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More "Solemnity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now compel by oppression to be enemies, may be wanted as friends. What has been, may be again. There is a point beyond which human endurance cannot go. The crushed worm may yet turn under the heel of the oppressor. I warn them, then, with all solemnity, and in the name of retributive justice, to look to their ways; for in an evil hour, those sable arms that have, for the last two centuries, been engaged in cultivating and adorning the fair fields of our country, may yet become the instruments of terror, desolation, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... and press themselves with remorseless vigour upon his understanding—original sin, justification by faith, eternal damnation for even honest error of belief,—doctrines that throw an atmosphere of solemnity, if not gloom, about national thought, in which no fairy mythology can flourish. It is no longer questions of material ease and gain that are of the chief concern; and consequently the fairies and their doings, from their own triviality, fall far into the background, and their ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... seen with grown-up eyes, since that day, of which the burden has been the same childish burden. Making game. Real affliction, real grief and solemnity, have been outraged, and the funeral has been 'performed.' The waste for which the funeral customs of many tribes of savages are conspicuous, has attended these civilised obsequies; and once, and twice, have I wished in my soul that ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... it, therefore, at all times in this enlightened land. And not only in the fleeting years of his existence, but equally when he lay down under the common hand of death. The dog, in those forgotten days, received embalmment, just as his master and mistress, and was then carried with some solemnity to the burial-ground that was set apart for dogs in every town. And when the last good-bye had been said, the family to which he had belonged returned again to their house, and put on mourning for their friend and faithful ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... the High Street, and at a certain spot where he would be sure in digging to find a "mallard, imprisoned but well fattened, in the sewer." He hesitated, but all whom he consulted advised him to make the trial, and accordingly, on a fixed day after mass, with due solemnity the digging began. They had not dug long, the story relates, before they heard "amid the earth horrid strugglings and flutterings and violent quackings of the distressed mallard." When he was brought out he ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... the low archway. Why did not he come out from it and give her some counsel as to the future? There she stood looking out of the window till she was called by her aunt's voice—"Linda, Linda, come down to me." Her aunt's voice was very solemn, almost as though it came from the grave; but then solemnity was common to her aunt, and Linda, as she descended, had not on her ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... poor Tetty was taken from me. My thoughts were disturbed in bed. I remembered that it was my wife's dying day, and begged pardon for all our sins, and commended her; but resolved to mix little of my own sorrows or cares with the great solemnity. Having taken only tea without milk I went to church; had time before service to commend my wife, and wished to join quietly in the service, but I did not hear well, and my mind grew unsettled and perplexed. Having rested ill in the night I slumbered ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... feet, holding themselves together, and the girls and younger children sat stupefied in the positions they had held when coming down the hill, from the throats of the latter going up the lively wail referred to. Billy looked across at Jack and grinned again, this time with great solemnity, and Jack himself looked just ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... making twisted colours upon the waves, elongated or squat, as the waves stretched or humped themselves. The beam from the lighthouse strode rapidly across the water. Infinite millions of miles away powdered stars twinkled; but the waves slapped the boat, and crashed, with regular and appalling solemnity, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the Divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys long before Aristophanes or Shakspeare. How curious it is that we always consider solemnity and the absence of all gay surprises and encounter of wits as essential to the idea of the future life of those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties and then call BLESSED! There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Cortona pictures, is that of the angel's visit to Mary. Its motive is simple and clear, as it was transmitted from early Christian art; the general lines are unchanged, but the expression greatly so. Fra Angelico did not disturb the religious solemnity of the apparition with useless accessories; faithful to his own sentiment, he has clothed Mary with humility. She sits beneath the portico, the book neglected on her lap, her hands crossed, and her drooping head inclined ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... the context of other lines; you cannot take it abstractly with entire truth. It is, however, possible to find verbal equivalents for the character of the main types of lines. Horizontal lines convey a feeling of repose, of quiet, as in the wall-paintings of Puvis de Chavannes; vertical lines, of solemnity, dignity, aspiration, as in so much of the work of Boecklin; crooked lines of conflict and activity, as in the woodcuts of Durer; while curved lines have always been recognized as soft and voluptuous and tender, as in Correggio and Renoir. The supposition that the curved ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... court-yard of Fort Garry harmonised with the cheerful spirit of the morning. Tom Whyte, with that upright solemnity which constituted one of his characteristic features, was standing in the centre of a group of horses, whose energy he endeavoured to restrain with the help of a small Indian boy, to whom meanwhile he imparted a variety of ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... feet high, as he later learned, supported a metal framework upon which squatted two men and the driver of the monstrosity. With the ponderous solemnity of a tank it came ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... there in the old ungolden times had had their own joys, their own sorrows, apart from the joys and sorrows of the multitude: so, in like manner, was it now cloistered off from the eager leaning and brotherhood of the golden dwellings: so now it had its own gaiety, its own solemnity, apart from theirs; unchanged, and changeable, were its marble walls, whatever ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... settlements and compromises among parties, made at the expense of justice and true policy. But this act of 1780, not properly distinguishing judicial process from executive arrangements, requires in effect nearly the same degree of solemnity, delay, and detail for removing a political inconvenience which attends a criminal proceeding for the punishment of offences. It goes further, and gives the same tenure to all who shall succeed to vacancies which was given to those whom the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... October 27th, Queen Margaret died on board a ship in the harbor of Flensburg, at the age of fifty-nine, after an active and notable reign of thirty-seven years. Her funeral was attended with the greatest solemnity, and her corpse was brought to the Cathedral of Roeskilde, where Eric of Pomerania, her successor, in 1423, caused her likeness to be carved in alabaster. Her acts show her character. She displayed judiciousness united with circumspection; wisdom in devising plans, and perseverance in executing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... this solemnity, declare your investiture into that office, solemnly charging you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of his Church, who walks in the midst of his golden candlesticks, with eyes as of a flame of fire, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... state of heart, without prayer, without true repentance, without faith, without knowledge of the plan of salvation, I was confirmed, and took the Lord's supper, on the Sunday after Easter 1820. Yet I was not without some feeling about the solemnity of the thing, and I stayed at home in the afternoon and evening, whilst the other boys and girls, who had been confirmed with me, walked about in the fields I also made resolutions to turn from those vices in which I was living, and to study more. But as I had no regard to God, ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... much solemnity. The masculine character of the mind of Sophia had rendered her particularly attached to the grace of action. When she drank the health of any of her guests, she accompanied it with a most profound conge. When she invited them to partake of any dish, she ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... short, fat, and dressed with great neatness and taste. He had a short black moustache, a head nearly bald, and a round chubby face with small smiling eyes. He was a Chinovnik, and held his position in some Government office with great pride and solemnity. It was his chief aim, I found, to be considered cosmopolitan, and when he discovered the feeble quality of my French he insisted in speaking always to me in his strange confused English, a language ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... of architecture that I have ever seen has so impressed me with its intrinsic gravity, and I may say solemnity, as that of the Norman. There is a serious earnestness in its grave simplicity that has a peculiar influence upon the mind; and I have little doubt that this was felt, and understood by those true ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... happiness as with light. At last she knew that she was loved, that the things he said when they met on the marshes were not said as they had been when she was a child, and that there had lately been solemnity throned in his eyes' levity. He made no motion for her to come down, nor when Tom turned his head again did he throw any furtive look at the window. It was enough for him to have seen her; and soon he went away with bent head followed ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... after high mass had been performed with the greatest solemnity of which circumstances rendered the ceremony capable, and after the most repeated and fervent prayers had been offered to Heaven by the crowded assembly, that preparations were made for appealing to the direct judgment of Heaven on the mysterious ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... a salver, and laid on the salver was one of Jan's lavender bags. He presented it solemnly to his master, who with almost equal solemnity ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... dangling from it, an ancient marriage symbol, was thrust into the opening at her breast. Her head was covered with a curious white cap like the "luggage" of Christmas crackers. She was seated rigidly at the edge of her uncomfortable chair; and her personality seemed to be overpowered by the solemnity of the occasion. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... had a fan-like shield of silver to be used as a shade on one side, bearing the arms of the Braccio family in high boss, and attached to the oil vessel by a movable curved arm. The furniture of the room was very simple, but there was nevertheless a certain ecclesiastical solemnity about the high-backed, carved, and gilt chairs, the black and white marble pavement, the great portrait of his Holiness, Gregory the Sixteenth, in its massive gilt frame, the superb silver crucifix which stood on the writing-table, and, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... warranted him in maintaining that the King had an absolute right to direct the forms of the ceremonial to be used on such an occasion, and he declared that he would not allow the Queen to take any part in the solemnity or even to be present during its performance. The Queen wrote letters to the King which she sent to him through his Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool. George sent back the letters unopened to Lord Liverpool, with the announcement that the King would read ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... said, turning to Chrysler, who rose and advanced to him surprised. Haviland took him, and passing over to De La Lande, placed the hand of the Ontario gentleman in that of the high-spirited schoolmaster, who accepted it, puzzled. "There!" cried Haviland, raising his voice to a pitch of solemnity. "Say whatever you can in that position. That is the position of ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... retained still many of the terms and names belonging to religion. They remained, but they remained only such as they could be when the departing spirit of that religion was leaving them void of their import and solemnity, and so rendered applicable to purposes of deception and mischief. They were as holy vessels, in which the original contents might, as they were escaping, be clandestinely replaced by the most malignant preparations. ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... the breezy background of blue sky and sea, contrasting as strangely with the dark solemnity of the other portraits as did the figure itself in its incongruous sailor dress, the face of the eighth baronet looked down in melancholy gravity upon the group gathered in judgment ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... to suggest an hypothesis, as regards this latter point, I saw something that made me rise, with a certain solemnity, from my chair. This was nothing less than the neat little figure of Mrs. Church—a perfect model of the femme comme il faut—approaching our table with an impatient step, and followed most unexpectedly in her advance by the pre-eminent form of Mr. Ruck. She ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... are fictions beneficial only to women and the vulgar; yet, since they are the objects of the national superstition, it is needless to procure one's self disfavour by openly deriding them. It will therefore be better for the sage to treat them with apparent solemnity, or at least with outward respect, though he may laugh at the imposition in his heart. As to the fear of death, he will be especially careful to rid himself from it, remembering that death is only a deliverer from ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... a magician, who promised to transport them thither in a trice. He made them in the night to ascend magnificent thrones that were borne up by swans, which in a moment arrived at Yamtcheou. The Emperor saw at his leisure all the solemnity, being carried upon a cloud that hovered over the city and descended by degrees; and came back again with the same speed and equipage, nobody at court perceiving his absence."—The Present State of China," ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall and the rain fell upon my head—and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desolation. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... making you so ridiculous." While he uttered these ingenious ejaculations, the old gentleman bowed alternately to him and the monkey, that seemed to grin and chatter in imitation of the beau, and, with an arch solemnity of visage, pronounced, "Gentlemen, as I have not the honour to understand your compliments, they will be much better bestowed on each other." So saying, he seated himself, and had the satisfaction to see the laugh returned upon the aggressor, who remained confounded and abashed, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the word BANK painted on one facade. Several times in the course of an evening Mr. Jaffrey would rise from his chair without interrupting the conversation, and gravely drop a nickel into the scuttle of the bank. It was pleasant to observe the solemnity of his countenance as he approached the edifice, and the air of triumph with which he resumed his seat by the fireplace. One night I missed the tin bank. It had disappeared, deposits and all, like a real bank. Evidently ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... more or less popular. The history of the world cannot, probably, furnish another instance of the settlement of the fundamental contract of a great nation under circumstances of so much obvious justice. This gives unusual solemnity and authority to the Constitution of 1787, and invests it with additional claims to our admiration ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... are wise; they are honorable; they are virtuous; their cultivation is not merely innocent pleasure, it is incumbent duty. Obedient to their dictates, you, my fellow-citizens, have instituted and paid frequent observance to this annual solemnity, and what event of weightier intrinsic importance, or of more extensive consequences, was ever selected for ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams
... the clutches of the medicine-man. Each of these despots has his own little following, and wields a distinctive influence, it being a point of honour with him that his teaching should differ in some way (usually in but a trivial detail) from the teaching of any other of his kind. The solemnity of their discussions and the heat of their dissensions about the minutiae of their creeds would be laughable were ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... went, answering all of Steger's and Shannon's searching questions with the most engaging frankness, and you could have sworn from the solemnity with which he took it all—the serious business attention—that he was the soul of so-called commercial honor. And to say truly, he did believe in the justice as well as the necessity and the importance of all that he had done and now described. He wanted ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... agitated for the first time in his life—took leave of his superior officer, with a singular mixture of solemnity ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... Mapes may be one of mere amusement, of which there are few books fuller. The agreeable effrontery with which the question "whether to kiss Rose or Agnes" is put side by side with that "whether it is better to eat flesh cooked in the cauldron or little fishes driven into the net;" the intense solemnity and sorrow for self with which Golias discourses in trochaic mono-rhymed laisses of irregular length, De suo Infortunio; the galloping dactylics of the "Apocalypse"; the concentrated scandal against a venerated sex of the De Conjuge ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... genially but with an undertone of solemnity in his rich, jury-swaying baritone. "Looks like we've got a sensational murder on our hands. It's not every day Hamilton can rate a headline like 'BROADWAY BELLE MURDERED AT BRIDGE'—to quote a Chicago ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... palace of his good old patron, Lomellino, here he lived in the closest retirement, studied the most valuable parts of ancient and modern literature, remained for whole days together in his own apartment, and was seldom to be seen in public except upon some great solemnity. ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... joyful, and the bridegroom old, ridden with disease and crabbed;—whatever the case, it concerns not the representative of the State or the Church; it is not for them to look into that. The marriage bond is "blessed,"—as a rule, blessed with all the greater solemnity in proportion to the size of the fee ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... it his fate to become a pilgrim very early in life. This was a great favour of Heaven, and it could not have been bestowed upon a man who prized it more, or who made himself more worthy of it by the unswerving piety of his heart and by the religious solemnity of his demeanour. Later on it became clear that the book of his destiny contained the programme of a wandering life. He visited Bombay and Calcutta, looked in at the Persian Gulf, beheld in due course the high and barren coasts of the Gulf of Suez, and this was the limit of his wanderings ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... the affairs of the tributary nations, and their negotiations with the French and English colonies. All their proceedings were conducted with great deliberation, and were distinguished for order, decorum, and solemnity. In eloquence, in dignity, and in all the characteristics of profound policy, they surpassed the assembly of feudal barons, and perhaps were not inferior to the ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... joke!" he growled in feigned solemnity. "Anyhow, it would be too bad if something that important couldn't take a little ribbing. Shucks—we've ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... suit, by telling her, that he has bound himself to her, not by the pretty protestations usual among lovers, but by vows of greater solemnity. She then makes a proper ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... can trace the process, from the old proverb that "to see God is death," down to that remarkable passage in Jeremiah where the approaching advent, or rather restoration, of spiritual religion, is announced with all the solemnity due to so glorious a message. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.... After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... May morning in the midst of a great forest of pine trees, one of those forests whose floors are moss-covered ruins that give to them the solemnity of age and demand humility from those who walk within their silences. There was not much there to tell of the springtime, for the pines are unsympathetic, but it seemed as if all the more wealth had been flung about on the carpeting beneath. Where the moss was not were flowing beds of fern, ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... we approached grinned amiably and kept it up till, in answer to his perfunctory question, "Sign off and on again?" my Captain answered, "No! Signing off for good." And then his grin vanished in sudden solemnity. He did not look at me again till he handed me my papers with a sorrowful expression, as if they had been ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... prince," he says, "has a puppet theatre which is certainly unique in character. Here the grandest operas are produced. One knows not whether to be amazed or to laugh at seeing 'Alceste,' 'Alcides,' etc., put on the stage with all due solemnity, and played by puppets. His orchestra is one of the best I ever heard, and the great Haydn is his court and theatre composer. He employs a poet for his singular theatre, whose humour and skill in suiting the grandest subjects for the stage, and in parodying ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... message to his mother. 'Tell mother I am coming.' The ruins yet smoked. A relative of the lady whose home was in ashes, and whose son said, 'I am coming,' stood by the 'survivors.' 'Well, then,' he said, 'it must be true that General Lee has surrendered.' The solemnity of the remark, coupled with the certainty in the minds of the 'survivors,' was almost amusing. The relative pointed out the temporary residence of the mother, and thither the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... remarkable episode on a key of solemnity, but alas! If I am to be loyal to the truth, I must record that some of the other little boys presently complained to Mary Grace that I put out my tongue at them in mockery, during the service in the Room, to remind ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... festivals of the Church was to her far more than the consecration of a remembrance. She beheld in the historical foundation of each solemnity an act of the Almighty, done in time for the reparation of fallen humanity. Although these divine acts appeared to her stamped with the character of eternity, yet she was well aware that in order for man to profit by them in the bounded and narrow sphere of time, ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... be some hidden and vital relation between these three words, Salvation, Neglect, and Escape—some reasonable, essential, and indissoluble connection. Why are these words so linked together as to weight this clause with all the authority and solemnity of a ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... rustle of the wire-grass creeping over them in a dry tide. The boy had taken off his cap; the sea-wind moving under the mat of his damp hair gave it the look of some somber, outlandish cowl. With the night coming on, his solemnity had an elfin quality. He found what he was looking for at last, and his fingers had ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... ride home in the cart, and sat holding Tuttu's hand, his eyes round with solemnity, the traces of tears still ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... been growing dark and drowsy; the afternoon sun sent one heavy shaft of powdered gold across it, which fell with an intangible solemnity upon the empty seat of Mary Gray, for the younger women had left the court before the more recent of the investigations. Mrs. Duke was still asleep, and Innocent Smith, looking like a large hunchback in the twilight, was bending ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... ages, which foretold the invasion and conquest of the country by a fierce people from Africa; and potent were the spells and talismans constructed to ward off the danger, "by the Greek kings who reigned in old times." Several of these are described with due solemnity; and among them we find the tale of the visit paid by Roderic[5] to the magic tower at Toledo, which has been rendered familiar by the pages of Scott and Southey. We shall not here recapitulate the well-known incidents of the wrongs and revenge of Count Yllan, or Julian, the first landing of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... tenderness or in passion, the melodies of love; he can fill his lines with the fire, the stress, the culminating fury, of prophetic denunciation; he can utter the sad and secret questionings of the human spirit, and give voice to the solemnity of Fate. In the long roll and vast swell of his verse there is something of the ocean—a moving profundity of power. His sonorous music, with its absolute sureness of purpose, and its contrapuntal art, recalls the vision in Paradise ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... back, and sent out a long beam of smoke that flew straight up and hit the ceiling. After which he stared at me in unutterable solemnity. ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... palace of the Elysee Bourbon, escorted by a squadron of dragoons and lancers. The cannon of the Invalides were discharged as a salute at the moment. General Changarnier attended on the occasion, and directed the proceedings. It was remarked that, on the occasion of this solemnity, all the enthusiasm of the assembly was shown to General Cavaignac, and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... "prologuiser" as the author or his representative, seems gradually to have been departed from, and prologues came to be delivered by one of the chief actors in the play, in the character he was about to undertake, or in some other assumed for the occasion. A certain solemnity of tone, however, was usually preserved in the prologue to tragedy—the goodwill and merciful consideration of the audience being still entreated for the author and his work, although considerable licence was permitted to the comedy prologue. And the prologues ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... hand, the bared head, the earnest accents, with which these words were spoken, gave to this simple utterance of good-will all the solemnity of ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... of bead form, and on the slipping from their threading bough one by one, the fancy is content to lose the heart of the thing, the solemnity of prayer: or perhaps I do the glorious poet wrong in saying this, for the sense of a sun worship and orison in beginning its race, may have been in his mind; and so far as it was so, the passage is imaginative ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... been small enough and intimate enough to decide on the guilt or innocence of its members grew to difficult proportions, there developed this system of selecting by lot a number of its common citizens who were sworn, who were then specially instructed and prepared, and who, in an atmosphere of solemnity and responsibility in absolute contrast with the uproar of a public polling, considered the case and condemned or discharged the accused. Let me point out that this method is so universally recognized as superior to the common electoral ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... listened well; one of his chief enjoyments was, to give and receive from his fellow-creatures in that way. I hope, and indeed have evidence, that he required good sense as the staple; but in the form, he allowed great latitude. He by no means affected solemnity, rather the reverse; goes much upon the bantering vein; far too much, according to the complaining parties. Took pleasure (cruel mortal!) in stirring up his company by the whip, and even by the whip applied to RAWS; for we find he had ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... placation or for the averting of death, or defeat, or plague, sometimes merely in fulfilment of some long-standing custom of forgotten origin—the flayings and floggings and burnings and crucifixions of victims without end, carried out in all deliberation and solemnity of established ritual. I have mentioned some cases connected with the sowing of the corn. The Bible is full of such things, from the intended sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham, to the actual crucifixion of Jesus by the Jews. ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... with the utmost solemnity, "Mary never left the house all night. I'd swear that's the truth on a pile of Bibles ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... behind, and many an old-timed family observes the custom until now. The town meeting was opened by prayer by the town minister, and much decorum and orderliness was observed by the citizens. The day was jovial, however, despite the solemnity attending it. ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... atmosphere of solemnity, of stillness in the home; they had each had a boiled egg at the last meal, and Sivert stood outside all ready to go down with his brother and carry his things. It was ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... one behind another. If church ceremonials are still open to amendment, I would suggest, in no spirit of irreverence, that a study of pelican processionals would be certain to yield edifying results. Nothing done in any cathedral could be more solemn. Indeed, their solemnity was so great that I came at last to find it almost ridiculous; but that, of course, was only from a want of faith on the part of the beholder. The birds, as I say, were brown pelicans. Had they been of the other species, in churchly ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... the box, descended the carpeted stairway which led to the bottom of the trench, and with due solemnity deposited his burden in the hollow of the stone already laid. The curate took the sprinkler and sprinkled the ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... it is scarcely necessary to say that the young man accepts it with a gratitude which proves that he believes his patron capable of conferring further favours. From this time forward he begins to abandon the merely frivolous air that has hitherto distinguished him. He lays in a mixed stock of solemnity, mystery, and importance, and occasionally awes the friends of his flippant days by assuming the reticent look and the shake of the head of one who is marked off from common mortals by the possession of secrets the revelation of which might, perhaps, imperil the peace of the world. In country-houses, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... Park: and, privately speaking, he had a grudge against official heaven-expounders, or clergymen. He would rather, however, have been with a crowd that he disliked, than felt himself alone. He said to me one day, with a face of great solemnity, "What must have been that man's feelings, who thought himself the first deist?" Finding no footing in certainty, he delighted to confound the borders of theoretical truth and falsehood. He was fond ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Athens after the battle of Leuktra, because it recognized that place, along with the townships of Triphylia, as having the right of self-government. Every year he made a splendid sacrifice, from the tenth of all the fruits of the property; to which solemnity not only all the Skilluntines, but also all the neighboring villages, were invited. Booths were erected for the visitors, to whom the goddess furnished (this is the language of Xenophon) an ample dinner of ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... 'Squire; And from these, where it is least to be expected, you are surpriz'd with the most high and delicious Repast;— Nothing can be more pregnant with Mirth, than the Opposition continually working between the grave Solemnity and Dignity of Quixote, and the arch Ribaldry and Meanness of Sancho; And the Contrast can never be sufficiently admir'd, between the excellent fine Sense of the ONE, and the dangerous common ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... and was forgotten, and that same man and that same multitude stood in altered relations— they were again a reverent flock, and he once more a solemn pastor; the natural play of his nation's mirthful sarcasm was absorbed in a moment in the sacredness of his office; and with a solemnity befitting the highest occasion, he placed his hands together before his breast, and raising his eyes to Heaven he poured forth his sweet voice, with a tone of the deepest devotion, in that reverential call to prayer, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... their noise to the consternation of the Indians. Refreshments were also liberally provided, that the troops should be in condition for the conflict. These arrangements being completed, mass was performed with great solemnity by the ecclesiastics who attended the expedition; the God of battles was invoked to spread his shield over the soldiers who were fighting to extend the empire of the cross; and all joined with enthusiasm ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... a voice of deep solemnity, "these Turks are cruel, vindictive, and revengeful. The last Englishman who refused was, by order of the pasha, skinned alive, placed on the sunny side of a wall, and blown ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... of the solemnity of the place and the occasion, the mourners were struck by the dazzling beauty of that young female, who had thus appeared so strangely amongst them; but respect still retained at a distance those persons who were merely present from curiosity to witness the obsequies ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... All began that very charming air at the moment. Sobs and sighs stole in between the pauses of the harmony. Their rich and practised voices gave it the sweetness and solemnity of a hymn. Fine eyes were lifted to heaven; fine faces were buried in their clasped hands; and the whole finished like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... tray again and crossed the room to go, his solemnity returned. "Missy," he said earnestly, "ef dat young gelmun fall in love wid you, w'ich I knows he will ef he ketch sight er you, lemme say dis, an' please fo' to ba'h in mine: better have nuttin' do wid him fo' he own sake; an' 'bove all, keep him fur sway f'um dese p'emises. Don' ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... which came upon us with the final bars. Fancies of this sort, however, were not permitted during the "strictly classical" performance, under the veteran Capellmeister, at the Munich Odeon; the proceedings, there, were carried on with a degree of solemnity, enough to make one's flesh creep, with a sensation akin to a ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... priest, whose name was Pierre Barre, was exactly the man whom Mignon needed in such a crisis. He was of melancholy temperament, and dreamed dreams and saw visions; his one ambition was to gain a reputation for asceticism and holiness. Desiring to surround his visit with the solemnity befitting such an important event, he set out for Loudun at the head of all his parishioners, the whole procession going on foot, in order to arouse interest and curiosity; but this measure was quite needless it took less than that ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... thought, particularly plain with his solid form, his long thin nose, light whiskers, and square massive chin. Also he looked particularly imposing in contrast to the youths and maidens and domesticated clergymen. There was a gravity, almost a solemnity, about his bronzed countenance and deliberate ordered conversation, which did not, however, favourably impress the aforesaid youths and maidens, if a judgment might be formed from such samples of conversational criticism as Mr. Quest heard going on on ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... florid complexion, sparkling eye, heavy bushy suit of snow-white hair, and a certain indefinable expression of mischievous audacity, made him a very attractive figure. In his eulogy upon Calhoun he marred the solemnity of the occasion by pronouncing the world "always" as if written "allers," and by kindred evidences of "life among the lowly." The wit of John P. Hale was effective and unfailing, and gave him a decided advantage over ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... am in a serious Humour, I very often walk by my self in Westminster Abbey; where the Gloominess of the Place, and the Use to which it is applied, with the Solemnity of the Building, and the Condition of the People who lye in it, are apt to fill the Mind with a kind of Melancholy, or rather Thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I Yesterday pass'd a whole Afternoon in the Church-yard, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Helen. Could Miss Howard have chosen two who, placed beside each other, would have formed a more pronounced contrast? Not even the solemnity of the occasion could overcome Ruth's ruling passion, curiosity: she was determined to see all to be seen if it rested with her to do so. Nor were the pert pansy blossoms upon her hat, nodding a welcome to all, more on the alert. Or could those which ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... chin, ordered his head cook to be sent in to him. The head cook instantly appeared attended by a couple of footmen, who carried each a silver salver of prodigious size, on which were cups containing sauces of every different flavour which could be devised. The gentleman, with the greatest solemnity, used to dip a bit of bread in each, and taste it, giving his orders upon the subject with as much earnestness and precision as if he had been signing papers for the government of a kingdom. When this important affair was thus concluded, he would throw himself upon a ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... thunder, to indicate he produced meteors, to typify the electric fluid that is called lightning. He married the winds, which were designated under the name of Juno, therefore called the Goddess of the Winds, their nuptials were celebrated with great solemnity; all the gods, the entire brute creation, the whole of mankind attended, except one young woman named Chelone, who laughed at the ceremonies, for which impiety she was changed by Mercury into a tortoise, and condemned to perpetual ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... where Saint Veronica held out the cloth which took the miraculous likeness. We examined our souls before Good Friday; we went to the special yearly Holy Communion now invested with a strange and awful solemnity. There was the prostration before the Cross at Golgotha on Good Friday, the receiving of the Sacred Fire, symbol of the Resurrection, on Holy Saturday, and then the night of the year and the Great Morning. It seemed when we all kissed one another on Easter Morning that we had ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... astonishment to one or two enlightened beholders. A patient ass stood near a house, and a family of not much more rational animals was grouped around it. A father was passing his little son under the donkey, and lifting him over its back a certain number of times, with as much solemnity and precision as if engaged in the performance of a sacred duty. This done, the father took a piece of bread, cut from an untasted loaf, which he offered the animal to bite at. Nothing loath, the Jerusalem poney laid hold of the ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... impressed by the savagery of fiords, by the prettiness of blouses and sabots, by the blue mountain in the distance and the purple mountain in the foreground, by the narrow shade of the street, and the solemnity of a burnous or the grace of a haik floating in the wind. The painter brings back these sights and scenes as a child brings back shells from the shore—they seemed very strange and curious, and, therefore, like ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... conversation that a messenger arrived from London with letters, announcing that King Charles had been crowned in Scotland, with great solemnity and magnificence. ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... these words, he reverently kneeled upon the floor. His colleagues and the delegates of the churches followed his example. A deep solemnity fell upon the assembly. According to one account of the scene, even the Roman cardinals stood with uncovered heads while the Huguenot minister prayed. Catharine de' Medici joined with still greater devotion, while King Charles ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... scene to be remembered. Had anything been lacking in its awful solemnity, it was supplied with a tender potency reaching all hearts, in the knowledge of the dead child, who lay ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... they would make no appeal to the world at large. The monuments of the German mind are no more robbed of their intellectual value by the national crime of this war than German mountains are robbed of their natural grandeur, German forests of their solemnity, or German rivers of ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... object was to try their patience and provoke his uncle to an outburst of indignation which might bring him into trouble. The service was so high that a German visitor at the English Court declared it was not a whit behind the solemnity of the Mass but for the absence of the adoration of the Host. The snare set for Melville on this occasion succeeded, for it was a satirical verse on this service that was afterwards made the pretext for sending him ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... I charge thee," he said in mock solemnity. "Thou shalt embroider for me with thine own hands—thou that carest not for squaw's needles—a robe of raccoon skin in quills and ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... downstairs to the empty flat of the Staceys, where that impenetrable pastor took a large red-leather chair in the very entrance, from which he could see the stairs and landings, and waited. He did not wait very long. In about four minutes three figures descended the stairs, alike only in their solemnity. The first was Joan Stacey, the sister of the dead woman—evidently she had been upstairs in the temporary temple of Apollo; the second was the priest of Apollo himself, his litany finished, sweeping down the empty ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... nearer, larger, and brighter than in our cooler latitudes—the sultry atmosphere—and most of all, perhaps, the sense of the near vicinity of death in this infected region—oppressed my spirit with an ominous feeling of solemnity ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... surrounded me when I opened my eyes and realized that the end was not yet. Hillis, of Kentucky, Campbell, of Ohio, Reyburn, of Texas, and many others were grouped about my desk in mock solemnity. A loud laugh arose as I staggered to my feet; for I alone, of a vast gathering, had slept soundly through one of the most exciting debates in parliamentary history! Through it all—the battle raging around me, and the ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... dawn was flowing in at the window. The solemnity of the hour moved Clelia like the strangeness of the time. It hushed her ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... thing to behold the business-like air with which they climb into their seats in the parquet, and the gravity with which they immediately begin to read the play-bill upside down. Then, between the acts, the solemnity with which they extract the juice from an orange, through a hole made with a lead-pencil, is also ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... sallow-faced personage, of some note among the brethren for zeal and impiety. By this we mean that awful and profane use of Scripture phraseology with which many of these gifted preachers affected to interlard their everyday discourse, attaching a ludicrous solemnity to matters the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... too unhappy to eat. There was a lofty, stern resignation in the accomplishment of these last duties of rustic hospitality. The Tascherons, men of the olden time, ended their days in that house as they had begun them, by doing its honors. This scene, without pretension, though full of solemnity, met the eyes of the bishop's secretary when he approached the village rector to ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... Immediately the solemnity of the moment was jarred by a laugh. The vicomte was standing, all piety gone from his face; and a rollicking devil shone from ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... said he with great solemnity, as soon as he was seated, "of the very shocking discovery that took ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... comparatively short time that I had been below. It was clear enough that if the unhappy people aboard her were to be rescued there was not a moment to lose; I therefore staggered aft and, approaching Danton with drunken solemnity, touched my forehead and, wavering upon my legs and speaking thickly, asked him to come for'ard and down below and tell me whether he could smell fire. The scoundrel's face blanched at the word, as he probably pictured to himself the frightful predicament of all hands—himself included—should ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... it passed, a jangle in shops and factories, a racket and hurry of traffic, war and business, which the coming of the gloom hushed in its turn. As God's eyes pierced the shadow they found, between the dotted lines of street-lamps and under the roofs where the windows glimmered—revelry or solemnity. In denser shadows there was a murmur of the voices of lovers and of families ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... good-natured enough, after the first astonishment was over, to yield in the most cheerful manner to Petrea's proposal, and zealously to declare that the affair should be managed just as she would. He accordingly set himself, with an appearance of great accuracy and solemnity, to measure the length of both limbs of the merrythought, and then counted three; the mother all this time hoping within herself that he would so manage it that he himself should retain the head—but no! the head remained ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... tower an unusually striking group. What then would be the feelings aroused in the spectator were the great church, a cathedral in magnitude and splendour, still visible, rising majestically above roofs and spires. To us the Abbey which is gone can do no more than add solemnity to the scene which once it graced. It matters little by which entrance we approach the churchyard, for from every side the buildings group harmoniously; each of the steeples acting as it were as a foil to the other: and both the spires unite in adding dignity to the bell tower. The churchyard ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... and I often met him and listened to him in the chapel of the Seminary. I have seen few more striking figures in my life than his, as I remember it. Tall, lean, with strong, bold features, a keen, scholarly, accipitrine nose, thin, expressive lips, great solemnity and impressiveness of voice and manner, he was my early model of a classic orator. His air was Roman, his neck long and bare like Cicero's, and his toga,—that is his broadcloth cloak,—was carried on his arm, whatever might have been the weather, with such a ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to stroke him, he would grunt, strike with his fore-feet, spring forward, and bite. He was, however, very entertaining in his way, even his surliness was matter of mirth, and in his play he preserved such an air of gravity, and performed his feats with such a solemnity of manner, that in him, too, I had ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... the third hour, the hour at which the Paraclete originally descended upon the Apostles, and which, when times of persecution were passed, was appointed in the West for the solemn mass of the day. In that early age, indeed, the time of the solemnity was generally midnight, in order to elude observation; but even then such an hour was considered of but temporary arrangement. Pope Telesphorus is said to have prescribed the hour, afterwards in use, as early even as the second century; and in a place ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... more remarkable in Mr Stevenson than his extraordinary youthfulness of mind. At an age when other young men affect to be blase and world weary he was delightfully and fearlessly boyish. Boyish even in his occasional half-comic solemnity of appearance; he was boyish likewise in his charming jests and jokes, and, above all, in his hearty delight in any outdoor 'ploy' that ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... least three entire cucumbers for the vegetarian's dinner, was left before him. Another pause, and still our soup did not come; but the girl returned, this time bearing a glass dish on a long spiral stand filled with red stewed fruit, which, with all solemnity, she deposited ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... produce thrills. One of the first nights after mobilization 10,000 Frenchmen filled the street beneath the windows of THE NEW YORK TIMES office, where I was at work. They sang the "Marseillaise" for two hours, with a solemn hatred of their national enemy sounding in every note. The solemnity changed to a wild passion as the night wore on. Finally, cuirassiers of the guard rode through the street to disperse the mob. It was a ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that no man may discerne in which the king himselfe is placed. [Sidenote: The idolatrous religion of the king.] He followeth in religion especially the opinions of the Magistrates, attributing diuine power vnto heauen and earth as vnto the parents of all, and with great solemnity sacrificing vnto them. He hath diuers most sumptuous Temples dedicated vnto his ancestours, whereunto likewise he ascribeth diuine honour, and yet ceaseth hee not to fauour Priests of other sects, yea, hee erecteth Temples vnto their Patrons, endowing them with most rich reuenues; and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... in plundering these holy men, giving them the precedence in relieving their wants. Out of respect to the cloth, they omit the ceremony of searching, to which the other passengers are subjected; nor do they compel him to lie down like the others. But with mock solemnity a robber approaches the sacred personage, and dropping on one knee, presents his hat for alms, which the priest understands to be a reverential mode of demanding all the valuables that he carries about him: his reverence ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... of solemnity which had hung about the men for days, and which lifted from time to time only temporarily, now silenced them again. Indeed, had there been anybody present to observe, he doubtless would have been impressed most of all with the unwonted soberness of the wagon's ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... succeeding draught. For while the banquet proceeded in this very genial manner business was by no means neglected; the negotiations for the surrender of the city being conducted on both sides with a fuddled solemnity very edifying for the attendants ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was a continual struggle, between his efforts to preserve his clerical solemnity and to make himself agreeable. His formal manner of pursing up his face into smiles, for this purpose, had produced a regular set of small wrinkles, folds, and plies, that inevitably reminded those who were not accustomed ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... itself not improbable, it was composed, not to be read, but to be heard. It was not to the slow circulation of a few copies, which the rich only could possess, that the aspiring author looked for his reward. The great Olympian festival,—the solemnity which collected multitudes, proud of the Grecian name, from the wildest mountains of Doris, and the remotest colonies of Italy and Libya,—was to witness his triumph. The interest of the narrative, and the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... appreciate, and which he did not imagine could be fascinating to a woman. Knowing well how magnetic passion is in its guise of Southern fervor, he did not know that it is also potent under the cloak of Northern solemnity. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... visit to that cloister of Notre-Dame, and the meaning of the things he had seen there came into his mind. The three unknown and silent men, whose dress, attitude, and stillness acted powerfully upon him, were no doubt boarders like the priest. The solemnity of Madame de la Chanterie now seemed to him a secret dignity with which she bore some great misfortune. But still, in spite of the explanations which Godefroid gave himself, he could not help fancying there was an air of ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... abstraction. They moan over its ruin as though it were a human being, and far then be it from me to laugh at them for doing so. When, however, I find persons dressing themselves up in all the paraphernalia of war, visiting tombs and statues in order to register with due solemnity that they intend to die rather than yield, and when, after all this nonsense, these same persons decline to take their share in the common danger on the score that they have a mother, or a sister, or a wife, or a child, dependent upon them, and when month after month ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... visitor. He himself was no coward, no shrinker from the great issues. He, too, had dealt in life and death. Yet there was something in the deliberate preciseness of Sogrange's words, as he sat there only a few feet away, unspeakably thrilling. It was like a death sentence pronounced in all solemnity upon some shivering criminal. There was something inevitable and tragical about the whole affair. A pronouncement had been made from which there was no ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... scarlet, the pope hunted up four false witnesses who declared that Caesar was the son of Count Ferdinand of Castile; who was, as we know, that valuable person Don Manuel Melchior, and who played the father's part with just as much solemnity as ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... bargain, but the time was not long[322].' The bargain was concerning that undertaking; but his tender conscience seems alarmed lest it should have intruded too much on his devout preparation for the solemnity of the ensuing day. But, indeed, very little time was necessary for Johnson's concluding a treaty with the booksellers; as he had, I believe, less attention to profit from his labours than any man to whom literature has been a profession.[323] I shall here insert ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the Channel the inventions of M. Venizelos, it would seem, were accepted as discoveries with equal solemnity. During the Paris pourparlers, according to the French Ambassador in London at all events, England was much annoyed by the Greek Government's hesitations, which she attributed to King Constantine's opposition, and asked herself whether she could either then or in the future treat with a ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... General O'Hara's funeral took place; on which occasion the boats of the squadron, joined by those of the foreign men-of-war, rowed in procession to the Ragged Staff, while minute-guns were fired by the flag-ship and the garrison. The solemnity of this scene could not but be rendered more impressive by the recollection of the investiture of Sir James with the Order of the Bath, in which the venerable and gallant general had performed so distinguished a part only a short ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... dumb brutes; took Buffalo Bill, and all his scouts; took the garrison—to the last man; and in forty-eight hours the Indian encampment was hers, illustrious old Thunder-Bird and all. Do I seem to have lost my solemnity, my gravity, my poise, my dignity? You would lose your own, in my circumstances. Mother, you never saw such a winning little devil. She is all energy, and spirit, and sunshine, and interest in everybody and everything, and pours out her prodigal love upon every creature that will take ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... Wallace for a few minutes was riveted to the ground; then moving forward with a breathless caution, not to disturb the nocturnal bard, he gently approached. He was, however, descried! The venerable figure clasped his hands, and in a voice of mournful solemnity exclaimed: ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... spirit out of the meeting. Giggles from Luther and the younger element interfered with the solemnity of Mr. Perley's closing remarks, and no one else was brave enough to "testify" under the circumstances. They sang again, and the meeting broke up. The nervous young man was the first one ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... themselves to call upon God on civil occasions, they render his name so familiar to them, that they are likely to lose the reverence due to it, or so to blend religious with secular considerations, that they become in danger of losing sight of the dignity, solemnity, and awfulness of devotion. And it is not an unusual remark, that persons, most accustomed to oaths, are the most likely to perjury. A custom-house oath has become proverbial in our own country. I do not ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... table drawn up close to the coke fire, Willy slowly and with much care made pencil notes, which he slowly and with great solemnity copied into ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... garment enclosed his noble limbs, his shoulders were covered by gleaming locks of black hair; and as he stood there, sure and secure, a sublime divinity, and played the violin, it seemed as if the whole creation obeyed his melodies. He was the man-planet about which the universe moved with measured solemnity and ringing out beatific rhythms. Those great lights, which so quietly gleaming swept around, were they stars of heaven, and that melodious harmony which arose from their movements, was it the song of the spheres, of which poets and seers have reported so many ravishing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... hopeful,—in looking on to Future Years. The more happy you are, the more there is of awe in the thought how frail are the foundations of your earthly happiness,—what havoc may be made of them by the chances of even a single day. It is no wonder that the solemnity and awfuluess of the Future have been felt so much, that the languages of Northern Europe have, as I dare say you know, no word which expresses the essential notion of Futurity. You think, perhaps, of shall and will. Well, these words have come now to convey the notion ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... charge was to maintain a grand moral crusade, to stimulate and to vindicate a great uprising in the cause of humanity and of justice. His full appreciation of this is entirely manifest in the tone of his speeches. They have an earnestness, a gravity, at times even a solemnity, unusual in such encounters in any era or before any audiences, but unprecedented "on the stump" before the uproarious gatherings of the West at that day. Repeatedly he stigmatized slavery as "a moral, a social, a political evil." Very impressively he denounced the positions of an opponent ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... irrepressible spirits, a good voice and ear, and a special delight in the exercise of them. To county magnate or parson or stranger seated by him on the box he could be as decorous as a churchwarden, and talk of politics or cattle or county business with all due solemnity. But he was only at his best when "the front" was occupied by boys, or at any rate with a strong sprinkling of boys, amongst whom he was quite at his ease, and who were even more eager to hear than he to sing and talk. And of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... justification of his policy a plea so repugnant to morality and intelligence, and that it should be quietly accepted by men and women calling themselves radical revolutionists. Some years ago a well-known American capitalist announced with great solemnity that he and men like himself were the agents of Providence, charged with managing industry "for the good of the people." Naturally, his naive claim provoked the scornful laughter of every radical in the ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... that sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary. In other respects, his profession and situation had taught him a ready command over his countenance, which he could contract at pleasure into solemnity, although its natural expression was that of good-humoured social indulgence. In defiance of conventual rules, and the edicts of popes and councils, the sleeves of this dignitary were lined and turned up with rich furs, his mantle secured at the throat with a golden clasp, and the whole dress ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... that of Marie de Medicis, as having been followed by the assassination of her husband, was regarded by many as a bad omen. If Marie Antoinette had herself expressed any wish to be her husband's partner in the solemnity, it would certainly have been complied with, and their subsequent fate would have been regarded as a confirmation of the evil augury. But she was indifferent on the subject, and quite contented to behold it as a spectator. It took place on Sunday, the 11th of June, in the grand Cathedral ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... the sum for me to give Mrs. Jewkes, and I would not give Mrs. Jervis less, because I loved her better; nor more could I give her, on that occasion, without making such a difference between two persons equal in station, on a solemnity too where one was present and assisting, the other not, as would have shewn such a partiality, as might have induced their master to conclude, I was not so sincere in my forgiveness, as he hoped from me, and ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... privately speaking, he had a grudge against official heaven-expounders, or clergymen. He would rather, however, have been with a crowd that he disliked, than felt himself alone. He said to me one day, with a face of great solemnity, "What must have been that man's feelings, who thought himself the first deist?" ... He knew how many false conclusions and pretensions are made by men who profess to be guided by facts only, as if facts could ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... to Syria and Egypt, and on his return to Italy through Athens he was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. It was the practice of the emperor to conform to the established rites of the age, and to perform religious ceremonies with due solemnity. We cannot conclude from this that he was a superstitious man, though we might perhaps do so if his book did not show that he was not. But this is only one among many instances that a ruler's public acts do not always prove his real opinions. A prudent governor will not roughly ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... details of his visit to that cloister of Notre-Dame, and the meaning of the things he had seen there came into his mind. The three unknown and silent men, whose dress, attitude, and stillness acted powerfully upon him, were no doubt boarders like the priest. The solemnity of Madame de la Chanterie now seemed to him a secret dignity with which she bore some great misfortune. But still, in spite of the explanations which Godefroid gave himself, he could not help fancying there was an air of mystery ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... treated with booksellers on a bargain, but the time was not long[322].' The bargain was concerning that undertaking; but his tender conscience seems alarmed lest it should have intruded too much on his devout preparation for the solemnity of the ensuing day. But, indeed, very little time was necessary for Johnson's concluding a treaty with the booksellers; as he had, I believe, less attention to profit from his labours than any man ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... itself of the power of nature, but the mightiest must be crushed in emulating it: the watch-towers of Amalfi are more majestic than the Superga of Piedmont; St. Peter's would look like a toy if built beneath the Alpine cliffs, which yet vouchsafe some communication of their own solemnity to the smallest chalet that glitters among their glades of pine. On the other hand, a small building is in a level country lost, and the impressiveness of bulk proportionably increased; hence the instinct of nations has always led them ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... once been solid rock, just like the monuments, and through the millions of years the softer parts had eroded and weathered and blown away—gone with the great sea that had once been there. But the beauty, the solemnity, the majesty of these monuments fascinated her most. She passed the first one, a huge square butte, and then the second, a ragged, thin, double shaft, and then went between two much alike, reaching skyward in the shape of monstrous mittens. She watched and watched them, sparing a moment ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... Squire's funeral, he happened to return to the house for a tracing which he had forgotten, and found Honoria seated in the kitchen and talking with his father and mother. She was dressed in black, of course, and either this or the solemnity of her visit gave her quite a grown-up look. But, to be sure, she was mistress of Tredinnis now, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 'Joseph died, and all his brethren and all that generation'—and 'the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly.' So the wholesome lesson of mortality is stripped of much of its sadness, and retains all its pathos, solemnity, and power to purify ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... she was a young girl, as they had amounted to a considerable number by the time she was sixteen. Her earliest stories are of a slight and flimsy texture, and are generally intended to be nonsensical, but the nonsense has much spirit in it. They are usually preceded by a dedication of mock solemnity to some one of her family. It would seem that the grandiloquent dedications prevalent in those days had not escaped her youthful penetration. Perhaps the most characteristic feature in these early productions ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... Yet I never heard them called either idiots or over-scrupulous. Sir Thomas More need never have mounted the scaffold, had he only consented to take the oath of supremacy. He had only to tell a lie with solemnity, as we are asked to do, and he might not only have saved his life, but, as the trimmers of his day would have told him, doubled his influence. Pitt resigned his place as Prime Minister of England, rather than break faith with the Catholics of Ireland. Should ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... explanation, Sir, how it is that in this mixed assembly the learned Doctor Chocker addresses you as Mr. Le Clear, and you do not decline the title"; and Mr. Manlius looked, as if for a witness, to Doctor Chocker, who was eating his cake with great solemnity, holding his ear-trumpet in hopes of catching ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... months for Mercury to Neptune's one hundred and sixty-four years. Being insensible to heat and cold, darkness and light, we have no more changing seasons, neither is there any night. When a man dies," he continued with solemnity, "he comes at once into the enjoyment of senses vastly keener than any be possessed before. Our eyes—if such they can be called—are both microscopes and telescopes, the change in focus being effected as instantaneously ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... our perambulations to the vicinity of London, how many hallowed places shall we meet with? Where can we find a palace like Windsor Castle, to which attach the historical recollections of many centuries, adding, if possible, yet more solemnity to Gothic grandeur? Again, can there be conceived a spot more entirely consecrated to classical associations than the grotto, at Twickenham; that retreat in which gazing on "Thames translucent stream," Pope passed so many hours of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... awaited the settlement of Uncle Gunter's affairs in grief and solicitude. Another party also awaited the upshot of the matter, with due solemnity and expectation, and that party was Polly Williams, Lev's "intended," and her poor and miserly dad and marm, who knew Lev Smith, as they said, was a lazy, lolloping sort of a feller, but sure to ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... number, the commissioner having provided four. With these torch bearers to light their way, Rollo's party explored the Coliseum in every part, and they found that the grandeur and sublimity of the immense corridors and vast vaulted passages of the ruin were greatly enhanced by the solemnity of the night, and by the flickering glare of the torches, shining upon the massive piers, and into the dark ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... With the grave solemnity that marks the serving of this delicacy in Philadelphia; in the midst of a holy calm befitting a sacred rite, the silver vessels were carried around the board, and in hushed rapture (a little puzzling to the Bostonians) the precious mixture was ladled out upon the fourteen ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... solemnity in her voice that Jenks had never heard before. It chilled him. His heart acknowledged a quick sense of evil omen. He raised himself slightly and turned towards her. Her face, beautiful and serene beneath its disfigurements, wore an expression ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... giving an account of it to his own soul in default of other listeners. He was quite angry at having tasted a sweetness in Miriam's assurance at the carriage—door, bestowed indeed with very little solemnity, that Nick didn't care for her. Wherein did it concern him that Nick cared for her or that Nick didn't? Wherein did it signify to him that Gabriel Nash should have taken upon himself to disapprove of a union between the young actress and the young painter ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... loaves of white wheaten bread, which the steward receives and carries away for his own use. The ceremony being over, the bizant is restored to the Mayor, and brought back by one of his officers with great solemnity. This bizant is generally so richly adorned with plate and jewels, borrowed from the neighbouring gentry, as to be worth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... squalling tone of the homely instrument which the farmer's boy fashions out of the stems of the pumpkin-vine. The humor of the bassoon is an unconscious humor, and results from the use made of its abysmally solemn voice. This solemnity in quality is paired with astonishing flexibility of utterance, so that its gambols are always grotesque. Brahms permits the bassoon to intone the Fuchslied of the German students in his "Academic" overture. Beethoven achieves a decidedly comical effect ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... remained to witness the cathedral service for the return of Wucics and Petronievitch. I assure you I was struck with the solemnity of the scene, and the deportment of the archbishop. As I do not understand enough of Servian, his speech was translated to me word for word, and it seems to me that he has the four requisites of an orator,—a commanding presence, a pleasing ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... the angry retort of Government, and the penalty of the recent vote, and he inferred, most erroneously as we know, that the coming speech from the throne would be hostile. Therefore he gave all the solemnity he could to the famous scene that ensued. Appearing at the head of the indignant deputies, he was denied admission. The door was only opened that he might fetch his papers, and the National Assembly that represented France found itself, by royal command, standing outside on the pavement, at ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... we are wrong to despond; we are wrong not to expect great things and attempt great things; we are wrong not to dare, we are wrong to do the work of the Lord negligently. Let us feel that Christ's work is ours, and we shall be bowed beneath the solemnity of the thought, shall accept joyfully the necessity. Let us feel that our work is Christ's, and we shall rejoice in infirmity that His power may rest upon us, shall bid adieu to faint-hearted fears, and be ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid to ask—never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit or kinder humor. He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy—it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid. He was natural in his life and thought—master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... matter of bodily endowment. The pelican has a tremendous beak—achieved, it would seem, by a skimping of material in the legs; but the stork has the tremendous beak and legs of surprising growth as well. His wings, too, are something more than respectable. At flying, at eating, at portentous solemnity of demeanour—in all these and in other things the pelican and the stork score fairly evenly; but at walking the pelican is left behind at once. This makes one suspect the stork's honesty. The pelican has a good beak and wings, and pays for them, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... in the rime system which marks the break from flowing narrative to solemn dramatic speech, and is continued through the stanza to increase the effect of solemnity. ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... were busy selecting various articles from the scattered stores of the vessel. It was evident by the respect paid to Philip's conductor, that he was the chief of the kraal. A few words, uttered with the greatest solemnity, were sufficient to produce, though not exactly what Philip required, a small quantity of dirty water from a calabash, which, however, was, to him, delicious. His conductor then waved to him to take a seat on ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... while on the right and left of each, a liveried servant carried a torch which gave him to be distinctly seen. And the flashing of gold on their persons was wonderful to the spectator. Why not? This rare and anointed body was the Church going in solemnity to assist the Basileus in a ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... forget the roar that always greeted this sally when Boz read it, or the low and slow solemnity which he imparted to the Judge's dictum. As an illustration it is ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... reminds me, the fact that our David does not care a picayune for anything of the sort, robs my resolve of much of its solemnity. I might, to be sure, interpose a mandate at this late hour and cut off little Fred in the flower of his renown, and (to quote my wife once more) break his heart; which might be a more serious consequence than a broken leg. No, I am inclined ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... this type Art is one of the great recognised professions like The Army or The Bar. We have no curiosity as to what sort of pictures they paint. We know that their art was suitable for the Academy, therefore for the Victorian Drawing-room. We are merely amused at the solemnity of manner with which they assumed that their large-sized Christmas cards had anything to do with art at all—cards which lost the purchasers of them such enormous sums when sold again at Christie's that the shaken confidence of the public as to the worth of ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... of security against the mischief-makers. {207} The various exhortations given to Timothy are of great force and beauty; he is to endure hardship like a good soldier, and is charged before God to preach and rebuke with long-suffering. The solemnity of these words is equalled by the pungent sarcasm with which the writer alludes to the schismatics who "lead captive silly women" or will "heap to themselves teachers, ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... heart of man. Balder had looked forward to condemnation with a wholesome solemnity which cheered while it chastened him. But the thought of acquittal, and at Gnulemah's hands, appalled him. The implicit consequences to humanity seemed more formidable than the worst which condemnation could bring upon himself. So much had he lately changed his point of view, that only the fear of ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... first instance, for a doctor of laws, physic, or divinity, by the studied neatness of his dress, the powdered head, and ancient appendage of a queue; with a measured manner of delivery, joined to an affected solemnity of carriage, and authoritative style. He knew every body, from the Vice-Chancellor to the scout; ran through a long tirade against driving and drinking, which he described as the capital sins of the sons of Alma Mater, complimented the old rector on his choice of a college ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Christianity in those regions most glorious, and for their good deeds are so highly esteemed that he is not considered a person of worth who is not received into one of them. On two special occasions they made processions, in excellent order, and with great solemnity and concourse of the people, and attended mass and preaching; and very many frequented the communion. One of these was at the foundation of a confraternity; the other was occasioned by a plague of locusts which had been devastating all those islands for two years. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... with vermilion, and arranged flowers, sandal-paste, incense and a couple of burning candles before them in true ceremonial fashion. When Nabendu came in, the two sisters-in-law stood on either side of him, and said with mock solemnity: "Bow down to your gods, and may ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... music, and they dance, each as he pleases, just as before they sang. Most of them prefer the "two-step," especially the young, with whom it is the fashion. The older people have dances from home, strange and complicated steps which they execute with grave solemnity. Some do not dance anything at all, but simply hold each other's hands and allow the undisciplined joy of motion to express itself with their feet. Among these are Jokubas Szedvilas and his wife, Lucija, who together keep the delicatessen store, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... The clan of Turnbull having been guilty of unbounded excesses, the king came suddenly to Jedburgh, by a night march, and executed the most rigid justice upon the astonished offenders. Their submission was made with singular solemnity. Two hundred of the tribe met the king, at the water of Rule, holding in their hands the naked swords, with which they had perpetrated their crimes, and having each around his neck the halter which he had well merited. A few were capitally punished, many imprisoned, and the rest ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... this defeat, the Israelites vainly imagining that wherever the ark of God was, there He would be also with his favoring presence, sent up to Shiloh to bring from thence the sacred symbol. With great pomp and solemnity it was borne by the Priests and Levites, and uproarious was the rejoicing as it entered the camp, but no account is given of the feelings of those who remained near the deserted tabernacle. Did the aged Eli forbode that the awful event which should signal the fulfillment of prophetic ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world, measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height, standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a precipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity straight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars of a gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman's breasts, and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form of a recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... was it to pass through the Duomo. No one was there. Only the altars were lit up, and the priests, who were singing, could not be seen by the faint light. The vast solemnity of the interior is thus really felt. The hour was worthy of Brunelleschi. I hope he walked there so. The Duomo is more divine than St. Peter's, and worthy of genius pure and unbroken. St. Peter's is, like Rome, a mixture of sublimest heaven with corruptest earth. I adore ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the loss of so virtuous a lady was to his tender heart, caused (though the thing, by these and other means, was beaten into the heads of the principal men of the University of Oxford) her body to be reburied in St, Mary's Church in Oxford, with great pomp and solemnity. It is remarkable, when Dr. Babington, the Earl's chaplain, did preach the funeral sermon, he tript once or twice in his speech, by recommending to their memories that virtuous lady so pitifully murdered, instead of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... mail from the post-office out at the Corners; and I remember that at the breakfast table next morning, the Old Squire, who was reading the news from the weekly papers, looked up and said in a tone of solemnity, that General Winfield Scott was dead; that he had died ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... a few million chimneys from belching soot on the great city and choking all the activities of the vastest focus of activity in the world. Find the official whose inefficiency is responsible for this neglect, improvise a court to try him, and with all the deliberate solemnity and pageantry you can devise put him to death in the presence of all officialdom. And then picture the marvellous efficiency of his successor! In a few years' time where would you find one smut of soot in London? Or, again, think of our complicated factory legislation and ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... of worship is wild and singular in the extreme. Nutall, a judicious and scientific traveller, thus describes the solemnity: ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... provision for lighting that dark, gloomy church, and dreary enough it looked in the twilight hour. About a dozen devotees were present, all kneeling on the damp, hard floor. The silk curtain which concealed the altar was drawn aside, with due solemnity, by two boys habited in red flannel petticoats, over which hung a loose white slip. The officiating priest was seen kneeling before the altar, with his lips pressed to the foot of the cross. He retained his position for several moments, then rising, conducted the ceremonies ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... the 5th of March was observed with great solemnity; eloquent orators were successively employed to preserve the remembrance of it fresh in the mind. On these occasions the blessings of liberty, the horrors of slavery, and the danger of a standing army, were presented to the public view. These annual orations administered ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... Champetre,—who, passing from these magnificent city cemeteries, into some primitive old-fashioned churchyard, such as that of V——, has not suddenly been almost overpowered by the contrast presented: the deep brooding solemnity, the holy hush, the pervading indwelling atmosphere of true sanctity ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and now she observed with some girlish anxiety the young man's unwonted solemnity, the strange brilliance of his eyes. A certain nervousness began to show through her cold calm: her unconscious hand wound the taut sheet round and round the tiller, an injudicious business in view of the gusty breeze. How to be rid most quickly of the interloper?... She might, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... my mother, and she shall not pollute mamma's things," Leam answered with passionate solemnity. "If you give them to her I will break or burn them. Mamma's things are her own, and she shall not be made unhappy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... peace abroad, could not cease to cause disquiet to the Queen's minister, while, by delay in signing, vain hopes of disturbing the peace or hindering its ratification existed in people's minds. The King of Spain had made his renunciations with all the solidity and solemnity which could be desired from the laws, customs, and usages of Spain. It only remained for France to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... crowded into an hour. What memories came up in those long night hours! How many on board that ship thought of homes beyond the sea, of absent ones, of the distant and the dead! Such thoughts, mingling with those suggested by the scene around, added to the solemnity of the hour, had left an impression which ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... sinking to the personal plane. Heaven knows I tried. That first meeting of a knot of enthusiasts, at Niagara Falls, had all the earnestness of self-devotion. At the second meeting, at Harper's Ferry, it arose to the solemnity of a holy crusade and yet without and to the cold, hard stare of the world it seemed merely the envy of fools against a great man, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... life, as was scandalously displayed in the twenty million State House job at Albany (which our arithmetic makes equivalent to twenty thousand lives) and renders all governmental affairs needlessly expensive[13] (except in that admirable republic Switzerland), nor is it arrested by the solemnity of death, for a prodigal funeral and a hundred thousand dollar tomb for an individual eminent only by wealth is but a fashionable matter of course to-day. Against this my moral sense revolts. Had I the wealth of Croesus, or the power of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... took place before the burial. The person who was to be christened was a young negro of fifteen, who stood with his mother at the church door. As the priest entered the church to perform mass, he christened him, in passing by, without much ceremony or solemnity, and even without sponsors; the boy, too, seemed to be as little touched by the whole affair as a new born infant. I do not believe that either he or his mother had the least idea of the importance ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All the flowers of the field bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed in their plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and down the garden with that charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger of the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The walk was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and down it in canary, and crimson, and ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to observe the compact inviolably. But to give additional solemnity to the oath, the Pontiff, while celebrating the Mass that followed the reconciliation, turned from the altar, and thus addressed the king: 'Do, if it please you, my son, as you have seen me do. The German princes are continually charging ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... and I can really enjoy an hour or two in quiet contemplation of the monuments and humble head-stones of a large burial ground. But in the night, even the least superstitious person in the world will be awed by the solemnity pervading our cities of the dead, and will quicken his pace as the wind rustles mournfully through the shrubbery. I never should care to go into a grave-yard at night, as a matter of choice; but business is business, and ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... condition, but triumphant, divine. To minds of sanguine imagination there will be a sadness in the tenor of the mystery, as if the key-note of the universe were low; for no poetry, no emotion known to the normal sanity of man, can furnish a hint of its primeval prestige, and its all-but appalling solemnity; but for such as have felt sadly the instability of temporal things there is a comfort of serenity and ancient peace; while for the resolved and imperious spirit there are majesty and supremacy unspeakable. ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... make it up to us. Already we are being driven almost crazy with the mosquitoes and black flies, songsters of no mean calibre, especially at night. In desperation our little ones yesterday succeeded in killing an unusually large specimen, and after burying it with great solemnity were heard singing around the grave in no uncheerful tones, "Nearer, my ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... who had been looking down, with wondering baby solemnity on the strange scene, leaned forward ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... terrace; here they often sat after dinner; but it was subject to one inconvenience, being too much exposed to the rays of the sun; to obviate this defect, Mr. Lambercier had a walnut tree set there, the planting of which was attended with great solemnity. The two boarders were godfathers, and while the earth was replacing round the root, each held the tree with one hand, singing songs of triumph. In order to water it with more effect, they formed a kind of luson around its foot: myself and cousin, who were every day ardent spectators ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Cargrim was admitted with certain solemnity by a sour-faced footman whose milk of human kindness had turned acid in the thunderstorms of Mrs Pansey's spite. This engaging Cerberus conducted the chaplain into a large and sepulchral drawing-room in which the good lady and ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the solemnity with which it talks old-fashioned nonsense which it knows perfectly well to be a century behind the times. That's ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... kings or emperors. It is an office, too, clothed with many privileges—privileges, some of which are conceded to no other class or profession.[3] It is, therefore, that the legislature have seen fit to require that there should be added to the solemnity of the responsibility, which every man virtually incurs when he enters upon the practice of his profession, the higher and more impressive sanction of an appeal to the Searcher of ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... came here to commit myself. I want you to hear me out and believe that I realize fully the solemnity of what I am saying. I have sought this opportunity to tell you that I love you, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured. now, the captain d'wolf here alluded ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... importance of these alleged Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He was quite convinced that the documents were genuine, and that they proved beyond reasonable doubt the existence of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. With great solemnity and manifest sincerity he sought to enlist my co-operation in defense of what he called "Anglo-Saxon civilization," which he seemed to regard as synonymous with Christian civilization. He was quite astonished when I directed his attention to the fact ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... the dining-room, Dryland?" said the Vicar, with a certain solemnity. "Mrs Jackson would like to speak ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... auspices of Pius VII.; nay, that the more to illustrate his power, the head of the Catholic church should repair to Paris for this purpose. It may be doubted whether, in this measure, he regarded more the mere gratification of his pride or the chance of conferring a character of greater solemnity on the installation of the new dynasty, in the eyes of the Catholic population of France. On the 5th of November, however, the unresisting Pope left Rome, and, having been received throughout his progress with every mark of respect and veneration, arrived in Paris to bear his ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... dictated to the people, sentence by sentence: and the Rubric implies the same. It will be remembered that books were scarce when this Rubric was prepared. Literal obedience to it is often very impressive, and a real addition to the solemnity of the act. On ordinary occasions in some Churches, the Minister leads the Confession without the formal separation of ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... the Eighth, on the key-stone of which may still be seen his arms, supported by two antelopes connected by a golden chain. Henry's body was removed from Chertsey, where it was first interred, and reburied in 1484, with much solemnity, in this spot. Such was the opinion entertained of his sanctity that miracles were supposed to be wrought upon his tomb, and Henry the Seventh applied to have him canonised, but the demands of the Pope were too exorbitant. The proximity of ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... silently passed by; her hand is on the lock of the hall-door; with one last look of despairing recklessness behind her, as taking an eternal leave of that awe-struck sister, the door turns upon its hinge, and she, still with slow solemnity, goes out. Whither, oh God!—whither? The night is black as pitch, rainy, tempestuous; the old knight's guests at Clopton Hall have gladly and right wisely preferred even such questionable accommodation as the blue chamber, the dreary white apartment looking on the moat—nay, the haunted room of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to be struck by the extreme quiet amongst so many people. Every one speaks in whispers. There is a certain solemnity about it, the same as that felt in a church; and truly this might be termed the house of the devil. The large and spacious rooms, with beautifully painted walls, Moorish ceilings, and polished floors, are without furniture save the long tables and chairs ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... nomarch, or high official of the pharaoh, on learning that Pentuer was to celebrate a religious solemnity in the temple of Hator, envied the humblest priest, since he would hear a man inspired ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... necessary to take a bright and hopeful view of life, and none where this is more difficult. There is too much at stake. Those who have visited Baden-Baden and her Kursaal sisters in the height of the season need not be told that no "church-face" ever equalled in solemnity the countenances of those who surround the fatal tables, waiting for the stony lips of the croupier to announce "Noir perd" or "Rouge gagne." At Chicago are a wider table, higher stakes, more desperate throws, and Fate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... and destitution of poor Varick, invoked the Throne of Grace in his behalf. Though the outcries and turmoil around and above were continued, yet I lost no word of this deeply affecting prayer. It touched my heart and heightened the solemnity of the occasion. My own supplications went up in silence to the mercy-seat on behalf of the dying man. I knew that my mother's would be equally fervent; and from the reverential responses of the sobbing wife, it was clear to me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... whom I was very intimate, being married to a fair lady, who had formerly been courted by one who was at the wedding, all his friends were in very great fear; but especially an old lady his kinswoman, who had the ordering of the solemnity, and in whose house it was kept, suspecting his rival would offer foul play by these sorceries. Which fear she communicated to me. I bade her rely upon me: I had, by chance, about me a certain flat plate of gold, whereon were graven some celestial figures, supposed good against sunstroke ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... civil and friendly. We gave them our remaining biscuit, and what little tobacco there was in our party to spare. One of them accepted a pinch of snuff and pretended to sneeze, crying 'Hatchee!' with mock solemnity. ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... at last, urged by the cries of the sufferers, the Archbishop assumed a bolder tone, which terrified his enemies, and compelled the court of Rome to come forward to his support. By a sentence, promulgated with more than the usual solemnity, he cut off from the society of the faithful such of the royal ministers as had communicated with the antipope, those who had framed the Constitutions of Clarendon, and all who had invaded the property of the Church. At the same time he confirmed by frequent letters the wavering ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... that calamity might be, the cry of the panic-stricken Heathens was, 'The Christians to the lions!' It maybe that, in Trajan's humanity, in order to prevent a general massacre by the infuriated populace, or to give greater solemnity to the sacrifice, the execution was ordered to take place, not in Antioch, but in Rome." [108:1] I contend that these reasons, on the contrary, render execution in Antioch infinitely more probable. To continue, however: the ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... lived in moody isolation, while Shakespeare caroused in an alehouse, does not prove Ruskin the greater man or the deeper seer; it only shows that one knew how to achieve what the other did not,—contact with the everyday, merry world, escape from the awful and everlasting solemnity of life. Ruskin could not achieve it for himself, he did not know how; but Bobbie, all unknown to either of them, would have shown him. Bobbie would have made life for him "sympathetically ridiculous," for Bobbie is a Penguin Person. And Bobbie would have been a living, breathing ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... youth like the music of a brook, where every thing that broke the smoothness of its current only turned it into melody. The morning and evening prayer—the hymn of her sister voices—their simple spirit of tranquil devotion—and the touching solemnity of her father, worshipping God upon the altar of his own heart—all, all this, alas—alas, charmed her no more. Oh, no—no; many motives conspired to send her into solitude, that she might in the sanctity of unreproving nature ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... merely a new departure, but the reversal of a policy which has been accepted, almost without question, for centuries. Among many primitive peoples, indeed, we know that the boy and girl at puberty are initiated with solemnity, and even a not unwholesome hardship, into the responsibilities of adult life, including those which have reference to the duties and privileges of sex.[184] But in our own traditions scarcely even a relic of any such custom ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... your brother here? I should insist on his coming down in discreet black, with a white tie and that look of imposing solemnity ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... time the old soldier handed every article to the recipient with a grave dignity and a solemnity of manner which seemed to say, "I am giving treasures to you that I part from with the greatest regret," ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... conducted from, the place of his religious retirement to the female apartments of the palace. The court astrologers had predicted that the palace of the emperor was this year to suffer by fire, on which account, a solemnity, accompanied by splendid fireworks and illuminations, was exhibited during seven days. On this occasion, an artificial mount was erected in the middle of the imperial court, covered all over with branches of cypress, and planted with 100,000 torches; by means of little artificial ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... dwells. "The prince," he says, "has a puppet theatre which is certainly unique in character. Here the grandest operas are produced. One knows not whether to be amazed or to laugh at seeing 'Alceste,' 'Alcides,' etc., put on the stage with all due solemnity, and played by puppets. His orchestra is one of the best I ever heard, and the great Haydn is his court and theatre composer. He employs a poet for his singular theatre, whose humour and skill in suiting the grandest subjects for the stage, and in parodying the gravest effects, are often exceedingly ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... is the most memorable attempt made by any English-speaking people to depose a sovereign ruler in strict accordance with all forms of law. The order, dignity and solemnity which marked the proceedings may therefore be realized with pride by every American citizen. From the beginning to the end there was no popular menace, or even suggestion of disturbance or violence, let the trial end as it might. If the President had been convicted he would have quietly ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... wedding march pealed out. The bridal party filed into the church. The organ peals hushed. The resonant voice of a minister, with sing-song solemnity, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... and appendages, and such a collar (supposed of solid gold, which it was not quite, as we shall hear in time) round the neck of him as was never seen in all the North. How he did his own Yule festivals, with what magnificent solemnity, the horse-eatings, blood-sprinklings, and other sacred rites, need not be told. Something of a "Ritualist," one may perceive; perhaps had Scandinavian Puseyisms in him, and other desperate heathen notions. He was universally ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... girded about, and your lights burning," &c. To say that he was not intending to teach a universal morality,[4] is to admit that his precepts are a trap; for they then mix up and confound mere contingent duties with universal sacred obligations, enunciating all in the same breath, and with the same solemnity. I cannot think that Jesus intended any separation. In fact, when a rich young man asked of him what he should do, that he might inherit eternal life, and pleaded that he had kept the ten commandments, ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... very rash thing, Sadie," Helen lectured, striving to draw her brows into an expression of impressive solemnity. "My own terrible experience should have been a lesson ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... 16. The little influence which our present mode of executing criminals has in deterring others from the commission of the same crimes, arises from a want of solemnity and terrifick circumstances on such occasions. It is not the mere loss of life which has so much a tendency to affect the spectator, as the dreadful apparatus, the awful preliminaries, which ought to attend publick executions; whose ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... the three young men remained silent, impressed by the solemnity of the hour, quivering too beneath the great waves of darkness which rose from the vague ocean of the city. Then a young voice remarked, though whose it was one could not tell: ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Indeed, he was almost sick the next morning, when church time came; but he was a leading member, and it was his duty to attend the usual Sabbath service, if he could. He went. The occasion was of unusual solemnity, as a revival was in progress. The minister preached a sermon, well calculated for effect. His peroration was a climax of great beauty. Assuming the attitude of one intently listening, he recited to ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... small island, that they called Schoolcraft's Island. On a tall spruce tree they raised the American flag. There was enough in the novelty of the scenery, and of the event, to interest the white men of the party. There was a solemnity mingled with their pleased emotions; for who had made this grand picture, stretching out in its beauty and majesty before them? What were they, in comparison with the great and good Being upon ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... eyes bent downward. She heard the rustle of Beatrice's dress near her. Mr. Athel began to speak of the piece the sound of Beatrice's voice replying caused Emily at length to look up, and she met the dark eyes, still large with the joy of song. Her own gaze had a beautiful solemnity, a devout admiration, of which it was impossible to doubt the genuineness; Beatrice, observing it, smiled very slightly before turning ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... that unless I had actually been present at a public execution, I could not have written the chapter in which Sophia was at the Auxerre solemnity. I have not been present at a public execution, as the whole of my information about public executions was derived from a series of articles on them which I read in the Paris Matin. Mr. Frank Harris, discussing my book in "Vanity Fair," said it was clear that I had not seen an ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... the going forth, kneeling, made general confession and the priest's hands in the dusk above absolved us. There was solemnity and there was tenderness. A hundred and twenty, we came forth from church, and around us flowed the hundreds of Palos, men and women and children. All was red under a red sunset, the boats waiting to take us out to the Santa Maria, the Pinta and ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... simple festival brought a little of the Christmas feeling home to us and made us almost happy. We knew that our American parcels would not be delivered until the next day, so we had but just time to reread our precious letters when the clock struck twelve, and with much solemnity my companion and I presented each other with our modest Christmas present—which each had announced that she wanted and had helped to select! But, then, who would not rather select one's own Christmas presents, and so be sure of ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... observations, I will proceed to introduce my case to you. My learned friend, Mr. Gurney, has opened this prosecution with all that pomp of eloquence, and solemnity of declamation, which he possesses in so ample a manner, and which make him so accomplished an advocate. But what has he done? All, indeed, that he or any one else could have done: yet, nothing more ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... luminance a Cross and Seven-pointed Star. The rays of light shed by this uplifted Symbol of an unwritten Creed were so vivid as to be almost blinding, and nearly eclipsed the summer glory of the sun itself. Awed by the strange and silent solemnity of my surroundings, I was glad to be hidden under the folds of my enshrouding white veil, though I realised that I was in a sort of secret recess made purposely for the use of those who were summoned to see all ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... more faintly, when a servant entered and announced Mr. Webber. She stiffened herself to receive the visitor. Lydia's manner did not alter in the least. Lucian, whose demeanor resembled Miss Goff's rather than his cousin's, went through the ceremony of introduction with solemnity, and was received with a dash of scorn; for Alice, though secretly awe-stricken, bore herself ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... my boy," said O'Gree, with sudden solemnity, "you've never been very willing to talk to me about her. Now, before I tell you anything, I want to know this. Why wouldn't you tell me how you first got to know her, ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... The solemnity of the first few moments when the appetite is keen had worn off, and the buzz of conversation could be heard in place of the silence with which a dinner usually commences, and which is followed by the noise of spoons ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... recently been acquired for the Grand Ducal library, where it had been placed on a lofty pedestal opposite the bust of Goethe; and in this pedestal, which was hollow, it was resolved to deposit the skull. The consent of the family having been obtained, the solemnity was delayed till the arrival of Ernst von Schiller, who could not reach Weimar before autumn. On September the 17th the ceremony took place. A few persons had been invited, amongst whom, of course, was the Burgermeister. ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby
... therefore, from jumping at new conclusions, especially on a subject of such tremendous solemnity. But I feel that we should keep our minds and our hearts open, realizing how little we know yet of God, and of His illimitable dispensations. Especially should we hail with thankfulness any gleam of light on the ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... assembly. The petition to the king was entrusted to the custody of Mr. Sams, who was proceeding to Great Britain. Whether it ever reached the throne was a matter of dispute: some said it had been committed to the deep, with much solemnity; others, that it had passed from the messenger to the hands of a merchant, who disregarded its fate. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... people of the nation. And I do earnestly recommend to all the people, and especially to all ministers and teachers of religion of all denominations and to all heads of families, to observe and keep that day according to their several creeds and modes of worship in all humility and with all religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... company to see how they took it; and she was thereupon impressed with the idea that some of them had not thought of this great truth of late, and that its sudden announcement had thrown them into a shocked solemnity. ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... peace, which I draw from this alliance with my brother's soul, is the nut itself whereof all nature and all thought is but the husk and shell. Happy is the house that shelters a friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that relation, and honor its law! He who offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up, like an Olympian,[297] to the great games, where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes himself for contest where Time, Want, Danger are ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... turned round, and with a countenance strongly expressive of horror, begged to be informed if this were really the stream. I received an answer in the affirmative, the solemnity of which was too much, first, for the risible faculties of my young companion, and then for my own. We literally roared with laughter. But we checked ourselves as soon as possible, and having explained to our guide how widely different were our notions of angling from his, had the satisfaction ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... he uttered the words. To the proud face came an expression of deep solemnity and touching sweetness. The firm lips were relaxed—the piercing eyes had become soft. Mohun was greater in his weakness than he had ever been ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... wife noted that his words were not mere polite patter. Farrel's gravely courteous bearing, his respectful bow to Mrs. Parker and the solemnity with which he spoke impressed them with the conviction that this curious human study in light and shadow regarded their approval as an honor, not ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... strange experience which might lie before me. Sceptical as I was, there was something impressive in the assurance of Dacre's manner, and my extraordinary surroundings, the huge room with the strange and often sinister objects which were hung round it, struck solemnity into my soul. Finally I undressed, and turning out the lamp, I lay down. After long tossing I fell asleep. Let me try to describe as accurately as I can the scene which came to me in my dreams. It stands out now in my memory more clearly than anything which I have seen with my waking eyes. There ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... go, madame; and hear me," said Monsieur Gironac, with mock solemnity; "as I live, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... her open book down on the table before her, and looked at me with profound solemnity. "Well, then, I can tell you, my dear, it is no laughing matter. If they have got to the weird it is very serious; and her talking to him about her family, and his wanting to know about her father, that's serious too—far more serious than either of them can understand. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sin and suffering, wisdom and folly, love, and pride, and vanity,—has a claim upon the universal sympathy. Besides, whatever the living man may have been, death has now invested him with its great solemnity. He is with the immortals. For him the dark curtain has been lifted. The weaknesses, the follies, and the repulsive mental and personal idiosyncrasies which may have kept him without the sphere of our respect and sympathy have now fallen off, and he stands radiant with the transfiguration ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... indeed, been usual, and very expedient it is, in point of order and regularity, and for the solemnity of the proceeding, to appoint an officer for presiding during the time of the trial, and until judgment, and to give him the style and title of Steward of England: but this maketh no sort of alteration in the constitution of the court; it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... is the symbol of all those delightful truths which Mr. Osgood here connects with it. In a free and graceful style, varying form deep solemnity to the most genial and lively tone, as befits his range of subjects, he gives attention to wise thoughts on holy things, and homely truths. His volume will find many warm hearts to which it ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... days—on Tuesday, November 6th—the two men who had been sent inland to the great and rich city came back again with their report. Alas for visions of the Great Khan! The city turned out to be a village of fifty houses with twenty people in each house. The envoys had been received with great solemnity; and all the men "as well as the women" came to see them, and lodged them in a fine house. The chief people in the village came and kissed their hands and feet, hailing them as visitors from the skies, and seating ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... of the Assumption of the Virgin was celebrated with befitting solemnity. There was mass in their bark chapel; then a Te Deum; then public instruction of certain Indians who chanced to be at Montreal; then a procession of all the colonists after vespers, to the admiration of the redskinned beholders. Cannon, too, were fired, in honor of their celestial patroness. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... consisting of such things as lances, bolos, daggers, and necklaces, are frequently set out upon a ceremonial structure or put in the ceremonial shed in order to give more solemnity to the occasion, and it is not infrequent to find the structure ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... the youths grew apparently sad. The solemnity of the gloom seemed to make them ponder. "Light the gas, ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... shiniest of silk hats and a flower in the buttonhole of his frock-coat, received us at the door of a small house, the first-floor windows of which announced the tenancy of a maker of gymnastic appliances; and having kissed Madame Brandt's hand with awful solemnity and bowed deeply to me, he preceded us down the passage, out into the yard, and into a ramshackle studio at the end, where his ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... the milk of the court, and from thence have been brought up to the very strong meats and wine, of it; been a courtier from the biggen to the night-cap, as we may say, and you to offend in such a high point of ceremony as this, and let your nuptials want all marks of solemnity! How much plate have you lost to-day, (if you had but regarded your profit,) what gifts, what friends, through ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... I name the poor fellow once more, I must take my last leave of him; poor honest Friday! We buried him with all decency and solemnity possible, by putting him into a coffin, and throwing him into the sea; and I caused them to fire eleven guns for him: and so ended the life of the most grateful, faithful, honest, and most affectionate servant that ever ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... in the courts with an air and They all noticed it. "What are you up to now?" said Love. And Death with some solemnity said to Her: "I am going to frighten Odysseus"; and drawing about him his grey traveller's cloak went out through the windy door ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... truly hallowed place of worship in Christendom. There is a mystery in it at the sunset hour which is felt by all men, though none can explain it; the light glows and fades there as nowhere else, the shadows have a sweet solemnity of their own, and consummate art, or supreme good-fortune, has made the vast nave and colonnaded aisles responsive to the softest notes the human voice can breathe. First the full organ blares out triumphantly alone, and by and by the chorus, borne up by the master instrument, ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... of the monthly contributions and distributing them among the members. His apparent supposition is that he disturbs no one (and it is amazing how undisturbed the rest of the congregation is), but also that he is in no way interfering with the solemnity or value of the service. The freedom, too, with which individuals come and go during the service is in marked contrast to our custom. From our standpoint, ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... out the unfortunate man, in a tone that seemed to increase in formal solemnity with his manifest agitation, "this is impossible. The laws of God that have joined ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... below for the tobacco, Van Horn orated to Ishikola on the sacred solemnity of truth and promises. Next, he leaned across the barbed wire and handed down ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... paused and be sleeping. The tiger-cat, with his paws folded under him, lay beside the hearth, and Mary on her little bench nursed her doll peacefully. Calista began to sing a German hymn; the words were awful, but their very solemnity made her ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... On the Tuesday Charlotte wrote to her father; but, knowing that his presence was required for some annual Church solemnity at Haworth, she informed him that she had made all necessary arrangements for the interment and that the funeral would take place so soon, that he could hardly arrive in time for it. The surgeon who had visited Anne on the day of her ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... about the same relation to typhoid," said the Doctor, eyeing the other with solemnity, "as housemaid's ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the political features of the play seriously, as I gather that we were intended to do; and we got very little help from Mr. Bourchier's own performance, which was frankly humorous. In his brochure he tells us with great solemnity that he is "more than pleased to think that the play may help to demonstrate to those of an older civilisation how truly the best of the so-called Labour politicians strive to serve their country and their fellow men.... Premier 'Bill' demonstrates vividly enough that, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... they told him, was their law now as ever, and if he thought the sovereign of the strangers was the ancient lord of their country, they were willing to swear allegiance to him as such. Accordingly the oaths were administered with all due solemnity, and a full record of the proceedings was drawn up by the royal notary to be sent to Spain. Cortes now seemed to have accomplished most of the great objects of his expedition, but towards the conversion of the natives he ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... sudden shout so loud and insistent that we seemed all of us to be shouting at once. However, we still went on silently regarding the punch-bowl and the white shirt of the Dorpat student, with a feeling that a moment of great solemnity ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... reasoning one cannot but add what one does hear and see; one cannot but judge of the ceremony by the manner in which one sees it performed—uttered, that is—and listened to. Clergymen there are—one meets them now and then—who endeavour to give to the dinner-table grace some of the solemnity of a church ritual, and what is the effect? Much the same as though one were to be interrupted for a minute in the midst of one of our church liturgies to hear ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... doubt of it. The notes by this time vibrated piteously through the party-wall, and with their awful solemnity triumphed over all conversation. Tones became hushed, as though in the presence of death; and the Vicar, in his desperate attempts to talk, found his voice chained without mercy to the slow foot of the dirge. He tried ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... their different retinues, which, notwithstanding their numbers, formed no more than their usual equipage and body-guard upon occasions of solemnity, saluted the lord of the castle and each other with overflowing kindness, or with haughty and distant politeness, according to the circumstances of friendship or hostility in which their clans had recently stood ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... just the fitting man for his position. Gently yet not luxuriously nurtured, and early trained in habits of self-denial and consideration for the feelings of others, he had entered the ministry, not only with a due sense of the solemnity of his responsibilities, and under a conviction that he was truly called to his profession by the inward voice of the Holy Spirit, but also with a loving self- forgetfulness, while he sought earnestly the truest welfare of all committed to his charge. And when he passed, after some years' experience ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... said Ayesha, but when I put out my hand to do so I drew it back again. It seemed like sacrilege, and, to speak the truth, I was awed by the dread solemnity of the place, and of the presences before us. Then, with a little laugh at my fears, she drew them herself, only to discover other and yet finer cloths lying over the forms upon the stone bench. These also she withdrew, and then for the first for thousands upon thousands of years ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... and interspersed with huge crags that appeared to lie loosely upon the soil, and in many cases were prevented from precipitating themselves into the valleys below merely by the support of the trees against which they reclined. Deep ravines, in various directions, gave an air of still sterner solemnity to the scene. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... therefore, by this solemnity, declare your investiture into that office, solemnly charging you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of his Church, who walks in the midst of his golden candlesticks, with eyes as of a flame of fire, exactly observing the demeanor of all ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Guard responded by protestations of fidelity and devotedness. Cries of enthusiasm rent the apartments; tears were shed, and a sense of the solemnity of the moment penetrated every mind. All shouted, "Long live the emperor! Long live the empress!" Maria Louisa, pale with emotion, her face bathed in tears, leaned her head on the emperor's shoulder; and, holding his son ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... over the forehead, shell-shape. This head-dress, joined to a thin pair of whiskers, cut crescent-wise from the ear to the nose, gave my friend a regular bourgeois physiognomy, wax-doll-like: he looked a great deal too well; and, added to this, the solemnity of his prefectural costume, gave his whole appearance a pompous well-fed look that ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... went so far as to have her horse brought from the stable. To her surprise, a horse for McCloud came over with it. Quiet to the verge of solemnity, but with McCloud following, Dicksie walked with admirable firmness out of the shop to the curb. McCloud gave her rein to her, and with a smile stood waiting to ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... look ter me like you'd be 'feerd dem black shimmies 'd draw out some sort o' tetter on yo' skin," to which bit of friendly warning Moriah had responded, with a groan, and in a voice that was almost sepulchral in its awful solemnity, ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... frail sisterhood, now turned faithful, nursing an elderly and peevish Lothario with a cup of sago-milk gruel, which opium-eaters consider such a delicacy: while the other customers sit in groups talking with the preternatural solemnity born of their favourite drug, and now and again passing a remark to the cheery-looking landlord with the white ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... and Helen. Could Miss Howard have chosen two who, placed beside each other, would have formed a more pronounced contrast? Not even the solemnity of the occasion could overcome Ruth's ruling passion, curiosity: she was determined to see all to be seen if it rested with her to do so. Nor were the pert pansy blossoms upon her hat, nodding a welcome to all, more on the alert. Or could those which ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... little philosopher—miller also alone?" remarked the Judge quizzically, yet with solemnity. M. Fille was agitated; he made a protesting gesture. "Jean Jacques can find comfort, but the child—ah, no, it is too terrible! Someone should speak. I tried to do it—to Madame Carmen, to Jean Jacques; but it was no use. How could I betray her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Authoritie only of some private partie of a troubled State, though they be received, are neither Publique, nor Private Ministers of the Common-wealth; because none of their actions have the Common-wealth for Author. Likewise, an Ambassador sent from a Prince, to congratulate, condole, or to assist at a solemnity, though Authority be Publique; yet because the businesse is Private, and belonging to him in his naturall capacity; is a Private person. Also if a man be sent into another Country, secretly to explore their counsels, and strength; though both the Authority, and the ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... on a green meadow beside the town. We walked through the Black Forest the whole forenoon. It might be owing to the many wild stories whose scenes are laid among these hills, but with me there was a peculiar feeling of solemnity pervading the whole region. The great pine-woods are of the very darkest hue of green, and down their hoary, moss-floored aisles daylight seems never to have shone. The air was pure and clear and the sunshine bright, but it imparted ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
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