"Stern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dignified and logical garment. It clothed with equal charity a man's stomach and his stern. Generous of its skirts, which went far to conceal wrinkled trousers, it could be worn with a light tie at a formal dinner or with a dark tie at a studio tea, and was equally appropriate at a funeral or a wedding. For all ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... child: I call myself a boy,' Says my king, with accent stern yet mild, Now nine years have brought him change ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... pestilence, as well as by the weapons of the defenders of Acre. The hearts of all men were quickly sinking. The Turkish fleet was at hand to reinforce Djezzar; and upon the utter failure of the attack of the 21st of May, Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, and ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... political and religious bias of either school. The Realists were chiefly supported by the Dominicans, the Nominalists by the Franciscans; and there is always a more gentle expression beaming in the eyes of the followers of the seraphic Doctor, particularly if contrasted with the stern frown of the Dominican. Ockam himself was a Franciscan, and those who thought with him were called doctores renovatores and sophistae. Suddenly, however, the tables were turned. At Oxford, the Realists, in following out their principles in a more independent ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Warren sailed from Manila bound for San Francisco. The first day out from Manila, late in the evening when supper was eaten, I ate very heartily, and went on duty in the stern of the transport. The sea was rough, and gave the transport a rolling motion. Shortly after going on duty my head commenced swimming, and I was ill. A soldier told me that I was sea-sick. I had never been sea-sick and knew nothing about how a person felt. At last I vomited freely, ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... deserted. Sommers shivered. After he had reached the end of the lane, he turned back, and walked swiftly to the cottage. At the corner he looked into the room where they had been sitting. She was still in the same place where he had left her, by the lamp, her white, almost stern face, with its large, severe lines, staring fiercely into space. It made him uneasy, this long, tense look that betrayed a mind fixed upon one idea, and that idea! He crept away into the lane to flee from it, and walked swiftly down ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... mistaken Pascal refused to look upon a lovely landscape; and the Port Royalist nuns remarked, somewhat simply for their side of the argument, that they seemed as if warring with Providence, seeing that the favors which he was abundantly showering upon them, they, in obedience to the stern law of their lives, were continually rejecting. But it is better, surely, to be on the side of Providence against Pascal and the nuns, than on the side of Pascal and the nuns against Providence. The great Creator, who has provided so wisely and abundantly for all his creatures, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... replied the youth, relaxing into that very slight smile with which grave and stern-featured men sometimes betray ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... the field, and pursued the retreat of the Arabs till, for miles along the plain, the line of their flight was marked with horses that had dropped dead in the strain, and with the motionless forms of their desert-riders, their cold hands clinched in the loose, hot sands, and their stern faces turned upward to the cloudless scorch of their native skies, under whose freedom they would never again ride forth to the joyous clash of the cymbals and the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted by a gilt scroll, or, as the sailors call it, a fiddle-head. The black stern is ornamented by a group of white figures in bas relief, which give a lively air to the otherwise sombre and vacant expression, and beneath the cabin-windows is painted the name of the ship, and her port of register. The lower masts ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... last good-byes had been said. It was a tiny place, fitted with a single padded seat on either side covered with linen and provided with pillows; a narrow table ran up the centre; and strong narrow windows looked directly from the sides of the boat. A stern platform, railed in and provided with sliding glass shutters, gave room to take a few steps of exercise; but the front of the boat was entirely occupied with the driver's arrangements. It was a comparatively new type of boat, he learned from some ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... judging what his features were, and how they flashed beneath the storm of inspiration.[1] Fra Bartolommeo, one of his followers, painted a profile of him in the character of S. Peter Martyr. This shows all the benignity and grace of expression which his stern lineaments could assume. It is a picture of the sweet and gentle nature latent within the fiery arraigner of his nation at the bar of God. In contemporary medals the face appears hard, keen, uncompromising, beneath its heavy cowl. But the noblest portrait is an intaglio engraved by Giovanni della ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... height is about five feet ten or eleven inches. His figure is all that is required by symmetry. His features are regular, almost Grecian; his eye is blue, and has an eagle-like expression, when excited by stern or angry emotion; but, in ordinary social intercourse, the whole expression of his countenance is mild and pleasing, and his manners and conversation are unaffected, urbane, and conciliatory, without the ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... —appear in Pennsylvania avenue, and on the steps and basement entrances. They come along in disorderly mobs, some in squads, stragglers, companies. Occasionally, a rare regiment, in perfect order, with its officers (some gaps, dead, the true braves,) marching in silence, with lowering faces, stern, weary to sinking, all black and dirty, but every man with his musket, and stepping alive; but these are the exceptions. Sidewalks of Pennsylvania avenue, Fourteenth street, &c., crowded, jamm'd with ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... government, and, what is worse to the supporters of the government, are rallying all the hooligans, robbers, and others to whom this period of confusion promises a good chance of individual action. It is also clear that such a regime cannot stay but with the help of a stern terror. But, on the other hand, the longer the terror continues the more disagreeable and hated it becomes. Even a great part of those who from the beginning could stay with the government and who still are sincere Social Democrats, having seen ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... saved by the king, and the city had been taken by his good counsel, the people became more than ever attached to him. They set the royal crown upon his head, and gave him Adoniah, the widow of Kikanos to wife. But Moses feared the stern God of his fathers, and he went not in unto Adoniah, nor did he turn his eyes toward her, for he remembered how Abraham had made his servant Eliezer swear, saying unto him, "Thou shalt not take a wife ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... heart and brain, Feverishly seeking everywhere some sign To guide him, went ashore upon that isle, And lo, turning a rugged point of rock, He rubbed his eyes to find out if he dreamed, For there—a Crusoe's wonder, a miracle, A sign—before him stood on that lone strand Stark, with a stern arm pointing out his way And jangling still one withered skeleton, The grim black gallows where Magellan hanged His mutineers. Its base was white with bones Picked by the gulls, and crumbling o'er the sand A dread sea-salt, dry from the tides of ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... the wars between England and France. The scene is laid on the picturesque rocky coast of North Devon, where the three lads pass through many perils both afloat and ashore. Fishermen, smugglers, naval officers, and a stern old country surgeon play their parts in the story, which is one of honest adventure with the mastering of difficulties in a wholesome manly way, mingled with sufficient excitement to satisfy the most exacting reader. The discovery of the ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... as exalts The name of Theseus, that no monsters quell'd Have given me a right to share his weakness. And if my pride of heart must needs be humbled, Aricia should have been the last to tame it. Was I beside myself to have forgotten Eternal barriers of separation Between us? By my father's stern command Her brethren's blood must ne'er be reinforced By sons of hers; he dreads a single shoot From stock so guilty, and would fain with her Bury their name, that, even to the tomb Content to be his ward, for her no torch Of Hymen may be lit. Shall I espouse Her rights ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... and celebrated also for his riches, advanced with boldness to meet him, and addressed him thus, "To what country do you belong, and with what object have you come hither? Answer me." Theodosius, with firm mind and stern looks, replied, "I am a lieutenant of Valentinian, the master of the whole world, sent hither to destroy a murderous robber; and unless you at once surrender him, as the invincible emperor has commanded, you also, and the nation of which you are king, will be entirely destroyed." Igmazen, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... you, boy!" and patted him on the shoulder, and the schoolmaster wished him well and begged that now and then John would write to him. Willie Logan, hot and in a hurry, entered the station, eager to say good-bye to him, but the stern and disapproving eye of the minister caused him to keep in the background until John, understanding what was in his ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... we rowed in vain along the tall and rusty sea-walls. No whaler could attack the huge rollers that raised their monstrous backs, plunged over with a furious roar, and bespread the beach with a swirl of foam. At last, seeing a fine surf-boat, artistically raised at stern and bow, and manned by Cabindas, the Kruboys of the coast, made fast to a ship belonging to Messrs. Tobin of Liverpool, we boarded it, and obtained ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Brothers), is a religious story of the English Puritan age, distinguished for the characteristic sweetness and pathos of the earnest and powerful writer. The heroine, Edith Field, is a charming creation. The daughter of a stern Puritan clergyman, who devotes himself to the spiritual care of his flock during the prevalence of the Great Plague, she ministers to their temporal needs with the constancy of a martyr, and the gentleness of an angel. Her beautiful nature presents ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... from gay to grave,—"my own heart aches With life's vexed questions, and its stern demands, Full often even in my sheltered state; And you, my liege, must be well-nigh o'ercome With the vast load of duties you fulfil So nobly, to the glory of the realm. Would I could serve you, as you well deserve; But I am only woman, so I smile In lieu of fighting for you, as I would Unto the ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... voice of the people" was soon to grow into the stern moral protest of the Lollards, but for the moment all murmurs were hushed by the king's success. The truce which followed the capture of Calais seemed a mere rest in the career of victories which opened before Edward. England was ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... shoulder was almost wholly disabled, and he walked with a stoop and shuffle; but his physical weakening was not more marked than his mental mellowing. He was softened—"gentled," as the horsemen say. His eyes were larger, and his face, once so stern and masterful, gave out an appealing expression by reason of the deep horizontal wrinkles which had developed in his brow. He had grown a mustache, and this being gray gave him an older look—older and more military. It was plain, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... fireplace a genial-looking gentleman clothed in a crimson dressing-gown—a bald gentleman, rather fat, with a piece of toast in one hand and a glass of something in the other. Peter had expected he knew not what—something stern and terrible, something that would have answered in one way or another to those early recollections of terror and punishment that still dwelt with him. He had remembered his father as short, spare, ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... The average voyage however was rapid and smooth by virtue of the steadily blowing trade winds, the food if coarse was generally plenteous and wholesome, and the sanitation fairly adequate. In a word, under stern and often brutal discipline, and with the poorest accommodations, the slaves encountered the then customary dangers ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... my mother's Island-dwelling, When the barley had been garnered." Then he launched his boat of copper, Threw the vessel to the waters, From the iron-banded rollers, From the cylinders of oak-wood, On the masts the sails he hoisted, Spread the magic sails of linen, In the stern the hero settled And prepared to sail his vessel, One hand resting on the rudder. Then the sailor spake as follows, These the words of Lemminkainen: "Blow, ye winds, and drive me onward, Blow ye steady, winds ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... of the crew. There was a clang of bells in the engine room as the chief officer on the bridge shot over the indicator, signalling "Full Speed Astern," at the same time shouting orders that sent men racing to swing out a boat from the davits, while others ran with life-buoys to the stern of the vessel, ready to fling them to the men in the water if the opportunity ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... Stern, white-faced, and broken-hearted, Frank Starr brought his child to his mother and sister, and almost immediately went West. Intermittently he wrote briefly, sent money, gave insufficient addresses, or none at all, and, at length, disappeared. At the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... launch in a few moments. He seated her in the stern of the boat, where she half reclined with her wings spread out a little behind her. So assiduous was she—and so facile—in her task of learning English, that before she would let him start the motor she had learned the names of many of the new objects in sight, and several ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... broad pendant of beauty, to which they must strike their topsails on pain of being sent to the bottom; that, after having eyed him for some time with astonishment, they clapped on all their sails, some of them running under his stern, and others athwart his forefoot, and got clear off; that, not satisfied with running ahead, they all of a sudden tacked about, and one of them boarding him on the lee-quarter, gave him such a drubbing about his upper works, that the lights danced in his lanterns; that he returned the salute with ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... one boat, as everyone can see, Bishops, and priests, and deacons, and poor little ranters like me. There's hell in the Church of England and hell in the Church of Rome, And in all other Christian Churches, abroad as well as at home. The part of my creed you dislike may be too stern for you, Many brave men believe it—aye, and enjoy life, too. The know-nothing books may alarm you; but many a better man Knows he knows nothing and says so, and lives the best life he can. If there is a future state, face its hopes and terrors gravely; The best ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... "Hold!" said a stern voice; and turning, Henri beheld with confusion the countenance of Marshal Saxe, who, attended by a file of musketeers, had entered the tent at the close of the duel. "You will give up your sword to ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... a sign. There seems to have been great variety in the construction of the latter, according to the particular trade in which they were to be engaged; and each ship of burden had its boat attached to it. The name of the ship, or rather of its tutelary deity, was inscribed on the stern: various forms of gods, animals, plants, &c. were also painted on other parts. The inhabitants of Phoeacia, or Corsica, are represented as the first who used pitch to fill up the seams, and preserve the timber; sometimes wax was used for this purpose, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... surprise: such words were unlike her, whom he had been accustomed to consider a loving and lovely child. But a bitter smile passed over his countenance, and in a stern voice he said, "And you, Alice, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... of Wales sent two black and brown Thibet mastiffs from the north of India. They had long, black lips, and wore a very stern, dark expression. The Princess of Wales, also, sent a snow-white ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... before the high and massive walls of the chateau of Chambord. This chateau is one of the finest specimens of the ancient Gothic castle to be found in Europe. The little river Cosson fills its deep and ample moat, and above it the huge towers and heavy battlements rise in stern and solemn grandeur, moss-grown with age, and blackened by the storms of three centuries. Within, all is mournful and deserted. The grass has overgrown the pavement of the courtyard, and the rude sculpture upon the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... or bribes, and Richard besieged his castle, some ruins of which may still be seen on the rock that overhangs the little town of Gourdon in the Quercy. The fortress was taken, and Richard in his fury caused the stern old man who defended it and two of his sons to be put to death. But there was a third son, Bertrand de Gourdon, who, seeking an opportunity of avenging his father and brothers, joined the garrison of the castle of ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... features are distinguished from those of his race by a peculiar fairness of complexion and delicacy of skin: the elegant form of his hands and feet is not less remarkable. The apparent stiffness of his arms, when he walks, is a sign of his stern and impenetrable character. His address is thoroughly noble and dignified. Of himself he is completely master; and he exerts a tacit supremacy over all who approach him. An immovable stony calmness, which never forsakes him, even in moments of the utmost ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... things to be an active, useful member of society. But every noble impulse was strangled at its birth by the iron bands of a religion that taught the crucifixion of every natural feeling as the most acceptable offering to a stern and relentless God. She was now twenty-eight years of age, and with the exception of the period devoted to her father she had as yet thought and worked only for herself. I do not mean that she neglected home duties, or ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... stiff-necked, and surrounded by polytheism and idolatry. Their training required severity, and all the severity employed by God brought forth at last its appropriate fruits. The laws imposed upon them were stern and burdensome from their multiplicity. But no one can show that in either of these respects they could have been wisely modified; for the nation was then in its childhood and pupilage (Gal. 4:1-3), and needed to ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... the boat, and, awed by the peril he had so narrowly escaped, gave the order to return. As the men set the boat's head to the welcome line of lights that marked the Neck, a black spot balanced upon a black line was swept under their stern and carried out to sea. As it passed them, this black spot emitted a cry, and they knew that it was one of the shattered boat's crew clinging ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... be called good features. The only good points about him were his unusually tall stature, his delicate colouring, and his splendid teeth. Nevertheless, his face was of such an original, energetic character (owing to his narrow, sparkling eyes and ever-changing expression—now stern, now childlike, now smiling indeterminately) that it was impossible to help noticing it. As a rule he was very shy, and would blush to the ears at the smallest trifle, but it was a shyness altogether different from mine, seeing that, the more he blushed, ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... life, he is little stagier in Lucan. And yet, in spite of his absurdity, he has a nobility and a sincerity of purpose which is without parallel in that corrupt age. He was the hero of the Stoic republicans[280] of the early principate, the man of principle, stern and unbending. He requires no fine touches of light and shade, for he is the perfect Stoic. But from the very rigidity of his principles he was no statesman and never played more than a ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... man stopped short, a spasm of suffering passing over his face. The thought had been a terrible one to him. Yet he had been bred up in the somewhat stern Puritan tenets, and it was not in his creed to speak so much of the everlasting mercy as the ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... last words in evident distress. Bertie's face had grown quite serious, even stern. He was looking at her with a directness which for the first time in their acquaintance ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... how, in the course of my inquiries at Chelmsford, I had ascertained that a person so like himself had passed through the town, that I had determined to attempt to overtake him, little thinking the chase would prove so stern. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... suggest; and as he sat dismally on the side of their bed, adjoining which was little Henrik's, his thoughts were occupied with many a trivial recollection of the kind, which might seem almost childish in a man of his age and character, and of such a stern, black-bearded exterior; but he was ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... the Prince, with a stern smile moving the hard muscles of his mouth, "Moretti's love of scandal is as deep as that of any old woman!—and the joy of excommunicating a soul from the salvation of the Church must be too exquisite to ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake. Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain,) He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake, 'How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such as for their bellies' sake Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... she put it up to be kissed. But she turned and slipped her hand into her grandfather's again as soon as the kiss was given, for she felt a little awed and shy with this granny, who seemed so much more grown-up and stern ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... information,—prayers for news or vouchsafings of it,—news, good or bad, true or false. Perhaps three-fourths of the distance had been covered at the expense of torn togas and bruised sides, when a sudden commotion in front showed that something was happening. The next moment the hard, stern face of Marcus Pomponius Matho, the praetor peregrinus, rose above the crowd, and then the broad purple band upon his toga, as he mounted ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... wrote; and, ringing clear and pure and jubilant, the vibrant beauty of her voice could clearly be defined and traced through all his music. Now, there's the happy pair of them—Bob and Doc. Make of them just whatever your good fancy may dictate, but keep in mind the stern, relentless ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... forty-five degrees. The ends of these were then fastened together with several cross-beams, upon which a quantity of stones were placed; the weight of which gradually elevated one end of the vessel, until the levers reached the ground. Propping up the bow thus raised, we shifted our levers to the stern, which was in like manner elevated; and, by repeating this process three or four times, we lifted her in one day entirely out of the hole (which she had worked for herself, and which was about four feet deep). The bog that lay between her and the sea was then filled up with stones, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Willet, who sent to me,' he said, in a voice which sounded naturally stern and deep. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... step to press Each sun-bright avenue, and green recess; Led by thy hand survey the trophied walls, The statued galleries, and the pictur'd halls; Scan the proud pyramid, and arch sublime, Earth-canker'd urn, medallion green with time, Stern busts of Gods, with helmed heroes mix'd, And Beauty's radiant ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... occupied, then, with a flotilla of boats rowing alongside, between a double line of yachts, steam-tugs and boats, dressed out with flags, and dipping their ensigns as she passed, and lastly, under the stern of the Boadicea man-of-war, whose yards were manned, and whose crew cheered. The guns of the castle fired the last salute from the shore, which was answered by the guns of the Boadicea; and in the still bright evening the smoke hung for a brief space like ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... class traitors as men," and his fine face grew stern for an instant, "they are vampires, birds of prey. A detail has been sent for to take him to court-martial; there is little doubt what the result will ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but if it lifts its head at all it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... the battle whether the enemy had travelled by infection, or was the product of the Pond Buildings' miasma, was the favourite enlivenment of the disagreeing doctors, in their brief intervals of repose in the stern conflict which they were waging with the fever—a conflict in which they had soon to strive by themselves, for the disease not only seized on young Ward, but on his father; and till medical assistance was sent from London, they had the whole town on their hands, and for nearly a week lived without ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was dragged from her pier by a grunting tug and went floundering down the Baltic Sea. Night came down, and the devils who, according to the Esthonian fishermen, live in the bottom of the Baltic, got their shoulders under the stern of the ship and tried to stand her on her head. They whipped up white combers that sprang on her flanks and tried to crush her, and the wind played a devil's lament in her rigging. Anna lay sick in the stuffy women's quarters, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... prettily in poetry, Flora; but, my dear girl, life is made up of stern realities, and it is absolutely necessary for us to provide against the dark hour before it comes suddenly upon us. Our future prospects press upon my heart and brain too forcibly to be neglected. I have thought long and painfully upon the subject, and I have come to the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... which Yu Chan had been appointed. Oft they drew together in the gloomy cloisters, and when he swept past in silence, raised their hands threateningly at his disappearing form, though before his lofty, stern-set face they bowed in seeming humility as they kissed the hem ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... light boat on the lake, moored below the camp. At six o'clock he seated himself therein, taking the oars in his brawny hands. Cyrus and Neal took their places in the stern; while Dol disposed of himself snugly in the bow, right under a jack-lamp which Herb had carefully trimmed and lit. But he had closed its sliding door, which, being padded with buckskin, could be opened and shut without a sound, so that not a ray ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... fresh water that we could find: here is much fish to be taken with nets and hookes: also we stayed on shore and fowled. Here Sir John Hawkins was extreme sick' (he died within ten days), 'which his sickness began upon newes of the taking of the Francis' (his stern-most vessel). 'The 18th day wee weied and stood north and by east into a lesser sound, which Sir Francis in his barge discovered the night before; and ankored in 13 fadomes, having hie steepe hiles on either side, some league distant from our ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... the Haji cultivates what Strauss has called the "stern common-sense of mankind"; while the reign of order is a paragraph of his "Higher Law." He traces from its rudest beginnings the all but absolute universality of some perception by man, called "Faith"; that sensus Numinis which, by inheritance or communication, ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... returned from the 15th Brigade, the Germans attacked and broke through. They had been heavily reinforced and our tentative offensive had been replaced by a stern and ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... can well understand that he has no influence among my people. They are very innocent in their way, and they can not understand where the wickedness lies. Nor do I wish them to understand. It does not seem to me necessary." His mouth settled in a new and rather stern line. "I shall order Mr. Berry ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... her father, Baas Cogez, a good man, but somewhat stern, came on a pretty group in the long meadow behind the mill, where the aftermath had that day been cut. It was his little daughter sitting amidst the hay, with the great tawny head of Patrasche on her lap, and many wreaths of poppies and blue cornflowers ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... betrayed a weakness that promised to undermine her high sense of duty; and as time increased her means of judging of what those duties were, her submission to them seemed to be stronger and stronger. Had there been anything stern or repulsive in Mary's manner of manifesting the feeling that was uppermost in her mind, one of Roswell Gardiner's temperament would have been very apt to shake off her influence; but, so far from ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... our ward, tall and angular in form, stern and cold in feature, was the dragon Belle had told me about, but she knew her business, and I, for one, preferred that she should regard me simply as a machine laid up for repairs. I did not even think ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... the least understand, you will begin to experience a certain feeling of discouragement. Then, the humorous papers have taught you to look upon the Suburban Furnace as part of the machinery or property of a merry jest; and you will be shocked to discover that to the new-comer it is a stern and cold reality. I use the latter adjective deliberately and advisedly. There will surely come an awful night when you will get home from New York with Mrs. Modestus in the midnight train, too tired for anything but a drowsy chat by the lingering embers ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... the calm gaze of the desert, he found himself turning his thoughts inward. He had been driven out of his father's house. He had been called a dawdler and a trifler and a do-nothing. He had been told by a stern old man who was a man that he was a disgrace to his name. He had never done anything but dance and smoke and drink and make pretty speeches which were polite lies and which were accepted as such. And now a minor note, as thin as a low-toned human voice heard faintly through the deep music of a ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... accustomed to this speech that he paid no attention to it. He sauntered round the room with Nobbles in his hand, and his eyes were riveted on the stern and gloomy faces ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... very stern. I said to my head mason, "I have ordered that thing removed half a dozen times. Be so good as to have those posts taken down before ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... was time that some one took him in hand. An idle, loafing rascal who thought of nothing but his own comfort, and was the biggest waster in the village. He has set to work now, and he shall stick to it, or I'll know the reason why! I'll keep a stern hand on him, Nan, for your sake; for it was you, not I, who set this ball a-rolling, and I am only the executor of your orders. It is you who have played the good angel in his life, and he shall have ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... still light when we finished dinner, a good three hours till bedtime. And since there was nothing better to do, I called to the arriero and asked him to conduct us on a tour of exploration among the mass of boulders, gray and stern, that loomed up on ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... over to Lonesome Cove much that summer, for he was away from the mountains a good part of the time, and it was a weary, racking summer for June when he was not there. The step-mother was a stern taskmistress, and the girl worked hard, but no night passed that she did not spend an hour or more on her books, and by degrees she bribed and stormed Bub into learning his A, B, C's and digging at a blue-back spelling book. But all ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... him on the spur of the moment; and, as far as lay in his cheery, thoughtless nature, he had come to regret it. The work of the trail had taught him that he was mismated in this company, and the first stern test was stripping the masks from them. He saw three ugly natures, three ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... overcharge."— "But, sir, were it made now, it would fill up Each winter to the brim, and be to make Twenty or thirty times, if you live long." "There! there it is! Nothing but imposition! Even Time must rear his stern, unyielding front, And holding out his shrivelled skeleton hand, Demands my money. Naught but money! money! Were I coin'd into money I could not Half satisfy that craving greed of money. Well, how much do you charge? I'll pay you now, And take ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... soul-trying suspense, during which the flying-machine shivered from stem to stern, almost like a human creature in its death-agony, creaking and groaning, with shrill sounds coming from those expanded, curved wings, as the ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... great capital of the kingdom, surrounded by competitors; no rivalry disturbed his peace, no equality mortified his greatness; all he saw were either vassals of his power, or guests bending to his pleasure; he abated therefore, considerably, the stern gloom of his haughtiness, and soothed his proud mind by the courtesy ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... of men who set the pace, and made the atmosphere in that community were Christians. The serious phase of life; the seasoning of hardships; the discipline; the oft facing of death; the stern habit of duty at any cost, which they had passed through during the war had made them very strong men, and very earnest Christians. What they stood for, they stood for boldly, and outspokenly on all proper occasions. They were not one whit ashamed of their ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... he stands there in the early morning sunlight, for it is only six o'clock, he does not look in harmony with the tranquil beauty of the scene before him. There is a stern, troubled expression on his face, for he has just espied two figures walking side by side across the dewy grass; the one is his son Gerald, the other Nancy Dampier, still in the delicate and dangerous position of a woman who is neither ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... back prosperity and still the disloyal murmurs. Once or twice, when the annexationists were at their worst, and when his Tory opponents chose support of that disloyal movement as the means of insulting their governor, he took stern measures for repressing an unnatural evil. "We intend," {221} he wrote in November, 1849, after an annexation meeting at which servants of the State had been present, "to dismiss the militia officers and magistrates who have taken part in these affairs, and to deprive the two Queen's ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... But however rigid and stern the beliefs of men might be, nature was there always charming, not only in her summer beauty, but even in her wildest winter moods. Narrow, too, as might be the views of the members of these communities about the conduct of life, there ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... stern and spry, And brimming with lots of fight; She married a little man five feet high, And he died ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... well," McKay approved, noting the easy grace of the crew. In the bow a tall, slender fellow stood with arms folded, balancing himself to the sway of the rather clumsy craft and watching the water ahead. In the stern, on a little platform whence he could look over the heads of the others and catch any signal from the lookout, a squat, dark-faced steersman lounged against his crude rudder. Between these two the paddlers stood, each with one foot on the bottom of the long dugout and the other on the gunwale, ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... You may imagine her state. She was all rust, dust, grime—soot aloft, dirt on deck. To me it was like coming out of a palace into a ruined cottage. She was about 400 tons, had a primitive windlass, wooden latches to the doors, not a bit of brass about her, and a big square stern. There was on it, below her name in big letters, a lot of scroll work, with the gilt off, and some sort of a coat of arms, with the motto 'Do or Die' underneath. I remember it took my fancy immensely. There was a touch of romance in it, ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... from all the townsfolk crowding wall and turret a groan went up and full many a ruddy cheek grew pale at this dire threat. Whereupon the Prior, having drawn breath, spake on in voice more stern and more peremptory: ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... sat down hopefully. He spoke his grace with unction, and was surprised to hear his guest echo the Latin words after him. The knight unlaced his helm and took it off. He appeared as a bronzed and bearded man, stern-looking and handsome. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... done, however, the main element of success was to be found in the devoted bravery and the stern unyielding determination to "do or die," displayed by the rank and file of the "contemptible ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... stern and pitiless toward the poor prince," said Madame Kleist, who had succeeded in suppressing her own emotions, and, following the lead of the king, she was desirous to let it appear that the subject was one of no ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... of gifts content, the king stern in battle; a new joy was come into his heart. 195 The Lord of the kingdom of heaven was his greatest solace and his highest hope. Through the grace of the Spirit he began zealously to show forth the law of the Lord both day and night, and this ruler of men devoted himself, ...
— The Elene of Cynewulf • Cynewulf
... persistently examining the box, with the smiling girl, the stern old woman, and the placid old man in the background, he felt doubts of all kinds ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... place arose a perfect storm of distant roaring and shouting. Soon we could see flames shooting up not more than half a mile from where we stood; but the intervening houses and trees, the din and the excitement, coupled with the stern order of an Austrian officer, shouted from the top of an outhouse, not to move as their machine-gun was coming into action over our heads, made it impossible for us to understand or move forward. What ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... to the water line at an angle of about thirty-five degrees, and from the water line the sides fell back at about the same angle, to form a slanting casemate, the gun-deck being but a foot above water. This slanting casemate extended across the hull, near the bow and stern, forming a quadrilateral gun-deck. Three nine or ten-inch guns were placed in the bow, four similar ones on each side, and two smaller ones astern. The casemate inclosed the wheel, which was placed in a recess at the stern of the vessel. The plating was two and a half inches thick, thirteen ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... came toward us in black silhouette against the sun, setting blood-red into the lagoon, two great canoes. They were coming from up the river piled high with fruit and bark, with the women and children lying huddled in the high bow and stern, while amidships the twelve men at the oars strained and struggled until we saw every muscle ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... bullet-speckled stern-wheel steamer, with a barge lashed to her side, came round the river bend. She whistled to tell the Governor his dinner was ready, and the horse, seeing his fodder piled ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... human habitation. Then Prescott turned to go. The Harley house was swept away, and the Grayson cottage had suffered the same fate; but the inmates of both were gathered at his mother's home and he knew they were safe. The stern, military discipline of the conquerors would soon cover every corner of the city, and there would be no more drinking, no more ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... just enough light reflected from the upper peaks to enable the couple to see each other's faces—the one frowning and angry, and belying the calm, stern fixedness into which it had been forced; the other wild, anxious, and with the nerves twitching sharply at the corners of the eyes and mouth, as if its owner were grimacing in mockery of the young ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... reason, too, it seems, for I had lived in those pleasant surroundings only a few months when one evening, while I was enjoying myself at a moon-light picnic, I was approached by a sober, stern-looking man who drew me away from my friends and asked me my name. When I had told him, he showed me a newspaper clipping of an article with the head-lines, 'Mysterious Disappearance of a Young Girl.' For some moments I stood as if turned to stone, gazing stupidly at the paper. Then ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... Dieppe, he sent the King a written account of his travels, and France was presently burning with excitement over the abundant riches of the New World. Spain, meanwhile, had been reaping the wealth of the West Indies, and Hernando Cortes was laying a stern hand upon the treasures of Mexico. And now disasters at home were, for a time, to rob the fickle Francis of all ambition for transatlantic glory. In the contest for the crown of the Holy Roman Empire he had ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... six weeks on an average, to look a little into the executive details of the system. With some of these Mr. Palmer had no concern; they rested upon bye-laws enacted by posting-houses for their own benefit, and upon other bye-laws, equally stern, enacted by the inside passengers for the illustration of their own haughty exclusiveness. These last were of a nature to rouse our scorn; from which the transition was not very long to systematic mutiny. Up to this time, say 1804, or 1805 (the year of Trafalgar), it ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... on the stern," commanded Code. He plunged below into the cabin and raced up again with his glasses. The mysterious schooner was now nearly a quarter of a mile away, but within easy ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the Irishman to his errand, but General Lodge looked up from the maps and plans before him with a faint smile. He had a dark, stern face and the bearing ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... play-grounds of America, but which then frowned grimly even in summer, dark with trackless forests, and for the larger part of the year were sheeted with the glittering, untrampled snow from which they derive their name. Stern and strong with the force of an unbroken wilderness, they formed at all times a forbidding background to the sparse settlements in the valleys and ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... soldiers—flowers and children. They have been so long, obliged to look upon the earth as a field of battle, and so long cut off from the peaceful pleasures of a quiet lot, that they seem to begin life at an age when others end it. The tastes of their early years, which were arrested by the stern duties of war, suddenly break out again with their white hairs, and are like the savings of youth which they spend again in old age. Besides, they have been condemned to be destroyers for so long that perhaps they feel a secret pleasure in creating, ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... Chopin was one of those whose acquaintance she made at Madame d'Agoult's or through her, we have only to remember the intimate relation in which Liszt stood to this lady (subsequently known in literature under the nom de plume of Daniel Stern), who had left her husband, the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... out and they got upon the raft and sat "forward," as he told them, and grasping the tail of his coat in one hand, and the rudder with the other, for he had tied a flat board at the stern of the raft, ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... remorsefully. He however was not troubled by obscure meanings; he thanked me effusively and bolted out, calling Good-bye over his shoulder. I heard his voice through the ship's side urging his boatmen to give way, and looking out of the stern-port I saw the boat rounding under the counter. He sat in her leaning forward, exciting his men with voice and gestures; and as he had kept the revolver in his hand and seemed to be presenting it at their heads, I shall never forget the scared faces of the four Javanese, and the frantic swing ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... always welcome, and ecclesiastically minded inquirers were looked after by Brother Nicholas. One of the things for which Mark detested Brother Nicholas was the habit he had of showing off his poor casuals to the paying guests. It took Mark a stern reading of St. Benedict's Rule and the observations therein upon humility and obedience not to be rude to Brother ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... central historic fact, save One, of the New Testament, but the conquest of Jerusalem; the dispersion, all but destruction of a race, not by miracle, but by invasion, because found wanting when weighed in the stern balances of natural ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... and its laws Are rigid ones and stern; The splendid joy of real applause Each man must nobly earn. It makes us win its jewels rare, But gives ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... hardest protested, but Lane, with a stern hand and a revolver in his belt put down revolt and punished those who disputed his decision by setting ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... next fortnight or so we were playing a game of hide and seek in the big islanded playground of the Pacific Ocean. The first evening out the Psyche signaled "Whereabouts of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau still unknown; troopships to extinguish all lights and proceed with only shaded lights at bow and stern." Military books and papers were quickly gathered together, and the remaining few minutes of daylight were used for getting into bed, while the difficult task was set us of trying to sleep the round of the clock. Thus, night after night, with lights out, we steamed along our northward ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... the risk of meeting an untimely and extremely unpleasant end, for the island was the last stronghold of that strange and dreadful Hindu custom, suttee—the burning of widows. The last public suttee in Bali was held as recently as 1907, but, in spite of the stern prohibition of the practise by the Dutch, it is said that some women faithful to the old customs and to their dead husbands continue to join the latter on the funeral pyre. In fact, the Controleur at Kloeng Kloeng told me that, only a few weeks before my arrival, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... perfectly vertical. The keel (properly so called) is formed by the joining of the two vertical planes. The surface thus formed is a parabola whose apex is in front, the maximum ordinate behind, and the concavity directed toward the bottom of the water. The stern is a vertical plane intersecting at right angles the two lateral faces and the parabolic curve, which thus terminates in a sharp edge. The prow of the boat is connected with the apex of the parabola by a curve ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... had been called by the same name as the son, we will style her Mrs Ippegoo. There was also the mother of Arbalik, a youth who was celebrated as a wonderful killer of birds on the wing—a sort of Eskimo Robin Hood—with the small spear or dart. The mother of Arbalik was elderly, and stern—for an Eskimo. She was sister to the great hunter Simek. Kannoa, a very old dried-up but lively woman with sparkling black eyes, also ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... No doubt its ideals had had their successes; they had unified China, stamped the idea of universal peace and good manners upon the greatest mass of population in the world, paved the way for much beautiful art and literature and living. "But in the end, all your stern orderliness, Benham," said Prothero, "only leads to me. The human spirit rebels against this everlasting armour on the soul. After Han came T'ang. Have you never read Ling Po? There's scraps of him in English in that little book you have—what ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... provide for this extra effort for security, we must apply stern tests of priority to other expenditures, both military and civilian. This extra effort involves, most immediately, the need for a supplemental defense appropriation of $1.3 billion ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... perpetual thought that all this glittering prosperity will vanish as it did with our father. God forbid that, under any circumstances, it should lead to such an end—but who knows? Fate is terribly stern; ironically just. O Endymion! if you really love me, your twin, half of your blood and life, who have laboured for you so much, and thought for you so much, and prayed for you so much—and yet I sometimes feel have done so ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... swung around and started off with stern determination. But within three strides he faced about again. "You dotty fool! I had intended to let ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... for Mr. Mohun happening to be at home, was dragged into the dancing-room by Emily and Ada. Once, when she thought he was looking another way, Jane tried to raise a smile, but a stern 'Jane, what are you thinking of?' recalled her to order, and when the lesson was over her father spoke gravely to her, telling her that he thought few things more disgusting in a young lady than impertinence towards her teachers; and then added, 'Miss Weston, ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beef, as if eager to devour it; but Mr. Thompson hauled upon the rope until the precious viand was almost directly beneath the taffrail. In the mean time the mate had caused a running bowline, or noose, to be prepared from a small but strong rope. This was lowered over the stern into the water, and by a little dexterous management, the shark was coaxed to enter it in his eagerness to get at the beef. The mate let fall the running part of the bowline and hauled upon the other, and to the utter bewilderment of the hungry monster, he found himself entrapped ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... private and candid opinion of my captors, their methods and our life. The fact that I had written nothing detrimental to the authorities apparently appeased the Commandant, notwithstanding the enormity of my delinquency. At all events I received nothing worse than a stern admonition and threats of severe punishment if I were caught infringing the regulations again, to all of which I listened humbly, but with ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... had withdrawn itself from the center of the channel close in to a small island. The man at the stern was doing nothing very picturesquely, but the man at the bow, a swarthy Venetian, was pouring out his soul in an aria from "Cavalleria Rusticana." His voice might not have passed muster at Covent Garden, but in the unique stage setting, which included a group ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... Although the stern discipline which separates the cabin and steerage passengers into castes as distinct as those of the Hindoos had not yet been established, Captain Truck had too profound a sense of his duty to permit the quarterdeck to be unceremoniously invaded. This part of the ship, then, had partially escaped ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... have supposed that the big blacksmith at the village was Jack Bracken. All the week he worked at his trade—so full of his new life that it shone continually in his face—his face strong and stern, but kindly. With his leathern apron on, his sleeves rolled up, his hairy breast bare and shining in the open collar, physically he looked more like an ancient Roman ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... front, and suffocated by stench of petroleum. Fellow just ahead particularly objectionable in both respects. Decide to quicken up and pass him. Can't see a foot before me on account of his dust. Suddenly run into the stern of his car. Apologise. Can't I look where I'm going? Of course I can. Not my fault at all. Surly fellow! Proceed to go slower. Fellow behind runs into me. Confound him, can't he be more careful? Says ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... seldom that Madame Schakael seemed so stern as on this occasion. She perched herself upon her cushioned chair behind the desk table in her inner office, while the three girls—the senior and the ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe |
