"Sobering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brought matters to a sobering climax.* When it was settled, resentment lingered, but the tension was never again so acute. Both Great Britain and in Canada the normal sympathy with the cause of the Union revived as the war went on. In England the classes continued to be pro-Southern in sympathy, but the ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... Through her sobering maturer years she had passed from one set of hands to another, until finally, in her declining days, she found asylum in the affectionate ownership of Judge Priest, with Jeff to curry her fat sides and no more arduous labor to perform than occasionally to draw the Judge about from place ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... interruption by a vision of the extreme disquietude produced upon Stephen by her unfortunate acquaintanceship with Mr. Anderson. And yet she had been profoundly sincere with herself. Never had she conveyed the impression to any man that she had given him a second sobering thought. Her home constituted for her a chief delight, her home, her devoted mother, her fond father. Peggy had been her sole companion previous to her marriage with the Governor; and whatever men she had met with were they who composed the ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... much of an Irishman to miss seeing the humour of any situation. "I can't help it, Maclennan. I'll bet you a box of cigars that man Bailey is an Irishman. He must be a whirlwind. But it's no laughing matter," continued the General Manager, sobering up. "This has a very serious aspect. There are a whole lot of men sick in our camps. You contractors don't pay ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... send it, whatever shall we do?" cried Sylvia, who had to be told, if only for the sake of sobering her and making her more keenly alive to the responsibilities of ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... her anxiously, but made no attempt to force her confidence, and let her talk to him of books, school discipline, parish stories, and abstruse questions as much as she pleased, always replying in a practical, sobering tone, that told upon her, and soothed her almost like Violet's mild influence, and to her great delight, she made him quite believe in Violet's goodness, and wish to be ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... half-men? Away with the black man's ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race! Nevertheless, out of the evil came something of good,—the more careful adjustment of education to real life, the clearer perception of the Negroes' social responsibilities, and the sobering realization of ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... well-kept side-street. As the cab swung in sight of the house Wharton, seeing a gray-clad figure near by, drove past without pausing and turned south on Madison Avenue. He made a complete circuit of the block, meditating with sobering effect upon the risk he was running. His heart was pounding violently when the street unrolled before him for a second time. At the farther corner, dimly discernible beneath the radiance of a street-light, he made out the watchman, now at the end of his patrol. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... Judge," said he. "See what a heap of money I've got from this case. Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never had so much money in my life before, put it all together." Then, crossing his arms upon the table, his manner sobering down, he added: "I have got just five hundred dollars; if it were only seven hundred and fifty, I would go directly and purchase a quarter section of land, and settle it upon my ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... who had suddenly become aware that she was again dressed in the tailored suit which had so caught his fancy earlier in the day. His dismay became evident to Kate, the onlooker. Helen, too, noted the effect in his sobering eyes, and ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... rage: he would have killed de Marmont but for the Comte's timely words, which luckily had the effect of sobering him at this critical moment. He relaxed his convulsive grip on de Marmont's throat, but the latter had already lost his balance; he fell heavily, his body sliding along the slippery floor, while his head struck against the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... demolish her certainty of an approaching millennium struck chill upon her. She went back to her own table, and putting on her spectacles with a curious expression of quiet humility, addressed herself for the first time that morning to the task before her. The shock with an unsympathetic world had a sobering effect on her. For once, her industry surpassed her daughter's. Katharine could not reduce the world to that particular perspective in which Harriet Martineau, for instance, was a figure of solid importance, and possessed of a genuine ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... whom we may say everything without a fear of its harming them. He felt quite sure that, say what he would, Mary would always be hopeful and courageous; and he felt some secret idea that his own gloomy forebodings were of service in restricting and sobering what seemed to him her too sanguine nature. He blindly reverenced, without ability fully to comprehend, her exalted religious fervor and the quietude of soul that it brought. But he did not know through how many silent conflicts, how many prayers, how many ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... born in 1730, was very near the end of his career—he died next year—when he wrote these letters, and that the peace proposals which he deprecated, and which he did not a little to avert, were dictated on the one side by the sobering down of the first Revolutionary fervour under the Directory; on the other by the persistent ill-success of the Allies, and the conflicts of interest and principle ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... Madam Conway waited for her carriage, which was not forthcoming, and upon inquiry George Douglas learned that, having counted upon another day in the city, Mike was now going through with a series of plunge-baths, by way of sobering himself ere appearing before his mistress. This, however, George kept from Madam Conway, not wishing to alarm her; and when after a time Mike appeared, sitting bolt upright upon the box, with the lines grasped firmly in his hands, she did not ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... it will," said Lulu, sobering down a good deal; "and Max's will be next. But I do mean to try ever so hard ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... Unless—" (suddenly sobering down), "unless I forgot to put my other letter into the envelope, and only sent you the rat-poison one! I was in such a hurry! Oh, good-night! Isn't it just like me! Poor old Everard, I never meant to give you such a scare! I'm ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... sobering episode in his life occurred when the Goebel murder echoed out of Louisville. He reported this historic assassination and covered the subsequent trials in the Georgetown court house. Doubtless the seeds of tragedy, ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... sometimes seen in grotesque Gothic heads of that age of art in which the ecclesiastical architect began to make sport of his religion. The next object that presented itself was, however, of a more sobering description. A poor working man, laden with his favourite piece of furniture, a glass-fronted press or cupboard, which he had succeeded in rescuing from his burning dwelling, was emerging from one of the lanes, followed by his wife, when, striking his ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... the giant rubbed his hands together and softly chuckled; but sobering, he said that he could never hope to equal her in thought and quickness of expression, though by reading he would make an effort ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... she really knew it. "He doesn't even hate me," she thought, bleakly. For sheer understanding of suffering she grew a little gentler to Blair; but her sympathy, although it gave him moments of hope, did not reach the point of helping him to decide what to do about the will. So, veering between the sobering reflection that litigation was probably useless, and the esthetically repulsive idea of using his mother's confession of regret to fight her, he reached no decision. Meantime, "investment" slipped easily into speculation,—speculation ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... they say, and the saying can be interpreted in many ways. "Masters always will be masters" is a more sobering reflection. The reputation of schoolmasters for sweet reasonableness has never stood, perhaps, particularly high. Even supposing that, with a staff of angels, such a scheme of teaching as that sketched in the preceding chapter were desirable, will not the ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... mutinous brutes fight it out among themselves," I muttered disgustedly as I turned and walked away. "They will get a sobering-up before very long that will astonish them, or I ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... of Kensett, with brown shadows and artificial high-lights, but study of nature soon cured these mannerisms, and he grew steadily in skill and power, until he succeeded in imparting to his pictures the deep, grave and sobering sentiment, which is the keynote of his work. His coast views, with their swirl and almost audible thunder of billow, ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... I can help it; only you do look so like a fat, speckled frog, I may not be able to hold in. I'll pull you out pretty soon; but first I'm going to talk to you, Sam," said Ben, sobering down as he took a seat on the little point of ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... march eastward into Central Asia, just as France was solidifying her first gains on the littoral of northern Africa. In England the fierce fervor of the Chartist movement, with its violent rhetoric as to the rights of man, was sobering down and passing pervasively into numerous practical schemes for social and political amelioration, constituting in their entirety a most profound change throughout every part of ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... when the post brought no reply to her letter to Marion. To say that she was dreading her friend's answer would be over-stating the case, for the girl's present frame of mind was far too exalted, too ecstatic, to admit of anything so sobering as dread; but she could not help knowing that Marion would entirely fail to understand her actions or the motives which prompted them, and would be mystified and unhappy ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... songs, and chat with the village women about household hygiene and how to keep out of debt. One of our Sunday Schools is in this village, too, so by this time the students are welcome visitors, and whether they do much good or not, they learn a great deal of sobering truth. Of course, only a few can go at a time, but others find some scope in the other Sunday Schools and in the little Day School which Miss Brockway instituted for the children of our servants. This last means real self-denial, as the work must be done every day. Still, it remains one of ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... a tremor in his voice, a veil seemed to fall upon his youth, arresting its carelessness, sobering ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the veil, Nor, though we hold the sacred dances good, Shall the holy Virgins maenadize: ruled lips Befit a votaress Muse. Thence with no mutable, nor no gelid love, I keep, O Earth, thy worship, Though life slow, and the sobering Genius change To a lamp his gusty torch. What though no more Athwart its roseal glow Thy face look forth triumphal? Thou put'st on Strange sanctities of pathos; like this knoll Made derelict of day, Couchant and shadow-ed Under dim Vesper's ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... insincere creature like that trifling with her deity, and being permitted to trifle, was more than she could endure. But Victor, dropping listlessly to his chair and reaching for his pencil, was somehow a check upon her impetuousness. She paused long enough to think the sobering second thought. To speak would be both an impertinence and a folly. She owed it to the cause and to her friend Victor to speak; but to speak at the wrong time and in the wrong way would ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... don't beat her, don't fight," faltered Yefrem, on whom this unexpected adventure began to have a sobering effect. ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... isn't much, honestly—compared to what there is to do," argued Billy. "You see, dear, it's just this," she went on, her bright face sobering a little. "There are such a lot of people in the world who aren't really poor. That is, they have bread, and probably meat, to eat, and enough clothes to keep them warm. But when you've said that, you've said it all. Books, music, fun, and frosting ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... meantime what is being done for the young men who are expected to share in the high society of the future? Will not the young women by-and-by find themselves in a lonesome place, cultivated away beyond their natural comrades? Where will they spend their evenings? This sobering thought suggests a duty that the young women are neglecting. We refer to the education of the young men. It is all very well for them to form clubs for their own advancement, and they ought not to incur the charge ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... cry and fall. In fact, one scene shifter insisted that Shirley, as the Black Terror, had reached Werner's side and had struck him before the cry, while an extra girl with a faint lisp described with sobering accuracy the flight of a mysterious missile through the air. I realized then why Kennedy had made no effort to question them. Under the excitement of the scene, the glamour of the lights, the sense of illusion, and the stifling heat, ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... Rayder was stretched upon the lounge in the little back office, dead to the world. Amos sat by the window sobering up until the grey of the morning. The sleeping man roused, and Amos gave him another half goblet of whisky followed by a sip of water. He had drawn the blinds and left the coal-oil lamp burning when it grew light, lest the sleeping man should ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... one; unquestionably so; a fine and flourishing city, with a population of twenty-five thousand, and belted with busy factories of nearly every imaginable description. It was a very sober city, too—for the moment—for a most sobering bill was pending; a bill to forbid the manufacture, exportation, importation, purchase, sale, borrowing, lending, stealing, drinking, smelling, or possession, by conquest, inheritance, intent, accident, or otherwise, in the State of Iowa, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Christminster, having fortunately been left untouched. To get to Marygreen, therefore, his only course was walking; and the distance being nearly twenty miles, he had ample time to complete on the way the sobering ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... to remain on deck the whole night through. And when at length, at the expiration of the morning watch, he again went below, hoping to find that the man had at all events so far slept off the effects of his over-night debauch as to be capable of coming on deck and sobering himself by taking a douche under the head pump, he discovered, to his intense disgust, that this glib maker of promises had somehow obtained a further supply of rum during the night, and was at that moment in a more helpless state than ever! ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... neighbors, and I was proportionately gratified when the doors of "Mon Repos," as the signorina called her residence, were opened to me. My curiosity, I must confess, was not unmixed with other feelings; for I was a young man at heart, though events had thrown sobering responsibilities upon me, and the sight of the signorina in her daily drives was enough to inspire a thrill even in the soul of a bank manager. She was certainly very beautiful—a tall, fair girl, with ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... everything before it. Also the lingering impression left from "Tractarian" days as to the intellectual pre-eminence of the Catholicizing party in the Anglican Church, which pre-eminence might make amends for their numerical insignificance, is gradually giving way to the recognition of the sobering fact that at present that party in no exclusive sense represents the cultivated intellect of the country. It is no disrespect to that party to say that while scholarship and intelligence are therein well represented ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... her friend's happiness, and was never tired of hearing about Mr. Jardine's virtues. Love had already begun to exercise a sobering influence upon Bessie. She no longer romped with the boys, and she wore gloves. She had become very studious of her appearance, but all those little coquettish arts of the toilet which she had learned last autumn at Bournemouth, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... unseen hand in the dark, that fell a man? O friend! when one thinks of the miseries and the misfortunes, the sorrows and the losses, the broken and bleeding hearts that began life buoyant, elastic, hopeful, perhaps boasting, like you, there ought to be a sobering tint ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... widening and sobering a little as he discovered that this man was not so easily put off with laughing evasion. He wondered if Ross had read the papers that morning, and if he, like the tall man at the postoffice, was mentally fitting him into the description of the auto bandit that was being trailed. Instinctively ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... party to accompany them to the Porte St. Martin, where Mrs. Bingham and her daughter had engaged a box. Amid all the confusion which troubled thoughts and wine produced in me, I could not help perceiving a studied politeness and attention on the part of Mr. Edward Bingham towards me; and my first sobering reflection came, on finding that a place was reserved for me beside Miss Bingham, into which, by some contrivance I can in no wise explain, I found myself almost immediately installed. To all the excitements of champagne and punch, let the attractions of a French ballet be added, and, with a ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... scowling as if he were inclined to repeat the assault, though he was not then aware of the more strenuous method adopted by the rock as a sobering agent. "I didn't know you was there. But 'e fair gev' me a turn, 'e did, singin' 'is pot-'ouse crambos w'en we was in the very jors of ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... charm of the 'Song' lies in its vivid pictures of the epochs, pursuits and occurrences which constitute the joy and the woe of life for an ordinary industrious burgher. Childhood and youth; the passion of the lover, sobering into the steadfast love of the husband; the busy toil of the married pair in field and household; the delight of accumulation and possession; the calamity of fire that destroys the labor of years; the blessedness of ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... others. Later on I approached him while he was chief of the government on a delicate matter of international combined with national politics, on which I had been requested to sound him by a friendly government, and I found him, despite his developed and sobering sense of responsibility, whimsical, impulsive, and credulous as before. When I next talked with him he was the rebellious editor of L'Homme Enchaine, whose corrosive strictures upon the government of the day were the terror of Ministers and censors. Soon afterward he ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... suddenly finding herself up against the logical outcome of her desires had sobered her; and, faced with the prospect of an immediate flight involving the abdication of her assured social position and the surrender of a home, she was able to visualise the consequences of her actions. The most sobering reflection was the thought that by so doing she would be casting herself to the female wolves of her world—and she knew the extent of their mercy. There were others of her acquaintance besides Mrs. Trevor who would howl loud with triumph ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... amused smile. "'I thank the gods for a saving sense of humor,'" she quoted. Her face instantly sobering she said: "We ought to see Aunt Rose at once about this newspaper affair. Perhaps the three of us ought to go up to her house before dinner. We shall ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... daughter responded "Knock him on the head!" Nana read all of the reports of accidents in the newspapers, and made reflections that were unnatural for a girl. Her father had such good luck an omnibus had knocked him down without even sobering him. Would the beggar ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... the occasion, blows were inflicted, and two of the combatants struggling together fell overboard,—when, locked in a deadly embrace, they sank before their companions could rescue them. Their fate for a time had the effect of sobering the rest; and the doctor, in the hope of keeping them at peace, advised that the two boatswains should together serve out the beef, and see that their countrymen had ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... consented to negotiate on this basis. In October 1907 an agreement was attained, thanks chiefly to the sobering of Hungarian opinion by a severe economic crisis, which brought out with unusual clearness the fact that separation from Austria would involve a period of distress if not of commercial ruin for Hungary. Austria also came to see that separation from Hungary would ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... spirit of invention manifest itself in the Protestant Church! For who would think it! The numbers on this board are those of the Psalms for the day, which are generally chalked on a common black tablet, and have a very sobering effect on an esthetic mind, but which, in the form above described, even ornament the church and fully make up for the want of pictures by Raphael. Such progress delights me infinitely, since I, as a Protestant and a Lutheran, am ever deeply chagrined when Catholic opponents ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... too busy with big game at Oxford to have that trouble about such quarry as I," the young man said lightly, "and the Gainer is not likely to stir far from Edmund while land is being distributed." Then, sobering, he gave the other a grave glance over his shoulder. "Even though the errand for danger could not be accomplished, how could I do less than undertake it? Did not the boy go through some risk for me when he betrayed his own countryman to get me out of a hard place? Had they guessed his ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... you'll find her quite a different proposition when she wakes up? A plunge like that is a sobering sort of experience, I should say, for a girl who can't swim. She may be the meekest thing on earth after this. If it does her as much good as a lively dressing down did George Jarvis, she's likely to ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... so large a brood must have been a sobering thing for any little girl, but Grisell shouldered her responsibilities with a happy heart, and united with that happy, child-like heart the wisdom and discretion of a woman. She was only twelve when she was chosen as messenger from her father to his friend Mr. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Hamilton dryly; "the sobering influence of your name seems to be almost as potent ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... a while things quieted down. They had to. The police left after sobering up long enough to give me a serious warning against letting such a thing happen again. Mr. Miller, who had come home to see what all the excitement was, went back to work and Mrs. Miller went back to the house and the reporter and photographer drifted ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... to realize in the present day, when we contemplate these events through the sobering light of the deplorable sequel, how immense and wide-spreading was the enthusiasm that at this particular juncture seemed to put the fervent soul of a George Sand or an Armand Barbes into the most lukewarm and timid. "More than one," writes Madame d'Agoult, "who for the last ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... was agreeably surprised to find the sobering effect which her rebuke seemed to have upon her husband's native tenants. She knew her influence over them, especially over the old native families, but in all her dealings and close association with them she could not remember an impromptu speech of hers that produced such immediate ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... Golden River had hardly made his extraordinary exit before Hans and Schwartz came roaring into the house, very savagely drunk. The discovery of the total loss of their last piece of plate had the effect of sobering them just enough to enable them to stand over Gluck, beating him very steadily for a quarter of an hour; at the expiration of which period they dropped into a couple of chairs, and requested to know what he had got to say for himself. Gluck told them his story, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... relation. Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed!—wealth to the heart!—a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, bright, vivid, and exhilarating;—not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now clapped my hands in sudden joy—my pulse bounded, my ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... arm and started down the aisle of the council room. Behind him, he heard Bork's chuckle and the soft laughter of Sather Karf. But their faces were sobering by the time he reached the doorway and ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... letting might not prove salutary. Dominic Iglesias was among these. His recent observations upon and excursions into the world of fashion, stray words let drop by Poppy St. John on the one hand, and by unhappy de Courcy Smyth on the other, had begotten in him the suspicion that the sobering and sorrowful influences of war might be healthful for the body politic, just as a surgical operation may be healthful for the individual body. Next to the Jew, the Dutchman is the most stubbornly tenacious of human creatures. He is a fighting man into the bargain. Iglesias could ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... the sobering effect of pending domestic troubles. Is it that the sitting hen is responsible for the great part of the gaiety and impulsiveness, as well as for the quibbles and brawls that often disturb the happy family? Whatever the cause, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... very setting of the tremendous scene—all its monstrous and gigantic accessories—left an impression ineradicable upon the soul. Adolescence matured to manhood in those days of iron; youthful ignorance became stern experience, sobering with its enduring leaven the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... had never looked on matters in that light. Great advantage having a man like HANKEY going round prepared at moment's notice to take common-sense view of situation and depict it in terse language. Sobering effect on ATKINSON only momentary. Whilst SPEAKER was narrating circumstances on which he had based charge against him of frivolous and vexatious conduct, Member for Boston was bouncing about on seat like parched pea, shouting out, "Oh! oh!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... go into details here, but it proved to be excessively inconvenient for me. She has lost the silly playfulness which was rather a mark of her character during the period of our engagement, and if this is due to the sobering effects of association with a steady and thoughtful character, I am not displeased. She herself says it's the work, but the women do not always know. Possibly, too, her temper is more easily ruffled now than then when I point out things to her. I should ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... own particular text from above her bed to above Betty's, feeling very old and sedate the while, for it must be owned conscious virtue has a sobering effect. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... the father had warned him. He was of age; parental authority could no longer be exerted for his protection. He had his way, and as long as his money lasted he found plenty of associates willing to help him spend it; the "boys" had what the wicked call "a good time." Then came the sobering up, the repentance, the humility, the return, the father's welcome, the very natural complaint of the other son and the parental rebuke—all so lifelike and all designed to give emphasis to the love ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... happenings in which she had had her part, or from the exhilaration of that mad ride, she could not tell. No doubt it sprang from both, owing a part to each. She controlled herself, however. A shy, upward glance at the stern, set face of the man whose arm encircled and held her fast had a curiously sobering effect upon her. Their eyes met, and he smiled a friendly, reassuring smile, such as a father might have ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... sobering at once, but laughter still in his eyes. "Will you be kind enough to tell me then, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... camel, saw only her face, radiant, animated, and glowing with excitement, and her arms and shoulders, whose mobile, expressive gestures made her always the outstanding figure in any group. He was fascinated and his fascination exercised a sobering effect on him. With a growing clarity the events of the day came back—rage rose within him, and with a half-formed intention of taking her away from the crowd he started toward her—or rather he elongated slightly, for he had neglected to issue the ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... he is giving to others. That is, his pleasure is twofold. The teacher who is deprived of some response of joy in the work he is doing is a workman deprived of his rights. To those girls who are thinking of becoming teachers this should be a sobering thought. ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... business! And the way she laughed when they were looking for a house. By Jove! that laugh of hers! At the memory he grinned, then grew suddenly grave. Marriage certainly changed a woman far more than it did a man. Talk about sobering down. She had lost all her go in two months! Well, once this boy business was over she'd get stronger. He began to plan a little trip for them. He'd take her away and they'd loaf about together somewhere. After all, dash it, they were young still. She'd got into ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... aisle was thick with people, but by no means uncomfortably crowded; altogether that assembly must have numbered many thousands. They were brilliantly, even fantastically dressed, the men as fancifully as the women, for the sobering influence of the Puritan conception of dignity upon masculine dress had long since passed away. The hair of the men, too, though it was rarely worn long, was commonly curled in a manner that suggested the barber, ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... me into a saloon, where I began to drink recklessly, and knew nothing more for two or three days. Then I awoke, I knew not where. Some of my friends found me and sent me home. I now suffered more mental torture than I experienced on sobering up from any other spree I was ever on. I believed firmly that I was saved; that my appetite for liquor was forever gone. I felt now that there was no hope for me. Oh, the despairing days and long black nights of agony ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... slowly, and was so very quiet and well-behaved all the time that Tommy hoped he was sobering down. They had gone a little way from the shop when he found that the clown ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... anything worse than wax somewhat over-confident and self-opiniated; and a year or so before his father's death he became associated with Felix O'Beirne in the management of an illicit still off away in the bog, which gave him an object in life, and had a sobering and ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... direction of the headquarters of his army. The Crown Prince, who characteristically sat on the front seat next to the chauffeur, looked as boyish and immature as his former pictures—his military cap cocked slightly on one side. The responsibility of leading an army had apparently not had a sobering effect on the Crown Prince as yet, but I was told that the guiding brain and genius in the Crown Prince's army headquarters was not that of the Crown Prince, but of his chief adviser, Gen. von Haeseler, the brilliant cavalry leader of the war of 1870 ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... slow accumulations of centuries. He will have a sense of the continuous efforts and energies that have gone into the making of contemporary civilization. He will have, in suggesting ruthless innovations, a sobering sense of the gradual evolution that has made present institutions, habits, ideas, what ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... mistaken," he said at last, sobering. "You are the same lad the train hands put off the Atlantic Express at Vernon ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... that he should not have known her again!" These were words which could not but dwell with her. Yet she soon began to rejoice that she had heard them. They were of sobering tendency; they allayed agitation; they composed, and consequently must ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... intended victim. And as they came in, no longer furiously determined upon a man's life, but laughing and joking over the events of their blind journey in the darkness, Beasley saw that they were rapidly sobering. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... pace! 'I am sorry to say,' replied the man with the burden on his back, 'that I cannot go so fast as I would.' 'Christian,' says Mr. Kerr Bain, 'has more to carry than Pliable has, as, indeed, he would still have if he were carrying nothing but himself; and he does have about him, besides, a few sobering thoughts as to the length and labour and some of the unforeseen chances of the way.' And as Dean Paget says in his profound and powerful sermon on 'The Disasters of Shallowness': 'Yes, but there is ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... must be borne in mind. War has a sobering effect even among the most reckless. A man is face to face with eternal things, and though after a little while the influence of this to some extent passes off, and either an unhealthy excitement or an equally unhealthy callousness ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... revolver was produced and pointed at Doc. Wild's head. The sight of the weapon had a sobering effect upon the doctor. He rose, looked at Peter critically for a moment, knocked the weapon out of his hand, and said slowly ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... right!" said Tantillion, sobering and wiping his own eyes. "To put their heads into such hornets' nests would make a lot of them behave more decent." And then he picked up the letter again and made brotherly ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... see," replied Morton, sobering down a little, "I counted on your doing the crooked thing ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... her by my side and do something great, something worthy of her—this is such a purpose in life as I need! With her, only with her I know I could achieve it; without her, or with that gilded toy Katharina, old age will bring me nothing but satiety, sobering and regrets—or, to call it by its Christian designation: bitter repentance. As Antaeus renewed his strength by contact with mother earth, so, father do I feel myself grow taller when I only think ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... you were to have it cut," said Jack, sobering. "But it might look worse, Rosemary, honestly it might. I think it is rather becoming with those ends ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... have been too kind to me," Lecour cried, in a voice of agony, his eyes running tears; and grasping the hand of the Adjutant, he wrung it affectionately, and could speak no further. Sobering himself and turning quickly, he made his exit. Many curious eyes furtively followed him and guessed the secret as he ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... surprised, but applauded the apparent desire for solitary study. His mother was violently surprised, and tried hard to get at his true reasons. She saw with the piercing eye of a relation—that eye from which hardly anything can ever be hidden—that something had happened and that the something was sobering and unpleasant. She could not imagine what it was, for she did not know he had been to Creeper Cottage the night before and all the afternoon and at dinner he had talked and behaved as usual. Now he did not talk at all, and his behaviour was limited ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... first time Jane Withersteen felt Venters's real spirit. She wondered if she would love this splendid youth. Then her emotion cooled to the sobering sense of ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... expression, a cheery voice, a hearty laugh, and a cordial way with him which some thought too lively for his cloth, but which children, who are good judges of such matters, delighted in, so that he was the favorite of all the little rogues about town. But he had the clerical art of sobering down in a moment, when asked to say grace while somebody was in the middle of some particularly funny story; and though his voice was so cheery in common talk, in the pulpit, like almost all preachers, he had a wholly different and ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... months ago, and I saw then enough of the way things went here to know that he lives at the beck and call of every man, woman, and child in this district—and they call him, too. He'd just finished sobering up a drunkard that night, or scant attention I'd have had. Well, I'll walk down to the hotel and send back Rogers and the car. Be ready ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... straw hat, and on the table, a music-roll unfurled, an ink-stand, and sheets of ruled paper. Behind him stood a wardrobe faced with a mirror, but somehow he did not care to see his own face just then. He was sobering. ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... a man so packed with healthy-mindedness as never to have experienced in his own person any of these sobering intervals, still, if he is a reflecting being, he must generalize and class his own lot with that of others; and, doing so, he must see that his escape is just a lucky chance and no essential difference. He might just as well ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... to arrive upon the ground—an open space on the borders of Sedgemoor, in the shelter of Polden Hill. But they had not long to wait before Wilding and Trenchard rode up, attended by a groom. Their arrival had an oddly sobering effect upon young Westmacott, for which Mr. Vallancey was thankful. For during their ride he had begun to fear that he had carried too far the business of equipping his ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... mind than when he had left his father. He hoped that the visions of his dream which had intensified his old desires and his pangs of conscience concerning them would retreat before the fresh morning air and the sobering effect of a cold water rub. But this did not happen; they stayed with him and would not let go of him, not even during his work. The breath of her warm lips lingered on his cheek, he felt himself always in her throbbing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... man's lips there came from outside the noise of much shouting and shuffling of naked feet, and anon the sound of a voice, loud and harsh, asking for leave to speak with the praetorian praefect. Caius Nepos paused, tablets in hand. Strangely enough the voice, though well-known, seemed to have a sobering effect on all these ebullient tempers. Marcus Ancyrus, who was the most calm among them all, threw a quick glance of inquiry on his host, one or two furtive glances were exchanged, a look that was half-ashamed crept into some of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Silvertip," interrupted the White Chief. "You remember telling me about stopping for water on the Island of Kon Klayu when you were whaling? Yes? . . . Well, while you are lying here sobering up, I want you to think about that island, Silver. I want you to remember every little thing about it that you can, and after the Potlatch I'll be in to talk to you—perhaps. I'll go and hunt up Harlan now. Damned fool! He raised hell last night—something started him off. No doubt ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... oaths that issued from the cabaret's open doors and windows. The Villerville fisherman loved Bacchus only, second to Neptune; when he was not out casting his net into the Channel he was drinking up his spoils. It was during the sobering process only that affairs of a purely domestic nature engaged his attention. Some of the streets were permeated with noxious odors, with the poison of absinthe and the fumes of cheap brandy. Noisy, reeling groups came ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... day has a most sobering effect, and while still exalted in a measure by all the strong forces of love, he was enabled to review worldly events with a clearer eye, and could realize very well that he was going to take a step which would not have ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... like the rest of the crew, to "Don't you want to do so and so?" and "Guess you'd better," and so forth. There was something about the clean-shaven lips and the puckered corners of the eyes that was mightily sobering to ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... sobering down presently, and looking quite remorseful. "It is unkind to laugh when his name is mentioned. He was killed in the Indian Mutiny, long afterwards, in a ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... Virginia's heart like tightening fingers. The import of his words burned deep within her. She got to her feet—but reseated herself at once at a wave of her father's hand. The thought of death always had a sobering effect upon her—it filled her with longing, yet dread. The beautiful young mother, whose picture hung in the best room, and whose eyes followed her in every direction, was dead. Matty had told her many times just how her mother had gone, and how often the gentle spirit had ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... for that comport himself worthy of such gift; for that this wondrous and mysterious little thing called "a woman" should of her own accord put herself in his arms, to be by him and by him alone cherished and nurtured till death them do part—this indeed gives the mail heart a very sobering, a very ennobling thrill; for beneath the heaving breast he so passionately loves, behind the eyes into the depths of which he so passionately looks, there stirs, he knows, that ineffable, that indefinable thing, a woman's heart; and that TO HIM ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... Aileen suddenly exclaimed, sobering in an equally strange way. "I know why you come. I know how much you care about me or my looks. Don't you worry whether I drink or not. I'll drink if I please, or do anything else if I choose. If it helps me over my difficulties, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... but I remained to discuss his overwhelming proposition with Miss Foot. A sudden sobering ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... inquired, her face sobering in an instant. "I wondered why father ran off by himself to see Aunt Mollie and Bab. I thought you would like to ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... now, my man. You're going to your room, and to bed. You got up too early. Listen,"—as the sobering man began to resent the interference,—"there's an officer looking at us. He will do nothing if you will go along quietly with me, but if you make a scene I'll ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... became all at once a seditious dinner-party, under the shade of the pale Crescent. Had we been in Paris, that pinnacle of liberty and civilization, we should all immediately have been conveyed off, without finishing our dessert and the wine which made us such patriot Greeks, to the sobering apartment of the Conciergerie. Happily we were in The Desert, under the rule of barbarians. Coletti was mentioned, but I forget what was said of him. In Jerbah, a Greek merchant protested to me, that the only way ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... to begin the process of sobering up. His eyes lost something of their bleary, misunderstanding look, and took on a dangerous glint. The detectives knew him for a spendthrift, who had been in more than one questionable escapade. He had ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... her foul emasculate throng, By Fortune's sweet new wine befool'd, In hope's ungovern'd weakness strong To hope for all; but soon she cool'd, To see one ship from burning 'scape; Great Caesar taught her dizzy brain, Made mad by Mareotic grape, To feel the sobering truth of pain, And gave her chase from Italy, As after doves fierce falcons speed, As hunters 'neath Haemonia's sky Chase the tired hare, so might he lead The fiend enchain'd; SHE sought to die More nobly, nor with woman's ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... laughed Fremont, and added quickly, his face sobering. "And it is an honor to any man to receive the votes of men like your fathers and Ham here and you two boys, even in prospect, an honor, that, believe me, I appreciate," and the light in his forceful eyes deepened, as if he were seeing visions of the future. "But, I must be off. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... even more discreet as he recognized Mascola's guest. Boris was a bigger man by far than himself. And yet Mascola was putting him out with no trouble at all. The observation had a sobering effect upon the fisherman. His militant air changed quickly to one of craft. He'd quit the boss and pull a lot of the boys along with him. He could hit the dago better that way. They were all pretty sore at being bossed around by a "furrinor" anyway. And work ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... him who is seen to regard truth, the case is otherwise. He can achieve by his words what another achieves by force. If he seeks to bring the foolish to their senses—his very frown, I perceive, has a more sobering effect than the chastisement inflicted by another. Or in negotiations the very promises of such an one are of equal weight with the gifts ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... I then hastened off, and was speedily rattling over the stones towards Baker Street, Portman Square, where Major Stewart resided. As I left the office I heard Martin beg the clerk to lead him to the pump previous to sending him off—no doubt for the purpose of sobering himself somewhat previous to reappearing before the major, whose motives for hiring or retaining such a fellow in his modest establishment ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... which in the daytime passed for a pantry, and both by day and night gave forth a smell of sour corks and mice: but Colonel John slid by the open door as noiselessly as a shadow, found the back-door—which led to the fold-yard—on the latch, and stepped out into the cool, dark morning, into the sobering freshness and the ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... 1666, many new coffee houses were opened that were not limited to a single room up a flight of stairs. Because the coffee-house keepers over-emphasized the sobering qualities of the coffee drink, they drew many undesirable characters from the taverns and ale houses after the nine o'clock closing hour. These were hardly calculated to improve the reputation of the coffee houses; and, indeed, the decline of the coffee houses as a temperance institution would ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the instant sobering, which follows the taking of life, the young man sickened and whirled away from the quivering flesh. Plunging his falchion in the sand to hide its stain, he went back ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Well said, master! The jest is a merry one—call me a Jew else!" Then, sobering as briskly as he had taken to laughing: "Will you have a cup of sack, master, to settle the stomach after fasting—or a drop of Canary or Xeres or ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... by his stern words, and he succeeded in holding up an end of the canoe, while Menard pushed him down the slope to the water's edge. They rushed back, and in a few trips got down most of the stores. By this time Perrot was sobering somewhat, and with the Captain he took his place in the line. The men were shooting more frequently now, and by their loose talk showed increasing recklessness. Calling to Danton, Menard finally made them understand his order to fall back. Before they reached the bank, Colin dropped, with ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... birds and crickets. I rolled slowly over, stretched my legs and my back, and stood up, with the last remnants of a dream playing quietly in my mind. But as I came to my feet and got a clear view of where I was, I realized it was not a dream that I had had at all, but something far more sobering. I found myself somewhere in the center of a very large prairie which covered the land for many miles around. From the sun's lowly position on the eastern horizon, it was evident to me that the new day was just dawning, ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... I build another," corrected Hawkins, sobering suddenly, "I shall be careful not to use that rear arrangement at all. I shall place the valve of the balloon where I can get at it more easily. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... happy, gentleman. And lo! the meaning of the wild gorge changed to reflect his mood. There was no stain of savagery upon the delight we had in coming to this spot. As he said, once listened rightly to, the music of the falling waters gave suggestions which, if they were sobering, were still not sad. ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... a little blank at that, for she suddenly threw back her head and laughed at him. And then, sobering instantly, she called ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... had been sobering to them both, for they spoke seriously then of various things. It was probable that before long Wayne would be ordered to Washington. He wanted to know what Katie would do then. Why not spend next season in Washington with him? Just what were ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... God, an insight into the heart of a human being is the most precious of things; but when I think of it—what is the latter but the former? I will say this at least, that no one reads the human heart well, to whom the reading reveals nothing of the heart of the Father. The wire-gauze of sobering trouble over the flaming flower of humanity, enabled Dorothy to see right down into its fire-heart, and distinguish there the loveliest hues and shades. Where the struggle for own life is in abeyance, and the struggle for other life active, there the heart ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... him feebly. I could see he was longing for his lost confederate. 'Well, I'll go,' he said at last, sobering down; 'and your solicitaw can trot round with me. I'll do all that you wish, though I call it most unfriendly. Hang it all, fourteen yeahs would ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... his insulting reference to Bu-lot's well-known cowardice brought a sudden, sobering silence upon the roistering company. Every eye turned upon Bu-lot and Mo-sar, who sat together directly opposite the king. The first was very drunk though suddenly he seemed quite sober. He was so drunk that for an instant he forgot to be a coward, since his reasoning powers were so effectually ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Effects and the New Outlook.—The European conflict will probably exercise a strong sobering influence upon the minds of the people. The gravity of the crisis, whatever victories may crown our arms, will be reflected in the gravity of the people. A new dignity, a greater self-respect, a deeper earnestness may arise among the mass of the ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern, |
