All 50 Uses of
earnest
in
Nicholas Nickleby
- "The Author's object in calling public attention to the system would be very imperfectly fulfilled, if he did not state now, in his own person, emphatically and earnestly, that Mr. Squeers and his school are faint and feeble pictures of an existing reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed impossible.†
Chpt Pref.
- 'Hush!' rejoined Noggs, pointing to Mr Ralph Nickleby, who was saying a few earnest words to Squeers, a short distance off: 'Take it.†
Chpt 5 *
- She could have choked in right good earnest, at the thought of being so humbled.†
Chpt 12
- 'Are you going?' demanded the boy, in an earnest whisper.†
Chpt 12
- They then drew near the fire, which Newman Noggs had made up as well as he could, after the inroads of Crowl upon the fuel; and Nicholas, who had hitherto been restrained by the extreme anxiety of his friend that he should refresh himself after his journey, now pressed him with earnest questions concerning his mother and sister.†
Chpt 15
- 'Now, be advised by me,' said Newman, speaking for the moment, in his earnestness, like any other man—'make no effort to see even them, till he comes home.†
Chpt 15
- Which growl being taken up by his fellows, swelled into a very earnest and general remonstrance.†
Chpt 16
- Poor Mrs Nickleby, who had, at no time, been remarkable for the possession of a very clear understanding, and who had been reduced by the late changes in her affairs to a most complicated state of perplexity, made no other reply to this earnest remonstrance than exclaiming from behind a mass of pocket-handkerchief, that she never could have believed it—thereby most ingeniously leaving her hearers to suppose that she did believe it.†
Chpt 20
- Which process having been protracted as long as it was supposed that the patience of the audience could possibly bear it, was put a stop to by another jerk of the bell, which, being the signal to begin in earnest, set the orchestra playing a variety of popular airs, with involuntary variations.†
Chpt 24
- 'I didn't know it, in the first place,' answered Sir Mulberry carelessly; 'and in the second, I didn't believe you were so very much in earnest.'†
Chpt 26
- Mr Pyke no sooner ascertained that he was quite right in his conjecture, than he launched into the most extravagant encomiums of the divine original; and in the warmth of his enthusiasm kissed the picture a thousand times, while Mr Pluck pressed Mrs Nickleby's hand to his heart, and congratulated her on the possession of such a daughter, with so much earnestness and affection, that the tears stood, or seemed to stand, in his eyes.†
Chpt 27
- I tell you,' returned Mr Folair, waving his hand in deprecation of any further wrath; 'I wasn't in earnest.†
Chpt 29
- 'No, no, that's the best of it,' returned the actor; 'right down earnest—honour bright.'†
Chpt 29
- As Ralph looked vacantly out across the yard towards the window of the other office, he became suddenly aware of the earnest observation of Newman Noggs, who, with his red nose almost touching the glass, feigned to be mending a pen with a rusty fragment of a knife, but was in reality staring at his employer with a countenance of the closest and most eager scrutiny.†
Chpt 31
- 'Depend upon it,' said Miss La Creevy, earnestly, 'if you are not very careful in breaking out the truth to him, he will do some violence upon his uncle or one of these men that will bring some terrible calamity upon his own head, and grief and sorrow to us all.'†
Chpt 31
- No impertinent curiosity—no, no, no.' There was something so earnest and guileless in the way in which all this was said, and such a complete disregard of all conventional restraints and coldnesses, that Nicholas could not resist it.†
Chpt 35
- 'He is a good creature,' said Mr Cheeryble, with great earnestness.†
Chpt 35
- Both the brothers, it may be here remarked, had a very emphatic and earnest delivery; both had lost nearly the same teeth, which imparted the same peculiarity to their speech; and both spoke as if, besides possessing the utmost serenity of mind that the kindliest and most unsuspecting nature could bestow, they had, in collecting the plums from Fortune's choicest pudding, retained a few for present use, and kept them in their mouths.†
Chpt 35
- But, Nicholas and the doctor—who had been passive at first, doubting very much whether Mr Kenwigs could be in earnest—interfering to explain the immediate cause of his condition, the indignation of the matrons was changed to pity, and they implored him, with much feeling, to go quietly to bed.†
Chpt 36
- 'Lord, Nicholas my dear, do you suppose I don't know when a man's in earnest?'†
Chpt 37
- I would not shame you by seeming to take them to heart, or treat them earnestly for an instant.†
Chpt 37
- 'Brother Ned, my dear fellow, you will be surprised, I know, to witness this, in business hours; but—' here he was again reminded of the presence of Nicholas, and shaking him by the hand, earnestly requested him to leave the room, and to send Tim Linkinwater without an instant's delay.†
Chpt 40
- 'I hope she has not far to go?' said Nicholas, looking earnestly at the other.†
Chpt 40
- After every one of these flirtations with the eatables, he pulled out his watch, and declared with an earnestness quite pathetic that he couldn't undertake to hold out two minutes longer.†
Chpt 42
- Here a waiter who had been rubbing his hands in excessive enjoyment of the scene, so long as only the breaking of heads was in question, adjured the spectators with great earnestness to fetch the police, declaring that otherwise murder would be surely done, and that he was responsible for all the glass and china on the premises.†
Chpt 43
- Young Mr Cheeryble then earnestly entreated old Mr Cheeryble to confess that it was all a jest, which old Mr Cheeryble at last did, young Mr Cheeryble being so much in earnest about it, that—as Mrs Nickleby said many thousand times afterwards in recalling the scene—he 'quite coloured,' which she rightly considered a memorable circumstance, and one worthy of remark, young men not being as a class remarkable for modesty or self-denial, especially when there is a lady in the case, when,…†
Chpt 43
- Young Mr Cheeryble then earnestly entreated old Mr Cheeryble to confess that it was all a jest, which old Mr Cheeryble at last did, young Mr Cheeryble being so much in earnest about it, that—as Mrs Nickleby said many thousand times afterwards in recalling the scene—he 'quite coloured,' which she rightly considered a memorable circumstance, and one worthy of remark, young men not being as a class remarkable for modesty or self-denial, especially when there is a lady in the case, when,…†
Chpt 43
- 'If this is the usual form in which you beg, sir,' said Ralph, 'you have studied your part well; but if you will take advice from one who knows something of the world and its ways, I should recommend a lower tone; a little lower tone, or you stand a fair chance of being starved in good earnest.'†
Chpt 44
- 'You know you are not in earnest.'†
Chpt 44
- 'I AM in earnest,' replied Madame Mantalini, aloud, and retreating towards Miss Knag.†
Chpt 44
- While he was busily untwisting the knot with his teeth, the man said something which attracted his attention; whatever that something was, it led to something else, and in the end he and Newman walked away side by side—the strange man talking earnestly, and Newman listening.†
Chpt 44
- Such assistance as I have prevailed upon her to accept, I have been obliged, at her own earnest request, to dole out in the smallest portions, lest he, finding how easily money was procured, should squander it even more lightly than he is accustomed to do.†
Chpt 46
- 'Forgive me,' said Nicholas, with respectful earnestness, 'if I seem to say too much, or to presume upon the confidence which has been intrusted to me.†
Chpt 46
- Old Arthur, however, was so intent upon his own designs, that he suffered himself to be overreached, and had no suspicion but that his good friend was in earnest.†
Chpt 47
- In this pensive, wayward, and uncertain state, people are apt to lounge and loiter without knowing why, to read placards on the walls with great attention and without the smallest idea of one word of their contents, and to stare most earnestly through shop-windows at things which they don't see.†
Chpt 48
- Miss La Creevy earnestly recommended a lady she knew, who would exactly suit Mr Linkinwater, and had a very comfortable property of her own; but this latter qualification had very little effect upon Tim, who manfully protested that fortune would be no object with him, but that true worth and cheerfulness of disposition were what a man should look for in a wife, and that if he had these, he could find money enough for the moderate wants of both.†
Chpt 49
- This was done and said with a comical mixture of jest and earnest, and, leading to a great amount of laughter, made them very merry indeed.†
Chpt 49
- No doubt, there are a great many things to be said appropriate to a summer evening, and no doubt they are best said in a low voice, as being most suitable to the peace and serenity of the hour; long pauses, too, at times, and then an earnest word or so, and then another interval of silence which, somehow, does not seem like silence either, and perhaps now and then a hasty turning away of the head, or drooping of the eyes towards the ground, all these minor circumstances, with a…†
Chpt 49
- 'Stop,' said his companion, 'I want to speak to you in earnest.†
Chpt 50
- There was so much earnestness in his remonstrance, and such sincerity and fervour in his manner, odd and ludicrous as it always was, that it imparted to Nicholas new firmness, and enabled him to say, after he had walked on for some little way in silence: 'You read me a good lesson, Newman, and I will profit by it.†
Chpt 52
- 'Not until I have besought you, with all the earnestness and fervour by which I am animated,' cried Nicholas, 'to postpone this marriage for one short week.†
Chpt 53
- 'Once I was in earnest, I tell you that, for I had more than half a mind to swear he uttered threats, and demanded my life or my money.'†
Chpt 54
- Bray looked at Ralph as if to see whether he spoke in earnest, and having nodded twice or thrice in unqualified assent to what had fallen from him, said: 'I must go upstairs for a few minutes, to finish dressing.†
Chpt 54
- Who, slowly recovering from a disorder so severe and dangerous, could be insensible to the unremitting attentions of such a nurse as gentle, tender, earnest Kate?†
Chpt 55
- 'I wish you would, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, with an earnest look.†
Chpt 55
- 'Yes, yes!' said Nicholas earnestly.†
Chpt 55
- Newman had caught up, by the rusty nozzle, an old pair of bellows, which were just undergoing a flourish in the air preparatory to a descent upon the head of Mr Squeers, when Frank, with an earnest gesture, stayed his arm, and, taking another step in advance, came so close behind the schoolmaster that, by leaning slightly forward, he could plainly distinguish the writing which he held up to his eye.†
Chpt 57
- Nicholas gave the promise; he had few words to give it in, but they were solemn and earnest.†
Chpt 58
- To this inquiry, put with a dogged inflexibility of manner, the old gentleman returned no answer, but went on to say, that to show him how much they were in earnest, it would be necessary to tell him, not only what accusations were made against him, but what proof of them they had, and how that proof had been acquired.†
Chpt 59
- 'No, no!' cried Tim, catching him by the arm and speaking most earnestly; 'it is only that you may hear something that has occurred: something very dreadful, Mr Nickleby, which concerns you nearly.†
Chpt 60
Definition:
-
(earnest) characterized by sincere belief
or:
intensely or excessively serious or determined