'He spoke in hard and angry
earnest, if a man ever did,' replied the girl, shaking her head.
Quite unconscious, however, of the effect he produced, he trotted on beside his secretary, talking to himself nearly all the way, until they came within a mile or two of London, when now and then some passenger went by who knew him by sight, and pointed him out to some one else, and perhaps stood looking after him, or cried in jest or
earnest as it might be, 'Hurrah Geordie!
I told her I loved her hugely,' says he, 'but I could never make the jade believe I was in
earnest.' 'I do not know how you should,' says his mother; 'nobody in their senses could believe you were in
earnest, to talk so to a poor girl, whose circumstances you know so well.
As Garrick, whom I regard in tragedy to be the greatest genius the world hath ever produced, sometimes condescends to play the fool; so did Scipio the Great, and Laelius the Wise, according to Horace, many years ago; nay, Cicero reports them to have been "incredibly childish." These, it is true, played the fool, like my friend Garrick, in jest only; but several eminent characters have, in numberless instances of their lives, played the fool egregiously in
earnest; so far as to render it a matter of some doubt whether their wisdom or folly was predominant; or whether they were better intitled to the applause or censure, the admiration or contempt, the love or hatred, of mankind.
Betts Shoreham is very agreeable, every way a suitable connection for any of us, and that is the reason people are so ready to fancy him in
earnest."
General Armstrong had found out that there was quite a number of young coloured men and women who were intensely in
earnest in wishing to get an education, but who were prevented from entering Hampton Institute because they were too poor to be able to pay any portion of the cost of their board, or even to supply themselves with books.
Some little joke about being called to the bar flickered up in Miss Walker's mind, but her companion was in such obvious
earnest that she stifled down her inclination to laugh.
"But that would be pauperizing them," said an
earnest girl, who liked the Schlegels, but thought them a little unspiritual at times.
'Eugene,' said he, 'if I could find you in
earnest for a minute, I would try to say an
earnest word to you.'
"I may change my mind and be in
earnest, too; and then how will you feel, Mr.
Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep,
earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?
Next morning I was afoot early, bent on my quest in right good
earnest; for I had a remorseful feeling that I had not been sufficiently diligent the day before, had spent too much time in dreaming and moralising, in which opinion I am afraid the reader will agree.