"Earnestness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man!" she said. "I would rather perish in the woods under the knife of an assassin than under your tongue... In all earnestness I beg of you: when it comes into your mind to speak evil of me, take a knife instead and cut my throat. I think you would not find that a very ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... you know that? Who told you?" asked the girl, her face whitening, for the man's vehemence and evident earnestness were convincing. ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... wittiest sort. If one has an ache or a pain, a care or a loss, let it be forgotten now. It is weakness and folly continually to be under any burden. Here every one should take a genuine release from seriousness and earnestness in weighty and responsible affairs. Let all, except the serving committee for this evening, take part in this strictly social hour-and-a-half. When the late-comers have arrived and have been introduced, and the people have moved about and met one another, almost before ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... grateful for it than the average American woman. Lady Elfrida found the officers very entertaining and gallant. Accustomed to the English officer, and his somewhat bored way of treating his profession and his duties, she may have been amused at the zeal, earnestness, and enthusiasm of these youthful warriors, who aspired to appear as nothing but soldiers, when she contrasted them with her Guardsmen relatives who aspired to be everything else but that; but she kept it to herself. It was ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... gracious marbles of Desiderio da Settignano. The picture of the Coronation of the Virgin beside this Tabernacle, once the altar-piece of the Baroncelli Chapel, a genuine work of Giotto's, as it is thought, is tender in feeling and magnificent in arrangement and composition. Full of a grave earnestness and full of ardent life,—mark the eagerness of those clouds of Saints,—it is worthy of the painter of the tribune of ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... a person of extraordinary ability, great purity of character, and great zeal. At this period he was about sixty years of age, but he possessed the earnestness and energy of a young man. His congregation were very much attached to him, and it is true he exercised over them a remarkable influence. Many people sneered, accusing them of 'being led by the nose by their minister.' They were led, it is true, but not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of artists. The fierce light of publicity that beats upon us makes us liable, from time to time, to dissertations upon our public and private lives, our manners, our morals, and our money. Our whims and caprices are discanted on with apparent earnestness of truth, and seeming sincerity of conviction. There is always some lively controversy concerning the influence of the stage. The battle between old methods and new in art is waged everywhere. If an actor were to take to heart everything ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... is more complete and balanced, and penetrates to the specific genius of Christianity more deeply, than Saints Paul and Augustine with all their greater directness and intensity. We saw how the deepest originality of our Lord's teaching and temper consisted in His non-rigoristic earnestness, in His non-Gnostic detachment from things temporal and spatial. The absorbing expectation of the Second Coming, indeed the old, largely effete Graeco-Roman world, had first to go, the great Germanic migrations had to be fully completed, the first ...
— Progress and History • Various
... busy days; and in the earnestness of the preparation the sorrow of the coming parting was in some sort dissipated. Hobert's wearing-apparel was all brought out, and turned and overturned, and the most and the best made of everything. The wedding coat and the wedding shirt were almost as good as ever, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... truths turned out to be lies. Now we must prepare that which is solid and indestructible. Perhaps some great and wise spirit brooding over our world, learned with the experience of aeons, of human attempts and mistakes, smiles at the deadly earnestness of the intention to reconstruct. I do not care. We have reached a pass when all life and all hope are centred in this faith: the faith that we can make anew and good and beautiful the distorted web of ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... policy, and was not capable of being wilfully unjust. Palmerston, essentially superficial, delighted in banter, and knew how to divert grave opposition by playful levity; LINCOLN was a man of infinite jest on his lips, with saddest earnestness at his heart. Palmerston was a fair representative of the aristocratic liberality of the day, choosing for his tribunal, not the conscience of humanity, but the House of Commons; LINCOLN took to heart the eternal ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... the First could assemble a parliament, he addressed them with an earnestness, in which the simplicity of words and thoughts strongly contrasted with the oratorical harangues of the late monarch. It cannot be alleged against Charles the First, that he preceded the parliament in the war of words. He courted their affections; and even in this manner ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... one of the men endeavored to raise a laugh at the deformed lad, by asking him if he didn't expect to see just such another angel at this minute, who had lost her way in the field on the other side of the heap; but his jest failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of reality which his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus exalted, were too much for the gross spirit of banter, and the speaker shrunk back into ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... the desperation of a lover abandoned. She feared it was, she feared it was not. Nevil Beauchamp's foe persisted in fearing that it was not; his friend feared that it was. Yet why? For if it was, then he could not be quite in earnest, and might be cured. Nay, but earnestness works out its own cure more surely than frenzy, and it should be preferable to think him sound of heart, sincere though mistaken. Cecilia could not decide upon what she dared wish for his health's good. Friend and foe were not further separable within her bosom than one tick ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cant prevalent on his stage, just as any great actor of that century found rant on his, and, like the actor, he used it occasionally as a means of gaining his own lofty ends, and as a foil to his own genuine earnestness and power. ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... seen. Sent Borck to negotiate, to correspond, to consult with Dickens, to do his utmost in pacifying Hotham. All which Correspondence exists, but is not worth giving. Borck's remonstrances are in rugged soldier-like style, full of earnestness and friendliness. Do not wreck, upon trifles, a noble interest we have in common; King is jealous about foreign interference with his Ministers, but meant nothing; I tell you it is nothing I—Hotham is polite, good-tempered; ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... creation of the world in Latin. He knew the names of Augustus, Tiberius, and Diocletian; and while enjoying the agreeable coolness of the nights in an enclosure planted with bananas, he employed himself in reading all that related to the courts of the Roman emperors. He inquired of us with earnestness for a remedy for the gout, from which he suffered severely. "I know," said he, "a Zambo of Valencia, a famous curioso, who could cure me; but the Zambo would expect to be treated with attentions which I cannot ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... lady expressed herself to him, with earnestness, after the veil; a subject on which, it seems, they indulged her; urging, that the only way to secure her health of mind, if it could be restored, was to yield to her wishes. Lady Sforza said, that it was not a point that she herself would ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... your duties are before you. Now beware the mediocrity that threatens middle age, its limitation of thought and interest, its dulness of fancy, its too external life, and mental thinness. Remember the limitations that threaten every professional man, only to be guarded against by great earnestness and watchfulness. So take care of yourself, and let not the intellect more ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... retort, but there was a shade of earnestness mixed with her playfulness, for to her future husband she only wished to show the amiable side of her character; but all the time she was thinking. Will ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... Dale's eyebrows had drawn so close together that they almost touched; her eyes appeared darker, smaller, more opaque. Mr. Ridgett continued talking in a tone of light facetiousness that seemed to cover a certain deprecating earnestness. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... merchant was about to discharge for his bluntness. "You are good for nothing as a salesman," said his employer. "I am sure I can be useful," said the youth. "How? Tell me how." "I don't know, sir, I don't know." "Nor do I," said the merchant, laughing at the earnestness of his clerk. "Only don't put me away, sir, don't put me away. Try me at something besides selling. I cannot sell; I know I cannot sell." "I know that, too," said the principal; "that is what is wrong." "But I can make myself useful somehow," persisted the young man; "I know I can." He was ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... only knew Goethe as one who had attained, and ignored the struggle of his hot youth on the way to attainment. Carlyle justly commends him, not for his artistic mastery alone, but for his sense of the reality and earnestness of life, which lifts him to a higher grade among the rulers of human thought than such more perfect artists and more passionate lyrists as Heine. He admires above all his conquest over the world, ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... only in an obscure light,—in fact, could scarce make out their forms, shrouded as they were in dark cloaks—but the attitudes in which they stood, the fact of their keeping thus apart in the most obscure quarter of the boat, the apparent earnestness with which they were conversing—all led me to conjecture that they were lovers. My heart, guided by the sweet instinct of love, at once accepted this explanation, and looked ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... without malice prepense, the very role of Mephistopheles.... The gentle boy who, with innocent reverence, makes his visit of courtesy to the foreign teacher, bringing for gift a cluster of iris-flowers or odorous spray of plum-blossoms,—the boy who does whatever he is told, and charms by an earnestness, a trustfulness, a grace of manner rarely met with among Western lads of the same age,—is destined to undergo the strangest of transformations long before becoming a baccalaureus. You may meet with him a few years later, in the uniform of some Higher School, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... log and strode before the trembling figure. He was strangely moved. Grasping the man he thrust him back upon the log. His own voice rolled down the hillside in a great roaring laugh. "Men of Coal Creek," he shouted, mimicking the earnestness of Hartnet, "listen to the voice of McGregor. I hate you. I hate you because you jeered at my father and at me and because you cheated my mother, Nance McGregor. I hate you because you are weak and disorganised like cattle. I would like to come among you teaching ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... 'twere Portius, could you blame my choice?— Oh, Portius, thou hast stolen away my soul! Marcus is over warm, his fond complaints Have so much earnestness and passion in them, I hear him with a secret kind of horror, And tremble at his ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... attention is concentrated for a length of time with fixed earnestness on any object or subject, all the organs of the body are forgotten and neglected;[8] and as the nervous energy of each individual is limited in amount, little is transmitted to any part of the system, excepting that which is at the ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... several times to me, and at last demanded with such earnestness that I should bring it to him, that I could not refuse. I brought it to him accordingly, but read it to him I declared I never would. He took it, therefore, and read it in a low tone, standing in the window of his little cabinet, where ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... discipline—was given to the regenerated Latin schools. A new Renaissance, in a way, took place in German lands, [27] and a knowledge of Greek was proclaimed by German university and gymnasial teachers as indispensable to a liberal education with an earnestness of conviction not exceeded by Battista Guarino (p. 268) four centuries before. To know Greek and to have some familiarity with Greek literature and history now came to be regarded as necessary to the highest culture, [28] and a pedagogical theory ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... restricted space will compel us to forego a report of the discussion at present. On the conclusion of Mrs. Colby's very bright and convincing remarks, Dr. McNamara addressed the convention in a brief speech of great earnestness, depth ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... again, this colonel, on whom may the saints send a lingering disease. I can swear that there is no young lady in the house? but assuredly, I can, and do swear it, with all earnestness. He whistles, and swears also—in a different manner. He says, 'I must search the house. This is an important matter. A large reward is offered by the Senora Montfort for the discovery ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... and with a mystifying earnestness, "which do you think would kill a man quickest—a slash across the throat, or a stab in ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... blameworthy than before. What a graceful fellow Leslie was, and how suave and genial the father when he sat at the head of his table toying with a glass of port! And these were capable men, too, men of affairs. Doubtless their earnestness was strong enough below the surface, I thought—for ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... at Concord, New Hampshire, is thus described by another writer: "He gradually let out the outraged humanity that was laboring in him, in indignant and terrible speech.... There was great oratory in his speech, but more of dignity and earnestness than what we call eloquence. He was an insurgent slave, taking hold on the rights of speech, and charging on his tyrants the bondage of ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... 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
... resolved to bring before you the whole history of the greatest spiritual movement that has taken place since the Reformation; and also to indicate the untold blessings the Revision will bear to those who avail themselves of it in all reverent earnestness and devotion. ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... at him for one moment with a sort of notion that perhaps he was not too old to be merely playing the fool. But after staring steadily for an instant Turnbull saw the hard and horrible earnestness in the man's eyes behind all his empty animation. Then Turnbull looked very gravely at the strict gravel walls and the gay flower-beds and the long rectangular red-brick building, which the mist had left evident beyond them. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... distaff. He had pleased her and she had received him kindly because he was related to the man whom she had loved from childhood. She imagined that she could trace a resemblance between him and Hosea, though the youth lacked the grave earnestness of the man to whom she had yielded her young heart, she knew not why nor when, though he had never sought ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... may suppose that he received this intimation by a simple assurance that he would submit the French Emperor's sentiments to your Majesty, and he added that he foresaw a serious difficulty to the project in the fact that the Princess was a Protestant. Count Walewski was evidently sincere in the earnestness with which he spoke of the subject, and the impatience with which he pressed Lord Malmesbury to inform your Majesty ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... month—October, 1843—when having recently returned from visits to Cork and Parsonstown, connected with a meeting of the British Association, the desire to discover the laws of multiplication referred to, regained with me a certain strength and earnestness which had for years been dormant, but was then on the point of being gratified, and was occasionally talked of with you. Every morning in the early part of the above-cited month, on my coming down to breakfast, your (then) little brother William Edwin, and yourself, used ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... never break up, and though the persons in the piece mean no harm, they are nearly as noxious to sleep as the loud musical water-side rough or public-house loafer. Dogs, too, like men, seem to feel it incumbent on them to howl more than usual in hot weather, and to bay the moon with particular earnestness in July. No enemy of sleep is deadlier than a dear, good, affectionate dog, whose owners next door have accidentally shut him out. The whole night long he bewails his loneliness, in accents charged with profound melancholy. The author of the "Amusement Philosophique" would have us believe that ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... little bewildered by the girl's earnestness, her energy, and the perfect simplicity of her evident belief that she was saying nothing unreasonable. She saw reluctance and hesitation in ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... good-looking and graceful little creature, with blue eyes, and hair as nearly black as that kind of hair, both fine and plentiful, ever is. She might then have discovered as well a certain look of earnestness and service that would at first have attracted her for its own sake, and then repelled her for James's; for she would assuredly have read in it what she would have counted dangerous for him; but seeing her poorly dressed, ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... Lord Rotherwood's earnestness in the cause was the arrival of his servant, who was to bring down the large stone which Master Merrifield had moved, and who conveyed it in a cab, being much too grand to carry ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... close observation, my belief is that, after the Negro has overcome the false idea which city life emphasizes, two or three generations will bring about an earnestness and steadiness of purpose which do not now generally obtain. As the Negro secures a home in the city, learns the lessons of industry and thrift and becomes a taxpayer, his moral life improves. The influence of home ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... their only hope of sanity in the midst of distressing and unintelligible events. In the general course of modern life events move less rapidly, but are equally important, and there, too, Mr. Belloc has attempted with almost pathetic lucidity to explain. His true earnestness will not be rewarded, his true purpose will not be attained, until the thoughtful public realizes that it can find in Mr. Belloc's historical and political writings at large the guide to the formation of opinion and the help to sanity which ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... vividness was accentuated as usual by the robin's egg blue dress she wore, had the warm genial glow radiating from a polar berg. It was, however, only a moment before she recovered herself and was able to say with sweet earnestness: ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... must be acknowledged that this was astonishing language to be uttered in the apartments of the King's mistress; yet it went on for twenty years without being talked of. "It was probity speaking with earnestness," said M. de Marigny, "and not a mere burst of ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... you this favour. But why, you may well ask, when you have already often assured me that you intended to record in your book with the utmost minuteness the policy and events of my consulship, do I now make this request to you with such earnestness and in so many words? The reason is to be found in that burning desire, of which I spoke at the beginning of my letter, for something prompt: because I am in a flutter of impatience, both that men should learn what I am from your books, while I am still alive, and that ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... that she had had precious visits from her Saviour; he had told her that he was coming soon, and would fulfill her heart's desire in taking her to him. Her mother said, that during the previous night she had been constantly reaching up, and sometimes she would cry out, with great earnestness, "Do not ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... chest is instantly seized with the palsy. Upon one occasion, a priest of noted piety was brought to the vault: he used all the arts of exorcism to persuade his infernal majesty to vacate his seat, but in vain; the huntsman remained immovable. At last, moved by the earnestness of the priest, he told him, that he would agree to resign the chest, if the exorciser would sign his name with blood. But the priest understood his meaning, and refused, as by that act he would have delivered over his soul to the Devil. Yet if any body can discover the mystic words used by ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... an offering into the well—usually a pebble, but sometimes a small coin. Then a bit of the child's dress was attached to a bush or tree growing on the side of the well. These visits were paid in a spirit of earnestness and faith, and were kept more or less secret. Some of the wells have names of Christian saints attached to them; but I never knew of a case in which the saint was in any way recognised or prayed to. There is reason to believe these wells were the objects of adoration before the country was christianised, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... a flippant retort Kerns experienced a curious sensation of hesitation. Something in Gatewood's earnestness, in his jeering assurance and delighted certainty, made him, for one moment, feel doubtful, ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... himself out of the circle of his own feelings, or to aid any cause which he had near to his heart. He had had much to say about New England cant. Yet in this work he can find no words sufficiently strong to praise what he calls the zealous freedom and Christian earnestness of one of the most offensive canters that the whole range of fiction presents. It would be unjust to deny that when in "The Sea Lions" Cooper abandons his metaphysics and turns to his real business, that he creates ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... the Man from Solano did not strike him. He looked at the ironical Dashboard with grave earnestness, and ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... pause. He had been painting that day an agonising Christ, red and languid, crowned with thorns. Some of his own torment seems to have entered it, for, looking at it now, we see, first of all, wild eyeballs staring with the mad earnestness, the purposeless intensity of one seized or "possessed." He put the panel away and looked about for something else, the sketch he had made of Simonetta on that last day. When he had found it, he rolled it straight and set it on his ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... you, sir!" she said, as I gave him to her, with an earnestness which seemed to me disproportionate to the deed, and carried him away with a deep ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... with more earnestness and with greater show of reason than any other which has appeared against this part of the plan; and yet I am deceived if it does not rest upon an ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... process is reversed. The surest, I may almost say, the only, evidence we have of divine guidance in the production of this literature is to be found among the earliest productions. There we see earnestness of purpose combined with heavenly aspiration and deep searching after truth. Subsequent to this we see the light vanishing and earnestness giving place to triviality of thought, to the ravings of superstition, ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... is well worth while seeing what this same civilization holds for starved and noble souls who have elsewhere been denied what here we hold to be, as a matter of course, rights free to all—altho we do not, as we should do, make these rights accessible to all who are willing with resolute earnestness to strive for them. I most cordially ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... the party united forces and pushed onwards and upwards towards the wild ravine where the haunt of the wolf lay, the twin brothers heard themselves addressed in their own language, and though the tones were sweet and silvery, the words had a ring of passionate earnestness in them which went straight ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... came as a shock. At first she thought the silly pair must be joking—then that they were mad. Finally she realized their earnestness and their happiness and saw that the situation was serious and must be dealt with with the utmost tact. Still, she could hardly believe what she saw and heard. Was it possible that the demure girl talking to her so seriously of love and marriage was her little Virginia—her baby? And that these ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... that of a monastery. Hour by hour, there was the same periodical rotation of work and religious service, with short intervals at fixed times for rest or food. The usual occupation in the earliest times had to do with the carding and spinning of wool, and Saint Jerome, with his characteristic earnestness, advises the nuns to have the wool ever in their hands. Saint Augustine gives us the picture of a party of nuns standing at the door of their convent and handing out the woollen garments which they have made for the old monks who are standing there waiting to receive them, with food to give ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... had passed, the holidays were over, Winter had set in with all earnestness, and now we find Joe hurrying along, intent on the rescue of Reggie and his sister ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... no means of reaching these patriots, for they could not be purchased. This convinced Napoleon of their earnestness, for he could buy kings and princes. The students were invisible, implacable, and many a brilliant officer of the imperial guard disappeared, never ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... it, as well as being stage-manager and adapter, if not designer of scenery. Whatever she did—and really she did an incredible deal—she did it with all the might of her dramatic perception, did it in fact with such earnestness that she had no time to have an eye to the gallery at all, she simply contemplated herself and her own vigorous accomplishment. When she played the piano as she frequently did, (reserving an hour for practice every day), she cared not in the smallest degree for what anybody who passed ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... a certain "agency," in the northern part of Iowa, to procure some whiskey for a young warrior that had been bitten with a rattlesnake. At first the agent did not credit the story, but the earnestness of the Indian, and the urgency of the case, overcame his scruples, and turning to get the liquor, he asked the Indian how much ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... were favorably impressed with the frankness of the former outlaw. He had the speech and the manners of a gentleman, and his earnestness and apparent sincerity went far towards removing their suspicions, and, much to their surprise, they found themselves soon talking to him with ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... 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 ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... and through it to the heart. The exhortations and invitations must be based on and grow out of these instructions. The great themes of sin and Grace, and the application and reception of Grace, should be set forth with all possible simplicity and earnestness. ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... in a former volume, although a man of ability and of intense earnestness of purpose, his devotion to his political labours never wholly counteracted a certain lethargy of temperament which, throughout his life, limited achievement. Thus, although in his youth undoubtedly gifted with a lively fancy, or with what ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... interpreting aright my clumsy, circumlocutory phrases in attempting to describe shawls, gowns, and bonnets; and taught me the exact millinery language which I ought to have made use of with an arch expression of triumph and a burlesque earnestness of manner, that always enchanted me. At that time, every word she uttered, no matter how frivolous, was the sweetest of all music to my ears. It was only by the stern test of after-events that I learnt to analyse her conversation. Sometimes, when I was away from her, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... hand that reposed unavoidably upon her person, the poor woman started from her seat, and looked wildly about her, as if endeavouring to identify those by whom she was surrounded. But when she observed the pitying gaze of the officers fixed upon her, in earnestness and commiseration, and heard the benevolent accents of the ever kind Blessington exhorting her to composure, her weeping became more violent, and her sobs more convulsive. Captain Blessington threw an arm round her waist to prevent her from falling; ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... Islands half a century or more ago.* There Samuel Armstrong, a youth of missionary parents, earned enough money to pay his expenses at an American college. Equipped with this small sum and the earnestness that the undertaking implied, he came to Williams College when Dr. Mark Hopkins was president. Williams College had many good things for youth in that day, as it has in this, but the greatest was the strong personality of its famous president. Every student does not profit by a great teacher; ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... man had fashioned something, and hardly anything had been left unpainted. The clumsy old "boys" of the town had labored with untold patience to perfect their gifts. Their earnestness over the child and the day was a beautiful thing to see. Never were presents more impressive as to weight. The men had made ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... that you might be kept 'unspotted from the world.' I heard her make that prayer myself." And stretching out his hand, the old gentleman laid it tenderly upon Fleda's bowed head, saying with strong earnestness and affection, even his voice somewhat shaken, "God grant that prayer! whatever else he do with her, keep my child from the evil! and bring her to join her father and mother in heaven! ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... no clue. But his fellow worker, John Stearne, was clearly a Puritan[5] and Hopkins was surely of the same faith. It can hardly be proved, however, that religious zeal prompted him in his campaign. For a time of spiritual earnestness his utterances ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... to the young officer showed his own farsighted earnestness. Had he who received them been any less in earnest, the task assigned to him must have seemed appalling. The primary instruction was to blaze a path, more than four thousand miles long, through ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... is not alone, as a Church, in this patriotic and Christian enterprise. The Established Church has entered upon it with an ever-increasing earnestness, having come, mainly through the advocacy of the Chaplain-General, Rev. Dr. Edgehill, to grasp the situation, and to realize that for the men themselves and for the empire it is of paramount importance that this provision should ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... wit still raised him friends who were desirous of setting him at length free from that indigence by which he had been hitherto oppressed; and therefore solicited Sir Robert Walpole in his favour with so much earnestness that they obtained a promise of the next place that should become vacant, not exceeding two hundred pounds a year. This promise was made with an uncommon declaration, "that it was not the promise of a minister to a petitioner, but of a ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... began to return. He protested with maudlin earnestness that I was entirely mistaken,—that I was intoxicated; then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... not believe me," cried Julius. "You think that something is underlying all this," and he spoke with deep earnestness, his voice broken ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... any misfortune to you and your army quite as keenly as you feel it yourself." Mr. Stanton could only be silent; and whatever criticisms may be made on some traits of his character, he is quite safe in leaving the rebuke of such an imputation to whoever feels that earnestness, devotion, and unflagging purpose are high qualities in ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... immediately became inevitable, tiring both with its earnestness and its utter absence of a common ground. Because in him apparently remained every vital germ of convention and of generations of training in every precept of formality; and in her—for with Valerie West adolescence ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... Without going into details, it is enough to say that conditions finally became so scandalous that all Chicago rose in horror and rebellion. The police department was thoroughly overhauled, and a new chief appointed who undertook in all earnestness to suppress the worst features of the system. He had no new weapons it is true, and he probably had no notion that he could make any impression on the evil of prostitution. But he might have restored external decency and order, and he ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... the learned Templars insisted on their privilege, and the unlearned of Ram's-alley and Fleet-street asserted their right of saving their crown-pieces: and finally how this combat of mockery and earnestness was settled, not without the introduction of "a god," as Horace allows on great occasions, in the interposition of the king and the attorney-general—altogether the tale had been well told in some comic epic; but the wits of that day let it ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Wilton's countenance with some degree of earnestness; and, to say the truth, if his young companion had not been put upon his guard, by detecting the first stern, dark glance the minister had given him, some emotion might have been visible in his countenance, some degree of thoughtful ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... faces with pearl powder 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. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... by the seer's earnestness, and so suddenly did his last words strike home, that the thought never occurred to him that this might only be the gossip of his followers come in time to Atli's ears. It seemed to him an inspired insight into his past, and he started suddenly, ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... he himself said, neither in reproach nor anger. It was the appealing tones that gave his speech its power —its convincing earnestness, its lack of rancor, its sober truth that gave it weight. Elsewhere it is printed in detail. Suffice it to say here that he predicted that the rules would have to be changed since they had been made the instrument of a revolutionary ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... lips. That other man, who speaks with the sweat of anguish beaded on his brow, with a mortal pallor on his thin, worn cheeks, is putting questions to the celestial guide within which seem to that guide the ravings of a crazed lunatic; and yet there is a deadly, despairing earnestness in the appeal that makes an indistinct knocking at the door of his heart, for the man is born of woman, and can feel that somehow or other these are the words of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... artists. Its statesmen, its merchants, its common artisans, and the very monks in its convents, were all pervaded by one spirit. The men of Florence in its best days were men of a large, grave, earnest mould. What the Puritans of New England wrought out with severest earnestness in their reasonings and their lives these early Puritans of Italy embodied in poetry, sculpture, and painting. They built their Cathedral and their Campanile, as the Jews of old built their Temple, with awe and religious fear, that they might thus express by costly and imperishable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... idea! Why, I don't think I've ever even had the thought. Anyhow, the years have gone—the inclination is gone, if it ever was there. I'm too old." Then with sudden and passionate earnestness, "But you two." She rose and took each by a hand, and led them to the dial. "Read! Read what is written in the stone!—Tempus Fugit—time flies! Oh, take your happiness while you can! Don't wait. Oh, don't!—We must find a way somehow. The Church—we must see the proper ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... 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 your avarice ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... book out of his pocket, opened it, and showed me a page with two alphabets, one English and the other Bohemian. He placed this book in my grandmother's hands, looked at her entreatingly, and said, with an earnestness which I shall never ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... face, and thinking how terrible it would be to see that face shadowed with pain and care. Somehow, of late, Uncle Ephraim was always thinking of such a calamity as more than possible for Katy, and when that night she knelt beside him, his voice was full of pleading earnestness as he prayed that God would keep them all in safety, and bring to none of them more grief, more suffering, than was necessary to purify them for His own. "Purified by suffering" came involuntarily into Katy's mind as she listened, and then remembered the talk down in the meadow, when she sat on ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Mr. Sheridan as by Mr. Burke, one example, out of many, will suffice. It cannot fail, however, to be remarked that, while the denunciations and invectives of Burke are filled throughout with a passionate earnestness, which leaves no doubt as to the sincerity of the hate and anger professed by him,—in Sheridan, whose nature was of a much gentler cast, the vehemence is evidently more in the words than in the feeling, the tone of indignation is theatrical and assumed, and the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... charm of its own. Even when two men are fighting, you are compelled to admire their earnestness and singleness of purpose." ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Strangers' Gallery, listened with appreciation to the praises of his famous Camel Corps. Then followed what might be called the Home Rule argument—we could not refuse what the Indian people so much desired—delivered with so much earnestness that Mr. JEREMIAH MACVEAGH loudly invited Mr. CHAMBERLAIN to "come over and sit on ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... but more seldom, to the Jamiesons' estancia. The light-hearted young Englishmen were naturally more to their fancy than the quiet and thoughtful Scotchmen. The latter were, however, greatly esteemed by Mr. and Mrs. Hardy, who perceived in them a fund of quiet good sense and earnestness. ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... wants to hear an eloquent oration, let him go when the Roman Catholic priest is preaching on the divine institution of auricular confession. There is no subject, perhaps, on which the priests display so much zeal and earnestness, and of which they speak so often. For this institution is really the corner-stone of their stupendous power; it is the secret of their almost irresistible influence. Let the people to-day open their eyes to the truth, and understand ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... no orator, though he had the clear, firm, penetrating voice of one; but his words, because of the surprise of his presence, and the change which had been wrought in him, and because of his earnestness and simplicity, had on his audience all the effect of the loftiest eloquence. He had a great deal more to tell them of the darkness and misery and sin through which he was passing, when the minister found him and laid hands on him, and ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... there again. I grew utterly bewildered. The blood mounted to my cheeks, for I felt that my father had been unjust to me. I looked at the Princess as if she ought to shield me, but upon her face was only an expression of mild earnestness. Then I looked round upon the ladies and gentlemen assembled in the room, believing that they would come to my defense. But as I looked, I saw that they were laughing. Then the tears sprang into my eyes, and out of ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... his noble saying, "Earnestness alone makes life Eternity" and that other "saying" about Art having, as its main purpose, the turning of the "Transitory" into the "Permanent"! If the Transitory is really to be turned into the Permanent, we must take ourselves and our work very ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... blue-eyed, the last man in the room one would have picked for great stamina and courage, yet playing one of the leading roles in this crisis; the merchant Truett, towering above all the rest; Farwell, direct, uncompromising, inspired with tremendous single-minded earnestness; James Dows, of the rough and ready, humorous, blasphemous, horse-sense type; Hossefross, of the Committee of '51; Dr. Beverly Cole, high-spirited, distinguished-looking, and courtly; Isaac Bluxome, whose signature of "33 Secretary" was ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... said, turning back to the old gentlewoman,—and his face was radiant with the earnestness of this thought,—"Auntie Sue, there are as many currents in our river out there as there are human lives. A comparatively few great main or dominant currents in the river flow—a comparatively few great dominant currents ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... with a little movement of pride. "Those tasks in life which give a high moneyed wage, generally give only that. Part of our compensation is that we belong to the Service; we are doing something for the whole people, not just for ourselves." She caught Bob's half-smile, more at her earnestness than at her sentiment, and took fire. "You needn't laugh!" she cried. "It's small now, but that's because it's the beginning, because we have the privilege of being the forerunners, the pioneers! The time will come when in this country there will be three great Services—the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... means undeserved, Romulus, and parent of his country, and a second founder of the city. His country, thus preserved by arms, he unquestionably saved a second time in peace, when he hindered the people from removing to Veii, both the tribunes pressing the matter with greater earnestness after the burning of the city, and the commons of themselves being more inclined to that measure; and that was the cause of his not resigning his dictatorship after the triumph, the senate entreating him not to leave the commonwealth in so unsettled ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... and the good housekeeper sent up lunch and tea to save my walking, and in the silence and beauty and peace I communed with God. He is so near and so dear. Oh, if I only get another day in which to work! I hope it will be more full of earnestness and ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... during those long tete-a-tetes. On one side was the accomplished coquette, possibly only determined to make a plaything of the man of genius, to charm him and keep him at her feet; or perhaps with a lurking hope that her skilful game would turn to earnestness, and that in the course of it she would manage to forget that charming young Metternich who died at Florence and left her inconsolable. On the other was Balzac, his senses bewildered by passionate love, but ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars |
