"Stern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the stern thwart of an Iona lugger, Sam Bough and I sitting there cheek by jowl, with our feet upon our baggage, in a beautiful, clear, northern summer eve. And behold! there was now a pier of stone, there were rows of sheds, railways, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very different in many respects from that of most other great working men whose story is told in this volume. Undoubtedly, he was deficient in several of those rugged and stern qualities to which English working men have oftenest owed their final success. But there was in him a simple grandeur of character, a purity of soul, and an earnestness of aim which raised him at once far above the heads of most among ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... or ought to know, what a hoy is—it is a large sailing-boat, sometimes with one deck, sometimes with none; and the Unity, trading in bulky goods, was of the latter description, though there was a sort of dog-hole at the stern, which the master dignified by the name of a "state cabin," into which he purposed putting Mr. Jorrocks, if the weather should turn cold before they arrived. The wind, however, he said, was so favourable, and his cargo—"timber and fruit," as he described it, that is to say, broomsticks and ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... he; and I took myself off to see after the others, whom we posted in the stern to keep a closer look-out; while Roderick, the first officer, and myself went ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... of spirituous liquors. Population. Floating Market. Spoons. Ladies appearing in public. Obeisance. Modes of addressing nobles. The use of yellow confined to the Royal Family. Umbrellas closed when passing the Palace. Nobles only can sit in the stern of a boat. Ceremonies at a Royal ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... door and took stock of the two men that had entered. One of these was Captain Juste, the officer in command of the military; the other was a tall man, with a pale face, an aquiline nose, a firm jaw, and eyes that were very stern—either of habit or because they now rested upon the man who four years ago had used him ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Every time I happened to touch the subject Madame Pierson led the conversation to some other topic. I did not discern her motive, but it was not prudery; it seemed to me that at such times her face took on a stern aspect and a wave of feeling, even of suffering, passed over it. As I had never questioned her about her past life and was unwilling to do so, I respected ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... with each reading the film of unconscious egotism that had blinded him to his own shortcomings gradually became less opaque, until finally he saw himself as his father must see him. He had come to college for the purpose of fitting himself to succeed in some particular way in the stern battle of life which must follow his graduation; for, though his father had ample means to support him in insolence, Jimmy had never even momentarily considered such ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of his children without any derogation of his authority, or diminution of the respect they owe. Young teachers, however, are prone to forget this, and to imagine that they must assume an appearance of stern authority always, when in the presence of their scholars, if they wish to be respected or obeyed. This they call keeping up their dignity. Accordingly, they wait, on the morning of their induction into office, until ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... another sanguinary struggle. Stuart still pressed on with his elated troops, although his men were beginning to show signs of severe exhaustion. Franklin's and Mott's brigades, says Sickles, "made stern resistance to the impulsive assaults of the enemy, and brilliant charges in return worthy of ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Westmoreland. Durham was sacked and the mass restored by an insurgent host, before which an "aged gentleman," Richard Norton with his sons, bore the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ. The rebellion was easily put down, and the revenge was stern. To the men who had risen at the instigation of the Pope and in the cause of Mary, Elizabeth gave, as she had sworn "such a breakfast as never was in the North before." The hangman finished the work on those ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... going to take him to Valhalla to feast on delights for ever—and he scorns her. He ridicules Valhalla and Wotan and the serving-maidens: he wonders who the Valkyrie is, so beautiful and cold and stern. The scene is one of the fullest dramatic intensity: at last Siegmund asks whether, if he goes to Valhalla, he will find his wife there. "Siegmund will see Sieglinda no more," is the answer: Siegmund for the moment is crushed, but again rebels, and takes his sword ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... presided over by a stern young gentleman, who never for a moment allows any member of the company to get out of hand, and who, when a speech is to be made, makes it with grace and complete ease of manner. Indeed, these young fellows ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... heeded that very much. At the sight of the Martian's collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the crowding passengers on the steamer's stern shouted together. And then they yelled again. For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts, its ventilators and ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... He was a musically gifted child, but how he hated those everlasting tasks of finger technic, when he longed to join his little companions, who could run and play in the sunshine. If he stopped his practice to rest and dream a bit, the stern face of his father would appear at the doorway, and a harsh voice would call out, "Ludwig! what are you doing? Go on with your exercises at once. There will be no soup for ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... him stumbled almost against his legs; did not observe him; passed on calling. Thereafter, when unduly pressed, it became Mr. Fletcher's habit to bury head and arms in a bush either until the hue and cry for him had lulled, or until exasperated searchers knocked against his stern; in the latter event he would explain that he was looking ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... can not be a poet," he thought, "I can still be useful," and he reverted from heroic ballads to stern old Cotton Mather's Essays to do Good. The fated poet is always left a ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... it, is exact. Is not the Bible—the inflexible Book of Jehovah, the awful Code of the Father, well expressed by the stern and penitential Romanesque; and the consoling, tender Gospel by the Gothic, full of effusiveness and invitation, full of ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... afterward these angry mutineers heard that sonorous, clear, boyish treble in stern and determined command; but they never heard it signalize a more heroic temper than at that moment, when, himself deeply wronged, he forced them to go back in the ranks to receive the interloper. They "dressed up" sullenly as Jack called the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... receding tide. It slid before the Lime Rock, blotted out Ida Lewis's little house, and passed across the turret in which the light was hung. Archer waited till a wide space of water sparkled between the last reef of the island and the stern of the boat; but still the figure in the summer-house did ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... pioneers, I mean the great masses, there was a stern code of morals little understood at the present time. Exceptions there were, to be sure, but I refer to the people as a whole. One instance will serve as an illustration. The beaux and belles, in linsey-woolsey and buckskins, were assembled from the country around and about. My father had sent ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... Morris we find it hard to reconcile the creative craftsman with the fervent apostle of social discontent. Perhaps the most notable case of this diversity is the long pilgrimage of Gladstone which led him from the camp of the 'stern, unbending Tories' to the leadership of Radicals and Home Rulers. There is an interest in tracing through these metamorphoses the essential unity of a man's character. On the other hand, one cannot but admire the steadfastness with ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... up, wearily but with a certain ease and grace that belied his age, looking down at Dave. There was stern command in his words, but a hint ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... Far away against the western dawn could be seen a thin needle mark of smoke. In half an hour we were quite close, an Italian destroyer was convoying a small steamer. The destroyer swung round under our stern, while the steamer, its funnels set back, raced for San Giovanni looking like a frightened puppy tearing towards home. The grey warship surged past us, and out towards the horizon once more, our captain shouting to them that he could get to Brindisi by midnight. Far away ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... also be very well assured, that your wife no sooner comes to be a little big-bellied, but she receives the priviledge to have all what she hath a mind to & that is called Longing. And what husband can be so stern or barbarous that he will deny his wife at such a time what she longs for? especially if it be a true love of a woman, you must never hinder her of her longing; for then certainly the child would have some hindrance ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... hope of this my household, martial maid Whom ordered ranks and discipline austere Have shaped (I gather) for a braver trade, So that respect, not all unmixed with fear, Informs my breast as I await you here, Your title, with its stern Caesarian touch, Does, to be frank, alarm me ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... take, And recollect I have a Will to make." Jesse, who felt as liberal natures feel, When thus the baser their designs reveal, Replied—"Those duties were to her unfit, Nor would her spirit to her tasks submit." In silent scorn the Lady sat awhile, And then replied with stern contemptuous smile - "Think you, fair madam, that you came to share Fortunes like mine without a thought or care? A guest, indeed! from every trouble free, Dress'd by my help, with not a care for me; When I ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... some book, a drawing is given for you to study, as your model for shape and form. As I have said, we require two of these canoes, and they are to be of different sizes. The length of the big one is 12 inches; the depth of this boat in the middle is 2 inches; at its stern and prow, which you will see are alike also in form, ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... city's talk and trade To the good memory of Robert Shaw, This bright March morn I stand, And hear the distant spring come up the land; Knowing that what I hear is not unheard Of this boy soldier and his negro band, For all their gaze is fixed so stern ahead, For all the fatal rhythm of their tread. The land they died to save from death and shame Trembles and waits, hearing the spring's great name, And by her pangs ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... and truly, so that it hooked and held. On sped the Gudruda and the cable tautened—now her stern kissed the bow of Ospakar's ship, as though she was towing her, and thus for a space ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... Paris street? The artist has assembled for us in a few living figures all the actors. The dead woman; the orphaned child, as yet scarcely realizing her loss; the bereaved workman, calling down the vengeance of Heaven upon the murderers from the air; the stern faces of the sergents de ville, evidently feeling keenly their impotence to protect; and in the background other sergents, the lines of whose bent backs convey in a marvellous manner and with a touch of real ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... days, ages, in the cool freshness of its shady paths. The sunburned child, with her jug hanging by a strap from the saddle horn, had a swift, rapturous vision of alluring, mossy banks, canopied by rustling leaves, before she was called back to the stern hills of her native Kansas and the sterner necessity of forcing a hundred head of maddened cattle to keep within the confines of an illy ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... was inexorable in the discharge of his duty. There was no alternative; and John Wilford must go to jail. The poor wife, when she found that her tears and her pleadings were unavailing, submitted to the stern necessity. She insisted that her husband should be allowed to change his dress, which the sheriff readily granted; and in a short time the culprit appeared in his best clothes. It was a sad parting between him and his family, and even the ferryman ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... and Aunt Deborah was busy in the dairy, when a clatter of hoofs was heard in the court-yard, and, looking out, she saw half-a-dozen troopers sitting stern and straight on their horses, while their leader handed a note to Joan, which was speedily brought to her. It was from her brother, telling her to give the men board and lodging and to aid them in every way in their search for Sir Denzil. 'There ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... getting away from home on the morning of starting. Mother and my sisters, of course, shed a few tears; but my father, stern and unbending in his manner, gave me his benediction in these words: "Thomas Moore, you're the third son to leave our roof, but your father's blessing goes with you. I left my own home beyond the sea before I was your age." And as they all stood at the gate, I climbed into my saddle and rode ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... fifty, the other, one or two-and-twenty, both in hunting dresses of plain leather, crossed by broad embroidered belts, supporting a knife, and a bugle-horn. The elder was broad-shouldered, sun-burnt, ruddy, and rather stern-looking; the younger, who was also the taller, was slightly made, and very active, with a bright keen grey eye, and merry smile. These were Dame Astrida's son, Sir Eric de Centeville, and her grandson, Osmond; and to their care ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desk and the window. His head was flung back, his eyes, bluish-grey,—the narrow, rather expressionless eyes of the successful business man,—were wide open and fixed in a sightless stare, his rather full mouth, with its clean-shaven lips, was rigid and stern. With the broad forehead, the prominent brows, the bold, aggressive nose, and the square bony jaw, it was a fighter's face, a fine face save for the evil promise of that sensuous mouth. So thought the doctor with the swift psychological process of ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... said Uncle Andy, his voice suddenly growing very stern as a bee crawled over his collar and jabbed him with great earnestness in the neck. He sat up. Several other bees were creeping over him, seeking an effective spot to administer their fiery admonitions. But he paid them ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... thirteen-and-a-half-inch square of newspaper into a fine boat measuring thirteen inches from stem to stern. It will be a good, stanch craft like Fig. 25, to float and sail out in the open on pond, lake, or river, or at home in ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... opened darkly to her abashed eyes. She felt herself going round and round and round in a circle, not forlorn enough to rebel or break away, but dazed and wondering and shrinking. She was like one robbed of will, made mechanical by a stern conformity to imposed rules of life and conduct. There were women in Askatoon who were sorry for her and made efforts to get near her; but whether it was the Methodist Minister or his wife, or the most voluble sister ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... be exceeding pure before appearing in the sight of the All-Holy God, still I know that He is infinitely just, and this very Justice which terrifies so many souls is the source of all my confidence and joy. Justice is not only stern severity towards the guilty; it takes account of the good intention, and gives to virtue its reward. Indeed I hope as much from the Justice of God as from His Mercy. It is because He is just, that "He is compassionate and merciful, longsuffering, and plenteous in ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... statuesque forms of women water-carriers and long lines of laden camels moving in ghostly silence along the river bank. Very beautiful also were the pictures made by the dahabiehs and other native boats, with their big lateen sails and with the motley gathering of natives in the stern. All these boats have enormous rudders which rise high out of the water and add greatly to the effectiveness of the picture as seen against the ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... glories of the winter moon. Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stern to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms, Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream—by these Three Queens with crowns of gold: and from them rose A cry that ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... A dark-haired, stern-visaged man of middle height, dressed less extravagantly than his fellows, acknowledged this address by advancing and bending one knee to the deck. Here was no longer the gay young courtier who so gallantly spoiled a handsome cloak to save ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... corruption in which a whole nation was involved. The men that should have spoken for God were 'prophesying lies.' The priests connived at profitable falsehoods because by these their rule was confirmed. And the deluded populace, as is always the case, preferred smooth falsehoods to stern truths. So the prophet turns round indignantly, and asks what can be the end of such a welter and carnival of vice and immorality, and beseeches his contemporaries to mend their ways by bethinking themselves of what ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... seemed natural for the boys to grow up together, their lives blending in childhood association and affection. It is interesting to think what the effect would have been upon the characters of both if they had been reared in close companionship. How would John's stern, rugged, unsocial nature have affected the gentle spirit of Jesus? What impression would the brightness, sweetness, and affectionateness of Jesus have made on the temper and disposition ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... rascally miner, who tried to dispose of the unset solitaires. Fortunately those have been proven to be mine and returned to me; but where are the rest of the stones? I will have them, every one," he concluded, in a tone so stern and menacing that the ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Delivery consisted of a white horse, a creaking buckboard, and a young woman of determined manner. A Rough Rider's hat sat with an air of stern purpose on the Rural Free Delivery's dark head, and a pair of surgeon's gauntlet gloves heightened her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... anything specially to communicate to his master in camp, he will enter giggling, sidle up to the pole of a hut, commence scratching his back with it, then stretch and yawn, and gradually, in bursts of loud laughter, slip down to the ground on his stern, when he drums with his hands on the top of a box until summoned to know what he has at heart, when he delivers himself in a peculiar manner, laughs and yawns again, and, saying it is time to go, walks off in ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... lovely thing to the maiden child, Gladys Graham found herself face to face with its grimmest reality, certain of only one thing, that somewhere and somehow she must earn her bread. She was thinking of it at that moment, with her white brows perplexedly knitted, her mouth made stern by doubt and apprehension and despair; conning in her mind her few meagre accomplishments, asking herself how much they were likely to bring in the world's great mart. She could read and write and add a simple sum, finger the keys of the piano and the violin strings ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... coarsely reviled by a sweating Hercules for their pains. As it was, the sudden diversion of the trolley projected several pieces of luggage on to the quay, occasioning an embryo stampede of the bystanders and drawing down a stern rebuke, delivered in no measured terms, from a blue-coated official, who had not seen what had happened, upon the heads of innocent and guilty alike. The real offender met my accusing frown with the disarming smile of childish innocence, and, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... of the age, and was led by the violence of circumstances to do many things questionable and even wicked, but with little premeditation: like Rienzi and Napoleon, his sudden elevation fostered an ambition which robbed him of the stern purpose and pure motives ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... bed sat a white-haired priest wearing the red stockings of a canonico; his face was fanatically stern; but he rose, ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... curious strain of pride in her father's stern honesty, in his utter disinterestedness, now and then mingled with her feelings of disappointment. She could not help feeling proud of him! Nevertheless the tears were many and bitter which Jacinth shed when the last night of their ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... herself. She came, quite by accident, being at the time little more than a child, to the village where my father, Jacques De Arthenay, lived; he saw her, and loved her at the sight. She consented to marry him, and I was their only child. My father was a stern, silent man, with but one bright thing in his life,—his love for my mother. Whenever she came before his eyes, the sun rose in his face, but for me he had no great affection; he was incapable of dividing his heart. I have ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... to look very stern, felt his eyes fill with tears and his heart soften when he saw Pinocchio so unhappy. He said no more, but taking his tools and two pieces of wood, ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... to bear up out of the line (m). The place of the Heros alongside the Superb was taken by the Orient, 74, supported by the Brillant, 64; and when the Monmouth kept off, the attack of these two ships was reinforced by the half-dozen stern chasers of the Heros, which had drifted into the British line, and now fired into the Superb's bows. The conflict between these five ships, two British and three French, was one of the bloodiest in naval ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... was the fair sea-picture that lay around them as the Maighdean-mhara stood out to the mouth of Loch Roag on this bright summer morning! Sheila sat in the stern of the small boat, her hand on the filler. Lufrath lay at her feet, his nose between the long and shaggy paws. Duncan, grave and watchful as to the wind and the points of the coast, sat amidships, with the sheets of the mainsail ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... to make a second legend of Creative Evolution without distractions and embellishments. My sands are running out; the exuberance of 1901 has aged into the garrulity of 1930; and the war has been a stern intimation that the matter is not one to be trifled with. I abandon the legend of Don Juan with its erotic associations, and go back to the legend of the Garden of Eden. I exploit the eternal interest of the philosopher's stone which enables men to live for ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... horseflesh, in riding up and down the country, and in practising certain very useful domestic duties. I certainly did feel very proud, and so I think did my mother, when the boat from the frigate came to fetch us on board, and we were seated in the stern sheets with our boxes in the bows, a young midshipman in a fresh bright uniform steering. A short, somewhat stout man pulled the stroke oar. He looked at my mother very hard. At length a beaming smile came over his broad countenance, ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... education and religion, and in doing so a man will have added fifty per cent, to the selling value of his property. The present thrift, wealth, genius, enterprise and intelligence of the people of the New England States is the legitimate outworking of the training bestowed on their sons by the stern, old Puritans that first peopled these ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... was a soldier-like, handsome looking man, very tall and pretty stern. Your ma minded me of a flower, she was so delicate. They wan't long married then, but my, they was fond of each other! Your father just worshipped her. I heard Mrs. Winthrop say he had a hard time to ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... no customer in to engage the clerk's attention, and he retired, with his employer, to the back part of the store. Jasper then turned and confronted him with a stern aspect. ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... a stern harshness into the king's tone that roused the fears of Thorndyke. He was about to reply, but the king held up his hand. "Wait till you have visited the dungeon of Nordeskyne, then I am sure that you will be convinced ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... have a long white beard, and a dark robe, and a stern face. Not at all. His eyes were all ready to twinkle. They were the kindest eyes Everychild had ever seen. You could tell by looking at them that if you were to hurt yourself Father Time would pity ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... utter darkness, and Mr. Grey's thoughts must have been peculiar as he crouched over the stern, hardly knowing what to expect or whether this sudden launch into darkness was for the purpose of flight or pursuit. But enlightenment came soon. The sound of a man's tread in the building above was every moment becoming more perceptible, ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... street by the river, shaded almost to a twilight by the thick foliage, with the old houses all about us, seemed to invite reminiscence, or dreams of the stern and respectable old burghers and burgesses in sombre clothing, wide brimmed hats, and stiffly starched linen ruffs about their necks as rendered by Rembrandt, Hals, Rubens and Jordaens. They must have been veritable domestic despots, magnates of the household, but certainly ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... him with envy. And one of them, when he first caught sight of it, inspired him with a stronger feeling than envy. It was painted white and was gay with blue and red stripes around the gunwale. In it sat two boys. One, who sat in the stern, was about Gordon's age; the other, a little larger than Gordon, was rowing and used the oars like an adept. In the bow was a flag, and Gordon was staring at it, when it came to him with a rush that it was a "Yankee" flag. He was conscious for half a moment that he took some pride in ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... it into a wooden handle, from four to six inches in length. In the first instance, however, they evinced considerable doubt and timidity, as they did riot venture to come alongside, but kept the stern of their canoes directed towards us, to be ready to paddle away on the first show of hostility, while a man remained in the forepart to carry on the barter. We in vain attempted to induce them to come on board, for, pointing ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... Advancing directly upon us was the old boat, that identical, weather-beaten tub of a boat which Lisbeth and I had come so near ending our lives together, the which has already been told in these Chronicles. On the rowing-thwart sat Peter, the coachman, and in the stern-sheets, very grim and stiff in the back, her lorgnettes at ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... it so? Is this house going to be the death of you?" asked Montier, abruptly,—referring the point with stern authority, to the last person who would be likely to acknowledge the danger of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... observation, Captain Downie framed his plan accordingly.[427] The "Confiance" should engage the "Saratoga;" but, before doing so, would pass along the "Eagle," from north to south, give her a broadside, and then anchor head and stern across the bows of the "Saratoga." After this, the "Linnet," supported by the "Chub," would become the opponent of the "Eagle," reduced more nearly to equality by the punishment already received. Three British vessels would thus ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... loud. The echoes of his ghastly mirth died slowly away, and when his voice was heard again it was stern and solemn. "It is my turn at last, man; I am the judge to-day, as you were the witness nineteen years ago who doomed me wrongfully to shame and misery. Night and day I have had this hour in my mind; the thought of it has been my only joy—in chains and darkness, in toil and torment, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Living is in honourably Striving, Don't you know the Chase of Pleasure is a vain delusive Dream? When they toil and when they shiver in the tempests on the River, When they're faint and spent and weary, and they have to pull it through, 'Tis in Action stern and zealous that they truly find a Telos, [1] Though a moment's relaxation be afforded them ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... vessel, with a single sail, and long oars pulled by men who sat on benches along the side. The prow, which was carved to represent the maiden Nausicaa, stood well out of the water, and the bulwarks descended in a graceful curve to rise again at the stern, where the captain stood and shaped his course by means of a broad paddle, which was hung over ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... place, the ships sailed away, and a day or two afterwards the merchants pushed the young man overboard as he was sitting on the prow. But it so happened that a rope was hanging from the bride's window in the stern, and as the Prince drifted by, he caught it and climbed up into her cabin unseen. She hid him in her box, where he lay concealed, and when they brought her food, she refused to eat, pretending grief, and saying, 'Leave it here; perhaps I may ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... several miles to the shore, floating happily in the blue sea, with their long hair waving after them like liquid gold. Thus I saw the last of the dream-island, bathed in the rays of the setting sun. My regret was shared by the boy, who stood, still ornamented with flowers and wreaths, at the stern of the steamer, looking sadly back ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Southern army now began, Lee's trains retiring by way of Chambersburg, and his infantry over the Fairfield road, in the direction of Hagerstown. General Meade at first moved directly on the track of his enemy. The design of a "stern chase" was, however, speedily abandoned by the Federal commander, who changed the direction of his march and moved southward toward Frederick. When near that point he crossed the South Mountain, went toward Sharpsburg, and on the 12th of July found himself in front ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... powerful I for thee Will soon prepare, disdainful wretch! Ere shall the sky sink 'neath the sea, And that shall o'er the earth out-stretch, Than with my love thou shalt not burn, Like pitch, which in these flames I throw." Not with mild words their bosoms stern To melt, as erst, the boy sought now; But madly reckless he began The direst curses forth to rave: "And do not think your sorceries can Yourselves from retribution save: Your curse I'll prove; my deathless hate ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... to time-honoured custom, had brought him in return for his instruction were mean and unworthy, he conceived a great hatred against them, and took no pains in teaching them, but on the contrary rather sought to make laughing-stocks of them. Takumi no Kami, restrained by a stern sense of duty, bore his insults with patience; but Kamei Sama, who had less control over his temper, was violently incensed, and determined to kill Kotsuke ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... your dreaming, To do with "people"? You may be the devil In your dead-reckoning of what reefs and shoals Are waiting on the progress of our ship Unless you steer it, but you'll find it irksome Alone there in the stern; and some warm day There'll be an inland music in the rigging, And afterwards on deck. I'm not affined Or favored overmuch at Monticello, But there's a mighty swarming of new bees About the premises, and all have wings. If you hear something buzzing before long, Be thoughtful how you strike, remembering ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... our man had shot out of a large flock that alighted near the door. I was so intent upon my task, to which I was putting the finishing strokes, that I did not observe the stealthy entrance (for they all walk like cats) of a stern-looking red man, till a slender, dark hand was extended over my paper to grasp the dead bird from which I was copying, and which as rapidly transferred it to the side of the painted one, accompanying ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Caleb had brought his boat round to the quay. Mr. Fogo stepped in, and was presently seated in the stern and meditatively listening while ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... weeks on an average, to look a little into the executive details of the system. With some of these Mr. Palmer had no concern; they rested upon bye-laws enacted by posting-houses for their own benefit, and upon other bye-laws, equally stern, enacted by the inside passengers for the illustration of their own haughty exclusiveness. These last were of a nature to rouse our scorn; from which the transition was not very long to systematic mutiny. Up ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... mother," Mr. Sterling used to say, "when he has shown me that he deserves it and can double it." And John, sure that any theory of his father's was as right as a law of the universe, was only anxious to keep the warm affection that he knew lay behind the stern principle. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... after the conclusion of the treaty, the English troops disembarked at Boulogne; they were regiments formed and trained in the long struggles of the civil war, drilled to the most perfect discipline, of austere manners, and of resolute and stern courage; the king came in person to receive them on their arrival; Mardyk was soon taken and placed as pledge in the hands of the English. Cromwell sent two fresh regiments for the siege of Dunkerque. In the spring of 1658, Turenne invested the place. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... decided in favor of the more accommodating system, by which the stern exclusiveness of the original letter was extenuated, and the law of the rude tribes of Palestine moulded to the varied taste and temper of a cosmopolitan society, while the text itself was embalmed in the Masora, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... in the pool near Limerick, and he hired a small boat for the purpose of landing. The city was now before him; and he beheld St. Mary's steeple lifting its turreted head above the smoke and mist of the old town. He sat in the stern, and looked fondly towards it. It was an evening so calm and beautiful as to remind him of his own native haven in the sweetest time of the year—the death of spring. The broad stream appeared like one smooth mirror, and the little vessel glided ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... suppressed fire of his nation flames out on his pages in an indignation as natural as it is superb. His lines vibrate with passion, his words are tremulous with a noble pain. His very pathos is impatient, stern, and proud; it cleaves our hearts like a battle-axe, rather than meets them as with summer showers. His sarcasm is as keen and effective, but far more startling; it hisses its way from some iron-cold comment, and stabs the monarch whom it crowns. His fertility of imagination ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... serious embarrassment on Rutledge's mill-dam, and the unwonted incident brought the entire population to the water's edge. They spent a good part of the day watching the hapless flat-boat, resting midships on the dam, the forward end in the air and the stern taking in the turbid Sangamon water. Nobody knew what to do with the disaster except "the bow-oar," who is described as a gigantic youth "with his trousers rolled up some five feet," who was wading about the boat and rigging up some undescribed contrivance by which ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... stern, of course. The man looked pretty nearly spent, and there was little of his cynical impudence to be seen now. Clare lay on her stomach on the baggage amidships, staring ahead with her chin propped in her palms, a characteristic ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... restful posture essential. "A blind man sees more'n most folk" is a common claim of Emile's. It is tedious pegging away when fish are scarce, yet fishing is a trade where "'tis dogged as does it." He suspected that Ike took it easy in the stern while he worked in the bow; and his doubts were confirmed when one day, from a passing boat, some one called out: "'Tain't safe for you to be out alone, Emile. You'll be running some one down one of ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... had a scheme. In a subdued growl, yet distinctly, he threw over his shoulder an order that eight men should go to the right and eight to the left. Then, on his feet, he sent into the darkness a stern "Halt!" Instantly there was a sputter, arms thrown up, the inevitable "Kamerad!" and Hirondelle ordered the first German to pass him, then a second. Out of the darkness emerged a third. Hirondelle ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... to blaze brightly, and Hatteraick hung his bronzed visage, and expanded his hard and sinewy hands over it, with an avidity resembling that of a famished wretch to whom food is exposed. The light showed his savage and stern features, and the smoke, which in his agony of cold he seemed to endure almost to suffocation, after circling round his head, rose to the dim and rugged roof of the cave, through which it escaped ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Jasper pounded his gavel to restore order. "And to begin with, it is as well to announce at once that all unruly members will be put out," with a stern glance ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... perforce obliged to rest the machine upon two chairs and wriggle underneath it, where he reclined upon his back with grimy oil dripping upon his forehead. Red in the face, he crawled out to breathe at intervals, and Helen made stern efforts to conceal her mingled alarm and merriment, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... face with her hands; the consciousness of her guilt came with additional force to pierce her heart, as the melancholy results of her dereliction were revealed to her. Roque and Marien Rufa were much affected, and even the stern features of the renegade seemed to be softened by ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... to slay." How think you now?—What arrant trash! And our assertions much too rash!— Since prior to th' Aegean fleet Did Minos piracy defeat, And made adventures on the sea. How then shall you and I agree? Since, stern as Cato's self, you hate All tales alike, both small and great. Plague not too much the man of parts; For he that does it surely smarts.— This threat is to the fools, that squeam At every thing of good esteem; And that they ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... mean," he admitted, "but I can't help but laugh when I think of how he looked kneeling there in stern resolve to be covered with glory, and the transformation when he was ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... adapted for bush fighting. Towards ten o'clock the riflemen and Indians attacked; a circumstance attributed by Captain Popham to an accident befalling the 68-pounder carronade in the bow of the leading gunboat, which compelled her to turn round, to bring into action her stern gun, a 24-pounder. "The enemy thought we were commencing a retreat, when they advanced their whole force, one hundred and fifty riflemen, near two hundred Indians, and a numerous body of militia and cavalry, who soon overpowered the few men I had.... The winding of the creek, which ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... years, they'll tell you grandpapa Adored his little darlings; for them did His utmost just to pleasure them and mar No moments with a frown or growl amid Their rosy rompings; that he loved them so (Though men have called him bitter, cold, and stern,) That in the famous winter when the snow Covered poor Paris, he went, old and worn, To buy them dolls, despite the falling shells, At which laughed Punch, and they, and shook ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... easily into the membership of many Clubs both social and sporting, tradesmen and money-lenders solicit with humility the supreme honour of being his creditors, and all the world, as he counts it, smiles upon him and is ready to make much of him. A man would require to be made of exceptionally stern stuff not to yield to many of the temptations thus spread before him, and the Young Guardsman, although he is as martial as the occasional wearing of his uniform can make him, is by no means stern. He yields, however, with an admirable grace, and although his nationality and his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... face was hard and stern, and the girls felt thrilled, stirred, as they had never been before. But suddenly he jumped to his feet, went over to the window and stood there looking out for a moment. And when he came back he was smiling so naturally that the girls ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... judge's robe, becomes them with one half so good a grace as mercy does."—"Pray you begone," said Angelo. But still Isabel entreated; and she said, "If my brother had been as you, and you as he, you might have slipped like him, but he, like you, would not have been so stern. I would to heaven I had your power, and you were Isabel. Should it then be thus? No, I would tell you what it were to be a judge, and what a prisoner."—"Be content, fair maid!" said Angelo: "it is the law, not I, condemns your brother. Were he my kinsman, my brother, or my son, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... ARAMINTA, hear What FREDERIC HARRISON has said: Don't read for College honours, dear, And put a towel round your head. Don't sully what should surely be An unstained soul, with tricks of trade; Leave stern official work to me, While you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... Graemsay island like a sheer water skimming the waves. Graemsay was our imagined El Dorado, and on the voyage we fancied ourselves encountering many surprising adventures. Shipwrecks and sea fights were by no means uncommon events. We threw spars of wood over the stern, and at the cry of "Man overboard!" the ship was put about to pick him up. But while we easily overcame these imagined disasters, there were some real dangers to encounter, and in the midst of our merry talk and ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... outline of the heavier clouds and the dark margin of the hills. By the uncertain glimmer, the house on his left hand should be a place of some pretensions; it was surmounted by several pinnacles and turret-tops; the round stern of a chapel, with a fringe of flying buttresses, projected boldly from the main block; and the door was sheltered under a deep porch carved with figures and overhung by two long gargoyles. The windows of the chapel ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... perceive, I think, the deep reality in the Divine Sonship of Christ; and certainly on earth this was his controlling motive. He was obedient even unto death. To obey to the very least particular the Father's will was the principle of his being. To him the Father's will was not hard, stern law, as we with our rebellious instincts so often regard it; it was the Father's wish. When love exists between two persons, the will of one it is the other's joy to do, if possible. Love impels to its accomplishment. Love rejoices in being of service, in giving the loved one pleasure, in ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... himself, he took refuge in his own thoughts, which were as bright and clear as his life was dark and sad. In the gloom of the stern castles of Windsor and of Bolingbroke, in the Tower of London, side by side with his gaolers, he lived and moved in the world of phantasy of the Romance of the Rose. Venus, Cupid, Hope, Fair-Welcome, Pleasure, Pity, Danger, Sadness, Care, Melancholy, Sweet-Looks ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... I was busy, and at 8 p.m. I embarked from the Customs pontoon. The boat was a wupan (five boards), 28 feet long and drawing 8 inches. Its sail was like the wing of a butterfly, with transverse ribs of light bamboo; its stern was shaped "like a swallow's wings at rest." An improvised covering of mats amidships was my crib; and with spare mats, slipt during the day over the boat's hood, coverings could be made at night for'ard for my three men and aft for the other two. It seemed a ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... pity me! I must pay it. I must, for if he dies I shall have his blood upon my conscience!" Then she checked her grief, and her voice grew almost stern in the restraint she set upon herself. "If I give you my promise to wed you hereafter—say in six months' time—what proof will you afford me that he who is detained under the name of ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... a firm hand, they say," continued the mother, her voice breaking a little; "but I'm afraid for him. Angus Dhu is a stern man, and Dan has been used to a hand gentle as well as firm. But he ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... could only have freed himself from Lucy Morris. But now, just in this very nick of time, which was so momentous to her, the police had succeeded in unravelling her secret, and there sat Frank, looking at her with stern, ill-natured eyes, like an ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope |
