind passed between the two friends. In the meantime Addison was dying fast. Dropsy had supervened on asthma, and the help of physicians was vain. He prepared himself, like a man and a Christian, to meet the last stern foe. He sent for Gay and asked his forgiveness for some act of unkindness he had done him. Gay granted it, although utterly ignorant of what the offence had been. He had probably, on account of his Toryism, been deprived, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... shadow of great rocks. I looked at these with something of the regret that one feels when awaking from a long dream of wonderland. I knew that they were almost the last vestiges towards the west, in the watershed of the Gironde, of the stern jurassic desert, gashed and seamed with lovely valleys, and deep gorges full of the poet's 'religious awe,' where I had spent the greater part of three long summers. And now, on the outskirts of the broad plain or gradual slope of undulating land that ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... no better fortune could, Humility, and sympathy with others' ills. ———————Ye destinies, I love you much; ye flatter not my pride. Your mien, 'tis true, is wrinkled, hard, and sour; Your words are harsh and stern; and sterner still Your purposes to me. Yet I forgive Whatever you have done, or mean to do. Beneath some baleful planet born, I've found, In all this world, no friend with fostering hand To lead me on to science, which I love Beyond all else the world could give; yet still Your rigour I ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... parlour. Bulpert announced his intention of taking charge of the musical and dramatic part of the entertainment. Bulpert no longer considered himself a visitor at Praed Street, and on one occasion he entered a stern protest when he found Mr. Trew's hat there, resting upon the peg which he considered his own. Twice he had suggested that Gertie should lend him half a sovereign, reducing the amount, by stages, to eighteenpence; but she answered ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... Schriften to get into it. The seamen approved of this arrangement, as it satisfied both parties. Philip made no objection; Schriften screamed and fought, but he was tossed into the boat. There he remained trembling in the stern-sheets, while Philip, who had seized the sculls, pulled away from the vessel in the direction of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... various motives—the unhappy accident of relationship, perhaps—have 'subscribed.' Most of us have sound unpoetic uncles. Of course, you make them buy you—in large-paper too. Have you ever gloatingly pictured their absolute bewilderment as, with a stern sense of family pride, they sit down to cut your pages? Think of the poor souls thus 'moving about ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... John seems to have been very brief. His stern puritanism brought him soon into disgrace with the government of Galilee. He was seized by Herod, thrown into prison, and beheaded. After the brief hints given as to the intercourse between Jesus and John, we next hear of Jesus alone in the desert, where, like Sakyamuni and ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... he looked out upon the park where the elms already showed a tinge of green and the ash-buds were coal black. Only the walnuts and the great oaks, some of them pollards of a thousand years of age, remained stark and stern in ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... 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

... the old Wiltshire days I picked up was from an old woman, aged eighty-seven, in the Wilton workhouse. She has a vivid recollection of a labourer named Reed, in Odstock, a village on the Ebble near Salisbury, a stern, silent man, who was a marvel of strength and endurance. The work in which he most delighted was precisely that which most labourers hated, before threshing machines came in despite the action of the "mobs"—threshing out corn with the flail. From ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson









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