"Gravity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... second day he asked the doctor, with great gravity, if he considered him in danger, adding, 'because he had never made a WILL to bequeath his property.' The doctor replied, 'No, not in absolute danger, but there was no harm ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... find that they were the gentlemen to whose acquaintance he designed to recommend me; for, when he observed them together, he to told me who they were, and desired to know by what name he should introduce me. I satisfied him in that particular, and he advanced with great gravity, saying, "Gentlemen, your most obedient servant:—give me leave to introduce my friend Mr. Random to your society." Then, turning to me, "Mr. Random, this is Mr. Bragwell—Mr. Banter, sir—Mr. Chatter—my friend ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... cut me short, and laying his hand on my shoulder, he looked me full in the face, while, with a struggle to recover his gravity he said, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... laid upon it, the stone swims on the surface, and cannot depress the liquid, nor break through, nor separate it. If we remove the hundred pound weight, and put on a scruple of gold, it will not swim, but will sink to the bottom of its own accord. Hence, it is undeniable that the gravity of a substance depends not on the amount of its ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... upright. You did not go down through a shaft, but straight in through the side of a hill to the bowels of the mountain, following a track on which a little donkey drew the coal to the mouth of the mine and sent it down the incline to run up and down a hill a mile or more by its own gravity before it reached the place of unloading. Through one of these we marched in, Adler and I, one summer morning, with new pickaxes on our shoulders and nasty little oil lamps fixed in our hats to light us through the darkness, where every second ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... she began, and then her gravity for an instant forsook her again. "It is highly befitting," she said, more soberly and ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... comfortably till a noise in the shop stopped her, and looking through the dusky books she saw a man waiting. She got up and went in hastily, looking keenly at his face to find how long he had been there, and how much he had seen. It wore, however, an inscrutable gravity. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... and across the upland pastures, and he ran the grades and built the bridge that would span the canon, until it was real before his eyes. Across the canon was the place for the mill, and there he erected it; and he erected, also, the endless chain of buckets, suspended from a cable and operated by gravity, that would carry the ore across the canon to the quartz-crusher. Likewise, the whole mine grew before him and beneath him-tunnels, shafts, and galleries, and hoisting plants. The blasts of the miners were in his ears, and from across the canon he could hear the roar of the ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... full of waving readiness; and with no concealment of the trick, she spread it over her eyes and face. Being so delighted with her, and so glad to see her safe, I kissed her through the thick of it, as a cousin has a right to do; yea, and ought to do, with gravity. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... daughter, the baronet's daughter, and the baronet's wife, and the baronet himself, had known what was coming, though Mr. Prosper thought that the secret dwelt alone in his own bosom. Nor did he dream now that Harry and Harry's father, and Harry's mother and sisters, had all laughed at the conspicuous gravity of his threat. It was the general feeling on the subject which made the rumor current that the deed had been done. But when he came down-stairs with one new gray kid-glove on, and the other dangling in his hand, nothing ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... quarrel and cannot well escape. He had taken his hat and stood with his gaze for the most part fastened on the carpet, but lifted now and then when directly challenged by the apothecary's harangue. The contemned volume skimmed across the table and toppled over at his feet. With much gravity he stooped and picked it up; and as he did so, heard Mrs. Wesley ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to do it, for she was suffering torments from suppressed laughter. Her Uncle Robert's preternatural gravity, and Mrs Abbott's total incapacity to see the ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... the rather in my heart, Sir Simon, gave you up, because, when I was a sad fellow, it was always my maxim to endeavour to touch a lady's heart without wounding her ears. And, indeed, I found my account sometimes in observing it. But, resuming my gravity—"Hussy, said I, do you think I will have my old friend thus made the object of your ridicule?—Suppose a challenge should have ensued between us on your account—what might have been the issue of it? ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... dignified and noble, that if she were to be seen without ornament or any outward marks of distinction, among a great number of ladies of rank, she would be immediately esteemed the chief. She seems born to command, though in her character there is more of liveliness than of gravity. She is courteous, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... church, and there, in spite of his humility and his self-abasement, he won the favor of all with whom he had to deal. "God wills," the chronicle says, "that His ministers should shine by their sanctity and their science." "Saint Paul commends prudence, gravity, modesty, unselfishness, and hospitality," and to these precepts Bernard was ever faithful. He lived in the simplest way, like a hermit in his personal relations, but never out of the life of the world. He was not a man eager to save his own soul ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... address that certainly would have delighted Aldrich living, and must have delighted him dead, if he could hear it. It was full of the most charming humor, delicate, refreshing, and spontaneous. The audience, that had been maintaining a proper gravity throughout, showed its appreciation in ripples of merriment that grew presently into genuine waves of laughter. He spoke out his regret for having worn black clothes. It was a mistake, he said, to consider this a solemn time—Aldrich would not have wished it to be so considered. He had been ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... window, and spoke without directly looking at Mrs. Chump; so that she was some time in getting to understand the preliminary, "Madam, you must leave this house." But presently her chin dropped; and after feeble efforts to interpose an exclamation, she sat quiet—overcome by the deliberate gravity of his manner, and motioning despairingly with her head, to relieve the swarm of unborn figure-less ideas suggested by his passing speech. The ladies were ranged like tribunal shapes. It could not be said of souls so afflicted that they felt pleasure in the scene; but to assist in the administration ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from which to harry Spartan territory. It was situated in the country which had once belonged to the Messenians who for generations had been held down by the Spartan oligarchs. Deserters soon began to stream in; the gravity of the situation was recognised by the Spartan government who landed more than four hundred of their best troops on the island of Sphacteria at the entrance to the bay. These were speedily isolated by the Athenian ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... that he could walk this planet under his own power. The natives, adapted to the deadliness and heavy gravity since birth, were still his superiors, but he was the only off-worlder who could stand the dangers of Pyrrus. His gun whined out of his power holster into his waiting hand as he searched for some target to use his talents ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... miles, the weather being very hot, the country being situate between four and five degrees of the equinoctial. This Topiawari is held for the proudest and wisest of all the Orenoqueponi, and so he behaved himself towards me in all his answers, at my return, as I marvelled to find a man of that gravity and judgment and of so good discourse, that had no help of learning nor breed. The next morning we also left the port, and sailed westward up to the river, to view the famous river called Caroli, as well because it was marvellous of itself, as also for that I understood ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... boundless the confidence of our patients may be in our ability to heal them, no matter how much they may express themselves as cheered and encouraged by our presence, ninety-nine per cent of the chance of their recovery depends upon the gravity of the disease, the vigor of their powers of resistance, and our skill and intelligence in combating the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... details which set before us the life of the simple Court, with its many labours and charities: the King full of reverence and tender surprise and admiration of all his wife's perfections; the young saint herself, sweet and bright in modest gravity amid a tumultuous world little respectful of women, full of the excessive charity of the age and of her race, and of those impulses of decoration and embellishment which were slow to develop among ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... as the wind, silent as its own shadow, enduring as the long hot- season of its home, the trained Bikaniri swings into sandy distances with a gait that is a gallop really—the only saddle-beast of all that lifts his four feet from the ground at once, seeming to spurn the very laws of gravity. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... dances in Seville cathedral were described to me, by an eyewitness, as consisting of minuets, or some such stately old-fashioned dances, performed in front of the high altar by boys in white surplices, with the greatest gravity and decorum.] ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... dishonor in consequence of inability to discharge its national debt, and their loyal forebodings had, at length, become painful. The good-natured Captain, encountering them in their distress, at once relieved them by the remark: "I appreciate the gravity of your trouble, my dear fellows. It is, indeed, a serious one. But, happily, I can remove it. I will, myself, discharge at once one-half the debt, and a friend of mine will shortly pay the other half." From this incident is said to have arisen the expression, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the gravity of the duties that confront me and mindful of my weakness, I should be appalled if it were my lot to bear unaided the responsibilities which await me. I am, however, saved from discouragement when I remember that I shall ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... somewhat altered the centre of gravity of the Presbytery. Hitherto Auchterarder had been its natural centre, and its most convenient place of meeting. From this time onwards it began occasionally to meet at Crieff. In 1866 an Act of Assembly was passed ordaining it to meet ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... in setting forth. Cora was indignant to the boiling-point. She meant to be behind-hand at the reception, as a display of what she deemed good form; but a dinner was a dinner, as her husband, in the privacy of the carriage, was taught past all forgetting. Yet his fault lost its gravity before Mrs. Van ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... most amusing was the thought of the ruthless outlaw who should feel compelled to treat it respectfully. I like to think of the foreign desperado, seeking to slip into America with official papers under official protection, and sitting down to write with a beautiful gravity, 'I am an anarchist. I hate you all and wish to destroy you.' Or, 'I intend to subvert by force the government of the United States as soon as possible, sticking the long sheath-knife in my left trouser-pocket ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... grinning furtively at one another, behaved with quite praiseworthy gravity. Miss Whitmore watched while Weary dragged a spotted calf up to the fire and the boys threw it to the ground and held it until the Old Man had stamped it artistically with a ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... and stand in the boat: Morton exhorted him to caution. But he only answered by a wave of the hand and a grim smile; then requesting Browne to lay fast hold of his waist-band, to assist him in preserving the centre of gravity, he raised his weapon in both hands, and giving it a preliminary flourish, brought it down with his full force, aiming at the broadest part of the fish's back, just forward of the dorsal fin. But the weapon was too dull, or the blow too feeble, to pierce the tough hide of the "sea-attorney," for ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... saying, 'O Surya, when thou hast sought my protection, thou hast nothing to fear! He would transcend the simplicity that exists in Brahmanas, the stability that exists in the Earth, the mildness existing in the Moon, the gravity existing in Varuna, the effulgence existing in Agni, the brightness of Meru, and the heat of the sun, who would slay a suppliant for protection! The man that can slay a suppliant is capable of violating the bed of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... methinks he hath very good utterance for his gravity, for he came hither very grave; but, I think, he will return light enough, when he is rid of the heavy element he carries about ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... superstitions have upon us: two weeks ago, when Livy committed an incredible imprudence and by consequence was promptly stricken down with a heavy triple attack —influenza, bronchitis, and a lung affected—she recognized the gravity of the situation, and her old superstitions rose: she thought she ought to send for a doctor—Think of it—the last man in the world I should want around at such a time. Of course I did not say no—not that I was indisposed to take the responsibility, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... companion by name, shook him cordially by the hand, and begged him to alight. It was Monsieur Maillard himself. He was a portly, fine-looking gentleman of the old school, with a polished manner, and a certain air of gravity, dignity, and authority ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... replied Rose Garfield with gravity, and drawing imperceptibly apart from him, "that no woman can help you much. You despise woman's thought, and have no ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ordered. He ordered it so and Artur is His mouthpiece in this day." The Strobian weighed every word carefully before he uttered it speaking with a solemn gravity ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... good you possess. I have not the least desire for you—I find that you look plain and only bore me. But now listen to me for a little—I have something to say!" His voice changed from the cynical callousness to a deep note of gravity: "You need not even tell me in words that you sent the forgery—you have given me ample proof. That subject is finished—but I will make you listen to the recital of some of your vile deeds." The note grew sterner and his ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... Freake," said the rector with drunken sense and gravity. "I trust it savoureth not of ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... in my hypocrisy, which I shewed in a constrained gravity of countenance and deportment, and by forbearing openly from eating flesh, insomuch that all thought themselves happy to have me at their houses, or to kiss my hands and feet. The report also of my companion, that he had met with me first at Mecca, where ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... you realize the position in which you place yourself by your silence?" The quiet gravity with which Merrington put this question was, similarly, in the strangest contrast to his former hectoring style. "It is my duty to warn you that you are placing yourself in a grave situation. Once more, will ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... at a distance from the road. Here, in the grassy expanse, the Indians were gathered, waiting the distribution of the meat. The scene was barbarically animated. Groups of women in their bright dresses sat here and there on the grass, and apart from them in gravity waited old men in moccasins and blankets and with feathers in their hair. Spry young men smoked cigarettes and talked volubly, garbed in the worst of civilization and the most ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... talk to Dr. Ross about the new swimming-baths that were being built. It was the first topic that came handy to him, and Dr. Ross at once followed his lead; the subject lasted them until the end of dinner. Audrey was unusually silent, but neither of them made any remark on her gravity. Now and then Michael addressed some observation to her, but she answered him briefly ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... with me. What, man! 't is not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan. Hang ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... greatly advanced in my reign, and electric powers had been discovered by which the heaviest masses could be lightened temporarily, so that their specific gravity, called by us the "tenacious electricity," and its tendency to seek the sympathetic electricity of the earth was temporarily diminished, if not entirely neutralized, without injury to the mass subjected to ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... face were so irresistibly comical that Lawrence found it hard to preserve his own gravity: however, he contrived to compose his features, and to say, ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... let go, strangers and all. Even Mr. Burgess's gravity broke down presently, then the audience considered itself officially absolved from all restraint, and it made the most of its privilege. It was a good long laugh, and a tempestuously wholehearted one, but it ceased at last—long enough for Mr. Burgess to try to resume, and for the people ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... she eats at the table with her husband, receives visitors, goes into town to dinner, appears at the public ceremonies, at the theatre, and even at the courts. And still she is ordinarily uncultured; the Romans do not care to instruct their daughters; the quality which they most admire in woman is gravity, and on her tomb they write by way of eulogy, "She kept the ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... 'levior quaedam infamiae macula', was attached to the publication of poetry, and even to have sported with the Muse, as a private relaxation, was supposed to be—a venial fault, indeed, yet—something beneath the gravity of a wise man,—when the professed poets were so poor, that the very expenses of the press demanded the liberality of some wealthy individual, so that two thirds of Spenser's poetic works, and those most highly praised ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... to make the movement in such a direction as to allow for lee-way, precisely as a boat quarters the stream in crossing against a current. In ascending it was difficult to keep the feet on the ratlins, and in descending, it required a strong effort to force the body down towards the centre of gravity. I make no doubt, had I groped my way up to the cross-trees, and leaped overboard my body would have struck the water, thirty or forty yards from the ship. A marlin-spike falling from either top, would have endangered no one ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... gave them a fine view of the yard below with all its gregarious misery. There was a table here covered by a green baize cloth, and an officer in uniform writing at it. He stood and saluted Zaniloff with a gravity fine to see. The Chief, in turn, nodded to him and drew a chair to the table. When he had found ink and paper he began the interrogation which should help ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... not understand women, yet he had a perfectly good working basis, for he took all of them seriously, with gravity, and he gave their opinions a willing ear ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... said, with great gravity, "if I'm corpulent, which I don't deny, but never thought to have it made a reproach, it's neither over-feeding nor want of care, but constitootion, as derived from my parents, Sir Thomas. There is nothing," he added with a pensive superiority, "as is so gen'rally misunderstood." ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Asia and Africa, together with the tropical districts of the Indian Ocean, the necessities of trade between Orient and Occident and the historical prestige of the lands bordering on the Mediterranean placed in this basin the center of gravity of the cultural, commercial and political life of Europe. The continent was dominated by its Asiatic corner; its every country took on an historical significance proportionate to its proximity and accessibility to this center. The Papacy was a Mediterranean power. ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... fact that he was in the hands of the foe, as we have before intimated, left Tom in no condition to give or take a joke. His heart was suddenly deprived of some portion of its ordinary gravity, and rose up to the vicinity of his throat. He drew sundry deep and long breaths, indicative of his alarm; for though Tom was a brave boy,—as these pages have already demonstrated,—he had a terrible idea of the tender mercies of the rebels. His first impulse was to break away from his captors, ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... less angry because he realized the essential truth of part of what she said. He felt no great impulse of sympathy with any of the combatants. He knew the gravity of the situation rather than its tragedy. He did not like war, any war. He saw no reason why men should kill. But this war was a fact. He had had no hand in its making, ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Court Terriss was still under thirty, but doing the best work of his life. He never did anything finer than Squire Thornhill, although he was clever as Henry VIII. His gravity as Flutter in "The Belle's Stratagem" was very fetching; as Bucklaw in "Ravenswood" he looked magnificent, and, of course, as the sailor hero in Adelphi melodrama he was as good as could be. But it is as Thornhill that ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... small but graceful figure is at the same time childlike and voluptuous. She would make an enchanting shepherdess, but is not fitted to be a queen. She has no majesty, no presence. She has not by nature that imposing gravity, which is the gift of Providence, and cannot be acquired, and without which the queen is sometimes forgotten in the woman. Amelia can never attain that eternal calm, that exalted composure, which checks all approach ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... manner and fantastic speech, both Lady Enid and the Prophet fancied that they could detect an element of real gravity, even perhaps a hint of weighty censure which made them both feel very young—rising two, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... Look out, not in—up, not down. Then Petrarch innocently adds, "I vowed I would not have anything to do with women, nor even in the social converse, but that my few friends should be sober, worthy and noble men of gravity." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... them. The Queen, he says, seeing a Stranger, made some little Hesitations: But at last, My Dear, says she, we have nothing but a Rib of cold Beef at present, for yesterday, you know, was Washing-Day. In short, he tells this Story with so much Gravity, that you must either consent to believe it, or be obliged to fight him, for suspecting the ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... be enough," replied the man of dogs with the same gravity; "quite enough. The hounds must have their rest. Dogs have just as much right to ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... tell, then, Aha and Narmer were the first conquerors of the North, the unifiers of the kingdom, and the originals of the legendary Mena. In their time the kingdom's centre of gravity was still in the South, and Narmer (who is probably identical with "the Scorpion") dedicated the memorials of his deeds in the temple of Hierakonpolis. It may be that the legend of the founding of Memphis in the time of "Menes" is nearly correct (as we shall see, historically, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... overspread with an apparently deep-seated and settled melancholy. He appeared, in short, to be a person who was suffering severely either in body or mind; but his affliction exhibited all the symptoms of being of the latter rather than the former. Yet was not the profound gravity of his manner of an unpleasing or repulsive character; it partook of a gentleness and benevolence that rendered it rather graceful than otherwise. The tones of his voice, too, corresponded with these ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... amusement. The prince, in an agony of rapture, was desirous of seeing his pretty play-fellow move a slow dance about the floor to his own singing; he began to sing, and the mouse immediately to perform with the most perfect knowledge of time, and the finest grace, and greatest gravity imaginable; it only began, for Nanhoa, who had long waited for the opportunity, in the shape of a cat, flew upon it instantly without remorse, and eating it up in the hundredth part of a moment, broke the charm, and ...
— The Story of the White Mouse • Unknown
... two or three years younger than he, Asenath had a gravity of demeanor, a calm self-possession, a deliberate balance of mind, and a repose of the emotional nature, which he had never before observed, except in much older women. She had had, as he could well imagine, no romping girlhood, no season of careless, light-hearted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... expectant as the soldier re-entered. He had the air of a man who knew he bore tidings of vivid and mysterious interest, but he curbed the excitement of his manner until it shone only through his snapping eyes, saluted, and reported with professional gravity: ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... of his thought was less than he could have hoped, for he had already learned, with some misgiving, of her friendliness with Charlie Bryant. However, the opportunity seemed a suitable one, so he added a gravity of tone to ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... weight of the lead was 9 lbs., and the tubs, being lashed longitudinally together, rolled in a tideway unfettered, being anchored by the usual lines and heavy stones. The leads sank the casks to the bottom in 2-1/2 fathoms of water, but at that depth they in specific gravity so nearly approximated to their equal bulk of fluid displaced that they could scarcely be felt on the finger. The leads were cast in moulds to the size required, and could be repeatedly used for ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... of the question, my lord." The gravity and humility of his demeanour astonished Grancey, who surveyed him quizzically. "Is this a new role, Repentigny, a part from The ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... becoming gravity, his approval of the scheme. He only wondered whether it might not be better for Miss Keating to stay where she was until the morning, that her step might not seem so precipitate, ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... Athens, seemed to Hugh like the talk of saints in some celestial city. Saints not of heavy and pious rectitude, conventional in posture and dreary in mind, but souls to whom love and laughter, pathos and sorrow, were alike sweet. Instead of approaching life with a sense of its gravity, its heinousness, its complexity, timid of joy and emotion and delight, practising sadness and solemnity, Plato and his followers began at the other end, and with an irrepressible optimism believed that joy was conquering and not being conquered, that light ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... impassibility, stretched out his hand and touched the chin of a young maid dressed in a collar and bracelet, who held out to him a bouquet of flowers. Elsewhere he was seen undecided and smiling, as if he had slyly put off making a choice, in the midst of the young queens, who strove to overcome his gravity by all sorts of caressing and ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... governed—always have been, whenever the world was not retrograding, and always will be. The notion that such government is a revival of slavery, and that the United States by doing its share of such work in behalf of civilization would therefore become infamous, though put forward with apparent gravity in some eminently respectable quarters, is too ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... Robert went direct from the prison to the club room at White's. He was observed to be gloomy, preoccupied, his manner not a little perturbed. The usual light smile was completely clouded under a gravity foreign to his nature. One may guess that he was in no humour to carry coals. In a distant corner of the room he seated himself and fell to frowning at the table on which his elbow rested. At no time was he a man upon whom one would be likely to foist his ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... certain wedge he may lay the foundation of a royal power over all these things, which I (as) consul preserved. Concerning which matter I could say much, if time allowed me: now behold and examine the miserable condition of those whom a man devoid of constancy and gravity overturns ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... (gravity-driven) winds blow coastward from the high interior; frequent blizzards form near the foot of the plateau; cyclonic storms form over the ocean and move clockwise along the coast; volcanism on Deception Island and isolated areas of West Antarctica; other seismic activity rare and weak; large ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... to the story with careful gravity; inwardly he was tortured with the desire to laugh. But he could not affront these girls so seriously bent on keeping unsullied that pure white thing they called honor. "Oh, youth—youth!" he thought, loving them the more for their ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... saying that she would remain in her room, and begging to be supplied with tea. She would not even condescend to say that she was troubled with a headache. Then Belinda came up to her, just before dinner was announced, and with a fluttered gravity advised Miss Amedroz to come down-stairs. 'Mamma thinks it will be much better that you should show yourself, let the final result be what ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... execution; and as she knew that at last their punishment would be commuted, she was amused to see the solemn earnestness and the death-shudder of the condemned. It was a very entertaining hour that she and her friends passed at that window, and the comical face of old Ostermann, the proud gravity of Count Munnich, the folded hands and heaven-directed glances of Golopkin and Lowenwald, had often made her laugh until the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... many-colored beads, on softly-tanned deer skin, was held at one end by the Iroquois chieftains, and at the other by the prominent men of the Dutch Company, in their most showy attire. The pipe of peace was smoked with solemn gravity. The tomahawk was buried, and each party pledged itself to ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... at her as he spoke, pronouncing this rather amazing and altogether irrelevant declaration with the utmost gravity, an admonitory, cautioning inflection in his naturally grave and resonant voice. The girl said no more on the needless sacrifice of ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... with primrose-coloured ribbons. Her dress was of some soft, green material; and she carried in her hand a bunch of daffodils. She was small, but exquisitely formed, and she walked with fearlessness and distinction Yet there was around her an angelic gravity, and that indefinable air of solitude, which she had brought from innocent studies and long seclusion from the ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... the builder of the trap was astounded. He laughed aloud at the absurdity. In silence he threw off the rock and lid and seated himself on the edge of the open trap. Captor and captive then gazed at each other with gravity. The errant infant's attire consisted of a calico shirt of gaudy hues, a pair of little moccasins, much frayed, and a red flannel string. This last was tied about his straggling hair, which fell over his forehead like the shaggy mane of a bronco colt and ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... country. In some countries the injured person, instead of putting the law in motion against an offender, takes the matter in his own hands, and administers the wild justice of revenge. Great differences of opinion also exist among different nations as to the gravity of certain offences. Among some peoples there is a far greater reluctance than there is among others to appeal to the law. Murder is perhaps the only crime on which there exists a fair consensus of opinion among civilised communities; and even with regard to this offence it is impossible ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... large hall of the asylum. One who professed magnetism was trying his skill upon a subject, to the great entertainment of his fellows. He was making the passes after a singular fashion, upon a docile fellow who sat bolt upright in a chair with a face of the most stolid gravity. Standing at a distance, he would rush up with long strides, make a wavy flourish with his hands over the face of the subject, and retreat as rapidly. Then with eager, swelling eyes, aiming with the fore-finger of each hand, he would run up and point at ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... had forgotten that power had its limitations, too. A tight turn meant pulling too many G's—too many times the force of gravity—for safety. "Sorry," he ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... all the gravity and brow of a petty minister of State, and seeing at one glance over my figure what I was, made me no answer, but to ask me the preliminary shilling, on receipt of which she told me places for women too slight ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... intense pain has ceased, the patient may be nauseated and actually vomit, or he may soon pass a large amount of urine of low specific gravity, or have a copious movement of ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... but rather say that we are so bad," said Katherine Alexeievna, playing with the words, and pretending not to see Nekhludoff's gravity. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... numberless bubbles of this volcanic substance give it the appearance of a honeycomb, and answer the same purpose as the pots in Caracalla's Circus, so much so, that though very hard, it is of less specific gravity than wood, and consequently floats ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... itself in this gay court to Wallace, for all was pageant and chivalric gallantry; but it had no other effect on him than that of exciting those benevolent affections which rejoiced in the innocent gayeties of his fellow-beings. His gravity was not that of a cynic. Though hilarity never awakened his mind to buoyant mirth, yet he loved to see it in others, and smiled ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... being an inhabitant of the forest, he knew how to go about his work in a much shorter way than I did. His ball, to be sure, had very little elasticity in it. I tried it repeatedly, but it never rebounded a yard high. The young Indian watched me with great gravity, and when I made him understand that I expected the ball would dance better, he called another Indian who knew a little English to assure me that I might be quite easy on that score. The young rogue, in order to render me a complete dupe, brought the new moon to his aid. He gave me to understand ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... They have a splendid scorn for all opinions which do not agree with theirs. Under the spell of this sublime contempt they think they can ignore anything that does not square with their evolutionary hypothesis. The center of gravity of their thinking is in the theoretical, not in the religious; in reason, not in faith. Supremely satisfied with its self-constituted authority, the mind thinks itself competent to criticize the Bible, the thinking of all the centuries, and even Jesus Christ Himself. The followers of this ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... he polished the bridge of his nose with his sleeve as he had done already that morning, but his face was absolutely changed. Now, he might have been thought supremely happy; now, he might have been thought sad; but the kind of gravity that sat upon his features was quite new to them, and was as great an improvement to them as if they ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Prince was accosted by some friends and remained talking for several moments. When he entered the omnibus, there seemed to Penelope, who found herself constantly watching him closely, a certain added gravity in his demeanor. The drive to the theatre was a short one, and conversation consisted only of a few disjointed remarks. In the lobby the Prince laid his ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sat in the stern-sheets, shaking his sides with laughter at the singular contest which was going on; but Mr. Lowington, though evidently amused, maintained his gravity, and was as dignified as usual. The appearance of the principal ended the struggle. A glance from him was quite sufficient to take all the stiffening out of the runaways, and even Wilton, though ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... chief and his wise men thus talked and smoked with a gravity becoming their years and position, and while Has-se, the Bow-bearer, listened to them with an eager interest, there came of a sudden loud shouts from the lads on the river-bank. All eyes were turned in that direction, and some anxiety was felt lest Allapatta had indeed made his appearance, ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... running to the side of the plain crib in which his alter egg, as he used to say, was swinging, to hang over the little heap of stirring clothes, from which looked the minute, red, downy, still, round face, with unfixed eyes and working lips,—in that unearthly gravity which has never yet been broken by a smile, and which gives to the earliest moon-year or two of an infant's life the character of a first old age, to counterpoise that second childhood which there is one chance in a dozen it may reach by and by. The boys ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... that are of well-knit and handsome and symmetrical frames, and broad chests, that become angry upon hearing the enemy's drum or trumpet, that take delight in affrays of every kind, that have eyes indicative of gravity, or eyes that seem to shoot out, or eyes that are green, they that have faces darkened with frowns, or eyes like those of the mongoose, are all brave and capable of casting away their lives in battle. They that have crooked eyes and broad foreheads ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... gravity, "you may return to your letter-writing, Mr. Renault. I have done with you for ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... only of the speech, but of the speaker. It is with a melancholy sense of amusement that one recalls now to mind those organs of public opinion—with what romantic fondness they dwelt on the personal graces of the man who had at last given voice to the chivalry of France: "The charming gravity of his countenance—the mysterious expression of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is expelled from the cell through the opening below. The spider lived quite dry in her little air-chamber beneath the water ages before the diving-bell was invented; but that she understood anything of the doctrines of space and gravity, no one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... lady added, with more gravity, "I wouldn't really spend fifty thousand dollars so recklessly as I do in my mind. But I can found schools, and hospitals, and educate Nan, and give you, Papa Sherwood, a great big business, and buy two ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... difficulty, and she rebuked him with most comical gravity, treating him as a child. He used to say that when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um Twoddle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially was beyond endurance, bringing up an Irishman ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... as they are accustomed to speak of all the Classes of our Church in America, call this Classis at Amoy "a Presbytery." Hence the question has been put to us with all sincerity and gravity, "Is it a Classis, or is it a Presbytery?" Some seem to be afraid that the Church we are forming will be half Dutch and half Presbyterian, and that it will soon be swallowed up by the Presbyterians! Are there any ministers, or elders, or intelligent ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage
... effected by the herald shouting out at the top of his voice, "Here comes the lord; the great lion;" the latter phrase being "tau e tona", which, in his imperfect way of pronunciation, became "Sau e tona", and so like "the great sow" that I could not receive the honor with becoming gravity, and had to entreat him, much to the annoyance of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... reasons Azurara also believed in a sixth and deeper one, which he proceeds to state with all gravity, as the ultimate and celestial cause of ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... is cross," he said to Nicolai Yegorovitch with serio-comic gravity of manner. The ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... world over these same yellow disks are the master-keys that let one in wherever he wants to go, the servants that bring him pretty nearly everything he wants, except virtue,—and a good deal of what passes for that. I confess, then, to an honest liking for the splendors and the specific gravity and the manifold potentiality of the royal metal, and I understand, after a certain imperfect fashion, the delight that an old ragged wretch, starving himself in a crazy hovel, takes in stuffing guineas into old stockings and filling earthen pots with sovereigns, and every now and then visiting ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... not, however, get on well with Marfa Timofyevna, when she came to live in the Kalitins' house. Such gravity and dignity on the part of one who had once worn the motley skirt of a peasant wench displeased the impatient and self-willed old lady. Agafya asked leave to go on a pilgrimage and she never came back. There were dark rumours that ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... Langdon in person. He seemed a preternaturally grave young man to Anna and his clerical attire was above reproach. Any misgivings one might have had regarding him on the score of his youth, were more than counterbalanced by his almost supernatural gravity. ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... Grand Inquisitor, now at last fully awakened to the tremendous gravity of the situation. "And pray, senor, at whose ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... ought to be amplified or diminished; whether we are to speak with heat or moderation; in a florid or austere style; in a copious or concise manner; in words of bitter invective, or in those showing placid and gentle disposition; with magnificence or plainness; gravity or politeness. Besides which it is equally important to know what metaphors, what figures, what thoughts, what manner, what disposition, are best ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... his only famous namesake. But although it is difficult to identify the sphery figure of the judge with the slim consumptive preacher, and still more difficult to light up with pensive benevolence the convivial countenance in which official gravity and constitutional gruffiness have only yielded to good cheer; yet, it would appear, that for some of his mental features the divine was indebted to his learned ancestor. Sir John was a bookworm and a scholar; and for a great period of his life a man of mighty industry. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... he answered, with the same unsmiling gravity, "because it's the fact. I have been all over the world. I have seen thousands of beautiful ladies, even queens and markisses, and I never yet saw and I never expect to see such beauty as yours, ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... a pull, sir," John replied with respectful gravity, "They keep a rope at the station for shunting. Perhaps you had better send the ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... Jeffreys—and other "bigwigs." Evelyn records with grave disapproval that "these great men spent the rest of the afternoon till 11 at night, in drinking healths, taking tobacco, and talking much beneath the gravity of judges, who had but a day or two before condemned Mr. ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... very earnestly hoped that these volumes of notes—American, English, and presently Italian—will dispel an often-expressed opinion that Mr. Hawthorne was gloomy and morbid. He had the inevitable pensiveness and gravity of a person who possessed what a friend of his called "the awful power of insight"; but his mood was always cheerful and equal, and his mind peculiarly healthful, and the airy splendor of his wit and humor was the light of his home. He ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... so, frankly, one afternoon when he charged her with being so unlike herself, and he heard her explanation with a gravity which contained an element of satisfaction. "It is, of course, a pleasure to us to meet," he said, "a pleasure to us both." That was part of the satisfaction, that he could meet her candour with the same openness. He was not even afraid to mention to her the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... my friend till death—or Eclipse; and that means until she eclipses me, of course." But she added softly, and with sudden gravity: "Ah! Jane Hardie has a fault which will always prevent her from eclipsing your humble servant in ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... captured. When the hour drew near for Gano's departure, he held a brief conference with the "secesh," and then paroled the whole batch, including his host, binding them not to divulge any thing which they had seen or heard. All were impressed with the solemn nature of this obligation, but the melancholy gravity of Johnston (who had ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... each other's eyes and found there strange depths and lights. They were aliens, strangers, groping dimly for a common ground, and finding little, though presently they fell once more upon the law in Lost Valley and earnestness deepened into gravity. ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... form like the branch which in grace inclines * To Zephyr's[FN292] breath blowing fain and free, By the glance of thine eyes like the fawn's soft gaze, * When she views pursuer of high degree, And thy waist down borne by the weight of hips, * These so heavy and that lacking gravity, By the wine of thy lip-dew, the sweetest of drink, * Fresh water and musk in its purity, O gazelle of the tribe, ease my soul of grief, * And grant me thy phantom in sleep ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... appear'd through the Microscope, would scarcely have serv'd to cleave wood, much less to have cut off the hair of beards, unless it were after the manner that Lucian merrily relates Charon to have made use of, when with a Carpenters Axe he chop'd off the beard of a sage Philosopher, whose gravity he very cautiously fear'd would indanger the ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... defence, means were taken for provisioning the city. Clement Duvernois, an ex-radical, an ex-Bonapartist, and one of the members of the Ministry of Defence, gave ignorant and reckless orders for supplies, which, in spite of the gravity of the situation, amused ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... questions accordingly were argued at the bar at great length. The opinions were given and argued in open court. Peers frequently insisted that the Judges should give their opinions seriatim, which they did always publicly in the court, with great gravity and dignity, and greatly to the illustration of the law, as they held and acted upon it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... wing in a kind of playful skirmish, and, when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicsome manner; crows and daws swagger in their walk; wood-peckers fly volatu undoso, opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... upon so skilled an apotheosis of inconsistency, but it seems almost captious thus to analyse an innocuous bit of art so daintily and tastefully arrayed. "To Celia" is perhaps slightly the better of the two, having a very commendable stateliness of cadence, and a gravity of thought greater than that ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... of the Protestant church at Grenoble, to come over and preach to them, as they were desirous of embracing Protestantism. The pastor, supposing that they were influenced by merely temporary irritation against their cure, cautioned the deputation that waited upon him as to the gravity of their decision in such a matter, and asked them to ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... Gravity, stress, strain, weight, tension, sag, cohesion,—a few mathematical formulas, and a knowledge of the primary laws of physics,—upon such principles as these, the world is rapidly ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... temptations were of the kind that betray rather than assault, all faults of the flesh seemed of equal gravity—a man's gluttony or drunkenness, or a woman's misdemeanour. The one did not shock her more than the other. She thought of her old friend, the grandmother who had brought up the girls, denying herself sleep and ease that they might not run wild as many girls do, but might grow up girls ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... time, came the tribe of pets who followed the little ones and rejoiced in the blaze of the firelight. The boys had a splendid Newfoundland, which, knowing our weakness, we warned them with awful gravity was never to be a parlor dog; but somehow, what with little beggings and pleadings on the part of Arthur and Tom, and the piteous melancholy with which Rover would look through the window-panes when shut out from the blazing warmth into the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... is a teacher selected by the Government," he then observed, with mock gravity. "And if he teaches us that Mexico is a town near New York, we poor ignorant farm-folk are bound to ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... gravity as she accomplished this performance, Elise very nearly lost her own, but Patty nudged her under the table, and she managed to ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... encased in a Denby Bros. spacesuit, Mark III, open space usage, meant for no gravity use. Therefore it had no legs as such, the lower half being a rigid cylinder allowing considerable movement within and having a swivel mounted rocket motor at its base controlled by toe ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... water, Or found among the reeds and rushes quarter. And long it was they dared not see The dreadful face of majesty, Supposing that some monstrous frog Had been sent down to rule the bog. The king was really a log, Whose gravity inspired with awe The first that, from his hiding-place Forth venturing, astonish'd, saw The royal blockhead's face. With trembling and with fear, At last he drew quite near. Another follow'd, and another yet, Till quite ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... fate which seemed about to overwhelm him. Life had many charms in spite of the one disappointment, which had, rather given a gravity to his manner than in any way embittered his existence. He had hoped to do something in the world—his duty, at all events. He had many too depending on him. How would they bear his loss? He looked ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... soul was impatient, yet shy of asking. At length I called out, 'What news from Louisbourg?' To which the master simply replied, and with some gravity, 'Nothing strange.' This threw us all into great consternation, and some of us even turned away. But one of our soldiers called out with some warmth 'Damn you, Pumpkin, isn't Louisbourg taken yet?' The poor New England man then answered: 'Taken, yes, above a month ago; and I have been ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... Dilkusha had been drawn up, and the man who ought not to have been a soldier was saluting her with a singularly charming smile, that began in the eyes, and broke up the gravity of the face as ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... the three of hearts, and Spencer spread his cards on the table with the gravity of a Sioux chief. In addition to the three high spades he held ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... of an artist." With which, and a relapse marked by her wistful eyes into the gravity of the matter, she supremely fixed her friend. She felt how little she minded betraying at last the extremity of her need, and it was out of this extremity that her appeal proceeded. "Have I really had your last word? It means ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... foreign country, too, often steadily cultivates his national peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as it was possible to do so in that sunshiny climate, he introduced the grey, sombre influence of the land of mists and east winds. His household was ruled with stern gravity; his ranch was a model of good management; and though few affected his society, he was generally relied upon and esteemed; for, though opinionated, egotistical, and austere, there was about him a grand honesty and a sense of strength that would ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... yet she did not at once step into the cab. She seemed to be expecting that little speech from him which he found impossible to frame, and, seeing that it did not come, recognising, perhaps, his suppressed agitation behind that calm, almost cold, gravity of ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he began with an exaggerated look of fear upon his face, "I confess I am terrified by the position in which I find myself, and were it not that I feel deeply the immense importance of this question and the gravity of the appeal with which the speaker closed his address, I would not have ventured to say a word. My first question is this: Does not Mr. Allen greatly exaggerate the danger of war with Germany? And my reasons for this question are these. Every one knows ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... man paused with a generous helping of tobacco halfway to its destination. He regarded Engle with unblinking gravity. ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... you'd have a sun so blasted big, it would take an impossible amount of energy to lift the ship up from one planet to another. If your trip was, say, twenty billions of miles to the next planet, you'd be fighting a gravity as bad as the solar gravity at Earth here all the way—no decline with a little distance ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... in retaining hold of my hand and gazing with a mock air of gravity and interrogation at all around her, curiosity was soon aroused, and a general roar ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... it was soon discovered that Leumas was merely the proper name Samuel reversed, though who the special Samuel was who turned his signature to the right about, placing the wrong end foremost, and wrote with all the concise weight and gravity of the old divines, my uncles never knew. They had both passed away ere, in perusing the "Second Gallery of Literary Portraits," I found myself introduced to worthy old Leumas, also a denizen of the unseen world at the time, as the father ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... gladly consented to join the excursion. At tea, Walter asked Henderson if he'd come with them, and he, being just then in a phase of nonsense which made him speak of everything in a manner intended to be Homeric, answered with oracular gravity— ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... a serious gravity of expression in the disclamation with which Major Bridgenorth replied to the thanks tendered to him by Lady Peveril, for the supply of provisions which had reached her Castle so opportunely. He seemed first not to be aware what she alluded to; and, when she explained the circumstance, he protested ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... striking fact relating to the formation of the veins. It is well known that these organs possess valves, which permit the free upward flow of the blood toward the heart, but resist its descent through the action of gravity, in this way aiding its return from the extremities. The rule holds good throughout the quadrupeds that the vertical veins possess valves, while they are absent from the horizontal veins, in which they would be of no utility. But the singular fact exists that in the human trunk ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... heart all new to love; and she saw, with untold happiness, that these merits were contained in a form that pleased her. She thought d'Arthez handsome, and perhaps he was. Though he had reached the age of gravity (for he was now thirty-eight), he still preserved a flower of youth, due to the sober and ascetic life which he had led. Like all men of sedentary habits, and statesmen, he had acquired a certainly reasonable embonpoint. When very young, he bore ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... applauded the King's song with all his might: everybody except Ivanhoe, who preserved his abominable gravity: and when asked aloud by Roger de Backbite whether he had heard that too, said firmly, "Yes, Roger de Backbite; and so hast thou if thou darest but ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with regard to her dilemma, and full permission was given for her "to sit in her bonnet" until such time as a messenger could go to the Bowery and back. In this condition she had better be in her own room, and as it was in readiness, Mark himself conducted her to it, the stern gravity of his face putting down the laugh which sprang to the waiting maid's eyes at the old lady's ejaculations of surprise and amazement that anything could be so fine as the house where she so unexpectedly ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... little influential the price of fuel is. However, there are other sources of power besides coals; there are other motive-powers than steam. Of the 83,000 horse-power employed to give motion to mills in England, 21,000, even in the coal districts, are not moved by fire, but by water. The force of gravity in falling water can spin and weave as well as the elasticity of steam; and in this power we are not deficient. It is necessary to study its circumstances in detail, and I shall therefore next proceed to discuss the condition of ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... boats forms a brilliant and glittering picture. Passengers squat in the inside of the boat; so that as it passes you see little more than the heads of the true believers, with their red fez and blue tassel, and that placid gravity of expression which the sucking of a tobacco-pipe is sure to ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... those eyes, so blue, so kind, Eager tell-tales of her mind; Paint, with their impetuous stress Of inquiring tenderness, Those frank eyes, where deep I see An angelic gravity. Ere the parting hour go ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... with the same gravity, and one of them not only surrendered his place to the curious Miss but lifted her and placed her in a seat near ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Thackeray and Dickens. The comparison is not fair, but it suggests the central fact that the humour of Irish literature is deficient in depth, in intellectual quality, or, to put it after an Irish fashion, in gravity. ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... social pivot, the focus of the life, of the civilisation of the East is to be found in their idea of the home. The home is the centre of gravity of their existence, round which everything else revolves. In China it is the all-pervading, all-vivifying idea of social life, of religion, and of government. The life of the family is not only of to-day, but extends back ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... places; incredulous smiles as to the possibility of the usefulness of anything in the shape of a bath generally greeted the appearance of such an article, and on one of these occasions an ancient, with great gravity, and as an apology for its existence, remarked that it was "A very good thing for an invalid!" I am reminded thereby of an old-fashioned hunting man in Surrey, who was astonished to hear from a friend of mine that he enjoyed a cold bath every morning. He "didn't think," he said, "that cold water ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory |
