"Austerity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with light-hearted austerity. And then to Evan: "Don't you know that we are keeping country hours here at Wartrace now? The professor will be up and calling for the car at six o'clock, and it's past midnight. Shame on you! Run away and get ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... glowing with the fires of utter convincement and the marvelous voice still unimpaired, Silas Crafts would have refused to believe that the passing years had changed him; yet now there was kinsman love to temper solemn austerity when he spoke to the lost sheep—as there might not have been ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... have made some general observations on the Christmas festivities of England, and am tempted to illustrate them by some anecdotes of a Christmas passed in the country; in perusing which I would most courteously invite my reader to lay aside the austerity of wisdom, and to put on that genuine holiday spirit which is tolerant of folly, and ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... readily to yield to their pleasures and to comply with the desires of the multitude, as a steersman shifts with the winds. Quitting that loose, remiss, and, in some cases, licentious court of the popular will, he turned those soft and flowery modulations to the austerity of aristocratical and regal rule; but, employing this uprightly and undeviatingly for the country's best interests, he was able generally to lead the people along, with their own will and consent, by persuading and showing them ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... the empty archway, the satisfaction on her face not veiling its pure austerity. She was not much past thirty-three, but she looked older, for she was gaunt. Her flesh had lost its firmness, her dressmaking had stooped her, her strong frame moved as if it habitually shouldered its way. ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... him every token of extreme distress, except that there was an air of solemn and sad composure that crowned the whole. For the present, all appearance of gloom, stateliness, and austerity was gone. As I entered he looked up, and, seeing who it was, ordered me to bolt the door. I obeyed. He went round the room, and examined its other avenues. He then returned to where I stood. I trembled in every joint of my frame. I exclaimed within myself, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... exquisite being whose personal charm alone had made a convent possible in the chaos that followed the discovery of gold. All the novices, many of the older nuns, the pupils invariably, worshipped Sister Dominica; whose saintliness without austerity never chilled them, but whose tragic story and the impression she made of already dwelling in a heaven of her own, notwithstanding her sweet and consistent humanity, placed her on a pinnacle where any display of affection ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... Constantinople in 1453 must not be underestimated, as it drove scholars from the great libraries of the East carrying their manuscripts to the nobles and priests and merchant princes of Italy who thus became enthusiastic patrons of learning and art. This later type of Greek art lacked the austerity of the ancient type, and to the models full of joy and beauty and suffering, the Italians of the Renaissance added the touch of their own temperament and made them theirs in the glowing, rich and astounding way which has never been equaled and probably ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... his father (Oeuv., xiii.) This is one of those records of solid and elevated character, which do more to refresh and invigorate the reader than a whole library of religious or ethical exhortations can do. It has the loftiness, the refined austerity, the touching impressiveness of Tacitus's Agricola or Condorcet's Turgot, together with a certain grave sweetness that was almost peculiar to the Jansenist school of the ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... and uttered loud exclamations of alarm and indignation at the sight of the two men holding a woman in their arms. The superior also hurried to the scene of action; but, far more a creature of the world than any of the female members of the court, notwithstanding her austerity of manners, she recognized the king at the first glance, by the respect which those present exhibited for him, as well as by the imperious and authoritative way in which he had thrown the whole establishment into confusion. As soon as she saw ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... austerity of manners, afraid to go into wine shops, bachelor of arts, candid as a transparency, plays on the bass-viol, is disposed to change a five ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... duly governed the whole earth bounded by the seas, having from desire of earning religious merit practised all those duties that are common to the four orders as declared by the scriptures, having practised with rigid austerity all the duties of the Brahmacharya mode, having waited with dutiful obedience upon my preceptors and other reverend seniors, having studied with due observances the Vedas and the scriptures on kingly duties, having gratified guests with food ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... further to prolong the colloquy. She dipped him a courtesy, half mocking and half respectful, wished him good-day, and, diving into the caravan, slammed the door in his face. The little marquis seemed at first astonished at the austerity of the gypsy girl. ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... d'ho^te, we had this, for an incident. A very grave man—in fact his gravity amounted to solemnity, and almost to austerity—sat opposite us and he was "tight," but doing his best to appear sober. He took up a CORKED bottle of wine, tilted it over his glass awhile, then set it out of the way, with a contented look, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and impaired sense of truth, which reigned with little check in the recognised fashions of professing Christianity; the want of depth both of thought and feeling; the strange blindness to the real sternness, nay the austerity, of the New Testament. Out of this ground the movement grew. Even more than a theological reform, it was a protest against the loose unreality of ordinary religious morality. In the first stage of the movement, moral earnestness and enthusiasm ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... himself with reading and, arranging the papers respecting the business, only now and then throwing in a skilful catchword as prompter, when he saw the principal, and apparently most active magistrate, stand in need of a hint. As for Sir Robert Hazlewood, he assumed on his part a happy mixture of the austerity of the justice, combined with the display of personal dignity appertaining to the baronet ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... plotting, counterplotting, temporizing, nattering, cozening, dissembling, [362]"that of necessity one must highly offend God if he be conformable to the world, Cretizare cum Crete, or else live in contempt, disgrace and misery." One takes upon him temperance, holiness, another austerity, a third an affected kind of simplicity, when as indeed, he, and he, and he, and the rest are [363]"hypocrites, ambidexters," outsides, so many turning pictures, a lion on the one side, a lamb on the other. [364]How would Democritus ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the lady with considerable austerity, and without sitting down herself. 'I find that your husband has behaved in this matter in a very weak ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... preoccupations were no doubt misplaced in view of the solemnity of the moment. For a duel whether regarded as a ceremony in the cult of honour or even when regrettably casual and reduced in its moral essence to a distinguished form of manly sport, demands perfect singleness of intention, a homicidal austerity of mood. On the other hand, this vivid concern for the future in a man occupied in keeping sudden death at sword's length from his breast, had not a bad effect, inasmuch as it began to rouse the slow anger of Lieutenant ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... most formidable person, the Puritan gone wrong. Sprung from a decent Salem family, his ill-doing seemed to be a recoil from the austerity of their religion, and he brought to vice all the physical strength and energy with which the virtues of his ancestors had endowed him. He was ingenious, fearless, and exceedingly tenacious of purpose, so that when ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... writers, and other members distinguished in all branches of knowledge; and it has many martyrs, not only in Xapon but in Mindanao. This province is one of the most illustrious, and most worthy of imitation, belonging to the Society, and in it is evident much austerity and excellence. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... of the man was more manifest with men than with women, yet he was always admired by women, but more on account of his austerity than his effort to please. He was not given to flattery; yet he was quick to commend. He had in him something of the dash that existed when knighthood was in flower. To the great of the earth, H. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Thompson did not see the intention of the movement in time to arrest it, for she did nothing till the whispering had been whispered; and then she rebuked the child, bade her not to be troublesome, and with more than usual austerity in her voice, desired her to get herself ready to go up ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... medium term will depend on renewed commitment to responsible monetary and fiscal policies and to the introduction of structural reforms to liberalize markets and promote competition. The government of Ronald VENETIAAN has begun an austerity program, raised taxes, and attempted to control spending. The Dutch Government has restarted the aid flow, which will allow Suriname to access ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... quickly, his attempt at ease deserting him with ludicrous suddenness. At sight of his blushing face Birdie relaxed her austerity. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Bigotry, or misplaced Devotion. The Customs and religious Notions of this Nation, which were more free and rational than in the Country of this Princess, had been a Constraint upon her Inclination, without lessening her mistaken Austerity. It was on this Side, that Jeflur spread his Snares. He placed near the Queen a Dervise, one of those sly finished Villains, who, being Masters of the execrable Art of giving Sin an Appearance of Sanctity, instruct the great ones, whose Favour they purchase ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... was elected to the papacy as Clement V., through the management of Philip the Fair. A dependant of the King of France and a subject of the King of England, the new pope showed a complaisance towards kings which stood in strong contrast to the ultramontane austerity of his predecessors. He refused to visit Italy, received the papal crown at Lyons, and spent the first years of his pontificate in Poitou and Gascony. Ultimately establishing himself at Avignon, he began that seventy years of Babylonish captivity of the apostolic see which greatly ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... debt is owed to the US, which is its major source of economic and military aid. The bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict; difficulties in the high-technology, construction, and tourist sectors; and fiscal austerity in the face of growing inflation led to small declines in GDP in 2001 and 2002. The economy grew at 1% in 2003, with improvements in tourism and foreign direct investment. In 2004, rising business and consumer ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... of broth, potatoes, and artichokes, which also comprised my breakfast, as well as dinner, during my sojourn of three days in this monastery, where they esteem even fish and eggs to be too carnal. Such is the austerity of their lives, that this monk, who was their physician, informed me that it required three entire years to become inured to it, but that those who stood the ordeal mostly attained a very great age. Their clothing, food, and medicines are each confined to such as they themselves ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... said Lady Mountjoy, in her most austere voice. She had a voice which could assume austerity when she knew her power to be in the ascendant. As Florence entered the room Miss Abbott left it by a door on the other side. "Take that chair, Florence. I want to have a few minutes' conversation with you." Then Florence sat down. "When a young lady is thinking of being married, a ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... vocabulary discovered to him by the poets, and seeks often in vain for a thought stalwart enough to wear that glistering armour. Hence it is that the masters of style have always had to preach restraint, self-denial, austerity. His style is a man's own; yet how hard it is to come by! It is a man's bride, to be won by labours and agonies that bespeak a heroic lover. If he prove unable to endure the trial, there are cheaper beauties, nearer home, easy ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... men fear,—he lies Deep in the dark Medhya wood, We fled from thence in wild surprise, And left him in that solitude. We dared not touch him, for there sits, Beside him, lighting all the place, A woman fair, whose brow permits In its austerity of grace And purity,—no creatures foul As we seemed, by her loveliness, Or soul of evil, ghost or ghoul, To venture ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... pardonable than any very perceptible excess; for virtue has ever erred rather on the side of self-indulgence than of asceticism, and well-being has ever advanced through the pleasures rather than through austerity. ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... for everything about these men. Cadman explained that these priests serve the monkey people: to this purpose they are a separate priesthood. Abandoning possessions and loves and hates of their kind, they live lives of austerity, mingling with the monkey people in their own jungles; eating, drinking with them; sleeping near; playing and mourning with them—in every possible way giving expression to good-will. All this they do very seriously, very earnestly, with ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... capable of a vast range of expression; but, as I never saw them otherwise than beaming with benevolence, or sparkling with wit, I must refer to Master James, or Master Frank, for the description of the austerity of his frown, or the awfulness ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... fishing zones to 200 nautical miles in the early 1970s, the Faroese no longer could continue their traditional long-distance fishing and subsequently depleted their own nearby fishing areas. The government's tight controls on fish stocks and its austerity measures have caused a recession, and subsidy cuts will force nationalization in the fishing industry, which has already been plagued with bankruptcies. Copenhagen has threatened to withhold its annual subsidy ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... scornfully rejected a husband indifferent to love, and ineffective in war as in politics. She had "married a monk and not a king," she said, wearied with a superstition that showed itself in long fasts of more than monkish austerity, and in the humiliating reverence with which the king would wait for the meanest clerk to pass before him. In the square-shouldered ruddy youth who came to receive his fiefs, with his "countenance of fire," his vivacious ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... were noted for their excessive pride and pretensions to strict orthodoxy in all outward observances. Abdulmelik ben Salih, who was a well-known general and statesman of the time, was especially renowned for pietism and austerity ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... offered on this subject; and yet perhaps the republican spirit was more likely to manifest itself at Bordeaux than at Paris, where the presence and influence of a court had for ages past enervated the independence of character, and enfeebled the austerity of principle that form the basis of patriotism and liberty. The states of Languedoc, and the habits that necessarily result from the administration of a province governed by itself, could not fail to predispose the inclination of the Gironde in favour of an elective and federative ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... some to have been of Irish race as his name is possibly identical {13} with the Irish name Faelchu. He is said by the Aberdeen Breviary to have left his native land to spread the Roman Faith in Scotland, where he was raised to the episcopal rank. He voluntarily took upon himself a life of great austerity to satisfy for his own sins and those of others. His evangelical labours were devoted to the northern parts of the country chiefly. He lived in a little house woven of reeds and wattles, for his attraction was towards everything poor and humble. ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... supposed that they always take care so to direct their wood-cutting task that the tree may fall on the water-side, but this is by no means the case, and appears to be simply due, as Martin points out, to the fact that trees by the water-side usually slope towards the water. The austerity of labour alternates, it may be added, with the pleasures of the table. From time to time the Beavers remove the bark of the fallen trees, of which they are very fond, ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... gone Thady was once more alone and in solitude; moreover, he felt strongly the gloom of the big cold walls around him—of the huge locks which kept him—the austerity and discomforts of prison discipline, and all the miseries of confinement; but yet even there, in gaol and committed to take his trial for life—though doomed to the monotony of that dull cell for six months—still he felt infinitely less ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... along the corridor, at the end of which an angel in white takes down particulars as to his name, his class, and so forth, and tells him that he is expected. Entering the Judgment Hall, the Poilu is bewildered by its austerity and splendour. The Good God is at the head, between Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin. All the saints are there, and the Poilu notices particularly the military ones—St. George, St. Hubert, St. Michael, St. Leonard, St. Marcel, St. Charlemagne, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... of a lady named Ch'en, who was a Buddhist nun celebrated for her virtue and austerity. Between the years 1628 and 1643 she left her nunnery near Wei-hai city and set out on a long journey for the purpose of collecting subscriptions for casting a new image of the Buddha. She wandered through Shantung and Chihli and finally ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... produce such accusations with such violence before such a judge, to bring forward frivolous and self-contradictory accusations, and then in the same breath to blame me on both charges at once? Is it not a sheer contradiction to object to my wallet and staff on the ground of austerity, to my poems and mirror on the ground of undue levity; to accuse me of parsimony for having only one slave, and of extravagance in having three; to denounce me for my Greek eloquence and my barbarian birth? Awake from your slumber and remember ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... housewife developed into that austerity which, when Puritanism had become the ruling power in England, closed the theatre and the bear-garden, stopped the dancing on the village green, and assumed a dress and manner, the sombreness of which was meant ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... all that circles you. This bare tree says,— Austere and stark and leafless, split with frost, Resonant in the wind, with rigid branches Flung out against the sky,—this tall tree says, There is some cold austerity in you, A frozen strength, with long roots gnarled on rocks, Fertile and deep; you bide your time, are patient, Serene in silence, bare to outward seeming, Concealing what reserves of power and beauty! What teeming Aprils!—chorus of leaves on leaves! These houses say, ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... great abundance though all are exceedingly unpalatable. These Gropoppsu (as the members of this sect call themselves) pass most of their waking hours sitting in the sunshine with folded hands, contemplating their navels; by the practice of which austerity they hope to obtain as reward an eternity of hard labor ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... Bredin, when things went well with him, was wont to be filled with a ponderous amiability. It was not often that this took a practical form, though it is on record that in an exuberant moment he once gave a small boy a halfpenny. More frequently it merely led him to soften the porcine austerity of his demeanour. Today, business having been uncommonly good, he felt pleased with the world. He had left his cash-desk and was assailing a bowl of soup at one of the side-tables. Except for a belated luncher at the end of the room the place was empty. It was one of the hours ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... poets of the Anthology, and the younger Pliny in Imperial days, held the same tone, elegiac and idyllic[5]; as Villemain says, 'These pleasant pictures, these poetic allusions, do not shew the austerity of the cloister.'[6] The specifically Christian and monastic was ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... line between luxury and austerity," Richard explained, as Hugh looked about him with pleased observation. "We shall not be equipped for real roughing it—not this time, though sometimes we may like to come here dressed as hunters and try living on bare boards. I just wanted it to seem like a bit of home, when she comes in to-night. ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... that was only disturbed by the fall of an apple, a long- checked sigh from Dick, and a sob from Fancy, he said with real austerity— ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... would spread the plague when it became epidemic. In spite of this official opposition, however, the sober citizens formed a goodly part of theater audiences until after the accession of King James, when the rising tide of Puritanism led to increased austerity. At no time were the majority of the citizens entirely free from a love for worldly pleasures. They swelled the crowds at the taverns, and their wives often vied with the great ladies of court ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... king and people of the district pressed him to remain as their bishop, and he consented, establishing his see at Cathures and founding a lay society of the servants of God, and fixing his own abode on the banks of the Molendinar. After some years of austerity and beneficence there, he was driven from his work by the persecutions of an apostate prince and settled in the vale of Clwyd, North Wales, where he founded a monastery. After a time he returned to Glasgow, at the solicitation of the King of Cumbria, ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... I might say a castigation, well deserved, and not readily forgotten. His abhorrence also of injustice, or unworthy conduct, in its diversified shapes, had all the decision of a Roman censor; while this apparent austerity was associated, when in the society he liked, with so bland and playful a spirit, that it abolished all constraint, and rendered him one of the most agreeable, as well as the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... and Amelie had exchanged the elegant disorder of the fair Diane's bedroom for the severe but dignified and splendid austerity of the Duchesse de ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... harmoniously blended with his vivacity and animal spirits, and produced together results not more felicitous for themselves than agreeable to all who belonged to their society. Soon after his marriage, Ellis, who had never been vicious or profligate, but who was free from anything like severity or austerity, began to show symptoms of a devout propensity, and not contented with an ordinary discharge of religious duties, he read tracts and sermons, frequented churches and preachings, gave up driving on Sundays, and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... in Ambrosio's mind with secret pleasure that a young and lovely woman had thus for his sake abandoned the world. But he recognised the need for austerity. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... grave beauty, an austerity almost, about this betrothal in the prison. Here was no room for the archnesses and coynesses of ordinary lovemaking. All that was not simple truth fell away from them both like tawdry ornaments, for which there was no use in that sad place. Soul to soul, unseparated by even the flimsiest ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... on his behalf. Even in his pure and polished oratory passion revealed itself chiefly in appeals to pity, not in the harsher forms of invective or of scorn. His mode of life was simple and restrained, but apparently with none of the pedantic austerity of the stoic. In an age that was becoming dissolute and frivolous he was moral and somewhat serious.[311] But his career is not that of the man who burdens society with the impression that he has a solemn mission to perform. Such men are rarely taken as seriously as they ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... with the clerical character than the whole tenor of his conduct was seen to change all at once: of his pompous retinue a few plain servants only remained; a monastic temperance regulated his table; and his life, in all respects formed to the most rigid austerity, seemed to prepare him for that superiority he was resolved to assume, and the conflicts he foresaw he must ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... agro-based industry, and merchandising, with tourism and construction assuming greater importance. Sugar, the chief crop, accounts for nearly half of exports, while the banana industry is the country's largest employer. The government's tough austerity program in 1997 resulted in an economic slowdown that continued in 1998. The trade deficit has been growing, mostly as a result of low export prices for sugar and bananas. The tourist and construction sectors strengthened in early 1999, supporting growth of 6% in 1999 and ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... alone, or to conceal himself from others. Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping them always in show, like the statue of a public square: "Magna servitus est magna fortuna." They can not so much as be private in the water-closet. I have thought nothing so severe in the austerity of life that our monks affect, as what I have observed in some of their communities; namely, by rule to have a perpetual society of place, and numerous persons present in every action whatever: and think it much more supportable ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Such austerity had hitherto been unknown to English saints, and the marvel was increased by the sight—to our notions so revolting—of the innumerable vermin with which the hair-cloth abounded—boiling over with them, as one account describes it, like water in a simmering cauldron. At the dreadful ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... "this man is one of those who are called bhikshus, or mendicants. He has renounced all pleasures, all desires, and leads a life of austerity. He tries to conquer himself. He has become a devotee. Without passion, without envy, he walks about asking ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... All the scenes of her beautiful girlhood in the pleasant Warwickshire country, when she drove through the pleasant sweet-scented lanes and enjoyed the lovely views that she has made immortal in her books—these she dwelt upon, and with the touch of poetry that redeemed the austerity of her nature she makes them live again, even for us in an alien land. So, too, the English rustics live for us in her pages with the same deathless force as the villagers in Hardy's novels of Wessex life. And George Eliot and Thomas Hardy are the two English writers who have made these villagers, ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... ten to fifteen francs apiece,—in English money from eight to twelve shillings. They were painted in a theatrical style, which Millet himself detested—all pink cheeks, and red lips, and blue satin, and lace collars; whereas his own natural style was one of great austerity and a certain earnest sombreness the exact reverse of the common Parisian taste to which he ministered. However, he had to please his patrons—and, like a sensible man, he went on producing these cheap daubs to any extent required, for a ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... disgusted with the world; and perhaps had I remained long enough at Kom, and in the mood in which I had reached it, I might have devoted the rest of my life to following the lectures of Mirza Abdul Cossim, and acquired worldly consideration by my taciturnity, by my austerity, and strict adherence to Mahomedan discipline. But fate had woven another destiny for me. The maidan (the race-course) of life was still open to me, and the courser of my existence had not yet exhausted half of the bounds and curvets with which ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the old Duxbury: the Duxbury of long, cold winters, privations, and austerity. Down by the shore to-day is the new Duxbury—a Duxbury of automobiles, of business men's trains, of gay society at Powder Point, where in the winter is the well-known boys' school—a Duxbury of summer cottages, white and ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... Esther, sought his father. But the expression of his apprehensions was so vague, he was so incapable of giving his fears any definite shape, that he made no more impression than the woman. The calm austerity of the Solitary's face almost melted into a smile at the idea that any event could occur except in the determined course of things. It was the pride of the human heart; it was the presumption of the human intellect ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... here related of the convent discipline, were communicated to me by the resident priest. This gentleman was certainly not a prejudiced witness on the side of austerity—for he frankly complained of the lonely life which the rules of the Sisterhood inflicted on him, and unhesitatingly acknowledged that he was anxious for the time when his clerical successor ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... the renunciation, and the nobility of its early Caliphs. Islam decayed when its followers, mistaking the evil for the good, dangled the sword in the face of man, and lost sight of the godliness, the humility, and austerity of its founder and his disciples. But, I am not at the present moment, concerned with showing that the basis of Islam, as of all religions, is not violence but suffering not the taking of life but the ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... had made its footing insecure—it may be that it was this note of contrast which invested this vast structure bestriding the hill, with such astonishing grandeur. I have known few, if any, other churches produce so instantaneous an effect of a beauty that was one with austerity. This great Norman is more Puritan than French: it is Norman Gothic with a ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... from the bystanders—"A Tory! a Tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!" It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit what he came there for, and whom he was seeking? The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who used ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... not indifferent to anything that took shape before me, though when it came to people I was less credulous of their perfection because they pressed forward their not always certain credentials upon me. I reverenced them then too much for an imagined austerity as I admire them now perhaps not enough for their charm, for it is the charm of things and people only that engages and satisfies me. I have completed my philosophical equations, and have become enamored of people as having the same propensities as all other objects of nature. One ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... why this is. I merely know that it is so. Some have counted sex a mistake on the part of God; but the safer view is for us to conclude that whatever is, is good; some things are better than others, but all are good. That is what they thought during the Renaissance. So convent life lost its austerity, and as the Council of Trent had not yet issued its stern orders commanding asceticism, prayers were occasionally offered accompanied ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... obstinacy of a stupid man; the abbe undertook to persuade him that he was in love with the marquise. It was not a difficult matter. We have described the impression made upon the chevalier by the first sight of Madame de Ganges; but, owing beforehand the reputation of austerity that his sister-in-law had acquired, he had not the remotest idea of paying court to her. Yielding, indeed, to the influence which she exercised upon all who came in contact with her, the chevalier had ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... offspring of Queen Elizabeth's Archbishop of Dublin. Ely held the office of Lord Chancellor, and Cork that of Lord High Treasurer; as Justices, they now combined in their own persons almost all the power and patronage of the kingdom. Both affected a Puritan austerity and enthusiasm, which barely cloaked a rapacity and bigotry unequalled in any former administration. In Dublin, on Saint Stephen's Day, 1629, the Protestant Archbishop, Bulkley, and the Mayor of the city, entered the Carmelite Chapel, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... middle-class Roman official, making the most of life on a small salary and the friendship of a great personage; praising poverty, but making the most of the good things that fell in his way; extolling pristine austerity of life and yielding with a smile to every agreeable temptation; painting the idyllic life of a small gentleman farmer as the highest state of happiness, but secretly preferring the town; prudently avoiding marriage, but far too human to ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... for his great geniality and his extraordinary capacity for making friends. Yet there was a strain of remarkable gravity, even austerity, in his character. There came times when he wished to be alone, to hear no human voices about him. It was then perhaps that he thought his best thoughts and took, too, his best resolutions. In ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... The classic features had lost their slight austerity of outline, the sapphire-blue eyes were no longer cold and indifferent, but danced bewitchingly in the softly-tinted face. The lips whose corners had been prone to droop were now curved into the tenderest, gayest smiles; and as Anstice looked at her he was reminded of the ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... resent any expenditure on outsiders; the more compact families do. She did not want to be thought a second Helen, who would snatch presents since she could not snatch young men, nor to be exposed, like a second Aunt Juley, to the insults of Charles. A certain austerity of demeanour was best, and she added: "I don't really want a Yuletide gift, though. In ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... (hospitium) where strangers were received under the protection of the gods? In that case the supposed butcher-shop must have been a sort of office, and the triclinium a dormitory. However that may be, the table and the altar, the kitchen and religion, elbow each other in this strange palace. Our austerity revolts and our frivolity is amused at the circumstance; but Catholics of the south are not at all surprised at it. Their mode of worship has retained something of the antique gaiety. For the common people of Naples, Christmas is ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... did not make the censure lighter when it came to him from the mouth of the Doctor. "But come," said the Doctor, getting up from his seat at the table, and throwing himself into an easy-chair, so as to mitigate the austerity of the position; "let us hear the true story. So big a liar as that American gentleman probably never put his ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... by the sudden comfortable quality of life the gushing of the black smoke out of the chimney put into the ship, and how, indeed, it seemed to soften as if by magic the savage wildness and haggard austerity and gale-swept loneliness of the white rocks and peaks. It was extremely disagreeable and disconcerting to me to have to pass the ghastly occupants of the cabin every time I went in and out; and I made up my mind to get them on deck when ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Cousin Timotheus, when we come to eighty years of age we are all Essenes. In our kingdom of heaven there is no marrying or giving in marriage; and austerity in ourselves, when Nature holds over us the sharp instrument with which Jupiter operated on Saturn, makes us austere to others. But how happens it that you, both old and young, break every bond which connected you anciently ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... wonderful that I think I shall keep it," she rejoined, not without a touch of austerity. Then she added: "Mr. Winton will probably never miss it. If he does, you will have to explain the best way you can." And Adams could only say "By Jove!" again, and busy himself with pouring the tea which ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... hero proceeds from the same wish to do no dishonor to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy, not for its austerity. It seems not worth his while to be solemn and denounce with bitterness flesh-eating or wine-drinking, the use of tobacco, or opium, or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man scarcely knows how he dines, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... considerable austerity of manner.—"And how now, saucy quean!" said the medical man of office; "what have you to say why I should not order you to be ducked in the loch, for lifting your hand to the man ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... upon coupling them together. We must be allowed to abate somewhat of the austerity of criticism by a reference to the life of the author. We cannot implicitly follow the unconditioned admiration of Mrs Howitt for "the beautiful thoughts of Andersen," which she tells us in her preface to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... is finding its way rapidly into the Scottish kirks (how can the shade of John Knox endure a 'kist o' whistles' in good St. Giles'?), but it is not used yet in some of those we attend most frequently. There is a certain quaint solemnity, a beautiful austerity, in the unaccompanied singing of hymns that touches me profoundly. I am often carried very high on the waves of splendid church music, when the organ's thunder rolls 'through vaulted aisles' and the angelic voices of a trained choir chant the aspirations of my soul for me; and when an Edinburgh ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... formulated. A person was as liable to be charged with heresy if better than the crowd as if worse. "In fact, amid the license of the Middle Ages ascetic virtue was apt to be regarded as a sign of heresy. About 1220 a clerk of Spire, whose austerity subsequently led him to join the Franciscans, was only saved by the interposition of Conrad, afterwards Bishop of Hildesheim, from being burned as a heretic, because his preaching led certain women to lay aside their vanities of ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... slightly acquainted with Mr. Mallard," Miriam answered, with the cold austerity which was the counterpart in her of Reuben's fiery impulsiveness, "but I understand that he is considered trustworthy and honourable by people of ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... although it contained many marks of that impatience which had increased his family misfortunes, could only have been written by a man of virtue, whose very austerity had in it a preponderance of benevolent intention. Such was my uncle; whose memory, though but a child, I often had ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... manners, mind, and customs of France, and to make it a republic after the manner of the ancients; they sought to establish the dominion of the people; to have magistrates free from pride; citizens free from vice; fraternity of intercourse, simplicity of manners, austerity of character, and the worship of virtue. The symbolical words of the sect may be found in the speeches of all the reporters of the committee, and especially in those of Robespierre and Saint-Just. Liberty and equality ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... own childish experience. The lady is still living, though now of unusually great age; and I may mention—that amongst her faults never was numbered any levity of principle, or carelessness of the most scrupulous veracity; but, on the contrary, such faults as arise from austerity, too harsh perhaps, and gloomy—indulgent neither to others nor herself. And, at the time of relating this incident, when already very old, she had become religious to asceticism. According to my present belief, she had completed her ninth year, when playing by the side ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... we admire your opinions, and we love your person. But virtue is not allied to rigour and austerity. Its boundaries are unconstrained, and graceful, and sweeping. It is a robe which sits easily on those who are formed to wear it. It gives no awkwardness to their manner, and puts no force upon their actions. Partake then, my Imogen, in those refreshments we have prepared for your gratification. ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... honor of being the first person in Europe that publicly called in question those principles which had universally passed for certain and undisputed during so many ages. Wickliffe himself, as well as his disciples, who received the name of Wickliffites, or Lollards, was distinguished by a great austerity of life and manners; a circumstance common to almost all those who dogmatize in any new way; both because men who draw to them the attention of the public, and expose themselves to the odium of great multitudes, are obliged to be very guarded in their conduct, and because few who have a strong ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... flowers are nourished, seemingly without soil. But that which established a church and convent on this mountain, was the story of a hermit who resided here many years; this was Juan Guerin, who lived on this mountain alone, the austerity of whose life was such, that the people below believed he subsisted without eating or drinking. As some very extraordinary circumstances attended this man's life, all which are universally believed here, it may not ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... superscribed; his staff were in attendance, and a provost-marshal in waiting to perform the office of summary execution on those to whom the general might attach suspicion. The insurgent leader 26now enquiring, with much austerity, my name, profession, from whence I came, the object of my coming, and lastly, whether or not I was previously aware of the town being in possession of the army of the people, I answered these interrogatories by propounding the question, who ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... turned voluptuary. There was also a sag at the corners. His flesh hinted of grossness, especially so in the eagle-like aquiline nose that must once have been like the other's, but that had lost the austerity the ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... reading, immediately followed by compline and other devotional exercises till 7, when they retire to their much needed rest on their hard straw mattresses. Perpetual silence is prescribed, unless in case of necessity, so that the Trappist's whole life is one of extraordinary austerity and of incessant recollection, reminding him at every turn of the shortness of life and the tremendous rigor of judgment. The time-table for summer varies in some minor practices and observances, while, according to that of Sundays and holidays, those religious in the latter case rise at midnight, ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... exactness, cruelty; seriousness, gravity; violence, intensity, acuteness; austerity, simplicity, plainness; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... occasionally, with the instinct of her sex, presumed upon it. After the Sunday episode, already referred to, she was given her liberty on that day, a privilege she gracefully recognized by somewhat unbending her usual austerity in the indulgence of a saturnine humor. She would visit the mining camps, and, grazing lazily and thoughtfully before the cabins, would, by various artifices and coquetries known to the female heart, induce some credulous stranger to approach her ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... cathedrals, but the heavy dimness of windowless, mighty chambers lighted only by a rebuked daylight ever trying to steal in. One is captured by no ornament, seduced by no lovely colors. Better than any ornament, greater than any radiant glory of color, is this massive austerity. It is like the ultimate in an art. Everything has been tried, every strangeness bizarrerie, absurdity, every wild scheme of hues, every preposterous subject—to take an extreme instance, a camel, ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... about any of the accusers anything morbid that might explain the accusation. I was startled to find that this key fitted a lock. For instance, it was certainly odd that the modern world charged Christianity at once with bodily austerity and with artistic pomp. But then it was also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself combined extreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic pomp. The modern man thought Becket's robes too rich and his meals too poor. But then the ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... at the roof of the berth. By lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland scenes and objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in his complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to say that he felt debonair. He received Sam with a wan austerity. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... lives, And thou shall be the ruler of my fate, For ever hide me in a convent's gloom, From cheerful day-light, and the haunts of men, Where sad austerity and ceaseless prayer Shall share my ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... of a recluse as he did and assuming a manner of forbidding austerity when forced to meet his fellows, the man had been endowed by them with a reputation for close—if not sharp—dealing, and this trust in him evinced by the boy moved him deeply, and with a voice in which there was a half ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... Cupid; gods and men Feared her stern frown, and she was queen o' the woods. What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin, Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone, But rigid looks of chaste austerity, And noble grace that dashed brute violence With sudden adoration and blank awe? So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity That, when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... fields, a young labourer came up to Mr. Davies and gave him a knife and gimlet, saying that he had found them on the road, and did not know to whom they belonged! These young men and boys appeared very merry and good-humoured. In the evening I saw a party of them at cricket: when I thought of the austerity of which the missionaries have been accused, I was amused by observing one of their own sons taking an active part in the game. A more decided and pleasing change was manifested in the young women, who acted as servants within the houses. Their clean, tidy, and healthy appearance, like that ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... are not equal to their birth, was thinking to remove him from his studies, after having allowed him a competent maintenance for a year or two. He communicated these his thoughts to Magdalen. Jasso, his daughter, abbess of the convent of St Clare de Gandia, famous for the austerity of its rules, and established by some holy Frenchwomen of that order, whom the calamities of war had forced to forsake their native country, and to seek a sanctuary in the kingdom ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... all this shall happen to thee through my grace. And there will also appear in thee a yoga power endued with which thou shalt achieve a great thing for the dwellers of Heaven, as also for the triple world. Even now a great Asura of the name of Dhundhu is undergoing ascetic penances of fierce austerity with the object of destroying the triple world. Hear now as to who will slay that Asura. O son, there will appear a king of invincible energy and great prowess and he will be born in the race of Ikshvaku and will be known by the name ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... plainly, and by simple facts averred, How with Geneura stood his suit, avows; And how, engaged by writing and by word, She swore she would not be another's spouse. How, if to him the Scottish king demurred, Virgin austerity she ever vows; And other bridal bond for aye eschewed, To pass her days in ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... later, adding that the fruits of that chastisement are now sweet to him. Nor do his parents ever appear to have treated him with the cold, almost loveless austerity that so many elders frequently felt it their duty to adopt toward their children. Their discipline was tempered by kindness and an earnest Christian faith. Although Hans Kingo seems to some extent to have ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... the red roses, as though in emulation of its rival entertainment, seemed on its way to complete success. Jocelyn Thew, from whose manner there seemed to have departed much of the austerity of the previous evening, had never been a more brilliant companion. He, who spoke so seldom of his own doings, told story after story of his wanderings in distant countries, until even Katharine lost her fears of the situation and abandoned herself to the enjoyment of the ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... action, living pictures of men and manners, for the suppression of vice, and the circulation of virtue and morality. Even the Gymnosophists, severe as they were, encouraged dramatic representation. The Bramins, whose austerity in religious and moral concerns almost surpasses belief, were in the constant habit of enforcing religious truths by dramatic fictions represented in public. The great and good PILPAY the fabulist, is said to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... pleasure of life is in pursuit, not in acquisition. Where wants are many, joys are few; the very austerity of his life has made a man of him. Laying up few treasures for the elements to corrupt, accumulating no property except a little, a very little, of the kind designated by Wemmick as "portable," he, to better and saner effect ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... every where visible, but the decay into which it was falling rendered such remains mere objects for meditation and melancholy; while the evident struggle to support some appearance of its ancient dignity, made the dwelling and all in its vicinity wear an aspect of constraint and austerity. Festivity, joy and pleasure, seemed foreign to the purposes of its construction; silence, solemnity and contemplation were adapted to ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... at great expense, and was of insufficient quantity. In this emergency Mulrady thought of sinking an artesian well on the sunny slope beside his house; not, however, without serious consultation and much objection from his Spanish patron. With great austerity Don Ramon pointed out that this trifling with the entrails of the earth was not only an indignity to Nature almost equal to shaft-sinking and tunneling, but was a disturbance of vested interests. "I and my fathers, San Diego rest them!" said Don Ramon, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte |
