"Severity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a second nothing happens. It is as though all Nature waited breathless. Then, suddenly, it is as if the Last Trump had sounded and Judgment Day set in with unusual severity. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... was an impression of bones. They rose high on her forehead; they projected on her cheeks; and they reached their boldest development in her jaws. In the cavernous eyes of this unfortunate person rigid obstinacy and rigid goodness looked out together, with equal severity, on all her fellow-creatures alike. Her mistress (whom she had served for a quarter of a century and more) called her "Bony." She accepted this cruelly appropriate nick-name as a mark of affectionate familiarity which ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... insinuating tones if she would not like to sit in papa's lap and have him tell her a story; and when the little daughter responds with a most uncompromising 'no!' turns her inducement into a threat, and remarks with severity: 'Well, be a good girl, or you will have to!' She complains, when you have kept her waiting while you were buying undersleeves, that you must have bought 'undersleeves enough for a centipede.' You ask how poor Mr. X—— ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... yielded, on condition that it should be applied in exceptional cases only. It was probably intended more to terrify citizens from playing the part of spies than to be literally enforced, which would, indeed, have been hardly possible. No real severity was used under it, but the Confederate government made it the occasion of a sort of outlawry against Pope and his army. [Footnote: It is only fair to recollect that in the following year Halleck found it necessary to repeat in substance Pope's much abused orders, and Meade, who then commanded ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... literally understood, we must a little deviate from the received sense of them. Therefore the Bolognian law, mentioned by Puffendorf[m], which enacted "that whoever drew blood in the streets should be punished with the utmost severity," was held after long debate not to extend to the surgeon, who opened the vein of a person that fell down in the street with ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... more familiar than the rows of figures in his books down-town. He fitted them to such presences as seemed to demand them as their right. He grew into a certain intimacy with the slender trimly accoutred girls who held themselves so erectly and wore their hair with such maidenly severity. They were so different in appearance from all the women he had known or seen, and from the languishing creatures in his mother's cherished Book of Beauty, that he came to look upon them as a race apart, which they ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... though somewhat weak attempts, the new Czar addressed to the Marshals of the Polish nobility at Warsaw his threatening words:—"Before all, no dreams, gentlemen!... If need be, I shall know how to punish with the utmost severity; and with the utmost severity I mean to punish!" ("Avant tout, point de reveries, messieurs!... Au besoin, je saurai ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... many might be so much purified in the furnace of punishment and adversity, as to become the ornaments of that society of which they had formerly been the bane. The vices of mankind must frequently require the severity of justice; but a wise State will direct that severity to the greatest moral and ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... hardly known. He was a soldier, legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the Church; he had all the Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor; as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... warnings against the marriage which she was on the point of consummating. The Governor seemed to have imparted something strange and untrue, with respect to my person; for I was treated this day with more suspicion and severity. For my justification, I appealed to the papers, which would be found in my room, but I was informed that search had been made and nothing found. Thus, at the close of the court, vanished all my hope; and when, on the third day, I was led again to the hall, the judgment ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman troops were familiarized with the practice ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... and in private, the national teachers expounded and kept expounding until all the children of Abraham, wherever their lots were cast, bore the Messiah in expectation, and by it literally, and with iron severity, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... from her kindness, from her affection, from that feminine bond which ought to have made her silent, she expected nothing. "Your duty, Francesca, in this matter is to me," said Mrs. Western, assuming a wonderful severity of manner. "You have known me many years and are bound to me by many ties. I tell you what my wishes are. I cannot quite explain my reasons, but I do not doubt ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... named Reeves, who had written for the affirmative, replied to him. In New England a declaration was inscribed in the register of the colony against the practice of wearing long hair, which was principally levelled at the Quakers, with unjust severity. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... she permitted to stay with the future countess. Every rough touch was resented with harsh words, blows, and ill-treatment. The smiling fairy of the drawing-room, was the harsh, grim mistress for her sister, whose every mistake was punished with unrelenting severity. In fact, she was made a very slave; and now, after long years, the remembrance of it even cast a gloomy shadow over Wilhelmine's face, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... himself, he exercised the same severity upon others, from the highest of his Officers to the least ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... here, with a general statement of the underlying principles. The practical application of these principles can be studied in the Elmira Reformatory of New York, the only prison for felons where the proposed system is carried out with the needed disciplinary severity. In studying Elmira, however, it must be borne in mind that the best effects cannot be obtained there, owing to the lack of the indeterminate sentence. In this institution the convict can only be detained for the maximum term provided in the statute for his offense. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... make canals, bridges, &c. and to drain marshes. The use of their banks, which secures money, and makes all payments easy and trade quick,—the sale by registry, which makes all purchases safe,—the severity of justice, especially with regard to forging bills,—the convoys of merchant ships, which gives trade security, the nation credit abroad, and breeds up seamen,—the lowness of their custom duties and ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... hill-tracks like cats, till we reached the summit of a detached spur where the affray had been the most violent. The enemy had almost surrounded this spur, and the numerous bodies of dead Turks lying about on the slopes and in the gullies testified to the severity of the fight; Wigram, whose experiences of the battlefield had hitherto been limited to a visit to the Western Front on a special job, was as delighted with these grim relics as a dog is who has found some ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... hanging in it, which shine with rainbow tints in the sunlight. Sometimes Christmas and the New Year find the air still genial, in spite of the short days and the long rainy nights. Strong gales may blow, but so long as they do not come from the dry east or frosty north there is no real severity ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... spectacle, I need not say, sobered me entirely, if anything was necessary to produce this effect, and increased the grave apprehensions which were already at my heart. The next consequence was to make the manner of my communication serious even to severity. A smile, which was of that doubtful sort which is always sinister and offensive, overspread her lips as she motioned me to resume the seat from which I had risen at her entrance; while she threw herself with an air of studied negligence upon one part ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... old man, changing at once from beaming benevolence to stern severity. "I'll be hanged if I do!" And he released Aunt Amanda's hand, and turned his back on the Old ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... well as their sanguinary measures, they called it "The wonder-working and the unmerciful parliament." In Edward the Third's reign, when the Black Prince was yet living, the parliament, for having pursued with severity the party of the Duke of Lancaster, was so popular, that the people distinguished it as the good parliament. In Henry the Third's time, the parliament opposing the king, was called "Parliamentum insanum," the mad parliament, because the lords came armed to insist on the confirmation ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... by the Church of Rome. Hawthorne and Whittier and Longfellow—all of them sound antiquarians, though none of them in sympathy with the theology of Puritanism—have described in fit terms the bareness of the New England meeting-house. What intellectual severity and strain was there; what prodigality of learning; what blazing intensity of devotion; what pathos of women's patience, and of children, prematurely old, stretched upon the rack of insoluble problems! What dramas of the soul were played through to ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... he was arbitrary, harsh, bad-tempered, and impulsive; he often committed acts of injustice or cruelty, for which he rarely made amends, and still more rarely seemed disturbed by remorse or regret. These traits bore hard upon individuals; but ready and unscrupulous severity was supposed to have its usefulness in a civil war. Many a time he taxed the forbearance of the President to a degree that would have seemed to transcend the uttermost limit of human patience, if Mr. Lincoln had not taken these occasions to show to the world ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... for many miles and entered the very heart of the great Indian jungle, teeming with poisonous snakes and filled with savage beasts. Here he prayed and fasted, seeking enlightenment; and he carried out his fasts with such severity that he nearly died as ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... familiarity with all the results of modern scientific research, added to his theological and philosophical acquirements, enable him, with a most admirable blending of the spirit of fairness and toleration with logical severity of treatment, to bring these different domains into their proper relation with each other and to establish between them that essential harmony in which consists the solution of these most profound and vital problems ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... controlled the minds of artists, and induced them to adopt the rounded rather than the pointed arch. Indeed, there would seem to be something peculiarly Northern in the spirit of Gothic architecture: its intricacies suit the gloom of Northern skies, its massive exterior is adapted to the severity of Northern weather, its vast windows catch the fleeting sunlight of the North, and the pinnacles and spires which constitute its beauty are better expressed in rugged stone than in the marbles of the South. Northern cathedrals do not ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the Lord's help for confessor and penitent alike. After mass, as he returned, he learned from a librarian called Seney, at the porter's lodge, as he was taking a glass of wine, that judgment had been given, and that Madame de Brinvilliers was to have her hand cut off. This severity—as a fact, there was a mitigation of the sentence—made him feel yet more interest in his penitent, and he ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... sake, take care what you say," said Dona Perfecta, in a tone of marked severity. "But excuse him, Senor Don Inocencio, for he is not aware that you have a nephew who, although he has only lately left the university, is a prodigy ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... the royalists, who disapproved of the indiscriminate severity exercised by the parliament at Winchester; and a possibility was suggested of granting indulgence to the sufferers, and at the same time satisfying those who had profited by their forfeitures. With this view a committee ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... eternal world, and belief in Christ as the only Saviour; and, lastly, as revealing the secret of the affection which these poor fellows bore to him in return. The intensity of the scrutiny which he directs on his heart, and the severity of the judgment which he seems to pass on himself, as if he had not done all he might have done for the spiritual good of this young man, show with what intense conscientiousness he tried ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... of Basildene, he made no attempt to see the place. The winter cold had set in with severity; John had little disposition to face it, and quiet and rest were far more congenial to him than any form of activity or amusement. John believed that the Sanghursts were still there, engaged in their mysterious experiments that savoured so strongly of magic. But after hearing of Raymond's bold ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... she knew, to do anything for Jane. The only thing that seemed possible to her in her simple reasoning, was to prevent such catastrophes for the future. It was not that pity was misplaced when shipwreck came, nor that charity ever failed. She understood, without being conscious of it, the ironic severity of Jesus, who would have no sudden pity and heart-searching on account of His poor. He had come into the world for righteousness and for judgment, and the judgment and righteousness both declared, not at the time of disaster or human ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... backed, we should ignore the advertisements, even if they were crowded into the same page. They might reach our eye, but they would not touch our mind. Yet there is hardly any fear that the average American reader will indulge in such severity of taste. He is quite willing to yield to the temptation of the advertising gossip with its minimum requirement of intellectual energy for its consumption. He will therefore just as readily turn ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... aggrieved yet emancipated. She had not looked for any such grave result from her vituperation. She had intended to reprove his surrender of the Parsons's contract, in direct opposition to her own wishes, with the severity it deserved, and to let him understand clearly that he was sacrificing her happiness, no less than his own, by his hysterical folly. When the conversation developed stubborn resistance on his part, and she realized that he was defending and adhering to his purpose, a righteous sense of injury ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... glancing at his father from time to time, Syd noted that there was a scratch upon his forehead, and that a bit of sticking-plaster was on one of his knuckles, proofs these of the severity ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... diversion; but seeing Bernabo there and thinking there was no need to use farther delay in the matter, he took occasion to procure the Soldan to have Ambrogiuolo and Bernabo brought before him and in the latter's presence, to extort from the former, by dint of severity, an it might not easily be done [by other means,] the truth of that whereof he vaunted himself concerning Bernabo's wife. Accordingly, they both being come, the Soldan, in the presence of many, with a stern countenance commanded Ambrogiuolo ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... me; and oh, auntie, I cannot tell you how it makes me feel to know you have kept me in your mind all these years. Let me kiss you; please," and throwing her arms around her aunt's neck. Bessie sobbed hysterically for a few moments, while the Stern face bending over her relaxed in its severity, and Miss Betsey's voice was very kind ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... great deal of trouble by so doing; but then, in all such cases, the moment that the father dies the son immediately places himself at the head of the regularly-constituted authorities of the realm, and abandons all his old companions and friends, treating them sometimes with great severity. His eyes are opened to the wickedness of making opposition to the sovereign power now that the sovereign power is vested in himself, and he disgraces and punishes his own former friends for the crime of having aided ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... doorway with an august severity of pose that would have befitted Cassandra at the porch. Her unsparing tirade had provoked an outburst of laughter, but not from Robbie. There were two other occupants of the parlor—Reuben Thwaite, who had never been ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... was severely wounded, and compelled to retire to the camp. Colonel Lewis' division having now been reinforced from the camp, pressed upon the Indians until they had fallen back in a line with Fleming's division. During this time, it being now twelve o'clock, the action continued with unabated severity. The close underwood, the ravines and fallen trees, favored the Indians; and while the bravest of their warriors fought from behind these coverts, others were throwing their dead into the Ohio, and carrying off their wounded. In their slow retreat, ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... explaining that, as nobody was supposed to be in town, nobody had been asked to meet him. In former days he had been very intimate in that house, having received from both of them much kindness, mingled, perhaps, with some touch of severity on the part of the lady. But the ground for that was gone, and Mrs. Low was no longer painfully severe. A few words were said as to his great loss. Mrs. Low once raised her eyebrows in pretended surprise when Phineas ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Estienne's knowledge of and devotion to the new Greek studies, and this tendency on his part was at once suspected as heretical by the orthodox doctors of the Sorbonne. The favor of King Francis was not at all times sufficient to protect him from persecution, and an increasing severity of censorship arose, the full force of which began to be evident in the time of his ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... this," he declared with severity. "I have tried rebuke and remonstrance here, beside your own hearth, with a perseverance which I fear has lowered the dignity of my office. I have done. I enter this house ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... be wrong to exaggerate the severity of the land. In many places the soil is fertile, as is often the case in volcanic countries, and—thanks to the Gulf Stream, which flows up to the shores of the island—the climate is a good deal more temperate than one might suppose (the average annual temperatures ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... here speak; because the amor patriae its has long since shifted to amor nummi, and naked honesty has learned the decency of dress. There have been profligates in all ages; but the world, though sometimes a severe master, ruins as many by its deceitful indulgence, as by its ill-timed severity. Good fellows are usually the worst treated by the world allowing them to go beyond their tether, and then cutting them off out of harm's way. Nothing but an earlier discipline can improve us; for so habitual is debt, that the boy who ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... and lasting work. Amusement, an excitement which stimulates the nerves instead of uplifting the spirit, is not necessary in the life of the artist. Of course one must often let oneself go, and I should be the last to defend a so-called moral discipline, or a pedantic rule of monastic severity. For a healthy, active person the joy of the daily struggle and of work performed with enthusiasm should be sufficient to beautify life, drive away fatigue and illuminate present and future. This condition of joy is brought about in us by the feeling ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... aroused by her this morning with more severity than usual. Half frightened they rolled stupidly out of their beds—Appomattox, Atlanta, and Shiloh from one, and the boys from another. Then they began to put on their clothes in the same listless, dogged, mechanical way they had learned to do everything—learned it while ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... predecessors of the ——th Cavalry in the days of the Crook campaigns, were scattered with the order files about the table. But of pictures, ornamentation, or relief of any kind the gloomy box was destitute as the dun-colored flat of the parade. Official severity spoke in every feature of the forbidding office as well as in those ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... fetched and carried my garments, and they are rapidly taking on the tinge of prevailing Island grayness. The L.D.W.'s are gentle and gay, and they love Dan'l and "Angerleek" even if she is "a furriner," and they sigh that the Deacon is "a good man, but ha'ad." His severity has driven all the older children away from home, two of them girls. (Wasn't I right about the Erring Daughters and ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... the girl, shaking her head, "you are very hopeful. For my part I sometimes feel very sad. It isn't the hard work which grieves me; on the contrary, I am often very glad of my uncle's severity, and the tasks he sets me. He was quite right to make me a peasant girl; I should perhaps have turned out badly, for, do you know, Silvere, there are moments when I fancy myself under a curse. . . . I feel, then, that ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... been demanded by the superior. I repaired to the parlour, where he stated that my licentious conduct had come to his ears; and after much upbraiding, he concluded by ordering me to submit to a severe penance. Aware that disobedience would only be followed up by greater severity, I bowed with humility in my mien, but indignation in my breast; and returning to my cell, resolved upon immediately writing for my removal to Madrid. I had not been there many minutes when the porter brought ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... the miller, with some severity. "Get the red out o' your face and let your eyes go back and don't look as though you're ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... a famous quotation from Ovid. The Latin fathers, particularly Augustine, have developed, not to say over-developed, the analysis of sin. The concept of sin never had the same significance for the Greek, and humanism has always resented the severity of the tradition that comes from Paul through Augustine and Calvin. Mr. Holmes's stimulating books on education are inspired by a theological polemic against the doctrine of original sin. He not unnaturally takes refuge in Buddhism, for ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... lie concealed the thorns; man is liable to faults and errors, and he will fail, let him be ever so careful. I have no other wish except this, and it is my earnest prayer. O my Creator, that I may ever remain in remembrance of Thee, and thus pass my nights and days! That I may not be questioned with severity on the night of death, and the day of reckoning! O God, in both worlds shower thy favours on me, through the ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... information. I asked him if he knew that his master, or accomplice, or whatever was his relation to him, absconded in my debt? He answered that he knew it well; but still pleaded a promise of inviolable secrecy as to his hiding-place. This conduct justly exasperated me, and I treated him with the severity which he deserved. I am half ashamed to confess the excesses of my passion; I even went so far as to strike him. He bore my insults with the utmost patience. No doubt the young villain is well instructed in his lesson. He knows ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... in the Memoir, though the conduct of Lord Clarendon and others towards him is severely commented upon. His letter to the King on the occasion is preserved, from which it is evident that he felt his recall deeply, but the gracious communication by which it was accompanied lessened the severity of the act, and he seems anxiously to have looked forward to his arrival in England to ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... must have the penetration to observe, that my correspondence with him hitherto is owing more to the severity I meet with, than to a very high value for him. And so I would have him think. What a worse than moloch deity is that, which expects an offering of reason, duty, and discretion, to be made to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... course means weakness and death. Whom nature loveth she chasteneth is a truth as clearly written in human history as "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth" is written in the Bible. The true attitude toward the austere, for a philosophic as for a Christian mind, is one of complacency. Every severity is intended for benefit. By wars the enormity of war is made evident. By disease the necessity for observation of the laws of health is emphasized. Even death, in the order of things, at last is a blessing, for one generation must give place to another, or the evils that Malthus feared ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... were moments, indeed, when Owen's humours must have suggested to his progenitor the gambols of an infant Frankenstein; but to Anna they were the voice of her secret rebellions, and her tenderness to her step-son was partly based on her severity toward herself. As he had the courage she had lacked, so she meant him to have the chances she had missed; and every effort she made for him helped to ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... above once in two or three years. During my residence there I had an opportunity of being an eyewitness but to one muck. The slave of a Portuguese woman, a man of the island of Nias, who in all probability had never handled an opium pipe in his life, being treated by his mistress with extreme severity for a trifling offence, vowed he would have revenge if she attempted to strike him again, and ran down the steps of the house with a knife in each hand, as it is said. She cried out, mengamok! The civil guard was called, who, having the power ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... because the men have already got outfits?-Yes. They could not take lads who are insufficiently clothed; while the men are better clothed, and are more able to stand the severity of the climate. That fishing used to be a nursery for our young men, bringing them up to be able to take their position in the merchant service; but now it is ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... high. Under its vigorous stimulus the May-pole and the Yule-log were alike branded as heathenish observances, the Christmas-pie became a "pye of abomination," and all amusements, from the drama to bear-baiting, were censured with impartial severity. Feast-days were abolished, and even to display the emblems of the Nativity was held to be sedition. The Established Church, cowed and shorn of its splendor, was treated with surly contempt; the Catholics were altogether beyond the pale of charity. It was not a time calculated ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... serve as homes for the French peasantry. Treated thus, the features of the children coarsened; their voices grew harsh; they mortified their mother's vanity, and that made her strive to correct their bad habits by a sternness which the severity of their father converted through comparison to kindness. As a general thing, they were left to run loose about the stables and courtyards of the inn, or the streets of the town; sometimes they were whipped; sometimes they were sent, to get rid of them, to their grandfather ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I have delivered up to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme."[1] The Apostle is evidently influenced in his action by the Gospel. The one-time Pharisee no longer dreams of punishing the guilty with the severity of the Mosaic Law. The death penalty of stoning, which apostates merited under the old dispensation,[2] has been changed into a ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... a punishment which would teach him for the future to keep a civil tongue in his head, and make him endeavor to assume in future, at least the outward deportment of a gentleman. The going armed into such an assembly should however be promptly visited with a penalty of the extremest severity. It is time that the North freed itself entirely of these Southern 'dead rabbits' of the Saulsbury stamp, and indicated by every means in its power its determination to progress in the path of justice, order, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... ingratiating smirk he always put on when going to meet a prospective customer. At the sight of his ward standing in the middle of the floor, however, he started, and then his face assumed a look of forbidding severity. ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... few crimes that the Government looks on with such severity as counterfeiting. To apprehend a counterfeiter they will go to any lengths and spend any amount of money. So I received permission to rent this apartment. It gave me the advantage of not only being right in the building ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... the serpent. In the meantime Lady Anna by no means intended to allow the secret to pass her lips. Whether she ever could tell her mother, she doubted; but she certainly would not do so an hour too soon. "Why is it too late?" demanded the Countess, repeating her question with stern severity of voice. ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... dissolve in emotion is contrasted unfavorably with Yorick's method, the affected style is condemned, yet it is admitted that the work promises better things from its talented author; his power of observation and his good heart are not to be unacknowledged. The severity of the review is directed ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... words bring me to Mr. Kingsley's method of disputation, which I must criticise with much severity;—in his drift he does but follow the ordinary beat of controversy, but in his mode of arguing he ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... influence of his patron Li Hung Chang, he was at length appointed in command of the Hsiaochan camp near Tientsin, where he was promoted and given the task of reforming a division of old-style troops and making them as efficient as Japanese soldiery. He had already earned a wide reputation for severity, for willingness to accept responsibility, for nepotism, and for a rare ability to turn even disasters to his own advantage—all attributes which up to the last moment stood him ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... the following year, refusing to leave it till he had annihilated its armies and rased its walls to the ground, then, no doubt, Israel, Judah, the Philistines, Edom, and Ammon, seeing it fully occupied in its own defence, might have forgotten the ruthless severity of Hazael, and have plucked up sufficient courage to struggle against the Damascene yoke; as it was, Bamman-nirari did not return, and the princes who had, perhaps, for the moment, regarded him as a possible deliverer, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... punished his inferiors. The general had said: "One does not go to war in order to amuse oneself, and to caress prostitutes." And Graf von Farlsberg, in his exasperation, made up his mind to have his revenge on the district, but as he required a pretext for showing severity, he sent for the priest and ordered him to have the bell tolled at the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... adorable daughter, and the offensive Count Siccatif de Courtray. Greatly to his relief, his reception was in the usual form: Madame Carthame conducted herself after the fashion of a well-bred iceberg; Rose endeavored to mitigate the severity of her parent's demeanor by her own affability; the Count, as much as possible, ignored his presence. Jaune could not repress a sigh of relief. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... wine, and set out on the expedition in high spirits. The vessel in which he embarked had just been repainted, and he had scarcely got out of British waters before he was seized with a sudden and painful illness, presumed to have been, induced by the odour of the fresh paint. The severity of his seizure was such as to necessitate his immediate return. Upon landing at Torbay, not far from his home, he was taken very much worse, and died within a few hours. He was buried in a little chapel on his own estates, and the tablet in Exeter Cathedral was shortly ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... them the servants, whose duty it was to be on night watch in the garden, and other domestics as well, they visited each place on their round. Such was the control exercised by these three inmates that signs were not wanting to prove that greater severity was observed than in the days when the management devolved on lady Feng. To this reason must be assigned the fact that all the servants attached inside as well as outside cherished a secret grudge against ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... who carp at my writings, and disdain to read trifles of this kind, endure with some small patience this little book, while I smooth down the severity of your brow, and Aesop comes forward in a new and ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... contemplation, to lay as much stress as he ought on the practical consequences of things. His habitual principles of action are unhinged and out of joint with the time. His conduct to Ophelia is quite natural in his circumstances. It is that of assumed severity only. It is the effect of disappointed hope, of bitter regrets, of affection suspended, not obliterated, by the distractions of the scene around him! Amidst the natural and preternatural horrors of his situation, he might be excused in delicacy ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... bankrupt is an honest man, and recovers himself, he will pay you," Ragon would say. "If he is without means and simply unfortunate, why torment him? If he is a scoundrel, you will never get anything. Your known severity will make you seem uncompromising; it will be impossible to negotiate with you; consequently you are the one who will get paid as long as there ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... influence of range on the severity of the injuries inflicted; I am not able to confirm the greater danger of short range, except in so far as there is no doubt that more shock attends such injuries, and possibly some of the most severely wounded were killed outright as a direct consequence of ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... we repeat our conviction that Arabella has been fortunate in her husband. To be sure, she is fretful, discontented, peevish, irritable, cross; but that is her normal condition. At times Hiram has treated her with severity, but never cruelty. He has borne quietly and with patience what would have set most husbands frantic; and has contented himself with remaining silent, when many would have been tempted to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... or blame the poor Jews for not wishing to give up their gold? Gold was to them a condition of existence, their future, their happiness, their family. Gold enabled some of them to raise themselves from the dust and degradation to which the cruel severity of Christian charity had condemned them, and to indulge in human aspirations, human happiness, and human feelings. Only those among them who possessed wealth were tolerated, and dared hope by strenuous industry, ceaseless activity, ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... the occasion. Raising his glass, he said, "Madam, may I be permitted to drink your health and to thank you for your hospitality." Madam smiled blandly, in no wise inconvenienced by the severity of the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... of man from this source are almost incredible. In some severe cases, the numbers contained in human bodies have been estimated by reliable authorities to be as high as forty to sixty millions. Not long ago, the writer was impressed with the severity of this disease by having brought to his attention an epidemic in a herd of swine caused, presumably, by feeding waste which contained rinds of Western pork, infected with trichinae and many examples may be found of regular epidemics caused by persons eating raw ham infected with ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... and composed, with an almost English austerity. The first growth of the Pointed style in England—the hard "early English" of Canterbury—is indeed the creation of William, a master reared in the architectural school of Sens; and the severity of his taste might seem to have acted as a restraining power on all the subsequent changes of manner in this place—changes in themselves for the most part towards luxuriance. In harmony with the atmosphere of its great church is the cleanly quiet ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... areas, it is thought better to sow the seed without a nurse crop, in order that the plants may have all the benefit from moisture and sunlight which it is possible to give them. This is specially desirable when the fear is present that they may succumb the first winter to the severity of the weather. As weeds grow rapidly along with the plants, the mower should be run over the field from one to three times during the season. If the mowing is done at the proper time, it will not be necessary to remove what has been cut off by the mower. It may be allowed to lie as a mulch on ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... you," he announced, and she sought to reply with great severity, but delight broke through that affectation and riddled it ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... chair, Luke Claridge seemed a part of its dignified severity. In the sparsely furnished room with its uncarpeted floor, its plain teak table, its high wainscoting and undecorated walls, the old man had the look of one who belonged to some ancient consistory, a judge whose piety would march with an austerity that would save a human soul by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... proclamation was probably, above all, to prevent a revolt in Russian Poland the moment hostile troops invaded it. On the Austrian Poles the manifesto seems to have failed to produce its effect. As these Poles enjoy full autonomy in Galicia, and for a century have witnessed the severity and cruelty with which their kinsmen in Russian Poland have been oppressed, they received the proclamation with loud vows of faithfulness to the house of Hapsburg; nay, all the sokol societies which in time of peace (keeping a decision in view) had trained their members in games and the use ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... wish for a nearer Enjoyment of them; but even her Smiles carry in them a silent Reproof to the Impulses of licentious Love. Thus, tho the Attractives of her Beauty play almost irresistibly upon you and create Desire, you immediately stand corrected not by the Severity but the Decency of her Virtue. That Sweetness and Good-humour which is so visible in her Face, naturally diffuses it self into every Word and Action: A Man must be a Savage, who at the Sight of Emilia, is not more inclined to do her Good than gratifie ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... examples: shaw and lore, and I think maw, are truly obsoletes, while hoar and daw are heard only in combination. Awe is heard only in awful, and has there lost its significance. I should guess that this accident has strengthened its severity in literature, where it asserts its aloofness sometimes with a full spelling [aweful] as in speech two pronunciations are recognized, ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... habits, and resources of the people visited, and the productions of the country, may be recorded in writing. The sailors were to offer no violence to the natives, but to act towards them with courtesy. All blasphemy and swearing was to be punished with severity, and also drunkenness. The religious exercises are prescribed, prayers are to be said morning and evening, and the Holy Scriptures are to be read once in the day. Cabot ends by recommending union and concord ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... remark. Facetious bystanders inquired sarcastically whether that thing were expected to carry more than one,—plainly implying by labored emphasis that it would occasionally be seen tenanted by even less than that number. Transcendental friends inquired, with more refined severity, if the proprietor expected to meditate in that thing? This doubt at least seemed legitimate. Meditation seems to belong to sailing rather than rowing; there is something so gentle and unintrusive in gliding effortless beneath overhanging branches and along the trailing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the door opened, and a girl looked in. She hesitated a moment, then entered, and going up to Schwarz, asked him something in a low voice. He nodded an assent, nodded two or three times, and with quite another face; its hitherto unmoved severity had given way to an indulgent friendliness. She laid her hat and jacket on the table, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... absence has not been made public. Take back the protection you have abandoned. I will not ask your confidence, only be honest and truthful with my mother. She loves you. She is forgiving as the angels. Her beautiful virtues will redeem you, Lina. She is too magnanimous for severity, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... pagans, he was present at the same time at all the meetings of Christians, endowing all with the spirit of strength and prudence by which he was animated. Slaves, in particular, were persecuted with singular severity. Many of them, seized with fright, denied the faith. Others, and by far the greater number, fled to the desert, hoping to live there, either as hermits or robbers. Ahmes, however, frequented the meetings as usual, visited the prisoners, ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... Norwich, he was again sent to the Grammar School, under the Rev. Edward Valpy, called by Dr. Knapp "a severe master," by Mr. Walling "a martinet," whose "principal claims to fame," says Mr. Jenkins, "are his severity, his having flogged the conqueror of the 'Flaming Tinman,' and his destruction of the School Records of Admission, which dated back to the sixteenth century." Against this chorus of denunciation, I will quote from a letter the late Dr. Martineau wrote me ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... kidnap the young king, who had returned to quell the disturbance, the six earls were reconciled to him; and in the same year he subdued another rising in Galloway, and yet another in Moray. The subjugation of Moray is said to have been carried out with the greatest severity. According to Fordun[25] the king "removed the rebel nation of Moray men and scattered them throughout the other districts of Scotland, both beyond the hills and this side thereof," though Robertson in ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... of the Pentrian Samnites, by far the most opulent of their cities, and the most powerful both in men and arms. The soldiers, stimulated by the hope of plunder, for their resentment was not so violent, soon made themselves masters of the town: where there was less severity exercised on the enemy; but a quantity of spoil was carried off, greater almost than had ever been collected out of all Samnium, and the whole was liberally bestowed on the assailants. And when neither armies, camps, or cities could now withstand the vast superiority of the Romans in arms; the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... and at the same time filled with a strange fear by the cold coquetry with which this magnificent woman draped her charms in her furs of dark sable; by the severity and hardness which lay in this cold marble-like face. Again I took my pen in hand, and wrote ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... Don't you know what impish is?" exclaimed Uncle Andy. He thought a moment, and then, finding it a little difficult to explain, he added with convenient severity: ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner's severity that I was almost afraid to see her, and trembled when I went into her presence. I had not lived with her many weeks, however, before I began to understand her. I soon began to learn that, first of all, she wanted ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... more," he averred, with as near an approach to severity as one of his characteristics could compass. "I don't wish to make or meddle to the extent of telling Polly what I have heard and what you have admitted. But in justice to her and to me, you should be man enough to stay away from the house and let ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... tiresome falsity of the dithyramb in history. Wordsworth might well wish that some dramatic tale, endued with livelier shapes and flinging out less guarded words, might set forth the lessons of his experience. The material was fitting. The story of these three Books has something of the severity, the self-control, the inexorable necessity of classic tragedy, and like classic tragedy it has a noble end. The dregs and sour sediment that reaction from exaggerated hope is so apt to stir in poor natures had no place ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... themselves at the expense of the people. The rigid discharge of duty which he has required of the police under his charge, and the avoidance, at the same time, of everything like oppression, or the exercise of undue severity in office, have received ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... way first with fear and delicacy, as conscious of our own delinquency, to gather judgments which should be wiser than our own, and correct ourselves, if it proved that we required correction, with whatever severity might be necessary. The result of which labour of ours was not a little surprising; we found that women invariably, with that clear moral instinct of theirs, at once utterly reprobated and detested our poor Reynard; detested the hero and detested the bard who sang of him with so much sympathy; ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... them. Although the Afghans were strongly posted, they were quickly put to flight. From this period up to the 7th of March the troops remained all night long accoutred and ready for action. In consequence of the severity of the weather, the British could not again quit the city to punish the enemy, who swarmed around and plundered the neighbouring villages. At length the position became so dangerous, that early in March every Afghan was expelled from the city, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the situation at once pulled Frank away from his books. Again he took complete charge of the little group. He was a natural disciplinarian, as they had learned at the time of the wreck. Now his sense of responsibility developed a severity that was almost austerity. He kept them constantly at work. In private the others chafed at his tone of authority. But in his presence they never failed of respect. Besides, his remarkable unselfishness ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... thwacks with a thong: 'tis certain that at every thwack the thong took an airing before it descended upon him. Then loosed they him, to wander whither he listed; and disgust was strong in him by reason of the disgrace and the severity of the administration of the blows. He strayed along the streets in wretchedness, and hunger increased on him, assailing him first as a wolf in his vitals, then as it had been a chasm yawning betwixt his trunk and his lower members. And he thought, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... down the Tarpeian rock With rigorous hands: he hath resisted law, And therefore law shall scorn him further trial Than the severity of the public power, Which ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... capitalist system of which it is a part, has exhausted its constructive role of building the industries. It is now obsolete and gradually sinking into decay. Industrial crises follow each other with increasing severity and the masses are becoming more and more pauperized. The growth of fascism and war is the attempt of this outworn capitalist system to keep in existence although history has imperatively summoned it to leave the stage and to make way for ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio
... also be that France and Belgium are preparing for a guerrilla warfare upon our troops. If the latter alternative should prove true, and this proof be strengthened through repetitions of these occurrences, then our opponents will have themselves to thank if this war be carried on with unrelenting severity even against the guilty population. The German troops, who are accustomed to preserve discipline and to wage war only against the armed forces of the hostile State, cannot be blamed if, in just self-defense, they give no quarter. The hope of influencing the result of the war by turning loose ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... in his brain an arsenal of opposites. He should combine common sense with tact, integrity with indulgence, breadth with keenness, vigor with delicacy, largeness with subtlety, knowledge with geniality, inflexibility with sinuousness, severity with suavity; and, that all these counter qualities be effective, he will need constant culture and vigilance, besides the union of reason with warmth, of enthusiasm with self-control, of wit with philosophy,—but hold: at this rate, in order to fit out the critic, human ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... and honesty, with a natural indulgence for human weaknesses, an obliging sweetness, and the imprudent kindness of an easy heart—by all of which men are often induced to do inconsiderate things and expose themselves to the severity of the futile ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... Mrs. Alexander was sitting at her escritoire, making up her weekly accounts and entering in her poultry-book the untimely demise of the Leghorn cock. She was a lady of secret enthusiasms which sheltered themselves behind habits of the most business-like severity. Her books were models of order, and as she neatly inscribed the Leghorn cock's epitaph, "Killed by hounds," she could not repress the compensating thought that she had never seen Freddy's dark eyes and olive complexion look so well as when he had tried ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... whispered to each other, and smiled. The prisoner could not see anything to laugh at, and frowned at them. Then the magistrate came in, rubbing one of his hands over the other, glanced at the prisoner as he passed, and withered him with a look of virtuous severity. He was our Black Wednesday magistrate, and was death on criminals. When he had taken his seat on the bench, I opened the court, and called the first and only case. It was not often we had a man to sit on, and we sat heavily on this one. ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... I had refused to teach in the Sunday school she had regarded me with much head-shaking and severity. To her I was simply a frivolous, uninteresting young person, too headstrong to be guided. She always spoke pityingly of "your poor sister Esther" to Carrie, as though I were in a lamentable condition. I know she had heard of Flurry's doll, her ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... who was a Marshal of many years' standing, and with whom he had never had any previous difference, Mr Dorrit comported himself with severity. That officer, on personally tendering his congratulations, offered the free use of two rooms in his house for Mr Dorrit's occupation until his departure. Mr Dorrit thanked him at the moment, and replied that he would ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... capital. These, however, failed to produce any tangible result. Their gifts were accepted, and their representatives were accorded a more or less gratifying reception; but there was no mitigation of the severity shown by the local mandarins, and, for all practical purposes, the money expended on these missions was as good as thrown away. The Portuguese succeeded in obtaining an improvement in their lot only by combining their naval forces with those of the Chinese in punishing ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... had furnished us during the night, we should have died of thirst; as it was, we suffered much. From the feeling of the atmosphere, Fairburn prognosticated that we were about to be visited by a storm of unusual severity. The pirates seemed to think the same, for they lowered their sails, which were indeed useless; and putting the heads of the vessels seaward, endeavoured to obtain a good ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... all things is a woman who is temperate, domestic, a good house-keeper, a rearer of children; one to gladden you when in health, to tend you when sick; to be your partner in good fortune, to console you in misfortune; to restrain the frenzied nature of the youth and to temper the superannuated severity of the old man. Is it not a delight to acknowledge a child bearing the nature of both, to nurture and educate it, a physical image and a spiritual image, so that in its growth you yourself live again? Is it not most blessed on departing from life to leave behind a successor ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... large villages, Major St. John found the whole road to Deh Bakri from Kerman as desert and dreary as any in Persia. On the other hand, the more direct route to the south, which is that always used except in seasons of extraordinary severity (such as that of Major Smith's journey, when this route was impassable from snow), answers better, as described to Major St. John by muleteers, to Polo's account. The first six days are occupied by a gentle ascent through ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of establishing a cognition which is to extend its rule beyond the limits of experience—a cognition which is one of the highest interests of humanity; and thus is proved the futility of the attempt of speculative philosophy in this region of thought. But, in this interest of thought, the severity of criticism has rendered to reason a not unimportant service, by the demonstration of the impossibility of making any dogmatical affirmation concerning an object of experience beyond the boundaries of experience. She has thus ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... as I could judge it was very good tea, but it would never do to accept the first sample offered; I must let the shopman see that he was up against one of the mandarins of the trade. So I said with severity, "Please don't show me any more common stuff; I want ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... apron. "Weary Davidson, how long have you been standing there? I believe you'd come straight down from the sky or straight up from the ground, if you could manage it. You seem capable of doing everything except coming by the trail like a sensible man." This with severity. ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... been so unattractive; her dark eyes were good and her face held the glow of fine health. She had added to the severity of her sharp features by the too-elderly manner in which she parted her hair exactly in the centre of her high brow and brushed it sharply backward to a scant knot behind. She wore constantly an expression of one who was well aware of the fact that vast and vague duties to the dead as well as ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... at first been so much embarrassed by the fear of betraying what she felt she ought not to feel, and she was now so shocked by what she thought his dishonourable conduct, that she repeated almost in a tone of severity—"Certainly, Mr. Beauclerc, you ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... folly." If, however, Mr. Johnson lamented that the nearer he approached to his own times, the more enemies he should make, by telling biographical truths in his "Lives of the Later Poets," what may I not apprehend, who, if I relate anecdotes of Mr. Johnson, am obliged to repeat expressions of severity, and sentences of contempt? Let me at least soften them a little by saying that he did not hate the persons he treated with roughness, or despise them whom he drove from him by apparent scorn. He really ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... richness of its drapery and ornaments. A pearl or diamond necklace or a blushing bouquet excuses the liberal allowance of undisguised nature. We expect from the fine lady in her brocades and laces a generosity of display which we should reprimand with the virtuous severity of Tartuffe if ventured upon by the waiting-maid in her calicoes. So the poet reveals himself under the protection of his imaginative and melodious phrases,—the flowers and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... middling parts I had, and others may be still more sensible of it. How do I know but I am superannuated? nobody will be so coarse as to tell me so; but if I published dotage all the world would tell me so. And who but runs that risk who is an author after severity? What happened to the greatest author of this age, and who certainly retained a very considerable portion of his abilities for ten years after my age Voltaire, at eighty-four, I think, Went to Paris to receive the incense, in person, of his countrymen, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the battle of the Marne because of the lack of any other name to give it, but the battle took place over a period of some thirty odd days and covered a considerable region, much of which was far away from the Marne. He informed us that the fresh troops who have not before experienced the severity of battle go into a desperate fight with the greatest valor and heroism; that after troops have seen a long session of fighting, and have been through the hardships of many engagements they lose, and he thinks it is natural ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... severity according to the crime. The process was precisely the same as at Eton. Partially denuded of his nether garments, the victim knelt upon the block, the monitor standing at his head. The birches were kept in a long box which served as a settee, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... the classics and mathematics, which imparted a classic and mathematical rigidity to the whole structure. The professor was an oracle, backed by oracular textbooks; the student's activity was restricted by a traditional association of learning with self-restraint and outward severity of life. The revolutionary change came with the marvelous development of the natural sciences, compelling radical readjustments of thought both within and without the college, the quickening of the social life about the campus, and the sharp ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... bagatelle; and the magnitude of the prize is to be set off in contrast to the price which it cost. Some of the regiments employed, however, were destined to suffer severely from the effects of their visit to Cuba; for, being sent to New York, the severity of a North-American winter was too much for constitutions that had been subjected for months to the heats of the tropics. They were Irishly decimated, losing about nine-tenths of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... set he had left the school. Ameni gave him his blessing; he told him that if he himself ever had to command he would understand his severity, and allowed the other scholars to accompany him as far as the Nile. Pentaur parted from him tenderly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... their regular appointments, but spoke in the prisons, asylums; even the deaf and dumb were refreshed with the gospel of woman suffrage. The press, too, was generally favorable, though the opposition magnified the occasional adverse criticisms out of all proportion to their severity and number. Towards the last of September Miss Anthony, by invitation of Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Bliss of Grand Rapids, came into the State and remained until election day. She often brought down the house with her witty comments on the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... citizens. You have to pay heavy contributions towards the public service, keeping horses and furnishing choruses in peace times and in war bearing the expense of maintaining triremes and paying the special war taxes; and if you fail to do all this, they will punish you with as much severity as if you were caught ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... August Naab's assertion, he had lost flesh and suffered, and though the process was heartbreaking in its severity, he hung on till he hardened into a leather lunged, wire-muscled man, capable of ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... The identification, for instance, of the dead after a big battle. Others are subject to doubt, unless you insert "lorsque les circonstances le permettent, s'il se peut, si possible, s'il-y-a necessite," or the like. This will give them that elasticity without which the bitter severity of actual warfare ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... this time mainly rested, had hoped that a refusal of the oath of allegiance would give grounds for a war of extermination and free Scotland for ever from its dread of the Highlanders. He had provided for the expected refusal by orders of a ruthless severity. "Your troops," he wrote to the officer in command, "will destroy entirely the country of Lochaber, Locheil's lands, Keppoch's, Glengarry's, and Glencoe's. Your powers shall be large enough. I hope the soldiers ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... indulgent Being, perhaps, but not necessarily a more merciful one, Elisabeth. I disagree with the Puritans on many points, but I can not help admitting that their conception of God was a fine one, even though it erred on the side of severity. The Pagan converted the Godhead into flesh, remember; but the Puritan exalted ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... person: he felt uncommon satisfaction in having a share in tormenting her, and was particularly pleased with the scheme he had contrived to separate her from a rival, upon the very point perhaps of being made happy. Thus fortified as he was against his natural tenderness, with all the severity of jealous resentment, he saw her depart with an indifference which he did not even endeavour to conceal from her: this unexpected treatment, joined to the complication of her other misfortunes, had almost in reality plunged ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the consciousness of the Americans that the war which they were waging was a war for the liberty of all the nations of the world, for freedom itself, they thanked God for giving them strength to endure the severity of the trial to which He put their sincerity, and nerved themselves for their duty with an inexorable will. The President was led along by the greatness of their self-sacrificing example; and as a child, in a dark night, on a rugged way, catches hold of the hand of its father for guidance ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... earldom should remain in the hands of his family; but an angry man does not reason, and Tostig's fury was roused to the highest point by the outspoken utterances of many of the members of the Witenagemot. These boldly accused him of cruelty and avarice, and declared that many of his acts of severity were caused by his determination, under a show of justice, to possess himself of the wealth of those he condemned. Tostig then rose and declared before the assembly that the whole rising was ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... into which the Somal about Berberah had fallen, and prided themselves highly upon their respect for the rights of meum and tuum, so completely disregarded by the Western States. But this virtue may arise from the severity of their chastisements; mutilation of the hand being the usual award to theft. Moreover Lieutenant Speke's Journal does not impress the reader highly with their honesty. And lastly, I have found the Habr Awal at Berberah, on the whole, a ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... usual, was a day of rest from labour; the services were read by Mr Campbell, and the evening passed in serious conversation. Mr Campbell, although usually in good spirits, was certainly not so on that evening. Whether it was that the severity of the winter which had set in and the known long duration of it which they had to encounter had an effect upon his spirits, he was melancholy as well as serious. He more than once referred to their former residence when in England, which was a very unusual thing for him to do, and by degrees the ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... Mr. Wilton, owner of Wilton Chase, and the master, not only of his extensive property, but of poor timid Miss Nelson and of wondering Ermengarde. Mr. Wilton could be the jolliest of companions if he pleased, but he also could be stern, with a severity which Basil inherited. At such times his face was scarcely prepossessing. He came of a proud race, and pride, mixed with an almost overbearing haughtiness of manner, made him a person to be dreaded ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... a barbarous entertainment, but which they considered to be quite a royal one. For they slaughtered an animal much resembling a wild ass, and set before our men half-roasted steaks of it, but no other food or drink. Our men had to cover themselves at night with skins, on account of the severity of the wind ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... McNish. "On the Sawbath! Man, d'ye think he's a heathen, then?" Mrs. McNish regarded the man before her with severity. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... our acquaintance with the urbane Frenchman to join his party; the conversation turned almost entirely on literary subjects. Allusion being made to Schlegel's History of Literature, and the severity with which he speaks of Helvetius, and the philosophers of his school, we began to discuss what harm the free-thinkers in ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... some it may seem severe that he had to be killed, but the severity in this case crushed out the crime. None dare imitate him for fear of suffering ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... bill in Dovermarle Street, including fees to several servants whom I knew by sight, and several others whose acquaintance I made for the first time at the moment of departure, I glanced at my ebbing letter of credit and felt a season of economy setting in upon me with unusual severity; accordingly, I made an experiment of coming third-class to Belvern. I handed the guard a shilling, and he gave me a seat riding backwards in a carriage with seven other women, all very frumpish, but highly respectable. As he could not possibly have done any worse for me, I take it ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... seem a severe indictment if it were incapable of proof, but having been proved by incontrovertible evidence its severity cannot be mitigated. We can only grieve that the facts are as they are and ardently hope for a speedy change. The chief obstacle in the way of improvement is the complacency of the teacher. Habits tend to persist, and if she has contracted the habit of much speaking, she thinks her ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... property-owners alleging that a fire which had destroyed some of the buildings had originated from sparks from a locomotive. The Weather Bureau records, however, showed that there was a brisk wind blowing directly from the property to the railroad. Of course, all damages incurred in storms of unusual severity, such as the St. Louis tornado or the Galveston Flood, would be ignored in a court of law, as they would come under the head of unavoidable happenings of 'the act of Providence,' a well-known legal phrase. In all matters connected ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler |
