My sufferings on this plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.

It was no dream; it was a stern reality.

The moral coward drinks in order that he may escape the stern realities of modern existence.

The girl sighed and let her gaze fall again to the stern realities beneath.

All that has been spoilt for me by the grind of stern reality!

With the 90's, an even sterner reality took hold, far more complicated than hand-to-mouth existence.

Afterwards, when the talk was of Haripol, he turned to the newspapers to restore him to the world of stern realities.

I like the stern realities of life instead.

"And I would humbly recall to you for the next few minutes the stern realities of lesson number one."

It sent him alone into the solitudes that he loved, to play in stern reality the games of his childhood.