"Serious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Indian network of tranquillization to the most turbulent and vigorous of neighbouring powers, the reader will feel a jealousy, as we do, with respect to the time chosen for this measure:—why then in particular? After which comes a far more serious question, why by that violent machinery, that system of deposing and substituting, which Lord ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... confused, yet somewhat sullen, and sat down beside his father's chair. It was evident, by a motion of Edward's head and a slight trembling of his lips, that he was aware of George's entrance, though his footsteps had been almost inaudible. Emily, with her serious and earnest little face, looked from one to the other, as if she longed to be a messenger ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... if one is protected by a light rubber cape, and will take the storm philosophically with a mind to enjoy it and rise superior to the drip on his knees, there is huge satisfaction in being alone with the patter of the rain. But the loss of the landscape is serious in such country as the Post Road deals with. An instance of this comes vividly to mind in connection with the Wiccopee Pass and the plain south of Fishkill. As I first saw it of a perfect June evening, it was as delicately beautiful as a bit of silver filigree, but another time, in September, ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... must—change your mind. She told me—Miss Ravenscroft did—because she likes you, Ruth, and she would be so terribly sorry if you got into trouble over this matter. She said you are certain to get into most serious, terrible trouble, for the governors will on no account depart from their firm resolve to expel you from the school. You will have defied their authority, and that is what they cannot permit. It is on that ground they will expel you, but it is strong enough; no one can suppose for a moment ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... allow me to confer for a moment with my brethren," replied the lord mayor, cautiously, "before I return an answer. It is too serious a matter ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... house or barn in the distance, for Ellen to sketch; and while she drew and Alice worked, John read aloud to them. Sometimes he took a pencil too, and Alice read; and often, often pencils, books, and work were all laid down; and talk, lively, serious, earnest, always delightful, took the place of them. When Ellen could not understand the words, at least she could read the faces; and that was a study she was never weary of. At home there were other studies and much reading; many tea-drinkings on the lawn, and even ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... complacently assures us, "expressed great surprise that Mr. Fox had not lost his head for such conduct." Notwithstanding, however, this Concordat between the Right Reverend Prelate and the Turks, something more is still wanting to give validity to so serious an accusation. Until the production of the alleged proofs (which Mr. Adair has confidently demanded) shall have put the public in possession of more recondite materials for judging, they must regard as satisfactory and conclusive the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... strong at the outside. There's rather more sickness in the out-villages than I care for, but then I'm so blistered with prickly-heat that I'm ready to hang myself. What's the yarn about your mashing a Miss Haverley up there? Not serious, I hope? You're over-young to hang millstones round your neck, and the Colonel will turf you out of that in double-quick time if you ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... give some account of my strange experiences in his company from the chance which first brought us together at the period of the "Study in Scarlet," up to the time of his interference in the matter of the "Naval Treaty"—an interference which had the unquestionable effect of preventing a serious international complication. It was my intention to have stopped there, and to have said nothing of that event which has created a void in my life which the lapse of two years has done little to fill. My hand has been forced, however, by the recent letters in which Colonel ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... wait and watch for an opportunity of aiding her. I confess, Gordon, her future fills me with serious apprehension; she is so proud, so sensitive, so scrupulous, and yet so boundlessly ambitious. Should her high hopes, her fond dreams be destined to the sharp and summary defeat which frequently overtakes ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... "Nothing serious. Shall we take our places? I have two chairs there not far from Olga and your friend," and the Prince prepared to lead the way. Tamara, now that the tension was over, almost thought she would refuse, but the great relief and joy she felt in his presence overcame her pride, and she meekly ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... her throat when she saw the dagger. Her right arm was penetrated just above the wrist, and half-an-inch in the left breast, close to the centre bone. She behaved firmly. The assassin only struck once. No visible danger; but you should come, if you have no serious work." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had seen trailing over the marble banisters of the villas on Lake Como, dyeing the pellucid water with their scarlet shadows. Throughout the church everything speaks of early times: the few frescoes are of the twelfth or thirteenth century: the only noteworthy picture is by the serious Mantegna. In the upper church Saint Zeno sits in his episcopal chair with a long fishing-rod in his hand, whence the Veronese, ignorant of sacred symbolism, infer that he was fond of the sport, and have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... he said; "and I know that you will not think lightly of a prayer which I have made to you in so serious ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Meeting, as it was called, was a very small one, and does not look at first like a very serious split in the old congregation. An old paper, still in existence, written apparently and read at the opening of the New Meeting, states that "in the year 1791 a few of us met at a friend's house a few weeks for prayer and the reading of the Word of God; ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... peace between the two crowns; but a serious question still remained between Frontenac and the new governor of New York, the Earl of Bellomont. When Schuyler and Dellius came to Quebec, they brought with them all the French prisoners in the hands of the English of ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... has been fighting him ever since he went into politics; but I never saw Mr. Benhem close enough to speak to him until the other evening." She raised her black lashes and looked straight at Stephen with her challenging glance. "All the men seemed so serious, except you." ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... mail train. Night, and Martin Garrity, snow-crusted, his face cut and cracked by the bite of wind and the sting of splintered, wind-driven ice, his head aching from loss of sleep, but his heart thumping with happiness, took on the serious business of moving every St. Louis-Kansas City passenger and express train, blinked vacuously when ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... All the army goes—guards and all. Heavytop's got the gout, and is mad at not being able to move. O'Dowd goes in command, and we embark from Chatham next week." This news of war could not but come with a shock upon our lovers, and caused all these gentlemen to look very serious. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the French prepared to resist the serious attack which they expected would be made by way of Lake Champlain and Ontario. But a greater danger was threatening them, for, in the midst of their preparations, the news arrived from France that a great fleet was on its way, from England, to attack Quebec. The town was filled with ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... contents of our despatches informed them of the movements of our armies. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that more than two hundred staff officers were killed or captured during the Peninsular War. One may regret the death of an ordinary courier, but it is less serious than the loss of a promising officer, who, moreover, is exposed to the risks of the battlefield in addition to those of a posting journey. A great number of vigorous men well skilled in their business begged to be allowed to do this duty, but ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... lasting about twenty-five minutes and given as an after-piece. It was a rhymed farce in which the dialogue was sung or chanted by the characters to popular ballad tunes. But after the Restoration the Jig assumed a new and more serious complexion, and came eventually to be dovetailed with the play itself, instead of being given at the fag end of the entertainment. Mr. W.J. Lawrence, the well-known theatrical authority to whom I owe much valuable information ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... diseases are the direct result of worry and other mental disturbances. The mental force which causes colored water to act as an emetic, or postage-stamps to produce a blister, can also produce organic diseases of a serious nature. The large mental factor in the cause of diseases is generally admitted, and it seems reasonable to infer that what is caused by mental influence may be cured by the same means. There is no restriction in the power of the mind ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... look, but a very troublous one; they, however, restrained themselves so far as to simulate a great satisfaction, and the marquis brought himself to congratulate the servants on their attachment to their master and mistress. After this they were left alone, looking very serious, while crackers exploded and violins resounded under the windows. For some time they preserved silence, the first thought which occurred to both being that the count and countess had allowed themselves to be deceived by trifling symptoms, that people had wished to flatter their hopes, that it ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... emotion, was questioned sternly, and allowed his freedom on his promise not to "sing out" or make trouble. Captain Benson was examined, his injury diagnosed as brain-concussion, from the glancing bullet, more or less serious, and dragged out to the scuppers, where he was bound beside his unconscious first officer. Then, leaving them to live or die as their subconsciousness determined, the sixteen mutineers sacrilegiously reentered ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... Elsie, "come in and eat! I never knew a serious operation to have such a cheering ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... of the Colonel's letters, collected his rents, and looked after his business generally, and did it so well that the Colonel was beginning to feel that he could not get on without him, and to have serious thoughts of making it worth his while ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... the boys did not know what to do. Si Peters and his crowd had run off with their row-boat, and how to get to the mainland was a serious question. ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... loves reserve, but also gay freeness. The queen is too serious—eternal organ sound; but you cannot dance to an organ, and we are young ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... advocated governmental principles of such utter folly that the party itself was obliged immediately to abandon them when it undertook to carry on the government of the United States, and only clung to them long enough to cause serious and lasting damage to the country; but on the vital question of the West, and its territorial expansion, the Jeffersonian party was, on the whole, emphatically right, and its opponents, the Federalists, emphatically ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... it is true, been beforehand with him; but the wide scattering of the grouped stars puts the filar micrometer at a disadvantage in measuring them, producing minute errors which the arduous conditions of the problem render of serious account. The heliometer, there can be no doubt, is the special instrument for the purpose, and it was, moreover, that employed by Bessel; so that the Konigsberg and Yale results are comparable in a stricter sense than any others ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... ought to have asked. And perhaps, too, the trespasser was not Nate! The traces of shallow delving might have been left by another hand. Birt paused reflectively in unharnessing the mule. He stood with the gear in one hand, serious and anxious, in view of the possibility that this discovery was not ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... believe, generally speaking, that all the men of our cast are of my mind—They love not any tragedies but those in which they themselves act the parts of tyrants and executioners; and, afraid to trust themselves with serious and solemn reflections, run to comedies, in order to laugh away compunction on the distresses they have occasioned, and to find examples of men as immoral as themselves. For very few of our comic performances, as thou knowest, give us good ones.— ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... organizing, speaking, heckling members of the government, campaigning at bye- elections; going to Holloway Prison together, where they joined the Englishwomen on hunger strike. Miss Burns remained organizing in Scotland while Miss Paul was obliged to return to America after serious illness following a thirty day period of imprisonment, during all of which ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... first, otherwise if the serum contains a very large amount of agglutinin the traces of this serum added to the saline solution may be sufficient to entirely vitiate the subsequent observations—whilst if more than one sample of serum is diluted from the same saline solution serious errors may ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... but one outcome. Outnumbered two to one, the Apaches were fighting a losing struggle. Half of their number lay dead on the floor, and many others were nursing serious wounds. As suddenly as it had begun, the fighting ceased, and the Apaches still on their feet raised their ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... please," pleaded the strange little freshman. Jane waited till she reached her, then smiled into the serious ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... to dinner, Alice and Ellen Chauncey came back; the former looking a little serious, the latter crying, and wishing aloud that all the moroccoes had been in the fire. They had not been able to find Ellen. Neither was she in the drawing-room when they returned to it after dinner; and a second search was made in vain. John went to the ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... finish her sentence; she simply fainted away. The artist rang, and the maid came in. When Louise tried to get her mistress into her bedroom, a serious nervous attack came on, with violent hysterics. Stidmann, like any man who by an involuntary indiscretion has overthrown the structure built on a husband's lie to his wife, could not conceive that his words should produce such an effect; he supposed that the Countess was in such ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... fight nearer German soil would have given the German people a better idea of the actual state of the war and helped to stifle any lack of enthusiasm on the part of German Socialists which, later on, was to develop into serious trouble. ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... her, too, that John Burleson and Rita Tevis had always been on a friendly footing rather quieter and more serious than the usual gay and irresponsible relations maintained between two people ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... a man by Isis' stream, Whose phrase discreet and prudent, Whose penchant for a learned theme Proclaimed the Serious Student: I never knew a scholar who Could more at ease converse on The latest Classical Review Than ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... extended and beautiful, the beauty lies rather in the separate parts; the thing is more in the nature of a sonnet sequence than a continuous poem. Of his other larger works, the Princess, a scarcely happy blend between burlesque in the manner of the Rape of the Lock, and a serious apostleship of the liberation of women, is solely redeemed by these lyrics. Tennyson's innate conservatism hardly squared with the liberalising tendencies he caught from the more advanced thought ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... if any, who would be so illiberal as to wish for the exclusion from the sacred volume of all those books or passages which, though neither genuine nor perhaps edifying, have remained in the Canon of Scripture for many centuries. Any serious attempt to reconstruct the Canon would raise a theological storm which would not subside in this century. The work could never be done perfectly, and even if it could, it would have to be done at ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... the discussion of the more serious concerns of a great religious and political party, we may for a moment pause to gaze at a single show, neither more magnificent nor more dignified than its fellows; but in which the youthful figure of a Bearnese destined to ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... leave me, Mr. Hine," she said, looking at him with serious eyes, "if you want to pass the time of day with ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... continually getting false rumors about the movements of the Turks. We had believed that it would be impossible for them to execute a flank movement, at any rate in sufficient strength to be a serious menace, for from all the reports we could get, the wells were few and far between. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of excitement and some concern when one afternoon our aeroplanes came in with the report that they had seen a body of Turks that they estimated at ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... had a blond crew-cut, a broad freckled nose, and a serious sidelong squint. He looked from his crumpled sequence idea to Catlin and ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... expense of laying out the quarantine-ground at El-Wijh has been pitifully wasted. That, however, is a very small matter; the neglect of choosing a proper position is serious, even ominous. Unlike Tor, nothing can be healthier or freer from fever than the pilgrims' plateau. From El-Wijh, too, escape is hopeless: the richest would not give a piastre to levant; because, if a solitary traveller left the caravan, a Bedawi bullet would soon ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... now-a-days, but because he had but little trust in Tom Elliot's discretion, and thought that at any moment the page might be led to break forth from what must needs be an irksome confinement. Moreover, the King knew that, sooner or later, he would have to undergo a more serious lecture from some of his councillors, and it was an object with him to make some inquiries in confidential quarters and devise a course of speech ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... serious eye inspired in me a trust that has never been deceived. There was no magnetism in him, no lights and shades that could stir the imagination; no bright ideal suggested by him stood between the friend and his self. As the years matured ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... occur—a deformity which always has a bad influence over the girl's health and strength, and which, in those cases where it is complicated by the pathological softness of bones found in cases of rickets, may cause serious alteration in shape and interfere with the functions of ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... of her left hand the hoop-ring, set in valuable brilliants, which had given rise to their first serious conversation. ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... obliged to squat down upon the ground, and hold our plates in our hands. On one of these fine days the steward stumbled with the coffee-pot, and deluged me with its burning contents. Luckily, only a small portion fell upon my hands, so that the accident was not a very serious one. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... me deeply, to see an artist of so great original power indulging in childish fantasticism and exaggeration, and substituting for the serious and subdued work of legitimate imagination, monstre machicolations and colossal cusps and crockets. While there is so much beautiful architecture daily in process of destruction around us, I cannot but think it treason to imagine anything; at ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... corsets, (or assignats of five livres,) bearing the King's image;* and as these were very numerous, and chiefly in the hands of the lower order of people, the consternation produced by this measure was serious ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... at first inclined to believe that there could scarcely be so much cause for Polo's alarm, yet I saw that my father and Arthur considered the matter in a serious light. ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... the best and bravest. I used generally to sit at a point from which I could see the grand tomb of Aylmer de Vallance with its magnificent surroundings of quaint and glorious architecture. It was solemn, and serious also, to think of the many generations who had filled the abbey, and of the numbers of the dead who lay ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... out of Hooke; and an Abridgment of the Ancient Universal History; a History of Holland, from my favourite Watson and from an anonymous compilation; and in my eleventh and twelfth year I occupied myself with writing what I flattered myself was something serious. This was no less than a History of the Roman Government, compiled (with the assistance of Hooke) from Livy and Dionysius: of which I wrote as much as would have made an octavo volume, extending to the epoch of the Licinian Laws. It was, in fact, an ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... earth. Later came, as a remedy for this, the "Trolley" system; the trolley being a small, grooved wheel running upon a current-carrying wire overhead. The question of how best to convey a current to the car-motor is a serious one, doubtless at this moment occupying the attention of highly-trained intelligence everywhere. The motor current is one of high power, and as such intractable; and it is in the character of this current, rather than in methods of insulation, that the remedy for the much-objected-to ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... pleasant as you'd think, Mr. Severn," responded the hard old voice harshly, "I've come on very unpleasant business. Very unpleasant indeed; but the standard of the church must be kept up, and we must act at once in this matter! It is most serious, most serious! I've just called a meeting of the session to be held after church, and I've sent out for this Mark Carter to be present. He must answer for himself the things that are being said about him, or his name must be stricken from our church roll. Do you know what they ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... communistic agitation has been initiated, I do not know whether with or without the sanction of S——, but certainly it has spread rapidly over a great portion of the country, and I doubt whether Government has the energy for putting that agitation down. It is a very serious question, especially as it finds us engaged in many other questions ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... that day, the pain in his chest was more acute, and his temperature rose higher and higher, yet he did not complain. He knew he was suffering from something serious now, but he derived from his perfect faith in the beneficence of the Power that orders all things ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the doctor slowly resumed their promenade. The thing which astonished them was that no serious accident had ever happened in the midst of such a fearful scramble. In past times, especially, the most terrible disorder had prevailed. Father Fourcade complacently recalled the first pilgrimage which he had organised and led, in 1875; the terrible endless journey without pillows ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... nothing about death; it takes intelligence to conceive it; and that perhaps is why M. Bergson says so little about it, and that little so far from serious. But he talks a great deal about life, he feels he has penetrated deeply into its nature; and yet death, together with birth, is the natural analysis of what life is. What is this creative purpose, that must wait for sun and rain ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... coming in order to speak of the hands, it has put me under the necessity of saying something about palmistry, which is a judgment made of the conditions, inclinations, and fortunes of men and women, from the various lines and characters nature has imprinted in their hands, which are almost as serious as the ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... doubt that, however far a rudimentary form of line ahead was carried by the Elizabethans, it was a matter of minor tactics and not of a battle order, and was rather instinctive than the perfected result of a serious attempt to work out a tactical system. The only actual account of a fleet formation which we have is still on the old lines, and it was for review purposes only. Ubaldino, in his second narrative, which he says was inspired by Drake,[3] relates that when Drake put out of Plymouth ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... half so insane as you are now, Hart!" she cried gaily. "You know that Philip Ammon has been devoted to me all my life. Now I'll tell you something else, because this looks serious for you. I love him with all my heart. Not while he lives shall he know it, and I will laugh at him if you tell him, but the fact remains: I intend to marry him, but no doubt I shall tease him constantly. It's good for a man to be uncertain. If you could see ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... indeed more statesmanlike than he has been of late, His "amphibious intervention" was on this occasion quite justified. There was good sense in his warning that, while perseverance towards a definite objective was a virtue, "perseverance with an eye on the past" was an equally serious vice; and I hope it signifies a determination on his part not to allow his brilliant future to be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... gentleman wished to see him. Amelius, looking at the card, was surprised to find on it the name of "Mr. Melton." Some lines were written on it in pencil: "I have called to speak with you on a matter of serious importance." Wondering what his middle-aged rival could want with him, Amelius instructed Toff to ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... apparent that our troubles were not over. The cliffs above us became steeper, and the familiar boulder reappeared upon the road. Small landslips gave us a good deal of trouble, although we had no serious difficulty before reaching Ghari. Here we were told that a complete "solution of continuity" in the road at Mile 46 would prevent our reaching Chakhoti, so we reluctantly decided to remain where we were for the night. Although a cold and ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... brown bread will soon be gone. I will go with you gladly soon, but I am just concluding a serious meditation. I think that I am near the end of it. Leave me alone, then, for a while. But that we may not be delayed, you shall be digging the bait meanwhile. Angleworms are rarely to be met with in these parts, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... pleasure, but in the hour of solitude and of golden opportunity, it is "flat, stale, and unprofitable." He marks off the year by its festivals, and distributes the day into hours of food, rest, and folly. In short, he holds no serious conception of life, and he is untouched by lofty sentiment. The great drama of existence, with its solemn shifts of scenery and its impending grandeur, is but a pantomime to him; and he a thoughtless epicurean, a grinning courtier, ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... face that expresses care, even to the point of anxiety, and it looked into the window of our carriage with the serious eyes of our elderly hackman to make perfectly sure of our destination before we drove away from the station. It was a little rigorous with us, as requiring us to have a clear mind; but it was not unfriendly, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of him, I hear," remarked Mrs. Playfair, a lady the deficiency of whose neck was supplied by jewels, and whose conversation sounded like liquid coming out of an inverted bottle. "Is he really serious about the biography?" ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... cell? 'Tis worse than all their tortures, dear Honain. Air and light, and I really think my spirit never would break, but this horrible dungeon—— I scarce can look upon thy face, sweet friend. 'Tis serious.' ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... more so, I assure you. I may not have very serious doubts, in my own mind; nevertheless, I want your assurance. Do you, Margaret Montfort, find life a burden under existing circumstances, or do you find it—well, endurable ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... of nonrenewable mineral resources, the depletion of forest areas and wetlands, the extinction of animal and plant species, and the deterioration in air and water quality (especially in Eastern Europe, the former USSR, and China) pose serious long-term problems that governments and peoples are only ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... been in a serious, brown study seemed, for the first time, to become aware of the ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... blonde, sweet, serious, timid and a little slow, and Dorothy Rose—a sparkling brunette, quick, elf-like, high tempered, full of mischief and always getting ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... obstinate as he often will be, leave him free to follow his own choice, follow him, copy his example, and that cheerfully and frankly; if possible fling yourself into things, amuse yourself as much as he does. If the consequences become too serious, you are at hand to prevent them; and yet when this young man has beheld your foresight and your kindliness, will he not be at once struck by the one and touched by the other? All his faults are but so many hands with which he himself provides you to restrain ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... about her, but from a feeling of dislike to exhibit rivalry with his friend. Shand was making himself very particular, and he thought that Shand was a fool for his pains. He was becoming angry with Shand, and had serious thoughts of speaking to him with solemn severity. What could such a woman be to him? But at the bottom of all this there was something akin to jealousy. The woman was good-looking, and certainly clever, and was very interesting. Shand, for two or three evenings running, related ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... and," added Lady Vargrave, with a serious, yet sweet smile, "she had better be prepared for that separation which must come at last. As year by year I outlive my last hope,—that of once more beholding him,—I feel that life becomes feebler and feebler, and I look more on that quiet churchyard as a home to ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hurriedly related the material points of FLORA'S history to his recovered friend, who moaned with all the more cheerful parts, and seemed to think that the serious ones might be worked-up in comic miss-spelling for his paper.—"For there is nothing more humorous in human life," said he, gloomily, "than the defective orthography of a fashionable young girl's education ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... Julia assumed a very serious and important countenance. "The first and most important piece of news is, that your husband, Prince Ulrich of Brunswick, is very jealous of me, and yet of ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... "This is pretty serious business, boys," Mr. Temple continued. "Bob, you were very rash, but you did a good stroke of business that time. Come," he added, "we'll go back to the house, and call up the police. Maybe that car can be stopped ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... engaged in the task. The question of abolishing the old courts of law was a cause of strong feeling. The excitement rose so high that the crowd threatened to throw Dupont out of the window. Matters looked serious, for the room was a flight above ground, the window was already open, and angry men were laying hands on the economist. The latter, however, picked out one inoffensive person, a very fat man, who happened to be standing by. Dupont managed to get near him and suddenly grasped ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... the plantations in the islands. They carry the mail and ply a profitable trade with the planters; they also do errands for the colonists in Sydney, procuring anything from a needle to a horse or a house. Being practically without serious competitors they can set any price they please on commodities, so that they are a power in the islands and control the trade of the group; all the more so as many planters are dependent on them for large loans. To me, Burns, Philp & Company were extremely useful, as on board their ships ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... inclination seemed to make Bulke and Rosa pull together in their rescue work like two old mates. Fairly raining water, they descended again for Mrs. Liebling, who was lying prone in the bottom of the boat in a serious condition. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... inroads of the sea, none so serious as this threatened to be for them. The gallant solidity, of the house on the beach had withstood heavy gales: it was a brave house. Heaven be thanked, no fishing boats were out. Chiefly well-to-do people would be the sufferers—an exceptional case. For it is the mysterious and unexplained ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in charge of his important captive. He walks with the purposeful stride of one who knows his task and who is setting seriously about doing it. He seems to appreciate the honor that has been conferred upon him. He seems also to have a sense of the serious responsibilities involved. And when he takes his position before the cell of his prisoner ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... retired, and at twenty he enlisted in a cavalry regiment, joining it with a deliberate intent of making the Army his profession, and not in a freak of idleness. His exceptional attainments, his manly bearing, his steady conduct, speedily won him promotion, which was furthered by the serious war in which this country was at that time engaged. On his return to England after the peace he had risen to the rank of riding-master, and was soon after advanced another stage, and made quartermaster, though still a ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... the Department of Education adds, six years later, that with a shortage of 28,000 seats, and worse coming, "it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the insufficiency of school accommodation in New York City is a most serious menace to our universal welfare."[27] For we have reached the stage again, thanks be to four years of Tammany, when, after all the sacrifices of the past, we are once more face to face with an army of enforced truants, and ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... can see this note, and it would be surplusage to insist upon it. He is the ideal classic-romantic painter, both in temperament and in practice. Millet's subject, not, I think, his treatment—possibly his wider range—makes him seem more deeply serious than Corot, but he is not essentially as nearly unique. He is unrivalled in his way, but Corot is unparalleled. Corot inherits the tradition of Claude; his motive, like Claude's, is always an effect, and, like Claude's, his means are light and ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... standards bearing certain devices, and of erecting twelve pillars to sustain their marriage booths; while the left-hand castes might not have more than eleven pillars, nor use the same standards as the right. The quarrels arising out of these small differences of opinion were so frequent and serious in the seventeenth century that in the town of Madras it was found necessary to mark the respective boundaries of the right- and left-hand castes, and to forbid the right-hand castes in their processions ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... preliminary remarks, Sir KENELM records a cure which he claims to have effected by means of the Powder. It appears that JAMES HOWELL (1594-1666, afterwards historiographer royal to CHARLES II.), had, in the attempt to separate two friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand. To proceed in the writer's own words:—"It was my chance to be lodged hard by him; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready, he (Mr Howell) came to my House, and prayed me to view his ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... for your pious wish," replied the king sadly, "but if you are mortal, you know that in this world there are no such things as cloudless skies. Let us not speak of such serious matters; give me your arm, and let us join in the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... gatherings are considered indispensable, and much has been written in their praise; but to me, they present the most disgusting picture of a bush life. They are noisy, riotous, drunken meetings, often terminating in violent quarrels, sometimes even in bloodshed. Accidents of the most serious nature often occur, and very little work is done when we consider the number of hands employed, and the great consumption of food ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... majority of us are unable and unaccustomed to think or to look deeply into life's phenomena, nowhere else do people so often say: "How banal!" nowhere else do people regard so superficially, and often contemptuously other people's merits or serious questions. On the other hand nowhere else does the authority of a name weigh so heavily as with us Russians, who have been abased by centuries of ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... sweet child's serious air, At her unplayful play,— The tiny doll she mothers there And ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... pleased with Mr. Lovelace's behaviour. We have had a good deal of serious discourse together. The man has really just and good notions. He confesses how much he is pleased with this day, and hopes for many such. Nevertheless, he ingenuously warned me, that his unlucky vivacity might return: but, he doubted not, that he should be fixed ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... knew better, and Henry because it was important that he should have impressed upon him, early in life, that of him to whom much is given, much will be required, and that what might be lightly regarded in Peter's case would be a serious offence in his future master's. The lesson had been well learned, for throughout the course of his life the colonel had never shirked responsibility, but had made the performance of duty his criterion of conduct. To him the line of least resistance had always seemed the refuge of the coward and ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... population growth. The downturn in economic activity was largely the result of Israeli closure policies - the imposition of border closures in response to security incidents in Israel - which disrupted labor and commodity market relationships between Israel and the WBGS. The most serious social effect of this downturn was rising unemployment; unemployment in the WBGS during the 1980s was generally under 5%; by 1995 it had risen to over 20%. Israel's use of comprehensive closures during the next ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... "I could not help it; I disobeyed his orders and I spoke to him about Stella, and do you know, he listened to me quite patiently. Mr. Vine, I am going to say something to you very serious. You must not ask me how I know, or exactly what I know; but I accidentally do know so much as this. You and Stella are very fond of one another, and I should ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... joke; but the Sheep was so serious that Dorothy didn't dare to laugh, so she said, by way of continuing the conversation, "I don't ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... lost. A generation is growing up, not uneducated, but educated in a system which has little connexion with European culture in its historical development. The Classics are not taught; the Bible is not taught; history is not taught to any effect. What is even more serious, there are no social traditions. The modern townsman is déraciné: he has forgotten the habits and sentiments of the village from which his forefathers came. An unnatural and unhealthy mode of life, cut off from the sweet and humanizing influences of nature, has produced an unnatural and unhealthy ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... Of course, if he'd call me a crook, I'd take that as a compliment," Rand said. "I wonder if I could meet your group, say tomorrow evening? I want to be in a position to assure the Fleming family and Humphrey Goode that you're all serious and responsible." ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... be faced, it won't stop him. Then, he has left a safe employment, broken up his home, and set off on this long journey, for the sake of a woman who is trying to hold out on a very few dollars in a couple of poor rooms until his return. He's taking risks which, I believe may be serious, in order that she may have a brighter and fuller life. Is there ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... gard'in', and milk 'im, and chuckie, and fishin' and shootin' wild duck." On and on he chanted through a varied list of accomplishments, ending up with an application for the position of cook. "Me sit down? Eh boss?" he asked, moon-faced and serious. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... come to the point which I have attained: because if the people of our sphere, of our caste, will only take a serious look at themselves, then young persons, who are in search of personnel happiness, will stand aghast at the ever-increasing wretchedness of their life, which is plainly leading them to destruction; conscientious people will be shocked at the cruelty and the illegality ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... trial of the overseer.* Other living witnesses have heard the story from a gentleman who attended the trial. Mr. Martin's narrative given as a lowest date, the occurrences were before 1835. Moreover, the yarn of the ghost was in circulation before that year, and was accepted by a serious writer on a serious subject. But we have still no date for ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... capacity obviously within their power that creameries and other assisted promotions have been started in various parts of the country, sometimes with great success. Sir Horace Plunkett and others have dealt with all this in the most serious spirit. I prefer to allude to it, and add ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... The last serious fighting on the island took place so recently as 1895-6, when a Swahili chief named M'baruk bin Rashed, who had three times previously risen in rebellion against the Sultan of Zanzibar, attempted to defy the British and to throw ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... to carrying, however. The first time I ever did any packing I had a hard time stumbling a few hundred feet over a hill portage with just fifty pounds on my back. By the end of that same trip I could carry a hundred pounds and a lot of miscellaneous traps, like canoe-poles and guns, without serious inconvenience and over a long portage. This quickly-gained power comes partly from a strengthening of the muscles of the neck, but more from a mastery of balance. A pack can twist you as suddenly and expertly on your back as the best of wrestlers. It has a head ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... also a serious disadvantage of the delegation of government chiefs made itself felt in the procedure. Embarrassing delays were occasioned by the unavoidable absences of the principal delegates whom pressure of domestic politics called to their respective capitals, as ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... rose from her cheek in the endeavor to forget them, and to have led her sensitive father to apprehend that she was suffering under that premature decay which had already robbed him of his other children. There was in truth no serious ground for this apprehension, so natural to one in the place of the Baron de Willading; for, until thought, and reflection paled her cheek, a more blooming maiden than Adelheid, or one that united more ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... you will forget for a while the irregularity of your presentation in my house, I shall feel it not only an honour, but a genuine pleasure besides. A man who makes a mouthful of barbarian cavaliers," he added with a laugh, "should not be appalled by a breach of etiquette, however serious." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... After this nothing more serious than a war of words occurred until July 11, when an event happened which aroused the feeling of both parties to the fighting pitch. Three Mormons from Nauvoo had been harvesting a field of grain about eight miles from the city.* In some way they angered ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... nothing to be feared in the nature of thirst. The defenders could go without drink easily enough for twenty-four hours, and the issue of this serious matter would be settled one way or other long before that period passed. The cowboys would not wait long after sunrise for their leader, before setting out to learn the cause of ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... utilization in our spare time of that magnificent machine which we allow to rust within our craniums. We have the desire to perfect ourselves, to round off our careers with the graces of knowledge and taste. How many people would not gladly undertake some branch of serious study, so that they might not die under the reproach of having lived and died without ever really having known anything about anything! It is not the absence of desire that prevents them. It is, first, the absence of will-power—not the will to begin, but the will ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... family grow?" Their wives wished that too, or perhaps it was the British Empire. But more significant than the answers were the refusals to answer. Very few would reply at all to questions about morality and religion, and such answers as were given were not serious. Questions as to the value of money and power were almost invariably brushed aside, or pressed at extreme risk to the asker. "I'm sure," said Jill, "that if Sir Harley Tightboots hadn't been carving the mutton when I asked him about the capitalist system he would have cut my throat. ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... caution, only commits himself to saying that Mr. Wallace has arrived at ALMOST (italics mine) the same general conclusions as he, Mr. Darwin, has done; {182c} but he still, as in 1859, declares that it would be "a serious error to suppose that the greater number of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation, and then transmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations," {183a} and he still comprehensively condemns the "well- known ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... a smile at sight of her. She was a little thing—sixteen or seventeen years old, he judged—a fluffy, blond girl quivering with vivacity; the type of girl who is desperately reaching for maturity, entirely forgetful of the charms of her adolescence. He rose and bowed in a serious, courtly manner. ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... great zeal which he displays in all the affairs of his government, rebuked them for this proceeding, ordered that the provincial be summoned, and charged him to take the religious back to the convent, but to treat them kindly; and, although recognizing the serious nature of their act, he requested the provincial not to punish them for it, and the latter acted in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... here. Here I am Sister Engelberta," she cut in, and for a moment the expression on her face became almost serious. ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... contrary, were intending just now to point out to you the greatness of the despotism and unfairness you have shown in taking such a serious and also strange step without consulting the members," Virginsky, who had been hitherto silent, protested, almost ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... spite or animosity, even when they were in sleep, in which case larvae are generally very sensitive and irritable, all were of a most pacific nature. It is, therefore, with the greatest pleasure that, for want of sufficient evidence, I withdraw this serious charge of cannibalism which I first intended ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... government did take it up as a serious matter, and the opinion of the public was with the government. Among other measures which the executive took to ensure security, the following were conspicuous:—"A large supply of fire-arms and cutlasses have been sent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... "Nothing serious, I think. But Major Huntingdon is desperately wounded—mortally, I am afraid. See what ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... most of her privileges, with what composure she could assume, would have added the basis of a serious relapse on the part of the invalid could he have ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder |
