"Stern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seconds of 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 Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... winter. His head, thin and hollowed and swarthy, with ochre and bistre tints harmoniously blended, offered a striking likeness to that which artists bestow on Time, though it vulgarized it; for the habits of commercial life lowered the stern and monumental character which painters, sculptors, and clock-makers exaggerate. Of medium height, Pillerault was more thick-set than stout; Nature had built him for hard work and long life; his ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... to be closed and all doors unlocked. A burning lamp was to be placed in each window. On the claim that German soldiers had been killed by citizens, the burgomaster and several of the city officials were secured as hostages. A stern proclamation was issued threatening with immediate execution every citizen found with a weapon in his possession or house. Every house from which a shot ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... was No. 8. It was smashed in the lowering. I was in the bow. Mrs. Hoy and her daughter were sitting toward the stern. The ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... about given up hope, an' was just pickin' out which would be the easiest death, what should we see but somethin' bobbin' in an' out among the bushes. Say, it was another bear! When it comes a little closer, we makes out it was a little lady bear. No sooner does our old stern-chaser spy her than he slides down to the groun', an' risin' up on his hind legs, throws out his chest, an' cocks his eye at her, for all the world like a man when he sees a pretty girl comin' his way. But when her ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Sea brake upon the poop and quarter, upon us, as it covered our ship from stern to stem, like a garment or a vast cloud. It filled her brimful for a while within, from the hatches up to the spar ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... enumerate the drawbacks of casting from a boat; suffice to say that there are always enough to prevent you from becoming attached to the practice, save as an occasional change. I say nothing of harling, which is a different matter; you can lounge at your ease in the stern of the boat, with a book in your hand, and trail on until the winch gives you warning that a fish ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Number of Forces to garison it[W]. The next Day Captain Griffin, and Captain Rentone, were sent to see if it was possible to get past the Enemy's Ships they had sunk, and finding the Conquestodore's Stern afloat, the Burford warped up, and cut the Stern Moorings, and hove her round, which opened a fair Channel, and the Bomb-Ketches, and two twenty Gun Ships went through. By this Time the Admiral, and greatest Part of the Squadron, were come up the Harbour. ...
— An Account of the expedition to Carthagena, with explanatory notes and observations • Sir Charles Knowles
... and myself followed the procession, and consigned the body to the earth, without a word being spoken. It was a solemn moment, and as I heard the dirt fall upon the corpse, my thoughts wandered to the proud lady, and the stern father through whose instrumentality the lover and son became a leader of bandits, and died a violent death, while setting at defiance the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... were the signal. They seized the Jews by the arms and began to hurl them into the waves. Pitiful cries resounded on all sides; but the stern Zaporozhtzi only laughed when they saw the Jewish legs, cased in shoes and stockings, struggling in the air. The poor orator who had called down destruction upon himself jumped out of the caftan, by which they had seized him, and in his scant parti-coloured ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... bring the troops to the upper side of the creek, when the enemy opened upon us with a rifled gun that sent shot far beyond us and beyond the stream. One shot passed very near where Captain Porter and I were standing, struck the deck near the stern, penetrated and passed through the cabin and so out into the river. We immediately turned back, and the troops were debarked below the mouth ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... strange column appeared, composed of some fifteen or twenty disarmed men marching between a double rank of heavily equipped hoplites. As they drew near, they clasped imploring hands and evidently begged for mercy from the stern, tight jawed figure at Nelson's side. Contemptuous and unhearing the prisoners' piteous pleadings and lamentations, Hero Giles scowled upon them ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... grown virtue, and inflames the new; Heightens the lustre of our age and clime, And sheds rich seeds of worth for future time. Proud chiefs alone, in fields of slaughter fam'd, Of old, this azure bloom of glory claim'd, As when stern Ajax pour'd a purple flood, The violet rose, fair daughter of his blood. Now rival wisdom dares the wreath divide, And both Minervas rise in equal pride; Proclaiming loud, a monarch fills the throne, Who shines illustrious not in wars alone. Let fame ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... the father-house at Paulerspury the new man in him could not be hid. His sister gives us a vivid sketch of the lad, whose going over to the dissenters was resented by the formal and stern clerk, and whose evangelicalism was a ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... you at any cost to my pride and so-called honour. This is the first one: On the morning preceding the day of Mrs. Upjohn's death, an interview took place between us at which my father was present. You do not know my father, Miss Strange. A strong man and a stern one, with a hold upon old traditions which nothing can shake. If he has a weakness it is for my little boy Roger in whose promising traits he sees the one hope which has survived the shipwreck of all for which our name has stood. Knowing this, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... the Scotch woman, a stern Presbyterian, who thought if ten thousand were saved at the final judgment that it would be "muckle many," and who, when asked if she expected to be one of the elect, replied "Sartainly." He felt that a theological discussion with Grandma Scates ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... an audience that would brook neither denial nor excuse. Nor hoarseness, nor catarrh, nor sudden illness, certified unto by the friendly physician, would avail him now. The demand was irresistible; for when he hesitated, the persuasive though stern mouth of a musket hinted to him in expressive silence that he had better ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... gangplank. The engine bell jangled. The negro roustabouts cast off the bow and stern hawsers from the wharf posts, and scrambled over the gunwale as the Robert Burns began to back out into the stream. Mrs. Adams waved her handkerchief. Everybody on the wharf waved—mostly handkerchiefs, which were suddenly very popular. The people on board waved back—and they, too, used ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... Christ, in the Convent of Agnetenberg, at Dulmen. 'When I had pronounced my vows,' she says, 'my relations were again extremely kind to me. My father and my eldest brother brought me two pieces of cloth. My father, a good, but stern man, and who had been much averse to my entering the convent, had told me, when we parted, that he would willingly pay for my burial, but that he would give nothing for the convent; and he kept his word, for this piece of cloth was the winding sheet used for my spiritual ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... women planned to continue their studies. These have taken the preparatory course along with the normal in the hope that some way might be offered for a continuance of study in one of the American Missionary Association colleges, but stern necessity compels nearly all to enter at once the ranks of wage-earners, and they must-seek positions as teachers or in ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 4, October, 1900 • Various
... in her checked apron and silently rocked back and forth. She could not think of the night and storm, the lonely, frightened girl dashed hither and yon in the little boat, without breaking down. Life near the dunes was stern and the people had learned to accept calmly the storm and danger, but, just at ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... of the President's phrase about the "firm hand of stern repression" in the arrest, conviction and jailing of the six suffragists; a touch of ruthlessness in their incarceration at Occoquan along with women of the street, pickpockets and other flotsam and jetsam. Still, the suffragists are not looking for ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... that this pristine clearness became clouded and confused. It had not been so easy as Eleanor had supposed to win over the sympathy of Lady Ella with his resignation. Indeed it had not been won over. She had become a stern and chilling companion, mute now upon the issue of his resignation, but manifestly resentful. He was secretly disappointed and disconcerted by her tone. And the same hesitation of the mind, instinctive rather than reasoned, that had ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... morning to see to the marriage settlements. And I must see to Prye! Even lawyers may be hurried if they be well paid for making haste!" concluded the banker, rubbing his hands. "But now go and find Salome, and tell her it is all right! She has not got a stern father to ruffle the course of her true love, but a spooney old fellow who spreads out his hands over your heads and ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God."(765) Here is brought to view a class who think themselves righteous, and appear to manifest great interest in the service of God; but the stern and solemn rebuke of the Searcher of hearts proves them to be ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... face, which was convulsed with love and pain, and found her stern as a priestess who defends her mystery from violation. Meekly he let his arms fall from her body and turned away, resting his head on his hand and ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... natural than his foot-fall, or the quiet glance of his cheery gray eye. He walked up to the captain, who held the helm, and lightly raised his hand to his cap. The captain, taking one hand from the wheel, did the same, and then the stranger, turning his back to the stern of the vessel, and fronting down the river with his face, continued to whistle slowly, clearly, and in excellent time. Grand as were his clothes they were no burden ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... the Nubian, creaking gently on her stern-moorings, "reminds me of a terrible adventure. My very first voyage was to the mouth of a river on the West Coast of Africa, where two native tribes were at war. Somehow, my owner—a scoundrelly fellow in the Midlands—had wind of the quarrel, and that the tribe nearest the ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... receive it, if there was any direction in which it could be applied. "You notice the trouble is that it so deep just here, and the current so strong, that it bothers a fellow amazingly. Now, if you will get overboard and push the stern you will do some good, but I don't see that you are going to amount to anything ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... pray note the expression so faithfully recorded in Punch—the compressed lips, the stern, frowning brows, the protruded jaw. The famous debater sees all fights to a finish, and fights himself till ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... revealed itself stood with an impressive dignity among its stern and blackish woods. The long, plain front suggested a monastic origin; and there was indeed what looked like a ruined chapel at one end. Its whole aspect was dilapidated and forlorn; and yet it seemed to have grown into ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... silent, ladies, and listen to the judgment which this jailer of mine is about to pass upon me. Do you know it is no less than whether these eyes of mine, which you were wont to praise, Martina, which in his lighter moments even this stern Olaf was wont to praise, should be torn from beneath my brow, and if so, whether it should be done in such a fashion that I die of the deed? That and no less is the matter which his lips must settle. Now ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... But what she did not know was that she herself was to be one of the instruments with which a stern and patient God was to clean out forever the one foul blot ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... with which the military movements were conducted in these campaigns, gave the scene rather the air of a court pageant, than that of the stern array of war. The war was one, which, appealing both to principles of religion and patriotism, was well calculated to inflame the imaginations of the young Spanish cavaliers; and they poured into the field, eager to display themselves under the eye of their illustrious queen, who, as ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... was rowing rapidly down the stream. It had passed the village of Chelsea, and the men were doing their best to reach their destination at Westminster before nightfall. Two men were rowing; in the stern sat a lady with a girl about eleven years old. A woman, evidently a servant, sat beside the lady, while behind, steering the boat, was an ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... while all went well, and Bobby was congratulating himself that after all he would reach home before it became too dark to see. Then suddenly a big sea broke over his stern, and left the skiff half filled with water. This was serious. He could not relinquish the oars to bail out the water. Another such deluge ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... a deprecating gesture and grinned in his charming way. But Elodie's intuition taught her that there was the stern purpose of a man behind the grin. She had imposed her helplessness on him this once. But if she failed him she would not have, professionally, a ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... stern gesture, may cause an eternal misunderstanding with them, just as a kind remark, a smile, a caress will soon accomplish their conquest. And this conquest is ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... passed small native boats, some of them with sails and loaded with goods, most of them rowed by one or more oars. It was to be noticed that when there was only one oar it was being worked vigorously by a woman, while a man sat comfortably in the stern and steered. These people were evidently going from the crowded villages in which they lived to work in ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... thee from heaven, as being without it before conversion) that the blood of that man Christ Jesus that was crucified on Mount Calvary, did at that same time, when it was there shed, wash thee from all thy sins, and be not so stout, and so stern against the truth, because it suits not with thy beguiled conscience. (bear with me in patience) and seriously inquire into the truth of things according to the scriptures. "For they are they that testify of Christ, and how salvation doth come ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... is seated on her accustomed seat; her face is shaded by her hand. So stern, so solemn, is her attitude that her chair seems suddenly turned ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... "A stern chase is a long chase," especially when one craft is a great distance behind the other. It looked as if it would be impossible for the rear boat to overcome the odds against it. Of course the Algonquin kept gaining, but could it possibly gain enough? That ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was an old man with white hair and a gray, stern face, who sat beside a table on which were paper and lighted candles. A letter lay before him, but he was not reading it. When the sound of the rocking began, he started and turned pale. A little boy once used to rock in that way in the garret overhead, but it was ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... As it were about a ship's length from us sailed another ship, tall and shadowy and gray, holding the same course as ourselves, and keeping place with us exactly, rising and falling over the hills of water as we rose and fell. And we could see that she had the same high dragon stem and stern as our ship, and on her decks we could make out forms of men amidships, dim and misty as the ship herself. Yet though we could see her thus, in no wise could we make out the sea on which she rode—so thick was the curling fog everywhere, though the sun was ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... cheeks. She loves me, I know it; I feel it; and still I must depart! she wept and I was forced to be silent! One single word would have opened Paradise to us, and that word I could not utter! Farewell, sweet dream, vanished for ever! And thou, stern and stupid honor, I curse thee while I serve thee, and execrate while I sacrifice all to thee. Ah! do not think that I am resigned; do not believe that pride can ever fill up the abyss into which I have voluntarily cast myself; do not hope that some day ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... his task in this. Thou, wandering from the right, art made Pure by the forfeit thou hast paid. Thy weight of sins is cast aside, And duty's claim is satisfied. Then grieve no more, O Prince, but clear Thy bosom from all doubt and fear, For fate, inexorably stern, Thou hast no power to move or turn. Thy princely Angad still will share My tender love, Sugriva's care; And to thy offspring shall be shown Affection that shall ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... have heard about the rules of Propriety. I have also heard that the superior man maintains a distant reserve towards his son [1].' I can easily believe that this distant reserve was the rule which Confucius followed generally in his treatment of his son. A stern dignity is the quality which a father has to maintain upon his system. It is not to be without the element of kindness, but that must never go beyond the line of propriety. There is too little room left for the play and development of natural affection. The divorce of ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the color of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... moon-beams played above, and showed it in such perfection; and all the modern buildings round, look like houses built of dominos compared to its gigantic form. It is as if an old Roman were standing at the entrance of the town, silent, stern, and proud, and gazing with contempt on the ephemeral creatures of an age he knew nothing of, and who were unworthy to ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... States, Great Britain, from whose example we derived the system, has relaxed hers. She has modified her corn laws and reduced many other duties to moderate revenue rates. After ages of experience the statesmen of that country have been constrained by a stern necessity and by a public opinion having its deep foundation in the sufferings and wants of impoverished millions to abandon a system the effect of which was to build up immense fortunes in the hands of the few and to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... going to his father, and pleading with him for his pig's life. But Romeo Augustus was shy, and somewhat afraid of his father, who was a stern man. So he kept his grief to himself, ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 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 ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Stern necessity would wait no longer on Napoleon's bravado; in a few days his troops withdrew to the tableland behind the river Passarge. There they found better cantonments, but the food was neither better ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... and in their works. I excuse myself, therefore, with Peter Godefridus, Valleriola, Ficinus, and in [4420]Langius' words. Cadmus Milesius writ fourteen books of love, "and why should I be ashamed to write an epistle in favour of young men, of this subject?" A company of stern readers dislike the second of the Aeneids, and Virgil's gravity, for inserting such amorous passions in an heroical subject; but [4421]Servius, his commentator, justly vindicates the poet's worth, wisdom, and discretion in doing as he did. Castalio would not have young ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... it away from me, and now it's my turn to keep it away from you. And by the way, Daisy, that was a mean thing to do, and I don't want you to do anything like that to me again!" Patty's sweet face showed an unusually stern expression, and her blue eyes looked straight into Daisy's ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... useless creature; but at my time of life, you see, one begins to have serious fancies. And it was mine to find this poor creature an asylum, where she might hide her head from shame, and be free of all temptation. You are a stern man, Captain Fyffe, you have shown me that, but do not be all justice and no mercy." She actually cried and clung to me as she spoke, and even now it seems difficult to believe that there was no ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... though the collision could not be prevented, but the Japanese, seizing the steering-wheel, turned the boat so quickly to starboard that the stern fell away from the bow of the approaching launch. There was no crash, no hard bump; merely a glancing blow so slight that in that calm water it scarcely made ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... force was opposed to them. They at length came to regard the day of battle as a day of certain triumph, and marched against the most renowned battalions of Europe with disdainful confidence. Turenne was startled by the shout of stern exultation with which his English allies advanced to the combat, and expressed the delight of a true soldier, when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to rejoice greatly when they ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that jeweled throng of dainty worshippers? Their hearts have probed the cruel wrong that rankles sore in hers; For she who sat beside her there—ah, heart of hardest stone! Swept forth with stern and haughty stare, and ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... later, the party had evacuated their position, bag and baggage, "carrying their wounded," who, from the stern-sheets of their boat, shook his fist in savage pantomime at the innocent La Salle and his amused companions. Some weeks later he learned that a single large shot had, without piercing the cloth, raised ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... these bills," said the Honorable Tom, producing two out of his pocket-book, and looking as stern as a lion. "'I promise to pay, on demand, to the Baron de Florval, the sum of four hundred pounds. October 20, 1838.' 'Ten days after date I promise to pay the Baron de et caetera et caetera, one hundred and ninety-eight pounds. Samuel Pogson.' You didn't ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his last evening with me, before he went to California, we talked nearly all the time of the distress brought on our oppressed people by the passage of this iniquitous law; and never had I seen him manifest such bitterness of spirit, such stern hostility to our oppressors. He was himself free from the operation of the law; for he did not run from any Slaveholding State, being brought into the Free States by his master. But I was subject to it; and so were hundreds ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... orgy of banality, Frederick moved off to be alone with his thoughts. The deck, which in the middle of the day had been dripping with water, was now quite dry. He walked to the stern and looked out over the broad, foaming wake. He heaved a deep breath of joy at the thought that he was no longer in the narrow spell of the little female demon. Suddenly the long tension of his soul relaxed. Though he might have suffered a profound ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Justiciary's Court was superior to any royally constituted tribunal in the kingdom; to that court it was the privilege of any man to appeal for justice in any cause; and there justice was measured out with a stern impartiality that had not its like in any other State ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... republic, was one of M. Seneschal's best friends. He was a man of about forty years, with a cunning look in his eye, a permanent smile on his face, and a confirmed bachelor, with no small pride in his consistency. The good people of Sauveterre thought he did not look stern and solemn enough for his profession. To be sure he was very highly esteemed; but his optimism was not popular; they reproached him for being too kind-hearted, too reluctant to press criminals whom he had to prosecute, and ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... such an extent that the youth earned the name of being a "bad boy," and there is no use of pretending he did not deserve the reputation. He gave his parents and neighbors a good deal of anxiety, and Dr. Dewey, who knew how to be stern as well as kind, was compelled more than once to interpose his authority in a way that no ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... preferred to talk about this in private, but Demi has spoilt that plan, so I may as well have it out now," said Mr. Bhaer, looking a little stern, as he always did when any meanness or deceit came up ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... if not heavy in its diction, and to be so inornate, though by no means correspondingly simple, as to render any comparison between it and the dramatic work of Shakspere out of the question. But when acted, the artistry of the play is revealed. Its intense naturalness is due in great part to the stern concision of the lines, where no word is wasted, where every sentence is fraught with the utmost it can convey. The outlines which disturbed us by their vagueness become more clear: in a word, we all see in enactment what only a few ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... punt-shooting (pastime for Hymir himself and the frost giants)—our golf and skating,—our very cricket, and boat-racing, and jack and grayling fishing, carried on till we are fairly frozen out. We are a stern people, and winter suits us. Nature then retires modestly into the background, and spares us the obtrusive glitter of summer, leaving us to think and work; and therefore it happens that in England, it may be taken as a general ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... leaning indolently against a post, when his emissary, Bates, returned from his errand. He was experiencing "that stern joy" which bullies feel just before an encounter with a foeman inferior in strength, whom they expect easily to master. Several of the boys were near by—sycophantic followers of Jim, who were enjoying ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... words of mourning for their fate, or expressions of fear, but each man, in his loyalty to duty, quietly and inwardly prepared to meet his death! It is a touching and inspiring picture, that may well emulate every bosom to deeds of heroism. The stern of the vessel, which had reared as the bow descended, gave a sudden plunge and went under also, and those who had swarmed its deck felt the force of the waters uplifting them as their footing sank beneath them, and they were left to struggle as they ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... escorted out of town in a body. Fearful of the hate of the guard, of treachery among themselves and of the townsfolk in other places, they tramped across the hills, followed closely by the stern-visaged riders. Several miles ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... Thus, stern of mood, Hanuman cried: The Maithil lady thus replied: "Nay, be not wroth with servants: they, When monarchs bid must needs obey. And, vassals of their lords, fulfil Each fancy of their sovereign will. To mine own sins the blame impute, For as we sow we ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... of citizenship is jury service," Mr. Bailey said, "and while women are physically capable of performing that service there are reasons, natural, moral and domestic, which render them wholly unfit for it.... We go to the court house for stern, unyielding justice. Will women help our courts to better administer justice? They will not. Nobody is qualified to decide any case until they have heard all the testimony on both sides but the average woman would make up her mind before the plaintiff had concluded his testimony." ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... ending with the North. he now presented the pipe to me as if desirous that I should smoke, but when I reached my hand to receive it, he drew it back and repeated the same cremony three times, after which he pointed the stern first to the heavens then to the center of the magic circle smoked himself with three whifs and held the pipe untill I took as many as I thought proper; he then held it to each of the white persons and then gave it to be consumed by his warriors. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... at my right hand, and at my left Lord Templemere; Sir John Sanclere next to him, and Angus McKeller next to Sanclere. After Viscount Stern was Lionel Dacre, and at ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... he been social, convivial, fond, like most of his brother priests, of a game of cards, of good living and long drinking, he might have worked more reforms in the countryside, and holding the reins of priestly government stern and tight prevented some lapses from the moral code. That is to say, a worse man might have achieved better results, but as it was not in his nature to haunt Poussette's, make friends with the guides and call at unconventional hours ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... anybody to do anything unusual therein. In such a well-fitted but unelastic establishment the dinner-hour, the carriage horses, hot water, bedtime, candles, the post, the wash-day, and an extra blanket, from being the ministers of one's comfort, become the stern arbiters of one's fate. Spring cleaning—which is something like what it would be to build, paint, and furnish a house, and to "do it at home"—takes place as naturally as the season it celebrates; but if you want the front door kept open after the usual hour for drawing the bolts ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was so willing and good-tempered; and her round childish face was always well washed and free from smudges, and she was so good to Dot, caring for her as if she were a baby sister of her own. Nevertheless, stern in her youthful integrity, Olivia had already decided that Martha's hours at ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to redeem our ruin'd state, 500 Millions of millions, at a distance round, Silent the sacred consistory crown'd, To hear what mercy, mix'd with justice, could propound: All prompt, with eager pity, to fulfil The full extent of their Creator's will. But when the stern conditions were declared, A mournful whisper through the host was heard, And the whole hierarchy, with heads hung down, Submissively declined the ponderous proffer'd crown. Then, not till then, the Eternal Son from high 510 Rose in the strength ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... and takes in interchange, will never condemn as masculine. You had but to look into Violante's face to see how noble was the intelligence that brought soul to those lovely features. Nothing hard, nothing dry and stern was there. Even as you detected knowledge, it was lost in the gentleness of grace. In fact, whatever she gained in the graver kinds of information, became transmuted, through her heart and her fancy, into spiritual golden stores. Give her some tedious ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... master and owner, was acting as captain, the deck was as deserted as the wharf. He was smoking an evening pipe in all the pride of a first command, his eye roving fondly from the blunt bows and untidy deck of his craft to her clumsy stern, when a slight cough from the man above ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... asked the Congress to take this action by the first of October. We must now act with the dispatch which the stern necessities of war require. ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... smallest store in New York. It was about the size of a tool-box of the D. P. W., and was stuck like a swallow's nest against a corner of a down-town skyscraper. Its stock consisted of fruit, candies, newspapers, song books, cigarettes, and lemonade in season. When stern winter shook his congealed locks and Joe had to move himself and the fruit inside, there was exactly room in the store for the proprietor, his wares, a stove the size of a vinegar cruet, and ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... It was an unlovely tale he told me of his life in school. I got the impression of a building half-prison, half-barracks. No one was allowed to go out unless to football matches when the school team was playing. Punishment was stern and frequent. ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... 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 ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... which had been sent from Royan, at the order of the pilot, who went ashore there, had followed "The Last Hope" up the river, and was now lying under the English ship's stern awaiting her two passengers and the turn ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... the Ferryman hailed her again. Receiving no response to his second call, he resolved to investigate for himself; so, fastening his own boat to the stern-post of the stranger, he clambered on board. If he was astonished as he sat in his ferry-boat, he was paralyzed when he cast his eye over the unwelcome vessel he had boarded. He stood for at least two minutes rooted ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, which will sound the word or note which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets fortune with calmness and endurance; and another which may be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... letter, I was very early impressed with the contradictions of life in word and deed—in fact, almost as soon as I was conscious of anything, living as a lonely child in a very narrowed and narrowing circle. A spirit of contemplation, of simplicity, and of childlike faith; a stern, sometimes cruel, self-repression; a carefully-fostered inward yearning after knowledge by causes and effects, together with an open-air life amidst Nature, especially amidst the world of plants, gradually freed ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... "I am an American citizen," may not be sent forth in vain against outrage of every kind. In just regard for free labor in that Territory, which it is sought to blast by unwelcome association with slave labor; in Christian sympathy with the slave, whom it is proposed to task and sell there; in stern condemnation of the crime which has been consummated on that beautiful soil; in rescue of fellow-citizens now subjugated to a Tyrannical Usurpation; in dutiful respect for the early fathers, whose aspirations are now ignobly thwarted; in the name of the Constitution, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... 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, and seeing life spring up again: the ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... arrayed in manners, gallantry, splendor, magnificence, and even covered over with the imposing robes of science, literature, and arts, it was, in government, nothing better than a painted and gilded tyranny,—in religion, a hard, stern intolerance, the fit companion and auxiliary to the despotic tyranny which prevailed in its government. The same character of despotism insinuated itself into every court of Europe,—the same spirit of disproportioned ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Clubbs, Staves & divers Instruments, & nothing would do but all our Brains must be Knock't out. Finding how I defended the Longboat, they then undertook to attack myselfe and people, One of their Boats came upon the stern and made severall Blows at my Coxwain, and if it had not been for the Resolution I had taken to endure all these Abuses, I had Kill'd all those men with my own Hand; but this Boat in particular stuck close to me with only six ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... while two years later Arthur O'Frigil, a canon of Raphoe, received the same See by papal provision. At the inquiry before Cardinal Pole it was proved that though Bodkin had contracted the guilt of schism he had done so more from fear than from conviction, that he had been always a stern opponent of heresy, and that in the city and diocese of Tuam the new opinions had made no progress. Apparently, as a result of the inquiry, an agreement was arranged whereby Bodkin was allowed to retain possession of Tuam.[3] The other bishops were allowed to retain their Sees without objection, ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... minutes Caleb had brought his boat round to the quay. Mr. Fogo stepped in, and was presently seated in the stern and meditatively listening while ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... very stern. He was sure now that there was a wound, and that it was being probed; he believed in making thorough work, even with wounds; there would be more hope ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... stronger impulse vibrates here, Which whispers friendship will be doubly dear To one, who thus for kindred hearts must roam, And seek abroad, the love denied at home. Those hearts, dear IDA, have I found in thee, A home, a world, a paradise to me. Stern Death forbade my orphan youth to share The tender guidance of a Father's care; 220 Can Rank, or e'en a Guardian's name supply The love, which glistens in a Father's eye? For this, can Wealth, or ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... end of the year. But the young man wrote that his father, an india-rubber merchant who lived in Slough, did not approve of the union, and Fraulein Thekla was often in tears. Sometimes she and her mother might be seen, with stern eyes and determined mouths, looking over the letters of the reluctant lover. Thekla painted in water colour, and occasionally she and Philip, with another of the girls to keep them company, would go out and paint little pictures. The pretty ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... It has a vignette of Venice for an illuminated letter. That is what your decorative art has become, by help of Kensington! The letter to be produced is a T. There is a gondola in the front of the design, with the canopy slipped back to the stern like a saddle over a horse's tail. There is another in the middle distance, all gone to seed at the prow, with its gondolier emaciated into an oar, at the stern; then there is a Church of the Salute, and a Ducal Palace,—in which I beg you to observe all the felicity and dexterity ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... in the history of music, came to her many graces and accomplishments by right of birth. She was the daughter of Liszt and the Countess d'Agoult, a French author, better known under her pen name of "Daniel Stern." Thus she had genius on one side of her parentage and distinguished talent on the other; and, on both sides, ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... person, this stern Australian nurse—taciturn, suspicious, ungracious, it took some time before Holmes's pleasant manner and frank acceptance of all that she said thawed her into a corresponding amiability. She did not attempt to conceal her ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... look of compassion softening his stern features. He strode over to Ethne, and placing his hand gently on her head said: "Don't take your disappointment to heart, little woman; when any more birds come to the plains of Murthemney, I promise to get for you the most beautiful ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... the one cask of wine which had been saved from marauders. "It is I who have brought you into this strait," he said to his thirsty fellow-soldiers, "and I will have no advantage of you in meat or drink." Beneath the stern imperiousness of his outer bearing lay in fact a strange tenderness and sensitiveness to affection. Every subject throughout his realm was drawn closer to the king who wept bitterly at the news of his father's death though it gave him a crown, whose fiercest burst of vengeance was called out by ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... father had left her, Ghismonda, wavering not a jot in her stern resolve, had sent for poisonous herbs and roots, and therefrom had distilled a water, to have it ready for use, if that which she apprehended should come to pass. And when the servant appeared with the Prince's present and message, she took the cup unblenchingly, and having lifted the lid, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... breeze went down as the day advanced, and soon the mission vessel found herself surrounded by smacks, with an ever-increasing tail of boats at her stern, and an ever-multiplying congregation on her deck. It was a busy and a lively scene, for while they were assembling, Fred Martin took advantage of the opportunity to distribute books and medicines, ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... at the sight, the figures blended and formed into a splendid procession of a martial day gone by. I saw them—a long stream of mounted men, who rode in helmet and cuirass, and bore each aloft a long-beamed spear. In front rode one whose mien was high and stern, and who might well have been commander. High aloft he tossed his great sword as he rode, and sang the time a song of war; and as he sang, the thousands of deep throats behind him made chorus terrible but stirring in its chesty melody, for ictus to the song each warrior smiting ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... I so alone As when I walk among the crowd— Blurred masks of stern or grinning stone, Unmeaning eyes ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... typical appearance of those peasants whom we sometimes find in the eastern provinces and who, with their stern, clean-shaven faces, like the faces on ancient medals, remind us of our Roman ancestors rather than of the Gauls or Francs. He had marched to battle in 1870 with the others, perishing with hunger and wretchedness, risking his skin. ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... faith pales and dwindles, from the general neglect of that strenuous and constant cultivation of it formerly secured by the stern doctrinal drill and by the rigid supervision of daily thought and habit in the interests of religion. Never before were men so absorbed as now in material toil and care during the serious portion of their existence; never before so beset as now during the leisure portion by innumerable forms ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... profitably given to our minds by nature; fear, in order that we may take care; pity and melancholy they called the whetstone of our clemency; and anger itself that of our courage. Whether they were right or wrong we may consider another time. How it was that those stern doctrines of yours forced their way into the Old Academy I do not know, but I cannot bear them; not because they have anything in them particularly disagreeable to me; for many of the marvellous doctrines of the Stoics, which men call {GREEK SMALL LETTER PI}{GREEK SMALL ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... he read this letter is not recorded. Brandon said nothing to Falk about all this. Indeed, during the first weeks after Falk's return he preserved a stern and dignified silence. After all, the boy must learn that authority was authority, and he prided himself that he knew, better than any number of Oxford Dons, how to train and educate the young. Nevertheless light broke through. Some of Falk's ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... matron with her old maid-servant who takes part with her mistress against her master; whereas the young men's parts are less prominent, and neither the first lover, nor the virtuous model son who here and there occurs, lays claim to much significance. The servant- world—the crafty valet, the stern house-steward, the old vigilant tutor, the rural slave redolent of garlic, the impertinent page—forms a transition to the very numerous professional parts. A standing figure among these is the jester (-parasitus-) ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... gospel, when they were only reaffirming the principles which underlie the Magna Charta of humanity, and are common to the noblest utterances of all the nobler creeds! But spoken by those solemn lips to those stern, simpleminded hearers, the words I have cited seem to me to have a fragrance like the precious ointment of spikenard with which Mary anointed her Master's feet. I can see the little bare meeting-house, with the godly deacons, and the grave matrons, and the comely ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... shot, dry goods, and provisions were packed in the canoes, when each voyager had hung his votive offering in the chapel of his patron saint, a boatman of experience stepped into the bow and another into the stern of each canoe, the crew took places between them, and at the word the fleet glided up the St. Lawrence on its way to the Ottawa, and thence on to Sault Ste. Marie, to Grand Portage (near the northeast corner of what is now Minnesota), ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... for they rush out to her from the land in all their sorts and sizes, in a desperate race for supremacy. Prominent among this fleet is a long, ungainly rowing-boat propelled by a tough Hibernian, and seated in the stern are his women folk, surrounded by baskets, who, in strong Milesian vernacular, urge the rower on in his endeavours to reach the ship first. Looked down upon them from your floating tower, they strongly resemble a swarm of centipedes. Harder and harder pull the "bhoys," and louder and louder ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... individual, and will always lean to one side. For that reason, man should pursue so far as possible, both theoretically and practically, that which is contrary to his nature. Let the easy-going seek what is serious and severe; let the stern keep before his eyes the light and agreeable; the strong, loveliness; the amiable, strength; and everyone will develop his own nature the more, the farther he seems to remove himself from it. Every art requires ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... able to tell the grandfather Eire's rich and can feed more colonists and even maybe pay back what it's cost to keep us here so long. It would be a fine thing to hire colonists to build the houses they'll be given free when they're finished. But since Sean O'Donohue is a stern man——" ...
— Attention Saint Patrick • William Fitzgerald Jenkins |
