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Earnest   /ˈərnɪst/   Listen
Earnest

adjective
1.
Characterized by a firm and humorless belief in the validity of your opinions.  Synonyms: sincere, solemn.  "An entirely sincere and cruel tyrant" , "A film with a solemn social message"
2.
Earnest.  Synonyms: dear, devout, heartfelt.  "Devout wishes for their success" , "Heartfelt condolences"
3.
Not distracted by anything unrelated to the goal.  Synonym: businesslike.



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"Earnest" Quotes from Famous Books



... dimly-lighted street, but, occasionally, the street lamps threw flashes across two earnest faces. She endeavoured to remove ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... and strongest steamer that floats, and she will give a good account of herself when the trouble begins in earnest." ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic

... father thinner and older than when he had last seen him, and asked how he was in a more earnest and meaning manner than is customary in the conventional ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... a modern philosopher: he accuses "the jealousy of our clergy, who had degraded themselves into intriguers; and like mechanics in a trade, who are afraid of nothing so much as interlopers—they had therefore induced indifferent persons to imagine that their earnest contest was not about their faith, but about their temporal possessions. It was incongruous that a church, which does not pretend to be infallible, should constrain persons, under heavy penalties and punishments, to believe as she does: they delighted, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... no charms in nature, In a daisy, I; Cleon hears no anthems ringing 'Twixt the sea and sky; Nature sings to me forever, Earnest listener, I; State for state, with all attendants— ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... little effect on them. After a few days had passed, however, he turned over a new leaf, so completely that he went through the plains and grain-fields, calling together his people so that they might become Christians and be baptized with him. He is now one of our good Christians, and the most earnest one whom I have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... you, that afterwards you may be in a condition to judge whether every object of regulation, as I propose it, comes fairly under its rule. This will exceedingly shorten all discussion between us, if we are perfectly in earnest in establishing a system of good management. I therefore lay down to myself seven fundamental rules: they might, indeed, be reduced to two or three simple maxims; but they would be too general, and their application to the several heads of the business before us would not be so distinct ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... to him, would not allow it because he was an exile and could not take the position according to time-honored usage. He showed himself so law-abiding and exact a man that in so great a danger to his native land he made precedent a matter of earnest thought and did not think it right to hand down to posterity an example of lawlessness. (Valesius, p.582. Cp. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... worst of Rogues, as well as among the better Sort of People. If one Villain should neglect picking a Pocket, when he might have done it with Ease, another of the same Gang, who was near him and saw this, would upbraid him with it in good Earnest, and tell him, that he ought to be ashamed of having slipt so fair an Opportunity. Sometimes Shame signifies the visible Disorders that are the Symptoms of this sorrowful Reflection on our own Unworthiness; at ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville

... a great respect for Harrington," he said at last. "He interests me very much, and I like to meet him." He spoke seriously, as though thoroughly in earnest. The faintest look of amusement came to Mrs. Wyndham's face for ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... chaplain in the next hospital, a most consecrated and earnest man, has managed to get a military rule passed that no services can be held in any ward of the hospital unless every Roman Catholic patient is bodily carried out. This has successfully prevented the holding of any Christian services whatsoever, Catholic or Protestant. Throughout the entire ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy

... candles fell upon her shining hair, and upon cheek and brow; and I could see her bosom rise and fall with the quick-coming breath, and the pulse throbbing in her fair white neck. And with the seeing I became a fool of love again in very earnest, and was within a hair's breadth of sinking honor and all else in an outpouring of such words as a man may say once to one woman in all the world—and having said them may never ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... next? Her thoughts flew to a painting of Lady Jane Grey, which she had once seen at a loan collection of Tudor portraits. Why should she not describe it? Her pen flew rapidly as she wrote a word-picture of the sweet, pale face, so round and childish in spite of its earnest expression; the smooth yellow hair, the gray eyes bent demurely over the book. Her heroine seemed beginning to live. Now for her surroundings. A year ago Winona had paid a visit to Hampton Court, and her remembrance of its associations was ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... with her sailing-power is another branch of the equipment of a screw-ship, which requires the most earnest, patient, and intelligent consideration. Prepared to endure all the wear and tear of a sail-ship, she should at the same time be ready for transmutation into a steam-ship; namely, when, for any urgent service, her best powers of steaming are required, she should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the press of Gregorius of Venice in 1494. Old bindings may be seen too, among them a lavish Byzantine example with enamels and mosaics. The exhibited autographs include Titian's hand large and forcible; Leopardi's, very neat; Goldoni's, delicate and self-conscious; Galileo's, much in earnest; and a poem by Tasso with ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... a louis-d'or, as earnest of twenty more which I will give you, if you bring this safely to Monsieur le Marquis de Secqville, at the Hotel de Secqville, Rue St. Etienne, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... his own nature too courageous not to comprehend a heroism thus calm and resigned; and the old soldier, as well as his son, now contemplated Gabriel with the most earnest feelings ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... unfolding genius of this young barbarian was a great joy to Plato, as the earnest, eager intellect of an ambitious pupil always is to his teacher. Plato was great in speculation; Aristotle was great in observation. Well has it been said that it was Aristotle who discovered the world. And Aristotle in his old age said, "My ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... answer; "better lose a thousand times that amount than accuse him falsely. Because his father was dishonest is no proof that he is a thief. Drop it, Bently. Don't put a stumbling-block in the poor fellow's way by spreading such insinuations as that. He seems one of the most earnest and sincere members we ever had ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston

... future age,—will, I trust, best plead my excuse as a retired individual, and acquit me from the charge of presumption, in having had the temerity to submit my views to the consideration of so many illustrious personages, and for the earnest solicitude with which I have addressed myself to the humanity, the benevolence, and the justice of ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary

... system—with all these events and their meaning is the history of popular art interwoven; with all this, I say, the careful student of decoration as an historical industry must be familiar. When I think of this, and the usefulness of all this knowledge, at a time when history has become so earnest a study amongst us as to have given us, as it were, a new sense: at a time when we so long to know the reality of all that has happened, and are to be put off no longer with the dull records of the battles and intrigues of kings and scoundrels,—I say when I think of all this, I hardly ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... she leant against a fallen tree trunk and talked to one and another. In the gathering dusk she sat on a small stool and attended to the sick and dressed their sores. After dinner some men and lads arrived carrying lamps, and she held her catechumens' class—a very earnest and ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... about with you), relates in his fourth volume folio, that—"At hir entring the citie, she was of the people received maruellous intierlie, as appeared by the assemblies, praiers, welcommings, cries, and all other signes which argued a woonderfull earnest loue:" and at various halting-places on the royal progress children habited like angels appeared out of allegoric edifices and ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... John Masefield's novel of modern London, "The Street of To-day" (Dent and Co.), with much interest. But I found it very difficult to read. This is a damning criticism; but what would you have? I found it very difficult to read. It is very earnest, very sincere, very carefully and generously done. But these qualities will not save it. Even its intelligence, and its alert critical attitude towards life, will not save it. I could say a great deal of good about it, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... me. Tom joined us, and for a while no one spoke. Then the trader, laying down his pipe on the table, drew his seat closer, and commenced, in low tones, a conversation in Tahitian with Pallou. From the earnest manner of old Tom and the sullen gloom that overspread Pallou's face, I could discern ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... conversion; and such a motion, which was not seconded, might be made, perhaps by a secret Christian in their tumultuous assembly. * Note: Wilken, vol. vii. p. 257, thinks the proposition could not have been made in earnest.—M.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... her, not without dignity. He was and had been from his boyhood a person of irreproachable morals—earnest and religious according to his lights, a good son, husband, and father. His wife looked at him ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... cannot be expressed by my circumscribed vocabulary. In stating that my trifling exertions for the return of such a patriot are more than doubly recompensed by your noble conduct, may I be allowed to suggest the earnest wish of my eldest son to be in town, for the pleasure of being near such a representative, which alone induces him to accept the situation of landing-waiter you so kindly insisted upon his preparing for. You will, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... are in earnest. Things, of course, are changing, and I suppose old-fashioned prejudices must go overboard. Personally, I liked the type we had before the war, but we'll let that go. Young Brandon strikes me ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... hold out long with the truly understanding. Those who really know what originality is are not long the slave of the power of imitation: it is the gifted assimilator that suffers most under the spell of mastery. Legitimate influence is a quality which all earnest creators learn to handle at once. Both poetry and painting are, or so it seems to me, revealing well the gift of understanding, and as a result we have a better variety of painting and of poetry than at the first outbreak of this so called ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... "To be earnest with you, Mr. Storms," said Bess, with just a flash of teasing wickedness towards Dorothy, "I go about, even now, carrying the impression of knowing you extremely well. Dorothy reads me your letters from the Daily Tory; she has elevated ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... deadly earnest, but her lover only laughed again, and assured her that she had been listening to idle tales. To him it seemed incredible that he could get into any trouble because he had lately held some intercourse with his father's old friend, the Earl of Bothwell, and had, at his request, carried ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... that had been spoken. At this the man knit his brows in an earnest way, and looked business. He lifted each article from the floor, examined it carefully and seemed to be making a close estimate of its value. The traveling-bag was new, and had cost probably five dollars. The cloth sacque could not have been made for ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... and sometimes delightful. Some simple-minded people are revolted, even in literature, by the ironical method; and tell the humorist, with an air of moral disapproval, that they never know whether he is in jest or in earnest. To such matter-of-fact persons Disraeli's novels must be a standing offence; for it is his most characteristic peculiarity that the passage from one phase to the other is imperceptible. He has moments of obvious seriousness; at frequent intervals comes a flash of downright sarcasm, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... Dale changed this system, and the old planters were given land to cultivate for themselves. The effect was magical. Men who were lazy when toiling as servants of the company, become industrious when laboring for themselves, and prosperity began in earnest. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... that moment the earnest seeker after truth was gazing abstractedly in his direction, and had left the Canon lecturing to empty benches, balancing himself on his toes, while he defined his theological position with convincing emphasis of finger ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... Rosario said, slowly this time, but in deadly earnest, and with the tone of a person prepared to face the worst, "Pascualo, Dolores is not being true ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... "He is in earnest, he will go far." This is what we felt with respect to Count Tolstoi. Sooner or later he was certain to follow Jesus to the bitter end. After property comes the institution of marriage, upon which the teaching of Jesus may ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... been threatening her father for a long while now fell upon him in earnest, so that of a sudden he became a very old man. His strength and energy left him, and his mind was so filled with remorse for what he held to be his crime in bringing his daughter to this awful place, and with terror for the fate that threatened her, that he ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... were married, all square and regular, by the Scotch clergyman. He was the first minister of any kind that came up to the diggings, and the men had all come to like him for his straightforward, earnest way of preaching. Not that we went often, but a good few of us diggers went every now and then just to show our respect for him; and so Jim said he'd be married by Mr. Mackenzie and no one else. Jeanie was a Presbyterian, so it ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... he considered, an excellent institution, and necessary to the carrying on of the world in a respectable manner, but it was not one with which he was anxious to identify himself. Therefore, if his brother married at all, it was his earnest desire that the union should bring children to inherit the title and estates. Prominent above both these excellent reasons, stood his intense distrust and ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard

... the red-topped wagon got started, this time in earnest. Through the mud and slush of Bean Alley, past the Dump Heap, across the Common, the sturdy little mare ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... better worth preserving for the promise of her hand, surrendered with her father's free consent. It was a love-match, without reservations or inquiries, the rapport and wish of two equal beings, kindred in youth, sympathy, and career, earnest to dwell together and absorbed in the worship of each other. Folded in full union of soul as perfectly as the leaves of a book, which are in contact at every point equally, they felt at this period the wistful tenderness of a marriage near at hand, and their eyes anticipated ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... and using a word of endearment that had been very rare between them, spite of their extreme intimacy.—"What has happened? What have you seen? Are you sick? Your eyes frighten me—they seem so sad and earnest!" ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... to speak; but, if you have this day made up your mind to retain me here, it isn't through this friendship that you'll succeed in doing so. But I'll go on and mention three distinct conditions, and, if you really do accede to my wishes, you'll then have shown an earnest desire to keep me here, and I won't go, were even a sword to be laid on ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... candidate forsook his sermons, His commentaries, articles and creeds, For the fair page of human loveliness, The missal of young hearts, whose sacred text Is music, its illumining, sweet smiles. He sang the songs she loved; and in his low, Deep, earnest voice, recited many a page Of poetry, the holiest, tenderest lines Of the sad bard of Olney, the sweet songs, Simple and beautiful as Truth and Nature, Of him whose whitened locks on Rydal Mount Are lifted yet by morning breezes blowing From the green hills, immortal ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... my earnest request, procured me—or rather, had taken for me—a photograph of the Miko, in the attitude of her dance, upholding the mystic suzu, and wearing, over her crimson hakama, the snowy priestess-robe descending ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... her, and his eyes were steely; but they softened by imperceptible degrees as they met the earnest sweetness of her answering look. "No, I can't tell you that," he ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... half began, Canterbury added insult to injury. Instead of booting the pigskin down the field in an honest and earnest endeavour to obtain distance, she deliberately and with malice aforethought, dribbled it on the bias, so to speak, toward the side-line. Benson, right end, should certainly have got it, but he was so perplexed that ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... the style, and then said that it looked as if the writer were pressed less to persuade other people than to persuade himself. This was a crude impression. Nobody can have any doubt of the writer's profound sincerity, or of his earnest desire to make proselytes. He knows his own mind, and hammers his doctrines out with a hard and iterative stroke that hits its mark. Yet his literary tone, in spite of its declamatory pitch, not seldom sinks into a drone. Holbach's contemporaries ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... stretched to catch the awful sound, till the effort became almost painful, but in vain. And yet the sound was present, ay! eternally present, but the note was just beyond the gamut of my ear. Standing thus for some moments, gazing and listening with the most earnest attention, nature, through her hidden laws, wrought a miracle in my person. The long-continued strain enlarged the capacity of the ear, even as the muscles of the arm are strengthened by frequent and energetic action, or as a faculty of the mind itself is developed by exercise. Lower and lower ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... whose eyes the Spirit opens. There may be some strugglings and wrestlings of natural spirits to help themselves, and upon the apprehension of their own weakness, to raise up themselves by serious consideration, and earnest diligence, to some pitch of serving God, and to some hope of heaven. But I do suspect that it proceeds in many from the want of this thorough and deep conviction of desperate wickedness. Few really believe that testimony ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... to stay awake after drinking too much wine during the luncheon and afterward. And Modal, sitting on the couch next to him, was bright-eyed and alert, thinking only of how much money and power would come to him as Chief of Industries once the rearmament program began in earnest. ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova

... to keep it upon his shoulders. These simple objects could be better attained in a life of privacy. The post of president of the privy council and member of the "Consulta" was a dangerous one. He knew that the King was sincere in his purposes. He foresaw that the people would one day be terribly in earnest. Of ancient Frisian blood himself, he knew that the, spirit of the ancient Batavians and Frisians had not wholly deserted their descendants. He knew that they were not easily roused, that they were patient, but that they ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of physical loveliness (we use the word forms in its widest sense as embracing modifications of sound and colour) that the soul seeks the realisation of its dreams of Beauty.' And, with more earnest insistence on those limits which he knew to be so much more necessary to guard in poetry than its so-called freedom ('the true artist will avail himself of no "license" whatever'), he states, with categorical precision: 'A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... the members of the Tincomb Methodist Church, a vast red-brick tabernacle. Vida Sherwin had given her a letter to an earnest woman with eye-glasses, plaid silk waist, and a belief in Bible Classes, who introduced her to the Pastor and the Nicer Members of Tincomb. Carol recognized in Washington as she had in California a transplanted and guarded Main Street. Two-thirds of the church-members had come from Gopher Prairies. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... casks, were piled up, or scattered about the place, serving for seats for the guests, most of whom were smoking and sipping sangaree. While Jack was talking to an old shipmate he unexpectedly met, a skipper and a merchant were engaged in an earnest conversation near him, and he could not help overhearing some of the remarks ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... this moment, sweetheart. Shoes and sunbonnets—I'm ashamed of you now, Johnnie, in earnest. What do such ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... and then set to work with my teeth upon his bonds, gnawing away for dear life. When my teeth first came into contact with the firm hard rope I thought I should never be able to do it—at least not in time to save us—but a man never knows what he can do until he tries in earnest, as I did then; and I actually succeeded, and in a few minutes too, in eating my way through one turn of the lashings. The man then strained and tugged until he managed to free himself, after which it was the work of a few minutes ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... he cried in self-communion; "near-sighted and old. I've worn spectacles so long in jest that now I must wear them in earnest." ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... flung off allegiance to Jehovah. Such short-lived loyalty to Him can never have been genuine. That mob of slaves was galvanised by Moses into obedience; and since their acceptance of Jehovah was in reality only yielding to the power of one strong will and its earnest faith, of course it collapsed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... arrived here (Aldworth) on a visit. Mr. Huxley was charming. We had much talk. He was chivalrous, wide, and earnest, so that one could not but enjoy talking with him. There was a discussion on George Eliot's humility. Huxley and A. both thought her a humble woman, despite a dogmatic manner of assertion that had come upon her latterly in her writings. (Op. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... odd years younger than you are; ha, ha. The exiguity of those legs is a most promising earnest of your future exploits, and demonstrate your agility, virility, salubrity, and amorosity; ha, ha, ha. I can't help laughing to think what a blessed union there will be between August and December; a jolly, buxom, wanton, wishful, plethoric female of thirty odd, ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low

... a woman blush, my boy?—not the blush she puts on at will, but a blush that is genuinely in earnest—a blush she cannot help. I had my revenge as I watched her blush. She blushed in seven colors—every color in the spectrum. Then she turned loose on Tom—an honorable fellow, poor devil, sleeping in that cold garret for her sake—and scourged ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... Madame Elisabeth, still a mere child; and so great was her indignation at this discovery, that she was very reluctantly induced to abandon her intention of pretexting illness, and absenting herself entirely from the pageant. The earnest remonstrances of her friends, who represented to her the certainty of the King's serious displeasure, alone determined her to sacrifice her dignity; and although she ultimately consented to submit to an arrangement which she considered as an encroachment upon her rights as the daughter of ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... cot was called "Gwen Gascoyne's scheme", and to her was given the entire credit for originating it. The more the idea was discussed, the more everybody liked it. The mistresses sympathized heartily, and the Juniors promised earnest co-operation. Gwen, for once, was appreciated to her heart's content. It was wonderful how gracious the prefects were towards her, and how the members of her own Form suddenly treated her with respect. After so long a period of unpopularity it was very sweet ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... the surface less ragged; and we hoped, by a long detour round the base, to make an easy climb up this gentler surface. So we toiled on for an hour over the rocks, reaching at last the bottom of the north slope. Here our work began in good earnest. The blocks were of enormous size, and in every stage of unstable equilibrium, frequently rolling over as we jumped upon them, making it necessary for us to take a second leap and land where we best could. To our relief we soon surmounted the largest blocks, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... an allegory, I am willing to believe; but it survives as an imaginative tale in incomparable verse. The case of Bunyan is widely different; and yet in this also Allegory, poor nymph, although never quite forgotten, is sometimes rudely thrust against the wall. Bunyan was fervently in earnest; with "his fingers in his ears, he ran on," straight for his mark. He tells us himself, in the conclusion to the first part, that he did not fear to raise a laugh; indeed, he feared nothing, and said anything; and he was greatly served in this by a certain rustic ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... father, instead of appointing a new union doctor; and he watched with paternal solicitude that the young man's first return to his practice should be neither too soon for his own health or his patients' fears; giving him no exhortation more earnest, nor more thankfully accepted, than that he was to let no scruple prevent his applying to himself in the slightest difficulty; calling him in to pauper patients, and privately consulting in cases which could not be visited gratis. The ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... is not the idle creation of an uncontrolled imagination, but the outcome of earnest, sober reflection, and of profound scientific investigation. All that I have described as really happening might happen if men were found who, convinced as I am of the untenability of existing conditions, determined to act instead of merely complaining. Thoughtlessness ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... becoming more earnest and self-possessed). Ef ye hed a father, miss, ez instead o' harkinin' to your slightest wish, and surroundin' ye with luxury, hed made your infancy a struggle for life among strangers, and your childhood a disgrace and a temptation; ef he had left ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... history of modern womankind has her own character evoked so earnest and profound an interest as to-day: never has she considered herself from so truly a social standpoint as now. It is true that the change has not yet, except in very few women, reached deep enough to the realities of the things that most matter. Women have to learn to utilise ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... in that Gus Martin," said she, in earnest, tremulous tones, nodding her head in the direction of the departing Gus. "I may be dead, my son, but you will see that the devil will be to pay this side of hearing the last of ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... however, could not last. They began with the fury of persecution, and they died with it. An earnest admiration of the beautiful is implanted deeply in the soul of man for noble purposes, which Providence will not suffer to be thwarted. Mistaken notions of duty, religious zeal maddened by oppression, for a time clouded the faculty amongst the early Christians, but it soon burst forth ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... religion. And he began to bring them up and called them Kripa and Kripi, in allusion to the fact that he brought them up from motives of pity (Kripa). The son of Gotama having left his former asylum, continued his study of the science of arms in right earnest. By his spiritual insight he learnt that his son and daughter were in the palace of Santanu. He thereupon went to the monarch and represented everything about his lineage. He then taught Kripa the four branches of the science of arms, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... with it to render assistance in almost every considerable population in the civilised world, and in much of the uncivilised, that it has nearly 10,000 separated officers whose training, and leisure, and history qualify them to become its enthusiastic and earnest co-workers. In fact, our whole people will hail it as the missing link in the great Scheme for the regeneration of mankind, enabling them to act out those impulses of their hearts which are ever prompting them to do good to the bodies as well as to ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... my faithfull muse hath represented Both frames of Providence to open view, And hath each point in orient colours painted Not to deceive the sight with seeming shew But earnest to give either part their due; Now urging th' uncouth strange perplexitie Of infinite worlds and Time, then of a new Softening that harsher inconsistencie To fit the immense goodnesse ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... his beloved comrade, he sallied forth, equipped with new armour fashioned by Hephaestus, slew Hector, and, after dragging his body round the walls of Troy, restored it to the aged King Priam at his earnest entreaty. The Iliad concludes with the funeral rites of Hector. It makes no mention of the death of Achilles, but hints at its taking place "before the Scaean gates.'' In the Odyssey (xxiv. 36. 72) his ashes are said to have been buried in a golden urn, together with those ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... in his earnest anxiety to get out of the scrape into which Perrote had brought him, hastily introduced a fresh topic as the easiest means ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... would accompanie his brother to the water side, whither come, his wife should faine a great and longing desire to goe aboorde, and see the shippe, which being there three or four times before she had never seene, and should be earnest with her husband to permit her—he seemed angry with her, making as he pretended so unnecessary request, especially being without the company of women, which denial she taking unkindly, must faine to weepe ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... was terribly in earnest, and his methods of waging war were like those of the redman everywhere. With the knowledge that the American soldier was an ally of his old-time enemy, and that the Mexican was wearing the uniform of the ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, And make her generous thought a fact, Keeping with many a light disguise The secret of self-sacrifice, O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best That Heaven itself ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... of his man, as Maroney had also changed his appearance. He had donned a suit of city clothes, had changed the cut of his whiskers, had had his hair cut short, and had altered his entire appearance. Now commenced the chase in earnest. ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... woman, but the temple of her brightness was reared over a dark and frightful crypt in which the demons of doubt, anxiety, and despair year after year dragged at their chains, intimidating hope. Slender, small, and neat, she passed her life in bravely fronting the shapes of disaster with an earnest, vivacious, upturned face. She was thirty-five, and her aspect recalled the pretty, respected lady's-maid which she had been before Braiding got her and knocked some nonsense out of her and turned her ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... of Calhoun and "stumped" the State in behalf of Secession, whereas Major Drayton, as the cloud that had been gathering so long rolled nearer, emerged from his seclusion and became one of the sternest opponents of a step which he declared was not merely revolution, but actual rebellion. So earnest was he, that believing that slavery was the ultimate bone of contention, he emancipated his slaves on a system which he thought would secure their welfare. Nothing could have more deeply stirred Judge Hampden's wrath. He declared that such a measure at such a crisis ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... Robin, "I will undertake to show you where these villains say their nightly Mass. I could not live long in this wood without knowing somewhat of Master Hood, be sure; and matters of religion have perforce my most earnest attention." ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... and Junior were given one more day's outing in the mountains with their guns. On the following Monday they trudged off to the nearest public school, feeling that they had been treated liberally, and that brain-work must now begin in earnest. Indeed from this time forth, for months to come, school and lessons took precedence of everything else, and the proper growing of boys and ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... close to his mother, down whose honest face the tears ran like rain; although she heeded the earnest warning of the physician, and was almost as still as ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... the same steadfast, earnest look, which began to grow embarrassing, for it emphasized the consciousness which she could not stifle, that she alone ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... on the nearest couch, and scarcely knowing how, she found her heart so close to his, that the two seemed beating together in a wild, sweet tumult. The glow of his first kiss was on her lips; he was telling her in earnest, broken words, how fondly, how dearly he loved her. Nobly would she feel herself mated when she became the mistress of ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... fraternities are connected with diabolism, which Papus would most rightly deny, the exclusion does not remove the opportunity of first-hand knowledge concerning the practice of Satanism, and, "brilliant imagination" apart, M. Huysman has proved quite recently that he is in mortal earnest by his preface to a historical treatise on "Satanism and Magic," the work of a literary disciple, Jules Bois. In a criticism, which for general soberness and lucidity does not leave much to be desired, he there affirms that a number of persons, not specially distinguished ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... the celebration were over, the spirit thereof did not die with the departure of the people from Jerusalem to their homes in all parts of the country. Josiah went to work in earnest to accomplish his share of the keeping of the new covenant. He dismissed every idolatrous priest in the land and destroyed every vestige of their worship in Jerusalem, in every town and village and on ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman

... be'st Trinculo, come forth: I'll pull thee by the lesser legs: if any be Trinculo's legs, these are they. [Pulls TRINCULO out.] Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How earnest thou to be the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... up to the Revolution, and the building of the present structure was devotedly undertaken to replace its loss by a doubtless earnest man, who, in his zeal, sought to build after what he considered a newer if not a better style. Parts of the crypt are of the ancient twelfth century church; but the structure ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... the celestial regions, the river Ganga was held by Mahadeva on his head, among his matted locks. At the earnest solicitations of King Bhagiratha he gave her out so that flowing along the surface of the Earth she met the ocean, first passing over the spot where the ashes of Bhagiratha's ancestors, the sixty thousand sons of king Sagara ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... that sixty miles of peaceful water that had so long remained hidden from European explorers, baffling the anxious gaze of Cabrillo, the faithful explorations of Ferrelo, the eagle eyes of Drake, and the earnest ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... went out with such an ardent pity; he cleansed them from the vermin which infested them and dressed their neglected sores. Gradually they were softened and would listen while he spoke to them of the Saviour who had died to save their souls. At Vincent's earnest request, money was collected among his friends and patrons, and a hospital built where the prisoners condemned to the galleys might be nursed into good health before they went ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... earnest. You're the youngest and prettiest woman in this house. You have a good position, and ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... love to her, and Dick as certainly hasn't. I wonder—oh, how I wonder!—whether he was in earnest the other day?" Her large blue eyes were fixed scrutinizingly on the governess, although she thought, not said, these things. "He thinks you do a great deal too much in the house, and was quite abusive to me about it: he actually swore when he discovered the amount of your salary. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... you love it so, and you'll make rapid progress if you're as desperately in earnest as all that. Do you think your mother will decide to take that house they're going to look ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... gaze from the father to the earnest countenance of the son, and then stared again into the searching eyes of the old man. Prolonged and ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... Being every creature Mingles in harsh inextricable strife; Who deals their course unvaried till it falleth, In rhythmic flow to music's measur'd tone? Each solitary note whose genius calleth, To swell the mighty choir in unison? Who in the raging storm sees passion low'ring? Or flush of earnest thought in evening's glow? Who every blossom in sweet spring-time flowering Along the loved one's path would strow? Who, Nature's green familiar leaves entwining, Wreathes glory's garland, won on every field? Makes sure Olympus, heavenly powers combining? Man's mighty ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... of slavery was always and only hateful to the earnest and honest nature of Lincoln. He detested it with all the energy of his soul. He would, as he said, gladly have swept it from the face of the earth. Not even the extreme abolitionists, Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Whittier, abominated slavery ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... gone. If Captain Winstanley does not always treat you kindly, he will be a greater scoundrel than I think him. But he has always been kind to you, has he not, mamma? You are not hiding any sorrow of yours from me?' asked Vixen, fixing her great brown eyes on her mother's face with earnest inquiry. She had assumed the maternal part. She seemed an anxious mother questioning ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... Fugato in 6/8 time which comes after the chorus, Froh wie seine Sonnen fliegen, in the movement of the finale marked alia marcia. In view of the preceding inspiriting verses, which seemed to be preparing for combat and victory, I conceived this Fugato really as a glad but earnest war-song, and I took it at a continuously fiery tempo, and with the utmost vigour. The day following the first performance I had the satisfaction of receiving a visit from the musical director Anacker of Freiburg, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... there and here, then, are radically different, and I hope no American patriot will ever lose sight of the essential policy of interdicting in the seas and territories of both Americas, the ferocious and sanguinary contests of Europe. I wish to see this coalition begun. I am earnest for an agreement with the maritime powers of Europe, assigning them the task of keeping down the piracies of their seas and the cannibalisms of the African coasts, and, to us, the suppression of the same enormities within our seas: and for this purpose, I should rejoice to see the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson



Words linked to "Earnest" :   surety, purposeful, security, serious, arles



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