"Stern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'Till near the brink of Charles's beauteous stream, They stop, and think the lingering boat to blame. Soon as the empty skiff salutes the shore, In with impetuous haste they clustering pour, The men the head, the stern the ladies grace, And neighing horses fill the middle space. Sunk deep, the boat floats slow the waves along, And scarce contains the thickly crowded throng; A gen'ral horror seizes on the fair, While white-look'd cowards only not despair. 'Till rowed ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... fought like certain cats in Kilkenny till both were "eaten up:" the Gudabirsi fix the event at the period when their forefathers still inhabited Bulhar on the coast,—about 300 years ago. If the date be correct, the substantial ruins have fought a stern fight with time. Remnants of houses cumber the soil, and the carefully built wells are filled with rubbish: the palace was pointed out to me with its walls of stone and clay intersected by layers of woodwork. The mosque is a large roofless building containing ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... in Southwest Harbor, a land-locked inlet that nearly cut the Island in two, and was the gateway through which the fishing-craft from the village at the harbor head found their way out into the great Penobscot Bay. There were many days during the stern winter and bleak spring months when the gate was blocked with ice or veiled in fog, but nature relented a little toward the Island folk in the fall and sent them sunny days for their late, scant harvesting, and ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... voices stilled to silence, and the crowd of gaily clad courtiers parted, making way with low bows for someone who had just entered. For a second I thought it was the King himself; but a look showed me not the King but the stern figure ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... lamps were lit; a party of wild young men, who got off next evening at North Platte, stood together on the stern platform singing The Sweet By-and-By with very tuneful voices; the chums began to put up their beds; and it seemed as if the business of the day were at an end. But it was not so; for the train stopping at some station, the cars were instantly thronged with the natives, wives and fathers, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... to the couch, Llyn and his tall, stern sons. Daurn knew them well and strove to curse them, but the Cadwallader's grave voice hushed ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... a tall, dark-featured man, smoothly shaven, as swarthy as an Indian, with stern dark eyes, thick coarse hair, and an abrupt manner born of long command. His companion, of lighter build and younger face, was attired in a travel-stained uniform of blue and buff; but he who was evidently the leader was ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... I moored the ship head and stern close to the north shore, at the head of the harbour; hauled up the cables on deck, and opened one of the ballast-ports. From this a slight stage was made to the land, being at the distance of about twenty feet, with a view to get clear of some of the rats that continued ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... that old day In Hampton town and its log-built church, Where side by side the coffins lay And the mourners stood in aisle and porch. In the singing-seats young eyes were dim, The voices faltered that raised the hymn, And Father Dalton, grave and stern, Sobbed through his prayer and wept ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... dock while Fred speedily turned over the cushions. He did not discover his missing knife, but he did find a large envelope lying directly beneath the cushion in the stern ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... for the sake of the whole Country, I ask, 'Can you, for your States, do better than to take the course I urge?' Discarding punctilio and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking only to the unprecedentedly stern facts of our case, can you do ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... informs me that the late Mr. Appold, the mechanician, used to combine two portraits of himself under the stereoscope. The one had been taken with an assumed stern expression, the other with a smile, and this combination produced a curious and effective ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... grow up together, their lives blending in childhood association and affection. It is interesting to think what the effect would have been upon the characters of both if they had been reared in close companionship. How would John's stern, rugged, unsocial nature have affected the gentle spirit of Jesus? What impression would the brightness, sweetness, and affectionateness of Jesus have made on the ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... don't see why I should be ashamed! Yes! He is my wise man, he is the real Humfrey Charlecote! His is the very nature I always thought some one must still have—the exact judgment I longed to meet with. Not stern like Robin's, not sharp like Mervyn's, nor high-flying like dear Miss Charlecote's, nor soft like Bevil's, nor light like Lucy's, nor clear and clever like Miss Fennimore's—no, but considerate and solid, tender and true—such as one can lean upon! I know why he ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your grammar lesson in a few moments, Ruby," said Miss Ketchum, in a stern tone, and she went to her room, leaving Ruby with her grammar in her hand, trying to keep the tears out of her ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... finished he sat on, brooding into the dying flame of the fire. Slowly the worry went out of his eyes and resolve came in. Out of the chaos of his fortunes he had finally achieved a way. But it was not a pretty way. His face had become stern and wolfish, and the thin lips ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... not a man whom it was easy to turn hither and thither. He was a stern, hard, just man, of whom it may probably be said that if a world were altogether composed of such, the condition of such a world would be much better than that of the world we know;—for generosity is less efficacious towards permanent good than justice, and tender speaking ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... pictures could not last for ever, and when they were over there was Mrs. Morrison to face; and though Mrs. Morrison had a very kindly face, and had been very friendly and nice to Eva, whom she liked, the latter had a feeling that she could be very stern, and that she would disapprove of going to an entertainment on Sunday evening. To her surprise, when she came out there were no churchgoers to be seen in the streets, and when she passed Amy's church it was in darkness, and she guessed that it must be past nine ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... inspired men, who declared themselves invulnerable, and sent by God to drive away the infidels; the following year their death was forgotten, and their successors found no less credence. The Roman power, very stern on the one hand, yet little disposed to meddle, permitted a good deal of liberty. Those great, brutal despotisms, terrible in repression, were not so suspicious as powers which have a faith to defend. They allowed everything up to the point when they thought it necessary ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... left, that's this;— You know the rope, by which the cock-boat's tied, Goes down by the stern, and now, we are at anchor, There sits no pilot to discover us; My counsel is, to go down by the ladder, And, being once there, unloose, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... in conflict nor in flame, No laurel garland rests upon his tomb; Yet in stern duty's path he met his doom; A life heroic, though unwed ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... to sail anywhere," said Wilkins, as he hauled up the mainsail, which flapped idly in the still air. "For you see," he added, touching a button alongside of the tiller, "this button sets that big electric fan in the stern revolving, and the result is an artificial breeze which distends the sail, ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... A space of two hundred yards alone separates the steamers—the Belle is bounding upon the waves of the Magnolia. In less than ten minutes her head will overlap the stern of her rival. In less than twenty, and the cheer of victory rising from her deck will peal from ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... gently, lovingly over the boy's brow, and he watched him anxiously through his half-closed eyes. Paul recalled the master's grief when he first saw the boy after the accident, and other little traits of kindness—traits which had shown him that Mr. Weevil was not altogether the stern, harsh man he had one time thought him. None the less, he was sorry that he had entered the room at that moment. Hibbert had awakened his curiosity. What was it that was weighing on his mind? What had he to tell him about the man Zuker? He wished Mr. Weevil had kept from ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... his ships, reduced to mere wrecks, could no longer be kept afloat, and he ordered them to be run aground within bowshot of the shore, and fastened side by side. Here they soon filled with water to the deck. Cabins were therefore erected at the bow and stern, for the accommodation of the crews, and the vessels were placed in the best possible state of defence against any sudden attack ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... not a hard name, for sailors make such a fuss about jaw-breaking words. An old coaster meant to name his vessel the Amphitrite, but he gave the name of Anthracite to the painter, and it was duly lettered upon the stern. However, it answered just as well, as the craft went into ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... ignorance it could scarcely have been recognized. In order that it might exercise its proper influence over religion and philosophy, it was necessary that the God of Nature should cease to be a God of terrors, a personification of mere Power or arbitrary Will, a pure and stern Intelligence, an inflictor of evil, and an unrelenting Judge. The philosophy of Plato, in which this charge became forever established, was emphatically a mediation of Love. With him, the inspiration of Love first kindled the light of arts and imparted them to mankind; and not only the arts ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... needed a still greater incentive to make him speak out; while as for the Englishmen, though they would gladly have taken his advice, they hesitated to give away the secret of Saidee Ray's husband to a representative of Ben Halim's stern judge, France. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... should go who can afford it. Several countries had not opened when we were there; Turkey and Spain, for instance; and if Switzerland was ready we did not see it. The more I think of the groups I spoke of, the more I am lost in admiration. A young mother kneeling over a little dead baby, and the stern grief of the strong old grandfather, brought a lump into my throat; the young father was not capable of such grief as theirs, and sat by, looking subdued and tender, but nothing more. The artist must be a great student of human nature. I went, every day, to ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... her, and besought permission to return and try once more for her release but the stern ferryman repulsed him and refused passage. Seven days he lingered about the brink, without food or sleep; then bitterly accusing of cruelty the powers of Erebus, he sang his complaints to the rocks and mountains, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... indisposition, he ventured to inquire at the door, and, considerably to his surprise, was admitted. He found Hammond in his easy-chair, at a table, with writing-materials before him; and as Middleton entered, the old gentleman looked at him with a stern, fixed regard, which, however, did not seem to imply any particular displeasure towards this visitor, but rather a severe way of regarding mankind in general. Middleton looked curiously around the small apartment, to see what modification the character of the man had had upon ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... being implicated in the kidnapping is a base fabrication. I knew Joseph C. Miller from boyhood intimately, and I here take pleasure in saying that he was an honest, unassuming man, of good moral character and stern integrity, and would have spurned the idea of any complication, directly or ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... stern. She had laid bare to him her whole heart, and he had answered her love by never a word. He had made no reply in any shape,—given her no thanks for her heart's treasure. He had responded to her affection by no tenderness. He had not even said ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... stern geological interests! In grapplin' with 'em I leaned over the taff-rail of the boat and looked way down into the blue green depths, seekin' a answer. But the shinin' waves on top seemed to glitter mockin'ly and fur down, down in the green waves, there seemed to look back a sort of a pityin' ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... without constancy or capacity to bring to any degree of composition: but, what was very extraordinary in a female poet, there was not the least mention made of love in any of her performances. I counted fragments of five tragedies, the titles of which were "The Stern Philosopher," "The Double," "The Sacrilegious Traitor," "The Fall of Lucifer," and "The Last Day." From whence I gathered, that her disposition was gloomy, and her imagination delighted with objects of horror. Her library was composed ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... surprises of water and wood, pretty grottoes, rustic bridges and incomparable turf. He followed the windings of a stream, till, suddenly, he came out into a straight open valley, at the end of which were the massive ruins of the old abbey, with its stern Norman tower. He came on slowly thinking how strange it was that he, who had spent years in the remotest corners of the world, having for his companions men adventurous as himself, and barbarous tribes, should be here. His life, ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... domestic, so may it also survive these by a period as prolonged. If our descent from our present favored position be a gradual one, much may be done in the interval to adapt ourselves to the future outcome, but it is certain that nothing will be done except under the stern ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... up to, and recognised among his fellows as a superior genius, but upon Arthur Gride his stern unyielding character and consummate art had made so deep an impression, that he was actually afraid of him. Cringing and cowardly to the core by nature, Arthur Gride humbled himself in the dust before ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... spirituous liquors. Population. Floating Market. Spoons. Ladies appearing in public. Obeisance. Modes of addressing nobles. The use of yellow confined to the Royal Family. Umbrellas closed when passing the Palace. Nobles only can sit in the stern of a boat. Ceremonies at ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... the Beagle's head was slowly paying off from the shore. But her broadside becoming exposed to the swell, she was again driven in towards the point, and so close, that before the well-trimmed sails gave her way, as her stern went down with the swell, the assurance that she must strike, pervaded every shuddering frame. To myself, the sensation was just as if my feet were under the keel; and I almost expected to feel the bones crushing. Still we clung to hope, which can find a place even in the narrowest interval ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... interrupted, "I am ready to die. Yes, I am ready. I have had a hard life, Comyn, and few friends. It was my fault. I—I did not know how to make them. Yet no man ever valued those few more than! But," he cried, the stern fire unquenched to the last, "I would that God had spared me to see this Rebellion stamped out. For it will be stamped out." To those watching, his eyes seemed fixed on a distant point, and the light of prophecy was in them. "I would that God ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a close, stern friendship. Dorothy worked at all things with the same passion, never sparing herself. She came closest to Ursula during the botany hours. For she could not draw. Ursula made beautiful and wonderful drawings of the sections ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... falling a little aside, had no great opinion of the faculty of this chance patient to make reimbursement, had no sooner seen his case espoused by a substantial citizen, than he showed some reluctance to quit possession of it, and it needed a short and stern hint from Master George, which, with all his good-humour, he was capable of expressing when occasion required, to send to his own dwelling ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... home, and carried such reports of the new city, and of the kindness, and hospitality, and gentle behavior of the inhabitants, that new visitors came continually to see for themselves. Every day the proportion of stern and suspicious men diminished, and that of gay and happy-looking youths ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... views of individuals, or to foment the divisions of party; if it promoted the interests of a few at the expense of the prosperity of the many; if its benefits were limited to place, or fugitive as to duration; then, indeed, it might be received with cold indifference or treated with stern neglect; but the overflowing blessings from this great fountain of public good and national abundance will be as extensive as our own country and as durable as time. It may be confidently asserted that this canal, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Ware house was a silent sadness, silent because these were stern people, living in a stern time, and it was the custom to hide one's griefs. The oldest son was gone; whether he had perished nobody knew, nor, if he ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of a ruddy complexion, with brown hair; of a well-made handsome form, but a stern visage. His height was about eight of his own feet, which were very long. He was of a strong robust make; his legs and thighs very stout, and his sinews firm. His face was thirteen inches long; his beard a palm; his nose half a palm; his ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... beauty which is everywhere apparent, must be reckoned as important factors in the formation of their character. And of that character, as I have said, the final note is playfulness. In spite of difficulties, their life has never been stern enough to sadden them. Bare necessities are marvellously cheap, and the pinch of real bad weather—such frost as locked the lagoons in ice two years ago, or such south-western gales as flooded the basement floors ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... delightfully of Agnes and her life, "as if by a generation of autocratic landowners, each with a wilful bee in his bonnet."[1] For Marblehead is no misnomer, and the early settlers had to plant their houses and make their streets as best they could. As a matter of stern fact, every house in Marblehead had to be like the wise man's in the Bible: "built upon a rock." The dwellings themselves were founded upon solid ledges, while the principal streets followed the natural valleys between. The smaller dividing paths led each and every one of them to the impressive ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would melt down ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the little launch had noisily chug-chugged its way among the various craft, small and large, and had finally come to a standstill beside a beautiful boat, upon whose bow and stern was ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... be new-wedded there; For long had they been strangers to their bliss. So by the altar standeth she submiss And watchful, praying silent and intense To a strange-figured Goddess, to his sense Who knew but Aphrodite. "Love, what now? Who is thy God? What secret rite hast thou?" For grave and stern above that altar stood Here the Queen of Heaven. In dry mood She answered him, "Chaste wives to her do pray Before they couch, Blest be the strife! You say We are to be new-wedded. Pour with me Libation that we love not ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... steward, to help him to bring his trunk aboard. In the course of the evening we went on board, without being hindered by the quartermaster on guard. After having remained some time in the "gloria," (steward's quarters,) we went to the stern main deck. About fifteen to eighteen feet from the entrance to the "gloria," on port and starboard, respectively, I saw two guns of twelve to fifteen centimeters. They were covered with leather, but the barrel was distinctly to be seen. To satisfy my curiosity I unfastened the buckles ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... condemn the repeal of old ones in effect avers that their particular views of government have no self-extending or self-sustaining power of their own, and will go nowhere unless forced by act of Congress. And if Congress do but pause for a moment in the policy of stern coercion; if it venture to try the experiment of leaving men to judge for themselves what institutions will best suit them; if it be not strained up to perpetual legislative exertion on this point—if Congress proceed thus to act in the very spirit of liberty, it is at once ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... I sometimes turn My gaze, with introspection stern, Three persons there I seem to see, "I" and "Myself," they are, ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... permanent residents of Wrangell were engaged in trade. Some little trade was carried on in fish and furs, but most of the quickening business of the place was derived from the Cassiar gold-mines, some two hundred and fifty or three hundred miles inland, by way of the Stickeen River and Dease Lake. Two stern-wheel steamers plied on the river between Wrangell and Telegraph Creek at the head of navigation, a hundred and fifty miles from Wrangell, carrying freight and passengers and connecting with pack-trains ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... as he should have obeyed, Warren's orders, this catastrophe could not have occurred, and that he more than any other man on earth was responsible for the death of these gallant fellows, who, whether they looked up to him or not, were by the stern discipline of the service dependent on him for the expected support. If he could realize this, how much the quicker would others be to attach the blame to him! how much the more necessary must it be to lose no time in diverting suspicion elsewhere! The fatal propensity to distort or disobey, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... gifts and good looks. Nothing is asked of them, all their sins are forgiven; they are treated like perfect natures, others are blind to their defects, they are the world's spoiled children. And, on the other hand, the world is stern beyond measure to strong and complete natures. Perhaps in this apparently flagrant injustice society acts sublimely, taking a harlequin at his just worth, asking nothing of him but amusement, promptly forgetting him; and asking divine great deeds ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... used to making a landing through the surf. Arrived off shore, they waited till a big wave came directly at the stern, then with a shout gave way and rode in on its crest, jumping out into the water and pulling the dory high up on what proved to be a shingle beach backed by a high rock wall a hundred yards ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... asleep. This shocked me and I was at once wide awake. My uncle was sitting very erect and his arm around my waist had the tight grasp that usually preceded some sharp rebuke. I looked up and found his face grown suddenly so hard and stern, I was all affright lest my sleeping had offended him. His eyes were fastened on Lord Selkirk with a piercing, angry gaze. His Lordship was not nodding, not a bit of it. How brilliant he seemed to my childish fancy! He was leaning forward, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... south depend for protection from the insect hordes,—the very birds that are most near and dear to the people of the North. Song-bird slaughter is growing and spreading, with the decrease of the game birds! It is a matter that requires instant attention and stern repression. At the present moment it seems that the only remedy lies in federal protection for all migratory birds,—because so many states will ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... quivered and became an Afrit, whose head was in the clouds and his feet in the dust. His head was like a dome, his hands like pitchforks, his legs like masts, his mouth like a cavern, his teeth like rocks, his nostrils like trumpets, his eyes like lamps, and he was stern and lowering of aspect. When the fisherman saw the Afrit, he trembled in every limb; his teeth chattered and his spittle dried up and he knew not what to do. When the Afrit saw him, he said, 'There is no god but God, and Solomon is His prophet! O prophet of God, do ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... for Mr. Mohun happening to be at home, was dragged into the dancing-room by Emily and Ada. Once, when she thought he was looking another way, Jane tried to raise a smile, but a stern 'Jane, what are you thinking of?' recalled her to order, and when the lesson was over her father spoke gravely to her, telling her that he thought few things more disgusting in a young lady than impertinence towards her teachers; and then added, 'Miss Weston, I hope you ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for stately tire, For frills and furbelows, When dainty humours should inspire Such vanities as those; So for stern hours of high ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... a loving heart from the depravity of a corrupt character. With the obstinacy of narrow-minded people, he had been looking at the whole thing in its worst light, and for several hours already he had decided upon his wife's guilt in his own mind; this served now as a foundation for his stern conduct. His features remained perfectly impassive as he listened to Clemence's words of justification, which she uttered ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... gone the tempest, which Julia's pride had enabled her to stern for a time, broke forth in a passion of tears and sobs, and, throwing herself on the shabby window-seat, she gave free vent to her grief. The happy future which the little bean had dangled before her eyes, absurdly as he had fashioned and bedecked ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... experiment in modern diplomacy-was made in a place which has sacrificed nothing to a love of that intoxicant known as the spirit of the age. It was, in truth, a strange sight that Portsmouth saw a brief two years ago. Before its troubled eyes the stern conference of hostile nations was turned to comedy. A hundred and twenty eager reporters publicly put up their support for sale in exchange for information to the highest bidder. The representative of a great country was heard ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... did not heed or hear him—dark and stern thoughts, thoughts in which were the germ of a mighty revolution, were at his heart. He woke from them with a start, as the soldiers were now arranging their bucklers so as to make a kind of bier for the corpse, and then burst into tears as he fiercely motioned them away, and clasped the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Sommers shivered. After he had reached the end of the lane, he turned back, and walked swiftly to the cottage. At the corner he looked into the room where they had been sitting. She was still in the same place where he had left her, by the lamp, her white, almost stern face, with its large, severe lines, staring fiercely into space. It made him uneasy, this long, tense look that betrayed a mind fixed upon one idea, and that idea! He crept away into the lane to flee from it, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... my pocket full of ship biscuit, and, after listening for a moment at the hatchway, tiptoed forward and climbed out upon the bowsprit. Then, having unloosed the cockboat's painter, I lowered and let myself drop into her, and, slipping a paddle into the stern-notch, sculled gently ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... leading the way, in a few moments the Padre detected the wash of waves, and presently his feet struck the firmer sand of the beach. Here the stranger paused, and the Padre perceived a boat lying in readiness hard by. As he stepped into the stern-sheets', in obedience to the command of his companion, he noticed that the rowers seemed to partake of the misty incorporeal texture of his companion, a similarity that became the more distressing when he perceived also that their oars in pulling together made no noise. The stranger, assuming the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... greeting of the ambassador by a scarcely perceptible nod, and strode, with head erect, into the middle of the room. There he stood still, and casting a stern and almost defiant glance on the ambassador, he said in a cold, dignified tone: "You requested an audience of me in a very unusual manner. I granted it to prove to you my desire to remain at peace with France. Now speak; What has the ambassador of the Emperor of the French ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... lashes. It was characteristic of Kellson that the prisoner's prepossessing appearance had the involuntary effect of making the sentence more severe, or rather, perhaps, of making the magistrate more stern in his estimate ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... and illustrating some of their story-books. No two people could be more unlike than those two uncles, who would probably be the guardians of Edward and Bertie Rivers. Mr. Gregory was a tall, portly gentleman, with grey hair and keen eager eyes; his voice was loud, his manner always stern and abrupt. People usually feared and respected him more than they loved him; he was always very busy and fussy and important, and had an idea that nothing in London would go on quite right without him. However, Mrs. Rivers had been his only sister; the ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... and bruised, and scurvily used, He went trudging along his track; The lesson was stern he had come to learn, And yet he ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... here, and if the gen'leman has a mind to be kind-hearted—" Then she intimated her own readiness to take any contribution to the good cause which the Senator might be willing to make at that moment. But the Senator buttoned up his breeches pockets with stern resolution. Though he still believed Lord Rufford to be altogether wrong, he was beginning to think that the Goarlys were not worthy his benevolence. As she came to the door with them and accompanied them a few yards across ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... into the chaff-shed. Carting the straw that streams from the thresher bows, are Michelmore and Neck—the little man who cannot read, but can milk and whistle the hearts out of his cows till they follow him like dogs. At the thresher's stern is Morris, the driver, selected because of that utter reliability which radiates from his broad, handsome face. His part is to attend the sacking of the three kinds of grain for ever sieving out. He murmurs: "Busy work, sir!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... beginners of the Oxford movement, from anything like personal display, any conscious aiming at the ornamental and brilliant, any show of gifts or courting of popular applause. Morbid and excessive or not, there can be no doubt of the stern self-containing severity which made them turn away, not only with fear, but with distaste and repugnance, from all that implied distinction or seemed to lead to honour; and the control of this austere spirit is visible, in language ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... She knew she was doing these things, yet she could not do otherwise; tears fell upon his hand, and the grief she expressed was so intense that he could not restrain his tears. But if she raised her face and saw his tears, his position as a stern father was compromised! She could only think of her own grief; the grief and regret of many years absorbed her; she was so lost in it that she expected him to answer her in Wotan's own music; she even smiled in her grief at her expectation, and continued the music of her intercession. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... American Regular makes tactics as he needs them; that the rules of war established by pen soldiers do not form the basis of actual operations in the field; that theories must go to the wall before the stern logic of irrefutable facts; and that deductions based on the drill-made automatons of European armies are not applicable to an army composed of American Volunteer Regulars, led ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... there were many years of happiness and usefulness in store for her husband and herself, things were never quite the same again. The recall seems to mark a turning-point in her life. Many of the dreams and enthusiasms of her youth were gone, though her life's unfinished work and stern reality remained. To use her own ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... the flag on the green, in a hard return that hits the back line of the tennis court. But a perfect "mate" irradiates the mind with the calm of indisputable things. It has the absoluteness of mathematics, and it gives you victory ennobled by the sense of intellectual struggle and stern justice. There are "mates" that linger in the memory ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... drew in, the man forward shipped his blades, and rising, scrambled to the bows in order to grasp an iron mooring-ring set in the wall. The other awkwardly took in his oars and, as the current swung the stern downstream, placed a hand palm downward upon the bottom step ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... the army filed out of the gold and silver doors in great numbers, and marched up a winding stairs and into the throne room, led by a stern featured Nome who was their captain. When they had nearly filled the throne room they formed ranks in the big underground cavern below, and then stood still until they were told ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... came to dinner. Calhoun fancied his manner rather cool toward him, while Dick and Walter were left in no doubt of his stern disapproval of them, until their Cousin Elsie said a few words to him in a quiet aside, after which there was a decided change ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... paused as though the majesty of the law could ask no more. "He is a young man of naturally high and somewhat—naturally, too, no doubt—bibulous spirits. Homoepathically—if inversely—the result was logical. In the untrammelled life of the liberty-breathing mountains, where the stern spirit of law and order, of which your Honor is the august symbol, does not prevail as it does here—thanks to your Honor's wise and just dispensations—the lad has, I may say, naturally acquired a certain recklessness ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... space it still endured, Until, upon a day when least of all The softened Cyclops, by his hopes assured, Dreamed the inevitable blow could fall, Came the stern moment that should all destroy, Bringing a pert young cockerel of ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... the warm, red blood suffusing her cheeks, her brow, her very neck; and he could have laughed aloud for joy at finding so simple that which he had feared would prove so hard. Some pity, too, crept unaccountably into his stern heart, fathered by the little faith which in his inmost soul he reposed in Jocelyn. And where, had she resisted him, he would have grown harsh and violent, her acquiescence struck the weapons from his hands, and he caught himself well-nigh ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... she had brought order out of chaos in the Scutari hospitals, that, from her own resources, she had clothed the British Army, that she had spread her dominion over the serried and reluctant powers of the official world; it was by strict method, by stern discipline, by rigid attention to detail, by ceaseless labour, and by the fixed ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... laid low, and her name among the list of vanished things. Probably she was his mother, for the dress was rich with pearls, and evidently that of a person in the highest rank of court beauties. I sighed as I thought of the stern melancholy of her son, if Maximilian were he, as connected, probably, with the fate and fortunes of this majestic beauty; somewhat haughty, perhaps, in the expression of her fine features, but still noble—generous— confiding. Laying the picture on the table, I awoke Maximilian, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... mentioned, and it is striking to see the various view-points taken. The loving nature which would lead, but never drive, a rebellious child; the puritan, who will smile at no infringement of the law, and whose stern eye has been even known to call the Principal to order; the quick glance of the woman whose type reveals an inevitable leader, the stern disciplinarian, and the easy-going, good-natured woman—all are here, their diversity of gifts revealing the unity of the One Spirit. Ling Ai and I alone know ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... name was Nina?" he asked in tones so stern and startling that Edith's senses all forsook her, and trembling with ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... was a hard-headed man of affairs—stern, sensible and reasonably amiable—that is to say, he never smashed the furniture, nor beat his wife. She submitted to his will, and all the fine, girlish, bubbling qualities of her mind and soul were soon held in check through that law of self-protection which causes a woman to give ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... stamped upon one of the earliest of the Grecian coins. The late coins of the Grecian series, with the portraits of Alexander, Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and others, have lent to the historian a fresh and life-like picture of those stern days, and have been silent but incontrovertible witnesses of the truth of the records which have come down to us. Cymbeline, of Shakspeare, dates back to the Cunobelin of an ancient Saxon coin, struck before Boadicea's time. Who would have known of the Grecian domination ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... bank, which was two hours and a half, she was continually striking; and at one time we heard a loud crash which gave us reason to fear that some serious damage had happened. At first it was thought either that the pintles of the rudder were broken or that the stern-post was rent; but upon examination both appeared to have escaped; and as no leak was observed during the night I indulged the hope that the noise was not occasioned by any accident that would inconvenience us, or oblige our premature return to Port Jackson. That this hope proved to be fallacious ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... you done, St. Lucia?' and he was about to hasten to Corte for help, when St. Lucia said in a stern tone: ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... first on to the stern, and then to the bow. He could hear the voices of men talking and singing in the forecastles, but could hear no movement on the deck of either ship. He went down and reported ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... f. Intimate f. Summist f. Hepatic f. Abridging f. Cupshotten and swilling f. Morrish f. Splenetic f. Leaden-sealed f. Windy f. Mandatory f. Legitimate f. Compassionate f. Azymathal f. Titulary f. Almicantarized f. Crouching, showking, ducking f. Proportioned f. Grim, stern, harsh, and wayward f. Chinnified f. Well-hung and timbered f. Swollen and puffed up f. Ill-clawed, pounced, and pawed f. Overcockrifedlid and lified f. Well-stoned f. Corallory f. Crabbed and unpleasing f. Eastern f. Winded and untainted f. Sublime f. Kitchen haunting f. Crimson ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the endless throngs swirled and surged as I had seen the yellow waters curve and fret, contending, where the river pauses, rock-bound. Here were no bright costumes, no bright faces, none stayed to greet another; all was stern, and swift, and voiceless. London, then, said I to myself, is the city of the giants. They must live in these towering castles side by side, and these hurrying ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... name came floating down to him through the clear air, a change came over the Colonel's stern face. He stooped over the child. His hand trembled as he put it under her soft chin and ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and stern exterior dwelt a very tender heart, the girl was sure. For the absent Cap'n Abe he appeared to feel a strong man's good-natured scorn for a weak one; but Louise saw him stand often before Jerry's cage, chirping to ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... at the old man at her side showed her the stern, commanding features of her sire molded in an expression of haughty dignity; only the slight movement of the muscles of the strong jaw revealed the tensity of the hidden emotions of the stern old warrior. He was ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... these tragedies; and their heroes, bursting with this extraordinary egoism, assume even more towering proportions in their self-abnegation than in their pride. Then the thrilling clarion-notes of their defiances give way to the deep grand music of stern sublimity and stoic resignation. The gigantic spirit recoils upon itself, crushes itself, and ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... five or seven moons of a night have suddenly arisen to warn some miserable sublunarian that orders had been issued that there should be no moon for him that quarter, or, in military and more precise phrase, that he should have no "quarters" during that moon. Even our venerable and stern old puritan saint, Milton—he who was blessed with the blindness of his earthly eye, that he should be more perfectly enabled to contemplate the Deity within—has given way to this superstition when he subjects universal ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... The stern unrelenting fortitude of Frank, in the cause of justice, and some symptoms of violence in the impetuous Clifton, have inspired me with apprehensions; and have induced me to behave with more reserve and coldness to Frank ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... river, having on board about one hundred passengers, men going to work on the Panama Railroad. At Chagres we found a small stern wheeled river steamer and took passage on it for Gorgona, as far as the steamer could well go up the river. While going up we met a similar boat coming down, and being near a short bend they crashed together, breaking down our guards severely, but fortunately with no ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... with his papers, and endeavoured to maintain his equanimity and show an indifference which his stern but fascinated glances at the youthful witness amply belied. He was biding his time, but biding it in decided perturbation of mind. Neither he nor any one else, unless it were Moffat, could tell whither this tale tended. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... emanated; and all under the original impulse of Yeh. Surely, in speculating on the conduct of the war, either as probable or as reasonable, the old oracular sentence of Cato the Elder and of the Roman senate (Delenda est Carthago) begins to murmur in our ears—not in this stern form, but in some modification, better suited to a merciful religion and to our western civilization. It is a great neglect on the part of somebody, that we have no account of the baker's trial at Hong-Kong. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... She closed with stern bitterness, compelled to it by the tone of his last bidding. A glorious beauty flashed in her face. Alas, Wilfrid Athel would never know the pride of seeing thus the woman he knew so noble. But Wilfrid was in her heart; his soul allied itself with hers and gave her double strength. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... painted white. Her bows flare very much, and are sharp and symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted by a gilt scroll, or, as the sailors call it, a fiddle-head. The black stern is ornamented by a group of white figures in bas relief, which give a lively air to the otherwise sombre and vacant expression, and beneath the cabin-windows is painted the name of the ship, and her port of register. The lower masts of this vessel are short and stout, the top-masts are ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... The tall mast is the mainmast, the short mast is the mizzen; some ketches carry square sails on the main, some carry a topsail on the mizzen—the distinctive mark of the ketch being that the mizzen is a pole-mast and stepped in front of the stern-post. If the mizzen be stepped abaft the stern-post the vessel becomes a "dandy" ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... Britain, Spain, North Africa. Latin Christianity found its centre in North Africa, where Roman culture had imposed itself on the hard, cruel Carthaginian world. It is Carthage, not Athens, that gives to Tertullian his harsh intolerance and to St Augustine his stern determinism. So the way was prepared for what I regard as the supreme tragedy of history—the falling apart of Eastern and Western Christianity. Then, in the West, the unity of the Church is broken by the conversion of the ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... shore, we fired a few grape shot into the woods, and the boats landed without seeing any of the natives; at the same time we warped the ship within a cable's length of the watering-place, and secured her head and stern for covering the party on shore; the covering boat was directed to fire whenever any of the natives were seen in the woods over the watering party, which, in the course of the day, they had frequent occasion ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... a question, and having once fixed Ethel's worldliness in his mind, and her brother's treason, to allow no argument of advocates of the other side to shake his displeasure. Hence the one or two appeals which Laura ventured to make on behalf of her friend, were checked by the good Colonel with a stern negation. If Ethel was not guiltless, she could not make him see at least that she was not guilty. He dashed away all excuses and palliations. Exasperated as he was, he persisted in regarding the poor girl's conduct in its most unfavourable ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Face clad in glorious raiment, and therewith were Dallach and the men of Silver-dale, washen and docked of their long hair, after the fashion of warriors who bear the helm; and they were clad in gay attire, with battle-swords girt to their sides and gold rings on their arms. Somewhat stern and sad-eyed were those Silver-dalers yet, though they looked on those about them kindly and courteously when they met their eyes; and Face-of-god yearned towards them when he called to mind the beauty and wisdom ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... the moon had gone down, Frank seated himself in the stern of the canoe, and his companions stretched themselves out under the thwarts, as much out of sight as possible. As soon as all was ready, he moved their frail craft from the shore, with one silent sweep of the paddle, turning it ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... carriage with Molly, who opened her eyes wide when she saw me. We were soon in conversation. Molly was going to an aunt's in London who was to meet her at the Terminus. You may guess which way my talk ran. I kept whispering lewd things in her ear. An elderly stern-faced woman got in at a station, fixed her eyes on us, especially on me, and at length said, "Do you know that young woman?" Her coolness nearly settled me, but I said I did, kept on talking, and was delighted when about two or three stations further on she left with the remark to Molly, "Take ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... others we received into the boats, and conveyed them to the ship. Two trips had been made, when Mr Pincott, who was in the boat with me, said he did not think she would float till we came back. At that moment a person appeared at the stern of the vessel handsomely dressed. He was a fine-looking old gentleman. He must have seen his danger, and he seemed to be bidding his countrymen farewell. I could not bear the thought of leaving him; so I begged Mr Pincott to pull back, and ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... upon which its foundations were laid. Gloomy evergreens clung to the hill-sides. A mountain stream, often swollen to an impetuous torrent by the autumnal rains and the spring thaws, swept through the little verdant lawn, which smiled amid the stern sublimities surrounding this venerable and moss-covered fortress. Around the solitary towers the eagles wheeled and screamed in harmony with the gales and storms which often swept through these wild regions. The expanse around was sparsely settled by a few hardy ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... never been and there is but little danger that it ever can be abused. No President will ever desire unnecessarily to place his opinion in opposition to that of Congress. He must always exercise the power reluctantly, and only in cases where his convictions make it a matter of stern duty, which he can not escape. Indeed, there is more danger that the President, from the repugnance he must always feel to come in collision with Congress, may fail to exercise it in cases where the preservation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... promise well—a very bright man, who writes in the London papers and knows Paris nearly as well as Tristram. We knocked about for a week together, but he very soon gave me up in disgust. I was too virtuous by half; I was too stern a moralist. He told me, in a friendly way, that I was cursed with a conscience; that I judged things like a Methodist and talked about them like an old lady. This was rather bewildering. Which of my two critics was I to believe? I didn't worry about it and very soon ...
— The American • Henry James
... to reach New Orleans, I took a stern-wheel boat out of Wichita; and as it was late, the clerk said the only berth he could give me was in a state-room with another man. I crawled into the top berth, and towards morning I was awakened by a noise beneath me. Carefully looking over the ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... Magnificently stern and sombre are the streets of beautiful Florence; and the strong old piles of building make such heaps of shadow, on the ground and in the river, that there is another and a different city of rich forms and fancies, always lying at our feet. Prodigious ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... so deeply sympathetic, and at times so given to humor, when he was aroused he was terrible in his firmness, his resolution to win for the cause that was right, his stern rebuke for injustice, his merciless excoriation of falsehood and his relentless determination to see the truth prevail. False or careless witnesses dreaded his cross-examinations, and his opponents dreaded his effectiveness in handling a ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... a lovely landscape; and the Port Royalist nuns remarked, somewhat simply for their side of the argument, that they seemed as if warring with Providence, seeing that the favors which he was abundantly showering upon them, they, in obedience to the stern law of their lives, were continually rejecting. But it is better, surely, to be on the side of Providence against Pascal and the nuns, than on the side of Pascal and the nuns against Providence. The great Creator, who has provided so wisely and abundantly for all his creatures, knows what is best ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... suddenly and energetically added, with a stern look around and a bitter suggestiveness on the word as if it were enough to pronounce it; and in truth, it silenced both De La Lande and Chamilly, and appeared to make a completely ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... Some of the houses were nearly under water and large quantities of debris were afloat on the slowly moving current. Through the long weary hours of our boat ride, the sun poured its rays upon us with unmitigated fervor. Reaching Tigerville, we found an ugly little stern-wheeled boat tied up in what had been one of the thoroughfares of the village, and which the quartermaster at once ordered to take us to Brashear City. The captain of the craft, incidentally remarked that his boiler was in bad shape and might blow up at any time. ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman |
