All 25 Uses of
austere
in
Les Miserables
- Being, as he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a doctrine which may be summed up as follows:— "Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation.†
Chpt 1.1austerity = a government policy in which significantly less money is spent than normal; or any notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration
- It was the tone of austerity answering the tone of severity.†
Chpt 1.1
- Although she would have refused nothing to Tholomyes, as we shall have more than ample opportunity to see, her face in repose was supremely virginal; a sort of serious and almost austere dignity suddenly overwhelmed her at certain times, and there was nothing more singular and disturbing than to see gayety become so suddenly extinct there, and meditation succeed to cheerfulness without any transition state.†
Chpt 1.3austere = a notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration; or stern in manner
- He was stoical, serious, austere; a melancholy dreamer, humble and haughty, like fanatics.†
Chpt 1.5
- It was evident to any one acquainted with that clear, upright, sincere, honest, austere, and ferocious conscience, that Javert had but just gone through some great interior struggle.†
Chpt 1.6
- She was a person— we dare not say a woman—who was gentle, austere, well-bred, cold, and who had never lied.†
Chpt 1.7
- The sister, accustomed as she was to austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes.†
Chpt 1.7austerities = notable absences of basic comforts
- ancient, spotted woodwork, a dirty ceiling, tables covered with serge that was yellow rather than green; doors blackened by handmarks; tap-room lamps which emitted more smoke than light, suspended from nails in the wainscot; on the tables candles in brass candlesticks; darkness, ugliness, sadness; and from all this there was disengaged an austere and august impression, for one there felt that grand human thing which is called the law, and that grand divine thing which is called justice.†
Chpt 1.7austere = a notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration; or stern in manner
- AUSTERITIES.†
Chpt 2.6austerities = notable absences of basic comforts
- The pupils conformed, with the exception of the austerities, to all the practices of the convent.†
Chpt 2.6
- Thanks to these children, there was, among so many austere hours, one hour of ingenuousness.†
Chpt 2.6austere = a notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration; or stern in manner
- Once—it was at the epoch of the visit from the archbishop to the convent— one of the young girls, Mademoiselle Bouchard, who was connected with the Montmorency family, laid a wager that she would ask for a day's leave of absence—an enormity in so austere a community.†
Chpt 2.6
- with a beautiful voice; Mother des Anges (Mademoiselle Drouet), who had been in the convent of the Filles-Dieu, and in the convent du Tresor, between Gisors and Magny; Mother Saint-Joseph (Mademoiselle de Cogolludo), Mother Sainte-Adelaide (Mademoiselle d'Auverney), Mother Misericorde (Mademoiselle de Cifuentes, who could not resist austerities), Mother Compassion (Mademoiselle de la Miltiere, received at the age of sixty in defiance of the rule, and very wealthy); Mother Providence (Mademoiselle de Laudiniere), Mother Presentation (Mademoiselle de Siguenza), who was prioress in 1847; and finally, Mother Sainte-Celigne (sister of the sculptor Ceracchi), who went mad; Mothe†
Chpt 2.6austerities = notable absences of basic comforts
- This cloistered existence which is so austere, so depressing, a few of whose features we have just traced, is not life, for it is not liberty; it is not the tomb, for it is not plenitude; it is the strange place whence one beholds, as from the crest of a lofty mountain, on one side the abyss where we are, on the other, the abyss whither we shall go; it is the narrow and misty frontier separating two worlds, illuminated and obscured by both at the same time, where the ray of life which has become enfeebled is mingled with the vague ray of death; it is the half obscurity of the tomb.†
Chpt 2.7austere = a notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration; or stern in manner
- Their names, also, had vanished from among men; they no longer existed except under austere appellations.†
Chpt 2.8
- This was a place ... more austere, more gloomy, and more pitiless than the other.
Chpt 2.8 *austere = without luxury, comfort, or decoration
- The hour when history speaks with its free and venerable accent, has not yet sounded for him; the moment has not come to pronounce a definite judgment on this king; the austere and illustrious historian Louis Blanc has himself recently softened his first verdict; Louis Philippe was elected by those two almosts which are called the 221 and 1830, that is to say, by a half-Parliament, and a half-revolution; and in any case, from the superior point of view where philosophy must place itself, we cannot judge him here, as th†
Chpt 4.1austere = a notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration; or stern in manner
- A useful and graciously austere half-light which dissipates puerile fears and obviates falls.†
Chpt 4.3
- This rough, squat, heavy, hard, austere, almost misshapen, but assuredly majestic monument, stamped with a sort of magnificent and savage gravity, has disappeared, and left to reign in peace, a sort of gigantic stove, ornamented with its pipe, which has replaced the sombre fortress with its nine towers, very much as the bourgeoisie replaces the feudal classes.†
Chpt 4.6
- The historian of manners and ideas has no less austere a mission than the historian of events.†
Chpt 4.7
- We repeat, that this auscultation brings encouragement; it is by this persistence in encouragement that we wish to conclude these pages, an austere interlude in a mournful drama.†
Chpt 4.7
- M. Mabeuf, in his venerable, infantile austerity, had not accepted the gift of the stars; he had not admitted that a star could coin itself into louis d'or.†
Chpt 4.9austerity = a government policy in which significantly less money is spent than normal; or any notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration
- Enjolras, who was standing on the crest of the barricade, gun in hand, raised his beautiful, austere face.†
Chpt 4.12austere = a notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration; or stern in manner
- When one has passed one's time in enduring upon earth the spectacle of the great airs which reasons of state, the oath, political sagacity, human justice, professional probity, the austerities of situation, incorruptible robes all assume, it solaces one to enter a sewer and to behold the mire which befits it.†
Chpt 5.2austerities = notable absences of basic comforts
- A whole new world was dawning on his soul: kindness accepted and repaid, devotion, mercy, indulgence, violences committed by pity on austerity, respect for persons, no more definitive condemnation, no more conviction, the possibility of a tear in the eye of the law, no one knows what justice according to God, running in inverse sense to justice according to men.†
Chpt 5.4austerity = a government policy in which significantly less money is spent than normal; or any notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration
Definition:
a notable absence of luxury, comfort, or decoration
or:
of a person: stern in manner; or practicing great self-denial
or:
of a person: stern in manner; or practicing great self-denial