"Solemn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... between the cities of Badajoz and Yelbes; in order that by the end of the month of May next following, of this present year, they may determine, in accordance with the terms of the said treaty, the said demarcation—taking a solemn oath as soon as they have assembled, and before attending to anything else, in the form prescribed by law and before two notaries (one for each side) with public declaration and testimony, swearing in the presence of God and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... regards his meals as a solemn responsibility, and tarries long at the table. The consequence is that with them dyspepsia is the exception and not, as with ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... Obadiah was doing a bit of free-trade upon his own account, and that dutiable goods were being smuggled in at night under cover of these incredible stories. He registered a vow, sealing it with the most solemn protestations, and with a multiplicity of ingenious oaths that only a mind stimulated by the heat of intoxication could have invented, that he would make it his business, upon the first occasion that offered, ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... them to a large ship, whose sails were hanging in the loose condition peculiar to a vessel ready to set sail. An hour after that the anchor was raised, and wind and tide carried the ship gently down to the sea. There seemed to Will something very solemn and mysterious in the quiet way in which, during these still and dark hours of the night, the great ship was slowly moved towards her ocean cradle. At length she floated on the sea, and, soon after, the moon arose on the distant horizon, streaming across the rippling surface as if ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... refuge in solemn and supercilious disregard; as if she saw the joke, and considered it ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... a circle of stern-faced, solemn men that Larkin faced under the cottonwood tree, and as he looked at one after another, his heart sank, for there appeared very little of the quality of mercy in any of them. Knowing as he did the urgency that was drawing them home ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... Campo Santo at Pisa- -the family of Noah presented among all the circumstances of a Tuscan vineyard, around the press from which the first wine is flowing, a painted idyll, with its vintage colours still opulent in decay, and not without its solemn touch of biblical symbolism. For differences, we detect in that primitive life, and under that Greek sky, a nimbler play of fancy, lightly and unsuspiciously investing all things with personal aspect and incident, and a certain mystical apprehension, now almost departed, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... faded, and the twilight came and went, giving place to the solemn stillness of the enduring night. The stars shone clear and still. Not a breath stirred. In his study Denham knelt alone, praying for a dear and lovely life, praying against hope, against belief—against all but faith. He did not know what time it was—it ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... to see the sunrise. "Isn't this great!" he called, exultantly. Flights of geese were passing, and the noise of ducks came to them from every direction. He pointed out the distant hills, and called her attention to a solemn row of sand-hill cranes down by the swale, causing her to see the wonder and beauty of this ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... made his appearance, waving his wand, like Prospero, to work new wonders. Dressed in a long robe of lilac-coloured silk, richly embroidered with gold flowers, bearing in his hand a white magnetic rod; and, with a look of dignity which would have sat well on an eastern caliph, he marched with solemn strides into the room. He awed the still sensible by his eye, and the violence of their symptoms diminished. He stroked the insensible with his hands upon the eyebrows and down the spine; traced figures upon their breast and abdomen with his ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... spent in preparations for my departure. I would hunt up Woodbury now, though fifty Aunt Emma's held their gentle old faces up in solemn warning against me. The day after that again, I set out on my task. The pull was hard. I had taken my own affairs entirely into my own hands by that time, and had provided myself with money for a long stay at Woodbury. But ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... character of a poet by attracting too much of our attention in that of a Bull in a China Shop. And where, by a little more art, we might have been solemnised ourselves, it is too often Whitman alone who is solemn in the face of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Madame Sorokina and her daughter. They came and brought me the money and the deeds from maman. I couldn't get them yesterday. How is your head, better?" he said quietly, not wishing to see and to understand the gloomy and solemn expression ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Natzmer; Matzmer Junior, son of a distinguished Feldmarschall: "a good-hearted but foolish forward young fellow," says Wilhelmina; "the failure of a coxcomb (PETIT-MAITRE MANQUE)." For example, once, strolling about in a solemn Kaiser's Soiree in Vienna, he found in some quiet corner the young Duke of Lorraine, Franz, who it is thought will be the divine Maria Theresa's husband, and Kaiser himself one day. Foolish Natzmer found this noble young gentleman in a remote corner of the Soiree; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Kilcullen appeared to be as serious, and nearly as solemn, as his father, and he sat, for a considerable time, musing, till his father said, "Well, Kilcullen, will you ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... go to Paris—to the Ritz—for the honeymoon. Zara who did not know England would probably hate the solemn servants staring at her in those early days if he took her to Orton, one of the Duke's places which he had offered him for the blissful week. Paris was much better—they could go to the theater there—because ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... the steep hill for some distance, and then struck off into the forest. The straight pine trees stood up solemn and stiff. Instead of tender leaves, they bristled all over with dark green "needles." They had no blessings of birds' nests in their branches; yet they gave out a pleasant odor, which the ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, 5 Silent;—hardly a shout From a few boys late at their play! The lights come out in the street, In the school-room windows;—but cold, Solemn, unlighted, austere, 10 Through the gathering darkness, arise The chapel-walls, in whose bound Thou, my father! art ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... CHARTER or his commission to delegate the power of garrisoning the Castle to any other person: And that the SHEW of the authority of the Governor thus held up servd only to make the surrender the more solemn and formal. If then he had no such authority to do it either by Charter or Commission, how could he do it by virtue of the authority derivd from his Majesty to govern the province? unless that authority is derivd to him to govern, SOLELY by the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... little masks and slanting eyes, waiting patiently for the business of the day to begin. When it began, their reporters would take down everything that was said, writing widdershins, very diligently, very slowly, in their solemn picture language. There was something a little sinister, a little macabre, a little Grand Guignolish about the grave, polite, mysterious little Japs. The Yellow Peril. Perilous because of their immense waiting patience, that would, in the end, tire the restless Western ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... going to watch. I'm going to watch one of the epic events of our time—" For a moment Beardsley was solemn, almost shocked, as a thought struck him. "In a way it will be sad. Yes, it will! ECAIAC is about to lose her ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... treacherous wounding of Menelaus by Pandarus. One of Agamemnon's most sympathetic characteristics is his intense love of his brother, for whose sake he has made the war. He shudders on seeing the arrow wound, but consoles Menelaus by the certainty that Troy will fall, for the Trojans have broken the solemn oath of truce. Zeus "doth fulfil at last, and men make dear amends." But with characteristic inconsistency he discourages Menelaus by a picture of many a proud Trojan leaping on his tomb, while the host will return home-an idea constantly present to Agamemnon's mind. He is always the ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... him, and that they are all entirely at its mercy,—that it is sweeping them away over the sea, perhaps into the jaws of destruction, without any possible power, on their part, of resistance or escape,—his mind is filled with the most grand and solemn emotions. Such a flight as this, extending day after day, perhaps for five hundred miles, over a raging sea, is ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... art of the fourth century is to be seen in the interpretation of mythological conceptions. These are realised and embodied in statues; but the statues offer a new, sometimes, it seems, almost an accidental and trifling version of a solemn religious conception; it appears as if the artist were playing with a mythological subject. Thus in the statue made by Praxiteles of Apollo Sauroktonos, "the lizard-slayer," the god stands with an arrow in his hand, as if trying to catch with it a ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... the clergy of the Salford Cathedral and from Buntingford station by my brother Fred to his own little chapel, where it rested all the Thursday. On the Friday the Cardinal came down, with Canons from Westminster and the choir. A solemn Requiem was sung. The Cardinal consecrated a grave, and he was laid there, in the sight of a large concourse of mourners. It was very wonderful to see them. There were many friends and neighbours, but there were also many others, unknown to me and even ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for the enforcement of the principles embodied by the recent constitutional amendments," continues the platform, "is vested by those amendments in the Congress of the United States, and we declare it to be a solemn obligation of the legislative and executive departments of government to put into immediate and vigorous exercise all their constitutional powers for removing any just cause of discontent on the part of any ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... pity upon her sister in degradation, when the seal of promised maternity is impressed upon her. The remorseless vengeance of the law, brought down upon its victim by a machinery as sure as destiny, is arrested in its fall at a word which reveals her transient claim for mercy. The solemn prayer of the liturgy singles out her sorrows from the multiplied trials of life, to plead for her in the hour of peril. God forbid that any member of the profession to which she trusts her life, doubly precious at that eventful period, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... tempers. Also he had spent most of the morning exercising Pinkie-Winkie while his wife had been writing letters, and his nerves were distinctly jaded. The pampered animal which had taken almost as solemn a part of his marriage vows as the bride herself had insisted upon making a series of strategic attacks against Mrs. Hosack's large, yellow-eyed, resentful Persian Tom, and his endeavors to read the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... delivered it to some poor people to adopt as their child. On the way, the old woman stripped off the child's good clothes, and wrapped it in rags, so that no one should discover the deceit. The queen had bound her by a solemn oath never to reveal to any one the place to which she had carried the prince. The child-stealer did not venture to travel by day, because she feared pursuit, so that it was a long time before she found a sufficiently retired spot. At last she reached a lonely house in a wood, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... insignificant, and her short curly hair was parted on one side like a boy, and cropped quite closely behind. The baby was small and brown too, a tiny edition of herself, and they both had dark eyes that looked preternaturally solemn; Babs, indeed, wore an injured expression, and a puckered look of anguish spoke of the pangs of hunger and the ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... stealthy, creeping, cranching sound among the crisp fallen leaves of the forest, beyond the garden, seemed almost close at hand. Margaret knew it was some poacher. Sitting up in her bed-room this past autumn, with the light of her candle extinguished, and purely revelling in the solemn beauty of the heavens and the earth, she had many a time seen the light noiseless leap of the poachers over the garden-fence, their quick tramp across the dewy moonlit lawn, their disappearance in the black still shadow beyond. The wild adventurous freedom of their life had taken ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and the noise of the ocean, as its tumultuous waves dashed on the shore, threatening every instant to sweep over the land and engulf all within their reach. The wind continually shifted, now blowing from one quarter, now from another. Suddenly the deafening noise sank into a solemn murmur, and the lightning, which had hitherto played in flashes and forked darts, hovered for a few seconds between the clouds and the earth, circling round and round, causing the whole heavens to appear on fire, when a similar luminous appearance ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... shrine I ride; I hear a voice but none are there; 30 The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair. Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, 35 And solemn chaunts resound between. ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... my toilers home to rest, Savours more sweet than scent of roses Greeted their eager-sniffing noses— Savours of dishes most divine Prepared and cooked by skill of mine. I was a General. Now you know How Generals helped to down the foe." The little chap slipped off my knee And gazed in solemn awe at me, Stood at attention, stiff and mute, And gave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... cried out, "It shall be done as you desire; they and their philosophy shall perish together: but at present, no punishments must be inflicted; for these four months to come, as you all know, it is a solemn feast, and I have declared a truce: next year, in the beginning of the spring, my ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... which enticed the scion of Sauvagnat, who was far more ambitious than greedy, was the Academie. The two great courtyards which he had to cross to bring his daily offering of flowers, and the long solemn corridors into which at intervals there descended a dusty staircase, were for him rather the path of glory than of love. The Paulin Rehu of the Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the Jean Rehu of the 'Letters to Urania,' the Institute complete with its lions and its cupola—this was ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... wish it very much," said Henrietta, and they entered the low, dark, solemn-looking building, the massive stone columns and low-browed arches of which had in them something peculiarly awful and impressive to Henrietta's present state of mind. Uncle Geoffrey led her on into the chancel, where, among numerous mural tablets recording the names of different members ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unknown varlet in the street appeared to make his Lordship very thoughtful, and no less than thrice did he question my grandfather if he had indeed given but those barren answers which I have already recited; to all which he received the most solemn asseverations that no more was said. His Lordship then sat some time cogitating with his hands resting on his thighs, his brows bent, and his lips pursed as with sharp ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Truth is God! God cannot be found anywhere in a lie; and the Church in many ways would make our Divine Redeemer Himself a lie were it not that His words are every day taking fresh meaning, and bringing new and solemn conviction to those who have eyes to see and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... traversed with a network of irrigating ditches; but I am assured there is nothing of the kind across the pathway along which he wishes me to ride as fast as possible. Two hundred yards from the spot where this solemn assurance is given, it is only by a lightning-like dismount that I avoid running into the very thing that I was assured did not exist-it was the narrowest possible escape from what might ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... this very composure, so unlocked for, that unconsciously drove her to the opposite extreme. Shades of colour swept over her neck and brow, as though she were setting under wind-tossed blossoming peach boughs. Her lustrous, excited eyes seemed never able to withdraw themselves from his whitened solemn face. Its mute repressed suffering touched her; its calmness filled her with vague pain that at such a time he could be so calm. And the current of her words ran swift, as a stream loosened at last from some steep height."Sometime you might be in that part of Virginia. I should ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... at the lakes or seashore or in the South. It was a solid part of a short block west of Fifth Avenue in the middle of the city. Sherry's filled a corner with its massive stone bulk and glimpses of dining-rooms with glittering chandeliers and solemn gaiety, then impressive clubs and wide entrances under heavy glass and metal, tall porters in splendid livery, succeeded each other to the Hotel Gontram and the dull thunder ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... told Nan all about her troubles, first exacting a solemn pledge of secrecy. "Hateful thing!" said Nan promptly. "Drop her. Don't think about her ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... in serene confidence for some unknown thing to pass. He awakened late in the morning and found the house hushed. The day wore on in a repose unstirred by breeze and sound, in accord with the mourning of August Naab. At noon a solemn procession wended its slow course to the shadow of the red cliff, ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... morning service at the Baptist Church, in a solemn row with her husband, Hugh, Uncle ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... power ... and as it is very probable that the places where such boats and vessels are kept may be known to the officers who have long resided at your port, you are to acquaint such officers that if they value their characters or employments, or have any regard to the solemn oath they took at their admission, we expect they will, on this occasion, give the fullest and most ample information of all such places, and will cheerfully afford every other aid and assistance in their power, to the ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... towered the Great Pyramid, and over its apex hung the moon. Like a wreck cast ashore by some titanic storm, the Sphinx, reposing amid the undulating waves of grayish sand surrounding it, seemed for once to drowse. Its solemn visage that had impassively watched ages come and go, empires rise and fall, and generations of men live and die, appeared for the moment to have lost its usual expression of speculative wisdom and intense disdain—its cold eyes seemed to droop, its stern mouth almost smiled. ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... time he sat and drank in the beauty of the scene, and his soul seemed to feel a peace that it had not known for many days. All the pettiness and annoyance and silly fears of the past weeks seemed blotted out, and a new holy calm took the vacant place. In this sweet and solemn mood he reviewed his late action calmly, and felt ashamed of himself for his vanity and for the obstinacy which had followed it. And then and there he made up his mind that the present would be the last time he would wear the costume which had estranged him ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... table Mrs. Meyerburg's four remaining sons, towering almost twice her height, rose in a solemn chorus that was heavier than their ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... time she would suffer an extraordinary melancholy, and then, in my agony of curiosity, I believed that the spectre which had first appeared before her, the night of the Judge's death, was whispering to her again. True, however, to my solemn oath, which I have always kept, I asked her nothing, and she always emerged from these periods of meditation into moods of gayety and affection which were more ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... none had ever possessed before—that his heart was indissolubly linked with hers. He had wrestled with this infatuation, had stationed himself on the platform of common sense, and railed at and ridiculed this piece of folly. His clear, cool reason gave solemn verdict against the fiercely-throbbing heart, but not one pulsation had been restrained. As he sat looking down at her, a mighty barrier rose between them. His future had long been determined—duty called him to the rude huts ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... rising dew. Fireflies sparkled in the grass, and the pale stars of early evening pierced the delicate green of the heavens. A single candle flickered on the table, and the candlestick was an empty burgundy bottle. The call of one sentry to another broke the solemn quiet. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... companions of a young man, who was very 'wild,' had foolishly resolved to try to frighten him into better conduct. For this purpose, one of the party was arrayed in a white sheet, with a lighted lantern carried under it, and was to visit the young man a little after midnight, and address to him a solemn warning. The business, however, was rather dangerous, as the subject of this experiment generally slept with loaded pistols near him. Previously to the time fixed for the apparition, the bullets were abstracted from these weapons, leaving them charged only with gunpowder. When the spectre stalked ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... impressive and, indeed, awe-inspiring. The face was not subjected to changes, but remained the same first and last—a ghastly white. To me he was always welcome, he seemed so real—the actual Death, not a play-acting artificiality. He was of a solemn and stately carriage; and he had a deep voice, and used it with a noble dignity. Wherever there was a turmoil of merry-making or fighting or feasting or chaffing or quarreling, or a gilded pageant, or ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... against whom the convention orders twenty thousand men to march. Treaty between Great-Britain and Russia; another between Great-Britain and Sardinia. Great disorders at Marseilles and Aix. 28. The archduke Charles makes a solemn entry into Brussels, as governor-general of the Low Countries; 400 citizens draw his coach. Kellerman deposed from his command by the convention. The Emperor reproaches the Elector of Bavaria with his neutrality, in a remarkable note. ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... given, the boys fell into order, and marched off to church. It is matter for thought, and solemn thought too, when one feels that one is visiting a place of interest for the last time; but there should be something peculiarly affecting when one kneels for the last time in a place of worship where one has knelt for years, and offered ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... listens, whilst tall, white-haired, sad-faced man rambles on in plaintive voice, urging proposition which, if carried out, would arrest machinery of Local Government throughout the Kingdom, leaving all to be gone over again. No one smiles, much less winks or wags the head. It is just as solemn and as orderly as if it were the MARKISS himself submitting a Resolution or making a statement. Only, when the plaintive voice ceases and the tall figure is reseated on the Bench, nobody proposes to continue the conversation. LORD CHANCELLOR ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... Murray has given me a copy of Rastell's Pastime of People,[415] and Thomas Britton has bequeathed to me an entire library of the Rosicrusian[416] philosophy. Moreover, the venerable form of Sir Thomas Bodley has approached me; reminding me of my solemn promise to spend a few autumnal weeks,[417] in the ensuing year, within the precincts of his grand library. In short, half the bibliomaniacs, whom Lysander so enthusiastically commended last night, have paid their devoirs to me in my dreams, and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... moons ago," he says, "the son of Iroquet had seen you. You gave him a good reception, and promised with Pont-Grave to assist us against our enemies." To this Champlain replied, "My only desire is to fulfil what I promised then." Thus was sealed this solemn agreement. ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... on the authority of this passage, says, that most of the gentlemen of the Mearns "entered into a solemn and mutual bond, in which they renounced the Popish communion, and engaged to maintain and promote the pure preaching of the Gospel, as Providence should favour them with opportunities. This seems to have been the first of those ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... ought to have mentioned, that the mitre appears, by the jewels with which it is ornamented, to represent that which is called Mitra pretiosa, from this circumstance. An inferior kind of mitre, worn on less solemn occasions, was termed Mitra Aurifrygiata; and a common one, made of plain linen or silk, was termed Simplex Mitra. The only part of the dress which puzzles me, is the great ornament on the neck and shoulders. The question is, (which those can best ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... blatant inconsistencies, and by neglect of the authorities that would have provided him with reliable information, he shows himself the partisan pamphleteer. But the indictment is none the less illuminating. Mommsen speaks of the solemn enmity which Tacitus cherishes to the section of the human race "to whom everything pure is impure, and everything impure is pure." Doubtless his hatred was founded on intense national pride, but it was fed by ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, That can denote ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... Stuart, that they had made up their minds to return by land across the Rocky Mountains. Fraser and the other officers of the expedition joined in arguing with them and recalling them to their senses. Finally each member of the party swore a solemn oath before Almighty God that they would sooner perish than forsake in distress any of the crew in the present voyage. After this ceremony was over all hands dressed in their best apparel, and each took charge of his own bundle. They therefore returned ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... belonging to the station. Emaciated and famished, they feared a cruel death, but to their astonishment the natives helped them ashore, took them into their little hut of sods, wrapped them in skins, and supplied them with food. Very beautiful to those ship-wrecked mariners sounded the singing and very solemn the prayers at the morning and evening devotions of their Eskimo deliverers. As soon as the wind permitted, the natives brought them to the station, where they were carried ashore to this mission-house and received every attention. They were in a deplorable condition and the missionaries ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... few past years; and did not think it prudent to inform her, for that would greatly have increased the risk of my being discovered by the priests. We were surrounded by those who went frequently to confession, and would have thought me a monster of wickedness, guilty of breaking the most solemn vows, and a fugitive from a retreat which is generally regarded there as a place of great sanctity, and almost like a gate to heaven. I well knew the ignorance and prejudices of the poor Canadians, and understood how such a person as myself must appear in their eyes. ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... the solemn silence of their joy, and so awed were they by the thing which had come to them that they felt no surprise when a wolf-dog crawled over the lizard on the threshold, and stole along the wall with shining, bloody ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... thing about it," she resumed, "was that while Sally Ann was talkin', not one of us felt like laughin'. We set there as solemn as if parson was preachin' to us on 'lection and predestination. But whenever I think about it now, I laugh fit to kill. And I've thought many a time that Sally Ann's plain talk to them men done more good than all the sermons us women had had preached to ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... for the first time, on the evening of the day that brought the cure of Marsac to Angouleme with the news of Lucien's return. That same evening he made formal application for the hand of Mlle. de la Haye. It was a family dinner, one of the solemn occasions marked not so much by the number of the guests as by the splendor of their toilettes. Consciousness of the performance weighs upon the family party, and every countenance looks significant. Francoise was on exhibition. Mme. de Senonches ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dream burns each enchanted face, With solemn echoing stirs ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... head by Rosamund, and they set forth to the Green Court. Here they found Harrington's most fiery horse harnessed to quite a sporting dogcart and doing his very best to champ his bit. From the ground Robin looked up at him with solemn eyes. The occasion was almost too great. His father with a gun, his own legs in gaiters, the whip which he felt in his hand, the packet of sandwiches thrust tenderly by nurse into the pocket of his little covert coat, and now ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... the policy of almost all those at the helm here. Not one among them is to be found deserving the name of a statesman, endowed with a great devotion, and with a great power, for the service of a great and noble aim. From the solemn hour that the fatherland honorably chains him to its service, the genuine statesman exists no more for himself, but for his country alone. If necessary, he ought to consider himself a victim to the public good, even were the public unjust towards him. ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... says: "We children admired him, partly for his beautiful face and silver hair ... partly for the solemn light in which we beheld him once a week, the observed of all observers in the pulpit. But his strictness and distance, the effect, I now fancy, of old age, slow blood, and settled habits, oppressed us with a kind of terror. When not abroad, he sat much alone writing ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... scheme, vainly seeking to shut out passion and sorrow-forgetting that they are born within us—and return to the soul as the seasons to the earth! Yet,—years, many years ago, when I first looked gravely into my own nature and being here, when I first awakened to the dignity and solemn responsibilities of human life, I had resolved to tame and curb myself into a thing of rule and measure. Bearing within me the wound scarred over but never healed, the consciousness of wrong to the heart that had ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 18th and the instructions dated the 20th of June last, after having been confirmed in their respective offices by the President of the Government and having taken the prescribed oath before him, have met in full assembly previously called for that purpose for the purpose of discussing the solemn proclamation ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... their number is! Their sepulchre how narrow! I clothed them all in shrouds of rhyme And many sad and solemn songs O'er them I sang from ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... on quiet sultry eves, From her low persistent patter, She would seem confiding to the leaves An extremely solemn matter. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... mentioning a custom in Venice, which they tell me is particular to the common people of this country, of singing stanzas out of Tasso. They are set to a pretty solemn tune, and when one begins in any part of the poet, it is odds but he will be answered by somebody else that overhears him; so that sometimes you have ten or a dozen in the neighbourhood of one another, taking verse after verse, and running on with the poem as far as their memories ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... The solemn man-servant, who was now also sleepy, but who saved the respect due the young ladies by putting his hand over a yawn when he let them in, brought Cornelia a letter which he seemed to have been keeping on his professional salver. "A letter ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... people of this country been sufficiently enlightened to investigate these messages fairly, they would have seen that there was sufficient evidence that this warning really came from Washington, and the pulpit would have enforced its solemn truths. But our destiny was fixed; Washington knew that his voice would not be heeded, and that war ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... to them. "I ain't much on Nature," he had always maintained; and since Marietta admitted the same lack in herself there seemed to be nothing in that to regret. Yet it is nevertheless true that Jim had his thoughts, as he sat, abstractedly gazing at those shining heights, thoughts of high and solemn things which his condition brought near to him, thoughts which he rarely said anything about. To-day, as he watched the deep blue shadows brooding upon the Peak, he was wondering in a child-like way ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... tribe started there used to be a great ceremony, but I was too young to understand what it all meant, though with the others I watched what the old men did, and wondered at it, for it seemed very solemn. There was a big circle about which the people stood or sat, and in the middle of the circle there were buffalo heads on the ground, and before them stood old men, who prayed and offered sacrifices, and passed their weapons and their sacred implements ...
— When Buffalo Ran • George Bird Grinnell
... frequently delighted his majesty; though it must be confessed he sometimes laughed at them, and once sorely puzzled them by asking the following question. "Supposing," said Charles, assuming a serious expression, and speaking in a solemn tone, "two pails of water were placed in two different scales and weighed alike, and that a live bream or small fish was put into one, now why should not the pail in which it was placed weigh heavier than the other?" ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... never get soused in Heaven," Tessibel imparted, reverently, "an' they got a mess o' angels up there—" She looked upward, a solemn expression on her young face—"angels what Jesus keeps jest to learn folks how to sing. The brat's singin' too, as much as a little kid ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Torismond, the king of France, who having by force banished Gerismond, their lawful king, that lived as an outlaw in the forest of Arden, sought now by all means to keep the French busied with all sports that might breed their content. Amongst the rest he had appointed this solemn tournament, whereunto he in most solemn manner resorted, accompanied with the twelve peers of France, who, rather for fear than love, graced him with the show of their dutiful favors. To feed their eyes, and to make the beholders pleased with the sight of most rare and glistering objects, he had ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... Mr. Snowdon's double knock sounded at the door. Joseph looked more respectable than ever in his black frock-coat and silk hat with the deep band. His bow to Mrs. Byass was solemn, but gallant; he pressed her fingers like a clergyman paying a visit of consolation, and in a subdued voice made ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... the idea came into my head that one day perhaps, when my fossil bones were found, their discovery so far below the level of the earth might give rise to solemn ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Fairbairn got me several of these curiosities, amongst them are imitations of the heads of armadillos, and other animals. Some of these had formed the feet of urns, others were rattles, containing small balls of baked clay. The old Indians used these rattles in their solemn religious dances, and the custom is probably not yet quite obsolete, for as late as 1823 Mr. W. Bullock saw, in Mexico, Indian women dancing in a masque representing the court of Montezuma, and holding rattles in their right hands, to the noise of which they accompanied ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... certain melancholy. Also the Italian question in the south was decided in the north, and remained only a question of time, abbreviated (many think rashly) by our hero Garibaldi. For the crisis, so quickened, involves very serious dangers and most solemn thoughts. The southern difficulty may be considered solved—so we think—but just now that very solution opens out, as we all fear a new Austrian invasion in the north, backed indirectly at least by Prussia and Germany, who will use the opportunity ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... you know, and there was an awfully solemn look about both their backs that was either reassuring or alarming—we couldn't decide quite which. Freddy and I simply held our breath ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... at me because they all thought the boy was killed and were gathered round him looking very solemn. Only I saw that the Red-faced Man had Tom by the neck and was kicking ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... comprehending either. Those who passed for Epicureans spent their lives in eating and drinking and even compared themselves to swine. Those calling themselves Stoics, like Cato and Brutus, affected a rude language, a solemn demeanor and emphasized the evils of life. Nevertheless these doctrines, spreading gradually, aided in destroying certain prejudices of the Romans. Epicureans and Stoics were in harmony on two points: they disdained the ancient ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... speech. It was thus that he essayed to breach the iron dungeon in which the national iniquity had shut the national conscience. Saturated was the reformer's mind with the thought of the Bible, its solemn and awful imagery, its fiery and prophetic abhorrence and denunciations of national sins, all of which furnished him an unfailing magazine whence were drawn the bolts which he launched against the giant sin and the giant sinners of his time. And so Clay ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... to me, told me what he wanted, and swore a solemn oath that I should be liberated when the work was done; and I, in return, swore ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, at which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers what he had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order. The meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... "What has happened has happened by sheer ill-luck. The past is nothing to you. You have said so yourself. The future shall not be sacrificed to it. If you will give me your solemn promise to put this thing behind you, to behave as if it had never been, I will respect your wishes, I will do my utmost to help you to forget. But ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... wanted to do when you sent me that text-card, but felt I could not say it to two listeners, as it were) why that special card is one I like to have. That text is consecrated for me by the memory of one of the greatest sorrows I have known—the death of my dear father. In those solemn days, when we used to steal, one by one, into the darkened room, to take yet another look at the dear calm face, and to pray for strength, the one feature in the room that I remember was a framed text, illuminated by one of my sisters, "Then are they glad, because they ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... the mystic shadows, The solemn hush of Nature newly born; Alone with Thee in breathless adoration, In the calm dew and ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... it might be, was evidently an object that lay beyond the village. In the solemn, peaceful twilight we followed the lonely windings of the valley along which I had passed in the morning. When we came opposite the little solitary house, which I had already learnt to know as "Browndown," I felt her hand unconsciously tighten on my arm. "Aha!" I said ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... took solemn farewell of the sun. Half of its disk showed at noon for the last time above the edge of the ice in the south, a flattened body, with a dull red glow, but no heat. Now we are entering the night of winter. What is it bringing us? Where shall we be when the sun returns? No one can tell. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... cheap stones, precious only to women of the middle class who like to have jewel cases on their dressing-tables. And then, although the Church has preserved for the amethyst a sacerdotal character which is at once unctuous and solemn, this stone, too, is abused on the blood-red ears and veined hands of butchers' wives who love to adorn themselves inexpensively with real and heavy jewels. Only the sapphire, among all these stones, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... which Verity had instituted with her room-mates at the hostel, was kept by them as a solemn compact. They stuck to one another nobly, though often in the teeth of great inconvenience. It generally took three of them to urge Fil through her toilet in the mornings and drag her down to breakfast in time. She was always so terribly sleepy at seven o'clock, and so positive ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... was, at times, the scene of almost {40} endless merry-making. Now it was a big feast; now a game of chance played by two large parties matched against each other, while the lodge was crowded almost to suffocation by eager spectators; now a dance, of the peculiar Indian kind; now some solemn ceremony to propitiate the spirits who were supposed to rule the weather, the crops, the hunting, and all ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... man. Every Sabbath day wee preach in the forenoone, and chatechize in the afternoone. Every Saturday at night I exercise in Sir Thomas Dales house. Our Church affaires bee consulted on by the minister, and foure of the most religious men. Once every moneth wee have a communion, and once a yeer a solemn fast." ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... gave a scornful snort, and the man responded in a curious way. He winked slowly and laboriously, still retaining the solemn ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... course, very much in evidence in Corumb, for it is a very religious place. A missa cantata is often held there, when a noisy brass band will render dance music, often at the moat solemn parts. The drums frequently beat until the worshippers are ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... came with a blinding glare, and the grand booming of Heaven's artillery awoke the solemn echoes. Fast the affrighted, shuddering fairies sped away, to hide under the fern leaves, and in the tiny caves at the foot of the rocks. But the misty, shadowy form still floated past, till it arrived at the open ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... With solemn air said the maiden fair, “Hark thou to me and believe my word; For life thou must look to the little crook, Whereon doth hang thy ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... the silent juryman opened with the slow and solemn dilation of the eyes of an owl. Placed between the alternatives of declaring himself in one word or in two, his taciturn wisdom chose the shortest form of speech. "Guilty," he answered—and shut his eyes again, as if he had had ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... say, or that you can say, will hasten them, by a single hour, in the execution of a design which they have long since entertained. In spite of their solemn declarations, their soothing addresses, and the multiplied oaths which they have taken and forced others to take, they will assassinate the king when his name will no longer be necessary to their designs,—but not a moment sooner. They will probably ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in Deulin, hastily, between two of Julie's solemn utterances. "Perhaps she is thinking of her brother—Prince Martin. He is always ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... The solemn festival of the adorers of fire approached, and a ship was fitted out for the Fiery Mountain as usual. The captain's name was Behram, a great bigot to that religion. He loaded it with proper merchandise; and, when it was ready to sail, he put Assad in a chest, half full of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... discovered the value of such devices during the course of his long history, and has evolved customs accordingly. When men decide to swear off smoking, they choose the opening of a new year when many other new things are being started; they make solemn promises to themselves, to each other, and finally to their friends. Such customs are precautions which help to bolster up the determination at the time when extraordinary effort and determination are required. In forming the habits incidental to college life, ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... down as man and wife. The countess' letters were forwarded by the postmistress at Ault under cover to Anne. The only thing that disturbed Wilhelm's peace of mind was the presence of Anne. Her manner was just as impassive, her face as solemn as before, and she never showed that she noticed any change in her mistress way of life. But it was just this cold-blooded acceptance of facts which must at the very least excite her remark that upset him so much, and every time Anne came into the room and found ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... fifty feet high. At the bottom of the cliff appear the nodules and bowlders that were too hard to be bitten into dust and have fallen out of the cliff, which is fifty feet high, as the sea eats it away. Some of these are sculptured into the likeness effaces and figures, solemn and grotesque. It is easy to find Pharaoh, ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... they had lived,—gallantly. To-day both are regarded as heroes and commemorated by monuments; but how did their governments treat them? Of course there were wild huzzas in London and solemn memorial services over Wolfe; but when his aged mother petitioned the government that her dead son's salary might be computed at 10 pounds a day,—the salary of a commander in chief,—instead of 2 pounds ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... the minister, stiffly. "We were then legitimate troops of war, fighting for the Solemn League and Covenant under a noble lord with Letters. It ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... name With the first knots or buddings of the spring, Born with the primrose and the violet Or earliest roses blown: when Cupid smiled And Venus led the Graces out to dance, And all the flowers and sweets in nature's lap Leaped out and made their solemn conjuration To last but while she lived! Do not I know How the vale withered the same day? how Dove, Dean, Eye, and Erwash, Idel, Snite and Soare Each broke his urn, and twenty waters more That swelled proud Trent, shrunk themselves dry, that since No sun or moon, or other cheerful star, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury |
