"In earnest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... born in New England, and might, therefore, expect to find more favor than had fallen to his predecessor; but he was the representative of royalty, and could not escape the consequences of being so. In earnest of what was in store for him, the Assembly would not pay his salary, because he had sided with the governor in the late quarrel. The House voted to dismiss Colonel Walton and Major Moody, the chief officers ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... the march will begin in earnest, and will be kept up at the rate, say, of about twelve miles a day, or according to the amount of resistance. All the columns will dress to the left (which is the exposed flank), and commanders will study always to find roads by which they can, if necessary, perform a general ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... had lately recovered from the small-pox, she desires her ambassador to consider, whether he yet retained so much of his good looks, as that a woman could fix her affections on him. Had she not been in earnest, and had she only meant to amuse the public or the court of France, this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... paymaster had now begun in earnest, also paid Kink's bill; Robert set his pedometer at zero; and the whole party started, followed by the crowd of idle men and children to which they were destined to become so accustomed. For a caravan with people in it who are not gipsies is still ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... that instant Grace, at a signal from Mollie, darted ahead, and then the race began in earnest, for Amy, at a nod from the Little Captain did likewise, and then Mollie and Betty, holding themselves in readiness for the burst of speed that would take place ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... fair an opportunity by allowing Anthony to fall asleep before he had finished all he had to say, Mr Pecksniff, in the disposal of the refreshments on the table, a work to which he now applied himself in earnest, resorted to many ingenious contrivances for attracting his attention; such as coughing, sneezing, clattering the teacups, sharpening the knives, dropping the loaf, and so forth. But all in vain, for Mr Jonas returned, and Anthony had ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... happy day it was for the Professor. He and John were in close conference, after the formal introductions were over. "There is something brewing," said George as he nudged Harry, and cast a glance toward the place where they stood in earnest conversation. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... with the door closed, he gave himself up completely to black thoughts. He recalled his words to her, uttered years ago, half in jest and half in earnest; he had horrified her beyond expression by telling her how he would punish a wife if he were the husband she deceived. With a grim, lurid smile he remembered the penalty. He had said he would not kill; he would disfigure the woman frightfully and permit her ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Richard Purvey, his curate and intimate friend, whose manuscript is still in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. Purvey's preface is a most interesting old document, and shows not only that he was deeply in earnest about his work, but that he thoroughly understood the intellectual and moral ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... 'orspittles for the like of 'IM," said the man, with a cunning laugh, indicating the horse by smacking him on the belly with the butt of the whip. "If ever you try bein' a laborer in earnest, governor, try it on four legs. You'll find it far preferable to ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the ears, as monks are shorn, By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn, His only friend the ape, his only food What others left—he still was unsubdued. And when the Angel met him on his way, And half in earnest, half in jest, would say, Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel, "Art thou the King?" the passion of his woe Burst from him in resistless overflow And, lifting high his forehead he, would ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... course of events," replied the emperor. "Farewell, Count Andreossi. If you will accept my advice, you will set out this very day; for so soon as my dear Viennese learn that war is to break out in earnest, they will probably give vent to their enthusiasm in the most tumultuous and rapturous demonstrations, and I suppose it would be disagreeable to you ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... rattle you are!" Mabel said, affecting to box her ears. "I could not love you if I believed you to be in earnest. As to your figure of the stabled steed—this disapproving customer has the consolation that she need not accept him, unless she wishes to do so. She has the invaluable privilege of saying 'no' as often and ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... at last something, and too much, for that short stopping intelligence and dull perception of ours to accomplish, whether in earnest fact, or in the seeking for the outward image of beauty:—to undo the devil's work, to restore to the body the grace and the power which inherited disease has destroyed, to return to the spirit the purity, and to the intellect the grasp that they had in Paradise. Now, first of all, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... hoped that some of the topics in my first article might have been laid aside for ever, but his reply has compelled me to revert to them. He does me no more than justice when he credits me with earnestness. I am indeed in earnest, as I believe him to be. But it seems to me that the motives for earnestness are necessarily more intense in my case than in his; for (to say nothing else), as I read history, the morality of the coming generations of Englishmen is very ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... co-exist in public opinion. Since truth and endless error are so directly united in it, neither one nor the other side is truly in earnest. Which one is in earnest, is difficult to decide—difficult, indeed, if one confines oneself to the direct expression of public opinion. But as the substantial principle is the inner character of public opinion, this alone is its truly earnest aspect; yet this insight ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... doctrines are "in opposition to the laws"; and this decision has bred an uproar in the press which is reviving popular attention all over the country to the doctrines and to their author. He is astute, persevering, as much in earnest as Mr. Davitt, and as familiar with the weak points in the political machinery of the United States as is Mr. Davitt with the weak points in the political machinery of Great Britain. This is a Presidential year. The election of 1888 will be decided, as was the election of 1884, in New York. The Democratic ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... venture to decide. All I say is that I did, in my desperation, positively mean doing it, at the moment when I threatened to do it—and that Nugent Dubourg heard something in my voice which told him I was in earnest. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... carry a note-book in his vest-pocket in which he jotted down names that tickled his fancy. Were Dickens to travel this route with us, his name-note-books would bulge. Where Lesser Slave River issues out of Lesser Slave Lake, we found Tom Lilac in earnest conversation with Jilly Loo-bird. Jilly has navigated the North all the way from Athabasca Landing to Hudson's Hope on the Peace, seeking a wife, and still lacks his connubial rib. Being told that ladies are on board, he breathlessly ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Reddy how he would like to eat a dinner of Bowser the Hound's, Reddy looked at her sharply to see if she were joking or really meant what she said. Granny looked so sober and so much in earnest that Reddy decided she couldn't be joking, even though ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... a great and surprising idea. It meant travel immense travel—in those days it meant seeing the world; it was the equivalent of a voyage around it in ours. At first the other youths thought his mind was affected, but when they found that he was in earnest, the next thing to be thought of was, what sort of opportunity this venture might ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... evangelist, and a young high school graduate without experience, and the only Christian man in the district, very ignorant but with this to recommend him, that he was converted or quickened by the Holy Spirit in the Changte revival, and was intensely in earnest. We were here only about twenty days when dozens began to inquire, among whom were robbers, opium sots, and gamblers. The work went on all day and well on till midnight. We were all tiring out. We had not enough ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... of this simple little plan by a Simba quite in earnest dissipated Winkleman's last hope of doing anything by means of persuasion. He knew his African well enough to realize that this fantastic method of identification seemed quite a matter of course. In fact, Simba ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... Iduna, "it is beautiful, beautiful! Oh! Olaf, I thank you," and she flung her arms about me and kissed me, this time in earnest. ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... historians whatsoever. Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his virtues—learning, labour, research, wrath, and partiality. I call the latter virtues in a writer, because they make him write in earnest. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... attention. All the world loves a lover, while the miser is despised even by those who cringe beneath the power of his gold. Study the women, my lad, and when you know them thoroughly begin your great novel in earnest." ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... rough hand assuringly on the shoulder of the frightened child and sought to soothe her fears. At this moment the landlord, who had had his courage renewed by his wife, came quite up to the stranger and, in a voice that was terribly in earnest, said: ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... its case as he moved. "Pardon, Barin," he said softly, "If you will wait for me here, I shall return presently. My supper is waiting. Perhaps after an hour you will still like to purchase the violin. See, it is really not a bad instrument—if you are in earnest about ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... than if I were a priest: but I would have a law made, for sending all these beggars to monasteries, the men to the Benedictines to be made lay-brothers, and the women to be nuns.' The Cardinal smiled, and approved of it in jest; but the rest liked it in earnest. There was a divine present, who though he was a grave morose man, yet he was so pleased with this reflection that was made on the priests and the monks, that he began to play with the fool, and said to him, 'This will not deliver ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... absorbing topic of thought and conversation was the approaching boat-race. Twice on Saturday afternoons we had seen Captain Mugford and Mr Clare pulling in their boat. They did not condescend to practise oftener, but we noticed that they worked in earnest when they did row. With the confidence of youth we feared not, feeling sanguine that we must ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... fast as he could, in order to prevent mortal mischief when Lion should bring down his game; for the dog, when too much in earnest with a foe, had an overmastering instinct for searching out the windpipe and ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... much improved. I think it so. If there should still be anything wanting, in your opinion, pray suggest it to me in Paris. I am bent on having it right, if I can. . . . If in going over the proofs you find the tendency to blank verse (I cannot help it, when I am very much in earnest) too strong, knock out a word's brains here and there." (13th of November. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... for Valognes, where he arrived just before midnight, and, finding all gone to rest, began to batter the door with a stick, shouting for the Duke. At first, William could not believe the story, but Gillos seemed so much in earnest, that he deemed it advisable to go and see what had given rise to the report, and, muffling himself in a cloak, ran down stairs, himself saddled his horse, and rode toward Bayeux. Before he had gone far, he heard the trampling of horses and clanking of weapons, and, concealing ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of them responded in earnest we cannot tell. Not many, it is to be feared. Nor can we tell whether by repentance the destruction of the Jewish state might still have been averted. At all events, the fire of invasion soon fell on the dry tree, and it was burnt up. And since then those ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... was so startling that the three chums could only look at one another. Then they glanced back at Frank to see if he was in earnest. Ned, for a moment, had an idea that his original theory was right, and that Frank's mind was affected. But one look at the boy showed that, though he labored under the stress of excitement, he knew ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... swaddled child of Jove and May! And seized him:—'By this omen I shall trace My noble herds, and you shall lead the way.'— Cyllenian Hermes from the grassy place, Like one in earnest haste to get away, 400 Rose, and with hands lifted towards his face Round both his ears up from his shoulders drew His swaddling clothes, and—'What mean ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... than to suppress this infamous traffic, were the European Powers in earnest. Egypt is in favour of slavery. I have never seen a Government official who did not in argument uphold slavery as an institution absolutely necessary to Egypt, thus any demonstration made against the slave-trade ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... lounge and began to walk the floor, as he always did when he was perplexed; and she let him walk up and down in silence as long as she could bear it. At last she said: "I am in earnest, Brice, I am indeed, and if you don't do it, if you let me or my feelings stand in your way, in the slightest degree, I will never forgive you. Will you go straight down to the Coleman House, as soon as you've had your dinner, and tell that man he can have your play for ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... course I have, lots of it, only I'm ashamed to show it to most people, because it's the style to take everything in the most nonchalant way. My gracious, Rose, you'd have thought me a romantic goose last night while Steve proposed in the back parlor, for I actually cried, he was so dreadfully in earnest when I pretended that I didn't care for him, and so very dear and nice when I told the truth. I didn't know he had it in him, but he came out delightfully and never cared a particle, though I dropped tears all over his lovely shirtfront. Wasn't that good of him? For you know ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... reflection, you may recollect an oddish sort of boy, who had the honour of being introduced to you at Hackney some years back—at that time a sayer of verse and a doer of it, and whose doings you had a little previously commended after a fashion—(whether in earnest or not God knows): that individual it is who takes the liberty of addressing one whose slight commendation then, was more thought of than all the gun drum and trumpet of praise would be now, and to submit to you a free and easy sort ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... day the Captain set himself in earnest to fulfill his promise to the dying woman. The head of the firm to which his goods were consigned was absent from home, but a very kind-hearted young fellow, a junior partner, attended to the business during his absence, and accordingly he directed ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... and now the preparations for the river voyage were set about in earnest. A balza raft was built out of large trunks of the Bombax ceiba, which, being light wood, was the best for the purpose. Of course these trunks had been cut long ago with a view to using them in this way. A commodious cabin, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... criminal intent on her part, therefore her conscience would never be afflicted. The fact that he consented to the act was enough to clear her conscience, if that was all that restrained her. She realised that he was in earnest now, and fled the ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Peterborough title and estates,—would have been such a son-in-law as almost to compensate, by the brilliance of the connection, for that other unfortunate alliance. He could hardly control his agony when he was made to understand that this embryo peer had in truth been in earnest. "Do you mean that he went down after you ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... "I'm in earnest. You're the youngest and prettiest woman in this house. You have a good position, and good ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... that some fled. The first step I took was to seize on two large double sailing canoes, which were in the cove. One fellow making resistance, I fired some small shot at him, and sent him limping off. The natives being now convinced that I was in earnest, all fled; but on my calling to them, many returned; and, presently after, the other musket was brought, and laid down at my feet. That moment, I ordered the canoes to be restored, to shew them on what account they were detained. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... my friend, were you in earnest?" exclaimed Genji, jestingly—"but first let me put on my Naoshi." But To-no-Chiujio caught it, and tried to prevent him putting ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... literature, who, looking at the general bearings of the question, the character and standing of the geologists, and the sublime nature of their discoveries, believe that geology ranks as certainly among the sciences as astronomy itself; but who, little in earnest in their religion, are quite ready enough, when they find theologians asserting the irreconcilability of the geologic doctrines with those of Scripture, to believe them; nay, not only so, but to repeat the assertion. It is not fashionable in the present age ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... which did not impose upon Jerry, who nevertheless listened with an air of great alarm. He suspected that the general was making fun of him; but he also knew that the general would like to think that Jerry believed him in earnest; and to please the white folks was Jerry's consistent aim in life. "I can see the signs of decay in your face, and your hair will all fall out in a week or two at ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... back," Parker called, "Skinny'll have to do it. He can have all his time for it and just pretend he's in love and sort of entertain her. He don't need to go and do it in earnest. Come on back, you darned chump, I need you on ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... MALLESON,—I could not at once answer your important letter; for, though I felt at once the impossibility of my venturing to address such an audience as you proposed, I am unwilling to fail in answering to any call relating to matters respecting which my feelings have been long in earnest, if in any wise it may be possible for me to be of service therein. My health—or want of it—now utterly forbids my engagement in any duty involving excitement or acute intellectual effort; but I think, before the first Tuesday in August, I might be able to write one or two letters ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... during which time affairs, business and social, had been slipping along as well as either Bob or I could have asked, I was preparing for another sit-down to show my chum that the time had now come for him to help me in earnest, when a queer thing happened—one of those unaccountable incidents that God sometimes sees fit to drop across the life-paths of His children, paths heretofore as straight and far-ahead-visible as highways along which one has never to look twice to see where he is travelling; ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... had been assembled, carrying generally ten pieces of cannon, with from ten to eighteen oars, and manned with twenty-five hundred veterans, experienced both on land and water. The work was now undertaken in earnest. The distance from Leyden to the outer dyke, over whose ruins the ocean had already been admitted, was nearly fifteen miles. This reclaimed territory, however, was not maintained against the sea by these external barriers alone. The flotilla made its way with ease to the Land-Scheiding, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... irresistible, and none the less so that the child was so direfully in earnest. To his infant imagination no worse disaster than had befallen Clayton's cat could be devised. This animal, adored by him, had been bagged and exiled, perhaps drowned for aught I know, for stealing cheese from the cupboard sacred to ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... Captain; but reasonably safe to attack, with nothing but a Clermont acting that character. Ferdinand, I can perceive, knew his Clermont; and took liberties with him. Divided himself into three attacks: one in front; one on Clermont's right flank, both of which cannonaded, as if in earnest, but did not prevent Clermont going to dinner. One attack on front, one on right flank; then there was a third, seemingly on left flank, but which winded itself round (perilously imprudent, had there been a Captain, instead of a Clermont deepish ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... with such calmness, that he, imagining I joked, affected to receive the tidings with great equanimity. But both he and I found ourselves mistaken very soon. I had misinterpreted my own stupidity into deliberate resignation, and he had reason to believe me in earnest when he saw me next morning agitated with the most violent despair, which he endeavoured to alleviate with all the consolation ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... going to flirt with me?" she asked, with a faint smile at the corners of her lips. "You always do it so well and so convincingly. And I hate foreigners. They are terribly in earnest but there is no finesse about them. You may kiss me just once, please, ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... day or so, of course, we'd have the one-man beetles and crewboats out, and the floodlights orbiting overhead, and Vesta would be as exposed to us as a molecule on a microscreen. Then work would start in earnest. But in the meantime—and as usual—Hargraves, Reiss and I were out prowling, our weighted boots clomping along in darkness. Captain Feldman had long ago given up trying to keep his science-minded charges from galloping off alone like this. In spite of being a military ...
— Zen • Jerome Bixby
... talks as if in earnest," remarked the king, after a moment's reflection, "and though the request is, perhaps, the strangest to which I have ever listened, I really see no reason why I should not turn a fishly ear. But, have the goodness first to cease your bowing. You are stirring ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... than ten thousand men swarming, besides those who were perched upon the roofs of the houses and climbing on all the balconies to see the sedition; in short it was easy to hear the horrible cries of the Christians, who were terribly in earnest, and of those who surrounded the jail with the intention of setting the poor girl free, across the Loire, the other side of Saint Symphorien. The suffocation and squeezing of bodies was so great in this immense crowd, bloodthirsty for the poor creature ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... You held your face in your hands, and loudly sobbed: Marie, Marie! Ah, my dear Hofrath, our young friend has never done that, and yet you have sent him away.' As I thus talked with him, half in jest and half in earnest, as I always speak, I perceived that I had hurt the old man's feelings. He became perfectly silent, and blushed like a child. Then I took the volume of Wordsworth's poems which I had been reading, and said: 'Here is another old man whom I love, and ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... though nobody knew for certain, for the Captain of the ship had not yet opened his sealed orders. The transports crept slowly along the coast of the Isle of Wight, but it was not until evening that the business of crossing the Channel was begun in earnest. ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... two officers, engaged in earnest conversation. The little old man, with white hair, and thin, weather-beaten, wrinkled face, is Admiral Baron Wrangel, whose Arctic explorations on the northern coast of Siberia are known to all geographers. Having read of them as a boy, and then as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... an elder, is, that "he should be a prayerful man." Our brother had all through life cultivated a spirit of prayer. This "is the Christian's vital breath." It was his habit to shut himself up in his room, and pour out his soul in earnest supplication to God. He prayed in his family, as well as in the church. He had secret prayer. "And thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet?" said Jesus. Oh, the power of prayer is marvellous. He prayed audibly. And his wife used ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... and afterward. And Modal, sitting on the couch next to him, was bright-eyed and alert, thinking only of how much money and power would come to him as Chief of Industries once the rearmament program began in earnest. ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... is—flowing and unpremeditated without slovenliness—having the characteristics of the best conversation, as differentiated from mere argument or harangue. Its second quality is playfulness—a refusal to be too much in earnest in any direction, and a determination not to go to any unwelcome extreme. It has touches of sentiment and traces of wit and humour; but its dominant note is one of tempered geniality. Sometimes it may lean to the sentimental, sometimes to the witty, sometimes ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... one just as rich, but unsatisfied. So the advice of the war correspondent to seek out German spies came to Jimmie like a day at the circus, like a week at the Danbury Fair. It not only was a call to arms, to protect his flag and home, but a chance to play in earnest the game in which he most delighted. No longer need he pretend. No longer need he waste his energies in watching, unobserved, a greedy rabbit rob a carrot field. The game now was his fellow-man and his enemy; not only his enemy, but ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... childhood rarely wept, and endured pain without a groan. When a boy wrestled with him in earnest, and threw him, he was not "seen to whine or weep at the hurt." His sense of justice was early; for when his playmate the little Earl of Mar ill-treated one of his pages, Henry reproved his puerile friend: "I love you because you are my lord's ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Mike was in earnest, and so was the girl; that much I found out the next day. And she must of learned him enough Navajo to propose marriage with, and he must of learned her enough English to say "yes," for she took possession of our camp and begun to order ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... was in earnest; unfortunately he was not aware that the Prince was in earnest also. The crusader, who had sunk thirty thousand paynims at a blow, and who was dreaming of the Queen of Scotland and the throne of England, had not room in his mind to entertain the image of a patriot. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to find it," returned Mr. Dinneford, "and then do what Christian charity demands. I am in earnest so far, and will leave nothing undone, you may rest assured. The police have the mayor's instructions to find the baby and give it into my care, and I do not think we shall have long ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... tell whether she is in earnest or quizzing you. But she's ever so much prettier than Mary. Yes, on the whole I ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... 'good-morning' as usual, and yet not quite as usual. He felt that news of the raid had won abroad; that, although shy of speaking, they were studying his face for a sign. He kept it carefully cheerful; but came near to losing his temper when he reached Trengrove's shop to find Mr Garraway already there and in earnest conversation with ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... entertaining to her, nor could be serviceable to him. Though no one was ever more facetious than Mademoiselle de Saint Germain, she yet knew how to assume a very serious air, when ever occasion required it. The Chevalier de Grammont soon saw that she was in earnest; and finding it would cost him a great deal of time to effect a change in her sentiments, he was so far cooled in this pursuit, that he only made use of it to hide the designs he had ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... bless and glorify God in our union—a sacred union, that will leave us worthy and free—you will say, I am sure, that never purer hands could have been laid upon us. Forgive me, friend! all this is in earnest—yes, earnest as our love, earnest as our happiness. If my words seem to you strange, my thoughts unreasonable, tell it me, love! We will seek and find some better means, to reconcile that we owe to heaven, with what we owe to the world and to ourselves. It is said, that lovers are beside ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... not with rude, irreverent feet, I tread where sacred sorrows lie; But gently raise, in accents meet, My voice in earnest sympathy: In sympathy with one bereaved, Who mourns a loss which all deplore: Whose grief by Hope is unrelieved— For tears bring ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me down on the stable foundation of Leadenhall.... Henceforth I retract all my fond complaints of mercantile employments; look upon them as lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead timber of a desk that makes me live! a little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen; but in my inner heart do I improve and embrace this our close but unharassing way ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... and so no good or bad hereafter; or else they could not live as they do. But perhaps thou presumest upon it, and sayest, I shall have peace, though I live so sinful a life. Sinner, if this wicked thought be in thy heart, tell me again, dost thou thus think in earnest? Canst thou imagine thou shalt at the day of account out-face God, or make him believe thou wast what thou wast not? or that when the gate of mercy is shut up in wrath, he will at thy pleasure, and to the reversing of his own counsel, open it again to thee? Why ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... would not quadrate with the ideas of that party called the moderate in the Church of Scotland, whose views, I presume, Sir Walter had now adopted. Some, however, to whom I have mentioned Sir Walter's reply, have suggested that I had misunderstood his meaning, and that what he said was not in earnest, but in jocularity and good-humor. This may be true, and certainly is a candid interpretation. As to the ideal beings already mentioned as the subject of his inquiries, my materials were too scanty to afford ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Well, yes! I like the salmons, and I dote on the fun and the fuss. I say, Phoebe, can you bear the burden of a secret? Well—only mind, if you tell Robin or Honor, I shall certainly go; we never would have taken it up in earnest if such a rout had not been made about it, that we were driven to show we did not care, and could be trusted ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cheap and painless method of putting an end to an existence which has become insupportable, I would unhesitatingly adopt it! LUD. You would? (Aside.) I see a magnificent way out of this! By Jupiter, I'll try it! (Aloud.) Are you, by any chance, in earnest? RUD. In earnest? Why, look at me! LUD. If you are really in earnest—if you really desire to escape scot-free from this impending—this unspeakably horrible catastrophe—without trouble, danger, pain, or expense—why ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... to kiss his feet. The figure which is carried about this evening is called "Our Saviour of the Column," and represents the Saviour tied to a pillar, bleeding, and crowned with thorns. All this must sound very profane, but the people are so quiet, seem so devout, and so much in earnest, that it appears much less ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... his social position or hers; forgetting, too, for the time any of the wretched timidities that had tied him long since behind the counter in his proper place. He was angry and adventurous. It was all about him, this vivid drama he had fallen into, and it was eluding him. He was far too grimly in earnest to pick up that lost thread and make a play of it now. The man was living. He did not pose when he alighted at the coffee tavern even, nor when ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... to swap pulpits, Mark, it would draw. There are many ways—oh, I am quite in earnest, Ann. Don't put on one of your excommunicating looks. I remember once in Idaho at dusk, I had two guides. They were positive, each of them, that certain trails would lead to the top. I tossed up which to go with. It was pretty serious—Indians and so on—I'll tell you about it ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... however, until eight years later, after The Minister's Wooing had been published and Agnes of Sorrento was well begun, that she took up her old story in earnest and set about making it into a short serial. It would seem that her first intention was to confine herself to a sketch of the childhood of her chief characters, with a view to delineating the influences at work upon them; but, as she herself expressed it, "Out ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... outskirts of the town when they saw Brassy Bangs and a stranger ahead of them. The stranger was a tall, thin individual, dressed in an old-fashioned suit of rusty black and with a big slouch hat pulled well down over his head. He was puffing away at a large black cigar, and seemed to be very much in earnest in what he ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... follows: those who, in the first place, think for themselves, and those who think directly for others. The former thinkers are the genuine, they think for themselves in both senses of the word; they are the true philosophers; they alone are in earnest. Moreover, the enjoyment and happiness of their existence consist in thinking. The others are the sophists; they wish to seem, and seek their happiness in what they hope to get from other people; ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... as if loath to leave it. In the dusk of evening a boat put off from her, pulled to the shore, and Christian landed, alone, near the house of a chief who had become the special friend of Peter Heywood and Stewart. With the two midshipmen he spent some time in earnest conversation. ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... had set about his living in Keewatin in earnest, as though he had determined to stay there. Having attached himself to the Hudson Bay Company, he soon proved himself to be an expert trapper, and a man who, for his reckless courage, was to be valued. Promotion seemed certain for him and, despite the fact that ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... Commissioner, one of those public servants whose quiet, unobtrusive manner covers a strong character and a great efficiency, was sitting at his table talking to Harold Clancey. They were in earnest consultation. ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... "seize," and the young Kafir missionary thoroughly understood all the nicety of the idiom. There was another class for women and children, but it was a small one. Certainly, the young men seemed much in earnest, and the rapt expression of their faces was most striking, especially during the short prayer which followed the hymn and ended the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... these principles fairly before you, that afterwards you may be in a condition to judge whether every object of regulation, as I propose it, comes fairly under its rule. This will exceedingly shorten all discussion between us, if we are perfectly in earnest in establishing a system of good management. I therefore lay down to myself seven fundamental rules: they might, indeed, be reduced to two or three simple maxims; but they would be too general, and their application to the several heads of the business before us ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... him and saw that the promise was given in earnest. He wondered what the thing might be, and was ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... whose rare beauty touched him next, even during the reign of Madame de La Valliere. She soon perceived it, and vainly pressed her husband to carry her away into Guienne. With foolish confidence he refused to listen to her. She spoke to him more in earnest. In vain. At last the King was listened to, and carried her off from her husband, with that frightful hubbub which resounded with horror among all nations, and which gave to the world the new spectacle of two ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... in earnest. Let Scarlet Toboggan fire as fast and as furiously as she might, a merciless bombardment of her protecting walls had begun. The girl in the blue scarf—and priceless furs—had sunk laughing upon the floor of her refuge, while her new ally, bringing to ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... put away their books and their sewing to go down to dinner, a few uncertain feathery flakes were softly sifting down and late that night it began to snow in earnest, promising perfect coasting. ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... that this story is pure romance; but it is difficult, on the other hand, to believe that the incident has been related by Sterne exactly as it happened. That the recorded prediction may have been made in jest—or even in earnest (for penetrating teachers have these prophetic moments sometimes)—is, of course, possible; but that Sterne's master was "very much hurt" at the boy's having been justly punished for an act of wanton mischief, or that he recognized it as the natural privilege of nascent ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... was like any other game wherein full-blooded youths strive against one another for supremacy. They came to the point of making bets, at first extravagant and then growing more and more genuinely in earnest, for ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... she was aware of a stop in earnest, voices, and being called. There was her uncle saying, 'Well, Hal, here we are!' and she was lifted out and set on the platform, with gas all round. Her uncle was saying, 'We didn't get away in time for the express,' and a young ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... however obscure the words seemed, that Mrs. Winslow had a clear purpose in her mind, nor that she was tremendously in earnest. Little blotches of red dabbled her cheeks, her breath came more quickly, and she swallowed between her words. Lorania could see the quiver in the muscles of her throat. She clasped her hands tight lest they should shake. "He's in love with Sibyl," ...
— Different Girls • Various
... fever which caused the blood of every man to flow more swiftly through his veins. He had been full of doubts; he trembled for the results if that river were once passed. He had been through the North and noted her resources, how terribly in earnest her people were that the Union should be saved. What if there were thousands of traitors in their midst? There were enough loyal men left to crush them. What if the state of Indiana was honeycombed with camps of the Knights ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... me"—there was a new thrill in her voice—"that here is our opportunity! Either Jaimihr wants to frighten us away or he is in earnest with his impudent attentions to me. In either case let us make no attempt to go away. Let us refuse to go away. Let us stay here at all costs. If he wishes us to go away, then he must have a reason and will show it, or else try to force us. If he is really trying to make love to ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... such a funny thing to ask, and she looked so terribly in earnest over it, that I was simply ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was desperately in earnest, and that which made him a good sportsman—an unmatched big-game hunter, calm and self-possessed in any strait—gave him a strange deliberation now, which Millicent Chyne could not understand. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... in this fast age, second by second, we gain upon old Father Time. Even since this was written more than another second has been knocked off. America leads the world in trotters, and will probable do so in running horses as well, when we begin to develop them in earnest. Our soft roads are favorable for speed; the English roads would ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... in earnest, the porter went to the proprietor's room, and soon returned with him to the hall ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... expressed, in a few words, the purpose each one of us should attach to his contribution of a stone towards the monument to be erected there. He exhorted the burghers not to add a stone to the pile unless they fully understood and were in earnest about its meaning. So the old covenant was renewed in a different place under different circumstances and in a different manner from the Paardekraal Day of former years, and when the burghers descended from the kopje they were strengthened by the ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... haunt"; and in 1547 the Bishop of Winchester made complaint that at a time when he intended to have a dirge and mass for the late King, the actors in Southwark planned to exhibit "a solemn play, to try who shall have the most resort, they in game or I in earnest."[196] The players, therefore, were no strangers to "the Bank." And when later in the century the hostility of the Common Council drove them to seek homes in localities not under the jurisdiction of the city, the suburb across the river offered them a suitable ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... promise was one of the few things she and her brother Rags had never broken. Raygan wouldn't release her, even if she begged him to do so, but there might be another way—a way which might lead Petro straight to the Lady in the Moon, if he were really in earnest about finding her. That was the clever part of the inspiration which suddenly came to Eileen that same night after starting up from a dream which ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... is enough!" cried the senior priest to the assembly which had begun to fight in earnest. "Thou, Isis, mayest return to the city, but the rest of us must go to other departed ones who are waiting for our services. We must not neglect the ordinary dead, for it is unknown how much they will pay ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... kept waiting—I think it's most good of you to come—" she began, and then stopped sharp when she saw his face in the gaslight. There was something in Dr. Silence's look that did not encourage mere talk. He was in earnest now, if ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... shore by these women, to assure the natives that their chief would be brought back by him to Canada at the end of ten or twelve months: They seemed much pleased at this intelligence, and promised when he brought back Donnacona that they would give him many valuable presents, in earnest of which each of the women gave him a chain of esurgney. Next day, being Saturday the 6th of May 1536, we set sail from the harbour of St Croix, and came to anchor at night in another harbour about twelve leagues ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... think one can't be in earnest without being serious?" Lydia suffered one of those silences to ensue in which Staniford had already found himself helpless. He knew that he should be forced to break it: and he said, with a little spiteful mocking, "I suppose the young men ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... Prior was not quite in earnest. He wanted to try the strength of his pupil's resolve. But when Dino said, "I will not leave you, I will tend the vines and the goats at your door, but I will never go away," the priest felt a revival ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... for the King, of course; so Franklin proposed that the King should appoint a president who should have the right to veto the acts of the Grand Council. This was the "Albany Plan." Franklin was much in earnest about the matter, and had a cut made for the Pennsylvania Gazette picturing a rather unpleasant device, a snake sliced uncomfortably into ten parts, the head marked "NE," for New England, and each of the other pieces with the initials of some one of the ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... anuther reason why he met to rejoyce to-nite. It showed that A. Johnson meant bizness; that A. Johnson wuz troo to the Dimokrasy, and that he hed fully made up his mind to hurl the bolts uv offishl thunder wich he held in his Presidenshal hands at his enemies, and to make fight in earnest; that he wuz goin to reward his friends—them ez he cood trust. Our venerable friend's bein put in condishun to pay the confidin residents uv the Corners the little sums he owes them is a good thing ("Hear!" "Hear!" ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... been a little more in earnest than Amelia had represented him, and was not, perhaps, quite so much in the wrong as he was considered by Mrs. Ellison, yet, seeing there were two to one against him, he wisely thought proper to recede, and let his simile go off ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... leaned back, her beautiful pale face gazing up at him. He was a good-looking fellow—tall, and strong, and brown; a pang of jealousy seized me as I looked at him. He was talking low and fast, as the English do when they are in earnest. ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for all that had kept him from conquering England long ago was the fear lest, after it was done, he might have had to put the crown thereof on Mary's head, instead of his own. But Mary's death was as convenient a stalking-horse to him as to the pope; and now the Armada was coming in earnest. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... is not the view of students in our own day, coolly looking at the affair from the distance of a hundred and twenty years. There now seems no room to doubt that Dunmore was thoroughly in earnest, that he prosecuted the war with vigor, and knew when to stop in order to secure the best possible terms. Our author wrote at a time when many heroes of Point Pleasant were still alive, and his neighbors; he reflected their views, and the passions ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... after all, the unwise of this world are wont to make about one stranded gambling-house, in a remote corner of Liguria! If they were in earnest or sincere, how small a matter they would think it! Of course, when I say so, hypocrisy holds up its hands in holy horror. But that is the way with the purveyors of mint, cumin, and anise; they raise a mighty hubbub over some unimportant detail—in order to ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... early and positive proof that she was in earnest on the question of non-importation. One John Brown, a merchant of Norfolk, broke the rules of the colony by purchasing imported slaves, and was severely rebuked ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... the merchant, "we are all quite in earnest with you, and I most heartily rejoice in the news that these gentlemen have brought you; for the captain has sold your cat to the King of Barbary, and brought you in return for her more riches than I possess in the whole world; and I wish ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... speechless astonishment. Was he ironically expressing his contempt for old families? We got into the smoking-room at last; and my friend the doctor enlightened me privately in a corner. Every word Mr. Farnaby had said had been spoken in earnest. This man, who owes his rise from the lowest social position entirely to himself—who, judging by his own experience, has every reason to despise the poor pride of ancestry—actually feels a sincerely servile admiration for the accident of birth! "Oh, poor human nature!" ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... year 1913 Eugenics was turned from a fad to a fashion. Then, if I may so summarise the situation, the joke began in earnest. The organising mind which we have seen considering the problem of slum population, the popular material and the possibility of protests, felt that the time had come to open the campaign. Eugenics began to appear in big headlines in the daily Press, and big pictures in the illustrated papers. ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... date is even more characteristic. The Cavours went every year to Switzerland to stay with their connections, the De Sellons and the De la Rives. On this occasion, when the travellers reached M. de la Rive's villa at Presinge, Camille, looking terribly in earnest, and with an air of importance, made the more comical by the little red costume he was wearing, went straight to his host with the announcement that the postmaster had treated them abominably by giving them the worst horses, and that he ought to be dismissed. "But," ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... frightened boy who stood half an hour later in the prisoner's dock. "Give me some book on the Government of the United States," he exclaimed to the judge. "And give me a week in which to show that I am in earnest, and I will then volunteer." The judge was very grave. "Young man," he said sternly, "any boy that will eat the bread of the United States, that will enjoy the liberty of this country, and has had all the chances to climb to place that have come to you, and refuses ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... he said. "If you are in earnest about using those old blue dishes, this has got to be a big, healthy table. A little one will appear top heavy with them. It would be a good idea to set out what you want to use, arranged as you would like them, and let me take ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... seas." Throughout the discussion, the shrewdness of the Americans enabled them to meet the arguments of the British at every point; but not until the charge was made, that the "Constitution" was chiefly manned by British sailors, did the people become thoroughly in earnest in ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... for he was deeply and solemnly in earnest, there was a new birth in his soul—the birth of a new life of spiritual forces in which God could be so present with him as to give him power to conquer when evil assailed him. It was not a life of his own, but a new life from God—not a self-acting life by which he was to be taken over ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me; but would be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in." You may remember I thought her in earnest, and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to be for ever fifteen.' 'Fifteen!' replied my good friend. 'Ah! you little understand—you, that have lived a bachelor—how great, how exquisite a pleasure ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the declaration I made her; but, as it has been said of a certain orator in the House of Commons, who more than once, in a long speech, convinced himself as he went along, and concluded against the side he set out intending to favour, so I in earnest pressed without reserve for matrimony in the progress of my harangue, which state I little thought of urging upon her with so ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson |
