sternness

a deep impression on the beholder; there must be a great force of will and withholding of resources, giving a sense of depth below depth, which we call sternness; or else there must be that purity, flowing as from an inexhaustible fountain through every lineament, which drives far off or converts all baser natures.

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli Ossoli, Margaret F 1851

a deep impression on the beholder; there must be a great force of will and withholding of resources, giving a sense of depth below depth, which we call sternness; or else there must be that purity, flowing as from an inexhaustible fountain through every lineament, which drives far off or converts all baser natures.

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Volume I Margaret Fuller 1830

He praised her, therefore, for qualities he wished her to possess, encouraged her to reject general opinions by admiring as the symptoms of a superior understanding, the convenient morality upon which she had occasionally acted; and, calling sternness justice, extolled that for strength of mind, which was only callous insensibility.

The Italian 2004

A poor unhappy fool that can not face life's sternness, that is crying out to escape his duty!

The Journal of Arthur Stirling : the Valley of the Shadow Upton Sinclair 1923

The warm tint added to Cytherea's face a voluptuousness which youth and a simple life had not yet allowed to express itself there ordinarily; whilst in the elder lady's face it reduced the customary expression, which might have been called sternness, if not harshness, to grandeur, and warmed her decaying complexion with much of the youthful richness it plainly had once possessed.

Desperate Remedies Thomas Hardy 1884

Yet she said this with a kind of sternness that somehow belied it — a click of the voice, as it were.

An American Tragedy 2004

The sternness is a definite act and I don’t think I did misread him.

Losing Faith Denise Jaden 2010

In more than one instance, eminently peaceful individuals, affecting the jaunty and war-like Beauregard cap, were hauled up with that true military sternness which is deaf alike to entreaties and remonstrances.

Memoirs of the War of Secession 1910

But the manner they thought pride seemed to me rather a kind of sternness or shortness of speech, as if he wished to have done with the matter in hand.

In Convent Walls The Story of the Despensers Emily Sarah Holt 1864

With that sternness which is admissible only to the afflicted, I have denied myself even the consolation of your visits.

My Novel — Volume 07 Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838