"Sober" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... working man is really a most sober, hard-working being, not much given to dancing, and not at all to drinking. They are exceptionally clever and sharp, and learn any new trade with great facility. They are, as a rule, exceedingly honest—perfect gentlemen in their manners, and the lowest labourer has ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... had so many palpable marks, that he had fairly earned the nickname which, as it afterward appeared, the western adventurers had given HIM, as well as his ABODE, wherever the last might be, that no one of decently sober habits could readily fancy anything belonging to him. At any rate, the bee-hunter now led the way into his cabin, whither he was followed without unnecessary ceremony, by all three of ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... was called—began to prevail; and, among the different modes in which it exhibited itself, it is especially noticed that tea[1] was now introduced, and began to share with coffee the privileges of affording sober refreshment to those who aspired in their different ways to give the tone to ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... on the other hand, is sober, severe and roughly barked—clothed with silence and gravity, smiling but once a year—the day he has cheated a good man of the plain; he does not please so much at first sight: but if in any danger, if you are surprised by a hurricane, surrounded with ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... have not set myself to remove it, first, because I never have had an opening to speak, and, next, because I never saw in them the disposition to hear. I have wished to appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. When shall I pronounce him to be himself again? If I may judge from the tone of the public press, which represents the public voice, I have great reason to take heart at this time. I have been treated by contemporary critics in this controversy with great fairness and gentleness, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... palace itself is a fine specimen of the chaste old English style; but the most conspicuous, the most unfading feature, was the cathedral itself, which formed the boundary of one-half of the garden; a mass of sober magnificence, rising in calm repose against the sky, which, to my awe-struck gaze and childish imagination, seemed to rest upon its exquisitely formed spire. Seated on the grass, busying my fingers with the ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... credulous and thirsty was evidenced by the fact that he let Barney come within reach of his gun. Instantly the drunken Austrian was transformed into a very sober and active engine of destruction. Seizing the barrel of the piece Barney jerked it to one side and toward him, and at the same instant he leaped for the throat of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they sober and heal us. These are plain pleasures, kindly and native to us. We come to our own, and make friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would persuade us to despise. We never can part with it; the ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... had drunk too much cider," said Lady Eleanor severely; "he should have kept sober or stuck to the road, and then he would not have brought back foolish stories about pixies and witches. I wonder that you ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... Upton grew sober and extended both hands palms upward. "I've been thinkin' about it while I was workin' here. She's got to have clothes. I shouldn't wonder if some o' my customers had things they could let us have. Once your mother would 'a' been my ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... the chaste beauties of my story, which isn't mine," returned the dreamily smiling Mr. Burt. "Here it is, boiled down. Guest on an anchored yacht returning late, sober, through the mist. Wharf-gang shooting craps in a pier-shed. They size him up and go to it; six of 'em. Knives and one gun: maybe more. The old game: one asks for the time. Another sneaks up behind and gives ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the imperious Townsends who terrorized everybody. David Townsend terrorized nobody. He had gotten his little competence from his store by honest methods—the exchanging of sterling goods and true weights for country produce and country shillings. He was sober and reliable, with intense self-respect and a decided talent for the management of money. It was principally for this reason that he took great delight in his sudden wealth by legacy. He had thereby greater opportunities for the ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... Visire declared himself to be distinctly anticlerical but ready to respect all creeds; he asserted that he was a sober-minded reformer. Paul Visire and his colleagues desired reforms, and it was in order not to compromise reform that they proposed none; for they were true politicians and knew that reforms are compromised the moment they are proposed. The government was well received, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... being affected was considered as one of the manly virtues. The games of foot-ball on Sundays, with the challenges to the neighbouring parishes, were resumed, bringing in an influx of riotous strangers to fill the public-houses, and make the more sober-minded inhabitants long for good Mr. Grimshaw's stout arm, and ready horsewhip. The old custom of "arvills" was as prevalent as ever. The sexton, standing at the foot of the open grave, announced that the "arvill" would be held at the Black Bull, or whatever public-house ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... left off to watch and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the Word, and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and He is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not forget and forgive—with us—much occasional conduct on his part that appears not only inexplicable, but incomprehensible? But we cannot extend the same indulgence to Summer and to Autumn. SUMMER is a season come to the years of discretion, and ought to conduct himself like a staid, sober, sensible, middle-aged man, not past, but passing, his prime. Now, Summer, we are sorry to say it, often behaves in a way to make his best friends ashamed of him—in a way absolutely disgraceful to a person of his time of life. Having picked a quarrel with the Sun—his benefactor, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... taken with intent from the more sober and reputable journals, summarize the prevailing attitude on one side or the other throughout the months from June to December, 1861. All publications had much to say of the American struggle and varied in ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... conceived that her experiences were mere subjective hallucinations, caused by fasting, by the sound of church-bells, and so on. As to the noise of bells, Coleridge writes that their music fell on his ears, 'MOST LIKE ARTICULATE SOUNDS OF THINGS TO COME.' Beaupere's sober common-sense did not avail to help the Maid, but at the Rehabilitation (1456) he still maintained his old opinion. 'Yesterday she had heard the voices in the morning, at vespers, and at the late ringing for Ave Maria, and she heard them much ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... days passed, during which the plot ripened amidst the gossip of the quidnuncs. To those of his more sober-minded counsellors, who spoke for the Chancellor, the King professed much kindness for him, but "he had made himself odious to the Parliament, and was no more capable to do him service." The Lady, Arlington, and Bab ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... to feel and to say something obvious about Venice. The influence of this sea-city is unique, immediate, and unmistakable. But to express the sober truth of those impressions which remain when the first astonishment of the Venetian revelation has subsided, when the spirit of the place has been harmonised through familiarity with our habitual mood, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Of course my sober mood did not last long. Even "fallen family state" could be interpreted in terms of money—absent money—and that, as once established, was a trifling matter. Hadn't I earned money myself? Heaps of it! Only look at this, and this, and this that I brought from Vitebsk, bought with my ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... services in the crypt of the cathedral, which had been granted to them for that purpose by the dean. While, with his English schoolfellows, he joined in sports and games; among these French lads the talk was sober and quiet. Scarce a week passed but some fugitive, going through Canterbury, brought the latest news of the situation in France, and the sufferings of their co-religionist friends and relations there; and the political events were the chief topics ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... disrelished by the Whig citizens of America as the proposal for reimbursing their confiscated property. In sundry places Committees were formed, who, in an arbitrary manner, opposed their peaceable residence. The sober and dispassionate citizens exerted themselves in checking these irregular measures; but such was the violence of party spirit, and so relaxed were the sinews of government, that, in opposition to legal authority and the private interference ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... all this, be thoroughly convinced that, except by means of an invisible grace never communicated to the profane, no Christian in his sober senses can love his God; even those devotees who pretend to that happiness are apt to deceive themselves; their conduct resembles that of hypocritical flatterers, who, in order to ingratiate themselves with an odious ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... their destination, a quaint little figure could be seen standing at the gate in the shade of a maple tree, whose leaves of mingled green and scarlet, just touched by the September frosts, made a brilliant contrast to the sober hue ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... Alv—temporary local aliases, Ganadara and Atarazola—sat relaxed in their saddles, swaying to the motion of their horses. They wore the rust-brown hooded cloaks of the northern Jeseru people, in sober contrast to the red and yellow and blue striped robes and sun-bonnets of the Caleras in whose company they rode. They carried short repeating carbines in saddle scabbards, and heavy revolvers and long knives on their belts, and each led ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... discussion seemed wholly incongruous in view of the fact that they were running off with Seebrook's money and pursuers might already be hot on their trail. He suggested the dangers of their situation, thinking that here at last was something that would sober the Governor. But the Governor merely laughed as he swung the car ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... from indignation. Conscious of strength, his strong impulse for a moment was to spring at the throat of the barkeeper and vent his rage on him. There is a latent tiger in every man. But a hand seemed to hold him back, and a sober second thought came over him. What! Dennis Fleet, the son of Ethel Fleet, brawling, fighting in a bar-room, a gambling-den, and going out to seek a situation that required confidence and fair-appearing, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... beautiful that, if the time had been In a long mythic age now past and gone, She might have deemed that she had haply seen The all-divine Latona's fair-haired son Come down upon our earth to pass a day Among the daughters fair of earth-born men, And had put on a suit of sober grey, To appear unto them as a rural swain. With features all so sweet in harmony, You might have feigned they breathed a music mild, With lire so peachy, fit to charm the eye, And lips right sure to conquer ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... has implicitly the Force of an Apology in the Behalf of the Person accused. We shall therefore, according as the Circumstances differ, vary our Appellations of these Criminals: Those who offend only against themselves, and are not Scandals to Society, but out of Deference to the sober Part of the World, have so much Good left in them as to be ashamed, must not be huddled in the common Word due to the worst of Women; but Regard is to be had to their Circumstances when they fell, to the uneasy Perplexity under which they lived under senseless ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the nature epic, as it has been called, may be classed under didactic poetry. It is devoted to the description not of successive events but of successive scenes in nature. It is sober and reflective in character. Beginning with Chaucer, who delights in May time and the daisies, nature occupies a prominent place and displays an ever-unfolding richness in English poetry. Pope's "Windsor Forest" is an elaborate though artificial piece of description. Milton's "L'Allegro" ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... vividness to the picture. The ladies of the party, half of whom spoke English, were costumed quite in keeping, and endeavored by the graciousness of their manner to add to the good impression already formed by their more brilliant companions. Here and there the more sober uniform of an American army or navy officer might have been seen, brought thither on demand of his lady. The ladies themselves were out in force, and in their most brilliant array. The doors had not been opened for ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... plea for him," he answered, strangely sober, "and claim no friendship. Any enemy to La Salle is an enemy to Rene de Artigny; but I would front him as a man should. It is not my nature to do a deed ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... and drew his chair beside her as she worked. Not seldom now he doffed the Puritan with her, and became easy, chaffing, almost gallant. Amersham and his friends would have been amazed had they seen their sober Jim Silver so much ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... of the university, where many give ear to one that readeth unto them, than into a prince's palace, if you confer thus with those of other nations." Description of Britain, book ii. chap. 15. By this account, the court had profited by the example of the queen. The sober way of life practised by the ladies of Elizabeth's court appears from the same author. Reading, spinning, and needlework occupied the elder; music the younger. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... each evening spent with his old cronies, in the whist-playing, the reminiscences, the storytelling, the arguments, and the moderate smoking and drinking. Unfortunately, he could not endure well the taking into his system of anything alcoholic. He always became perfectly sober within three hours, but a punch or two would give a certain flaccidity to his legs, and when he reached his home the broad steps leading up to the vestibule seemed Alpine-like and perilous. He would almost say to himself, "Beware ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... Keith stepped over, and looked down upon him in the dim light. He could recognize something of her features in the upturned face, and his eyes softened. There was no use seeking again to arouse him; even had he been sober, he would not have talked freely. Keith lifted the dangling feet into a more comfortable position, turned the lamp lower, went out, and latched the door. Two men were tramping heavily up the stairs, and they turned into the hall at the ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... Mediterranean, and disappear as if the Teuton possessed the absorbing power of sponges or sea sand. Perfect harmony prevails meanwhile; there is none of the racket that there would be over the liquor in France; the talk is as sober as a money-lender's extempore speech; countenances flush, like the faces of the brides in frescoes by Cornelius or Schnorr (imperceptibly, that is to say), and reminiscences are poured out slowly while the smoke puffs ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... Bene - or Peni-Ben, in plain English - is supposed to be my ganger; the Lord love him! God made a truckling coward, there is his full history. He cannot tell me what he wants; he dares not tell me what is wrong; he dares not transmit my orders or translate my censures. And with all this, honest, sober, industrious, miserably smiling over the miserable issue of his own unmanliness. - Paul - a German - cook and steward - a glutton of work - a splendid fellow; drawbacks, three: (1) no cook; (2) an inveterate bungler; ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... world which we have so often forgotten, and so often been tempted to think was itself a dream. Brethren, see to it that that awaking be for you the beholding of what you have loved, the finding, in the sober certainty of waking bliss, of all the objects which have been your visions of delight in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... expressions which induced me to believe that he is a Christian man. Your father has spoken of him as a Methodist, and observed that, though he did not think much of his opinions, he was the most sober and steady man he ever had with him, and one of his best boat-steerers and harpooners. I remember being struck by the old man's calm and intelligent countenance and his gentle and unassuming manners, which true and simple religious faith could alone impart. ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... nature of his trouble; even Menes had hinted a suspicion of the truth in a bantering way. What would prevent the beauty from seeing it also and preempting to herself the honors of his disheartenment? But he was in no mood for a coquettish tilt with her. His sober face was not more serious than his tone when he ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... hampered by those rules, traditions or scruples which limit the activity of British joint stock banks. They are free to launch into speculations which, to the sober judgment of our own financiers, must seem wild and precarious, but to which success has affixed the hall-mark of approval. Each of the six banks is a centre of German home industries and also of the foreign transformations of these. To mention an industry is almost always to connote some ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Before our eyes have passed poverty-stricken peasants plowing their fields, prosperous merchants who demand power, frivolous nobles squandering their lives and fortunes, worldly bishops neglecting their duties, humble priests remaining faithful, sober Quakers refusing to fight, earnest astronomers who search the skies, sarcastic Deists who scoff at priests, and bourgeois philosophers who urge reform. The procession is not quite done. Last of all come the kings in their royal ermine and ministers in robes of state. To them we dedicate a new ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... said that he served his term as a sober human being quite gracefully, being a well born youth of some education. A few days he spent mostly in bed, while his friend, who had come on from Hopedale, took care of him. Soon he began to walk about and his ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... in her voice, defiance in the little toss of her head. He liked her spirit in spite of the vanity. Her vanity did not concern him greatly; for, after all, what was he doing here? Merely filling in dark days, living a sober-coloured game out. He had one solitary hundred dollars—no more; and half of that he had borrowed, and half of it he got from selling his shooting-traps and his hunting-watch. He might worry along on that till the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... apron, was waiting now, on the other side of the marble counter, for his order—and grinning as he waited. Six years! Why, Pudge would be a man then—too old for nut sundaes and chocolate frappes, too far gone down the sober slope of ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... accident this frail craft was carried away from the burning steamer, then aground, and I was separated from my father, who, I grieve to say, was intoxicated at the time, and unable to do all that he would have accomplished in his sober senses. At this moment the steamer broke from the shore, and was carried swiftly down the mighty river. Parents were thus separated from the ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... be if they'd let him alone. He's sober an' steady, an' never tastes a drop, and brings his money home to me every Saturday night, and always ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Texans was irrepressible. Fields began to pat and three or four of them danced up and down the earthen floor of the cabin. Will watched with dancing eyes. Ned, more sober, sat by his side. ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... till eve he pored over his darling books, and sometimes passed whole nights in the same pursuit, until at last, having crammed his brain with this perilous stuff, he began to imagine that these wild inventions were sober reality. From this delusion there was but one step to the belief that he himself was a principal actor in the adventures of which he read; and when the fit was on him, he would take his sword and engage in single combat with the creatures of his brain, stamping his ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... it would be difficult to determine whether the effect would be more deleterious on the interests of the master or on those of the native-born slave. Of the evils to the master, the one most to be dreaded would be the introduction of wild, heathen, and ignorant barbarians among the sober, orderly, and quiet slaves whose ancestors have been on the soil for several generations. This might tend to barbarize, demoralize, and exasperate the whole mass and produce ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... Britain, changeful as a child at play, Now calls in princes, and now turns away. Now Whig, now Tory, what we loved we hate; Now all for pleasure, now for Church and State; Now for prerogative, and now for laws; Effects unhappy from a noble cause. Time was, a sober Englishman would knock His servants up, and rise by five o'clock, Instruct his family in every rule, And send his wife to church, his son to school. To worship like his fathers, was his care; To teach their frugal virtues to his heir; To prove, that luxury ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... quiet," he cautioned himself. "There 's a lot of things you wish to do in these next few days. So you must sober down—you must get ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... eat the sort of food that relishes most. Why does that not apply to our minds as well? Now I am naturally melancholy, and need something to raise my spirits. Don't you think that the Bible is almost too sober, dreary reading for such persons—at least until they begin ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... life is pervaded by rigid self-discipline and self-restraint. He is to be sober and vigilant, to eschew evil and do good, to walk in the spirit, to be obedient unto death, to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand; to wrestle against spiritual wickedness, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world; to be rooted ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... but solely by the light and shade of their salient and retreating outlines.] The most sanguine believer in indefinite human progress hardly expects that man's cunning will accomplish the universal fulfilment of the prophecy, "the desert shall blossom as the rose," in its literal sense; but sober geographers have thought the future conversion of the sand plains of Northern Africa into fruitful gardens, by means of artesian wells, not an improbable expectation. They have gone farther, and argued that, if the soil were covered with fields ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... with a nice, respectable man one day, the village mason—one of the most fiery orators at the cafe, over his dominoes, but in everyday life a sober, hard-working man, with a sickly wife and several children, who are all clothed and generally looked after by us. His favourite theme was the owners of chateaux and big houses who lived in luxury and ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... WAS neglectin it, and all his sober and industerous habits. He begann to give dinners, and thought nothin of partys to Greenwich or Richmond. He didn't see his Hemily near so often: although the hawdacious and misguided young man might ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... blew the downpour in sheets into exposed doorways, and drenched to the skin the few wayfarers who were abroad. Here and there a stray dog, bent over a bone, slunk away at the approach of a roisterer's footstep; more rarely a passenger, whose sober or stealthy gait whispered of business rather than pleasure, moved cowering from street to street, under such shelter ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... captain was already excited. He walked about waving his arms and not listening to questions, talked about himself very, very quickly, so that sometimes his tongue would not obey him, and without finishing one phrase he passed to another. It is true he was probably not quite sober. Moreover, Lizaveta Nikolaevna was sitting there too, and though he did not once glance at her, her presence seemed to over-excite him terribly; that, however, is only my supposition. There must have been some reason which led Varvara Petrovna to resolve to ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... every where. Yet he will oppose it legally, by speech, by the pen, and in Court. He will not yield to it any voluntary obedience, but he will not use force, or counsel citizens to use force to set aside the laws. He rejoices that Shadrach is free. Every right minded man rejoices that he is free. Sober second thought teaches him and all of us that violent counsels are weak counsels. Better had it been for the cause of freedom, if, when the Marshal called out to shoot the prisoner, some armed minister of the law had shot dead the unarmed, ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... times, his example being a bad one for the French Canadians under his immediate care. As a last resort he had taken Belle Pollard, Freme's sweetheart, a waitress at Morrison's, into his confidence. If Belle could keep Freme sober over Sunday—it was impossible to keep him away from her—Holcomb would speak a good word to Thayor for Freme and Belle and then they could both get a place as caretakers of the house during the coming winter, be married in the fall and so ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... who, notwithstanding, were entitled to respect as exemplary and efficient functionaries. It is remarkable that when the apostle enumerates the qualifications of a bishop, or elder, [234:2] he scarcely refers to oratorical endowments. He states that the ruler of the Church should be grave, sober, prudent, and benevolent; but, as to his ability to propagate his principles, he employs only one word—rendered in our version "apt to teach." [234:3] This does not imply that he must be qualified to preach, for teaching and preaching are repeatedly distinguished ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... much in me," confessed the amusing rascal. "I will go to sleep now. When I wake in the afternoon I shall be sober and will finish my work. Do not be angry, Sahib. If only you drank yourself, Sahib, you would know how lovely it is to be drunk." His philosophy did not agree with mine. But I felt sure that I had so far impressed him, that he knew he must risk some personal violence ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Paul asked a woman to give him four dances; and as he claimed Honor for the first of them, he wondered whether his new-found boldness would carry him farther still. Her beauty and graciousness, her enthusiasm over the afternoon's triumph, exalted him from the sober levels of patience and modesty to unscaled heights of aspiration. But not until their second valse together did an opening for ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... squab and glossy, and, by giving the whole feature an air of being on the point of expanding to its original shape, produced a snubbed expression which relieved the otherwise formidable aspect of the man, and recommended him as probably a modest and affable fellow when sober and unprovoked. He seemed about fifty years of age, and was clad in a straw hat and a suit ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... not to have the care of these nice, sweet children; something must be done about it; and when the man is sober, he must ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... score of parallels and worse instances representing in the end many scores of millions of pounds taken from the investing public in the last few years. I will, however, content myself with one sober quotation from the New York Journal of Commerce, which the reader will admit is not likely to be a willing witness for Socialism. Commenting on the testimony of the principal witness, Mr. Harriman, of the Illinois Central Railroad, before the Inter-State Commerce ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... confronted with risk. Cosy in my security, distance an adequate defence, why should I rush into the glare of perilous publicity? Here is an unpolluted Isle, without history, without any sort of fame. There come to it ordinary folk of sober understanding and well-disciplined ideas and tastes, who pass their lives without disturbing primeval silences or insulting the free air with the flapping of any ostentatious flag. Their doings are not romantic, or comic, or tragic, or heroic; they have no formula for the solution of social ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... resolving to lay aside his armour at some distance from the metropolis; for, ever since his interview with Aurelia, his fondness for chivalry had been gradually abating. As the torrent of his despair had disordered the current of his sober reflection, so now, as that despair subsided, his thoughts began to flow deliberately in their ancient channel. All day long he regaled his imagination with plans of connubial happiness, formed on the possession of the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... one of those lyceum halls, of which almost every village has now its own, dedicated to that sober and pallid, or rather drab-colored, mode of winter-evening entertainment, the lecture. Of late years this has come strangely into vogue, when the natural tendency of things would seem to be to substitute ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this depression had increased sufficiently to sober me down completely. I no longer rattled. I became grave. A feeling of despondency came over me. My spirits sank. There seemed no sympathy between us—no reciprocity of feeling. She had no cordiality of manner —no word, or look, or ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... grave-digger in his fine coat with wide sleeves, and his old three-cornered hat, and Zebede, who had put on a clean shirt and shaved himself. They came from the side next the ramparts arm in arm, gravely, like men who are sober because they are ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... it. Well, a good, sober-minded woman would develop the best that is in me. Now, what do you ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... I never saw much of the world, but I hope to see more of it one of these days. What do you suppose these Indians will do when they become sober?" I asked. ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... an article like that.' Had you been as hard upon me as you were amiable, I try to tell myself I should have been no blinder to the merits of your notice. For I saw there, to admire and to be very grateful for, a most sober, agile pen; an enviable touch; the marks of a reader, such as one imagines for one's self in dreams, thoughtful, critical, and kind; and to put the top on this memorial column, a greater readiness to describe the author ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... something the matter, for, when I started upstairs, he drew me back and asked me to tell him what was wrong. When I told him I wished you girls were going, too, he surprised me by saying, 'Why not?' For a moment I thought he was joking—he's always doing that, you know—but when I saw he was in sober earnest I could have danced ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... I'm sailing tomorrow so I won't see you again—not for years likely. You will be some sober old married woman when I come back to Prospect, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... first. He became shamed into a quieter and perhaps cleaner mode of dressing himself; he constrained himself to sit down to breakfast with his monitors at half-past eight, and was at any rate so far regardful of Mrs. Richards as not to smoke in his bedroom, and to come home sober enough to walk upstairs without assistance every night for ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... by. You see me to-day as you have seen me for months past, conscientious and cleanly, sober and sane, in body as in mind, discharging my duty at the Hospital and elsewhere as well as any other man possessing the special qualifications it demands. Pray understand that I am not a philanthropist, and have never posed as one. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... quit the search, and sat me down Beside the brook, irresolute, And watched a little bird in suit Of sober olive, soft and brown, Perched in the maple branches, mute; With greenish gold its vest was fringed, Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, With ivory pale its wings were barred, And its dark eyes were tender-starred. "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?" And thrice the mournful answer came, So faint and ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... it will be confessed, a delicate sensibility to character, a sober desire of reputation, a wish to possess the esteem of the wise and good, felt by the purest minds, which is at the farthest remove from arrogance or vanity. The humility of a noble mind scarcely dares ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... hailed a Fifth Avenue omnibus. He looked with negative interest at the advertisements, at the people in the streets, at his fellow-travelers. One of these was hidden behind his morning paper. Personals. Hillard squirmed a little. The world never holds very much romance in the sober morning. What a stupid piece of folly! The idea of his sending that personal inquiry to the paper! To-morrow he would see it sandwiched in between samples of shop-girl romance, questionable intrigues, and divers ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... his own happiness, I sha'n't hesitate to ask him to leave her. Constantin says that since Paz has been with her he, sober as he is, has sometimes come home quite excited. If he takes to intoxication I shall be just as grieved as if he ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... orderly, well-conducted men: industrious immigrants who had seized the first opportunity for getting work, small farmers attracted by high wages, skilled artisans. There were, however, some of a rougher type; and the undesirable element, was, as usual, well represented. On the whole, the camp was sober, largely because no licenses had been issued, though this did not prevent men who came up from other points from bringing liquor in, and the authorities suspected another source ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... the mail clerk came to my car and reported that the most careful search had failed to discover the three registered letters, and they had evidently been taken. This made me feel sober, slight as the probable loss was. He told me that his list showed they were all addressed to Ash Fork, Arizona, making it improbable that their contents could be of any real value. If possible, I was more puzzled ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very quiet life, blushed very much and was quite as embarrassed and uncertain what she ought to say or do, as Kit could possibly be. When he had sat for some little time, attentive to the ticking of the sober clock, he ventured to glance curiously at the dresser, and there, among the plates and dishes, were Barbara's little work-box with a sliding lid to shut in the balls of cotton, and Barbara's prayer-book, and Barbara's hymn-book, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... himself until he was red; "I just happened to think of something very funny that happened last week in Arkansas—Madame Beausoleil, I know it must look odd,"—his voice still trembled a little, but he kept a sober face—"and yet I must take just a moment for business. Claude, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic, or more likely the thin clean scent of the daffodils with which Tibby had decked the table, but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan had ceased to be an airy vision and become a sober well-masoned structure. Mr. McCunn—I may confess it at the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... and Margaret. They are both dressed in sober black of formal cut, and present a strong contrast to their appearance ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... gold, set in a framework of red. The native poplars have different shades of green, verging towards yellow, and are very cheerful in the sunshine. Most of the oak-leaves have still the deep verdure of summer; but where a change has taken place, it is into a russet-red, warm, but sober. These colors, infinitely varied by the progress which different trees have made in their decay, constitute almost the whole glory of autumnal woods; but it is impossible to conceive how much is done with such scanty materials. In my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... promote good character building. To some extent the purpose is being realized, for more than one thousand different students who have been more or less benefited by having spent a year or more under its guidance, are leading sober and useful lives. Two hundred fifteen have either been granted certificates or diplomas, and are engaged as follows: Fifty are teachers, twenty-five are housekeepers, three of the teachers have founded schools of their own, one at Laurinburg, N. C., one at West Butler, Alabama, ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... colours as lights are; and whoever represents them by merely the subdued or darkened tint of the light, represents them falsely. I particularly want you to observe that this is no matter of taste, but fact. If you are especially sober-minded, you may indeed choose sober colours where Venetians would have chosen gay ones; that is a matter of taste; you may think it proper for a hero to wear a dress without patterns on it, rather than an embroidered one; that is similarly a matter of taste: but, though you may also think ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... jolly-boat bottom up near the starboard gangway, and so far as I could make out by throwing the dull lantern light upon her she was sound; but I could not have launched her without seeing what I was doing, and even had I managed this, she stood to be swamped and I to be drowned. And, in sober truth, so horrible was the prospect of going adrift in her without preparing for the adventure with oars, sail, mast, provisions, and water—most of which, by the lamplight only, were not to be come at amid the hideous muddle of wreckage—that sooner than face it I was perfectly ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... be sensible of it. Oh this sack! it makes a coward a Hector: the Greekes and Troians drinke no other; and that and a wench (for theres the divell out) made um cuffe ten yeares together, till at length when they had bled more than they coulde drinke they grew sober, the contented Cuckold tooke his wife home againe and all were good frends[89]. [Sease Musicke] But stay, the musikes husht; I hope theyle appeare; I doe feale no such paine in my wounds that I had need of musicke to bring me to sleepe. Blesse me ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Bingham," Oliver told them; "you know Bingham's story about Jim Whelan keeping sober for two weeks, for the first time in twenty years, to vote for Winter? Wouldn't touch a thing—no, he was going to do it this time, if he died for it; it was disagreeable to refuse drinks, but it was going to be worth his ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... lasted for close upon two hours, during which the sun went down in a blaze of splendour and lavish magnificence of colour such as I have never beheld outside the limits of the West Indian waters. Then, just as the burning glories of the west were fading into sober grey, while Hesperus beamed softly out with momentarily increasing effulgence in the darkening blue of the eastern sky, a gentle breeze came stealing to us off the land, to which both schooners, with a mutual challenge to each other, gladly trimmed their canvas, and away we both went, hugging the ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... sound, wondrous like a giggle; but when I turned, Helena was sitting there as sober as Portia, albeit I thought her eyes ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... good nature, he was always popular with the boys; was never so industrious as when manufacturing to their order little writing desks, fancy boxes, and other trifling articles not beyond the scope of his mechanical ingenuity—for which he exacted such compensation as he could obtain. In sober truth, like his parent, he was fond of money. The world, he was wont to say, owed him a living, and he prided himself not a little on his skill in procuring the wherewithal. And yet he was rarely known to realize one shilling that did not ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... to the young man's ears a note which almost made him sober again. It was certainly the voice of Adam Covert. He made some commonplace reply, and waited for another flash of lightning to show him the stranger's face. It came, and he saw that his ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the secretary of the company, became their agent. Having some time resided in Van Diemen's Land, he had returned to England, where he published a book on the state of the country, remarkable for its clear narrative and sober delineation. The first ship dispatched by the company was the Tramnere (1826), followed by the Caroline. Some time was lost in selecting the settlement, and Circular Head was chosen. On a closer inspection, the district was not found encouraging. Near the shore the country ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... for the best," sez the sad one. "I ain't no millionaire, but I offered him thirty-seven dollars for that pony. He doubted that I'd take good care of him, so he wouldn't sell him to me. He said he didn't think I'd abuse the pony when I was sober, but I'll have to own up that when a friend—when a friend invites me to have a drink, I can't say no—an' I got a darn sight o' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... the thick wall—in the softened light, and with its forge- like chimney; its little counter by the door, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it; its household implements and scraps of dress against the wall; and a sober-looking woman (she must have a congenial life of it, with Goblin,) knitting at the door—looked exactly like a picture ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... anybody had told it to me," admitted Merritt, "I'd have made up my mind right away he was trying to pull the wool over my eyes with a silly yarn. And yet there was Grandfather Crawford just as sober as you ever saw anyone, and vouching for every ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... the oldest mariner of Elba, and luckily, being a sober, and usually a discreet man, he was the oracle of the island in most things that related to the sea. As each citizen, wine-dealer, grocer, innkeeper, or worker in iron, came up on the height, he incontinently inquired for Tonti, or 'Maso, as he was ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... were at first amusing; then the announcement of its housing excited loud laughter; but when its votaries attached the high sounding term Temple to their place of meeting, the clergy and all the devoutly inclined looked sober. In their view the word savored of outright paganism. Temple of the Academy of Epicurus! Church had been better—Church was ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... the binnacle, and roared to the men to be careful and keep her steady. It was plain he knew nothing of seamanship, but could tell that a thing must be done well after the mate had given orders. He was apparently perfectly sober now, and as cool as though on the beach. It was evident the man feared nothing and could command. I saw that I could be of little use aft, so I started forward, hoping to be able to keep a lookout ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... strongest meat, it is of no harder digestion than to give their negative or affirmative as they see cause. There be gallant men among us that laugh at such an appeal or umpire; but I refer it whether you be more inclining to pardon them or me, who I confess have been this day laughing at a sober man, but without meaning him any harm, and that is Petrus Cunaeus, where speaking of the nature of the people, he says, 'that taking them apart, they are very simple, but yet in their assemblies they see and know something, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... not answer, and the other girls were beginning to feel sober as the carriage turned into a street leading to the Rectangle. As they neared the district they grew more and more nervous. The sights and smells and sounds which had become familiar to Virginia struck the senses ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... me in this race—but I'll do him a good turn just the same. You tell him to watch out for that young fellow. He's all right when he's sober, but when he's drunk—well, over in Kentucky, they call ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... not," exclaimed a voice, for Tirzah was nearer or had better ears than Mrs Daniel Hewlett had suspected, "though I mayn't go hypercriting about and making tales of my neighbours, as if you hadn't got a man what ain't to be called sober twice a week." ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... queer incident came to sober him, to send him flying down once more to the crowded life below with all its dark insoluble riddles. As he swooped, came a tap and something flying past, and a drop like a drop of rain. Then as he went on down he saw something like a white rag whirling ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... see them sober'd down, The merry boys and true, I hate to hear them sneering now At pictures fancy drew; I care not for their married cheer, Their puddings and their soups, And middle-aged relations round, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... not sleep as others, but let us watch and be sober. [5:7]For they that sleep sleep in the night, and they that are drunk drink in the night; [5:8]but let us who are of day be sober, putting on a cuirass of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation, [5:9]for ...
— The New Testament • Various
... reconsideration: the position is like unto a man riding on the back of a wild tiger. ...Ch'i-chao therefore at one moment thought he would say no more about it, since added comment thereon might make him all the more open to suspicion. But a sober study of the general situation and a quiet consideration of the possible future make him tremble like an autumn leaf; for the more he meditates, the more dangerous the situation appears. It is true that the minor trouble of "foreign advice" and rebel plotting can be settled ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... Blackburne, who told me that it was certain now that the King must of necessity come in, and that one of the Council told him there is something doing in order to a treaty already among them. And it was strange to hear how Mr. Blackburne did already begin to commend him for a sober man, and how quiet he would be under his government, &c. I dined all alone to prevent company, which was exceeding great to-day, in my cabin. After these two were gone Sir W. Wheeler and Sir John Petters came on board and staid about two or three hours, and so ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... delivered a glowing eulogy on his father; and Mrs. Dodd, to whom the boy's character was now a grave and anxious study, saw with no common satisfaction his cheek flush and his eyes moisten as he dwelt on the calm, sober, unvarying affection, and reasonable indulgence he and his sister had met with all their lives from the best of parents. Returning to the topic of topics, he proposed an engagement. "I have a ring in my pocket," said this brisk wooer, looking down. But this ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... did not burst upon them, as Linder had half expected; she slipped quietly and gracefully into their presence. She was dressed in black, in a costume which did not too much conceal the charm of her figure, and the nut-brown lustre of her face and hair played against the sober background of her dress with an effect that ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... I bear my master's image and superscription; his Majesty's prerogative shining the more therein, by how much the metal on which he is stamped hath less of value in itself. Not a compliment, which will be always a saucy thing, as well as impertinent, with a man's prince; but a sober and natural inference, at least so understood by such as could wish it were otherwise.—Ibid. ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... clad in sober grey, and wearing a muslin cap whose crimped ruffle enclosed in a snowy frame the benevolent wrinkled countenance, came forward, knitting in hand, spectacles on her nose, and for the first time the visitor became aware ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... blessings: absolute and uncontrolled, a tyranny beyond the power to endure itself, the worst of bad masters, a fool who is his own client; restrained and tempered, it becomes a wholesome discipline, a property with its rights and its duties, a sober responsibility, bringing with it, like all other responsibilities, its pleasures and its cares; not a toy to be played with, nor even a jewel to be worn in the bonnet, but a talent to be put out to interest, and enjoyed in the unbroken tranquillity of national ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... hearts unable to comprehend him.—Thrown back upon himself, his wounded vanity seeks inward nourishment and takes what it can find in the sterile uniformity of his bourgeois moderation. Robespierre, unlike Danton, has no cravings. He is sober; he is not tormented by his senses; if he gives way to them, it is only no further than he can help, and with a bad grace. In the rue Saintonge in Paris, "for seven months," says his secretary,[31105] "I knew of but one woman that he kept company with, and he did ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... it, and mould it into the clew to his own good-fortune. He thus counted much upon his skill and his tact; but he likewise placed a becoming degree of reliance upon his solid personal qualities,—qualities too sober and too solid, perhaps, to be called charms, but thoroughly adapted to inspire confidence. The Major was not handsome in feature; he left that to younger men and to lighter women; but his ugliness was of a masculine, aristocratic, intelligent stamp. His figure, moreover, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... poet carried axes. They had been laboring since five o'clock that morning superintending the construction of a wharf. In truth, they were well worth looking at: the boyishness of one and the sober manliness of the other, the clear eyes, tanned skin, the quick, strong limbs. The poet's eye was always roving, and he quickly saw the two women in the ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the latter is distinguished by the fairer complexion. The descendants of the Normans inhabit the valley of Teganana, between Punta de Naga and Punta de Hidalgo. The names of Grandville and Dampierre are still pretty common in this district. The Canarians are a moral, sober, and religious people, of a less industrious character at home than in foreign countries. A roving and enterprising disposition leads these islanders, like the Biscayans and Catalonians, to the Philippines, to the Ladrone Islands, to America, and wherever there are Spanish settlements, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... his place in my office next day, and confessed his purpose, and I heard him with sober respect and tried in every proper way to save him. It ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... organ-bird—the most remarkable songster by far (says Bates) of the Amazonian forests. When discovered, he seems habited in sober colours; but he need not envy his gaily-dressed companions—while, as a songster, he remains unrivalled ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... all about it, my daughter," the bishop said, and the woman poured out her story—the old story of a husband who provided for his family after a fashion, when he was sober, but left them to starve when the drink demon possessed him. He had been away now for three weeks, and there was no money for medicine for the sick child, or food for ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... the doctor had gone that Griswold was able to face the new misfortune with anything like a sober measure of equanimity. Imaginative to the degree which facilely transforms the suppositional into the real, he was still singularly free from superstition. Nevertheless, all the legends clustering about the proverbial slipperiness ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... to custom, had been listening to the discourse of the three, and so, as they went away, both came in to Don Quixote; and the niece said, "What is here to do, uncle! Now when we thought you were come to stay at home, and live like a sober, honest gentleman in your house, are you hankering after new crotchets, and turning ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... asserted, by the rabid ones, that General Sherman had given up all that we had been fighting for, had conceded every thing to Jos. Johnston, and had, as the boys say, "knocked the fat into the fire;" but sober reflection soon overruled these harsh expressions, and, with those who knew General Sherman, and appreciated him, he was still the great soldier, patriot, and gentleman. In future times this matter ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... nothin' about it the next day. He is of a real kind nature, Mr. William," the landlord vowed, "and the men get crowns and half-crowns from him by saying that he beat them overnight when he was in liquor. He's the devil when he's tipsy, Mr. William, but when he is sober he is the very kindest of ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... relieved by another, an older man, and sober. He merely reproved them for disobeying orders, glanced sympathetically at the presumed invalid, and directed them to one of the temporary hospitals ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... I had verified to me by such of them as did see, and were esteemed honest and sober by all the neighbourhood; for I inquired after such for my information. And because there were more of these seers in the isles of Lewis, Harris, and Uist than in any other place, I did entreat Sir James M'Donald ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... more distant evils was, however, driven from her thoughts by present necessities. The din and bustle of the crowded wharf, would have been sufficient to "daze" the sober-minded country-woman, without the charge of little Will, and unnumbered bundles, and the two "daft laddies forby." On their part, Norman and Harry scorned the idea of being taken care of, and loaded with baskets and other movables, made their ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... in the Mill with Adam Ward and Peter Martin, the Interpreter naturally saw much of the two families that, in those days, lived such close neighbors. Sober, hard working, modest in his needs, he acquired, during his first year in the Mill, that little plot of ground on the edge of the cliff, and built the tiny hut with its zigzag stairway. But often on a Sunday or a holiday, or for an hour of the long evenings ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... and, raising his stick, he struck it with all his strength, but it made no impression, nor did the goblin move. The stick fell as upon a blanket—so the man described it—and he instantly became sober, while a cold tremor ran through every nerve ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... that about this time some of the Abenakis were killed or maltreated by Englishmen. It may have been so: desperadoes, drunk or sober, were not rare along the frontier; but Vaudreuil gives no particulars, and the only English outrage that appears on record at the time was the act of a gang of vagabonds who plundered the house of the younger Saint-Castin, where the town of Castine ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... Le Duc; "he is sober, and has no liking for bad company. But I think he's a robber, and a dangerous robber, too. I know it, because he seems so scrupulously careful not to cheat you in small things. Remember what I say, sir; he will do you. He is waiting to gain your confidence, and then he will strike home. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the period of the Piagnoni, or Weepers. The citizens adopted sober attire; a spirit as of England under the Puritans prevailed; and Savonarola's eloquence so far carried away not only the populace but many persons of genius that a bonfire was lighted in the middle of the Piazza della Signoria in which costly dresses, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas |
