All 50 Uses of
earnest
in
Bleak House
- I put up my trembling little hand to clasp hers or to beg her pardon with what earnestness I might, but withdrew it as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart.†
Chpt 1-3
- She became so fantastically and pressingly earnest in her entreaties that we would walk up and see her apartment for an instant, and was so bent, in her harmless way, on leading me in, as part of the good omen she desired, that I (whatever the others might do) saw nothing for it but to comply.†
Chpt 4-6
- It seems very strange, as there must be right somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to find out through all these years where it is.†
Chpt 4-6
- A word in earnest is as good as a speech.†
Chpt 4-6
- Richard shook him by both hands with an intuitive mixture of respect and frankness, and only saying (though with an earnestness that rather alarmed me, I was so afraid of Mr. Jarndyce's suddenly disappearing), "You are very kind, sir!†
Chpt 4-6
- He was not only a very handsome old gentleman—upright and stalwart as he had been described to us— with a massive grey head, a fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, his face was…†
Chpt 7-9
- On whom even the fine arts, attending in powder and walking backward like the Lord Chamberlain, must array themselves in the milliners' and tailors' patterns of past generations and be particularly careful not to be in earnest or to receive any impress from the moving age.†
Chpt 10-12
- Richard with his head bent, and her hand drawn through his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and she looked up in his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing else.†
Chpt 13-15
- I couldn't ask you to go with me, Miss Summerson; but if you would," said Caddy, who had said all this earnestly and tremblingly, "I should be very glad—very glad."†
Chpt 13-15
- Mr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one another, and intolerable to those…†
Chpt 13-15
- Consider how important it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any reservation.†
Chpt 16-18
- I have thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself for meaning to be so much in earnest and—somehow—not exactly being so.†
Chpt 16-18
- For all his waywardness, he took great credit to himself as being determined to be in earnest "this time."†
Chpt 16-18
- "But this is taking a good deal of trouble," said Mr. Skimpole in his light way, "when you are not in earnest after all."†
Chpt 16-18
- "Not in earnest!" returned Mr. Boythorn with unspeakable warmth.†
Chpt 16-18
- Not in earnest!†
Chpt 16-18
- I am that much in earnest.†
Chpt 16-18
- But Mr. Jobling declares with much earnestness that he "can't stand it."†
Chpt 19-21
- She was so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of her.†
Chpt 22-24
- And then he spoke so ingenuously and sincerely of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time from Ada, and of the earnestness with which he aspired—as in thought he always did, I know full well—to repay her love, and to ensure her happiness, and to conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire the very soul of decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely.†
Chpt 22-24
- I spoke to Richard with all the earnestness I felt, and all the hope I could not quite feel then, and implored him for Ada's sake not to put any trust in Chancery.†
Chpt 22-24
- I now affectionately advise, I now most earnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here.†
Chpt 22-24
- They shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of comfort to him.†
Chpt 22-24
- However, the chances are that having ascertained the young woman to be of unblemished character, he will say to his son, 'I must be quite sure you are in earnest here.†
Chpt 28-30
- He came up to me in the hall, took both my hands, pressed them earnestly, and opened his mouth twice.†
Chpt 28-30
- Phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb, that he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility and would not so much as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family when steps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice is heard to wonder whether George is at home.†
Chpt 34-36
- She's that earnest," says Mr. Bagnet, "and true to her colours—that, touch us with a finger—and she turns out—and stands to her arms.†
Chpt 34-36
- There is something very touching in the earnestness of the old lady's voice and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old figure.†
Chpt 34-36
- My guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was now no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness.†
Chpt 34-36
- I was very much in earnest.†
Chpt 34-36
- And he really was so warm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of his brotherly greeting I could scarcely find breath to tell him that Ada was well.†
Chpt 37-39
- Still I had a tormenting idea that the influence upon him extended even here, that he was postponing his best truth and earnestness in this as in all things until Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be off his mind.†
Chpt 37-39
- I am young and earnest, and energy and determination have done wonders many a time.†
Chpt 37-39
- I write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply, deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so much wrong.†
Chpt 37-39
- In case this should be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat and beg you to desist.†
Chpt 37-39
- I must do Mr. Guppy the further justice of saying that he had looked more and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and very earnest when he now replied with a burning face, "Upon my word and honour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a living man, I'll act according to your wish!†
Chpt 37-39
- He looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little alarmed.
Chpt 43-45 *earnest = intensely or excessively serious
- I answered in all earnestness, "Quite."†
Chpt 43-45
- Ada had been telling me only that morning of her hopes that Richard might exhaust his ardour in the Chancery suit by being so very earnest in it; and therefore, not to damp my dear girl's spirits, I said nothing about Mr. Vholes's shadow.†
Chpt 43-45
- "There again!" says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of his feelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured in the face.†
Chpt 46-48
- The timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be trustworthy.†
Chpt 46-48
- I think it is rather our way to be in earnest.†
Chpt 46-48
- They shook hands upon it laughingly, but in deep earnestness.†
Chpt 49-51
- And he is so cheery, so fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so—everything that I am not, that the place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes again.†
Chpt 49-51
- But when I came to myself and saw how shocked my guardian was and found that they were earnestly speaking of the suspected man and recalling every favourable impression we had formed of him out of the good we had known of him, my interest and my fears were so strongly aroused in his behalf that I was quite set up again.†
Chpt 52-54
- While he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness, looking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, Mr. Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion.†
Chpt 52-54
- In truth she is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when the sight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong earnestness would have moved her to great compassion.†
Chpt 55-57
- His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant shielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong and his own pride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and true.†
Chpt 58-60
- After a short time the little round of light shone out again, and Mr. Bucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face.†
Chpt 58-60
- I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to the figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said.†
Chpt 58-60
Definition:
-
(earnest) characterized by sincere belief
or:
intensely or excessively serious or determined