"Serious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... island, and then he started to return by coming straight back through the woods. That is all I know. I am here to learn if he returned safely. If he did, I intended to warn him that his life was in danger if he should go about the island alone. You must see that I am serious now." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... necessary to his system he therefore had recourse to the Divine Omnipotence, by whose interposition he now believes it will he effected. This opinion, so incomprehensible, is said to have originated in Persia, among the Magi, and finds a great number of adherents, who have never given it a serious examination: but the doctrine of the resurrection appears perfectly useless to all those, who believe in the existence of a soul that feels, thinks, suffers, and enjoys, after a separation from the body: ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... though painful, and particularly uncomfortable, was not serious. Tom was his constant companion and attendant while Quincy passed nearly all his time with his wife. She improved rapidly and their departure was delayed only until ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... is, said to me once, has a certain degree of truth. I felt it in the last fit of the gout, when my pretty niece was smoothing my pillows. A nurse, as we grow older, may be of use to one. I wish to make this girl like me, or be grateful to me. I am meditating a longer and more serious attachment ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... two weeks later, I got a letter from Washington telling me to go at once to Douglas, Arizona. It sorter scared the wife and me at first because neither of us had ever been out of Iowa, but I told her that I was sure it wasn't anything serious—I thought that Uncle Sam just had some sick hosses down there and wanted me to go ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... no wish to be a prisoner of state?" Daru replied in the same tone, "that it was enough for him to be a prisoner of war." On which the Emperor remained for some time in a profound silence; then with a more serious air: "Are all the reports of my ministers burnt?" "Sire, hitherto you would not allow that to be done." "Very well, go and destroy them; for it must be confessed, we are in a most melancholy position." This was the sole avowal which it wrested from him, and on that idea he went to sleep, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... he was in the Rue d'Enfer, at Sandoz's. But the latter, whom he feared would have already gone, was equally late in consequence of a sudden indisposition which had come upon his mother. It was nothing serious. She had merely passed a bad night, but it had for a while quite upset him with anxiety. Now, easy in mind again, Sandoz told Claude that Dubuche had written saying that they were not to wait for him, and giving an appointment at the Palais. They therefore started ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... consists, atop, of the rich red marl, below them, of sandstones, and of those vast deposits of rock-salt, which have been long worked, and worked to such good purpose, that a vast subsidence of land has just taken place near Nantwich in Cheshire; and serious fears are entertained lest the town itself may subside, to fill up the caverns below, from whence the salt has been quarried. Underneath these beds again are those which carry the building-stone of Runcorn. Now these beds altogether, in Cheshire, at least, are about ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... goings-on. Whatever could possess these smugglers to start a fight among themselves, when such a disturbance was likely to be heard by any Coast Guard boat that might happen to be cruising within ten miles of the spot and bring down all manner of serious trouble on their heads, certainly breaking up the fine combination that had been effected for that ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... quiet and manly force that became him. 'The friendship between my cousin and me has been unusual, I know. It has been of a kind that French people, rather than English, understand; because for French people literature and conversation are serious matters, not trifles that don't count, as they are with us. She has been all sweetness and kindness to me, and I suppose that she, like a good many other people, has found me an unsatisfactory and ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... am happy to have had the opportunity of doing that as well. I came to you, Mr. Holmes, because I recognized that I am myself an unpractical man and because I am suddenly confronted with a most serious and extraordinary problem. Recognizing, as I do, that you are the ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... Crimes of a serious nature were not unfrequently committed against the French by Indians belonging to tribes, with which they were at profound peace. On one occasion two men, who were conducting cattle by land from Cape Tourmente to Quebec, were assassinated in a ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... neglected us for so long? I hoped to see you at the theatre last night, but Colonel Grayle told me that he thought you were ill. I'm so sorry; and I hope it's not serious. When you're able to get about again, will you telephone and suggest yourself for dinner? I want to talk to you about your play, which I liked quite enormously. . ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... on bread and butter, and have left you to provide everything else for yourself; then you would have been an artist, sir, and would have made a big name for yourself. You would have had no occasion to waste your time in painting pot-boilers, but could have devoted yourself to good, honest, serious work, which is more than most of us can do. We are obliged to consider what will sell and to please the public by turning out what they call pretty pictures—children playing with dogs, and trumpery things ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... officers. Albuquerque himself was wounded, and all the invaders would probably have been cut to pieces but for the gallant conduct of the reserve under the command of Dom Antonio de Noronha. After this repulse, which was the most serious the Portuguese had sustained in India, ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... Christian life, I could never feel that a long face, and solemnly pronounced words made any difference in my real life. Father did not believe any more in long faces than I did, still, I think from fear of neglecting any part of his duty, he maintained a serious demeanor from the break of our Sabbath days to their close. He had an unusually beautiful way of asking a blessing that always gave me a happy feeling. He merely said in a pleasant way, and with open eyes: "We should be very thankful for this meal; may we have wisdom to prepare ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... were working perfectly. Only now and again he caught a faint lurch which told his practiced senses that some of the rudely improvised splices were working loose. Even these gave him no great alarm; at least, they did not seem sufficiently serious to warrant ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... the fight? Oh, it's a big one all right, Mr. Van Pelt. It's a gang called the Boomer Dukes. They've got hold of some real guns somewhere—I can't exactly understand what kind of guns he means, but it sounds like something serious. He says they shot that parapet down across the street. Gosh, Mr. Van Pelt, you'd think it'd take a cannon for something like that. But it has something to do with Walt Hutner and ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... Though Julius Caesar himself does not mention it, it is definitely stated by a writer on strategy named Polyaenus, a friend of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, but not, I am sorry to say, an authority to whose statements historians attach any serious value—that Caesar made use of an elephant armed with iron plates and carrying on its back a tower full of armed men to terrify the ancient Britons when he crossed the Thames—an operation which he carried out, I believe, somewhere between ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... the rest of his body was naked. Sax called out again, but the effort at sitting up had so much exhausted the little strength which remained, that his voice was so weak he hardly heard it himself. Stobart didn't understand the serious state his friend was in, but he knew that something must be done at once, and as there was nobody to do it but himself, he prepared for ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... tearless. Ah, what under heaven could she do but as she did? Married to Prosper? How, when he had not declared it; had received her as his servant, and treated her as a servant? How, when she knew that the marriage of such as he to such as she was a disablement far more serious than the relationship thrown at her by the Countess? How, above all, when he had married her for charity, without love and without worship, could she bring scorn upon him who had dragged her out of scorn? Never, never! She must set her teeth hard, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... "I am serious. My faith to me is a sacred thing. It has brought me a more tranquil spirit, a deeper knowledge, and a fuller conception of what I owe ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... triumphantly. "Hippy was whacked over the head with the butt of a revolver, and the blow cut right through the felt. No wonder he made no outcry. He is a lucky fellow if he hasn't a fractured skull. Elfreda, this is serious." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... of land, which is sometimes seen off their coasts. His character as an hero of romance, somewhat of the type of Sinbad the Sailor, if not of that of Gulliver, has even injured him as a subject of serious study. There has been a sort of custom, to which may be applied a celebrated phrase of Newman, 'aged but not venerable,' of confounding the hero of the romance with the real man. It would be just as proper to identify ...
— Brendan's Fabulous Voyage • John Patrick Crichton Stuart Bute
... half-solemn look Where some past thought was clinging, As when one shuts a serious book To ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... continue to live for years without any legal master, or administration of justice, protected only by a miserable guard of police, and yet that the town should be a safe and quiet residence. No disorders, or nightly tumults occur; and instances of murder and robbery are extremely rare. If serious quarrels sometimes happen, it is chiefly among the young Janissaries heated with brandy and amorous passion, who after sunset fight their rivals at the door of some prostitute. This precarious security is however enjoyed only within the walls of the city; the whole neighbourhood of Aleppo ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... while he was tending Mary, who, being a girl—she was my twin sister, I should have said—required most of his care, he could not always manage to prevent me from getting into trouble. Fortunately nothing very serious happened. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... his nephew quickly to see whether he was laughing at him. Philip's face was serious, but there was a twinkle in his eyes which irritated him. Philip should really be getting more serious. He felt it right to give him a rap ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... machine,' said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp aloft, 'I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... wrath! And do not think That I with custom and propriety Am less severe and serious than my wife, Yet anger has its limits, like all else. And so, once more, my Garceran, what cheer? Gives you the foe concern in spite ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of her serious thoughts, she looked very young, almost irresponsible. No ordinary observer could guess the mind that lay behind the eloquent, glowing eyes. Even the tongue at first deceived, till it began to probe, to challenge, to drop sharp, incisive truths in little gold-leaped pellets, which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a book of rhymes like Pollock, Gosse, or whom you please. Really, I have begun to learn some of the rudiments of that trade, and have written three or four pretty enough pieces of octosyllabic nonsense, semi-serious, semi-smiling. A kind of prose Herrick, divested of the gift of verse, and you behold the Bard. But I ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for the moment that modus vivendi seemed unattainable. She had not recovered from the first excitement of her capture of me. She was still showing me off and trying to stir me up. The arrival of the soup gave me a momentary relief; and soon the serious business of the afternoon began. I may add that before dinner was over, the Signora dell' Acqua and I were fast friends. I had discovered the way of making jokes, and she had become intelligible. I found her a very nice, though ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... officers and sailors passed and repassed, or sought the obscurity of the mangoes or the acacias. One heard the sibilance of kisses, the laughter, and the banter, the half-serious blows and scoldings of the vahines who repelled over-bold sailors. In an hour the sedate and the older took leave; the governor and the procureur turned into the Cercle Militaire for whist or ecarte and a glass of wine, the carriages withdrew, and the band's airs and manner ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... acquainted with the details of current politics, but when a subject fairly roused his interest he was not slow to take part in its discussion. This is notably illustrated, in this very year 1806, by the outspoken and energetic political ballad he produced over the acquittal of Lord Melville from a serious charge. This ballad, which went very straight to the heart of its subject, and left no doubt as to the party feeling of the writer, not only arrested general attention but gave considerable offence to the leaders ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... some spar or bridge. On each of these occasions, the imprecations of the Count, both loud and deep, fell harmlessly around the stolid Simnick. The Count adopted new tactics when approaching a place where bad steering would be likely to cause serious trouble. He would, by the aid of his hands, get down from his carriage and seat himself in the bottom of the boat with the ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... feature in his face: sometimes I could not take my eyes from it; I used to wonder if it could be that which made me love him so much—his mouth. I have never seen another anything like it. The steady, strong, and yet delicate lips—so calm and serious when still, as to make one feel at rest merely to look at them; but when in motion extraordinarily sensitive, quivering, curving, and curling in sympathy with ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... help himself. Of course I said I would, and we were off half the time together, painting the loveliest and loneliest bits around Ponkwasset. It all went on very well, till one day I felt bound in conscience to tell her that I didn't think she would ever learn to paint, and that—if she was serious about it she'd better drop it at once, for she was wasting ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... afraid I can't give you even that consolation," replied Dr. Leete, laughing. "In the first place, Mr. West, the newspaper press is by no means the only or, as we look at it, the best vehicle for serious criticism of public affairs. To us, the judgments of your newspapers on such themes seem generally to have been crude and flippant, as well as deeply tinctured with prejudice and bitterness. In so far as they may be taken as expressing public opinion, they ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... be not only a ridiculous but still more a highly tragical personage. While the many listen to him, the few are used to pass rapidly, with some gust of scornful laughter, some growl of impatient malediction; but he deserves from this latter class a much more serious attention. ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... learned to speak your tongue. But I do not know that I like it better than home. Things are different, you see. There was more fun at home. My father had two or three apprentices, whom I used to play with when the shop was closed, and there were often what you would call tumults, but which were not serious. Sometimes there would be a fight between the apprentices of one ward and another. A shout would be raised of 'Clubs!' and all the 'prentices would catch up their sticks and pour out of the shops, and then there would be ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... imperfections far more serious than these mistakes in language. He rarely attained to beauty of style. The rapidity with which he wrote forbids the idea that he ever strove earnestly for it. Even the essential but minor grace of clearness is sometimes denied him. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... was in the act of unbarring the gates when he was discovered by Major Dickson. The major spoiled the little scheme by slashing the Indian's arm with his sword, which left him maimed for life. The assailants soon after this retreated without any very serious loss. ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... to Naples the country is not interesting; but fertile and rich beyond description: an endless succession of vineyards and orange groves. At length we reached Naples; all tired and in a particularly sober and serious mood: we remembered it was the Sabbath, and had forgotten that it was the first day of the Carnival; and great was our amazement at the scene which met us on ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... "short-cuts" proposed to the solution of social problems. Among these the various schemes for reorganizing human society and industry, brought together under the general name of "socialism," have attracted most attention and deserve most serious consideration. In criticizing the most conspicuous of these schemes of social reconstruction, the so-called "scientific socialism," it should be understood at the outset that there is no intention of questioning the general aims of the socialists. ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... had disputed the attraction—the attachment, I should perhaps say—I should have found serious ground for criticizing your—your behaviour to my girl. As it is, of course, the thing is natural enough. You have been attracted; the child is attractive; and you have paid her marked attentions—which is what any young man might be expected ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... under—mark that well, Your Honor—under the laws and government of New Texas. This would not only make of any Ambassador a permissable target for any marksman who happened to disapprove of the policies of another government, but more serious, it would place the Ambassador and his government in a subordinate position relative to the government of New Texas. This the government of the Solar League simply cannot tolerate, for reasons which it would be insulting to the intelligence of this ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... said her mother, quietly, "do your best." And Jessac, laying aside shyness, went at her Highland reel with the same serious earnestness she gave to her tidying or her knitting. Daintily she tripped the twenty-four steps of that intricate, ancient dance of the Celt people, whirling, balancing, poising, snapping her fingers, and twinkling her feet in the true Highland style, till once more ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... which Roland Graeme instantly approached, opened on a large and well-lighted gallery, at the upper end of which he could hear several voices, and the noise of hasty steps approaching towards the hall or vestibule. A little recalled to sober thought by an appearance of serious danger, he was deliberating whether he should stand fast or retire, when Catherine Seyton re-entered from a side door, running towards him with as much speed as a few minutes since she had ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... expanding sawmill industry which provides sawn logs for export. Cultivation of crops is limited to the coastal area, where the population is largely concentrated; rice and manioc are the major crops. French Guiana is heavily dependent on imports of food and energy. Unemployment is a serious problem, particularly among ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and villager has been most acute in the Middle West and has found its extreme expression in the Non-partisan League Movement, which has engendered a degree of bitterness between the two factions which cannot be permanently maintained without serious injury to their common interests. This, however, is only an attempt of the farmers to secure redress through political control, and is but the political form of expression of a protest which is being more effectively made as an economic movement through cooperative buying and selling ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... pleasure; I won't promise any more until I see how we get on. It doesn't seem appropriate to think of your dancing, Rob; there is something too heavy and serious in your demeanour. Oswald is different; he would make a charming dancing master. Oh, it will be an excitement! Mellicent will not be able to eat or sleep for thinking of it; and poor Mrs Asplin will be running up seams on the sewing-machine, and making up ribbon bows from this day to that. ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... corner where the moonlight and the passing clouds threw deep shadows, I saw her, clothed as ever in her shroud. Why, I know not. I felt somehow that the situation was even more serious than ever. But I was steeled to whatever might come. My mind had been already made up. To carry out my resolve to win the woman I loved I was ready to face death. But now, after we had for a few brief moments held each ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... in many another an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If there are quarrels among the servants the mistress should not interfere nor take sides. If possible she should remove the cause of the friction, and for a serious fault she should discharge the one that ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... undertaken at this time were however extensive, and interfered in many directions with the earlier work of the palace: still the only serious alteration in its form was the transposition of the prisons, formerly at the top of the palace to the other side of the Rio del Palazzo; and the building of the Bridge of Sighs, to connect them with the palace, by Antonio da Ponte. The completion of this work brought ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... has failed to observe how singularly that great Thinker supports the general results of Supernatural Religion, to the point even of a frequent agreement almost in words. If Dr. Lightfoot had studied Mill a little more closely, he would not have committed the serious error of arguing: "Obviously, if the author has established his conclusions in the first part, the second and third are altogether superfluous. It is somewhat strange, therefore, that more than three-fourths of the whole work should ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... of a restive horse, a cranky boat, or even a trolley-car on rails is difficult enough for the inexperienced, and there are many who would quail before making the attempt; but to the novice in charge of an automobile, some serious damage is likely enough to occur within an incredibly short space of time, particularly if he does not take into account the tremendous force and power which he controls merely by the moving of a tiny lever, or by the ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... sea. When that was done he applied a rag dipped in the same fluid, and seeing no result of his efforts went back on deck. He was anxious about his patient, but not unduly so, for he had discovered long ago that men of Wyllard's type are apt to recover from more serious injuries. ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... affected at the loss of his trusted general, and of the splendid soldiers who had been so long and carefully trained; and even had Prague fallen, the victory would have been a disastrous one for him; for, threatened as he was by overwhelming forces, the loss of 5000 men, to him, was quite as serious as that of 20,000 ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... then set right upon one or two little points that had puzzled and disappointed him, and to which his son could furnish the key; then thoroughly roused and anxious at this first dealing with his boy as a man, with all a man's hopes and wishes quickening him to a serious purpose; at last, touched sympathetically, as a good father must be, with the very desire of his child, and the fears and uncertainties that may environ it. What he suggested, what he proposed and promised, what was partly planned to be afterward concluded ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... serious because he reads books all day long. And she married him, and he's turned out to be most awfully dull. And I'm most awfully sorry for her. He treats her like a bit of furniture. Isn't it funny the way the soul will fall in love ... and with the most unaccountable people; and you know how you say ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... the dangers associated with all wounds of articulations, however simple and apparently slight, and how serious and troublesome are the complications which are liable to arise during their progress and treatment, we are prepared to understand and realize the necessity and the value of early and prompt attention upon their discovery ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... crooked passage, the top uneven in height, clearly indicating numerous faults in the vein, although none of these were sufficiently serious to necessitate the solution of any difficult mining problem. In spite of the turns the general direction could be ascertained easily. The walls were apparently of some soft stone, somewhat disintegrated by the introduction of air, and the engineer quickly ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... localities in the dry-farm territory the soils have been deposited by the action of running water in such a way that the otherwise uniform structure of the soil is broken by occasional layers of loose gravel. While this is not a very serious obstacle to the downward penetration of roots, it is very serious in dry-farming, since any break in the continuity of the soil mass prevents the upward movement of water stored in the lower soil depths. The dry-farmer ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... all put their heads together for a long and serious debate, the result of which was a plan that seemed to ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... with that yellow-haired, flighty child?" asked Mrs. Carl Walraven in angry surprise. "He was attentive at Washington, certainly; but I fancied his absurd old eyes were only caught for the moment. If it should prove serious, what a thing it will be for her! and these antediluvians, in their dotage, will do such ridiculous things. My Lady Trajenna! Detestable little minx! I ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... other habits, then his development as a self-reliant individual is arrested, and may be permanently weakened. There is no other way to learn life, and build up an ideal from the raw material he has gained in other ways. In the rehearsal of life at school he can do this without serious harm; but every time a mode of conduct is imposed upon him when he might have chosen, every time he is externally controlled when he might have controlled himself, every time he is balked in making a mistake that would have been experience to him, he will be proportionally less fit to choose, to ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... small-window, and apprise him if any attempt should be made to replace the ladder, the corporal for the first time lighting his pipe, sat down to ruminate on his position, and consider the means by which the party were to be taken back to the fort. Further serious apprehensions in regard to their safety he did not now entertain, for baulked, as the Indians had been, in all their attempts to get into the house, he felt persuaded that it was more with a view to annoy and alarm, than with any hope of eventual success, ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... to zero. Now they were in free fall, and it lasted twice as long as Yves Jacquemont had predicted. There were a few misadventures, none serious and most of them comic—For example, when Jerry Rivas opened a bottle of beer, everybody was chasing the amber globules and catching them in cups, and those who were splashed were glad it ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... was little noticed by Salome at the time, although it was destined to have a serious ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... and dangerous, I drop the bicycle, and make a feint toward them; they then take to their heels, to return to the attack again as before, when I again commence retreating. Finally I try the experiment of a shot in the air, by way of notifying them of my ability to do them serious injury; this has the effect of keeping them at a more respectful distance, but they seem to understand that I am not intending serious shooting, and the more expert throwers manage to annoy me considerably until ridable ground is reached; seeing me mount, they all come racing pell-mell ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... lightly enough, but with a purpose. For, absurd as may seem the fictions we have sported with, are they not types of many other far more serious ones which we cram down the throats of our rising generation, long after we ourselves have begun to disbelieve them? There is a conventional teaching which we decorously administer, and leave our pupils to disavow it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... loud shout in order to make an order heard from one end of the boat to the other, and we had scarcely left the ship when it came on to rain with a fury that rendered the preservation of our ammunition from damage a serious difficulty and a source of keen anxiety. Fortunately for us, we reached the mouth of the creek a few minutes before the rain began to fall, but for which circumstance we should, have met with the utmost difficulty in discovering the entrance, and might possibly have lost a considerable amount ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... final revision before handing it to me. A toothpick which he had in his mouth worked energetically from side to side, and he gravely shook his head as in perplexity. 'I don't like this,' he ejaculated at last, 'I don't want to give it to you. There'll be trouble here. It's very serious. Better let me tear it up.' 'Let me see it,' I cried, 'I promise you I'll be calm,' and I took the strip from his ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... an insolent speech!" cried he, half serious and half laughing, but casting up his eyes and hands with astonishment. He then let me be quiet some time,- but in a few minutes renewed his inquiries, with added eagerness, begging me to tell him if ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... the master's desk. He was not handsome, his face was thin, his eyebrows were prominent, his mouth was rather large and good-humored, and there was that shy twinkle about the corners of his eyes which always marks a fun-loving spirit. But his was a serious, fine-grained face, with marks of suffering in it, and he had the air of having been once a strong fellow; of late, evidently, shaken ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... schoolroom one afternoon, and then addressed us, particularly the two combatants, in a manner that I can never forget—it was so sensible, so manly, so solemn. He pointed out the faults of each, which had fed the long quarrel and finally serious conclusion. He painted the wickedness of that duel, (for it could be called nothing else), and all such affairs, which in former times were ignorantly considered necessary and honourable. He told us in what he thought true manliness, courage, ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... blond crew-cut, a broad freckled nose, and a serious sidelong squint. He looked from his crumpled sequence idea to Catlin and Frayberg. ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... and when it was decided in Fulton's favor there was great excitement. Every sort of force was brought to bear to thwart the new steamboat company. Angry opponents tried to blow up the boat as it lay at the dock; attempts were made to burn it. At length affairs became so serious that a clause was appended to the court's decree which made it a public crime punishable by fine or imprisonment to attempt to injure ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... made to establish a system of free schools, with the hope that later a university might be founded. As early as 1787 the matter received the serious consideration of the Legislative Council, and a scheme of education in the Province was actually prepared. But the scheme met with vigorous and determined opposition from one section of the community and it was in the end abandoned by the authorities ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... serious objection to your Fairy Queen, Cousin Ellen," said Charlie Bolton, trying to ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... are enough folks who do. The world needs people like me, Anne, just to amuse it. It would be a terrible place if EVERYBODY were intellectual and serious and in deep, deadly earnest. MY mission is, as Josiah Allen says, 'to charm and allure.' Confess now. Hasn't life at Patty's Place been really much brighter and pleasanter this past winter because I've ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... for such a course of action, that for a moment they remained in their seats with very serious looks in their faces. They both knew that the teacher's authority would be supported at home, and that their parents would be grieved, if not angry, at such a wanton breach of the rules of the school, as that of which they ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... than the sum of the station district returns (3) Different forms of work; one table revealing proportion of Missionaries, Native Workers, Foreign Funds, and Native Contributions employed in different forms of work One table of results A serious flaw in this table (4) The extent to which different classes, etc., are reached. One table including the station returns with the addition of special missions which work among special classes in the whole Province or Country (5) ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... The occasion must be serious, and our first attempt must succeed; if it fails, we shall never find another, and Captain Nemo will ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... occurred, he would be quite busy at home, dusting a little china, and rearranging ornaments on his shelves, and, after putting his rings and handkerchief in the candle-bracket of the piano, spending a serious hour (with the soft pedal down, for fear of irritating Robert) in reading his share of such duets as he would be likely to be called upon to play with Lucia during the next day or two. Though he read music ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... granted the QUEEN's permission to prefix "Royal" to his opera entertainment at the Shaftesbury Theatre, it gave him so great a shock that, but for the opportune ("opera-tune," Sir AUGUSTUS jocosely put it) arrival of Dr. ROBSON ROUSTEM PASHA, the shock might have had a serious effect. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 7, 1891 • Various
... cholera, after having committed serious ravages in many parts of Europe, visited Scotland. It was evident to most thinking people that, due to the extreme poverty and squalor of most of the Scottish towns at that time, a great number of people would necessarily ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... Laia taught How frail is woman's holiest vow, Look'd down, while grace attempered thought Sate serious on his baby brow. ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... face rigidly set, inscrutable to my glance. Then he relaxed into one of those whimsically appealing smiles that somehow are acutely eloquent of pathos. 'Serious parts—with this low-comedy face of mine!' he responded. And my query had been answered. Yet he went on, 'No, I shall never play Hamlet. I can give a good imitation of a bad actor but, doubtless, I should give a very bad ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... said anough? To him that dares 780 Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words Against the Sun-clad power of Chastity, Fain would I somthing say, yet to what end? Thou hast nor Eare, nor Soul to apprehend The sublime notion, and high mystery That must be utter'd to unfold the sage And serious doctrine of Virginity, And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know More happiness then this thy present lot. Enjoy your deer Wit, and gay Rhetorick 790 That hath so well been taught her dazling fence, Thou ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... him; no man who respects himself at all is ready to admit that a dog bites HIM. It was wonderful how that dog and Parker understood each other. But the bite was not serious. ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... concealed till the appointed hour. While the polemarchs were at table a messenger arrived from Athens with a letter for Archias, in which the whole plot was accurately detailed. The messenger, in accordance with his instructions, informed Archias that the letter related to matters of serious importance. But the polemarch, completely engrossed by the pleasures of the table, thrust the letter under the pillow of his ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... who turned the set into a series of cliques and parties. Hugh used to say afterwards that he had never known anyone in his life with such an eye for other people's weaknesses, or with such a talent for putting them in the most disagreeable light. Hugh once nearly got into serious trouble; a small boy in the set was remorselessly and disgracefully bullied; it came out, and Hugh was involved—I remember that Dr. Warre spoke to me about it with much concern—but a searching investigation revealed that Hugh had really ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Reason, now, through Number, Time, and Space, 'Darts the keen lustre of her serious eye, 'And learns, from facts compared, the laws to trace, 'Whose long progression leads to Deity. 'Can mortal strength presume to soar so high? 'Can mortal sight, so oft bedimmed with tears, 'Such glory bear?—for lo, the shadows fly 'From Nature's face; Confusion disappears, 'And order ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... the asseveration was lost in Phoebe's ear, so closely did the keeper's lips approach it; and if they approached so very near as to touch her cheek, grief, like impatience, hath its privileges, and poor Phoebe had enough of serious alarm to prevent her from demurring upon such ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... merchants were always immensely rich, and a few thousand pounds, properly applied, might make the merchant's son a baron. She therefore resolved to inquire, the first opportunity, into the condition of the sinking fund of his plebeianism, and had serious thoughts of contributing her mite towards the advancement of the desired object, did she find it within ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... the route, described in these two chapters, are undoubtedly Si-ngan fu and Ch'eng-tu fu, there are serious difficulties attending the determination of the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... truths. Granted that success justifies everything, then the very method with which we reproach Rashi explains the fact that he has had, and continues to have, thousands of readers. The progress of scientific exegesis has made us aware of what we would now consider a serious mistake in method. We readily understand why Derash plays so important a role in Rashi's commentaries, and to what requirements he responded; but that does not make us any more content with his method. ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... that in man, and in man only, psychosis is superadded to neurosis—the neurosis which is common to both man and animal gives their reasoning processes a fundamental unity. But Descartes's position is open to very serious objections, if the evidence that animals feel is insufficient to prove that they really do so. What is the value of the evidence which leads one to believe that one's fellow-man feels? The only evidence in this argument of analogy, is the similarity of his ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... circumstance tried his temper sorely. He was no gourmand; the question of cookery was (with him) purely a matter of digestion. Those late hours of study, and that abuse of tea to which I have already alluded, had sadly injured his stomach. The doctors warned him of serious consequences to his nervous system, unless he altered his habits. He had little faith in medical science, and he greatly overrated the restorative capacity of his constitution. So far as I know, he had always neglected the ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... to urge, in private, such considerations as the following:—To reply to a volume of 433 pages, each of which contains a fallacy or a falsity,—while some pages are packed full of both,—is a serious undertaking.—Besides, the book has been replied to already; for there is scarcely an objection urged within its pages which was not better urged, and effectually disposed of, in the last century. Nay, every good Review of "Essays and Reviews" has answered the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... garrulous polyglot when it chooses to be, and there is a dash of the clown and the buffoon in its nature which too often flavors its whole performance, especially in captivity; but in its native haunts, and when its love-passion is upon it, the serious and even grand side of its character comes out. In Alabama and Florida its song may be heard all through the sultry summer night, at times low and plaintive, then full and strong. A friend of Thoreau and a careful observer, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs |
