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More "Firmness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... such a doubt was the only thing that could explain the tone of his letters. He was a man of firmness and decision, and when he had reached a conclusion, she knew he would state it frankly, without hesitation. But she also knew that he was a man of a kind and tender heart, and it was easy to understand ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... have gone on even at the cost of their lives—had he no word for them? We to-night gathered together here in the National Liberal Club have a word and a cheer for the private members of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons who have fought this battle through with unequalled loyalty and firmness, and who have shown a development of Parliamentary power to carry a great measure which I venture to say has no counterpart in the Parliamentary history ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... practically all human possibilities; he never did anything unexpected, but deliberated every matter beforehand, according to its nature. Thus he perceived very easily the right course to follow even before there was any necessity, and pursued it with firmness. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... young gentlemen fresh from school or at college, sucking ensigns, precocious templars, et id genus omne, are accustomed to call a "fast" man; the said fastness not referring, as Johnson's dictionary teaches us it might do, to any particular strength or firmness of character, but merely to the singular rapidity with which such persons get through their money and into debt. At the time I speak of, Oakley was going his fastest—that is to say, spending the utmost amount of coin, for the least possible value; ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... had grown a little stouter. There could be no doubt about the fact that her chin was firmer, that certain lines had come into her face indicative of what is called character. Beneath her pliability she was now all firmness; the pliability had become a mockery. It cannot be said that I went so far as to hate her for this,—when it was in my mind,—but my feelings were of a strong antipathy. And then again there were rare moments when I was inexplicably drawn to her, not by love ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you," replied the visitant, with a sort of kind severity or rather firmness. "I know you ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... particular schools. My husband's affairs demanded his entire attention, partly in Lemberg, partly in Vienna. He therefore confided the education and culture of the two boys entirely to my care; for he knew my firmness and perseverance in all I undertook, and doubted not that I would be both father and mother ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... blazing loud-sounding fact, on which, and on Friedrich in it, the eyes of all Europe were fixed for some weeks, it may rest now in impressive indistinctness to us. Keith is Captain of the Siege, whom all praise for his punctual firmness of progress; Balbi as before, is Engineer, against whom goes the criticism, Keith's first of all, that he "opened his first parallel 800 yards too far off,"—which much increased the labor, and the expenditure ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... forbear judging his words and actions by any standard of my own people. Yet this I cannot be blind to, Madame; he is of quick temper, hasty in action, easily influenced by others, and might become careless at times, and under strong temptation, unless some moral firmness hold him in check. You alone possess the power to become his ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... some of them to drink. But in this the devil was disappointed, the ice thawed, and the barrel floated on the water. What an instance of human depravity, does this man's conduct exhibit, and what a picture of the power of Divine grace is seen in the inflexible firmness of the Indians! May we not sing in the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... first proposed, but Andrew Thompson was finally selected; for, though he was known not to have so much practical experience as several of the others, his firmness, sagacity, and high moral character ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... by knowing it, or just what would happen because of knowing it. Moving about the large room softly, her harmonious strength and grace were revealed in the swing of her long lithe limbs, the reach of her satiny brown arms, the breadth of her sweet smooth breast, the straightness and firmness of her tall frame. Only a self-reliant girl could have moved as she moved, a girl made self-reliant by exuberant health and ideals and hope. When she stopped moving about and stood before her mirror, her hand on the great rope of ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... says, the king awaited this charge with firmness; but Birrell avers, that he fled upon the gallop. The same author, instead of the firm deportment of James, when seized by Bothwell, describes "the king's majestie as flying down the back stair, with his ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... Mr. Grey opposed with great firmness, Mr. Pitt's motion for the adjustment of the Prince of Wales's debts, and moved for the reduction of the Prince's income. He professed himself ready to support the real splendour of the royal family "as any slippery sycophant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 555, Supplement to Volume 19 • Various
... of my anthropoid ape," the Professor continued, his voice growing alike in sadness and firmness. "It is the curator of the museum who is speaking. They have just opened the box. It has lain for two days in an ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with any crisis if Undine and her mother would "go steady"; but he now warned them of his inability to keep up with the new pace they had set. Undine, not deigning to return to the charge, had commissioned her mother to speak for her; and Mr. Spragg was surprised to meet in his wife a firmness as ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... king's weariness of her continual philippics against me; and it was clearly comprehended by all, that a similar disgrace would be the portion of those who should offend the monarch whilst seeking to procure my humiliation. This show of firmness was sufficient to repress the daring flights of those self-constituted heroines, whose courage lasted only whilst the king was silent, and who trembled like a leaf before the slightest manifestation of his will. Still the cabal against me, tho' weakened, was not destroyed; it ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... tenderness rushed over her as in a flood. She forgot her sense of disappointment in his lack of firmness; she forgot how he had boasted of his courage and devotion, and how, in the time of temptation and trial, he had let himself be persuaded to take the easier path; she forgot all save that he had loved her, and that she had ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that Coryston had warned her of. He was actually playing it; though she had never believed for one moment that he would ever do so. How was she to meet it? With firmness, no doubt, and dignity. As to the firmness she had no fears; it was the ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... home, felt very low and poor in spirit, and was ready to call in question my coming to the place. For although I received, as I thought, a proper signal before I left home, yet one or two circumstances occurred to discourage me from going, which I pressed through with some firmness; however, such was my uneasiness the first night in Liverpool, that I was very desirous, if my being there was in right wisdom, something might turn up to convince me that I had not done wrong in leaving home. And blessed ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... to your firmness of character; but I shall have to tax it, I fear, to its uttermost. To come at once to the point—they told me that I might undoubtedly settle the matter, if you would consent to give up immediate possession of the whole Yatton estate, and account for the mesne profits ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... stood on the Quai St. Jean Baptiste. In 1810 he was chosen by Napoleon to stop the advance of Wellington in Portugal, and was commissioned "to drive the English and their Sepoy general into the sea." But the wary strategy and imperturbable firmness of the British general proved resistless, and Massena was compelled to save his military fame by a masterly retreat. On the pedestal Clio is seen writing his name in the chronicles of his native city. This garden forms a pleasant lounge, but it is not so ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the enemy, was instantly followed by his countrymen, but the Neapolitans remained behind. The Turks did not sustain the combat hand to hand, with that firmness they had obtained a reputation for. In ten minutes the deck was cleared. Eight of them sought refuge in the hold, and, of the rest, some fell on the deck, and others jumped into the sea. Only three of the Americans ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... Then people of our birth and wealth will be the equals of the English aristocracy, and your career can be as lofty as you choose to make it. Then, with a gratitude beyond words, you will thank me for my firmness, for you can aspire to the highest positions in an empire such as the world has not ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... belonging to the mess-room could not be found. The steward, present also, complained savagely of the cook. The fellow got things into his galley and then lost them. Mr Franklin tried to pacify him with mournful firmness. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... indeed, of that dynasty to restore which my ancestors struggled and suffered in vain; but the Providence who has conducted his present Majesty to the throne, has given him the virtues necessary to his time—firmness and intrepidity—a true love of his country, and an enlightened view of the dangers by which she is surrounded.—For the religion of these realms, I am contented to hope that the great Power, whose mysterious dispensation ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... the wreck, Mulford recalled the scene through which he had so painfully passed the previous night. As often happens, he shuddered at the recollection of things which, at the moment, a desperate resolution had enabled him to encounter with firmness. Still, he thought nothing less than the ardent desire to save Rose could have carried him through the trial with the success which attended his struggles. The dear being at his side asked a few explanations of what had passed; ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... now in Baghdad. When the Caliph heard this, he turned to the eunuchs and said, "Here with Ghanim to me." So Ja'afar went to fetch him; but Kut al-Kulub forewent him and told Ghanim, "The Caliph hath sent to fetch thee before him," and charged him to show readiness of tongue and firmness of heart and sweetness of speech. Then she robed him in a sumptuous dress and gave him diners in plenty, saying, "Be lavish of largesse to the Caliph's household as thou goest in to him." Presently Ja'afar, mounted on his Nubian ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... other city in Italy, I may say of every other nation in Europe, is one long record of intestine struggle and bloodshed, while in Venice there has not been a single popular tumult worthy of the name. It is to the strength, the firmness, and the moderation of her government that Venice owes her advancement, the respect in which she is held among nations, as much as to the commercial industry ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... sufficient learning he undertook to advocate no cause that he did not truly and fully believe in. His ardent pleading and the fairness of his dealing before the courts was the result of his firm belief in the justice of his cause. Nothing but truth could give him this firmness; but plain truth and clear evidence can be beat down by no ability in handling the quirks and substitutes ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... ask, in all good faith, whether we could expect any advantage from his friendship? This person, cowed by fear, irresolute and imprudent, could he alone be of any use to us? It was necessary for him to be supported by some one who had his confidence and was capable by his own firmness of fixing the irresolution ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... sings beautiful Persian songs." Yet, so far as we are concerned, they all do the things they ought to do and leave undone the things they ought not to do, and their way with us is peace. Much of this, no doubt, is due to the wisdom, tact, and firmness of George the Bethlehemite, ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... with him that all the people of the Barrois were thieves or madmen not to buy such wine for such a song. He took his oxen and his barrel to a very high shed that stood by, and there he told us all his pilgrimage and the many assaults his firmness suffered, and how he had resisted them all. There was much more anger than sorrow in his accent, and I could see that he was of the wood from which tyrants and martyrs are carved. Then suddenly ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... cleverest foreman on the whole west coast, but his drinking propensities tried to the utmost both the patience and the firmness of his employers. He had already built several vessels for Garman and Worse, but he was determined that the one he was now superintending at Sandsgaard should ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Barwig in a low, hard voice, with such firmness and determination that Poons, in spite of himself, was compelled to go forward. Silently they walked up three flights, neither of them noticing the salute of the porter as they passed him. Anton took out his keys and opened a door which led into a magnificently furnished ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... not meet him on the fraternal ground that he was taking again, nor did she wish him to occupy it in his own mind. To maintain the attitude which she had adopted would require as much delicacy as firmness of action, or he would begin to query why she could not go back to their old relations as readily as he could. She had listened to the twice-told tale of the events of the past few days with almost breathless interest, because ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... she once possessed in eyes and complexion, dimmed and faded. He watched Ruth, speaking low and soft to the little girls, who seemed to come to her in every difficulty; and he remarked her gentle firmness when their bedtime came, and they pleaded to stay up longer (their father was absent in his counting-house, or they would not have dared to do so). He liked Ruth's soft, distinct, unwavering "No! you must go. You must keep to what is right," far better than the good-natured ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... they rost Wild-boar (or Robuck or other Venison) they lay it to soak, six or eight or ten days (according to the thickness and firmness of the piece and Penetrability of it) in good Vinegar, wherein is Salt and Juniper-berries bruised (if you will, you may add bruised Garlick or what other Haut-goust you like) the Vinegar coming up half way the flesh, and turn it twice a day. Then if you will, you ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... greatly embarrassed Conservatives in harvesting their victory. Thomas W. Olcott of Albany was nominated for comptroller in place of Lucius Robinson. Of all the distinguished men who had filled that office none exhibited a more inflexible firmness than Robinson in holding the public purse strings. He was honest by nature and by practice. Neither threats nor ingenious devices disturbed him, but with a fidelity as remarkable as it was rare he pushed aside the emissaries of extravagance ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Washington's administration either "wise or firm," as the address said. Gallatin made a distinction between the administration and the legislature, and in lieu of the words, wise, firm, and patriotic administration, proposed to address the compliment directly to the wisdom, firmness, and patriotism of Washington. But Ames defended his report, and it was adopted by a vote of 67 to 12. Gallatin voted with the majority, but Livingston, Giles, and Macon held out with the small band of disaffected, among whom it is amusing ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... stay, and everybody tried to be quite firm; but as no one's firmness but mine was based on inclination, the result was that Sophie and I were "remainder," and Mary Leighton, Charlotte, and Henrietta drove away with Kilian quite jauntily, at half-past seven o'clock. But before she went, Charlotte, who was really good-natured with all her ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... important principle of private economy. In this country beyond all others, and in my situation more than any other, the temptations to expense amount almost to compulsion. I have withstood them hitherto, and hope for firmness of character to withstand them ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... her. Finally he earned a good dig from a spur, and then, with swift pounding of hoofs, he plunged and veered and danced in the sage. Lucy kept her temper, which was what most riders did not do, and by patience and firmness pulled Sage King out of his prancing back into the trail. He was not the least cross-grained, and, having had his little spurt, he settled ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... the occasional hunter, trader, or traveller tempted by business or curiosity into that wild region, but to the Indians who still roamed the forest at will and had established one of their villages at no great distance from it. With these, by the exercise of extreme firmness and an inflexible honesty, Major Hester succeeded in maintaining friendly relations, in spite of their jealousy of his presence among them. At the same time, his wife, through her gentleness and ready sympathy ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... the top. The caterpillars often scale the sides and climb up to the moulding which forms a cornice around the opening. This place suits them for their processions, perhaps because of the absolute firmness of the surface, where there is no fear of landslides, as on the loose, sandy soil below; and also, perhaps, because of the horizontal position, which is favourable to repose after the fatigue of the ascent. It provides ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... kindness, and with even a certain amount of respect, which the fisherman and his family could not help feeling for her. Though the dame had not failed in endeavouring to correct any faults she might have exhibited, yet she had done so with that gentleness and firmness which made the little girl sensible that her kind protectress did so for her benefit alone. The dame found the task a very easy one, for Maiden May rarely ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... of Mr. C——'s character makes itself felt,—the immediate obedience that he obtained from women whose terror might have made them unmanageable, and men whose selfishness might have defied his control; the wise though painful firmness, which enabled him to order the boat away from the side of the perishing vessel, in spite of the pity that he felt for the many, in attempting to succour whom he could only have jeopardized the few whom he was bound ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... lesser importance, especially with goodwill, reverence, and gratitude. Whenever I was able to define the opposing factors sharply to myself in the rejection of the bad as well as in the perseverance in a conviction, I displayed both before and after this period a firmness which, indeed, might even be called obstinacy. But in general it may safely be asserted: Only the union of character and talent produces what ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... life that she had as yet been unable to make. When she closed her eyes, strong warm hands seemed to come out of nothingness and touch her flushed cheeks. The fingers of the hands were strong like the branches of trees. They touched with the firmness and gentleness of the branches of trees ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... [14] on me thy claims are justly great: Thy milder virtues could my Muse relate, To thee, alone, unrivall'd, would belong The feeble efforts of my lengthen'd song. [xi] 290 Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit, A Spartan firmness, with Athenian wit: Though yet, in embryo, these perfections shine, LYCUS! thy father's fame [15] will soon be thine. Where Learning nurtures the superior mind, What may we hope, from genius thus refin'd; ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... vigor, from sunrise 'till towards the close of evening; bravely and successfully resisting every charge which was made on them; and withstanding the impetuosity of every onset, with the most invincible firmness, until a fortunate movement on the part of the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... away from the great house, which seemed to be staring after me down the avenue with all its window-eyes, when suddenly my deliverance came. At a somewhat sharp turn, where the avenue changed into a winding road, Miss Oldcastle stood waiting for me, the glow of haste upon her cheek, and the firmness of resolution upon her lips. Once more I was startled by her sudden presence, but she ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... parked at Wilcox's Landing. His steady, unflinching determination to gain time for the wagons to get beyond the point of danger was characteristic of the man, and this was the third occasion on which he had exhibited a high order of capacity and sound judgment since coming under my command. The firmness and coolness with which he always met the responsibilities of a dangerous place were particularly strong points in Gregg's make-up, and he possessed so much professional though unpretentious ability, that it is to be regretted he felt obliged a few months later to quit the service before the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... to be a younger edition of the sergeant. He was not familiar with the recruits, but taught what he was there to teach, and did it with a mingling of firmness ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... then that Porter let fall her bomb. "It's no good my telling him. He won't go away." Her firmness crumbled. She bleated in a dramatic surrender to distress. The three who heard her caught the commotion of her alarm and waited breathless. Her explanation came at last. "It's Mr. Easterday." The moment she had said it, she ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... that are good and honest, who are of souls under complete control and who are endued with readiness and alacrity, may not depend upon anything else for supporting their power. Gift of food to the best of one's power, endurance of heat and cold, firmness in virtue, and a regard and tenderness for all creatures,—these attributes can never find place in a person, without an innate desire being present in him of separating himself from the world. One should avoid ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... incidents and contrived convulsions of more melodramatic novels. Thus, in 'Mansfield Park' the result of private theatricals, including many rehearsals of stage love-making, among a group of young people who show no very strong principles or firmness of character, appears in a couple of elopements which break up a family, occasion a pitiable scandal, and spoil the career of an able, generous, and highly promising young man. To most novelists an ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... wind and storm; clean-shaven but for the drooping brown moustache that conceals the rugged lines of his mouth, and twinkling blue-gray eyes that peer out with searching gaze from under their shaggy brows. Firmness, strength, self-reliance, even sternness, can be read in every line; but around the gathering crowsfeet at the corners of his eyes, and lurking under the shadow of the grim moustache, are little curves or dimples or something, that betray to the initiated the presence of a humorous vein that softens ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... craft and chicanery; and firmness, without intellect, perverseness and obstinacy:—First, prudence, good sense, and discrimination, and then dominion; for the dominion and good fortune of the ignorant are the armor ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... great importance that it can be considered as the first real revelation of his true genius. He explained the reasons for the defeat of Venezuela, and set them forth as a lesson of the urgent need of unity and firmness on the part of the American colonies. He denounced the weakness of the first government, evidenced in the treatment accorded Coro, which was not conquered immediately, but was permitted to be fortified so as ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... judgement, however, was after all but a contribution to his resolve; it testified unwittingly to his wisdom. He was still firmer, apparently—since it shone in him as a light—than he had flattered himself. His firmness indeed was slightly compromised, as he faced about to his friend, by the way this very personage looked—though the case would of course have been worse hadn't the secret of personal magnificence ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... reins of government, but the following year witnessed the close of his administration and his short though useful and eventful life. Few men intrusted with almost absolute authority have exercised it with so much firmness and at the same time with so ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... indeed had I not possessed my invaluable passport the expedition would probably have remained there. For every day invitations came pouring in for days ahead, and the entertainers would not hear of a refusal. At last, however, firmness became necessary, and I insisted (being empowered by my magic document to do so) upon immediate preparations being made for our departure, although every official in the place urged me to abandon a project which they averred could only end in disaster. By suggestion ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... of the repast, the captain had announced the truth, to his passengers, and followed them now to enjoin them to firmness and efficiency, both so greatly needed at ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... state. If Cinna had been willing to agree with Octavius, the safety of the citizens might still have had an existence in the republic. In the last war, if Pompeius had relaxed somewhat of his dignified firmness, and Caesar a good deal of his ambition, we might have had both a lasting peace, and some considerable ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... took his leave, was at once more friendly and more respectful than it had yet been—a change which I attributed to his having discovered in me more firmness than he had expected, in regard, if not of my rights, at least of ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... breathless silence. Half the width of the hall from the observer, his more than eighty years seemed to sit lightly on "the great taciturnist;" and his fair complexion, fine brow, thin face, and singular firmness of mouth have the fascination of genius. Later, during the long and sometimes denunciatory speech of Richter, he seemed wearied. Rising from his seat in the front rank of the Conservatives on the extreme right, he moved ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... our eyes and ears: Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,— As he is but my father's brother's son,— Now, by my sceptre's awe I make a vow, Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood Should nothing privilege him nor partialize The unstooping firmness of my upright soul. He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou: Free speech and fearless I to ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... touched by it. When he was touched he rarely showed it, however, by the usual signs; he neither blushed, nor looked away, nor looked conscious. He only fixed his attention more directly; he seemed to consider with added firmness. Henrietta continued therefore disinterestedly, without the sense of an advantage. "I may say now, indeed—it seems a good time—that if I've ever annoyed you (and I think sometimes I have) it's because ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... Zuleika did not even say "Oh really?" when he told her about the metamorphosis of the bulls in the Temple of Osiris. He primed himself with a glass of sherry, cleared his throat. "And what," he asked, with a note of firmness, "did you think of our cousins across the water?" Zuleika said "Yes;" and then he gave in. Nor was she conscious that he ceased talking to her. At intervals throughout the rest of dinner, she murmured "Yes," and "No," and "Oh really?" though the poor little don was now ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... the physiognomy of man) led one of the black victims forth, to meet the speculating caprices of a haggard old Turkish woman. He proceeded to point out her good qualities, and to descant on the firmness of her muscles, the robustness of her limbs, and her mature age; at the same time pinching her tender flesh, by way of proving the truth of his assertions, till the poor creature shrieked out with agony. He then tore ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasion on the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... indiscreet busybody that he was, had he not a reckoning to settle? The choice of him as an instrument of his punishment, which, if it was primarily directed against another, should not leave him wholly unscathed, gave a zest to his malice, and increased firmness to his manner, as he curtly ordered the clerk ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... ye, but I'm no' comin',' said Liz, with the same firmness which had set aside Walter's scheme ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... instrumental body, if he has absurdly hurried a movement, or allowed it to linger unduly, if he has interrupted a singer before the end of a phrase, they exclaim: "The singers are detestable! The orchestra has no firmness; the violins have disfigured the principal design; everybody has been wanting in vigor and animation; the tenor was quite out, he did not know his part; the harmony is confused; the author is no accompanist; the ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... submit much, if any longer, to the unnatural promotion of men over them who have nothing more than a little plausibility, unbounded pride and ambition, and a perseverance in application not to be resisted but by uncommon firmness, to support their pretensions: men who, in the first instance, tell you they wish for nothing more than the honor of serving in so glorious a cause as volunteers, the next day solicit rank without ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... attention are also visited in their homes. The school nurse is so much alone in her work that she requires to be very experienced and her powers of observation to be highly trained in order to enable her to detect signs of ill-health in its early stages. Firmness and kindness are constantly required in dealing with parents, and tact and consideration in her dealings with all with whom her work brings her ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... is absolutely necessary, and the child is too young to understand reason, it must be given by force, very firmly but very kindly, and the grief it occasions will be forgotten in an hour or two. If he is old enough, tell him that the medicine is ordered to do him good, and firmness combined with gentleness will usually succeed in inducing him to take it. The advantage of perfect truthfulness extends to every incident in the illness of children, even to the not saying, 'Oh, you will soon be well,' if it is not likely so to be. If children find ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... exchange, titles, honours, and wealth were lavished upon it, and its vanity could at any rate console its ambition. The good fortune of Mazarin opened the eyes of everyone to his merit. No one could refrain from applauding his firmness and his capacity. Had he proved unsuccessful, he would only have been looked upon as a second Concini; victorious, he was another Richelieu to whom it was necessary to succumb, but who might be served without loss of honour, because, after having shown that ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... momentary firmness of the hand that was never still—a firmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying away with them—I saw the confirmation of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... is an invalid, and is very nervous. If he were in perfect health he would have more force of character and firmness. He is under the impression that he has heart disease, and it ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... Journal[A], "I believed there had been in past ages, people who walked in uprightness before God in a degree exceeding any, that I knew or heard of, now living. And the apprehension of there being less steadiness and firmness among people of this age, than in past ages, often troubled me while I was a child." An anxious desire to do away, as far as himself was concerned, this merited reproach, operated as one among other causes to induce him to be particularly watchful ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... name of this apostle. Cephas and Peter, which signify a rock, or stone, were names given him of Christ, expressive of that firmness of character, for which he was remarkable. These though commonly used, after they were given him, were omitted on this occasion; probably as a tacit reproof of his denial of his Lord, a little before; which had been occasioned by the failure of his courage—by ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... perished. We will, as we follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery against which he warred, and which in vanquishing him has made him a martyr and conqueror. I swear you by the memory of this martyr to hate slavery with an unabatable hatred, and to pursue it. We will admire the firmness of this man in justice, his inflexible conscience for the right, his gentleness and moderation of spirit, which not all the hate of party could turn to bitterness. And I swear you to follow his justice, his moderation, his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... confusion upon their country, and that he was assuming supreme authority over themselves, and reducing them to thraldom and vassalage, they became inspired with a fortitude of mind, and a loftiness of spirit, and a hardihood and firmness of purpose, that urged them to work in right earnest, and to toil zealously in battle against him ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... her violently within an hour. Mr. Povey made rules for her. He explained to her that she must never, never go into the shop. But she went, and he whipped her to the squealing point, and Constance cried an instant, while admiring her husband's firmness. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... should live undisturbed, yet he was let know that he could not be in safety, and after his retreat to Holland, several unjust but fruitless attempts were made to have him tried for treason, both before the parliament and justiciary, for no other reason than that he had always with sincerity and firmness, given his opinion to the king and his ministers, against the measures that were then followed, and which in the following reign, at length brought about the glorious Revolution, at which time, anno 1668, he attended ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of the world it is customary to put extracted teeth in some place where they will be found by a mouse or a rat, in the hope that, through the sympathy which continues to subsist between them and their former owner, his other teeth may acquire the same firmness and excellence as the teeth of these rodents. For example, in Germany it is said to be an almost universal maxim among the people that when you have had a tooth taken out you should insert it in a mouse's hole. To do so with a child's milk-tooth which has ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... timid doubts, deter you from the exertion of your duty, according to the fullest sense of it that Nature has implanted in your mind. Though gentleness and modesty are the peculiar attributes of your sex, yet fortitude and firmness, when occasion demands them, are virtues as noble and as becoming in women as in men: the right line of conduct is the same for both sexes, though the manner in which it is pursued may somewhat vary, and be accommodated to the strength ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... surrounding border. An elongated medallion appears in the centre; this is ornamented with floral designs in red, blue, and yellow, as are also the corner areas. Antique Hamadans are very beautiful. Soft and silky, yet with firmness of texture, and in subdued coloring, they seem appropriate for any room. Some of them, with fine, delicate tracery, in soft shades, remind one of beautiful stained glass seen in the old ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... had not changed for the better. Hitherto he had maintained a firmness of discipline boarding upon severity, and he certainly had never relaxed from that attitude. Now he had become an incomprehensible mixture of indulgence and cruelty. The two elements were incompatible, and the more intelligent of his officers were not long in perceiving ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... it up," he said; and, utterly cowed by the firmness of the two lads, Distin stepped over the thwart by Vane, and went and seated himself ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... intrusted to the command of an Aga of Arnaouts, without being under the orders of Berber. It is very probable that Berber may yet become a conspicuous character in Syrian affairs, being a man of great spirit, firmness, and justice. The town of Tripoli was never in a better state ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... she went into her room and closed the door with a firmness just short of violence. Her ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... proved to be a large, tall, and altogether impressive-looking lady, who spoke with a great deal of firmness and decision. ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... appeared with all the timidity natural to the sex, though she gazed on us with a kind of anxious concern, that seemed to struggle with her fear, and to express her astonishment at so unusual a sight. Others advanced with more firmness, and indeed were less reserved than we expected, but behaved with a becoming modesty. We did not observe any personal deformities amongst either sex, except in a few who had scars of broad superficial ulcers remaining on the face and other parts. In proportion to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... to-day. Walked to Chiefswood, or rather from it, as far only as Habbie's Howe. Came home, cold indeed, but hearty. Slept after dinner. I think the peep, real or imaginary, at the gates of death has given me firmness not to mind little afflictions. I have jumbled this and the preceding day strangely, when I went to Chiefswood and Huntly Burn. I thought this ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... impossible for a creature to have the conviction of his unwavering firmness of mind in the progress towards goodness. On this account the Christian religion makes it come only from the same Spirit that works sanctification, that is, this firm purpose, and with it the consciousness of steadfastness in the moral ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... the qualities of line in different degrees of firmness, roughness, raggedness, or smooth and flowing. There are the degrees of direction of line, curvilinear or angular. On the angular side all variations from the perpendicular and horizontal, or rectangle, within which we may find all these degrees, and on the curvilinear side, all the variations ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... dark mood returned. Granted all this; how about the last two days? Before that it might well be that her sense of duty to her country, her firmness of spirit, her honour itself would impel her to cling to the last hope of gaining her end. Until his influence over M'tela was quite assured, Winkleman's arrival would probably turn the scale. She had not prevented ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... in parting, allude to one or two traits in Joanna's demeanour on the scaffold, and to one or two in that of the bystanders, which authorise me in questioning an opinion of his upon this martyr's firmness. The reader ought to be reminded that Joanna D'Arc was subjected to an unusually unfair trial of opinion. Any of the elder Christian martyrs had not much to fear of personal rancour. The martyr was chiefly regarded as the enemy of Caesar; at times, also, where any knowledge of the Christian ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... individuals and the country had endured for the preceding six or eight months had been needlessly produced by it, with the view of affecting through the sufferings of the people the legislative action of Congress. It is a subject of congratulation that Congress and the country had the virtue and firmness to bear the infliction, that the energies of our people soon found relief from this wanton tyranny in vast importations of the precious metals from almost every part of the world, and that at the close of this tremendous effort to control our Government the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... your resolution can only be applauded, madame," said Baron Tripeaud; "we can but encourage you to show the greatest firmness, for such ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... moment's silence. The interview was at its highest pitch of excitement. Micheline knew that she must put an end to it. She replied with firmness: ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... facts and place upon them the unwarranted construction that those facts were due to supernatural power; on the other hand are the writers who, taking the evidence on hearsay and disbelieving the conclusions drawn by their opponents, deny the facts in toto. Both parties believed with equal firmness in a personal Devil, and both supported their arguments with quotations from the Bible. But as the believers were able to bring forward more texts than the unbelievers and had in their hands an unanswerable argument ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... young man of thirty, appeared to be still younger from his fair face. They had sent the under, not the chief magistrate, because he was a new hand, and would be more zealous. There is more firmness in a young man, and firmness was necessary when face to face with ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... sprang to their feet when the first strain reached their ears. They were not as intoxicated as they might have been, for they were able to stand with considerable firmness on their feet, after the frequency with which the bottle had been passed among them. They did not do what soldiers would naturally have done at such an interruption, grasp their muskets, and it was probable they had ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... published a novel with the unpretentious title, "McTeague: a Story of San Francisco." It was a book that could not be ignored nor dismissed with a word. There was something very unusual about it, about its solidity and mass, the thoroughness and firmness of texture, and it came down like a blow from a sledge hammer among the slighter and more sprightly ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... excitement, and their eyes wore that fixed expression which betokens mischief; others, with shut teeth, would quietly laugh, and catch a tighter grip of the rein, or seat themselves with care and firmness in the saddle, while quiet words of confidence and encouragement were passed from each to his neighbor. All at once Captain May rode to the front of his troop—every rein and sabre was tightly grasped. Raising himself and pointing at the battery, he shouted, 'Men, follow!' There was ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... restraint. It is quite true that the same kind of treatment did not suit the two children. Edna, on the one hand, an honest, conscientious, self-sacrificing little girl, and on the other hand Louis, a spoiled, proud, rather selfish little boy. Gentle firmness would have been best for Louis, but firmness without gentleness did not suit him at all, and he resented the methods of ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... he was lost. He took a sudden and desperate resolution; no longer struggling with his father, he said, with firmness and resignation, "You are right, my father; give me this pistol. There is infamy enough attached to my name; the life that awaits me is frightful, it is not worth contending for. Give me the pistol. You shall see if I am a coward." And he extended his hand. "But, at least, a word, one ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... of exploration. And without Frontenac's vigorous support it could never have been accomplished. La Salle, when he performed his great feat of daring and endurance, was still a young man under forty, but his courage, firmness, and determination were not surpassed by any of his race. He had qualities that justified the confidence which the governor reposed ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... one of you is not encroaching upon his capital? And when you have come to your last louis, you will do what I have done, or something worse. Do not deny it, for not one among you has a more uncompromising conscience, more moral firmness, or more generous aspirations than I once possessed. You are pursuing what I pursued. You desire what I desired—a life of luxury, brief if it must be, but happy—a life of gayety, wild excitement, and ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Sertorius, that fought against Romans? Whereas, scoundrel Greeks were always fighting against their countrymen. Xenophon, in Persia, Alexander, seventy years later, met with their chief enemies in Greeks. We may therefore pronounce with firmness, that unity was one cause of the Roman superiority. What was the other? Better military institutions. These, if we should go upon the plan of rehearsing them, are infinite. But let us confine our view to the separate mode ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... degree the sense of the responsibility which an author owes to the public and to himself. It is on account of these facts that the story of his uneventful life and brilliant literary career is a highly interesting one. It shows how, by firmness of principle and a high respect of the public and himself, a man of undoubted genius has been enabled to raise himself to a position in the English-speaking worlds to which few men of letters have ever attained—a position which may be compared to that of a vates amongst the Romans, ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... Do not keep him "on trust" for more than a second or two at first, but gradually make the time longer, until he will let you leave the room and not touch the biscuit until you return. Then you can teach him to die, and waltz, sing, ask, box, and beg. Treat him always with patience and firmness; be quick to reward but never give in to him. You will, of course, bear in mind the character of the dog in teaching him tricks. Dogs of dignified nature, such as St. Bernards, mastiffs, Great Danes, and deer-hounds, for example, you would not labor to transform into performers. The best dogs ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... heartlessness, self-conceit, and prodigious prejudices of the Chinese to appreciate the noble zeal of the missionaries. The course of trade and much more correct notions of the power and objects of the Western nations, and the firmness with which they use the former to secure the latter, are unquestionably breaking up with rudeness the ridiculous ideas of the Chinese concerning their own importance and superior wisdom. If once they can be made learners in good earnest, the battle is half won, for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the natural gifts that adapted him for the post; courtesy, firmness, quickness and accuracy of judgment, and a clearness of mental perception that brought its own regularity into the scene of confused and entangled debate; and to these qualities he added whatever was to be attained by laborious ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... understand the customs of this country," said Frank, with firmness, "but I have yet to learn how any three persons are entitled to exclude all other travellers from the only place of shelter and refreshment ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... hypothesis made and demonstrated, have thought out a new method of verification.[116] The scientific imagination becomes poorer as we follow it down this scale, which, however, bears no relation to exactness of reasoning and firmness of method. ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... general, but we forgive his costly blunders at Brooklyn Heights and Peekskill as we think of him leaving plough in furrow at the drum-beat to arms, and speeding to the deadly front at Boston, or with iron firmness stemming the retreat from Bunker Hill. Young Richard Montgomery might have been next to Washington in the war but for Sir Guy Carleton's deadly grape-shot from the Quebec walls the closing moments of 1775. Buried at Quebec, his remains were transferred ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... that virtuous character, and the justice which dictated the choice. In the continual antagonism between the material and spiritual interests involved in the events of his agitated life, he had opportunities to display the noblest firmness in causing the latter to prevail. Involuntary peregrinations, conflicts with foreign potentates, domestic discords, dangers, hazards, hopes deferred, and promises well nigh forgotten, became to him so many occasions for the exercise of the highest virtues: and last, the holy resignation with which ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... of the old crew who came hither at the time of the massacre were panting for revenge, although their captain had endeavoured to impress upon them the folly of gratifying such a passion if we could gain our purpose by mildness mixed with firmness." (I am afraid that here the skipper of the Antarctic was not exactly open with the little lady. He certainly meant that his crew should "get even" with their shipmates' murderers, but doubtless told her ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... such an upheaval. What drew the crowds? Just what will draw them; the qualities without which, either possessed in reality or in popular estimation, no man can be a power religiously. The first essential is heroic firmness. It was not reeds swaying in the wind by Jordan's banks, nor a poor feeble man like these, that the people flocked to listen to. His emblem was not the reed, but 'an iron pillar.' His whole career had been marked by decisiveness, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... might and sleep if we could, for it would not have been prudent to build fires. Our energies languished under these hardships and deadly fatigues, but Joan's did not. Her step kept its spring and firmness and her eye its fire. We could only wonder at this, we ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... either party that would not submit to reasonable conditions. He required them to send deputies to state their wrongs, and the grounds of dispute, and took upon himself to do justice to both parties. He was obeyed: the chiefs of the contending tribes repaired to Quebec, and by the firmness and judgment of the governor, the breach ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... friendship is for the non-interventionists, the theme "new policy" and "firmness" is for the interventionists. On the non-contentious record, the detail is overwhelming; on ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... again told that Mr. P. had brought the institution to where it was "with firmness, but with kindness and a Christian spirit," which unfolds the writer's views of "kindness" and the "Christian spirit." No doubt the prisoners were just wicked enough to say, "Lord, deliver us ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... practise. His failures in this respect diminished his influence for good among his contemporaries, and must always qualify the admiration with which mankind will regard him as a moral philosopher and an exhorter to a good life. His sagacity, intellectual force, versatility, originality, firmness, fortunate period of service, and longevity combined to make him a great leader of his people. In American public affairs the generation of wise leaders next to his own felt for him high admiration and respect; and the strong republic, whose birth and youthful growth he witnessed, ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... up their voices, wept; In stifled sorrow wept the Faithful too; E'en the stern king was touched,—a softness crept O'er his fierce heart, ennobling, pure, and new; He felt, he scorned it, struggled to subdue, And lest his wavering firmness should relent, His eyes averted, and his steps withdrew; Sophronia's spirit only was unbent; She yet lamented not, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... as she could, but with firmness which left him no room for misunderstanding her. Daniel was ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... the Captain's hand had the softness of satin—I believe that physical sensations, in us women, have causes directly contrary to those which move men; for that which caused me such lively emotion was precisely its firmness. There was something strong, manly, and powerful about it. He squeezed my hand ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... the North was fighting, on the battle-field she knew no North, no South; she made her work one of humanity alone, bestowing her charities and her care indiscriminately upon the Blue and the Gray, with an impartiality and Spartan firmness that astonished the foe and perplexed the friend, often falling under suspicion, or censure of Union officers unacquainted with her motives and character for her tender care and firm protection of the wounded captured in battle. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... reading his letters in the next room, when, with flushed cheek, and voice striving for firmness, she stood before him, saying, 'It is time to put an end to this. Will you let Lord St. Erme know ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... interrupting me. She was staring at the panes of the window, as if to put herself in countenance again; her paleness disappeared, and, turning round, she said, without anger, but with firmness— ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... her that the dim, vague labours and accumulations of years which have constituted her husband's nearest approach to life have been labour in vain; that the "great mind" has been toiling, with feeble uncertain steps, in a path which has already been trodden into firmness and completeness; toiling in wilful and obdurate ignorance that other and abler natures have more than anticipated all he has been painfully and abortively labouring to accomplish. Again a cry bursts from the wounded heart, seemingly of ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... woman leaves her cold unless it is inspired by love, as an artificial jewel leaves an expert who knows the fire of genuine stones." "Though Urvasi has my heart," he adds, "yet I highly esteem the queen. Of course, I shall meet her with firmness, since she has disdained my ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... opinions known publicly, and, which unfortunately will inevitably follow, that you will no longer see me.... There is no doubt that this resolution will seriously embarrass the government. But, with consistency and firmness, this obstacle may be overcome, and I hope that, during my lifetime, there will be no troubles. But I cannot, without a shudder, look forward to the moment when my eyes will be closed. You will then find yourself ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... the strange language and the firmness of the child, and replied: "Your story, Bernadette, is beyond reason: still, your manner is honest. Do not give yourself up, I pray you, to an illusion of your mind. You have some fancy, it may be, that deceives you. The Virgin could command me as well as yourself. You say there ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... Izdubar our sons preserves To all our fathers day and night, And Erech's ruler well deserves Our highest praise, whose matchless might Delights the gods! All hail our Sar! Whose firmness, wisdom need no praise! Queen Daunat's son, our Izdubar, His glory ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... never seen," said the Master, "a man of inflexible firmness." Some one thereupon mentioned Shin Ch'ang, a disciple. "Ch'ang," said he, "is wanton; where do you get at ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... Saws and hammers made dolorous music on it. Men, in their shirt sleeves, were measuring it and directing its construction in a business way. Now and then some one would ascend its airy stair to test its firmness; others crawled beneath to wedge its slim supports, or carry away the ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... writing supplies. In such cases the correspondent should choose unglazed paper of a neutral tint—gray, yellow, or manila brown. The paper most commonly used is unruled print paper 6 x 9 or 8-1/2 x 11 inches in size and of sufficient firmness to permit use of either ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... The nearer the eyebrows to the eyes, the more earnest, deep, and firm the character. Eyebrows remote from each other denote warm, open, quick sensations. White eyebrows signify weakness; and dark brown, firmness. The motion of the eyebrows contains numerous expressions, especially ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... intimately incorporated with 30 grains of coal—better with a spatula than by rubbing in a mortar—and then introduced into a copper cylinder (3 inches long by inch wide, made from a copper tube), and pressed down in small portions by a test-tube with such firmness as is required by the nature of the coal, not tapped on the bottom, since the rougher portions of the oxygen mixture rise to the surface. As the temperature of a room is almost invariably much higher than the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... her head. She was gaining in firmness. "It won't hurt me to hear what he has to say. It may throw some ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... she endured had aroused in him a compassion to which he would have found it easy to yield. But having repelled the charitable impulse that threatened to wreck his carefully devised plan, he said with added firmness: ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... She is raising her tail, at whose end is a horrible sting to clasp thee as with a pair of arms. And look, see her jaws, white with foam, and larger than the largest tree of the forest, are extended to kiss thy cheek, or scarcely worse to snap off thy head. Brave man! With what undaunted firmness he suffers himself to be taken to her arms—no, not to her arms, but her tail—and how patiently he suffers his cheeks that have felt the breath of sweet lips to be slabbered by a nasty snake! Oh! if he fall a victim to his love for his nation, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... must be judged by its own conduct. If its acts were unjust, bigoted, and rash, no excuse can save it from condemnation. If, on the other hand, it acted with firmness and loyalty towards its king—if it did much to secure the rights, the prosperity, and the honour of the nation—if, in a country where property had been turned upside down a few years before, it strove to do justice to the many, with the least possible injury to the few—if, in a country ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... They respected her firmness of determination, and Job almost gave in to her belief, when he saw how steadfastly she was acting upon it. Oh! surest way of conversion to our faith, whatever it may be— regarding either small things, or great—when it is beheld as the actuating principle, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... shaken, but his manner as he went out from the prebendary's presence, left some doubt as to his firmness in the mind both of that dignitary and of the Squire. He thanked Mr. Chamberlaine very courteously, and acknowledged that there was a great deal in the ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... Mr. Hutchins at home, a cool, quiet, energetic, northern man, who seems to be handling the difficult situation here with great firmness and prudence. Mrs. Hutchins, who has lived here now for nearly a year—a life not unlike that of the wife of an American officer on the Far Western frontier—very amicably asked me to lunch, and Mr. Hutchins offered to show me the holdings of Mr. Dunne and Mr. Kilbride. Mr. Lynch ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... in the field, and to teach an ambitious and somewhat embittered man that each act of skill and gallantry was performed for the glory of his superior. Another of his legates was Publius Rutilius Rufus, who like Marius had held the praetorship, and was not only a man of known probity and firmness of character, but a scientific student of tactics with original ideas which were soon to be put to the test in the reorganisation of the army which followed the Numidian war. For the present it was necessary to create rather than reorganise an ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... streams. The middle part of the road was raised into a terrace, which commanded the adjacent country, consisted of several strata of sand, gravel, and cement, and was paved with large stones, or, in some places near the capital, with granite. Such was the solid construction of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not entirely yielded to the effect of fifteen centuries. They united the subjects of the most distant provinces by an easy and familiar intercourse; but their primary object had been to facilitate the marches of the legions; nor was any country considered as completely subdued ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... of him. The unfortunate young Count, he said, was in the greatest agonies, yet he retained his admirable firmness of mind. He received the spiritual consolations of the chaplain, who was fortunately acquainted with the French language. He died on the 13th of June, 1823. A few hours before he expired, he spoke of his aged father, eighty ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... its sturdy indomitable traits and its prowess in war. The chiefs of the clan had armorial crests of which the conspicuous emblem was commonly a burning mountain, and the motto some expression of unyielding firmness. In one case it was, "Stand Fast, Craig Ellarchie!" in another, simply "Stand Fast;" in another, "Stand Sure." Sometimes Latin equivalents were used, as "Stabit" and "Immobile." It is said that, as late as the Sepoy rebellion in India, there was a squadron of British ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... Proportion as this mortal Fear of the Contagion is diminished, and that one is mutually assisted, that the Hopes and Courage of the People are returned; that, in one Word, the good Order is re-established in this City by the Authority, Firmness and Vigilance of the Chevalier de LANGERON, by the great Care of the Governor, and by the constant and indefatigable Endeavours of the Sheriffs; one has beheld the Progress and Violence of this terrible Scourge to ...
— A Succinct Account of the Plague at Marseilles - Its Symptoms and the Methods and Medicines Used for Curing It • Francois Chicoyneau
... looked down with the air of one who had nothing more to learn of woe. Apollo stood in the centre of the stage, taking one voice, then another: now the angry tone of the tyrant, Creon, now the wail of the chorus, hurt but undecided, then breaking into the unspeakable sweetness and firmness of Antigone's tones. The sheep went back to their nibbling; San Pietro trotted away with his jingling bells, but Daphne sat with her face leaning on her hands, and slow tears trickling over ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... depended upon the merchant service for ships, as well as for men; when the war fleets of the nation were composed of impressed ships, as well as manned by impressed sailors. These various laws had been tentative in character. Both firmness of purpose and continuity of effort were lacking to them; due doubtless to the comparative weakness of the nation in the scale of European states up to the seventeenth century. During the reigns of the first two Stuarts, this weakness was emphasized by ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... discounting their hero, and showing in broad light their gigantic stupidity. One of this motley finds in McClellan a Norman chin, the other muscle, the third a brow for laurels (of thistle I hope), another a square, military, heroic frame, another firmness in lips, another an unfathomed depth in the eye, etc., etc. Never I heard in Europe such balderdash. And the ladies—not the women and gentlewomen—are worse than the men in thus stupefying themselves and those ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... be better with us," Mrs. Lansing rejoined with firmness; and Sylvia suspected her of a wish to ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... commenced the memoir when the death of the Duke deprived her of his patronage, and threw her son again upon her care, involving her in many anxieties. But Christine bore herself through all her trials with firmness and prudence, and her latter days were more tranquil. She took a deep interest in the affairs of her adopted country, and welcomed in her writings the appearance of the Maid of Orleans. We believe, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... understood the nature of his fiery-tempered and impetuous subordinate, at the same time that he appreciated his many admirable qualities. There were differences of opinion between the two naturally, but John Lawrence's firmness and tactful methods, together with Nicholson's sense of justice, ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley
... from one of the abysses, Eblis stood forth to her view; but notwithstanding he displayed the full effulgence of his infernal majesty, she preserved her countenance unaltered, and even paid her compliments with considerable firmness. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... mankind of the practicability of our federal system of government. Great is the stake placed in our hands; great is the responsibility which must rest upon the people of the United States. Let us realize the importance of the attitude in which we stand before the world. Let us exercise forbearance and firmness. Let us extricate our country from the dangers which surround it and learn wisdom ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... examples of Heads nothing can be better than photographs from Botticelli and other early Tuscan, and from the early Siennese painters. Also from Holbein, and chiefly from his drawings. There is a flatness and firmness of treatment in all these which is eminently suited to stained-glass work. Hands also may be studied from the same sources, for though Botticelli does not always draw hands with perfect mastery, yet he very often does, and the expression of them, ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... very soul. In the second place, however mistaken he might be, he had compelled her to believe him to be sincere, so loyal, indeed, to his own sense of right that not even for her sake would he yield. She could not doubt this as the eagerness of the lover passed into the grave dignity and firmness of a self-respecting man. Moreover, another truth had been thrust upon her consciousness—that she was more woman than partisan. As he had stood before her, revealing his love and constancy and at the same time asserting his right to think and act in accordance with his own convictions, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Its measures are emphatically the measures of spoken deliverance. Those who have made the experiment, pronounce him to be one of the authors whose works are most admirably fitted for reading aloud. His firmness and directness of statement, his spiritedness, his art of selecting salient and highly coloured detail, and all his other merits as a narrator, keep the listener's attention, and make him the easiest of ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... he says he'll do a thing, he allys does it," continued Jorrocks, in testimony to the skipper's firmness of purpose. ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... did not know when she went to bed whether she was to go or not. She rather hoped that she might be allowed to go, as her aunt would doubtless be disagreeable; but in that, and in all matters now, she would of course be guided implicitly by Mr Ball. He had told her to be firm, and of her own firmness she had no doubt whatever. Lady Ball, with all her anger, or with all her eloquence, should not talk her out of her husband. She could be firm, and she had no doubt that John Ball could ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... pupils. A prime office of this guardianship is to take care lest language fall into loose ways; for words being the final elements into which all speech resolves itself, if they grow weak by negligence or abuse, speech loses its firmness, veracity, and expressiveness. Style may be likened to a close Tyrian garment woven by poets and thinkers out of words and phrases for the clothing and adornment of the mind; and the strength and fineness of the tissue, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... man, when sustained by the firmness and steadiness that intellect can only impart, rarely fails of commanding respect from all the inferior animals of the creation. The leading bulls recoiled, and for a single instant there was a sudden stop to their speed, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... inches in length and one and a quarter inch in diameter, made of elastic brass or composition wire two-tenths of an inch in diameter, and tapering at the points, so as to preserve its elasticity and firmness. It is to be left-handed, in order to act when turned to the right, or ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... while Count Jean, who had prevailed against so powerful an array of foes, was like his predecessors, despoiled by the bishop of Lausanne, who demanded the cession of his rights over a rich part of his possessions. Thus the reign which had begun by an astonishing display of courage and firmness was so embarrassed by the expenditure incident to its establishment, that it ran thereafter a very inglorious course unmarked by the happy prosperity of former years. When Maximilian I prepared to proceed to Italy to be crowned emperor of ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... a son of Miantonomoh, but probably his nephew, had ventured to his old haunts to procure seed corn with which to plant the rich intervals on the Connecticut, abandoned by the colonists. Taken prisoner, he conducted himself with all that haughty firmness esteemed by the Indians as the height of magnanimity. Being offered his life on condition of bringing about a peace he scorned the proposal. His tribe would perish to the last man rather than become servants to the English. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... tasted of death; but in triumph he rose, The Lord in his might and gave life unto men. Then he ascended to heaven, and hither again Shall the Savior descend to seek mankind 105 On the day of doom, the dreaded Ruler Of highest heaven, with his host of angels. Then will he adjudge with justice and firmness Rewards to the worthy whose works have deserved them, Who loyally lived their lives on the earth. 110 Then a feeling of fear shall fill every heart For the warning they had in the words of their ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... that he was lost. He took a sudden and desperate resolution; no longer struggling with his father, he said, with firmness and resignation, "You are right, my father; give me this pistol. There is infamy enough attached to my name; the life that awaits me is frightful, it is not worth contending for. Give me the pistol. You shall see if I am a coward." ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... distinguished as an advocate and a magistrate, and he composed the most valuable works on the law of his own country; he was almost equally celebrated as an historian, a scholar, a poet, and a divine; a disinterested statesman, a philosophical lawyer, a patriot who united moderation with firmness, and a theologian who was taught candour by his learning. Unmerited exile did not damp his patriotism; the bitterness of controversy did not extinguish his charity. The sagacity of his numerous and fierce adversaries ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... upon a mixture of Portuguese blood. He speaks six different languages fluently, and is without exception the best interpreter and the most plucky gun-bearer that I have ever seen. He has accompanied me through so many scenes with unvarying firmness that I never have the slightest anxiety about my spare guns if he is there, as he keeps the little troop of gun-bearers in their places in a ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... face like a man. This brave tar saw the gallant Farmer seated on his anchor, his ship in a blaze, his eye fixed on the wide expanse of the waters round him, scorning to shrink, waiting with the calm firmness of a hero for the moment when he was to die gloriously in the service ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... his companion, vastly interested in this sudden outburst, in the firmness of his tone and the tightening of the weak mouth. After all, then, the old chap had some grit in him. To Trent, who had known him for years as a broken-down hanger-on of the settlement at Buckomari, a drunkard, gambler, a creature to ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hard work as before. Enlargement of the abdomen, especially in its lower third, with slight falling in beneath the loins and hollowness of the back are significant symptoms, though they may be entirely absent. Swelling and firmness of the udder, with the smoothing out of its wrinkles, is a suggestive sign, even though it appears only at intervals during gestation. A steady increase of weight (1 1/4 pounds daily) about the fourth or fifth month is a useful indication of pregnancy. The further along the mare is in gestation ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... thought, who was so kind and thoughtful for the poor. And the young lady went home quite fired with enthusiasm for her cousin, but encountered Barnes, who was more than usually bitter and sarcastic on the subject. Ethel lost her temper, and then her firmness, while bursting into tears she taxed Barnes with cruelty for uttering stories to his cousin's disadvantage and for pursuing with constant slander one of the very best of men. But notwithstanding her defence of the Colonel and Clive, when they came to Newcome ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... ingrates, and lavish your wealth! See, citizens, the fair destinies that await you. What! you have a whole nation as a lever, its reason as your fulcrum, and you have not yet upturned the world! To do this we need firmness and character, and of a truth we lack it. I put to one side all passions. They are all strangers to me save a ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... expedient to procure a cession of the Indian lands in the State of Georgia, and that until such a cession is procured, the law of the land, as set forth in the treaty at Washington, ought to be maintained by all necessary, constitutional, and legal means." The firmness and decision of President Adams undoubtedly prevented the unhappy consequences of a collision between the people of Georgia and the Creek Indians. A new negotiation was opened with the Indians, by direction ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... fact is that I have a great love and respect for my native tongue, and take great pains to use it properly. Sometimes I write essays half-a-dozen times before I can get them into proper shape; and I believe I become more fastidious as I grow older." And, indeed, there is a marked difference in firmness of structure between the earlier essays, such as On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences, written, as Huxley acknowledges, in great haste, and the later essays, such as A Liberal Education and The Method of Scientific Investigation. To trace and to define this ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... losings with a shrug. Perhaps that is why we have been summoned to the board and the cards dealt round: that we may learn some of the virtues of the good gambler; his self-control, his courage under misfortune, his modesty under the strain of success, his firmness, his alertness, his general indifference to fate. Good lessons these, all of them. If by the game we learn some of them our time on the green earth has not been wasted. If we rise from the table having learned only fretfulness and self-pity I fear ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... came with a sonorous firmness that was new to it. In these moments, the strength of him, nourished by suffering, was putting forth its flower. His manner ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... he had been driven from Comte's society by his high pontifical airs. We are sorry not to be able to record any similar trait of magnanimity on Comte's part. His character, admirable as it is for firmness, for intensity, for inexorable will, for iron devotion to what he thought the service of mankind, yet offers few of those softening qualities that make us love good men and pity bad ones. He is of the type of Brutus or of Cato—a model of austere fixity of purpose, but ungracious, domineering, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... before, rather than during the ravages of that insidious and fatal disease, under which he laboured for so many years, and which never allowed him, except when in the pulpit, to deviate from a recumbent posture. However combated by mental firmness, such perpetual suffering must have tended in some degree to repress the vehemence of his intellectual fire; and the astonishment prevails, that he possessed fortitude enough to contend so long with antagonists so potent. Except for the power of religion, and the sustaining influence ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... blackguards howling on the bridge of the Holy Trinity in the pure half-moonlight. This is the kind of discord I have to bear, corresponding to your uncongenial company. But, alas! Susie, you ought at ten years old to have more firmness, and to resolve that you won't be bored. I think I shall try to enforce it on you as a very solemn duty not to lie to people as the vulgar public do. If they bore you, say so, and they'll go away. That is the right ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... commander-in-chief. His mingled courage and prudence, his lofty and unselfish patriotism, his admirable sobriety of judgment, and his rare power of self-control, connected as it was with a not less rare power of command, and with a firmness which no disaster could shake, made him one of the noblest of men. Before he reached Cambridge, where he assumed command of the gathering forces (July 3, 1775), he received the news of the battle of Bunker Hill, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... danger even on the Lake of Geneva. Every man, however, has his fears of some kind or other, and, no doubt, they had theirs. Of all men whom I have ever known, Coleridge had the most of passive courage in bodily trial, but no one was so easily cowed when moral firmness was required in miscellaneous conversation or in the daily intercourse of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... The diplomatic contest so far proved just the thing to ripen conditions for the meditated Bond coup d'etat. An alternative offer of a seven years' franchise was interposed as a mere ruse. Never for a moment did the Afrikaner Bond leaders waver or quail in the face of resolute firmness, display of force, or even of moral pressure and notes of advice from imposing quarters, as Mr. Chamberlain had at first still fondly hoped. To the Bond it had all resolved itself to a mere question of time, of choosing the most opportune moment when ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... of whom I have spoken before. When I first knew her she was as pretty and charming a young girl as could be imagined. She was possessed then of all the accomplishments that can adorn a girl at that period of life. Later on she showed that she was gifted with sense, knowledge, energy, firmness, courage and caractere in a degree very uncommon. Since leaving Vienna I had neither seen nor heard more of her, till she came to live with her husband and family of children in Florence. But our old acquaintanceship was readily and naturally renewed, and his villa near the city became ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... long stretch of life lying in our sight, walked ever as a prince. Any national literature might be glad for one such as he. Our imagination takes wings when we think of him. Such cleanness, such lack of self, such self-poise and firmness, such singleness of love and devotion, such inaptitude for anything not noble, such tense heroic purposes, such stalwart intention to make himself a man! He is greatness, and his story to be read ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... heads alone I saw. There were likewise angels of pity and angels of consolation among them; the latter frequently approached the Blessed Virgin and the rest of the pious persons who were assembled there, and whispered words of comfort which enabled them to bear up with firmness. ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... late. They would find only their dead bodies, picked clean by the birds of prey. How happy he might have been. After all his many years, he at last had found a girl who really cared for him, a girl who was willing to give up everything for his sake, a girl whose firmness of character he could not ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... elected by a handsome plurality; and it is not too much to say that by his courteous official demeanor towards his Excellency, Governor Butler, during the somewhat phenomenal political year of 1883, coupled with his firmness and good judgment in opposing the more objectionable schemes of that official, he contributed much to the restoration of the Republican party to power at the ensuing State election. He was re-elected ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... booming of the cannon at Bull Run, lamenting that we had no part in the battle. When we afterward heard how McDowell's army skedaddled back to Washington more rapidly than they came, we thought that the war would end without our firing a gun. So little did we understand the firmness of President Lincoln's mind and the settled purpose ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... drew their beans with manly dignity and firmness. Some of lighter temper jested over the bloody tragedy. One would say, 'Boys! this beats raffling all to pieces!' Another, 'Well, this is the tallest gambling-scrape I ever was in.' Robert Beard, who lay upon the ground exceedingly ill, called his brother ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... morning was a little breezy and he had but one simple garment, rudiment, so to speak, between him and the outer world, I attributed his precision and firmness of step to a sense of delicacy as commendable as it is rare in those parts, and immediately resolved that I would look with a kind regard upon that individual: I would parley with him, detain him ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... the points of steel reflected the rays of the sun; and this steel, so hard, was borne by people with hearts still harder. The flash of steel spread terror throughout the streets of the city. 'What steel! alack, what steel!' Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. The firmness of manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and the steel paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poor tale-teller, mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a long description, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... approaching exile seem to have shaken the firmness of some of them; for on September 23, 1656, Colonel Cooper, who had the charge of the prison, reporting that several would under their hands renounce the Pope's supremacy, and frequent the Protestant meetings and no other, he was directed to ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... have long ceased to occupy attention. A little more power of restraining his egotism and passion would have made him one of the wittiest and keenest of modern satirists, and his comic poems are deathless. The Danish literature owes Baggesen a great debt for the firmness, polish and form which he introduced into it—his style being always finished and elegant. With all his faults he stands as the greatest figure between Holberg and Oehlenschlager. Of all his poems, however, the loveliest ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... endeavor to intimidate by show and appearance; but remember that they have been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave Americans. Their cause is bad—their men are conscious of it. If they are opposed with firmness and coolness on their first onset, with our advantage of works and knowledge of the ground, the victory ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... "isolating," "affixing," and "symbolic" have a real value. But instead of distinguishing between prefixing and suffixing languages, we shall find that it is of superior interest to make another distinction, one that is based on the relative firmness with which the affixed elements are united with the ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... mature, the holding-on and letting-go tension is transferred from the muscular to the emotional and psychological. If adults have achieved a relaxed attitude, they will be able to provide the child with firmness, and at the same time allow him some freedom in determining his own action. An environment of freedom and authority will help him achieve a balance between love and hate, co-operation and willfulness. An early sense of trust, we see, is necessary for the ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... Wardour watches; but no change comes over the calm, smooth shaven face, every feature expresses firmness and strength, and ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... will double If trouble gets room, But will pine if you leave her And die in her gloom; For trouble is lonesome And moans from the start If you face her with firmness And lock up ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... I acknowledge, however, that men accustomed to judge of things by the event, call great and perilous resolutions, heroism or madness, according to the good or bad success with which they have been attended. If then I should be asked, what is the name which shall in years to come be given to the firmness, which was in this moment exhibited by the English, I shall answer, that I do not know. But that which it deserves I know. I know that the annals of the world hold out to us but rarely the august and majestic spectacle of a nation, which chuses ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... which lay under such deceptive elegance. As for his features, they were replete with that manly expression which changes with, and becomes a candid exponent of, every feeling that influences the heart. His mouth was fine, and his full red lips exquisitely chiselled; his chin was full of firmness; and his large dark eyes, though soft, mellow, and insinuating, had yet a sparkle in them that gave evidence of a fiery spirit when provoked, as well as of a high sense of self-respect and honor. His complexion ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... fierce was the onset of the Confederates that the Union right wing was driven from the field. But the left wing, under General George H. Thomas, a grand character and a splendid officer, by some of the best fighting ever seen held the enemy in check and saved the army from rout. By his firmness Thomas won the name of ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... of Christianity represented as leading more than the life of the just, and meeting death not only without perturbation, but with a positive gaiety of spirits. His cheerfulness without frivolity, his firmness, his magnanimity, his charity, his generosity, his entire freedom from malice, his intellectual elevation and strenuous labour, are all described with the affection and confidence of a friend who had known them well; ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... protested. "I begin to understand Mannering's firmness now. You are one of the ropes which hold him to this petty life—to this philandering amongst the flower-pots. You are one of the ropes I want to cut. Why not, indeed? I think that ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the House are appointed and shaped by the speaker. Then, to say that Blaine was one of our three ablest speakers is to say a great deal, for a long line of very able men have filled the speaker's chair. His quickness, his thorough knowledge of parliamentary law and of the rules, his firmness, clear voice, impressive manner, his ready comprehension of subjects and situations, and his dash and brilliancy, really made him a great presiding officer. He rose to a high place not only in the estimation ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the week of this visit should be over, for old Mr. King was firmness itself on not accepting a day more, they were to bid good-by to Mrs. Selwyn and Tom, and jaunt about a bit to show a little of Old England to the Hendersons, and then run down to Liverpool to see them off, and at last turn their ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... of sirutas and bambas (knives and hatchets), but their fears of the tasa-tasa, or guns, was still stronger than their desires, and their courage had not, until they saw the strangers domiciled as guests in their own habitations, attained the firmness and consistency necessary for a personal approach. The three dancing ambassadors were ministers plenipotentiary on the part of their tribe, located in a bamboo metropolis five ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... Duke of Bedford, would require a proof of both want of talents and meanness of disposition, which no one yet has attempted to adduce. Mr Walter's character, indeed, seems to have been quite above either such deficiency; and, in all probability, was, both in point of firmness and moral and intellectual worth, the very circumstance which obtained for him the appointment to a responsible office in an expedition, which, in its origin, progress, and issue, attracted the peculiar regard of the British government, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... renewal of the mischievous talk such as there was in your drawing-room at Mayence; put a stop to it. I shall be much annoyed if you don't find some clue. You let yourself be distressed by the talk of people who ought to cheer you up. I recommend to you a little firmness, and to learn how to put everybody in his place. My dear, you must not go to the small theatres in private boxes; it does not suit your rank; you ought to go only to the four large theatres and always sit in the Imperial ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... your seditious complainings, and we were ready with the military on the shortest notice. We should have charged Covent Garden Theatre, sir, on a Wednesday night: at the point of the bayonet. Then, the judges were full of dignity and firmness, and knew how to administer the law. There is only one judge who knows how to do his duty, now. He tried that revolutionary female the other day, who, though she was in full work (making shirts at three-halfpence a piece), had no pride in her country, ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... is wanting; right, honour, firmness, all by which the just are bound, and all which the conscientious hold sacred!" "These scruples are merely romantic; your own good sense, had it fairer play, would contemn them; but it is warped at present ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... and he accompanied the words with a portentous negative nod that blended the resigned solicitude of an old and trusted friend with the firmness of a Bismarck. This closed the discussion; with expressions of undying gratitude, and a few remarks as to the palpable advantages to be derived from keeping a public bathing-room permanently locked, I left him to his ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... forget them. However, for the seven years that he had been coming there he had nursed this one hope of being some day noticed by her, of touching her, and of obtaining his cure, if not by selection, at least by seniority. This merely needed patience on his part without the firmness of his faith being in the least shaken by his way of thinking. Only, like a poor, resigned man just a little weary of being always put off, he sometimes allowed himself diversions. For instance, he had obtained permission to keep ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... filaments and, under the skin, a thin layer of muscular fibers. A condition of this kind accounts for a fatty transpiration through the skin when the Anthrax' sucker is at work. At any other time, when the larva is in the active period or else when the insect has reached the perfect stage, the firmness of the tissues would resist the transfusion and the suckling of the Anthrax would become a difficult matter, or even impossible. In point of fact, I find the grub of the fly established, in the vast majority of cases, ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... out a case of palliation; but shall I speak ingenuously? I confess it, as a besetting infirmity of mine, that I am too much of an Eudaemonist; I hanker too much after a state of happiness, both for myself and others; I cannot face misery, whether my own or not, with an eye of sufficient firmness, and am little capable of encountering present pain for the sake of any reversionary benefit. On some other matters I can agree with the gentlemen in the cotton trade {15} at Manchester in affecting the Stoic ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... as all the memories which one might have attributed to him had disappeared. That face, as impenetrable and simple as granite, no longer bore any trace of anything but a melancholy depression. His whole person breathed lowliness and firmness and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Captain King, Point Swan, in honour of Captain Swan of the Cygnet, under whom Dampier first discovered it; and was an appropriate tribute of respect and admiration, from one distinguished no less than Dampier himself, by the possession of those qualities of firmness, patience, judgment and perseverance, which make up the character of the scientific and adventurous navigator, to him by whom he had been preceded in Australian discovery. The country between Point Swan and Cape Leveque has a very sandy and barren aspect; the hillocks near the latter ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... there was a letter. Max took it, thinking that this was perhaps the last time he should ever see the name of Doran on an envelope addressed to him. The direction had been scrawled in haste, evidently, but even so, the handwriting had grace and character. Its delicacy, combined with a certain firmness and impulsive dash, expressed to Max the personality of the writer. The letter was of course from Miss DeLisle; a short note asking if he would look for her on the terrace at six-thirty. She would be alone then. Max glanced ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... books given to young people was on death. We were all taught that we were born to die; and over that, all the terrors that theology could gather from savage nations were added to increase the gloom, A great change has occurred. Death is seen as a natural event, and is met with firmness. A wise man in our time caused to be written on his tomb, 'Think on Living.' That inscription describes a progress in opinion. Cease from this antedating of your experience. Sufficient to to-day are the duties of to-day. Don't waste ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... is rude in his manners; but his judgments in civil affairs are promptly and soundly formed, and to great address he joins unwearied industry. As a soldier, there is but one opinion of his talents, bravery, and enduring firmness." ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... marriage. Some of them thought that the parents' hands had been forced in the blessing they gave it. Old Bromfield Corey expressed a general feeling to Hilary with senile frankness. "Hilary, you seem to have disappointed the expectation of the admirers of your iron firmness. I tell 'em that's what you keep for your enemies. But they seem to think that in Matt's case you ought to have been ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... be the leading woman and play all parts or none. His reply was a surprise, as it contained a couple of signed contracts and a pleasant request to sign both and return one at once. He regretted her inability to grant his request, but closed by expressing his respect for her firmness in demanding her rights. Straightway she signed her first contract, and went out to mail it. When she returned she had made up her mind to take a great risk. She had decided that her mother should never again receive commands from any one—that her shoulders were strong enough to ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Campbell—for it was he, the very Scotchman whom I had seen at Northallerton—"and I must solicit your honour to give instant and heedful consideration to it.—I believe, Mr. Morris," he added, fixing his eye on that person with a look of peculiar firmness and almost ferocity—"I believe ye ken brawly what I am—I believe ye cannot have forgotten what passed at our last meeting on the road?" Morris's jaw dropped—his countenance became the colour of tallow—his teeth chattered, and he gave visible ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... buy cabbagee to-day?" repeated Ah Sing, with the catlike persistence of his race. And as Polly, with equal firmness and good-humour, again shook her head, he shouldered his pole and departed at a ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... deserving of respect for his virtues, his character, his firmness, and his farseeing intelligence. He has never disguised his opinion of the Jesuits, whom he styles the fathers of deceits, intrigues, and lies; and that's what made Passionei mention him. I think, with him, that Tamburini would be a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Mendelssohn, whose friendship ended only with his death, of David, Schumann, Liszt, Berlioz, and Brahms, who was largely indebted to Joachim for the introduction of many of his works to the public, brought out the thorough uprightness, firmness of character and earnestness of purpose, and that intense dislike of all that is artificial or untrue in art, which have made him a great moral power in the ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... we tread along the glistening border a dry spot flashes around each footstep, but grows moist again as we lift our feet. In some spots the sand receives a complete impression of the sole, square toe and all; elsewhere it is of such marble firmness that we must stamp heavily to leave a print even of the iron-shod heel. Along the whole of this extensive beach gambols the surf-wave. Now it makes a feint of dashing onward in a fury, yet dies away with a meek murmur and does but kiss the strand; now, after ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the giving of that cheque might save those at Loon Dyke Farm from a world of anxiety and trouble. Somehow behind that impassive face he may have had some thoughts of the coming of a future time when he would be able to deal with this man's mode of life with that firmness which only relationship could entitle him to—when he could personally relieve Hephzibah of the responsibility and wearing anxiety of her worthless son's doings. In the meantime, like the seafaring man, he would just ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... a great city or state; that many things are fitting when the community is rich which were not so when it was poor; that new inventions have made new ways of living more economical and healthful. It is necessary to prosperity that the mores should have a due degree of firmness, but also that they should be sufficiently elastic and flexible to conform to changes in interests and life conditions. A herding or an agricultural people, if it moves into a new country, rich in game, may revert to a hunting ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... examination; things done in secret have a dark look about them; and we, being the honor-saving committee, have come to make a single suggestion, which is that my lord of foreign affair memory is found wanting in firmness, and gets very crooked when he is not kept straight, which is most unfortunate in a diplomatist who smokes bad cigars all the day long. This said, it must be remembered that old Finsbury feels sensitive of her rights and ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... remember what Sydney Smith says of Francis Horner? This great firmness of opinion in Arnold and Follen reminds me of it by contrast: "Francis Horner was a very modest person, which men of great understanding seldom are. It was his habit to confirm his opinion by the opinions of others, and often to form ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... not even say "Oh really?" when he told her about the metamorphosis of the bulls in the Temple of Osiris. He primed himself with a glass of sherry, cleared his throat. "And what," he asked, with a note of firmness, "did you think of our cousins across the water?" Zuleika said "Yes;" and then he gave in. Nor was she conscious that he ceased talking to her. At intervals throughout the rest of dinner, she murmured "Yes," and "No," and ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... not immediately reply. I turned around—we were sitting side by side—wondering at his lack of response. What I saw startled me. The man's whole expression had changed. His mouth had come together with a new firmness. A frown which I had never seen before had darkened his forehead. His eyes had become little points of light. I realized then, perhaps for the first time, their peculiar color,—a sort of green tinged with gray. He presented ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... intertwined with our motives, the noblest and the most ignoble, that I can fancy a poor wretch with the noose dangling at his ear, and with barely five minutes to live, soothed somewhat with the idea that his firmness and composure will earn him the approbation, perhaps the pity, of the spectators. He would take with him, if he could, the good opinion of his fellows. This composure of criminals puzzles one. Have ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... forward, her white hands in her lap. Jean's comment echoed once more in his ears. "I like Emily's hands much better than Hilda's." They seemed, indeed, to represent all that was lovely in Emily, her refinement, her firmness, her gentle spirit. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... Mombas, whom your Majesty ordered to quit the kingdom for some affair in which you were dissatisfied with his conduct: since that time M. de Groot has constantly opposed your Majesty's interest at Amsterdam. He is a man of spirit and firmness; and has much credit in that city. I shall neglect nothing to bring him back to his former sentiments." The King answered him, May 23, 1633, that he had had reason to be dissatisfied with Mombas's conduct; that ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... laugh at or pooh pooh the trouble, or suggest that the sufferer is only humbugging. Attention must be paid to diet, exercise, and to material, mental, and moral surroundings, so as in every way to relieve the patient from those apparent troubles that so annoy him. Great gentleness, firmness, hopefulness, and sympathy will often bring about an almost unconscious cure. If the trouble has been brought about by over-work and worry, complete rest will often be needed. If there is something in the surroundings that jars, ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... 15th of October, the Revolutionary Tribunal had to deal with the case of Marie Antoinette. The Queen, who had been treated with increased severity since the execution of the King, supported the attacks of the pitiless public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, with firmness and dignity. The accusations against her were of the same general character as those against Louis, and require no special comment. But an incident of the trial brought out some of the most nauseous aspects of the Hebert regime. The Commune had introduced men of the lowest type at {197} ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... might be expected, the circumstance of striking a place as dangerous as the Pot Rock in Hell-Gate, produced a great sensation on board the vessel. This sensation betrayed itself in various ways, and according to the characters, habits, and native firmness of the parties. As for the ship-master's relict, she seized hold of the main-mast, and screamed so loud and perseveringly, as to cause the sensation to extend itself into the adjacent and thriving village of Astoria, where it was distinctly heard ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... firmness,' Cyril went on, when the breakfast things were cleared away and the children were alone in the nursery. 'People are always talking of difficulties with servants. It's quite simple, when you know the way. We can do what we like now and they won't peach. I think we've broken ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... European figures on either side of the leopard in their flatness and general crudeness are quite out of keeping with the rest of the work. "Yet," he says, "one cannot help admiring the boldness with which the leopard has been modelled, or the firmness with which its claws grasp the ground; while the vigorous way in which the tail is made to support the back of the column should be remarked. Equally admirable are the suitable proportions of the bands of ornament. The upper band is thoroughly subdued so that the faces next to it are ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... her feet with a swiftness that implied that if it was to go he wanted, she was more than ready to oblige him. As she mounted her bicycle, the shut firmness of her mouth, the straightness of her back, and the grip of her little hands on the handle bars were eloquent of her determination to be gone. And her face, he noticed, was pinker than he ever remembered ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... the firmness of his tone until the word thundered forth in capitals, "NONSENSE!—you are going out of your senses; you don't know what you are saying. I made sure we had done with all ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... masterpiece, because it was necessary, in his position, to inflame without alarming; to stimulate the feelings which were in unison, without shocking those which, if aroused, might prove discordant. Without; therefore, alluding in terms to the religious question, he dwelt upon the necessity of union, firmness, and wariness. If so much had been done by Holland and Zealand, how much more might be hoped when all the provinces were united? "The principal flower of the Spanish army has fallen," he said, "without having been able to conquer one of those provinces from ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the baffled feeling of not being able to count on any of her old weapons of aggression. In all her struggles for authority her sense of the rightfulness of her cause had been measured by her power of making people do as she pleased. Raymond's firmness shook her faith in her own claims, and a blind desire to wound and destroy replaced her usual business-like intentness on gaining her end. But her ironies were as ineffectual as her arguments, and his imperviousness was the more exasperating because she divined that some of the ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... same time it must be admitted that the cessation or abatement of anti-Trinitarian efforts in the Church after the death of Dr. Clarke is not to be attributed solely to the firmness and earnestness of Churchmen's convictions on this subject. It arose, in part at least, from the general indisposition to stir up mooted questions. Men were disposed to rest satisfied with 'our happy establishment in Church and State;' and it was quite as much owing to the spiritual ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... our passengers—" The captain passed a hand across his brow, much perplexed. The other showed a sudden firmness. ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... pleasant to have our niches in the Pantheon close together. It is getting on for forty years since we were first "acquent," and, considering with what a very considerable dose of tenacity, vivacity, and that glorious firmness (which the beasts who don't like us call obstinacy) we are both endowed, the fact that we have never had the shadow of a shade of a quarrel is more to our credit than being ex-Presidents and Copley medallists. But we have had ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... pig, or the place to which it was taken, or have heard anything relating to it, and shall not declare the same—be made an end of by God this life of mine!" They all took it with so much seriousness and firmness that (as Graham said) if they were not innocent they would make invaluable witnesses. I was so far impressed by their bearing that I went no further, and the funny and yet strangely solemn scene ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had signed an agreement to give up smoking they were first incredulous, then sarcastic, then angry. Instead of coming, as usual, to my room, they went one night in a body to Pettigrew's, and there, as I afterward discovered, a scheme for "saving me" was drawn up. So little did they understand the firmness of my character, that they thought I had weakly yielded to the threats of the lady referred to in my first chapter, when, of course, I had only yielded to her arguments, and they agreed to make an appeal on my behalf to ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... me," severely, "to be thoroughly in-capable. He ought to have impressed it upon your brain in half the time he's taken to do it. It is quite a little speech, and only firmness was required to make you ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... hair covered the fair temples evenly, without a ripple. Her eyes were purely blue, and a quick, soft spark was easily kindled in their depths; the cheeks round and rosy, and the mouth clearly and delicately cut, with an unusual, yet wholly feminine firmness in the lines of the upper lip. This peculiarity, again, if slightly out of harmony with the pervading gentleness of her face, was balanced by the softness and sweetness of her dimpled chin, and gave to ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... he did not realize how much he loved them for their beauty alone, or he would have been shocked and remorseful. He himself was beautiful. His figure was erect and youthful, despite seventy years. His face was as mobile and charming as a woman's, yet with all a man's tried strength and firmness in it, and his dark blue eyes flashed with the brilliance of one and twenty; even his silken silvery hair could not make an old man of him. He was worshipped by everyone who knew him, and he was, in so far as mortal man may be, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... so well that he would gladly die a thousand dreadful deaths for it, to have to fight the disloyal thought that perhaps, after all, it isn't really worth fighting for and dying for. If we only had the courage and the foresight and the firmness of the Australians and New Zealanders! Why, Kay, those sane people will not even permit an Indian prince—a British subject, forsooth—to enter their country except under bond and then for six months only. When the six months ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... I am going to act Scripture, too," declared the doctor, with the air of gentle firmness that always ended any controversy between him and his excellent, though somewhat exacting, wife. "Harry is a good boy, and he had a good mother, too, he says, but he has had a hard life, ill-treated by a father who was bitten by the fiery ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... to their feet when the first strain reached their ears. They were not as intoxicated as they might have been, for they were able to stand with considerable firmness on their feet, after the frequency with which the bottle had been passed among them. They did not do what soldiers would naturally have done at such an interruption, grasp their muskets, and it was probable they had no ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... a little askance at the question. "To do better—to do my best," he said, with a sudden flourish of firmness. "To take warning ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... turned back by such difficulties. He plunged ahead of his men, struck tip songs and cheers to keep them in spirit, played the buffoon, went wherever danger was greatest, and by an almost unmatched display of bravery, tact, and firmness, won the redoubled admiration of his suffering followers and held them together. Murmurs arose among the creoles, but the Americans showed no signs of faltering. For more than a week the party floundered through the freezing water, picked ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... the native girl Mina, came out of their cabins; and when the steward said that Mrs. Lacy felt too ill to leave her berth, her husband could not help giving an audible sigh of relief. Then he braced up and spoke with firmness. ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... up all his firmness, and, having recourse to an art in which these shrewd rustics are supreme, made his face quite inexpressive, and so walked into the bank the every-day Maxley externally, but within a volcano ready to burst if there should be the slightest hesitation ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... selected as their companion, soon left them; or according to another version was summarily dismissed by Miss Thrale (afterwards Viscountess Keith), who fortunately was endowed with high principle, firmness, and energy. She could not take up her abode with either of her guardians, one a bachelor under forty, the other the prototype of Briggs, the old miser in "Caecilia." She could not accept Johnson's hospitality in Bolt ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... rout, and the embarrassment of Rosecrans in dealing with the subject. "The defects of his character," he wrote, "complicate the difficulty. He abounds in friendliness and approbativeness, and is greatly lacking in firmness and steadiness of will. He is a temporizing man, dreads so heavy an alternative as is now presented." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. i p. 202.] On the 12th of October he returned to the subject of Rosecrans's characteristics, mentioning his refusal to listen ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... with so much firmness and indignation that Louis was astonished, and for a time nonplussed; though he by no means let the subject drop, but seized every opportunity of impressing upon her tortured mind that Raoul's salvation depended entirely ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... show us how she shall be served. The wonderful generosity of her sentiments raises her at times into heroical and godlike regions, and verifies the pictures of Minerva, Juno, or Polymnia; and by the firmness with which she treads her upward path, she convinces the coarsest calculators that another road exists than that which their feet know. But besides those who make good in our imagination the place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls, are there ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... steadfastly resisted, and it is to his defence of Gentile liberty that we owe, in great measure, those masterly discussions on the ground of justification, and the unity of Jews and Gentiles in Christ, which are so prominent in his epistles. Yet with his uncompromising firmness of principle he united remarkable flexibility in regard to the means of success. To those who would impose circumcision on the Gentiles he "gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour." Gal. 2:5. But where no great principle was ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... still the truth he will maintain, whate'er he loses by't. And though some think him in the wrong, yet still there comes a season When every one turns round about, and owns his grace had reason. His firmness to the public good, as one that knows it swore, Has lost his grace for ten years past ten thousand pounds and more. Then come the poor and strip him so, they leave him not a cross, For he regards ten thousand pounds no more than Wood's dross. To beg his favour is the way ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... fiery in the face and rolling his eyes over that task, explained that the carver belonging to the mess- room could not be found. The steward, present also, complained savagely of the cook. The fellow got things into his galley and then lost them. Mr. Franklin tried to pacify him with mournful firmness. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Margery,' be said, rather nettled. 'I'll show you that whatever hopes I have raised in your breast I am honourable enough to gratify. If it lies in my power,' he added with sudden firmness, 'you SHALL go to the Yeomanry Ball. In what building ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... clearly impressed by the advisability of separation as the sole cure that he will steel himself to the effort necessary for a separation. One of the chief advantages of an efficient brain is that an efficient brain is capable of acting with firmness and resolution, partly, of course, because it has been toned up, but more because its operations are not confused by the ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
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