"Earnestness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... witnessed, until she fainted, when Henrietta was the culprit, would have put an end to the Italian project through mere physical collapse and ruin. Far better therefore to withdraw quietly from the house, and trust to the effect of a subsequent pleading in all earnestness for reconciliation. ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... kindliness; which makes the contrast between the Saturnalia of Shrove Tuesday night and the cross signed with ashes upon the forehead on Ash Wednesday morning, between the careless laughter of the Roman beauty in Carnival, and the tragic earnestness of the same lovely face when the great lady kneels in Lent, before the confessional, to receive upon her bent head the light touch of the penitentiary's wand, taking her turn, perhaps, with a score ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... that we had got everything comfortable for the winter, which now, about the middle of October, began to set in with severe earnestness, with heavy falls of snow and strong northerly winds. Our house, on which we had so much prided ourselves, did not keep out the cold blast as we expected; and though we covered ourselves up with blankets, and sails, and skins, and kept up a constant fire in the little stove we had brought from the ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Adrian laughed at her earnestness. "I'm not going to poison myself," said he. "Unless you jilt me! So it comes to exactly the same thing, either way. There—be easy now! I've promised. Besides, the Warroo or Guarano Indian who gave it me—out on the Essequibo; it was when I went to Demerara—told ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... you will permit me to say so," said Lory, sitting down and drawing near to Denise in his earnestness, "that is impossible. I will not trouble you with details, but it is an impossibility. I understand that Mattei Perucca and his agent were the two strongest men in the northern district, and they only attempted to hold their own, nothing ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... again, rather incredulously. He stood before me, a thin parallelogram of black with a mosaic of white about the throat. The slight grotesqueness of the man made him almost impossibly real in his abstracted earnestness. He so much meant what he said that he ignored what his hands were doing, or his body or his head. He had taken a very small, very dusty book out of a little shelf beside him, and was absently turning over the rusty leaves, while he talked with his head bent over it. ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... then for any reasonable price. Five dollars, sixty-six and two-thirds per cent. advance, induced the owner to part with the mustang. I was sorry to take him, because I really felt that, belonging to a foot regiment, it was my duty to march with the men. But I saw the Captain's earnestness in the matter, and accepted the horse for the trip. The day we started was the first time the horse had ever been under saddle. I had, however, but little difficulty in breaking him, though for the first day there were frequent disagreements ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... Whether the advice of Demosthenes is rightly translated or not—first requisite, action; second, action; third, action—I am sure that English word does not express the requisite for women. I should rather call it earnestness—a conviction that what you say is worth saying, and worth saying to the audience before you. I had a lesson on the danger of overaction from hearing a gentleman recite in public "The dream of Eugene Aram," in which he went through all the movements of killing and burying the murdered man. ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... hundred other cases, perhaps,—let that stand for the proportion, if you will,—but wrong in this. And nothing but her misapplied sympathy and tenderness of heart could have lent her the vigor and earnestness which she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... came to her, and presently she stood outside the principal entrance of the little church. St. James the Less was by no means remarkable for beauty of architecture or adornment of any sort; nevertheless the vicar was a man of great eloquence and earnestness, and in the evenings it was the custom for the little church ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... an eager, almost prayerful look; he was like a child in his simple earnestness. His fingers moved over the maps on the table, in which were little red and white and yellow flags, the white flags to mark the towns and villages where they had mastered the disease, the red flags to mark the new ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... end of the programme came her class poem, Makers of To-morrow; and there, as on many a former occasion, her personality played so great a part that she seemed to be uttering Miltonic sentiments instead of school-girl verse. Her voice, her eyes, her body breathed conviction, earnestness, emotion; and when she left the platform the audience felt that they had listened to a masterpiece. Most of her hearers knew little of Carlyle or Emerson, or they might have remembered that the one said, "We are all ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Laughing at his earnestness, the others followed the fat scout across the street, where the old woman with her dog team was apparently resting, and observing the remarkably interesting sights ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... consists in the possibility, not to say with some temperaments the probability, that somewhere in the course of so very gradual a descent the same influences which led originally to the use of opium may recur, with no counteracting influence derived from the excitement of the mind produced by the earnestness of the struggle. With some constitutions I have no doubt that a process even so slow as that of Dr. S.'s might be successful, but I suspect, with most men, that some mood of excited feeling, and some conscious sense of conflict, ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... warfare against privation, in which defeat hovered constantly over fields where victory seemed assured, theirs had been a happy sort of misery. Digby loved Kate and Kate worshipped him; his pity for her was overwhelmed by the earnestness with which she pitied him. No struggle of his failed but that she shouldered and bore the failure with him, cheering him when he felt like lagging, smiling when he despaired the deepest. Between them a speck of joy grew larger, brighter each day despite the ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... their veracity, directness of conception. Thor 'draws down his brows' in a veritable Norse rage; 'grasps his hammer till the knuckles grow white." Again; "A great broad Brobdignag grin of true humor is this Skrymir; mirth resting on earnestness and sadness, as the rainbow on the black tempest: only a right valiant heart is capable of that." Still again: "This law of mutation, which also is a law written in man's inmost thought, has been deciphered by these old earnest Thinkers in ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... surrounded by her guards, galloped at full speed to the faubourg, where she dismounted and entered her coach, still environed by armed men. As she had her foot upon the step of the carriage, a poor woman who stood among the crowd exclaimed with an earnestness which elicited general attention, "Would to God, Madame, that as much care had been taken of our poor King; we should not ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... merit, to make it one of the common-places of history. Every child knows how the Czar of Muscovy worked in the dock-yard of Saardam in Holland, as a common carpenter. In most men this would have been affectation; and perhaps there was some tinge of that weakness in the earnestness with which Peter handled the axe, obeyed the officers of the dock-yard, and in all points of outward manners and appearance, put himself on a level with the shipwrights who were earning their daily bread. It seems, however, to have ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... communications with a being who has been so long neglected. The fault lay in himself, however, for a gracious ear was open, even over the death-bed of Stephen Spike, could that rude spirit only bring itself to ask for mercy in earnestness and truth. As his companions saw his struggles, they left him for a few minutes to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... great earnestness, "that if Lucretia could have beat all the others but Diablo, she has a rosy chance for the Derby; that's what it means. The Black got away with a flyin' start, and she wore him down, almost beat him; I doubt if The Dutchman could do that much. She was ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... Mary remained unshaken even in the midst of her inexpressible anguish.15 It was absolutely impossible for her to leave the body of her Son in the awful state to which it had been reduced by his sufferings, and therefore she began with indefatigable earnestness to wash and purify it from the traces of the outrages to which it had been exposed. With the utmost care she drew off the crown of thorns, opening it behind, and then cutting off one by one the thorns which had sunk deep into the head of Jesus, in order that she might not widen the ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... of such outlandish description, that we could not understand him. Mr. B. told us that the main ground of his defence was that Peter's direction was altogether unreasonable. Peter was then called upon to sustain his complaint; he spoke with equal earnestness and equal unintelligibility. Mr. B. then gave his decision, with great kindness of manner, which ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Paul might have questioned the gravity of any such contingency, but the terrible earnestness of the speaker, his dominant tone, and a certain respect which had lately sprung up in his breast for him, checked him, and he only asked with as much concern as he could ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... cried King, impressed by Cousin Jack's earnestness. "But we don't have much money ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... This entitled Alfred to the first shot for second prize. He felt he would give anything he possessed to win the dainty trifle which the Colonel had waved aloft. Twice he raised his rifle in his exceeding earnestness to score a good shot and each time lowered the barrel. When finally he did shoot the bullet embedded itself in the second circle. It was a good shot, but he knew it ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... and, springing from his seat, he threw his arms around Kenton's neck, and embraced him with much emotion. Then turning to the assembled warriors, who remained astonished spectators of this extraordinary scene, he addressed them in a short speech, which the deep earnestness of his tone, and the energy of his gesture, rendered eloquent. He informed them that the prisoner, whom they had just condemned to the stake, was his ancient comrade and bosom friend; that they had ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... the top signed with Jim's name I noticed there was nothing in them to tell who wrote them. Why shouldn't Hygeia enjoy them with me? If a few seemed to affect her, a clue to her heart's entrance would appear, and then I could undertake the composition of more with greater earnestness than ever. A man can do better in such business for himself. Just a few would do no harm, at any rate. She would not know who "Devoted Darling" and "Jamie" and "My Dearest Own" might be, with no envelopes and addresses to give the thing away, and if she did, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... to tell you about that, too, 'cause you don't know about it. You see, I'm mostly used to gittin' sick, an' I ain't mostly used to eatin' of pie." He spoke then, as he always spoke, with the most impressive earnestness. ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... episode. The author was under the obvious temptation to make much comic material out of the situation; while another temptation, towards the goody-goody side, was not far off. But the Vicar undertakes the duty of reclaiming these castaways with a modest patience and earnestness in every way in keeping with his character; while they, on the other hand, are not too easily moved to tears of repentance. His first efforts, it will be remembered, were not too successful. "Their insensibility excited my highest compassion, and blotted my own uneasiness from ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... Atkins," Brown leaned forward now and spoke with earnestness, "I like your motto. It suits me. 'Mind your own business' suits me down to the ground. It proves that you and I were made to work together in ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to me in alarm, "Hide your pistols! there is a mouchard (spy of the police) following you." I believe that I, my blood being up, said something to the effect that if she would point him out I would shoot him forthwith, but the mouchard had vanished. We had all got into cool earnestness by that time as regards shooting, having been in it ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... and gave as the solution, skates and soles. He declared the weather was made on purpose for skating; and although his uncle expressed some doubts as to the thickness of the ice, George's eloquence and earnestness carried the point, especially as, from his own account, his experience was so great that you would have concluded he was at least sixty years old. So the boys set off for a large pond, at the distance of about a mile, accompanied by the girls, well wrapt up in cloaks, furs, and ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... Bristol; sometimes I was watching the careful process by which the silver was obtained from the lead, and learning a good deal about the art, while Bigley seemed to be growing more and more one of us, and worked with the greatest of earnestness over the various tasks I ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... now, I fancy I see them speeding up and down that departed staircase, trying to help the men carry water to pour on the roof. The earnestness of their faces is very striking as Susy brandishes a pail, Dotty a glass pitcher, and Prudy a watering-pot, in the delusive hope that they ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... strange that the girl should be trying to persuade him to marry her; but in her earnestness she never thought of that. The man's sacrifice quite appalled her; she felt that she was not worth it, and she did all she could to persuade him ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... "Sweet is it to repay the gifts received from our lord, to grip the swords, and devote the steel to glory. Behold, each man's courage tells him loyally to follow a king of such deserts, and to guard our captain with fitting earnestness. Let the Teuton swords, the helmets, the shining armlets, the mail-coats that reach the heel, which Rolf of old bestowed upon his men, let these sharpen our mindful hearts to the fray. The time requires, and it is just, that in time of war we should earn whatsoever ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... to do so, as you know. I am not naturally unkind. Heaven has not given me a heart of flint, and I feel but too ready to help when I see young people loving each other in all earnestness and honesty. What can we do ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... difficult task of directing the infant colony, appear to have been unequal to their office. It is not necessary to pursue the history of an enterprise which proved unsuccessful, and in which Sir Walter personally bore no share. He showed his earnestness by fitting out several expeditions, which must have been a heavy drain upon his fortune. But he is said to have derived immense wealth from prizes captured from the Spaniards; and we may here observe that the lavish magnificence in dress, especially in jewels, for which ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... precipitate the avowal trembling on his lips that it was her he madly loved,—not Nina? Though she hurriedly bade him good-night, though she was unprepared for any such announcement, he well knew that Alice Renwick's heart fluttered at the earnestness of his manner, and that he had indicated far more than he had said. Fear—not love—had drawn him to Nina Beaubien that night, and hope had centred on her more beautiful rival, when the discoveries of the night involved him in the first trembling symptoms of the downfall to come. And he was to have ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... were a cow! she would be bound to keep it well; if she did not, he might take it back again. She even hoped to pay for it by and by, by instalments, but that she would not promise!' and, partly amused, partly interested by the child's earnestness, the wealthy yeoman gave her, not as a purchase, but as a present, a very fine young Alderney. She then went to the lord of the manor, and, with equal knowledge of character, begged his permission to keep her cow on the Shaw common. 'Farmer ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... weakened by their perennial series of victories, it has apparently been growing deeper and stronger all the time. The religious sense is as yet too feebly developed in most of us; but certainly in no preceding age have men taken up the work of life with more earnestness or with more real faith in the unseen than at the present day, when so much of what was once deemed all-important knowledge has been consigned to the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... months the huge building—representing the seat of government of a mighty state—had been Lawler's throne. And he had ruled with a democratic spirit and with a simple directness, that had indicated earnestness and strength. There had been a mass of detail which had required close attention; many conferences with the prominent men of his party—in which the prominent men had been made to understand that Lawler intended to be governor in fact as well as in name; and a gradual gathering up of ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... things, that a light-hearted, affectionate, strong, yet womanly, engine of energy constituted the young Delaware lawyer-politician. Keen, cunning, impulsive, hopeful, his feet provincial, his head among the birds, he combined facility and earnestness in almost mercurial relations to each other, and the Judge saw that these must constitute ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... made with an earnestness and vehemence that showed how fierce and hostile the blood that boiled in the veins of the speaker. Nor was there any appeal from the inexorable logic of his remarks. From the inhuman manner in which England has, for seven centuries preyed upon the vitals of Ireland, and ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... raising the tone of his speech, the friar proceeded; until at length by his intense earnestness, his wild gesticulations, his impassioned words, he drew the whole of his listeners along with him; and when he ceased, a mighty shout of "To the Holy ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... though the fact has not been sufficiently appreciated by professional thinkers, that in a time averse to speculation he has devoted his energies to the highest problems of metaphysics, and in their elaboration has approached his task with scientific earnestness and a comprehensive and thorough consideration of previous results. Thus the critique of ethical standpoints in the historical part of the Phenomenology of the Moral Consciousness, especially, contains ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... move at seven to-morrow morning!" The Creole's fervor amuses the rabble, and when Hilary smiles his earnestness waxes to a frown. Kincaid replies lightly and the rider bends the rein to wheel away, but the slippery stones have their victim at last. The horse's feet spread and scrabble, his haunches go low. Constance snatches both Anna's hands. Ah! by ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... persuade him to come on. He came on suddenly. The two men were soon writhing together on the guard deck, and I was pleased to observe the desperado was undermost. The Englishman was full of fear, and was fighting for his life. He was doing it with great earnestness. He was grasping the throat of his enemy tightly with both hands, and pressing his thumbs on the wind-pipe. We could see he was going to win in his own simple way, without any recourse to science, and he would have done so very soon had he not been interrupted. But as ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... tinge of earnestness in this good-natured banter, but it was instantly dissipated by ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... annoying as it was preposterous. Four days before the affair, Ivan went through a highly unpleasant scene with old Nicholas Rubinstein, who came to beg him to give up his acquaintance in the Akheskaia, and remained to beseech, with an earnestness a trifle startling, that he would, at least, put off this supper. When finally his defeated friend had gone, though he had preserved towards him a courtesy that was as admirable as it had been cutting to old Nicholas, Ivan sat down ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... lieutenant was a Serif, a direct descendant of Mohammed, or perhaps even a Habi, which means a Serif who has been to Mecca, or a Hadji and Serif in one, than whom none but the Sultan is so great, so good, so omnipotent. I dared not laugh at the child's earnestness, though I had some trouble in controlling my risibles, the aforesaid young officer not having a reputation ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... had been born in Sid Hahn's mind thirty years before was now so plainly stamped on this boy's face that Hahn was startled into earnestness. "But I tell you, it's true! ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... quickly inspired others with his own love of discipline. There was something almost pathetic in the earnestness with which both the officers and men of the Fifty-fourth embraced their mission of showing that a black regiment could excel in every virtue known to man. They had good success, and the Fifty-fourth became a model in all possible respects. Almost the only trace of bitterness ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... after he was a constant reader not only of scientific works, but of all kinds of books. This practical experience in helping to support his family and in getting his own education, while he was still so young a lad, was the school in which he learned self-reliance. It is pleasant to know that the earnestness of life did not take all of his boyishness away from him, for it must have been while he was hard at work that he built a real steamboat, six feet long, and navigated it ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... tempted to ask: "What forlorn hope have you led? What immortal book have you written? What great discovery have you made? What heroic task of any kind have you performed?" There was too much talk about earnestness and too little real work done. Aspiration too frequently got as far as the alpenstock and the brandy flask, but crossed no dangerous crevasse, and scaled no arduous summit. In short, there was a kind of "Transcendentalist" dilettanteism, which betrayed itself by a phraseology as distinctive ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the Governor of Pennsylvania be commended for the earnestness and diligence they have shown in ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... of Western Europe manifestly cannot be manufactured from without; it can only be created from within. But it is right and necessary that we encourage Europe's leaders by informing them of the high value we place upon the earnestness of their efforts toward this goal. Real progress will be conclusive evidence to the American people that our material sacrifices in the cause of collective security are matched by essential political, economic, and military accomplishments in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... now-a-days! The time was when I looked the part and acted it well, and then I liked to play it. I must leave it, with many other good things, to younger men." Speaking about dramatic elocution, he said, "The best method is obtained by close observation of Nature, and above all by earnestness. If you can impress people with the conviction that you feel what you say, they will pardon many shortcomings. And, above all, study, study, study! All the genius in the world will not help you along with any art unless you become ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... sovereigns lay encamped before Granada. Juan Perez had formerly been confessor of Isabella, and was held in great consideration by her for his excellent qualities. On arriving at the camp, he was readily admitted to an audience, when he pressed the suit of Columbus with all the earnestness and reasoning of which he was capable. The friar's eloquence was supported by that of several eminent persons, whom Columbus during his long residence in the country had interested in his project, and who viewed with sincere regret the prospect of its abandonment. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... words with deep feeling and earnestness, and Alwyn, meeting his clear, grave, brilliant eyes, was more than ever impressed by the singular dignity and overpowering magnetism of his presence. Remembering how insufficiently he had realized this man's true worth, when he had first sought him out in his monastic ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Maryland youth's "tightness" was rather real than shamed; that it was, in fact, the cause of his being left behind. It is possible that I may have been too hard on his reverence's nervousness—scarcely doing justice to his earnestness of purpose; but, as to the aforesaid infernal machines I decline ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... This portion of Russia was peopled with many millions of Jews. It was not possible any longer to do away with this large population by either drowning it in a river, or even—as many are still planning in all earnestness—by deportation. Thus, the Russian state, in the person of Empress Catherine II, for the first time found itself forced to face the Jewish question in a form which did not allow of simply waving it aside. How then did the enlightened Empress settle it? Well, she simply ...
— The Shield • Various
... and I was well pleased. But unfortunately I remembered that it was my duty to testify 'in season and out of season'. I therefore asked, with much earnestness, 'But, Papa, is she one of the Lord's children?' He replied, with gravity, that she was. 'Has she taken up her cross in baptism?' I went on, for this was my own strong point as a believer. My Father looked a little shame-faced, and replied: ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... with every duty, said, 'So be it!' Indeed, the king and the queen kept themselves awake all night, duly engaged in tending and serving the Rishi in the manner directed. The royal couple, O monarch accomplished the Rishi's bidding with earnestness and attention. Meanwhile the holy Brahmana, having thus laid his commands upon the king, slept soundly, without changing his posture or turning even once, for a space of one and twenty days. The king, O delighter of the Kurus, foregoing all food, along with his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... be helped, grumbling is unreasonable, so good-bye sleep and quiet, and let us prepare to pay homage to the illustrious youth and his lady attendant," said I, smiling at the guard's earnestness. But still ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... sail on what we had heard was his pet subject, and it was a great satisfaction to listen to what he had to say. It loses a great deal in being written, for the old sailor's voice and gestures and thorough earnestness all carried no little persuasion. And it was impossible not to be sure that he knew more than people usually do about these mysteries in which ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... with an earnestness and in a voice which made them almost awful, a momentary expression of fear swept across Lady Bellamy's face, but it went as quickly as it came, and the hard, determined look returned. The mysterious eyes grew cold and glittered, the head erected itself. At that moment Lady ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... modest regard; it will be all the stronger for that. I have known actors and actresses who were always talking about their art with a big A, their "art-life," their "life-work," their careers and futures, and so on. Keep these things to yourselves, for I have observed that eloquence and hyper-earnestness of this kind not infrequently go with rather disappointing achievement. Think, act, but don't talk about it. And, above all, because you are actors and actresses, for that very reason be sincere and unaffected; avoid rather than ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... general expression, dress should be cheerful and enlivening, but, at least in the case of adults, not inconsistent with thoughtful earnestness. There is a radical and absurd incongruity between the real condition and the outward seeming of a man or woman who knows what life is, and purposes to discharge its duties, enjoy its joys, and bear its sorrows, and who is clad in a trivial, grotesque, or extravagant costume.—These, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... meeting of the committee called to reconsider the bill, Mr. Yates argued at length and with earnestness against disfranchisement on the ground of inability to read and write. The committee reversed their former decision, and reported the bill substantially in the form in which it subsequently became a law. The bill being before the Senate on the 16th of January, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... looked at her with great earnestness for a moment, and then replied, "I am seeking a place called Fairy Knowe, and a man called Cuthbert Headrigg. You can ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a frame of mind. The sternness of his expression passed away; there was nothing but the sadness left. Probably he doubted the sincerity of the culprit's contrition; at least he did not realize the depth and earnestness ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... compared it with the tone in which Caroline had appealed to him the day before. Sometimes her voice assumed the same earnestness, and he felt as if she were showing him in the words all her own heart, betraying love, warmth, ardor. Sometimes, in comparison with that cry, her tones seemed cold and metallic, a selfish appeal of danger, not a cry of love. He found himself examining her more nearly than he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to anyone when I'm with you," he replied with quiet earnestness, leaning toward her ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... for, after all, the resemblances in human beings are more than their differences. The differences are superficial,—the resemblances radical. Everywhere men like, in a Christian minister, the same things,—sincerity, earnestness, and living Christianity. Mere words may please, but not long. Men differ in taste about the form of the cup out of which they drink this wine of Divine Truth, but they agree in their thirst for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... wrote plays, and she and Daisy Warner and Clara played them in the library or up-stairs in the school-room, with only themselves and the servants for audience. They were of a tragic and tremendous sort, and were performed with great energy and earnestness. They were dramatized (freely) from English history, and in them Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth had few holidays. The clothes were borrowed from the mother's wardrobe and the gowns were longer than necessary, but that was not regarded as a ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." Thus did Christ commend Himself and all His own into His Father's hands. Come therefore, O faithful and devout soul, and contemplate with great earnestness the coming in and the going out of thy Lord Jesus; follow Him with love and longing, even to the chamber and bed of joy, which He has prepared for thee in thy Father's heart. Happy would he be, who could now be dissolved with Christ, and die with the thief, and hear from the lips of the Lord ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... through all the evolutions, moving with equal grace and rapidity, keeping perfect time in his complicated steps, exhibiting an elasticity of tread, a suppleness of limbs, and a vigor of body truly astonishing; while at the same time the fierce earnestness of his countenance and his noble bearing are, as it were, a challenge to his enemies. Among European dances this warlike figure most resembles the highland fling ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... Every now and then genuine feeling seems to come to the surface. For a time the superincumbent masses of hypocrisy vanish. In speaking of his mother or his pursuits he forgets to wear his mask. He feels a genuine enthusiasm about his friends; he believes with almost pathetic earnestness in the amazing talents of Bolingbroke, and the patriotic devotion of the younger men who are rising up to overthrow the corruptions of Walpole; he takes the affectation of his friends as seriously as a simple-minded man who has never ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... In this also alone did the Greek tragedy and comedy unite; in every thing else they were exactly opposed to each other. Tragedy is poetry in its deepest earnest; comedy is poetry in unlimited jest. Earnestness consists in the direction and convergence of all the powers of the soul to one aim, and in the voluntary restraint of its activity in consequence; the opposite, therefore, lies in the apparent abandonment of all definite aim or end, and ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... Molly, he looked as ill-tempered and out of humour as a man well could do. She was connected in his mind with defeat and mortification; and besides, the sight of her called up what he desired now above all things to forget; namely, the deep conviction received through Molly's simple earnestness, of Cynthia's dislike to him. If Miss Phoebe had seen the scowl upon his handsome face, she might have undeceived her sister in her suppositions about him and Molly. But Miss Phoebe, who did not consider it quite maidenly to go and stand close to Mr. Preston, and survey the shelves of books in ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... preceding theses had said about the true penitent's earnestness and willingness to suffer, and the temptation offered to a mere carnal sense of security, Luther concludes as follows: "Away therefore with all those prophets who say to Christ's people 'Peace, peace!' when there is no peace, but welcome to all those ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... proper for them to know, told them that it was an extraordinary case, but that it was not a time to relate it, and that they would do better to go and assist the prince. By good fortune the prince came to himself that moment, and those that but just before required his history with so much earnestness retreated to a ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... forwards, moaning and jibbering like one distraught, he remained for several minutes. At length poor Crisp, who had been a most anxious spectator of the scene, ran timidly to his master, and, standing on his hind legs, began licking his fingers with an affectionate earnestness, more soothing to his agitated feelings than all the sincere apologies of the trooper, whose rough good-nature was really moved at what had taken place. Slowly uncovering his face, Robin pressed the little animal to his bosom, bending his head over it, and muttering ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... mate—the man or woman—gives way to a gradually increasing knowledge of imperfection and common clay. Common sense, earnestness of purpose, willingness to adjust, and a sense of humor save the situation and change the love of the engaged period into a more solid, robust affection which gains in durability and wearing quality what it loses ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... only thing that had impressed itself distinctly upon her memory, through the chicanery of chances, was that once in a cathedral-choir she had seen the handsome, blonde-hued, Vandyck face of a gentleman with dreaming eyes looking at her from a gallery-niche with the most singular earnestness. So at sixteen she found that the nuns had exhausted their slender lore, and had nothing more to teach her; and after her brief travels, she returned home for a finality, and there had dallied a twelvemonth, lapped in the Elysium of freedom and youth. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... not difficult to foresee the next step in the drama before us. Many a genius of far greater self-restraint and moral earnestness has found the routine of business almost intolerably irksome. With high notions of his own ability, and with a temper rebellious to all restraint, Poe soon broke away from his new duties, and started out to seek his fortune. He went to Boston; and, in eager search for fame and money, he resorted ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... premises during the first spring of his captivity, but it is not probable that he learned their melodies so early in life. As the next spring approached, he began to sing the very medleys that the wild thrashers sing with so much earnestness and skill, and this was long before any thrashers had come back from ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... his revolver, and stepping up to Moriarity, placed the cold muzzle to his temple. His eyes, cold as steel and sharp as an arrow, were fastened upon Dan's very heart, and speaking with terrible earnestness, he said: ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... these women was highly honorable to both, though the sacrifices were chiefly on Madame Recamier's side. She espoused Madame de Stael's cause with zeal and earnestness; and when the latter was banished forty leagues from Paris, she found an asylum with her. Among the few fragments of autobiography preserved by Madame Lenormant is this account of the first ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... explained about the letter box, gave her the usual "present" she made her usual good-natured protest—but this time there was more earnestness in it, and even a little sharpness. "I don't need it; I've got three more mealers—well, one of 'em can't pay me; her husband's out of work; but she don't eat more than a canary, poor thing! I can ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... embellishments of the Prayer Book,[326] which goes under her own name; and then indulging her strong bibliomaniacal appetites in fostering the institution "for the erecting of a Library and an Academy for the study of Antiquities and History."[327] Notwithstanding her earnestness to root out all relics of the Roman Catholic religion (to which, as the best excuse, we must, perhaps, attribute the sad cruelty of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots), I cannot in my heart forbear to think but that she secured, for her own book-boudoir, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... unfortunate direction was the tendency of a habit grown insidiously upon him,—a habit against the damning control of which (as no one better than the writer of this article knows) he wrestled with an earnestness indescribable, resorting to all the remedial expedients which professional skill or his own experience could suggest, but never entirely delivering himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... preparation as priests of the Prophet. We saw them in hundreds sitting on their mats in the extensive open courts, all busily engaged in learning to recite the Koran to masters, or listening to professors who expounded it. Their intense earnestness soon impresses you. From this centre radiate every year thousands of these propagandists, scattering themselves over Arabia and to the farthest boundaries of Islam, and even beyond, warring upon idolatry and proclaiming the unity of God. No one ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... thought themselves well rewarded with any worn-out jacket or trousers, or blankets, or a piece of bread. Of this latter article they were all exceedingly fond, and their constant prayer was for bread, importuning with as much earnestness and perseverance as if begging for bread had been their profession from their infancy; and their attachment to us must be considered as an indication of their not receiving ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... by a spirit of implicit obedience to God's authority. He combined in his nature both courage and gentleness and exhibited in his dealings the disposition of both the lion and the lamb. His dying charge is full of earnestness and devotion. As a type of Christ he led the people to the "rest" of Canaan, though not to the rest of the gospel which "remaineth to the people of God." A void still remained and they still had to look forward. He led them to victory over their enemies and became their advocate when they ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... till they looked like white plaster casts with beautiful living eyes, the peculiar gossip of the town, and the continuous political changes, the constant "saving of the country," which to his wife seemed a puerile and bloodthirsty game of murder and rapine played with terrible earnestness by depraved children. In the early days of her Costaguana life, the little lady used to clench her hands with exasperation at not being able to take the public affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental atrocity of methods deserved. She saw in them a comedy ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... close to her own face, and looked at him sidewise. "Ah, nivver mind, sur! that's rright! Furgit yer old frinds—maybe ye wudden't do ud if ye knewn everythin'. But that's rright; that's the way with min." She suddenly changed to subdued earnestness, turned the catch of the door, and, as the door swung open, said: "Come, if ud's only fur a bit o' the way—if ud's only fur a ming-ute. I've got ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... His Grace of CANTERBURY as well. Never was the President, Sir FREDERICK LEIGHTON, more effective in all his speeches, and especially when replying to the toast of "The Academy," where the perfection of his speech lay in the subtle concealment of its art, and in the genuine earnestness of his advice ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... shaking his head emphatically, and the other two, impressed by his earnestness, waited until ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... with intense earnestness, "I may tell you now, doctor, what the whole world will know, ere long, that it is possible to compel every living person to reveal the innermost secrets of his or her life, so long as memory remains, for memory is only the power of producing in the brain material pictures that may be projected ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... peremptorily declares at last that only the race endures, that individuals pass, and that immortality is nothing but life in the remembrance of posterity; he was kept back, however, from the materialism his doctrines issued in by his moral earnestness"; that Diderot was at heart no sceptic is evident, as Dr. Stirling suggests, from his "indignation at the darkness, the miserable ignorance of those around him, and his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... stranger, "and plunge into the river that glides past the bottom of your garden. Take likewise a vase of the same water, and sprinkle it over any object that you may desire to change back again from gold into its former substance. If you do this in earnestness and sincerity, it may possibly repair the mischief which ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... ask you something.' He spoke with deepest earnestness, taking her hand. 'You won't keep anything from me, now? I want to know if Thyrza has talked to you about—about ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... with equal firmness, "Gudule's eyes will save me!" Ascher had uttered no untruth when he gave his father-in-law this assurance. He spoke in all earnestness, for like every one else he knew the magnetic power of ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... putrid fever. His aunt, in whose family he was staying, was a woman who had long lived in habitual intercourse with the unseen world through prayer. One afternoon, when it seemed to those around him that the sick one must die, she went away alone to speak with God. With intense earnestness she pleaded for the young man's life. And, being deeply interested in the portion of our country then beginning to be settled, she asked also that he might become a home missionary at the West. There were various circumstances which made this latter request, as well as the other, ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... the steep, narrow streets that lie beyond the bridges and lead up to the city wall. It was still, still as the desert; she looked at him, and his earnestness quelled her sense of humor over the absurdity ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... he tol' me the same thing," protested Trinidad with an earnestness that, at any other time, would have sent his listeners ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... in sharp contrast with the other's earnestness. There was a calm tolerance in it. The tolerance of a temperament given to philosophy rather than passion. Perhaps it was a mask. Perhaps it was real. Whatever it was, Bat's next words sent the hot fire of a man's ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... out on the veranda where Tom and Nick were standing, and Marguerite put a hand on the arm of each, looking up in their faces with smiling earnestness. "I wonder," she said, "if I could ask you boys to do something for ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... Lord Castlereagh.... I protest I see no salvation but in the immediate change. Send us Lord Winchilsea, or rather Lord Euston, or in short send us any one. But send us Steele as his Secretary, and with firmness the Question (and with it Ireland) will be saved. Excuse this earnestness."[555] Pitt took no notice of this advice, but continued to support Cornwallis. As for the Irish Executive, it proceeded now to the policy of official coercion recommended from Downing Street. Parnell was dismissed from ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... and never shall; but whosoever serves in the noble army for the conquest of truth, be he private or general, will always find in me a faithful friend, and, if need be, afearless defender. Igladly conclude with the words of old Fairfax (Bulk and Selvedge, 1674): "Ibelieve no man wishes with more earnestness than I do, that all men of learning and knowledge were men of kindness and sweetness, and that such as can outdo others would outlove them too; especially while self bewhispers us, that it stands us all in need to be forgiven as ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... although not of a high order; several specimens of good ballad composition are amongst his remains. He cultivated classic literature with success; as an antiquary and an historian acquired reputation; wrote energetically and fluently; spoke in public with earnestness and force, but had none of the graces of the finished orator, and he despised all "rhetorical artifices." In conversation he was persuasive, but in public debate deficient in this quality; and while he possessed courage to confront mobs, or dictators, as he did also to meet an ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... with an earnestness and agitation which surprised Penrose. His superior's equanimity was not easily overthrown. "Are you sure, Father, of ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... quite settled his plans he felt easier, and returned to the others. The two juniors had shown Strachan what little hospitality was in their power, including an iron tea-cupful of muddy water for himself and a pint for his horse, who asked for more, poor fellow! With all the earnestness of ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... and now prepared with earnestness for the work of the Lord. I set before me the sufferings which might await me. I counted the cost. And he, who once so fully-served Satan, was now willing, constrained by the love of Christ, rather to ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... now gone far beyond woman's position, although Jacob Worse tried in vain to keep them to the point. Off they went through recent literature, foreign politics, home politics, ever with increasing earnestness, and with the same division of parties. Latterly the pastor had come more to the front. Aalbom's voice began to fail him, and the magistrate was unable any longer to get beyond the beginning of his sentences, and ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Majesty, I besought her to give the vacant post to your wife. I intimated to her that the appointment was of the greatest importance to herself and the King, and being, doubtless, impressed by the earnestness of my manner, she promised to grant my request, though she had intended to leave the place vacant, saying bitterly that 'twere best she should draw no other into the circle of danger which surrounded her. I had the satisfaction ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... religious belief, it is an enormous asset; and immense help to permanence in married happiness. Now, one cannot believe in God and in Our Lord merely by wishing to do so. Yet I often think that many who do not believe do not really wish to with passionate earnestness; with as strong a wish as they have for money ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... his hands with a gesture of earnestness, and Lucas Hansen said, "Bless thee, my son! Methinks I can aid thee in thy quest, so thou canst lay aside," and here his voice grew sharper and more peremptory, "all thy gentleman's airs and follies, and serve— ay, serve ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... have yet to mention what we consider the highest charm of this charming book, and that is the combination which we find in it of healthiness of tone and earnestness of purpose. A healthier book we have never read. Earnestness of purpose is apt to be attended with something of excess or extravagance; but in "Ravenshoe" there is nothing morbid, nothing cynical, nothing querulous, nothing ascetic. The doctrine of the book is a reasonable enjoyment of all that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... glass to his dear friend Mincin, than whom he would say no man saved the lives of his acquaintances more, or had a more friendly heart. Finally, our friend having emptied his glass, said, 'God bless you, Mincin,'—and Mr. Mincin and he shook hands across the table with much affection and earnestness. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the request, and looked Mr. Flint in the face. Flint turned his eyes on her with such earnestness that she shrunk back. Then he staggered to ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Sutherland me," she broke in with a laugh, "call me Frances; and if something is hurt and needs mending, I'm not a tinker, though my father and the priest—yes and you, too—sometimes think so. But sisters do mending, don't they?" and she laughed my earnestness off as one ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... path to slaughter. But the voice outside was powerfully insistent, it had the note of truth; his wife and children, roused, too, were crying out, in alarm. Henry knocked again on the door and shouted to him in a voice, always increasing in earnestness, to open and flee. Standish could resist no longer. He took down the bar and flung open the door, springing back, startled at the five figures that stood before him. In the dusk he did not ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... another war. It has been suggested by some, with what truth I shall not take upon me to decide, that he rated the consequence of those islands to Great-Britain too low[397]. But however this may be, every humane mind must surely applaud the earnestness with which he averted the calamity of war; a calamity so dreadful, that it is astonishing how civilised, nay, Christian nations, can deliberately continue to renew it. His description of its miseries in this pamphlet, is one of the finest ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... oratory, and it was always interesting to listen to him on that subject. He considered Wendell Phillips the perfection of form and delivery, and sometimes very brilliant, but much too rash in his statements. Everett was also good, but lacked warmth and earnestness. Choate was purely a legal pleader, and outside of the court-room not very effective. He thought Webster one of the greatest of orators, fully equal to Cicero; but they both lacked the poetical element. Sumner's sentences were florid and his delivery rather mechanical, ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... with rare fire and earnestness carried conviction: but it was too late to recall the invitation. The notary entered the room, and was going to bow obsequiously to Raynal, when he caught sight of Josephine, and almost started. Raynal, after Josephine's warning, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... moonlight, and with his eyes blinking painfully at the flaming lamps above the green tables inside. He knew they would be put out very soon; and as he had something to do then, he regarded them fixedly with painful earnestness, as a man who is condemned to die at sunrise watches through his barred windows for the first gray light of ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... I consider it all quite settled! You, in your earnestness, can not conceal your liking for my girl, and she, in her innocent frankness, does not even try to conceal hers from you. And I heartily approve the match and am ready to dower ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... spellbound by the terrible earnestness of the man, and as the mountaineer swept his dark hair back with one hand, he rose in sudden horror. Across the mountaineer's forehead ran a crimson scar yet unhealed. Could he have inflicted upon ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... lunch,—a game of which I am a poor performer. Phyllis Derrick and I played the professor and Tom Chase. Chase was a little better than myself; the professor, by dint of extreme earnestness and care, managed to play a fair game; and ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... from the busy company, was reading with so much earnestness, that her mother called twice before ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... continued the enthusiast, his face kindling with earnestness. "Why, before that I never bothered my head much about the habits of foxes, 'coons, squirrels, minks, bobcats, or anything that had its hiding-place in the woods or in burrows under the rocks. But now I'm forever trying to learn new things ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... nothing which will answer for a substitute. The public specially needs such a book at this time, when the covert atheism of Fichte, Wolfe, Hegel, Kant, Schelling, D'Holbach, Comte, Crousse, Atkinson, Martineau, Leroux, Mackay, Holyoake, and others, is being spread abroad with all earnestness, supported, at least in some places, both by church influence and university honors. I cannot but hope that a work so timely, scholarly, and ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... And as she sat between her father and mother, now helping the one in her delicate fancy-work, now arranging the lamp for the other's reading, continually in request by both, or when left quiet for a minute, watching both with anxious earnestness, there was quite enough in Olive's manner to show that she had entered on a woman's life of care, and had not learned a woman's wisdom one day ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... falls over early summer evenings in the hills, when everything in nature seems drowsily awaiting the night. They thought there was an unusual hush in the manner of those they met. Men talked on the corners or in groups in the roadway with unaccustomed earnestness. Women leaned across window sills and chatted across intervening spaces with an air of anxiety; the very dogs in the street appeared to be subdued. At the trader's there was not the usual small gathering of loungers, squatted sociably around ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... Elizabeth fortunately came in at the moment; but even our united efforts were unavailable. The grief of Her Majesty at feeling herself the cause of the misfortunes of these faithful adherents, now devoted victims of their earnestness in foiling the machinations against the liberty and life of the King and herself, made her nearly frantic. She too well knew that to be accused was to incur instant death. That she retained her senses ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... With this fine weapon, in great part, it was, wielded like a magician's invisible wand, that Pascal did his memorable execution on the Jesuitical system of morals and casuistry, in the "Provincial Letters." In great part, we say; for the flaming moral earnestness of the man could not abide only to play with his adversaries, to the end of the famous dispute. His lighter cimeter blade he flung aside before he had done, and, toward the last, brandished a sword that had weight as well as edge and temper. The skill that ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... sympathetic, but more or less dilettante attitude towards the whole subject, as if we were arguing about some impersonal thing such as the existence of Atlantis or the Baconian controversy. But the War came, and when the War came it brought earnestness into all our souls and made us look more closely at our own beliefs and reassess their values. In the presence of an agonized world, hearing every day of the deaths of the flower of our race in the first promise of their unfulfilled ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you, auntie. But what was I to do? He's coming up here. I only want to tell you I've not got your money. I've not stolen it. I'm absolutely innocent—absolutely. And I'll swear it on anything you like." His voice almost broke under the strain of its own earnestness. His plaintive eyes invoked justice and protection. Who could have doubted that he was sincere in this passionate, wistful protestation ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... fourteenth century had changed, notwithstanding the commotion of the later civil war, into a far milder and more settled element when the seventeenth drew towards close. Genius, likewise, in the two poets, was distinguished by marked differences. Strength, simplicity, earnestness, human affection, characterize Chaucer. Dryden has plenty of strength, too, but it shows itself differently. The strength of Chaucer is called out by the requisition of the subject, and is measured to the call. Dryden bounds and exults in his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... heart first turns toward God with deep earnestness through sorrow. There are many griefs and burdens of life which cannot be alleviated or lightened in any way except by spiritual comfort and help. And this spiritual comfort and help are among the deepest realities of life. There is a strength, a happiness, a peace and a support ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... grave earnestness, his own face was pale and careworn, his eyes heavy with a potent sorrow, but it took an expression of deeper anxiety as he perused the working features ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... come to fight, but to see the river. "Why did you fire a gun, a little while ago?" they asked. "We shot a large puff-adder, to prevent it from killing men; you may see it lying dead on the beach." With great courage, our Mokadamo waded to within thirty yards of the bank, and spoke with much earnestness, assuring them that we were a peaceable party, and had not come for war, but to see the river. We were friends, and our countrymen bought cotton and ivory, and wished to come and trade with them. All we wanted was to go up quietly to look at the ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... two drab-colored and tired men; a group of women, of various ages, equipped with red-covered little volumes, and severally expressive of great earnestness, wide-eyed rapture, ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... again journeyed through New Jersey to New York and Long Island, visiting friends and preaching with his usual fervor and earnestness. Then he returned to the Delaware, and, on the seventh day of November, he went to Uplands (now Chester), where he met the first provincial assembly of his province. There he made known his benevolent designs toward all men, civilized and savage, and excited the love and reverence of all hearers. ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... methinks, your very words. But the magic of the words, which I then but dimly understood, was in your smile and in your eye, and the queen-like wave of your hand as if beckoning to a world which lay before you, visible and familiar as your native land. And how devotedly, with what earnestness of passion, I gave myself up to the task of raising my gift into an art! I thought of nothing else, dreamed of nothing else; and oh, now sweet to me then were words of praise! "Another year yet," at length said the masters, "and you ascend your throne among the queens of song." Then—then—I ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but one cure. To leave Gilbert daily exposed to the temptation must be wrong, and she laid the case before Mr. Kendal with so much earnestness, that he allowed that it would be better to send the boy from home; and in the meantime, Albinia obtained that Mr. Kendal should ride some way on the Tremblam road with his son in the morning, so as to convoy him out of reach of the tempter; whilst she tried ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the life of God, and to enter into the rewards of God, very often there seems to close around his life a certain bondage of selfishness, and he who gave himself freely to his fellow-men before now seems, by the very intensity, eagerness, and earnestness with which his mind is set upon the prize of the new life which is presented to him—it seems as if everything became concentrated upon himself, the saving of his soul, the winning of his salvation. ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... the Rajkumar College, a large number of important Chiefs were minors, including the Rajah of Rutlam, the junior Chief of Dewar, the Nawab of Jaora, and the two sons of His Highness the Maharaja Holkar. At present there are no Chiefs of the first rank in the Residency College. It will be well if the earnestness and devotion which animated the work of Mr. Abengh Mackay will be felt by those who ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay |
