"Stern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reply than entreating Nicholas by a gesture to keep silent; and the uncle and nephew looked at each other for some seconds without speaking. The face of the old man was stern, hard-featured, and forbidding; that of the young one, open, handsome, and ingenuous. The old man's eye was keen with the twinklings of avarice and cunning; the young man's bright with the light of intelligence and spirit. His figure was somewhat slight, but manly and well ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... stern features relaxed, and he sat back in his chair with a chuckle. "Do it at once," he requested, "and make it a stiff one. You know their characteristics; give it to them hard. I feel pretty sure of Cyrus, but Cornelius—" He shook ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... Marshall to witness it. The day away from school came as a welcome relief after the worry and brain-aching of the spring examination, and Joel, although he knew for a certainty that he had passed with the highest marks, was glad to obey Outfield's stern decree and accompany that youth to the ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... herself that her name was Levine, and that no woman after such an escape had the right to expect more. She finally compelled herself to admit that her avoidance of society was due to prudence as well as to her stern devotion to intellect, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... arrived, and yet I had not been bearded by the dread monster, at whose very name thousands have trembled and do still tremble. I sat awaiting him in stern silence. Four o'clock, and yet he had not come. Perhaps, it was suggested to me, the holders of the note had withdrawn it at ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... appear, the General was not among them. A tall, well-dressed young man saluted Romayne with stern courtesy, and said to a stranger who accompanied ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... room where now Zuleika was changing her frock—addressed the Fellows, and presented to them the Papist by him chosen to be their Warden, instead of the Protestant whom they had elected. They were not of so stern a stuff as the Fellows of Magdalen, who, despite His Majesty's menaces, had just rejected Bishop Farmer. The Papist was elected, there and then, al fresco, without dissent. Cannot one see them, these Fellows of Judas, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... bewilderment of mind. He asked searching questions sometimes, when, of an evening, perched on Mr. Gray's knee, and looking with his wondering, steadfast eyes into the face of that erewhile stern and impassible magistrate. The large justice-room, where the prisoners were examined, had an awful fascination to him; and so had the little "strong-room," in which sometimes they were locked up before ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... Mademoiselle, less stern than Kathleen had ever seen her, presided at supper, which was bread and treacle spread several hours before, and now harder and drier than any other food you can think of. Gerald was very polite in handing her butter and cheese, ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... was death the agony—death the physical torment. As to death the mystery, want of sensibility to the infinite and the shadowy had disarmed that of its terrors for him. Yet, on the contrary, how many are there who face the mere physical anguish of dying with stern indifference! But death the mystery,—death that, not satisfied with changing our objective, may attack even the roots of our subjective,—there lies the mute, ineffable, voiceless horror before which all human courage is abashed, even as all human resistance ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... mighty outburst of affection, he stepped toward his wife; but her face was so cold, so sad, so resolute, her despair was so plainly written in the stern indifference of her whole bearing, that he dared not take her in his arms as he longed to do, but simply murmured ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... city was at the forks of a river, like Tradetown on Tanith. Unlike it, this was a real metropolis. They should have gone there first of all. They spent two days systematically pillaging it. The Kheperans carried on considerable river-traffic, with stern-wheel steamboats, and the waterfront was lined with warehouses crammed with every sort of merchandise. Even better, the Kheperans had money, and for the most part it was gold specie, and the bank vaults ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... kindled in many a heart that living flame, which in their own has been smothered by the fatal homage of the lips and of the feelings only, while the actions of the life were disobedient. Often has such a writer or speaker stood in stern and truthfully severe judgment on the weak "brother in Christ" when he has acted or spoken with an inconsistency which the mere instinct of the beautiful would in his censor have prevented. Such censors, however, ought to remember that these weak brethren, though their instincts be less ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... in that region so remote from any body of Christians at the present day, and among a population very like savages dwelling amid stern hill-scenery. ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... opinions of those who ply on these inland waters for a subsistence. The Winkelried had the two low, diverging masts; the attenuated and picturesquely-poised latine yards; the light, triangular sails; the sweeping and projecting gangways; the receding and falling stern; the high and peaked prow, with, in general, the classical and quaint air of those vessels that are seen in the older paintings and engravings. A gilded ball glittered on the summit of each mast, for no canvass was set higher than the slender ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... the steamer's lee, and a line from the big ship pulls the little boat to the ladder, and the pilot nimbly climbs to the steamer's bridge, bringing the latest papers. The schooner drifts under the steamer's stern, takes in the yawl, and again sails to the eastward in search of ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... hears at dawn The far reveille die; Again he marches stern and wan Beneath a burning sky: He bivouacs; the night comes on; His comrades 'round him lie— O memories of the years long gone! O years ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... moment, looking downward thoughtfully. He felt his retreating chin. His smooth-shaven face, broad from bone to bone above the cheeks, quickly grew stern. His mind, which had the world for its toy and which planned the building or the treading down of empires, had turned its thought upon that little kingdom in the heart of the boy. And he was thinking whether ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... Robin,' said Honor, too true to let him think that he could stand beside Owen in her affections, but with intense pleasure at such unwonted warmth from one so stern and reserved; it was as if he was investing her with some of the tenderness that the loss of Lucilla had left vacant, and bestowing on her the confidences to which new relations might render Phoebe less open. It was no slight preferment to be Robert Fulmort's motherly friend; and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Palmerstown had been teazing, but as the narrative proceeded she became attentive, and at length absorbed, and once or twice she uttered ejaculations of pity or awe. When it was over, the old lady looked with a somewhat sad and stern abstraction on the table, patting her cat assiduously meanwhile, and then suddenly looking upon her son, the Major, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... blinded him to his own shortcomings gradually became less opaque, until finally he saw himself as his father must see him. He had come to college for the purpose of fitting himself to succeed in some particular way in the stern battle of life which must follow his graduation; for, though his father had ample means to support him in insolence, Jimmy had never even momentarily considered such ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wee, wee stern that glints in heaven, may be a lowin' sun, Though like a speck o' light, scarce seen amid the welkin dun; The humblest sodger on the field may win the warrior's crest— The birdie sure to sing is aye ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Fuenen, across the Little Belt—three miles of ice, and a part of the sea open, which has to be crossed on planks; nay, forward from Fuenen, when once there, he achieves ten whole miles more of ice, and takes Zealand itself, to the wonder of all mankind: an imperious, stern-browed, swift-striking man, who had dreamed of a new Goth Empire: the mean Hypocrites and Fribbles of the South to be coerced again by noble Norse valor, and taught a new lesson; has been known to lay his hand on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... along to the great cage of the sea-eagles. The birds seemed to pay no heed to what was passing immediately around them. Ever and anon they jerked their heads into an attitude of attention, and the golden brown eye with its contracted pupil and stern upper lid, seemed to be throwing a keen glance over the immeasurable ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... lords, mistrust the people's hate, Till blood become a principle of state. Secured not by their guards nor by their right, But still they fear even more than they affright, Pardon me, sir; your father's rough and stern; His will too strong to bend, too proud to learn. Remember, sir, the honey's deadly sting! Think on that savage justice of the King, When the same day that saw you do before Things above man, should see ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... and thither, a coaster came in and brought tidings of how off in the Danish waters they had come on a water-logged brig, and had boarded her, and had found her empty, and her hull riven in two, and her crew all drowned and dead beyond any manner of doubt. And on her stern there was her name painted white, the 'Fleur d'Epine,' of Brussels, as plain as name could be; and that was all we ever knew: what evil had struck her, or how they had perished, nobody ever told. Only the ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... things as they were; and in the present emergency the battle whether the enemy had travelled by infection, or was the product of the Pond Buildings' miasma, was the favourite enlivenment of the disagreeing doctors, in their brief intervals of repose in the stern conflict which they were waging with the fever—a conflict in which they had soon to strive by themselves, for the disease not only seized on young Ward, but on his father; and till medical assistance was sent from London, they had the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... swift, even close to the shore as it is necessary to keep, but the water seems to be only a few inches deep, and the rocks are as thick as plums in a Christmas pudding. Yet two Indians, standing erect, one in the bow and one in the stern of the canoe, pole you up the stream against these terrible odds as easily and surely as a Harvard oarsman might row you across Seneca Lake. Then they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... streets to an accompaniment of scowls punctuated by feeble, forced cheers, he cut a goodly enough figure to win many an admiring, if reluctant, glance from bright eyes. With his broad shoulders, his erect, well-knit figure clothed in purple velvet, his stern, swarthy face crowned by a white-plumed hat, Christian ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... he sometimes expressed a preference for mere violence, passages which were a great deal more connected with his temperament than with his philosophy, they have finally imbibed the notion that Carlyle's theory of hero worship was a theory of terrified submission to stern and arrogant men. As a matter of fact, Carlyle is really inhumane about some questions, but he is never inhumane about hero worship. His view is not that human nature is so vulgar and silly a thing that it must be guided and driven; it is, on the contrary, that human nature is so chivalrous ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... They were chance acquaintances. The whole trip had been undertaken by him on the spur of the moment; and, as far as lay in his cheery, thoughtless nature, he had come to regret it. The work of the trail had taught him that he was mismated in this company, and the first stern test was stripping the masks from them. He saw three ugly ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... more were there; Some—from the sunny Southland, where The fragrant rose was blooming still, And green grass covered field and hill, And, free as ever, flowed the rill— Had come in answer to the call Of friends who at the North had staid, By stern old Winter undismayed, To see the dainty snow-flakes fall. These kindly greeted, with small head Held on one side, a sparrow said, "To choose a gift for Cecily We've met to-night. What shall it be?" A flute-like trill, in graceful pride, ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... absurdities would one day become verities. It is a large vessel; at the left is the helm with the pilot's box; at the prow, maisons de plaisance, a gigantic organ, and cannon to call the attention of the inhabitants of earth or of the moon; above the stern the observatory and pilot-balloon; at the equatorial circle, the barracks of the army; on the left the lantern; then upper galleries for promenades, the sails, the wings; beneath, the cafes and general store-houses of provisions. Admire this magnificent ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... compelled to take stern and it may even seem terrible measures to repress desertion, as will be seen in the following note which he ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... stranger begs from strangers he thereby confesses that he prefers to present his claims where their merits are unknown; and the act proclaims him as a fraud. To the beggar, to ourselves, and to the really deserving poor, we owe a prompt and stern refusal of all uninvestigated appeals for charity. "True charity never opens the heart without at the same time ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... Miss Fosbrook received a very pleasant civil greeting from a much younger man than she had expected to see, looking perhaps more stern about the mouth and sharp about the eye than his elder brother, and his clerical dress very precise; but somehow he was so curiously like his niece, Elizabeth, that she thought that his particularity might spring from ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Neither of them noticed a man who got out of the elevator just before Starr fell and walking rapidly toward the open door saw the whole action. In a moment more Mr. Endicott stood in the door surveying the scene before him with stern, ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... among them. He seemed to possess wonderful strength. They crossed the channel, and dragged out the great life-boat from its house. It hardly appeared possible to launch it in such a sea, but each man, in his excitement, had the strength of two, and without waiting to be bid, Wally leaped into the stern and grasped the helm. ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... with him, I can tell you, Miss, walking him about of nights, and jogging him till there wasn't a jog left in me, as you may say, from sleepiness. I often wonder if he thinks of this now, when I see him looking so grave and stern. But, you see, being jogged doesn't impress the mind like having to jog; and though I can bring that time back as plain as if it was yesterday, with the very nursery I slept in at Barlingford, and the rushlight in a tall iron cage on the floor, and the shadow of the cage on the bare whitewashed ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... poor circumstances. He was an upright man of refined tastes, but indolent—a failure in business, easy with the world and stern with his family. He had never taken an interest in his son's wildwood pursuits; and when he got the idea that they might interfere with the boy's education, ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Alan's launch in a few moments. He seated her in the stern of the boat, where she half reclined with her wings spread out a little behind her. So assiduous was she—and so facile—in her task of learning English, that before she would let him start the motor she had learned the names of many ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... admitted into our society. He was about thirty- five years of age, and therefore we looked upon him as an old fellow. His experience gave him great advantage over us, and his habitual taciturnity, stern disposition, and caustic tongue produced a deep impression upon our young minds. Some mystery surrounded his existence; he had the appearance of a Russian, although his name was a foreign one. He had formerly served in the Hussars, and with distinction. Nobody knew ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... the students that they meant it in real earnest. He was told to prepare for immediate death. The trembling janitor looked all around in the vain hope of seeing some indication that nothing was really meant, but stern looks met him everywhere. He was blindfolded, and made to kneel before the block. The executioner's axe was raised, but, instead of the sharp edge, a wet towel was brought sharply down on the back of the neck. The bandage was now removed from the culprit's eyes, but to the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... intimations that Putney Congdon might be dead had filled her with horror, and yet she had hinted at his sister's dinner that the taking of human life was a small matter. That a girl so wholly charming and persuasive at a dinner table could be so stern and unreasonable at a chance meeting afterward, shook his confidence in her sex, which that memorable meeting had done much to establish upon firm ground. He had been wholly stupid and tactless in pouncing ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... young leaves; blond boys of nineteen with very stern, conscientious expressions; men in the late twenties with a keen self-assurance from having taught out in the world for five years—several hundreds of them, from city and town and country in Maryland and Pennsylvania and Virginia ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the sea was like molten silver, for the sunlight poured on it from beyond clouds, and the sun itself was not to be seen. But though this bay looks as if it had fallen from a poet's dream, it has been the scene of many stern events and disasters; for ships have mistaken the inlet for Dartmouth Harbour, with lamentable results. Many a time, too, it has been used by those who knew the coast well, but had their own reasons for wishing to land without attracting notice, for ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... forsaken by the fickle and the selfish, a solemn enthusiasm, a stern and determined depth of principle, a confidence in the sincerity of their own motives, and the manly English pride which inclined them to cling to their former opinions, like the traveller in the fable to his cloak, the more strongly ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... heaven every evil deed he had done arose gigantic, like those mountain-peaks, and breathed an icy breath upon him. O, let not the soul that suffers, dare to look Nature in the face, where she sits majestically aloft in the solitude of the mountains; for her face is hard and stern, and looks not in compassion upon her weak and erring child. It is the countenance of an accusing archangel, who summons us to judgment. In the valley she wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at us with tearful eyes, and a face ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... grammar-school, and now on his return to this good friend, a few more weeks were added to his scant school term. They proved the last of his school-days, and the boy went forth from the little brick building on the Mall to finish his education in the great workaday world, under those stern old masters, poverty and experience. By and by Lloyd was a second time apprenticed to learn a trade. It was to a cabinetmaker in Haverhill, Mass. He made good progress in the craft, but his young heart still turned to Newburyport and yearned for the friends left there. He bore up ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... Colonel advanced, gravely holding out his hand to Harry's elder brother. Perhaps Harry wondered that the two did not embrace as he and the Colonel had just done. But, though hands were joined, the salutation was only formal and stern on ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... masses of shrimp-food which had attracted the whales, and the great creatures were feeding quietly. The surface was not rough, but there was a long, slow roll which tossed the boat about like a cork. Presently Hank, who was in the stern, held ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Petersburg; and to the south-west of Moscow lay Kutusoff, on a very strong position, with an army to which every hour brought whole bands of enthusiastic recruits. On every side there was danger; the whole forces of Russia appeared to be gathering around him. Meantime the season was far advanced; the stern winter of the north was at hand; and the determined hostility of the peasantry prevented the smallest supplies of provision from being introduced into the capital. Had the citizens remained there, the means of subsistence would of course have continued to be forwarded ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... Paris, which contains, more than any city in the world, the opposite poles of luxurious magnificence and of sordid, bestial poverty. The statistics of the Parisian working classes in the way of lodgings are not of an encouraging nature, and reflect great discredit on the powers that be, who can be stern enough in the case of any political question, but are blind to the spectacle of fellow creatures living the life of beasts under their very eyes. In 1880, the Prefect of Police gave licenses to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... affectionate as one might have anticipated from the beginning of the scene; then she beckoned slightly to my father, and withdrew two or three steps with him out of hearing; and talked to him with a fixed and stern countenance, not at all like that with which she had ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... thin forest for a little way, stumbling often, but growing stronger and less stiff as I went, though I must needs draw my belt tight to stay the pangs of hunger, seeing that one loaf is not overmuch for such a voyage and such stern work as mine had been, body ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... "Stern and dark—no wonder, sheltering him," cried Elizabeth. "It beckons to me; the branches look like giant arms tempting me to ruin. I must ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... chirography, and sumptuously bound and decorated; for, in all relating to the mechanical finishing, the Spanish Arabs excelled every people in Europe. But neither splendor of outward garniture, nor intrinsic merit of composition, could atone for the taint of heresy in the eye of the stern inquisitor; he reserved for his university of Alcala three hundred works, indeed, relating to medical science, in which the Moors were as pre-eminent in that day as the Europeans were deficient; but all the rest, amounting to many thousands, [21] he ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... been formed of Calvin's character. None, however, can dispute his intellectual greatness or the powerful services which he rendered to the cause of Protestantism. Stern in spirit and unyielding in will, he is never selfish or petty in his motives. Nowhere amiable, he is everywhere strong. Arbitrary and cruel when it suits him, he is yet heroic in his aims, and beneficent in the scope of his ambition. His moral purpose ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... acquaintances as well as he had, and, as I passed him with the young lady under my protection, I took off my hat, and made him a low bow. To my surprise, not only did he not return the salute, but he looked at me with a very stern countenance. I concluded that he was a very proud man, and did not wish the admiral's daughters to suppose that he knew midshipmen by sight; but I had not exactly made up my mind on the subject, when the captain, having seen the ladies into the admiral's house, sent one of the messengers ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... which lay the explosives. It was then 6.28. The ladder was crowded with sailors who were also returning to their ship. "Run, run for your lives," shouted Paolucci. At last his foot touched the deck, and then he and Rossetti ran as fast as they could to the stern. Hardly had they got there than a terrific explosion rent the air, and a column of water shot three hundred feet straight up into the sky. Paolucci and Rossetti were again in the water, and looking back they saw a man scramble up the side of the vessel, which had now ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... enclosing little oases of green vegetation, lighted up by occasional gleams of sunshine. Though all around was enveloped in gloom, there was in front a high blue arc of cloudless sky, between the beetling cliffs that formed the stern portals of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... Errington recognized it with delight. It was that in which he had seen the mysterious maiden disappear. High and dry on the sand, out of reach of the tides, was a neat sailing-vessel; its name was painted round the stern—The Valkyrie. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... hoar with damp and mould, Where I must creep and in the dark and cold Offer some awful incense at a shrine That hath no more divine Than that 'tis far from life, and stern, and old; ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... man's face peering round the oilcloth hood of the cart was darkened by a sudden cloud as he caught the words. His stern lips closed. He muttered something inaudible to Mrs. Thornburgh and whipped up his horse again. The cart started off, and Mrs. Thornburgh was left staring into the receding eyes of 'Jim the Noodle,' who, from his seat on the near shaft, regarded her with a gaze which had passed from benevolence ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which was convulsed with love and pain, and found her stern as a priestess who defends her mystery from violation. Meekly he let his arms fall from her body and turned away, resting his head on his hand and ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... choicest that Paris can furnish," said Mary, "but seest thou, none other mode is so safe for conveying an answer to this suitor of mine! Nay, little one, do not fear. He is not at hand, and if he be so gout-ridden and stern as I have heard, we will find some way to content him and make him do the service without giving thee a stepfather, even though he be grandson ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are not the man," I freely own, Yet often they express the stuff they hide, As yours, I like to fancy, take their tone From stern, ascetic qualities inside; Just as the soldier's heavy marching-gear Conceals a heart of high determination, Too big, in any ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... standing up in her short white petticoat. She hung the skirt by the hem over the oars, and immediately she had a very fair substitute for a tent, to shield her from the blazing sun. Then, apparently quite contented, she sat down in the bottom of the boat, adjusting the cushion from the stern seat, for a back. She had her face towards the island, and, when she was comfortably settled, she ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... the sailors call its battery, are very powerful. There are two nine-inch guns, and also two sixty-four-pounders, rifled, at the bow. There are two forty-two-pounders at the stern, and those upon the side are thirty-twos and twenty-fours. There are rooms for the officers, but the men sleep in hammocks. They take their meals sitting on the gun-carriages, or cross-legged, like Turks, ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... sternly; but it is my great misfortune, my prevalent weakness, that I cannot be stern when I ought to be. It is with me in life as in art. I never could on the stage have taken the part of a Norma or a Medea. If I attempt in fiction a character which deserves condemnation, I am untrue to poetic justice. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... murderously, thither he spurred his horse. He had two horses killed, but remained uninjured. It seems Fate was too unmerciful toward him: it had decreed that the King of Prussia should not die, but learn in the stern school of suffering and experience ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... against another of her sex. Her campaign against men, when once she takes up arms, is mimic warfare—a sham fight—compared to this. Against a man, she needs but a company of fascinations, and in one attack his squares—the stern veterans of determination—are driven to flight. But with a woman, whole regiments of cunning, whole battalions of craft, with all the well-trained scouts of intuition and all the dashing cavalries of charm, are needed to rout her absolutely from ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... leave his berth, if there is any danger of a ship foundering in a gale. But in Professor Tyndall's opinion we had a narrow escape. On arriving at Gibraltar, he wrote a glowing account of the storm to the London Times, in which he described the feelings of a philosopher while standing on the stern of a rolling ship in an ocean storm, without quite knowing whether she was going to sink or swim. The letter was anonymous, which gave Admiral Ommaney an excellent opportunity to write as caustic ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... contingencies, I added Unk Wunk to my bill of fare—a vile, malodorous suffix that might delight a lover of strong cheese. It is undoubtedly a good law; but I cannot now imagine any one being grateful for it, unless the stern alternative were ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... promise me Thy heart will never change, That tones and looks, so loving now, Will ne'er grow stern and strange? That thou'lt be kind, whatever faults Or failings may be mine, And bear with them in patient love, As I will bear ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... thou com'st with lover's speed, Thy once beloved bride to see; But be she alive, or be she dead, I fear, stern Earl, 's ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... the father-house at Paulerspury the new man in him could not be hid. His sister gives us a vivid sketch of the lad, whose going over to the dissenters was resented by the formal and stern clerk, and whose evangelicalism was a ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... details of the first high speed twin screw steamer built for the service. Of this vessel, named the Tynwald, we give a profile and an engraving of stern, showing the method of supporting the brackets ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... her face with uncomprehending sympathy. He was fond of her, in his stern, reserved fashion, and knew she must deeply feel ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... and a pair of clean hands is not easily ruined," returned Derrick a trifle hotly. "As to being rash or enthusiastic, I am neither the one nor the other. It is not enthusiasm which moves me, it is a familiarity with stern realities." ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... at a turn in the road, I found myself in face of Didier, Didier Larreya. He was walking fast, his face looked stern and troubled. He stopped suddenly on seeing me; it was not often of late that we had spoken to each other. He had not looked with favour on my new friends, who on their side had made fun of him (though I had noticed the day of the wedding that Odette ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... wearisome, onerous, burdensome, toilsome, tiresome, exhausting, difficult, knotty, intricate, puzzling, incomprehensible; irresistible, uncontrollable; severe, rigorous, unendurable, oppressive, unjust, grievous, calamitous, incompliant; stern, unyielding, obdurate, unfeeling, exacting, insensible, hard-hearted, callous, implacable, inflexible; repelling, constrained, inelegant; severe, inclement, rigorous; excessive, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... earned the name of being a "bad boy," and there is no use of pretending he did not deserve the reputation. He gave his parents and neighbors a good deal of anxiety, and Dr. Dewey, who knew how to be stern as well as kind, was compelled more than once to interpose his authority in a way that no ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... He was of gigantic stature—six foot six or seven, and looked taller still, as he had a very small head and high shoulders. He was not an Adonis, and could only see out of one eye—the other (the left one, fortunately) was fixed as if it were made of glass—perhaps it was—and this gave him a stern and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... squalls, he made bold to lift his head and look, and then by the light—a bluish color 'twas—he saw all the coast clear away to Manacle Point, and off the Manacles in the thick of the weather, a sloop-of-war with topgallants housed, driving stern foremost toward the reef. It was she, of course, that was burning the flare. My father could see the white streak and the ports of her quite plain as she rose to it, a little outside the breakers, and he guessed easy enough that her captain ...
— The Roll-Call Of The Reef • A. T. Quiller-Couch (AKA "Q.")
... their forts, and on being attacked and boarded by some of his ships she took fire. In this situation, Botello gave orders for his ships to draw off from the danger, and on going up in his galliot to bring off Antonio Mascarennas, the Dutch ship blew up while Botello was passing her stern, by which his galliot was instantly sunk. His body was found and taken to Malacca, where ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... another gondola that had withdrawn itself from the center of the channel close in to a small island. The man at the stern was doing nothing very picturesquely, but the man at the bow, a swarthy Venetian, was pouring out his soul in an aria from "Cavalleria Rusticana." His voice might not have passed muster at Covent Garden, but in the ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... She went off to starboard. The lead indicated shallow water. The same moment came the order, "Let go the anchor!" And to the bottom it went with a rush and a clank. There we lay with 4 fathoms of water under the stern and 9 fathoms in front at the anchor. We were not a moment too soon. We got the Fram's head straight to the wind, and tried again, time after time, but always with the same result. The attempt had ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... Puritan Sunday. Nothing ever did make a home more hateful than the strict observance of the Sabbath. It fills the house with hypocrisy and the meanest kind of petty tyranny. The parents look sour and stern, the children sad and sulky. They are compelled to talk upon subjects about which they feel no interest, or to read books that are thought good only because they are ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... was very stern, for time had not erased from his heart all love for the blue-eyed Matty, the gentle mother of the offending Maude, and more than all, the mother of his boy—"Helen, that woman was my wife, and you must not ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... Independents, who, if few in number, were yet distinguished by the superior talents and industry of their leaders; the lawyers, who looked with jealousy on any attempt to erect an ecclesiastical power independent of the legislature; and the men of irreligious habits, who dreaded the stern and scrutinizing discipline of a Presbyterian kirk. ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... by the missionary at this unfortunate event, and loud was the laughter with which it was treated by the captain himself, on being re-seated in the stern sheets. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... it at them, flung it fight in their faces, and laughed as she saw it strike home. A howl of rage greeted the taunt, and, listening to the wild, fierce yell—so different from the noisy bravado of a few minutes before, I shuddered; there was something so stern and purposeful about it. ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... is called in he finds it necessary to go back to first principles. He lays down the law in a definite, stern way, and the mother and the child must obey. Most parents know and admit they are doing wrong to give in to a whimsical child, and if they would only make up their minds to conquer when conquering is easy they would save themselves many heartaches, many regrets, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... your dreaming, To do with "people"? You may be the devil In your dead-reckoning of what reefs and shoals Are waiting on the progress of our ship Unless you steer it, but you'll find it irksome Alone there in the stern; and some warm day There'll be an inland music in the rigging, And afterwards on deck. I'm not affined Or favored overmuch at Monticello, But there's a mighty swarming of new bees About the premises, and ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... hills which have now become one of the favorite play-grounds of America, but which then frowned grimly even in summer, dark with trackless forests, and for the larger part of the year were sheeted with the glittering, untrampled snow from which they derive their name. Stern and strong with the force of an unbroken wilderness, they formed at all times a forbidding background to the sparse settlements in the valleys ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... prophesying with shrill voice the ceasing of the stormy winds; and Mopsus heard and understood the cry of the bird of the shore, fraught with good omen. And some god made it turn aside, and flying aloft it settled upon the stern-ornament of the ship. And the seer touched Jason as he lay wrapped in soft sheepskins and woke him at once, and ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... compassion and such grief, With eyes tear-dimmed, despondent, in stern words The ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... if he found them such, he would treat them accordingly. The servants obeyed his commands without the least suspicion of the intricacy of this affair, and soon came up with Mr. Carew, whom they forcibly brought up to my lord. His lordship accosted him in a very rough stern manner, asking where the other fellow was, and told him he should be made to find him. Mr. Carew in the mean time stood thunder-struck, expecting nothing less than a commitment to prison, but, upon examination, made out his story as ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... Head at 9:30 in the morning when I perceived the steamer Dunsley in difficulty. Going toward her, I observed a torpedo coming for my ship, but could not discern a submarine. The torpedo struck 100 feet from the stern, making terrible havoc of the hull. The vessel began to settle immediately and sank ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... nearly as handsome as I am myself—(she passed her hands lightly through her curls as she spoke). And you know I shall marry no one but a Douglas—only you must not ask me to wed my cousin William of Avondale, for he is so stern and solemn; besides, he has always a book in his pocket, and wishes me to learn somewhat out of it as if I were a monk. A Douglas should not be a monk, he should be ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... shoulders of the truth; which truth is so clear that I can almost say I have with my own eyes seen Amadis of Gaul, who was a man of lofty stature, fair complexion, with a handsome though black beard, of a countenance between gentle and stern in expression, sparing of words, slow to anger, and quick to put it away from him; and as I have depicted Amadis, so I could, I think, portray and describe all the knights-errant that are in all the histories in the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... they are enabled to push either against the bottom of the river or rocks, or branches of trees on the bank, for the canoe keeps close to the shore all the time in order to give the polemen an opportunity and also to avoid the swifter current running in the centre of the river. In the stern twenty or thirty paddlers sit on the sides of the boat and work together, while on the extreme end two or three stand up with long paddles to steer. The cook with his fire built on a heap of clay in the bottom of the canoe, sits among the paddlers and the sentries and ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... looming over the Twin Bear peaks and breathing an infinite calm over the mountains. The cloud took a faintly human shape—a shape somewhat like that of her father when he lived, for he could be both stern and gentle, as she well knew, and such ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... the Thames we paused to look at a steamer unloading great slabs of white and brown marble. A barge drifted under the steamer's stern and a lonely cow in that ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... instant to be led forth to execution, was on her knees in her cell. She heard the noise, little suspecting the cause. At that moment the door opened, and a monk appeared. She looked up, and beheld the stern features of Father Quixada. There was a glance in his eye which made ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... Upon the stern of the gig still afloat may be read the name Pandora. The same word may be seen painted on the water-casks buoying up the big raft; and on the two planks forming the transverse pieces of the lesser one appears ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... glasses, and winked and nodded, and would be looking wise as though we might ken something about his wares that he would not be telling everybody, till indeed I could not keep back the laughing to see the grave stern man so far gone with ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... in foraminibus petrae: the words used to come back to me whenever I returned from a day's journey across the mountains, and looking down saw the blue lake far below, hidden in its hills like a happy secret in a stern heart. We were never envious of the glory of the great lakes. They are like the show pictures that some nobleman hangs in his public gallery; but our Iseo is the treasure that he hides in ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... man will have added fifty per cent, to the selling value of his property. The present thrift, wealth, genius, enterprise and intelligence of the people of the New England States is the legitimate outworking of the training bestowed on their sons by the stern, old Puritans that ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Wolfskins, forward. No iron could hurt them, and when they charged nothing could withstand them. Thorir defended himself bravely and fell on his ship fighting valiantly. The whole ship from stem to stern was cleared and her fastenings were cut, so that she fell out of the line of battle. Then they attacked Onund's ship, in the forepart of which he was standing and fighting manfully. The king's men said: "He bears himself well in the forecastle. Let ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... horror-chilled; For this was his dear friend. With one swift thrust He pierced the sevenfold hides of Aias' shield, Yet touched his flesh not; stayed the spear-head was By those thick hides and by the corset-plate Which lapped his battle-tireless limbs. But still From that stern conflict Glaucus drew not back, Burning to vanquish Aias, Aeacus' son, And in his folly vaunting threatened him: "Aias, men name thee mightiest man of all The Argives, hold thee in passing-high esteem Even as Achilles: therefore thou, I wot, ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... ballast, high out of the water, black of hull and dingy of sail: still it is a ship, and there is always an interest about a ship. She is so near, running along but just outside the reef, that the deck is visible. Up rises her stern as the billows come fast and roll under; then her bow lifts, and immediately she rolls, and, loosely swaying with the sea, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... the cold coil of leather tighten round my neck. An hostler with a stable lantern had come out and was gazing upon the scene. In its dim light I saw stern faces breaking everywhere through the gloom, with the black caps and dark cloaks ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the dove-soft eyne Under the kisses that make them mine! Only of thee, of thee, my need! Only to thee, to thee, I speed!" The Cross flashed by at the highway's turn; In a beam of the moon the Face shone stern. ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... made every one tremble. Stern and choleric to the last degree, and even against inanimate objects; impetuous with frenzy, incapable of suffering the slightest resistance even from the hours and the elements, without flying into a passion that threatened to destroy his body; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and go before them, which, with muffled grunts, and after two or three attempts, he succeeded in doing. He was evidently dazed yet and stiff from the cramped attitude in which he had been lying, but stern necessity was on him and he finally wobbled and staggered on ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... us. We can hear their light footfall and their soft whisperings, but the moment we turn round upon them they vanish. If they disappeared for good, they would be the easiest to deal with of all the ill things that beset our lives. But they do not. The moment we relax our bold, stern search for the face of the enemy, there the evil thing is again—the light footfall and the soft voice. It is terrible work fighting a suggestion. There are the thoughts that a man will not cherish and cannot slay. They may never enter ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... glowing, white teeth flashing and black eyes sparkling. He saw that they were carried away by the music and the dance, and as they floated over the turf they were dreaming of their far and sunny land and the girls they had left behind them. He had been reared in a stern and more northern school, but he had learned long since that a love of innocent pleasure was no sign of effeminacy ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... cheeks; and then he would suddenly recollect that it was time he was going on. The woman did not go on; she stayed right there—hour after hour, day after day, year after year, twisting sausage links and racing with death. It was piecework, and she was apt to have a family to keep alive; and stern and ruthless economic laws had arranged it that she could only do this by working just as she did, with all her soul upon her work, and with never an instant for a glance at the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... last August (that is in August, 1783), on my last voyage to this country (India) I had long and ardently desired to visit, I found one evening, on inspecting the observations of the day, that India lay before us, Persia on our left, while a breeze from Arabia blew nearly on our stern. A situation so pleasing in itself and to me so new, could not fail to awaken a train of reflections in a mind which had early been accustomed to contemplate with delight the eventful histories and agreeable fictions of this Eastern world. It gave me ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... of refined and gentle men of study; the youths in Botticelli's "Adoration of The Magi," for instance, are the ideal of Boiardo's chivalry, Rinaldos and Orlandos every one; the corseleted generals of the Renaissance, so calm and stern and frank, the Bartolomeo Colleoni of Verrocchio, the Gattamelata by Giorgione (or Giorgione's pupil), look fit to take up the banner of the crusade: that Gattamelata in the Uffizi gallery especially looks like a sort of military Milton: give him a pair of wings and he becomes at once ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... braves have perished in their pride and not one of them hath returned to me safe and sound. Now, an thy life be dear to thee, follow my counsel and fare no further, but rather turn thee back without stay or delay and make for house and home and family." Hereto Prince Bahman, stern in resolution, made reply, "Thou hast after kindly guise and friendly fashion advised me with the best of advice; and I, having heard all thou hast to day, do thank thee gratefully. But I reck not one jot or tittle of what ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... the author's life as to which, he showed, the public were not entitled to demand more than the mere historical mention of the facts. When he was writing this Life it was amusing to find how sturdily independent he became. The "Blacking episode" could not have been acceptable, but Forster was stern and would not bate a line. So, with much more—he "rubbed it in" without scruple. The true reason, by the way, of the uproar raised against the writer, was that it was too much of a close borough, no one but Boz and his Bear leader being allowed ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... time was much like that of the time of James I and Charles I, but was simplified wherever possible. There were no pomps and vanities in those stern days. ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... the photograph, expecting to see a woman with a stern, ill-tempered, forbidding countenance. To my surprise, the face showed the remains of great beauty; the expression, though remarkably firm, was yet winning, tender, and kind. The gray hair was arranged in rows of little quaint old-fashioned ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... defined by here and there a coat- collar turned up in self-defence; for neither the glass front door, nor the wooden porch, nor our massive porter can effectually keep out the weather. Dinner here is a stern bit of the day's work, to be discharged ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... behind the house and a deep-throated, baying bark resounded in a threatening roar. Juno, Squire Eliot's famous mastiff, the one that had taken a prize at the dog show, bounded out toward the marauders. They turned to fly, when a stern voice bade ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... over the threshold and drew him in. The Hall was stern and grim and somewhat dusky, for its windows were but small: it was all of stone, both walls and roof. There was no timber-work therein save the benches and chairs, a little about the doors at the lower end that led to ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... left in judicious silence by some modern commentators, such as M. Darmesteter in Les Cosmogonies Aryennes.(1) Indeed, if we choose to regard Apollonius Rhodius, an Alexandrine poet writing in a highly civilised age, as the representative of Orphicism, it is easy to mask and pass by the more stern and characteristic fortresses of the Orphic divine. The theriomorphic Phanes is a much less "Aryan" and agreeable object than the glorious golden-winged Eros, the love-god of Apollonius ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... roofed only by the heavens, resemble the floor of one of our old English churches, where the pavement is covered with sepulchral inscriptions. The contents of these sad records of mortality, the vain sorrows which they preserve, the stern lesson which they teach of the nothingness of humanity, the extent of ground which they so closely cover, and their uniform and melancholy tenor, reminded me of the roll of the prophet, which was "written within and without, and there was ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sanctity And bearded wisdom, often have provok'd The hand of justice to fall heavy on her; Yet still, in kind compassion of her weakness, And tender memory of Edward's love, I have withheld the merciless stern law From doing outrage ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... down to the shore shortly after, and embarked in Quiller's boat. Mab sat in the stern under a scarlet sunshade and talked gaily to her two companions. She was greatly amused when Merefleet insisted upon doing his ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... saw two Jews that met by chance, One old, stern-eyed, deep-browed, yet garlanded With living light of love around his head, The other young, with sweet seraphic glance. Around went on the Town's satanic dance, Hunger a-piping while at heart he bled. Shalom Aleichem ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... an awful doom to Don Pedro, if he doesn't make them happy. The bag is opened, and several quarts of tin money shower down upon the stage till it is quite glorified with the glitter. This entirely softens the stern sire. He consents without a murmur, all join in a joyful chorus, and the curtain falls upon the lovers kneeling to receive Don Pedro's blessing in attitudes of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Bible, and said in a stern voice: "Swear." I told him that I couldn't, that I never had sworn, that ladies didn't do it in America, wouldn't he ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... least, he lived up to his creed. "Honfleur is far—Monsieur Renard has not the good digestion when he is tired—he suffers. Il passe des nuits d'angoisse. Il souffre des fatigues de l'estomac. Il se fatigue aujourd'hui!" This, with an air of stern conviction, was accompanied by a glance at his master in which compassion was not the most obvious note to be read. He went ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... for occupation, his wife, already in a delicate state of health, took cold and died; leaving him with four children, the eldest of whom was six years old, and the youngest but an infant. Mr. S. is said to have been a shrewd and sensible man, of strict morals and unbending integrity; but withal stern and inflexible in disposition, pharisaic, and a bigoted churchman. His punctuality in the performance of outward religious duties, and the regular payment of his dues, with now and then a fat sheep given to the poor, secured ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth |
