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Severity   /sɪvˈɛrɪti/   Listen
Severity

noun
(pl. severities)
1.
Used of the degree of something undesirable e.g. pain or weather.  Synonyms: badness, severeness.
2.
Something hard to endure.  Synonyms: asperity, grimness, hardship, rigor, rigorousness, rigour, rigourousness, severeness.
3.
Extreme plainness.  Synonyms: austereness, severeness.
4.
Excessive sternness.  Synonyms: hardness, harshness, inclemency, rigor, rigorousness, rigour, rigourousness, severeness, stiffness.  "The harshness of his punishment was inhuman" , "The rigors of boot camp"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Severity" Quotes from Famous Books



... I cried, as soon as I had got my wind. As luck would have it, I had run into a pair of daredevil young Kentuckians who had more than once tasted the severity of Clark's discipline,—Fletcher Blount and Jim Willis. They fairly shook out of me what had happened, and then dropped me with a war-whoop and started for the prairie, I after them, crying out to them to beware of the run. A man must indeed be fleet of foot to have escaped these young ruffians, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the Seals may rely on me. I shall have to show considerable severity in several directions here, and I shall lack neither determination nor zeal, I ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... they can neither go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a native American, be suddenly bereft of these privilege, and loaded with the disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light matter, to him, would be the severity of rigor. The recent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is another illustration. Rothschild, the late banker, though the richest private citizen in the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... number of Bavarian officers in his service, who were richly endowed with staff-appointments. As a Philhellene, a constitutionalist, and an Englishman, it was natural that Colonel Hane should be treated with the utmost severity by the court ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... severe method, and rebel against it, and accuse his friend, both to his face and in his own secret thoughts, of coldness, and want of faith, and all manner of other sins of omission and commission. In the end, however, he generally came round, with more or less of rebellion, according to the severity of the treatment, and acknowledge that, when Hardy brought him down from riding the high horse, it was not without good reason, and that the dust in which he was rolled ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... possible for him to forgo all earthly joys, his old henchman, Riguenbach, chanced to enter, and learning his master's quandary, he laughed loudly and advised the Count to eject Bernard forcibly. The Abbot met the retainer's mirth with a look of great severity, and on Riguenbach showing that he was still bent on insolence, the Churchman cried to him: "Get thee behind me, Satan"; whereupon a flame of lightning darted suddenly across the chamber, and the man who had long ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality, and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not very elegant. There must, however, have been always some modes of gaiety preferable to others, and a writer ought to chuse ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... sett downe att this oister table, where they are fast and doe fast, ffor vinitur exiguo melius, they make small meales, till the flames of clemency doe mitigate the Salamanders of your Lordshippe's severity. Now, my Lord, since I have told you what I am, I will bee bold to tell you what you may bee—You are mortall—Ergo you must die, the three sisters will not spare you, though you were their owne brother, and therefore while you have your good witts about you, fac quid vobis, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... time; it was even said of her that she could not speak its prose properly or tolerably. She disliked the hair-powder necessary to Adrienne Lecouvreur and Gabrielle de Belle Isle, although her beauty, for all its severity, did not lose picturesqueness in the costumes of the time of Louis XV. As Gabrielle she was more girlish and gentle, pathetic, and tender, than was her wont, while the signal fervor of her speech addressed to Richelieu, beginning, "Vous mentez, Monsieur le Duc," stirred the audience ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... reached on June 28, when in the town 105 pollen grains were deposited, and in the country 880 grains. The number of grains deposited was found to vary much, falling almost to zero during heavy rain and rising to a maximum if the rain were followed by bright sunshine. Mr. Blackley found that the severity of his own symptoms closely corresponded to the number of pollen grains deposited on his glasses. Mr. Blackley devised some very ingenious experiments to determine the number of grains floating in the air at different altitudes. The experiments were conducted by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... years after his parents had lived together childlessly, he had come into the world constitutionally neurasthenic. Steptoe had never known a boy who needed more to be nursed along and coaxed along by affection, and now and then by indulgence. Instead, the system of severity had been applied with results little short of calamitous. He had been sent to schools famous for religion and discipline, from which he reacted in the first weeks of freedom in college, getting into dire academic scrapes. Further severity had led to further scrapes, and ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... at any rate, appears genuine, and makes me almost doubt whether I am in the right. For, indeed, When I had vainly searched my memory, And so with stern severity denied The fabled story of our secret loves, Her brows, that met before in graceful curves, Like the arched weapon of the god of love, Seemed by her frown dissevered; while the fire Of sudden anger kindled ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... as trying to frighten, which all black men, by a sort of natural instinct, invariably endeavour to do. I then assembled the men, and in presence of the intruders again proclaimed through the Balyuz my intention to punish with severity any person who might create a false alarm or fire a bullet vacantly in the air; directing that, in case of any opposition to a challenge, they should fire into, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... manifested in a battalion of the 3rd Guards the day before yesterday; they were dissatisfied at the severity of their duty and at some allowances that had been taken from them, and on coming off guard they refused to give up their ball cartridges. They were ordered off to Plymouth, and marched at four yesterday morning. Many people ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... spending it. [Footnote: I do not know what was at this time the state of the parliamentary interest of the ancient family of Lowther; a family before the Conquest: but all the nation knows it to be very extensive at present. A due mixture of severity and kindness, oeconomy and munificence, characterizes its present Representative.] I take it, he lent a great deal; and that is the way to have influence, and yet preserve one's wealth. A man may lend his money upon very good security, and yet have his debtor much ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... examining the floor-quarries; while Lisbeth would ask him how he supposed the coffin had been got ready, that he had slinked off and left undone—for Lisbeth was always the first to utter the word of reproach, although she cried at Adam's severity towards his father. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... the weakness of those around made it impossible for them not to wander, first on one side and then on the other. She was unflinching in her expressions, and at any sacrifice did her duty. It was her severity in obeying her conscience which not only gave authority to her admonitions, but was ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... character. The duties of training devolve upon the father as much as on the mother. A father's wider experience and worldly wisdom prove valuable contributions to the mother's simpler knowledge in the raising of their children. A father's continuous absence, or neglects, or severity, or unkindness, or heartlessness, has made more reprobates and scamps and criminals in this world than all the failings of women combined. Think less of your dignity and more of your duty. Rather that your child should love you than fear you. You can maintain your authority ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... he said, she thought with a touch of severity. He was silent for a while. Then: "Ah, none but the English ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... what to do; the tone in which the king spoke was not exactly that of a credulous man. On the other hand, the tone did not indicate any particular severity, nor did he seem to care very much about the cross-examination. There was more of raillery in it than of menace. "And you say, then," continued the king, "that it was positively De Guiche's horse that was ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... should consider that these might be transferred also to the perfect church, and that they have no necessary connexion with the peculiar tenets of Mr. Newman. We know that the Puritans were taunted by their adversaries for their frequent fasts, and the severity of their lives; and they certainly were far enough from agreeing with Mr. Newman. Whatever there is of good, or self-denying, or ennobling, in his system, is altogether independent of his doctrine concerning the priesthood. It is that doctrine which is the peculiarity ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... or deed, then is he said to attain to Brahma. There is no past, no future. There is no morality or righteousness. He who is not an object of fear with any creature succeeds in attaining to a state in which there is no fear.[1150] On the other hand, that person who for harshness of speech and severity of temper, is a source of trouble unto all creatures even as death itself, certainly attains to a state which abounds with fear. I follow the practices of high-souled and benevolent men of advanced years who with their children and children's children live in the due ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... may be assured of my concurrence, as, indeed, I have already promised. I think that the greatest severity must at length be employed, and that even if it ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... critic, after various spasmodic efforts at severity, selecting from among many comprehensive measures suggested by me for the future emancipation, and for the present benefit, of the slave, the proposition of "a proper instrument for flogging, to be established by law," and that with ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... instance, of the dead after a big battle. Others are subject to doubt, unless you insert "lorsque les circonstances le permettent, s'il se peut, si possible, s'il-y-a necessite," or the like. This will give them that elasticity without which the bitter severity of actual warfare ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... on the game of bowls, which is a very ancient pastime, and innocent enough, is not at first quite clear; but it appears that the numerous bowling-alleys in London were, in the sixteenth century, the resorts of very bad company, and the nests of gambling and vice. Hence the severity of King ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... uneasy silence, broken only by the most transparent attempts on both sides to make a little conversation. Thomas hovered sternly over his master and mistress all the time, exacting with inexorable severity every usage of the table. He would not let them off the very smallest detail, but insisted on handing round the peaches, notwithstanding Mrs Morgan's protest. "They are the first out of the new orchard-house," said the Rector's wife. "I want your opinion of them. That will do, Thomas; we have got ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... Venner, and as he sits leaning back against a saddle and to all appearance half asleep, the firelight falls on his broad, powerful, but rather awkward figure, and on a strong, determined face, which in its severity is well set off by his close-cut sandy hair. Although one would judge him to be dozing, or at least absorbed in his own thoughts, if anything is said which arrests him, he will cast a quick look on the speaker, and ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... assertion of your masculine superiority," she replied, in mock severity. "I may sleep, as a matter of course; but you, as a man, are to rise superior, even to nature herself, and remain awake as long as ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... to be flogged. The brutal way in which this is done at the calaboose, strikes terror into the negro mind, and the threat is often sufficient to tame the most incorrigible. Instances, I was told, have often occurred of negroes expiring under the severity of the discipline here; but it was remarked that the pecuniary loss attendant on such casualties made the keepers careful not to exceed the physical endurance of the sufferer, and that they were so well acquainted with negro constitutions ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... Marquis de Bruyeres, with much dignity, and some severity of tone, "I would not serve as second to any man who was not of noble birth, and of honourable character. I know the Baron de Sigognac well. His chateau is only a few leagues from my estate. I will ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... real documents to his care, instructing him at the same time to lay before her sovereign the narrative of her wrongs. Soon was the captivity of Sir Henry terminated; and joy, heightened by recollection of the past, and chastened by the severity of their misfortunes, attended them through the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... army were sent for this duty in the wilderness and most of the men bore in their faces the impress of corruption and brutality. Those in authority on the Nile knew how to choose soldiers whose duty it was to exercise pitiless severity against ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Miss North, with emphasis amounting almost to severity. "Our answers are getting wild—very wild. And I do not wish to hear anything more about pins or needles or hat-pins or knitting-needles. I should like to see you all very straight in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... it is right to judge by results; we'll leave severity to the historian, who is bound to be a professional moralist and put pleas of human nature out of the scales. The lady in question may have been to blame, but no hearts were broken, and here we have four happy instead of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... full of the then fashionable conceits, which appear again a little in the Ode, after which they are for ever put aside by Milton's imaginative severity and high conception of poetry as a finer sort of truth than prose, not a more ingenious kind of lying. Once, and perhaps once only, one hears in it the voice of the ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... and the almost unheard-of miseries which were its consequences; and I say, and proclaim it publicly, that you were justified in revenging yourself on my father, and I, his son, thank you for not using greater severity." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... should hardly call upon the time and trouble of the court. It was a case, in fact, which ought to have been months before summarily disposed of by the committing magistrate, and one of those too frequently visited with undue severity, whilst offences of a deeper dye escape unpunished, or, worse still, are washed away in gold. A poor man had stolen from a baker's shop a loaf of bread. The clerk of the arraigns, as I believe he is called, involved this simple charge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... to the dominion of Philip, some to that of Ptolemy; and that others have not, for many years, maintained themselves in a state of independence, no one calling it in question? For, if the circumstance of their having been once subject to a foreigner, when crushed under the severity of the times, conveys a right to enforce that subjection again after a lapse of so many generations, what can be said of our having delivered Greece from Philip, but that nothing was accomplished ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... early death; and many might be so much purified in the furnace of punishment and adversity, as to become the ornaments of that society of which they had formerly been the bane. The vices of mankind must frequently require the severity of justice; but a wise State will direct that severity to the greatest moral and political ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... convalescence. A month elapsed before I could venture to go beyond doors. Aleuka attended upon me, and through her economy my purse yet held out. The plague had greatly subsided; the month of December set in with uncommon severity of cold, and checked its progress. Oh! the exquisite delight with which I left my hard and burning bed and close apartment, the scenes of all my sufferings, for the first time! With a prayer of thankfulness on my lips, I crossed the threshold ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... Baldwin Fakenham, in relation to the Countess of Fleetwood. A duty was easily done by Gower when he had surmounted the task of conceiving his resolution to do it; and this task, involving an offence to the Lady Livia and intrusion of his name on a nobleman's recollection, ranked next in severity to the chopping off of his fingers by a man suspecting them ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... all these conspicuous and beneficent advances in the direction of humanity, a great deal of severity, and what appears to us brutality, remained embedded in our social system. I have spoken in previous chapters of the methods of discipline enforced in the services, in jails, in poorhouses, and in schools.[10] A very similar spirit prevailed even in the home. Children were shut up in dark closets, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... which is slight, red and puffed or turned out; a tickling sensation is often felt in this locality, and the next time urine is passed it is attended with a feeling of warmth at the end of the canal, or with actual scalding. After this the symptoms increase rapidly in number and severity, so that within forty-eight hours, or even sooner, the disease may be described as having passed its first or increasing stage, the characteristic phenomena ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... of man from this source are almost incredible. In some severe cases, the numbers contained in human bodies have been estimated by reliable authorities to be as high as forty to sixty millions. Not long ago, the writer was impressed with the severity of this disease by having brought to his attention an epidemic in a herd of swine caused, presumably, by feeding waste which contained rinds of Western pork, infected with trichinae and many examples may be found of regular epidemics ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste; For beauty, starv'd with her severity, Cuts beauty off from all posterity. She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair, To merit bliss by making me despair: She hath forsworn to love; and in that vow Do I live dead that live ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... opposed the measure in a speech of great severity. The day, said he, is gone, night approaches and night is suitable to the dark deed we meditate; there is a sort of destiny in this thing, the act must be performed, and it is an act which will tell upon the political history of this country forever. Mr. Clay indulged in unmeasured denunciation ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... (Contra Ep. Parmen. iii, 2) "these words show that when this is not to be feared, that is to say, when a man's crime is so publicly known, and so hateful to all, that he has no defenders, or none such as might cause a schism, the severity of discipline ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... "unadvisedly with his lips" in reply to the unjustifiable suspicions of his "friends," God stands on his side, and defends him in his rectitude and integrity. He rebukes with severity Bildad the Shuhite and his two companions, because of their uncharitable suspicions uttered against His servant. He was "angry" that they had not spoken truthfully "as His servant Job;" "and they were to go," as one says, "to this servant Job ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... widely known at the time as the "Rockingham Memorial," was a careful argument against the war, and a vigorous and able presentation of the Federalist views. It was addressed to the President, whom it treated with respectful severity. With much skill it turned Mr. Madison's own arguments against himself, and appealed to public opinion by its clear and convincing reasoning. In one point the memorial differed curiously from the oration of a month before. The ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... the channel of conversation and spoke of the coming round-up, of the poor condition of range stock owing to the severity of the winter; but it was a monologue. For a time the man sat and listened, as if he enjoyed the sound of her voice, contributing nothing to the conversation himself, then suddenly he stirred in his chair and waved a hand to indicate the unimportance ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... who had listened to me for some moments with growing impatience, rose, and standing before the fireplace, lifted his cassock to his knees to warm his legs and said with a severity which ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France

... Major-Gen. Richard Strachey), Thomas Love Peacock (author of "Headlong Hall"), Mr. Harcourt, and Mr. James Mill; the selection of the last-named being all the more creditable to them, because, in his "History of British India," he had animadverted with much severity on some parts of the Company's administration. Two years afterwards, in 1823, the historian's son, the illustrious subject of these brief memoirs, then a lad of seventeen, obtained a clerkship under his father. According to the ordinary course of things in those days, the ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other

... returned, he learned from a librarian called Seney, at the porter's lodge, as he was taking a glass of wine, that judgment had been given, and that Madame de Brinvilliers was to have her hand cut off. This severity—as a fact, there was a mitigation of the sentence—made him feel yet more interest in his penitent, and he hastened back ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... of happiness, lost by crime, is the first step toward repentance. And when to this repentance is added an expiation of frightful severity—an expiation which changes life into a long sleep filled with avenging hallucinations of desperate reflections, perhaps then the pardon of man will follow remorse ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... snow, and stuffing handfuls of it into his mouth, devoured it eagerly. Sometimes he shewed signs of a true madness, wringing his hands, gnashing his teeth, and becoming formidable to those about him. But in other moods, the phenomena of nature seemed to tranquillise and sadden him. When the severity of the season, as we are informed by the French physician who had charge of him, had driven every other person out of the garden, he still delighted to walk there; and after taking many turns, would seat himself beside a pond of water. Here ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various

... eye, and there are now enactments upon your statute books, aimed at the trespassers upon it, which should be expunged as a disgrace to the country and to the nineteenth century. Especially is he pursued with unrelenting severity, who has dared to break the silence of the primeval forest by the blows of the American ax. The hardy lumberman who has penetrated to the remotest wilds of the Northwest, to drag from their recesses the materials for building up ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... papers (says Sir Michael Foster) are not numerous, nor can they be taken as a measure of his influence on this branch of study. In many ways he has made himself felt, not the least by the severity with which on the one hand he repressed the pretensions of shallow persons who, taking advantage of the glamour of the Darwinian doctrine, talked nonsense in the name of anthropological science, and on the other hand, exposed those who in ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... followed this long withheld announcement of an increase in the family of Johnny's yellow and disreputable setter "Tiger," who usually accompanied him to school and howled outside, the master joined with marked distinctness. Then he said, with equally marked severity, "Books!" The little levee ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... him for his unjust severity and unkindness, all the more for the frank, confiding way in which the two little heroes begged him ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels

... of the inhabitants of Mytilene, which would strike terror into the other subjects of Athens, and prevent them from yielding to the same temptation. But, reasoned Diodotus, experience had shown that intending criminals were not deterred from wrongdoing by the increased severity of penal statutes. For a long time lawgivers had framed their codes in this belief, thinking to drive mankind into the path of rectitude by appealing to their terrors. Yet crime had not diminished, but rather increased. And what was true of individuals, was still more true of cities, ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... 11, 1880) appeared a letter from my father, which is, I believe, the only instance in which he wrote publicly with anything like severity. The late Sir Wyville Thomson wrote, in the Introduction to the 'Voyage of the "Challenger"': "The character of the abyssal fauna refuses to give the least support to the theory which refers the evolution of species to extreme variation ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... and at once, again to his own surprise, sat down on the bench. For an instant he felt almost frightened; he remembered it afterwards. Smerdyakov stood facing him, his hands behind his back, looking at him with assurance and almost severity. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... say that the system of government is a system of tyranny; which meant nothing more than that the people ought to pull down such systems. The learned counsel had alluded to Athens and Rome, but it was well known that those States punished offences of this description with greater severity than the laws of England inflicted. Every man had a right to point out with firmness, but with respect, the errors of government. Every man has a right to appeal to the understanding, but not to the passions; and the man who wished to do so need not be afraid to write. The ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... the infection raged through families, killed and disfigured many children; and few parents dared to avail themselves of a method, the probable efficacy of which had been abundantly confirmed by the result. The evil now invaded our house, and attacked me with unusual severity. My whole body was sown over with spots, and my face covered; and for several days I lay blind and in great pain. They tried the only possible alleviation, and promised me heaps of gold if I would keep quiet, and not increase the mischief by rubbing and scratching. I controlled ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... as he clumsily rose in part from his seat—into which he dropped back, however, as he heard my kindly tone of address, and knew there was to be no severity of reckoning—"well, my boy; been ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... juncture, Grace opened her eyes: she looked from one face to another, and knew that fate had brought the truth to light. But the physical shock tempered the severity of the mental one: besides, she could not help being pleased at the sight of so many well-remembered and friendly faces; and, finally, her husband did not look by any means so angry and scandalized as she had feared he would. Indeed, he appeared almost gratified. ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... tell in detail all the movements that followed. The search for Prince Charles continued with unrelenting severity. Daily, noble and plebeian officers of the defeated army were seized. The country was being scoured, high and low. Frequently the prince saw the forms or heard the voices of those who sought him diligently. But "Will Jones," the woodman, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... are not at all attempered and diluted, nor rendered proper for evacuation. On the contrary they become sharper, and more difficult to be discharged. By judicious management it is practicable, if not entirely to prevent a variety of disorders, yet at least to abate their severity, and so to avert the ultimate danger. As soon as any of the symptoms begin to appear, the proper way is to avoid all violent or laborious exercise, and to indulge in such only as is gentle and easy. To take very little or no solid food, and particularly to ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... want you to do?" said Hill with severity, and even with something like a snarl, "I want you ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... crime [33], he alone proposed that the delinquents should be distributed for safe custody among the towns of Italy, their property being confiscated. He even struck such terror into those who were advocates for greater severity, by representing to them what universal odium would be attached to their memories by the Roman people, that Decius Silanus, consul elect, did not hesitate to qualify his proposal, it not being very honourable to change it, by a lenient interpretation; as if it ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... kind of apparent reconciliation between this tender couple, which would prevent the marquis from incommoding us with the scandal of an action.'—'But the difficulty,' objected Madame de Parabere, 'is, that it is two years since he has been here; and, as he piques himself on his jealousy and severity, what can we say? He has made a vow, that if any one sets foot here during his absence, the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... will remain with me for weeks by reason of the stiff neck I got from contorting myself under Peter's guidance to the proper angle for its appreciation. But histrionically it must be confessed that things dragged a little. Perhaps this was due to a certain severity, not to say baldness, in the dialogue as spoken. Not having read the script, I have a feeling that it might be unfair to judge the unknown author by the lines as rendered by Peter, who was often pre-occupied with other anxieties. As, for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various

... her days of severity and cruelty, too, under Draco, who established her first laws. But the people rebelled, and in 594 B.C. Solon, a man of great sagacity, prepared a constitution, which was a model of wisdom, justice, and even of gentleness. The government established ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... again they scattered their loads over the corral and over the first part of the road. The pack-men, however—copper-colored, black, and dusky- white—were not only masters of their art, but possessed tempers that could not be ruffled; when they showed severity it was because severity was needed, and not because they were angry. They finally got all their longhorned beasts loaded and started on the trail ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... since the severity of the government had overcome the Separatists, forcing them either to disband their congregations or flee from the kingdom. From the time when Bishop Williams was made keeper of the great seal, four years before the death of King James, the high-commission court again became ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... him up and carried him, though it made him pant when he had to walk up the steep street. He was a man of forty, turning gray already, rather stout, and had married, a few years previously, a young woman whom he dearly loved, but who now treated him with the severity and authority of an all-powerful despot. She found fault with him continually for everything that he did, or did not do, reproached him bitterly for his slightest acts, his habits, his simple pleasures, his tastes, his movements and walk, and for having ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... brought on by adherence to any principle, or opinion, it's certain the sufferers will not quit their attempts to better their condition, but with their lives. 2d, as there are none of the rebels who have not friends among the King's faithful subjects, it is not easy to guess how far a severity of this kind, unnecessarily pushed, may alienate the affections even of those from the Government. But in particular, as this case relates to Scotland, the difficulty will be insurmountable. I may venture to say, there are not 200 gentlemen in the whole kingdom ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson

... fought with and destroyed the Calicut fleet. He was however excused, as it appeared he had been overruled by the votes of the other captains, contrary to his own opinion. The viceroy broke them all therefore, and sent them home in disgrace to Portugal. By this severity, Don Lorenzo was much troubled, and in afterwards endeavouring to restore himself to the esteem of his father, he lost his life in rashly displaying ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... Greisengesang, he thought, could thus espy the loose stitches in Seraphina's character, and thus disloyally impart them to the opposite camp, he, the discarded husband - the dispossessed Prince - could scarce have erred on the side of severity. ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... was crowded, or hurried, or false. Barren dunes, and white, bleaching sand, colorless little houses facing the elm- lined main street, colorless planks outlining the road to the water; the monotonous austerity, the pure severity of the little ocean village was full of satisfying charm for her. If she climbed a sandy rise beyond Mrs. Dimmick's cottage, and faced the north, she could see the white roadway, winding down to Clark's Bar, where the ocean fretted year after year to free ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... of years, and frequent requests for a visit from the family were at last accepted, and Mrs. Bellmont made great preparations for a fall sojourn in Baltimore. Mary was installed housekeeper—in name merely, for Nig was the only moving power in the house. Although suffering from their joint severity, she felt safer than to be thrown wholly upon an ardent, passionate, unrestrained young lady, whom she always hated and felt it hard to be obliged to obey. The trial she must meet. Were Jack or Jane at home she would have some refuge; one ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson

... equally determined not to throw away the advantage he possessed in his large force of infantry; and after being in sight of each other for some time, and several skirmishes having taken place, both armies fell back into winter quarters—the severity of the weather being too great to keep the soldiers, without tents or other ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... political parties, whether professing attachment to that principle or hostility to it. We know that fidelity to an idea can never be reassured by adherence to a name; and hence we shall criticise all parties with equal severity, though we trust that the sternness of truth will always be blended with the temperance of impartial candor. With tolerance for all opinions, we have no patience with hypocrisy and pretense; least of all with that ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... ancient Persians, have dwelt with peculiar severity on the manner in which they treated their women. Jealous, almost to distraction, they confined the whole sex with the strictest attention, and could not bear that the eye of a stranger should behold the beauty whom ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... was gentle, timid, and fond. She always parted with me, on my going to school, as if she had lost a limb, and when I returned, received me as if she had found a pinion in its place. She perhaps spoiled me by indulgence, as much as my lord and father spoiled me by severity; but indulgence is the pleasanter of the two, and I followed the course of nature, and gave her whatever heart I have. I still remember her. She was remarkably indebted to nature, at least for externals. She had fine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... beggars, and with equal scorn. Such dangerous frankness was in his dealing that his admirers called him "that terrible Thoreau," as if he spoke when silent, and was still present when he had departed. I think the severity of his ideal interfered to deprive him of a healthy sufficiency of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... order to serve up nothing but Spanish cookery. The King said nothing; and the Princess des Ursins, notwithstanding her stupefaction and secret wrath, was unwilling to commence her career in Spain by scenes of reproach and severity. The Queen also, whose natural vivacity and tender age could not be expected to observe the same restraint, had, nevertheless, sufficient control over herself at first to keep silence. But when she found herself with the King and Madame des Ursins in the apartment allotted to their privacy, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... traditions had been cast aside and the modern craze for art was as yet undeveloped. There were plenty of rooms in the house, lofty and spacious enough, but as to outline just so many boxes, with four straight walls, and never a niche or an alcove to break the severity of line. The hall was another square, and the staircase ascended straightly to the first landing, where a monstrosity of a stained-glass window lighted the ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... exclaimed Graham, with mock severity, "that's inexcusable. Burning up a perfectly good pan-cake when your brother is suffering from hunger." It was of course, in keeping with the nonsense he had been talking all the morning, but to poor Ruth it seemed as if he ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... than twenty-seven years, I met him in the house of a stranger in England, whither he came in the company of a certain dethroned Indian prince. Then our acquaintance was limited to two conversations; their unexpectedness, their gravity, and even severity, produced a strong impression on me then; but, in the course of time, like many other things, they sank into oblivion and Lethe. About seven years ago he wrote to me to America, reminding me of our conversation and of a certain promise I had made. ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... do,—when applied to another man's wife. But there will be no severity in my first proposition. As for the child,—if I approve of the place in which she lives, as I do at present,—he shall remain with her for nine months in the year till he is six years old. Then he must come to me. And he shall come to me altogether if she sees or hears ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... hearts may be. They must languish in dust and ashes; yea, must lie despondent and desperate in the anguish and torments of hell, if he touch them but a little with the terrors of his anger. These are experiences through which the saints also pass, and concerning whose severity they make lamentation. "For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine indignation," Ps 38, 2-3. "For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping. Because of thine indignation ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... sorry," said Cecilia, "to speak with severity of one so nearly connected with you, yet, suffer me to ask, why should he be saved from it at all? and what is there he can at present do better? Has not he long been threatened with every evil that is now ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... burying-ground, close to the grave of her favourite; and so indelible was the attachment of the cat to her deceased friend, that till his parents removed to another place, five years afterwards, she never, except in the greatest severity of winter, passed the night any where else than at the above-mentioned spot, close to the grave. Ever afterwards she was treated with the utmost kindness by every person in the family. She suffered herself to be played with by the younger children, although without exhibiting a particular partiality ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... without me should be rustical: This goddess' company doth to me befal. What gate thy stately words cannot unlock, My flattering speeches soon wide open knock. And I deserve more than thou canst in verity, By suffering much not borne by thy severity. By me Corinna learns, cozening her guard, To get the door with little noise unbarred; 50 And slipped from bed, clothed in a loose nightgown, To move her feet unheard in setting[345] down. Ah, how oft on hard doors hung I engraved, From no ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... instant, gazing down upon her with dignity—nay, a certain severity. Then he turned ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... was, that in this court there was no jury. There had never been juries employed in it from its earliest constitution. The English had contrived the plan of trial by jury as a defense against the severity of government. If a man was accused of crime, the judges appointed by the government that he had offended were not to be allowed to decide whether he was guilty or not. They would be likely not to be impartial. ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... those mendicants and Brahmanas and Yogis that are incapable of bearing hunger and thirst, the fatigues of travel and toil, and the severity of winter, desist. Let those Brahmanas also desist that live on sweetmeats, and they also that desire cooked viands and food that is sucked or drunk as well as meat. And let those also remain behind that are dependent on cooks. Let those citizens that have followed me from motives of loyalty, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... up with the airy world of contemplation, to lay as much stress as he ought on the practical consequences of things. His habitual principles of action are unhinged and out of joint with the time. His conduct to Ophelia is quite natural in his circumstances. It is that of assumed severity only. It is the effect of disappointed hope, of bitter regrets, of affection suspended, not obliterated, by the distractions of the scene around him! Amidst the natural and preternatural horrors of his situation, he might be excused in delicacy from carrying on a regular courtship. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... a few years ago, and since engraved, was powerfully and pathetically portrayed a scene of the early life of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England. It was winter time, and the day was Sunday. Clad in raiment of quaint severity, the head of the house led his Puritan family and servants across the snow-clad fields to worship. Living in the midst of a hostile population, the little band of worshippers was armed to the teeth. The ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... Population' was used against Mr. Truelove as an aggravation of his offence, passing over the utter meanness—worthy only of Collette—of using against a prisoner a book whose author has never been attacked for writing it—does Mr. Collette, or do the authorities, imagine that the severity shown to Mr. Truelove will in any fashion deter me from continuing the Malthusian propaganda? Let me here assure them, one and all, that it will do nothing of the kind; I shall continue to sell the 'Law of Population' and to advocate scientific checks to population, just as ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... the defense of this invaluable section was entrusted. General Braxton Bragg—however causeless and unjust their dictum may have been—had never been popular with the southern masses. They regarded him as a bloodthirsty martinet, and listened too credulously to all silly stories of his weakness and severity that were current, in the army and out. Influenced rather by prejudice than by any real knowledge of the man, they believed him vain, arrogant and weak; denying him credit for whatever real administrative ability that he possessed. The ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... some permanent situation under government, but it could not be effected. At length, being tired of an indolent life, I opened a school, which succeeded very well, when I was forced to relinquish it, owing to my ill state of health the confinement and severity of the weather brought on a languishing complaint, which would have terminated in my death had I persisted in continuing ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp

... bury themselves in the gardens and ploughed fields in the early autumn, and if they survive the severity of the winter months, may propagate their kind the second year, and probably for several years. But they require remarkably favorable conditions to continue their life for any considerable number of years in open-field ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... from twenty to no more than four, and those, too, brought so low that had their distresses continued but a few days longer, in all probability none of them would have survived. For the captain himself was with difficulty recovered and the rest were so reduced by the severity of the weather, their labour, and their want of all kinds of necessaries, that it was wonderful how they supported themselves so long. After some stay at Chiloe, the captain and the three who were with him ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... had not moved. If the Baron could dissimulate on the side of severity she could dissimulate on the side of calm. He did not know what had been veiled by the quiet promise to manage matters indoors. Rising at length she first turned away from the house; and, by-and-by, having apparently ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy

... to take the initiative of laws in the spirit of the party of Order, or even exaggerated their severity in their enforcement and administration, he, on his part, sought to win popularity by means of childishly silly propositions, to exhibit the contrast between himself and the National Assembly, and ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... close in and shelter all. To the left go up again the perpetual hills, hills. Everywhere around the bay save here, on island and main, the immitigable gneiss hills rise bold and sudden from the water, now dimly impurpled with lichen, now in nakedness of rock surface, yet beautified in their bare severity by alternating and finely waving stripes of lightest and darkest gray,—as if to show sympathy with the billowy heaving ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... and everlasting long! Say that she doth requite you with disdain; Yet fortified with hope, endure your fortune; Though cruel now she will be kind again; Such haps as those, such loves as yours importune. Though she protests the faithfullest severity Inexecrable beauty is inflicting, Kindness in time will pity your sincerity, Though now it be your fortune's interdicting. For some can say, whose loves have known like passion, "Women are kind by kind, and coy ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable

... to prevent the oxen from rushing down the banks of the rivulet, and quenching their thirst before the formality of unyoking had been gone through with. The stock-whip was often raised, and its long lash exercised with terrible severity, and every time it touched the flanks of the brutes, a small piece of skin not larger than a sixpence was clipped from their quivering flanks, leaving the flesh exposed to the mercy of the numerous insects which hovered in the air and darted upon the defenceless ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... to gain the blacks, and induce them to take up arms against us, by promising them liberty on this condition; and this plan they are prosecuting to the utmost of their power, by which means they have persuaded numbers to join them. And should we attempt to restrain them by force and severity, keeping a strict guard over them, and punishing them severely who shall be detected in attempting to join our oppressors, this will only be making bad worse, and serve to render our inconsistence, oppression, and cruelty more ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... of neglect to verify the prescribed return or to file it before the time required by law. This additional charge of 50 per cent operates in some cases as a harsh penalty for what may have been a mere inadvertence or unintentional oversight, and the law should be so amended as to mitigate the severity of the charge in such instances. Provision should also be made for the refund of additional taxes heretofore collected because of such infractions in those cases where the penalty imposed has been so disproportionate to the offense ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft

... recoil of the meaning which attaches itself to nearly every great myth,—and which we shall presently see notably exemplified in the relations of the serpent to Athena,—the dog becomes in philosophy a type of severity and abstinence. ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... 'reserve' for the aboriginals. It has a nice house, and the land is good. The aboriginals are rapidly dying out as a pure race, and most of the younger ones are half-breeds. Even in this inclement weather it was sad to notice how little protection these wretched beings had against its severity. We passed a miserable shanty by the side of the road, scarcely to be called a hut, consisting merely of a few slabs of bark propped against a pole. In this roadside hovel two natives and their women and piccaninnies were encamped, preferring this frail shelter to the comfortable quarters provided ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... useless or absurd particulars, such as the use of falcons, was as splendid and as crowded as that of Louis XIV., and it cost only four hundred thousand francs a year, while the King's cost seven millions. It was the same way with the table; Duroc's order and severity wrought wonders. Under the kings, the palaces were not permanently furnished; the same furniture was transported from one palace to another; there were no accommodations for the people of the court; every one had to provide for himself. Under him, however, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... been my companion in mischief in the violent ward was also terribly abused. I am sure I do not exaggerate when I say that on ten occasions, within a period of two months, this man was cruelly assaulted, and I do not know how many times he suffered assaults of less severity. After one of these chastisements, I asked him why he persisted in his petty transgressions when he knew that he ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... too strict is no more a king or a governor, but either a demagogue or a despot, and so becomes either odious or contemptible to his subjects. Though certainly the one seems to be the fault of easiness and good-nature, the other of pride and severity. ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... from all eternity, to take upon himself the form of a servant, and by his teaching, and obedience, and sufferings, and death, to vindicate the majesty of the law, and to render it honourable in the sight of the universe. And it is this wonderful union of the goodness and the severity, of the mercy and the justice of God, which constitutes the grand moral tendency and glory ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... poison-test, in the code of Y[a]jnavalkya (the next after Manu), is an application of aconite-root, and as the poison is very deadly, the accused is pretty sure to die. Other laws give other poisons and very minute restrictions, tending to ease the severity ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... empire became such as to defy the utmost endeavors of my enemies to undermine it. Another woman in my place would have employed her power in striking terror amongst all who were opposed to her, but for my own part I contented myself with repulsing their attempts to injure me, and in proceeding to severity only when my personal interests were too deeply concerned to admit of my passing the matter over in silence. There was no accusation too infamous to be laid to my charge; amongst other enormities they scrupled ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... with the opposition for his unwarranted severity as jailor of the Duchess of Berri, in '34, and his killing Dulong in a duel, because of a ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... apparent. The term of the amnesty or truce granted by the proclamation expired with the year 1691, and all who had not taken the oath of allegiance before that term, were to be proceeded against with the utmost severity. The proclamation was issued upon the 29th of August: consequently, only four months were allowed for the ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... without convulsions, stupor sets in, deepening into coma, and death from arrested respiration is the final result. If the temperature of the animal be tested from time to time during the exposure, it will be found to rise steadily, and the severity of the symptoms will be directly, and in any one species constantly, proportional to the intensity of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... case entirely failed to re-assure my pretty companion. We went back to the house. Dinner-time came, and the brothers appeared. Their father spoke to them of their absence from morning prayers with needless severity, as I thought. They resented the reproof with needless indignation on their side, and left the room. A sour smile of satisfaction showed itself on Miss Meadowcroft's thin lips. She looked at her father; then raised her eyes sadly to the ceiling, and said, "We can ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins

... honourably gained; seen beneath a scarlet cap, lined with steel, but trimmed with fur. A flexible coat of mail, so cunningly wrought as to offer no more opposition to the movements of the wearer than a greatcoat might nowadays, was covered with a thick cloak or mantle, in deference to the severity of the weather; the thighs were similarly protected by linked mail, and the hose and boots defended by unworked plates of thin steel. In his girdle was a dagger, and from the saddle depended, on one side, a huge two-handed sword, on the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... bare the breast, where he discovered a silver chain which went about the neck, the pendant to which, wrapped in the portion of the dress that had covered it, was clutched in the icy hand. He now cut away the stuff from around the hand, and, with a severity which seemed both profane and cruel, bent back the fingers one by one, compelling them to release their hold, so that the ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... Messenians were obliged to abandon their fortress of Ithome, and leave their rich fields in the undisturbed possession of their conquerors. Many of the inhabitants fled into Arcadia and other friendly territories, while those who remained were treated with great severity, and reduced to the condition of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... ain't go'n' a' have no sech doin's!"—if it could have noted the quailing consternation of the mistress at these moments, it might have been puzzled; but of such phenomena it never knew. It was aware only that Miss Caroline treated Clem with a despotic severity, issuing commands to him as from a throne of power and in tones of acrid authority that were the envy of all housekeepers among us ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... the same now as it was during the centuries when constant friction had to provide its own cure in the shape of constant war? Is it the same now as it was on 2nd March 1819, when the British Government officially opposed a motion to consider the severity of the criminal laws (which included capital punishment for cutting down a tree, and other sensible dodges against friction), and were defeated by a majority of only nineteen votes? Is it the same now as in the year 1883, when the first S.P.C.C. was ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett

... influence they exercise over a feeble government, we come next to the second class of spiritual masters of the country—the heads of orders, the provincials, and the heads of religious houses. These two classes of dignitaries are usually elected for their known severity of discipline, either by the procurement of the bishop, or through fanaticism of the monks or nuns, who, having voluntarily made themselves convicts and prisoners for life, now undertake to add to their self-afflicted mortification by choosing for their head a superior the most hateful of their ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... which it was perpetrated, has not often been equalled.—We speak of the want of motives, because, although some occurrences which we shall mention, had given the crew some ground for dissatisfaction, there had been no abuse or severity which could in the least degree excuse or palliate so barbarous a mode of redress and revenge. During our cruise to Japan the season before, many complaints were uttered by the crew among themselves, with respect to the manner and quantity in which they received ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay

... and is quoted by Mr. Anthony a Wood in his Antiquities of Oxon, in his life. He lived before the conquest, and taught Greek at the Abby in Malmesbury, where his scholars stabbed him with their penknives for his severity to them. Leland mentions that his statue was ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... but now, in 1816, settled comfortably in Norwich, he was again sent to the Grammar School, under the Rev. Edward Valpy, called by Dr. Knapp "a severe master," by Mr. Walling "a martinet," whose "principal claims to fame," says Mr. Jenkins, "are his severity, his having flogged the conqueror of the 'Flaming Tinman,' and his destruction of the School Records of Admission, which dated back to the sixteenth century." Against this chorus of denunciation, I will quote ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... men buckets of hot coffee, and when we made a long enough stop they were allowed liberty under the supervision of the non-commissioned officers. Some of them abused the privilege, and started to get drunk. These were promptly handled with the necessary severity, in the interest of the others; for it was only by putting an immediate check to every form of lawlessness or disobedience among the few men who were inclined to be bad that we were enabled to give full liberty to those who would ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... uneventful, and we arrived in the evening. That night a blizzard sprang up that exceeded in severity anything of the kind in my experience, and I have had nearly half a century of Minnesota winters. It raged and rampaged. It piled the snow on the prairie in drifts of ten and twenty feet in height. It filled the river bottoms to the height of about three feet ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... same species come in all respects into the closest competition with each other, the struggle will generally be most severe between them; it will be almost equally severe between the varieties of the same species, and next in severity between the species of the same genus. On the other hand, the struggle will often be severe between beings remote in the scale of Nature. The slightest advantage in certain individuals, at any age or during any season, over those with which they come into competition, ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... presiding genius of the Germain family. That Lord George should become tired of him and a little afraid of him he knew could not be avoided; but to her he must, if possible, be a pleasant genius, never accompanied in her mind by ideas of parental severity or clerical heaviness. "I should weary you out if I came too often and came ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... altogether insignificant detail; the one thing that was of importance, and counted, was that they had fought and signally defeated a force of overwhelming numerical superiority, and inflicted upon their immemorial enemy a blow of such crushing severity that a lasting peace was now assured. Little wonder that the people so recently hag-ridden with a perpetual fear, that often approached perilously close to panic, scarcely knew how to give adequate expression to the feeling of joy and relief that now possessed ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... remain quiet till rebellion was possible, then it became a duty. The law-courts now sought above all to make the accused priests declare themselves as to the validity of the bull and its obligation. Men held themselves justified in extreme severity against those who 'slip into the country at the instigation of the great enemy, the Pope, and poison the hearts of the subjects with pernicious doctrines.'[246] On this ground Campion met his death; ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke



Words linked to "Severity" :   seriousness, raininess, severe, difficulty, strictness, difficultness, sternness, intensity, foulness, intensiveness, distressfulness, plainness



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