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More "Soften" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chiaroscuro. We all know how the shades of evening are able to transform the most commonplace scene; the dull road becomes a mysterious avenue, the colourless foliage develops luscious depths, the drab and arid plain glows with mellow light, purple shadows clothe and soften every harsh and ugly object, all detail dies, and our apprehension of it dies also. Our mood changes; instead of observing and criticising, we become soothed, contemplative, dreamy. It is the carrying of this profound feeling into ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... of night As if my heart would cracke. You talk of Christians: Ile tell you a strange thing, a kind of melting in My soule, as 'twere before some heavenly fire, When in their deaths (whom they themselves call Martyrs) It was all rocky. Nothing, they say, can soften A Diamond but Goates blood;[142] they perhaps were Lambs In whose blood ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... everything you can to beat him; 'tis not easy to soften me if you do not talk on my side, and if you have nothing but nonsense to spout, 'tis time to buy a good millstone, freshly cut withal, to crush ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... other." And Mr Enderby gave a full statement of Hope's character, past services, and present position, in terms which he conceived to be level with the capacity of the young man. He kept his sister out of the story, as far as it was possible, but did not soften the statement of her calumnies, though refraining from exhibiting their origin. "Now," said he, at the end of his story, "have I not shown cause for consideration, as to whether you should settle here ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... bullets will avail us unless we strive of ourselves to be men, to be worthier to be the dwelling houses of this Thought of which even the dream is filling the world with madness divine. To curb our own tongues, to soften our own hearts, to be sober ourselves, to be virtuous ourselves, to trust each other—at least to try—this we must do before we can justly expect of others that they should do it. Without hypocrisy, knowing how we all fall far ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... gathering the material for your bed your hands will be covered with a sticky sap, and, although they will be a sorry sight, a little lard or baking grease will soften the pitchy substance so that it may be washed ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... look of a man who was divided between love of her and hate, whose love demanded a return, but whose hate required a proof of her abasement. Not proof of surrender, but proof of her shame! The ignominy of him thirsted for its like. He could grind her beauty under his heel, but he could not soften ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... le movement gently intimated to his hearers that what may be called a robuster tone ruled the spirit of the age. Charity was going down, athletics were coming up. Another Olympiad had passed away. Wise indeed was Solon, who allowed four years for men to soften and to harden again. During the Olympiads it is to be presumed that men busied themselves with the slums that existed in those days, hearkened to the decadent poetry or fiction of that time, and then, as the robuster period of the games came round, ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... to soothe the savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend the knotted oak; I've read that things inanimate have mov'd, And, as with living souls, have been inform'd, By magic numbers and persuasive sound. 1237 CONGREVE: Mourning Bride, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... and thence determining for the present, and anticipating the future; discerning, collecting, combining, comparing; capable not merely of apprehending but of admiring the beauty of moral excellence: with fear and hope to warn and animate; with joy and sorrow to solace and soften; with love to attach, with sympathy to harmonize, with courage to attempt, with patience to endure, and with the power of conscience, that faithful monitor within the breast, to enforce the conclusions ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... Calydon afforded fattest soil 720 They bade him choose to his own use a farm Of fifty measured acres, vineyard half, And half of land commodious for the plow. Him Oeneus also, warrior grey with age, Ascending to his chamber, and his doors 725 Smiting importunate, with earnest prayers Assay'd to soften, kneeling to his son. Nor less his sisters woo'd him to relent, Nor less his mother; but in vain; he grew Still more obdurate. His companions last, 730 The most esteem'd and dearest of his friends, The same suit urged, yet he persisted still Relentless, nor could even they prevail. ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... majestic palace official, wand of office in hand, and followed by a slave carrying an inlaid stool. After many stairs they emerge at last into a massive colonnade on the roof. Light curtains are drawn between the columns on the north and east to soften the westering sun. The official leads Rufio to one of these shaded sections. A cord for pulling the curtains apart hangs down between ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... began to soften, a dimple showed suddenly near the corner of her mouth. "You shouldn't tell lies, Bertie," ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... her to a hospital, and presented myself (with your leave) at her bedside. Our talk was not a long one, for she was weak, and there being people near I was not quite easy. But I told her all that you and I agreed upon, and pointed out the young gentleman's position, in strong terms. She tried to soften me, but that, of course (as I told her), was lost time. She cried and moaned, you may be sure; all women do. Then, of a sudden, she found her voice and strength, and said that Heaven would help her and her innocent son; and that to Heaven she appealed against us—which she did; ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... to soften and refine manners by the stress which it laid upon such "Christian" virtues as humility, tenderness, and gentleness. By dwelling on the sanctity of human life, Christianity did its best to repress the very common practice ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... with flour and oil, omitting salt. Soften with white wine. Wash the desired number of anchovies, remove the bones and draw out the salt by soaking in milk. Dip into the paste ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... cast-off clothes and old shoes for—Jesus! This has been a large part of our answer. Is it any wonder the hot blood sends the color climbing into our cheeks at the thought, and that we instinctively seek for some explanation that will soften the hard rub of ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... pleading expression of a child who is afraid to be punished. This always moved me deeply and was my delight, as it kept up the delusion that I had only to open my arms and she would fall upon my neck, if only to soften my resentment. I cannot get rid altogether of this delusion, although convinced of its futility; and even now I cherish some hope in a corner of my heart that when we come to make it up, something will happen between us,—she will make a ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... seemed to Vi and her sister. They could not in the least understand how Gertrude could feel or act as she had done, and feared she would find, as Kate expressed it, "even a gold lined sty, but a hard bed to lie in, with no love to soften it." ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... quarters he was to sit and wait for the blow that he knew could not be averted. In fear and despair, hiding his pain and his shame, he was racking his brain for means to lessen the force of that blow. He could withdraw the charges against Baldos, but he could not soften the words he had said and written of Beverly Calhoun. He was not troubling himself with fear because of the adventures in the chapel and passage. He knew too well how Yetive could punish when her heart was bitter against an evil-doer. Graustark ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... integuments of the pseudochrysalis, we find, at the bottom of this sheath, a third cast skin, the last of those which the creature has so far rejected. This skin is even now adhering to the nymph by a few tracheal filaments. If we soften it in water, we easily recognize that it possesses an organization almost identical with that which preceded the pseudochrysalis. In the latter case only, the mandibles and the legs are not so robust. Thus, after passing through the pseudochrysalid ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... mother began to cry. "What have I done to be cursed with such a child? There is not another woman in the district with such a burden put upon her. What have I done? I can only trust that my prayers to God for you will soften your ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Wife, but no pupils.' Carlyle would name him with a sort of sneer in the Life of Sterling; {184} could not see that any such notice was more than needless, just after Edgeworth's Death. This is all a little Scotch indelicacy to other people's feelings. But now Time and his own Mortality soften him. I have been looking over his Letters to me about Cromwell: the amazing perseverance and accuracy of the Man, who writes so passionately! In a letter of about 1845 or 6 he says he has burned at least six attempts at Cromwell's Life: and finally falls back on ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... entirely factitious, and vowed that nothing should ever persuade him to write another line of verse, and that he would now devote his attention to a peer’s duties in the House of Lords. I was so disturbed myself at thus paining so lovable a friend that next day I wrote to him, trying to soften what I had said, and urged him to do as the editor of The Nineteenth Century had suggested, write another poem—a poem upon some classical subject, which he would deal with so admirably. The result of it all was that he ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... apotheosis of motherhood which he puts forth through the aged priest in 'Ivan Ivanovitch' was due to the poetic necessity of lifting a ghastly human punishment into the sphere of Divine retribution. Even in the advancing years which soften the father into the grandfather, the essential quality of early childhood was not that which appealed to him. He would admire its flower-like beauty, but not linger over it. He had no special emotion for its helplessness. When he was attracted by a child it was through ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... hands, in the automatism of custom, across a monumental empty silver brazier, and stared at Jaime fixedly with her piercing gray eyes so accustomed to commanding respect. This authoritative stare gradually began to soften until it weakened in tears of emotion. She had not seen her nephew for nearly ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... weeks' time was to be the chief actor on a similar occasion. Alas! my own wife fell sick and died. I made every plea I could to the king not to expose me, a foreigner, to this inhuman law. I appealed in vain. The king and all his court, with the chief persons of the city, sought to soften my sorrow by honoring the funeral with their presence; and when the ceremony was finished I was lowered into the pit with a vessel full of water and seven loaves. As I neared the bottom, I saw, by the aid of a little light that came from above, what sort of place ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... of the make-shift and non-luxurious kind, is not delectable. A wooden saddle, without stuffing, made a very fair pillow; but the ridges of the lava were severe. I could not spare enough blankets to soften them, and one particularly intractable point persisted in making itself felt. I crowded on everything attainable, two pairs of gloves, with Mr. Gilman's socks over them, and a thick plaid muffled up my face. Mr. Green and the natives, buried ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... of nature did not soften me, however. My heart was still hard with hatred and disappointment, and I was too busy with my sad thoughts to decide what to do, or to what town ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... a well-lighted cell on the upper tier, and some of his own things had been brought in to soften its bareness, but my first glance at Swain told me that he ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... like whispered consolation for a great, a pangful loss, but it could not soften the hard hearts of those who had stood with lips to the fountain of life and been denied. The people turned again to their pursuits, their planning, their gathering of courage to hold them up against the blaze of sun which soon must break upon them for a parching season again. The dust lay ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... talked to her husband about the fancy she had taken to me. That's what makes it dangerous, this very unconsciousness of their instinctive dishonesty. That is a mitigating circumstance, I admit, but it cannot nullify judgment, only soften it. ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... a traveller's journal. The traveller, quite evidently a Bostonian, criticised New York in a way not unfamiliar in later days, as a city where "the love of literature was less strong than in some other parts of the United States;" and then in trying to soften the statement, she fell into a comparison with Philadelphia, also made many times since the gentle critic observed the difference. "New York," she wrote, "has energy, spirit, and bold, lofty enterprise, totally wanting in Philadelphia, ... a place of neat, well regulated plans." Also, ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... especially one with Corea, were not successful, and an ignominious end was put to his existence by a fanatic. His son and successor was also murdered, when the Soui dynasty came to an end, and with it the magnificent and costly palace erected at Loyang, which was denounced as only calculated "to soften the heart of a prince and ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... exposed to the air harden into firm substances, commonly called gum. Some of these dissolve, or at least soften, in water; these technically are known as "gums," and usually are so designated in commerce. Others are insoluble in water, but dissolve readily in alcohol, in naphtha, in turpentine, or in other essential oils; these are designated as "gum-resins." Still others yield oils or pitchy ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... was printed. I should have changed very little; but I should have suggested an alteration in a few places where he has laid himself open to be attacked. I hope I should have prevailed with him to omit or soften his assertion, that 'a Scotsman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer Scotland to truth,' for I really think it is not founded; and it is harshly said. BOSWELL. Johnson, after a half-apology for ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... author, and, going to the shelves, takes down the volume to read it aloud with decorous emphasis. If we are in the atrium (where we like him best) he has an anecdote to tell of all the great Greeks and Romans whose busts or statues are ranged about us, and who for the first time soften from their marble alienation and become human. It is this that makes him so amiable a moralist and brings his lessons home to us. He does not preach up any remote and inaccessible virtue, but makes all his lessons of magnanimity, ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... books of the guard-ship, at Spithead: but, that I might gain time to loiter by the side of Eugenia, I begged his permission to join my ship without returning home, alleging as a reason, that delay would soften down any asperity of feeling occasioned by the late fracas. This in his answer he agreed to, enclosing a handsome remittance; and the same post brought a pressing invitation from Mr Somerville to ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... first soften him a little on the cordial, and then make him tip the punch openly and ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... imitation, the example of one people will be followed by others, who will adopt its spirit and its laws. Even despots, perceiving that they can no longer maintain their authority without justice and beneficence, will soften their sway from necessity, from rivalship; and civilization ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... whom their father had down from London to play music with him at the Manor House. For, above all things, next to his pride, the old lord loved music. He could play on nearly every instrument that ever was heard of, and it was a strange thing it did not soften him; but he was a fierce dour old man, and had broken his poor wife's heart with his cruelty, they said. He was mad after music, and would pay any money for it. So he got this foreigner to come; who made such beautiful music, that they said the very birds ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... been wrought in thousands of wills, as stubborn as yours; in millions of hearts, as worldly and selfish as yours. We commend you, therefore, to the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. We remind you, that He is able to renovate and sweetly incline the obstinate will, to soften and spiritualize the flinty heart. He saith: "I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you an heart of flesh; that ye may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... of Union, however, sought to soften its shackles by limiting the future jurisdiction of the British Parliament. Imposed on "a reluctant and protesting nation," it was tempered by articles guaranteeing Ireland against the coarser and more obvious forms of injustice. To guard against undue taxation, "exemptions and abatements" ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... contradict his father at the present moment, as he had all but made up his mind to tell the whole story about himself and Marie before he returned to the house. He had not the slightest idea that by doing so he would be able to soften his father's heart. He was sure, on the contrary, that were he to do so, he and his father would go back to the hotel as enemies. But he was quite resolved that the story should be told sooner or later,— should be told before the day fixed for the wedding. If it was to ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... on the window would soften the light on hot afternoons," Miss Alice thought. So she made one of some white barred muslin she had and put it up. She also thought that as Jennie still had not much appetite, some prettier dishes than those Mrs. ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... break the agreement every time I think of you. Oh, Rachel! how kindly you told me, only the other day, that my place in your estimation was a higher place than it had ever been yet! Am I mad to build the hopes I do on those dear words? Am I mad to dream of some future day when your heart may soften to me? Don't tell me so, if I am! Leave me my delusion, dearest! I must have THAT to cherish, and to comfort me, if I have ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... Had she not seen Lord Beaconsfield twice during the fatal week of his last general election, when England turned against him, when his great rival triumphed, and all was lost? Had he not talked to her, as great men will talk to the young and charming women whose flatteries soften their defeats; so that, from the wings, she had seen almost the last of that well-graced actor, caught his last gestures and some ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... hair. She had promised to marry him. He had just landed, he met her on the quay, he offered her the pearl and coral trinkets. She threw them back and told him she was tired of him. Just that—nothing more. He tried to soften her; she raged at him like a tiger-cat. Yes, I was one of the little crowd that stood round them on the quay, I saw it all. Her black eyes flashed, she stamped and bit her lips at him, her full bosom heaved as though ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... blow, we can already feel that a thousand comforts remain to us to soften it. Next to that of the consciousness of his worth and constant preparation for another world, is the remembrance of his having suffered, comparatively speaking, nothing. Being quite insensible of his own state, he was spared all pain of separation, and he went ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... resolutely cut out music as impossible, settled down in my bedroom, and tackled my second, third, and fourth choices simultaneously. Heavens, how I wrote! Never was there a creative fever such as mine from which the patient escaped fatal results. The way I worked was enough to soften my brain and send me to a mad-house. I wrote, I wrote everything—ponderous essays, scientific and sociological short stories, humorous verse, verse of all sorts from triolets and sonnets to blank verse tragedy and elephantine epics in ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... so that the man caught the flash of his teeth in the uncertain glimmer, and got his first ray of hope that his life might be spared. He knew very well that nothing he could say would convince Stair of his good faith, but it might be possible to soften him by taking the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... In vain you soften the voice of greed, In vain you speak us fair; The time is late, and we hark nor heed; In gladness still we dare. Yield, then, yield to the force we wield, To the masses of our might; We are countless strong at the throat of wrong The warriors of ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard
... a chat with the doctor. He may have something in his medicine chest that will at least soften them down a bit. Of course, if they were real tattoo marks there would be nothing for it; but as they are only dye, or paint of some sort, they must wear themselves out before ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... from the bonds That made the crime and horror of your love. Hippolytus no longer need be dreaded, Him you may see henceforth without reproach. It may be, that, convinced of your aversion, He means to head the rebels. Undeceive him, Soften his callous heart, and bend his pride. King of this fertile land, in Troezen here His portion lies; but as he knows, the laws Give to your son the ramparts that Minerva Built and protects. A common enemy Threatens you both, ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... then occupied in drawing a fine portrait of Bonaparte. The presence of David covered the gratification with gloom. Before me, in the bosom of that art, which is said, with her divine associates, to soften the souls of men, I beheld the remorseless judge of his sovereign, the destroyer of his brethren in art, and the enthusiast and confidential friend of Robespierre. David's political life is too well known. During the late scenes of horror, he was asked by an ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... family was living. The widow was reading the Bible to her children, but her grief was too fresh to gather comfort from it. When Dabney was flung into the room he grovelled at her feet and begged piteously for mercy. Her face did not soften, but there was a kind of contempt in the settled sadness of her tone as she said, "It shall be as God directs. I will close this Bible, open it at chance, and when this boy shall put his finger at random on a line, by that you ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... morning of that day while the General and Nelly were out climbing the lower range of a hill. The Dowager was no climber. More than that, she had acquired tact and good feeling it seemed in her latter days, for she left father and daughter very much together. The General's heart had begun to soften towards her. He had begun to ask himself how it was that he could have so persistently misjudged her all those years. If Gerald had liked her well enough to marry her, surely he could have done her more justice than so to ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... pretty, and her manners were gaining the finish that they had once perhaps lacked; in fact, she had found out that Sydney set a high value on social distinction and prestige; and, resolving to please him in this as in everything else, she had set herself of late to soften down any girlish harshness or brusquerie, such as Lady Pynsent used sometimes to complain of in her, and to develop the gracious softness of manner which ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... laughed, answering that they wanted neither charms nor divinations, but that she should see a certain young man, a servant in their train, who was very sick with love and had bought philtres from every doctor in their country without avail, wherewith to soften the heart of a girl who would have nothing to do with him. When Sihamba, without seeming to speak much of it, had drawn from them all that she wished to know of the story of this man and girl, and with it other information, though they won little enough from her, she took her ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... often asserted that both men and women would be selfish beings but for children. They call out, and refine, and soften the best feelings of the parental heart. Their little needs are so many, and their simple ignorance so affecting, and their very caprices so winning, that love and attention flow out ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... hesitation she went up to the enclosure. It was the ticket-agent whose eye she had caught. He was at liberty at the moment, and his answers to her inquiries, though brief, were polite and kind. People generally did soften to Clover. There was such an odd and pretty contrast between her girlish appealing look and her dignified little manner, like a child trying to be stately but only succeeding ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... every detail (of course, with fictitious characters, incidents, and situations), as a warning to others. She hated her work, but would pursue it. When reasoned with on the subject, she regarded such reasonings as a temptation to self-indulgence. She must be honest; she must not varnish, soften, or conceal. This well-meant resolution brought on her misconstruction, and some abuse, which she bore, as it was her custom to bear whatever was unpleasant with mild steady patience. She was a very sincere and practical Christian, but the tinge of religious melancholy communicated a sad shade ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and well soaked," I said, "they soften and swell, and are made into soup of very strengthening and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Had he been kind, her eyes had told me so, Before her tongue could speak it: Now she studies, To soften what he said; but give me death, Just as he sent it, Charmion, undisguised, And in the words ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... a common thing here that we get used to it. Mrs. Philbrick's needles rust in her work-bag; our guns, even after cleaning and oiling, are soon covered with a thin coating. Food moulds here very rapidly, crackers soften and dried beef spoils. Hominy, of course, is the chief article of food. I think it tastes best hot in the negro cabins, without accompaniment of molasses, sugar, ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... these words with a shy smiling look of such friendly appeal that Will felt his hard and surly humour begin to soften, and something of the old geniality stirring under the dull weight that had so ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... "graceful," "brilliant wit," "exquisite humour," and other phrases equally flattering, fall in a shower as thick and as sweet as the sugarplums at a Roman carnival. Sometimes greater art is used. A sinecure has been offered to the writer if he would suppress his work, or if he would even soften down a few of his incomparable portraits. A distinguished military and political character has challenged the inimitable satirist of the vices of the great; and the puffer is glad to learn that the parties ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at first overwhelmed with sorrow, and for some days evidently pined under it sadly, hope at length would come back to her little heart; and no sooner in again, hope began to smooth the roughest, and soften the hardest, and touch the dark spots with light, in Ellen's future. The thoughts which had just passed through her head that first morning, as she stood at her window, now came back again. Thoughts of wonderful improvement to be made during her mother's absence; of unheard-of ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to researches, intrigues, and business—a sort of huntsman's eagerness—a sharpness in the subtilties of school-divinity and disputation: this is at least the effect it had in its prime. If it makes the senses keen and liable to temptation, certainly it does not soften the heart. Our terrorists in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were monks. Monastic prisons were always the most cruel. A life systematically negative—a life without its functions—developes in man instincts that are hostile to life; he who suffers is willing to make others suffer. The harmonious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... will force me, and my humble prayers cannot soften you, at least have this decency; that if I abandon myself to you it shall be privately, that is to say each separately without the presence ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... assurance of his sleeping quietly, Florence stole close to the bed, and softly kissed him and put the arm with which she dared not touch him, waking, round about him on the pillow, praying to God to bless her father, and to soften him towards her, if it ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... he asked with cynical friendliness. "Well, work hard, because that will soften his fall." He leaned over, as it were confidentially, to them, while his friends craned their necks to hear what he said: "If I were you I'd prepare him. He's beaten as sure ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... femininity,—since, O wicked wretch, thou hast done what hath never been done by anybody,—therefore from this day, thou shalt remain a woman and she shall remain a man!' At these words of his, all the Yakshas began to soften Vaisravana for the sake of Sthunakarna repeatedly saying, 'Set a limit to thy curse!' The high-souled lord of the Yakshas then said unto all these Yakshas that followed him, from desire of setting a limit to his curse, these words, viz.,—After Sikhandin's death, ye Yakshas, this one ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... till the earth was thrown in and the man had left the place, then I returned to the grave. Oh, how bare and cruel it was, without so much as a bit of green turf to soften it! Oh, how much harder it seemed to live than to die, when I stood alone looking at the heavy piled-up lumps of clay, and thinking of what was hidden ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... jagged bits having been cut off, the beads are now rolled in fine sand, which has been carefully heated in earthen jars, until just warm enough to soften the outside of the glass, so that a gentle friction would rub off the sharp edges. The sand gets into the holes in the beads, prevents them from closing up during this process, and ere we can believe it possible, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... little arms more irresistible than the soldier's, his lips touched with persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child, soften all hearts to pity and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins more ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... music during the offertory in these churches, and this, too, pleases my sense of the fitness of things. It cannot soften the woe of the people who are disinclined to the giving away of money, and the cheerful givers need no encouragement. For my part, I like to sit, quite undistracted by soprano solos, and listen to the refined tinkle of the sixpences and shillings, and ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... happy, and Billy fought with himself every hour to keep down his own gloom and despair. The sun helped him. It rose earlier each day and remained longer in the sky, and soon the warmth of it began to soften the snow underfoot. The vast fields of ice began to give evidence of the approach of spring, and the air was more and more filled with the thunderous echoes of the "break up." Great floes broke from the shore-runs, and the sea began to open. Down from the north the powerful arctic currents began ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... deputy Sovereign of the Sovereign King of Italy. He was not philosopher enough to conceal his chagrin, and bowed with such a bad grace to the new Viceroy that it was visible he would have preferred seeing in that situation an Austrian Archduke as a governor-general. To soften his disappointment, Bonaparte offered to make him a Prince, and with that rank indemnify him for breaking the promises given at Lyons, where it is known that the influence of Melzi, more than the intrigues of Talleyrand, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... man is strongly inclined to sin, he thinks very little about his God. Nay more, whatever crimes he has committed, he always flatters himself, that this God will soften, in his favour, the rigour of his decrees. No mortal seriously believes, that his conduct can damn him. Though he fears a terrible God, who often makes him tremble, yet, whenever he is strongly tempted, he yields; and he afterwards sees only the God of mercies, the idea of whom calms ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... Bazin, who had always been inclined to devotion, never quit the churches; Planchet watched the flight of flies; and Grimaud, whom the general distress could not induce to break the silence imposed by his master, heaved sighs enough to soften ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he learned to look for repose in history and philosophy, nor to derive those subtle influences from their study which tend to paralyse action or to soften a man unduly. Neither the creative nor the militant artist in him was ever diverted from his purpose by learning and culture. The moment his constructive powers direct him, history becomes yielding clay in his hands. His attitude ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... something rigid and uncompromising in the whole aspect of the sick-room; there was nothing to tone down and soften the harsh details of bodily suffering; everything was in spotless order; the sheets were white as the driven snow; a formidable phalanx of medicine-bottles stood on the small square table; there were no books, no pictures, no flowers; a sampler hung over the mantelpiece, that was ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... hint of protest in her tone or manner, he felt impelled to soften still further this solitary demonstration of his authority. "You see I've been all round the world, my little girl," he explained, haltingly, "and when a man's done that, and knocked about everywhere, he's apt to get finicking ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... much concerned at her answer, and endeavoured for some time to soften her, but found her so steady, though civil in her refusal, that he was obliged, however unwillingly, ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... generally abrupt and strong from the deep waters, and wherever they can find entrance they wear and powder the rock until it becomes fine soil, and a little beach is formed. Then rains fall and fill the clefts and hollows of the rock, and soften it at length as they wash down its face, till here and there patches of ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... among them. The work of the Lord is still going on among us. One of the individuals, who has lately been brought to the knowledge of the truth, used to say in his unconverted state, when he was tempted not to go to the chapel,—"I will go; the Lord may bless me one day, and soften my hard heart. "—His expectation has not come ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... Majesty's ships; recommending to their favour, in case of being taken, such of his friends as had a claim to it, either from services rendered to prisoners or from their superior talents; and I did not let slip the occasion of his voyage to Bourbon, to testify in this manner my sense of his worth. To soften the rigour of confinement to deserving men, is a grateful task; I conceived that a war between two nations does not necessarily entrain personal enmity between each of their respective individuals, nor should prevent us from doing ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... once before and the memory of the blow from the axhandle earlier in the day did nothing to soften Peter's intent. The quick command as he scrambled to his feet and the sight of the imminent weapon caused Shad suddenly to forget everything but the desire, whatever else happened, not to die as Yakimov had done. And so he put his hands up—staggering back ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... met with: it was the convent of the Chartreux. All the conveniences, or rather (if there was such a word) all the adaptments are assembled here, that melancholy, meditation, selfish devotion, and despair would require. But yet 'tis pleasing. Soften the terms, and mellow the uncouth horror that reigns here, but a little, and 'tis a charming solitude. It stands on a large space of ground, is old and irregular. The chapel is gloomy: behind it, through some dark passages, you pass into a large obscure hall, which looks like a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... genuinely relieved when she said, "No," that Miss Pilbeam, despite her father's wrongs, began to soften a little. The upsetter of policemen was certainly good-looking; and his manner towards her so nicely balanced between boldness and timidity that a slight feeling of sadness at his lack of moral character began to ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... monosyllable in his presence. Harvey's face would twitch, and his fingers clench of themselves as he touched his cap. And with my Aunt Caroline he was the same. He vouchsafed but a curt reply to all her questions, nor did her raptures over the stud soften him in the least. She would come tripping into the stable yard, daintily holding up her skirts, and crying, "Oh, Harvey, I have heard so much of Tanglefoot. I must see him before I go." Tanglefoot is led out begrudgingly enough, and Aunt Caroline goes ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... patted his shoulder. But the line around Jock's jaw did not soften. He turned his head to ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... feminine weakness. The sensible, hard-headed, athletic girls of to-day as a rule scorn to do so; but after marriage occasions for weeping occur that these self-reliant young spinsters never dream of. But the old idea that tears prevailed against a man, and served to soften the harder male heart, is entirely exploded; and, if women only realised it, tears distil a poison that acts as a fateful irritant to love and often causes its death. Just at first, when he is quite young and in the height of his ardour, tears may influence ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... lips that had craved her so often, And the hand that had trembled to touch, That the tears filled her eyes I had hoped not to soften In this world was ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... and encouraged by the English king, who found their peaceable, industrious habits a great contrast to the turbulence and restlessness of the Welsh under their foreign yoke. Time has done but little to soften the difference between the Welsh and Flemish characters; they have never really amalgamated, and to this day the descendants of the Flemings remain a separate people in language, disposition, and appearance. In Pembrokeshire, Gower, and Radnorshire, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... prophetic. The prisoner's wasted frame was consuming slowly, almost imperceptibly, like steel when rust corrodes it. Richard and my father were with him every day, and gathered round him every comfort which the law permitted, to soften the horrors of imprisonment. Not in vain were their labors of love. God blessed them. The rock was blasted. The waters gushed forth. Like the thief on the cross, he turned his dying glance on his Saviour, and acknowledged ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... learning to understand perfectly whatever it was his part to speak, and judgment to know how far it agreed or disagreed with his character. Hence arose a peculiar grace which was visible to every spectator, tho' few were at the pains of examining into the cause of their pleasure. He could soften, or slide over, with a kind of elegant negligence, the improprieties in a part he acted; while, on the contrary, he would dwell with energy upon the beauties, as if he exerted a latent spirit which had been kept back for such an ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... of Patroclus, and the gods, looking down from heaven, sorrowed for Hector, whose corpse Achilles was treating with such indignity, intending that the dogs should destroy it. The gods had kept the body unstained, and now they determined to soften Achilles' heart, that he ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... prospect of a really hearty dinner began to soften the stern Juliet, and her brows unknitted themselves, showing that her eyes would be pretty if they wore a pleasant expression. It seemed to Mrs. Rowles that life had latterly been too hard and sad for this girl, just beginning to grow out of the easy ignorance ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice was articulate and human, and he taught men to construct cities, to found temples, compile laws,—indeed, taught them everything that could tend to soften them from a state of natural barbarism; and hence he was called Oannes, a name that signified "the Enlightener"; and this name journeying westward became contracted into On, and had prefixed to it the Dag, signifying a fish, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... said with a sigh, taking the hand which she generously yielded to soften any suggestion of reproach which he may have read into her solicitude, "you are my guardian angel. I do not know, of course, who has told you this pack of lies,—for I can see that you have heard more ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... had also signed the thirty-nine Articles. And yet the very man who confidently expected that, by a little coaxing and bullying, he should induce them to renounce the Articles, was thunderstruck when he found that they were disposed to soften down the doctrines of the Declaration. Nor did it necessarily follow that, even if the theory of the Tories had undergone no modification, their practice would coincide with their theory. It might, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... who had condescended to attend his sister's little party, and had been languidly watching the frolics of the young people, looked very much alarmed, and hastened to soften the incident ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... love could be persuaded to forsake its ancient uncomfortable method in favour of a single harrassed lover, surely the trials of Allan Dunlop might soften its harsh turbulence, and move it to a gentler flow. Rose was devoted to her father, and the tie between them, made stronger by her mother's death, was not of a nature to be affected by the sighing breath of a mere lover. Then she was as lovable as she was lovely, and there ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... homely, placid country air, I felt my spirit soften and grow more humble, and I began to think that the manuscript which I carried in my hand was nothing more than a ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... I was dangerous. "There's no cure for Spanish dust, except Spanish wine. Besides, you're going through wild country where automobiles are seldom seen. If peasants are inclined to throw stones, the sight of a good skin of wine should soften them. And what true man would ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... worship of the time, Philip, nevertheless, did not like to be secondary to one to whom he had always been preferred; and this, and perhaps the being half ashamed of it, made him something more approaching to cross than ever before; but now and then, the persevering amiability of both would soften him, and restore him to his most ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... same; This all may learn who will take pains to seek The Word of Truth. All arguments are lame. Men use against it, and not free from blame. Can we, dear friends, remember Christ too often? Ah, no indeed! To save our souls he came! And his vast Love to us our hearts should soften, And plume the, wings, of Faith, which we may soar ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... to melt the hardest heart, and to sober the lightest: that, when we think of Christ dying, dying for us, and so purchasing for us the forgiveness of sins, and everlasting life, such a love, and such a prospect of peace with God, and of glory, should in the highest degree soften and enkindle us; and from love for him, and confidence of hope through the prospect which he has given us, we should be able to overcome all temptations. "I am persuaded," says St. Paul, "that neither death, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... heirs; and the senate then took care that the kingdom of Egypt should be a part of the wealth which was afterwards to be theirs by inheritance. After Berenice, his stepmother, had been queen about six months, they sent him to Alexandria, with orders that he should be received as king; and, to soften the harshness of this command, he was told to marry Berenice, and reign ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... of a Greek sage who instructed his slave that all that occurred in this world was the decree of Fate. The slave shortly after deliberately committed some offence, upon which his master commenced to soften his ribs with a stout cudgel, and when the slave pleaded that it was no fault of his, it was the decree of Fate, his master grimly replied that it was also decreed that he should have a ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... surprised to hear that I am coming back again to Inch. The years bring their dust, as some poet says: they certainly soften griefs and asperities. When I left Inch I was broken-hearted for my one boy. It was a poisoning of the grief at that time to know that you and Shawn O'Gara were going to be married. I felt that you had forgotten my beautiful boy, that his friend had forgotten ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... not all the same to you whether I am ugly or pretty?" she retorted. Then, as if to soften the harshness of her words, she added: "Even if I were ugly, would you love me—as ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... descends unaltered from generation to generation. The skin of the deer's head is always made to form the apex of the hood, while that of the neck and shoulders comes down the back of the jacket; and so of every other part of the animal which is appropriated to its particular portion of the dress. To soften the sealskins of which the boots, shoes, and mittens are made, the women chew them for an hour or two together and the young girls are often seen employed in thus preparing the materials for their mothers. The covering of the canoes is a part of the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the adept's remarks, and after a short pause, spoke and said, "And now, sir, seeing that you have sufficient endowments for my business, before proceeding further in this matter we will have a punch; for that will soften the heart, and at the same time give such light to the mind, as will enable us to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Goldberg senior in the hollow of my hand. On the boulevards, as soon as she caught sight of me, her dour face would be wreathed in smiles, a row of large yellow teeth would appear between her thin lips, and her cold, grey eyes would soften with a glance of welcome which more than ever sent a cold shudder down my spine. While we four were together, either promenading or sitting at open-air cafes in the cool of the evening, the old duenna had eyes and ears only for me, and if my friend Rochez did not get ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... O for an image, madam, in one word, To show you as the lightning night reveals, Your error and your perils: you have erred In mind only, and the perils that ensue Swift heels may soften; wherefore to swift heels Address ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... blossoms, like yonder clouds, glorious and wonderful; Nothing on earth or in heaven could make fairer oblation. Abel, what have you carved on your altar, in that wild devotion By which you in vain seek to soften the anger of heaven? A circle, to show that your God is all near, is filling The seen and ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... not soften you in any way?" he cried. "Ah, see—see here"—he produced a small Grecian cross from inside his velvet jacket. "Look at this. Our religions may differ in form, but at least we have some common thoughts and feelings when we see ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a look of assent and sympathy, makes another bow. The different times when they were both young men (the trooper much the younger of the two) and looked at one another down at Chesney Wold arise before them both and soften both. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... great preventive of this disaster is a responsible home relation. If she must share her earnings, it is a blessed thing for her. If not, she should share its burdens and its hopes, in order to have a continued source of outside interest to broaden and soften her, to keep her out of the ranks of the charmless, self-centered, single women, whose only occupations are ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... angelic child were treated as dissimulation. The fresh, pure blossoms of affection which bloomed instinctively in that young soul were pitilessly crushed. Pierrette suffered many a cruel blow on the tender flesh of her heart. If she tried to soften those ferocious natures by innocent, coaxing wiles they accused her of doing it with an object. "Tell me at once what you want?" Rogron would say, brutally; "you are not coaxing ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... they would have shuddered at no crime, and stopped at no infamy. When they thought that any cruel act of theirs might please Theodore, their god, no consideration of friendship or family ties would arrest their hands or soften their hearts. They came to Mr. Rassam, though he was kind to them, out of no regard, only because it was part of their instructions, and they could indulge their appetite for spirituous drinks; but had we been, by want of money, reduced to appeal to them, I doubt whether they would have sanctioned ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... fortune piled up, and people said they had a million, his brown beard grizzled a little, and his brow crept up and up and his girth stretched out to forty-four. But his hands did not whiten or soften, and though he was "Honest John," and every quarter-section of land that he bought doubled in value by some magic that he only seemed to know, he kept the habits of his youth, rose early, washed at the kitchen basin, and was the first man at his office in the morning. ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... apartments were not prepared for such weather, we suffered a good deal. Besides, both Ossoli and myself were taken ill at New-Year's time, and were not quite well again, all January: now we are quite well. The weather begins to soften, though still cloudy, damp, and chilly, so that poor baby can go out very little; on that account he does not grow so fast, and gets troublesome by evening, as he tires of being shut up in two or three ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... cannot soften the conditions in order to attract men to the Colours. I want no comrades on these terms, but those who know our rules and are prepared to submit to our discipline: who are one with us on the great principles which determine our action, and whose hearts are in this great work for the amelioration ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... water-proofing placed in these tunnels was of felt and pitch, six-ply felt and seven layers of pitch. The felt was required to be Hydrex, or of equal quality, and the pitch, "Straight run coal-tar pitch which will soften at 60 Fahr., of a grade in which the distillate oils will have ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... truth and nature in his resentment, that her doubts were dispelled. Her countenance, which for years had not expressed a feeling unallied to affection, became again radiant and satisfied. She found it however no easy task to soften and reconcile Raymond. At first he refused to stay to hear her. But she would not be put off; secure of his unaltered love, she was willing to undertake any labour, use any entreaty, to dispel his anger. She obtained an hearing, he sat in haughty silence, but he listened. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... narratives I have not attempted to soften the asperities nor conceal the childishness which run through them. But there is no occasion to be astonished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of their authors and believers. We can go ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... informed of your whereabouts at present," said Boris, shortly. "Because," he continued, with a villainous leer, "I am only cruel to be kind. I want to have all the details of our marriage settled as soon as possible. A night of waiting will soften your dear brother's heart, and he will probably listen to ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... four set to watch a door, and falling asleep at their work to be roused by curse and kick to the unfair toil. The old man's eye would begin to flash and his voice to rise as he told of these horrors, and then his face would soften as he added that, after it was all over and the slavery was put an end to, as he went through a coal-district the women standing at their doors would lift up their children to see "Lawyer Roberts" go by, and would bid "God bless ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... with grandeur, paint everything expressed, soften the shades of those which are of least importance, collect all into one point of view, and carry the reader ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... father to enjoy; but should he, not governing his angry temper, slay thee, do thou also plunge the sword into the virgin's neck, and I think that he, though at first he come to us very big, will after a season soften his heart; for neither is he brave nor valiant: this is the fortress of our safety that I have; my arguments on the subject have ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... the deepest caves, can shake the very foundations of the earth. "You are able both to call up the spirits that serve you and to act as their cruel and ruthless gaoler. Listen for once to a mother's prayers, and let them soften ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... truth is—at least about me—that there isn't time to think of what you haven't got. Of course, I'm working, as always, to soften the relations between these two governments. So far, in spite of the pretty deep latent feeling on both sides—far worse than it ought to be and far worse than I wish it were—I'm working all the time to keep things as smooth as possible. Happily, nobody can prove it, but I believe ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... was due to the interests of France in its deeply disturbed condition; that he expected nothing, and would accept nothing upon the ruin of his hopes; but, since his speech might sow the seeds of rancor in his native land, he would soften down its tenor. This singular negotiation took place on the eve of the ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... betwixt the crews thereof, inasmuch as to the King were sixteen long-ships & to Guthorm only five. So Guthorm prayed the King grant him three nights' truce in the which to confer with his men on this matter, for thought he that he could soften the King within this time, and aided by the pleading of his men could set the matter on a better footing with the King, but never a bit did he get what he asked for. This was on the eve of St. Olafmas.Sec. So Guthorm chose to die, the stout fellow he was, or win the ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... delicate tracery against the sky! They answer to the season's mood, bending in patient grace beneath a load of snow, casing themselves in jewels, or springing up again in slender strength; silent, except when the deep voice of the wind speaks through them. Their shadows soften the sunlight glittering on the snow, or weave a black fretwork when the cold moon shines. Yet vital in their hearts the trees hold summer's secret. A little while, and they will be clothed in the leafy glory of June. The robin and catbird ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... forcefulness, physical and mental stamina reach their maximum in those who live close to the soil. The moment a man becomes artificial in his living, takes on artificial conditions, he begins to deteriorate, to soften. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... all over Ireland: for he felt that, as he had taken the people's whisky from them, he must give them some wholesome stimulus in its stead. He gave them Music. Singing classes were established, to refine the taste, soften the manners, and humanize the mass of the Irish people. But we fear that the example set by Father ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... learn to sweeten their Voices, and mellow the Harshness of their natural Notes, by practising under those that come from warmer Climates. In the same manner, I would allow the Italian Opera to lend our English Musick as much as may grace and soften it, but never entirely to annihilate and destroy it. Let the Infusion be as strong as you please, but still let the Subject Matter of it ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of the Tibetans. "In the Kokonor country and Tibet, this krut or chura is put in tea to soften, and then eaten either alone or mixed with parched barley meal (tsamba)." (Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 68, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... answered the chaplain, "and should your heart soften at the appointed time I'll put you in memory of this ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... like the rest, and I am but A tame romantic fool to worship her— I will not see her more, and thus the faults Which, from her beauty, seem'd like others' charms, Shall give her semblance of a Gorgon— No! Rather her beauty will so soften down In sweet forgetfulness of all beside, That growing frenzied at the loss I find E'en shipwreck'd hope were better than ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... it not be well for her to confine herself to more modest and practicable undertakings? There is much for her to do even though she should honestly confess herself unable to reclaim the lost. She may reclaim the young, administer reproof to slight lapses, maintain a high standard of virtue, soften manners, diffuse enlightenment. Would it not be well for her to adapt her ends to ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... from a traveller's journal. The traveller, quite evidently a Bostonian, criticised New York in a way not unfamiliar in later days, as a city where "the love of literature was less strong than in some other parts of the United States;" and then in trying to soften the statement, she fell into a comparison with Philadelphia, also made many times since the gentle critic observed the difference. "New York," she wrote, "has energy, spirit, and bold, lofty enterprise, ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... giving her a good motherly hug now and then. When Evadne was inclined to rail she would say: "Pity the wicked people, my dear, pity them. Pity does more good in the world than blame, however well deserved. You may soften a sinner by pitying him, but never by hard words; and once you melt into the mood of pity yourself, you will be able to endure things which ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... did not flinch. She had listened without a word, with a relentless expression which grew harder and harder as Therese's confessions became precise. No emotion seemed to soften her and no remorse to penetrate her being. At most, towards the end, her thin lips shaped themselves into a faint smile. She was holding her prey in ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... soften it down still further I should, for his father's sake, be glad; but as far as he himself is concerned, I would do nothing to lighten his punishment. He is about as bad a specimen of human nature as I ever came across. His father is in bodily fear of him. I saw the young fellow yesterday, ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... having been cut off, the beads are now rolled in fine sand, which has been carefully heated in earthen jars, until just warm enough to soften the outside of the glass, so that a gentle friction would rub off the sharp edges. The sand gets into the holes in the beads, prevents them from closing up during this process, and ere we can believe it possible, they come forth round, perfect, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... say nothing, and Red Wolf was compelled to soften his tone a little. He even led the way to the spot near the spring where the squaws of Many Bears were already ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... boom of fog horns, calls and answers of the ferries, chug of the fishermen's boats, twink of lights in the harbor at night, rhythm of sea gulls, and the brooding fog to soften it all. ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... I grew acute to the sensations of the hour. This was one of my especial joys of the open—to be alone high on some promontory, above wild and beautiful scenery. The sun was still an hour from setting, and it had begun to soften, to grow intense, and more golden. There were clouds and lights that ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... faults of such an education are not counteracted by the life of the battle-field or the laborious sport of hunting. And if the laws of etiquette and Court manners can act on the spinal marrow to such an extent as to affect the pelvis of kings, to soften their cerebral tissue, and so degenerate the race, what deep-seated mischief, physical and moral, must result in schoolboys from the constant lack of ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... to all military commanders, and I can see no good reasons why I, too, may not ask for it; and this simple concession, involving no public interest, will much soften the blow which, right or wrong, I construe as one of the hardest I have sustained in a life somewhat checkered ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... the picture, that, too, like the portrait, I doubt not, was taken from reality, for with your artistic feeling you would never have placed that bare wall behind the figure. You have tried by the shadows from the vine above to soften it, and you have done all you could in that way, but nothing could really avail. You want a vine to cover that wall. It should be thrown into deep cool shadow, with a touch of sunlight here and there, streaming ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... is a fruity compound, consisting of two very thin slices of lemon, which are maintained in horizontal positions, for the free action of the air upon their upper surfaces, by a pint of whiskey procured for that purpose. About half a pint of hot water has been added to help soften the rind of the lemon, and a portion of sugar ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... still but a little over thirty-three years old, and although the long years of anxiety and sorrow had left their traces on her face, the rest and quiet of the sea voyage had done much to restore the fulness of her cheeks, and to soften ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... have been indeed absurd to ask one of the Censors to license a pamphlet cutting up the whole system of Censorship. Still here was another deliberate breach of the law by Milton. It was probably to soften and veil the offence that the pamphlet was cast into the form of a continuous Speech or Pleading by Milton to Parliament directly, without recognition of the public in preface or epilogue. [Footnote: ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... had seen Jennie and Lester out driving on the North Side, who had been introduced to her as Miss Gerhardt, who knew what the Kane family thought. Of course her present position, the handsome house, the wealth of Lester, the beauty of Vesta—all these things helped to soften the situation. She was apparently too circumspect, too much the good wife and mother, too really nice to be angry with; but she had a past, and that had ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... itself floats about in space, moves and has its being in obedience to inexorable law. The thinker may define morality: the reformer may try to bring our notions of it into nearer accord with the fact: human love and pity may seek to soften its occasional injustices and mitigate its intolerable harshness: but that is all the freedom we mortals enjoy, all the breathing-space ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... wrote indignantly. "How often have I heard you declare that no earthly persuasion should ever induce you to marry him! And yet before my back has been turned six months, I hear that you are his wife. Without a word of warning, without a line of explanation to soften the blow—if anything could soften it—the news comes to me, from a stranger who knew nothing of my love for you. It is very hard, Ellen; all the harder because I had so fully trusted ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... of sending them up into the streets of London, I think." Lucy said nothing more, knowing that it would be impossible to soften the heart of this dowager in regard to the other. But she kissed the old woman at parting, and then was taken down to Richmond ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... very gently. He never had a sister or a girl cousin or any one to soften his ways or speech; and little Polly's friendly trust was something altogether new and strangely ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... He dreames: I know they are in Rome together Looking for Anthony: but all the charmes of Loue, Salt Cleopatra soften thy wand lip, Let Witchcraft ioyne with Beauty, Lust with both, Tye vp the Libertine in a field of Feasts, Keepe his Braine fuming. Epicurean Cookes, Sharpen with cloylesse sawce his Appetite, That sleepe and feeding may prorogue ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... and constantly brooding at a solitary height over the beautiful coveted object; only too bewildered by her multifarious evanescent feminine evasions, as of colours on a ruffle water, to think of pouncing for he could do nothing to soften, nothing that seemed to please her: and all the while, the motive of her mind impelled him in reflection beyond practicable limits: even pointing him to apt quotations! Either he thought within her thoughts, or his own were at her disposal. Nor was it sufficient for him to be sensible ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hounds thy forest-glades, Parthenius. Even now, methinks, I range O'er rocks, through echoing groves, and joy to launch Cydonian arrows from a Parthian bow.- As if my madness could find healing thus, Or that god soften at a mortal's grief! Now neither Hamadryads, no, nor songs Delight me more: ye woods, away with you! No pangs of ours can change him; not though we In the mid-frost should drink of Hebrus' stream, And in wet winters face Sithonian snows, Or, when the bark of the tall elm-tree bole Of drought is ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... obscured and weakened, kept alive to the last, in the hearts of those connected with him, that sort of retrospective affection, which, when those whom we have loved become altered, whether in mind or person, brings the recollection of what they once were, to mingle with and soften our impression of what ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... the doctor over a lump in his throat. "We mustn't let the babies pay the penalty of their parents' sins; and there's one thing that may soften your anger a little, Letty: Eva's not right; she's not quite responsible. There are cases where motherhood, that should be a joy, brings nothing but mental torture and perversion of instinct. Try and remember that, if it helps you any. I'll drop ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... both of his occupations. He loved his birds and his curiosities, and I think he loved his pupils. Often, as he sat on his high stool behind his desk, with a severity in his features which his position seemed to demand, I have seen his brown eyes soften as they looked round the circle of faces, and I have known that he had some affection for each one of us. Out of school hours he took great interest in our pursuits, giving to the girls advice in the arrangement of colour in ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... and within me were rising all the torments which can tear a woman's heart, for now I was sure that thou didst love Cleopatra! Ay, and so mad was I, even that night I was minded to betray thee: but I thought—not yet, not yet; to-morrow he may soften. Then came the morrow, and all was ready for the bursting of the great plot that should make thee Pharaoh. And I too came—thou dost remember—and again thou didst put me away when I spake to thee in parables, as something of little worth—as ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... the people is but the senseless clamor of the mob set in operation by intrigue. Pilate orders Jesus to be scourged, in the hope that the sight of his noble bearing amid unmerited cruelties may soften the hearts of the people. Nowhere does the noble figure of Mayr appear to better advantage than in this scene, where, after a brutal chastisement, scarcely lessened in the presentation on the stage, the Roman soldiers place a cattail flag in ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... looks as if she were trying to soften a blow. But it isn't a blow. Far from it. It is the end of an ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... and, designing by a suitable apology to remove all cause of further animosity, he ordered his son to go to the house of the father of the youth whom he had wounded and ask pardon. Lore obeyed his father; but this act of virtue failed to soften the cruel mind of Bertacca, and having caused Lore to be seized, in order to add the greatest indignity to his brutal act, he ordered his servants to chop off the youth's hand upon a block used for cutting meat upon, and then said to him, "Go to thy father, and tell ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... at endeavoring to soften the blow she was about to bestow. She drew forth from her dress a letter, the mere sight of which seemed to goad her to ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... peculiar grace, Elect above the rest; so is my will: The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warn'd Their sinful state, and to appease betimes The incensed Deity, while offer'd grace Invites; for I will clear their senses dark, What may suffice, and soften stony hearts To pray, repent, and bring obedience due. To prayer, repentance, and obedience due, Though but endeavour'd with sincere intent, Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut. And I will place within them as a guide, My umpire Conscience; whom if they will hear, Light after light, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... Scottish land, Rise from the busy harvest band, When falls before the mountaineer, On Lowland plains, the ripen'd ear. 135 Now one shrill voice the notes prolong, Now a wild chorus swells the song: Oft have I listen'd, and stood still, As it came soften'd up the hill, And deem'd it the lament of men 140 Who languish'd for their native glen; And thought how sad would be such sound, On Susquehanna's swampy ground, Kentucky's wood-encumber'd brake, Or wild Ontario's boundless lake, 145 Where heart-sick ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... and Pauline Viardot. I hope that you will be pleased with what I said about your friend; I have done a second fantastic tale for the Revue des Deux Mondes, a tale for children. I have written about a hundred letters, for the most part to make up for the folly or to soften the misery of imbeciles of my acquaintance. Idleness is the plague of this age, and life is passed in working for those who do not work. I do not complain. I am well! every day I plunge into the Indre and ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... how to tell you. I can't soften things, incidents, or explanations. I am so apt to go straight to the point, and though it may be honorable, it is not always wisest or best. But I can't help it now. I have enlisted in the navy. We start for ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... withdrawn himself for the time from smiles and benevolence? Leam somehow felt as if every compliment paid to her by Alick was an offence to Edgar; and she repelled him, blushing, writhing, uncomfortable, but adoring, with a coldness that nothing could warm, a stony immobility that nothing could soften, because it was the coldness of fidelity and the immobility ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... ground if on no other. I always hoped that, as time went on, and he saw how absolutely devoted to him I was, and what unbounded confidence I had in him, and how I forgave him over and over again for treatment which I would not have stood for a moment from any one else—I always hoped that he would soften and deal as frankly and unreservedly with me as I with him; but, though for some fifteen years I hoped this, in the end I gave it up, and settled down into a resolve from which I never departed—to do all I could for him, to avoid friction of every kind, and to make the best ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... really beginning to despair of Iroquois Annie. She is the only thing I can get in the way of hired help out here, and yet she is hopeless. She is sullen and wasteful, and she has never yet learned to be patient with the children. I try to soften and placate her with the gift of trinkets, for there is enough Redskin in her to make her inordinately proud of anything with a bit of flash and glitter to it. But she is about as responsive to actual kindness as a diamond-back rattler would ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the two you intend to marry!" continued the barrister, neither suppressing nor attempting to soften his indignant tones. "As this country's laws are against a plurality of wives, you will be unable, I ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... from his impatience to see me in the least slighted by my lady; and I said to Lord Davers, to soften matters, "Never, my lord, were brother and sister so loving in earnest, and yet so satirical upon each other in jest, as my good lady and Mr. B. But your ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... his purpose. Soon afterward he embarked for a neighboring island, where he died in his paganism. One day, the children of a village came together to be baptized, but one of the pagans refused to allow her child to receive the sacrament; neither entreaties nor arguments availing to soften her. Accordingly, we had to give her up—our Lord taking charge of this obdurate one, as He did, suddenly deprived her ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... mind, of a courage and firmness of soul, which might have led him to the achievement of something great, if with so many great qualities, he had known how to master his gloomy and atrabilious disposition, and to soften the severity or rather the harshness of his nature...." Many calumnies had been spread abroad against him; but it is necessary so much the more to be on our guard against all these malevolent reports "as it is only too common to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... Grey, his only boy, of whom he was so proud, and who, he fully expected, would some day fill one of the highest posts in the land;—what would he say if he knew his father was the son of a murderer? Burton would not soften the crime even in thought, though he knew that had his father been arrested at the time, he could only have been convicted of manslaughter, and possibly not of that. But he called it by the hard name murder, and shuddered ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... arise, who shall limit his empire with ocean, his glory with the firmament, Julius, inheritor of great Iuelus' name. Him one day, thy care done, thou shalt welcome to heaven loaded [290-321]with Eastern spoils; to him too shall vows be addressed. Then shall war cease, and the iron ages soften. Hoar Faith and Vesta, Quirinus and Remus brothers again, shall deliver statutes. The dreadful steel-riveted gates of war shall be shut fast; on murderous weapons the inhuman Fury, his hands bound behind him with an hundred fetters ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... the stern catalogue of sins comes the tremendous sentence. Daniel speaks like an embodied conscience, or like an avenging angel, with no word of pity, and no effort to soften or dilute the awful truth. The day for wrapping up grim facts in muffled words was past. Now the only thing to be done was to bare the sword, and let its sharp edge cut. The inscription, as given in verse ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... and dictate laws, obey. You, mighty sir,[52] our bonds more easy make, And gracefully, what all must suffer, take: Above those forms the grave affect to wear; For 'tis not to be wise to be severe. True wisdom may some gallantry admit, And soften business with the charms of wit. 20 These peaceful triumphs with your cares you bought, And from the midst of fighting nations brought. You only hear it thunder from afar, And sit in peace the arbiter of war: Peace, the loathed manna, which hot brains despise. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... total independence. In all their proceedings they had behaved as if entirely separated from Great Britain. Their professions and petition breathed peace and moderation; their actions and preparations denoted war and defiance; every attempt that could be made to soften their hostility had been in vain; their obstinacy was inflexible; and the more England had given in to their wishes, the more insolent and overbearing had their demands become. The stamp tax had been repealed, but their ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... course"—she so qualified the statement—and had expressed a lively sense of his courage, and perhaps implied (for I suppose the arts of ladies are the same as those of men) a modest consciousness of his good looks, our bear began insensibly to soften; and it was already part as an apology, though still with unaffected heat of temper, that he volunteered some sketch of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a rebuke in the way this was said, which was keenly felt. An effort was made to soften the aspersion tacitly cast upon the old man's integrity, but it was received ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... try to soften a sphinx. Sinclair carried the dripping bucket on the side nearest the girl and thereby gained valuable distance. "I'm mighty glad it's you and not one of the rest," confided Sally, still smiling firmly ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... of the pinnace. Then Anton struck his flag, was taken aboard the Golden Hind, and, with all his crew, given a splendid banquet by his English foes. After this the millions and millions of treasure were loaded aboard the Golden Hind, and the Spaniards were given handsome presents to soften their hard luck. Then they and their empty treasure ship were allowed ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... God hardens no man's heart who has not first hardened it himself. But we do not need to conclude that any inward action on the will is meant. Was not the accumulation of plagues, intended, as they were, to soften, a cause of hardening? Does not the Gospel, if rejected, harden, making consciences and wills less susceptible? Is it not a 'savour of death unto death,' as our fathers recognised in speaking of 'gospel-hardened sinners'? The same fire ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... wasn't well. He thought he must have a good swim, and so he took off his clothes, laid his rifle up against the trunk of a big pine-tree, and in he went, and began splashing about in the beautiful cool clear water, which seemed to soften his skin, and melt off quite a nasty salt crust that had made him itchy and almost mad ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... I've had has expected to see a red-nosed, swearing, peg-legged sailor; so I thought I'd soften the blow for ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... and passed: he had sinned against his Father in heaven and his father on earth, and he did not sorrow for his sin; his wife had left him, murmuring with her dying lips exhortations to repentance, and he did not soften; shame and loss had fallen upon him, and he did not turn to God. But his pride was broken, all that remained to him of strength was his wickedness; the flood that had swept over him had purged away not the evil but the good, from the evil it only took its courage. Henceforth, if he sins at ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... in a little town of Aragon; owned their fields, had two mules in the barn, bread, wine, and enough potatoes for the year round; and at night the best fellows in the place came one after the other to soften her heart with serenade upon serenade, trying to carry off her dark, healthy person together with the four orchards she had ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... o'er some specious rhime Dub'd by the musk'd and greasy mob sublime. 96 For spleen's dear sake hear how a coxcomb prates As clam'rous o'er his joys as fifty cats; "Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, To soften rocks, and oaks"—and all the rest: 100 "I've heard"—Bless these long ears!—"Heav'ns what a strain! Good God! What thunders burst in this Campaign! Hark Waller warbles! Ah! how sweetly killing! Then that inimitable Splendid Shilling! Rowe breathes all Shakespear here!—That ode of Prior ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... to colonization. It does not seem to multiply in the stomach or in the blood, but once injected into the duodenum develops with astonishing rapidity, and the delicate epithelial cells of the villi become swollen, soften and break ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... months ago, and his regiment's ordered out to India, and he sails on Friday. So I thought I wouldn't take my little girl to be in the way, and I said I'll leave her with father till I come back, and her pretty little ways will soften him towards me, and we'll live all together in peace and plenty till his regiment comes home again, poor fellow. For he's very good to me when he's not in liquor, which is seldom for a man. Please do forgive me for pity's sake, and for ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... when it sat for eight years, four sessions, the charge was L2500 and upward." Such a change as was proposed would cause "triennial corruption, triennial drunkenness, triennial idleness, etc., and invigorate personal hatreds that would never be allowed to soften. It would even make the member himself more corrupt, by increasing his dependence on those who could best support him at elections. It would wreck the fortunes of those who stood on their own private means. It would make the electors ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... together, like a troubled ocean, Beat at thy rocky and wreck-threatening heart; To soften it with their continual motion; For stones dissolv'd to water do convert. O, if no harder than a stone thou art, Melt at my tears, and be compassionate! Soft pity enters ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... there was no Jersey or Brooklyn. The ferries were still. The great dead Bridge hung swaying in the dark sky, a white festoon of ice and snow, like a jeweled garland swung from heaven to soften the terrible beauty of a frozen world. The waters below were lashed into a white smother of spray. The air cut like a knife with the sand blown from the flying ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... the patrons of this convent, which is devoted to penitents. It is situated in an inaccessible spot, and the inmates are in the charge of a kind mother-superior, who does her best to soften the manifold austerities of their existences. They only work and pray, and see no one besides their confessor, who says mass every day. We are the only persons whom the superioress would admit, as long as ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... faded for an hour. The man sat quiet. There was not much in the years gone to soften his thought, as it grew desperate and cruel: there was oppression and vice heaped on him, and flung back out of his bitter heart. Nor much in the future: a blank stretch of punishment to the end. He was an old man: was ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... imagined that the devitrification would disappear when the glass is heated to the fusing point; and so it does to a great extent, but for many operations one only requires to soften the glass, and the devitrification often persists up to this temperature. My experience is that denitrified glass is also more likely to crack in the flame than good new glass, though the difference in this respect is not very strongly marked with ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... left. By her side stood the charcoal drawing of Sir Charles Verity from off the wall—or seemed to do so, for almost at once, Damaris saw that dreaded interchange of personality again take place. Saw the strongly marked features soften in outline, the face grow bearded yet younger ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the sleeper knows, nor is it for us to judge what lies between him and Thee." He prayed that if any man there had been remiss toward the stranger come to a far country, God would forgive him and soften his heart. He recalled the promises to the widow and the fatherless, and asked God to smooth the way before this widow and her children, and to "incline the hearts of men to deal justly with her." In closing, he said ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... Comrade Bickersdyke,' he said. 'I had not expected this. That you should be dazed by the shock was natural. But that you should beg us to reconsider our resolve and return to the bank is unworthy of you. Be a man. Bite the bullet. The first keen pang will pass. Time will soften the feeling of bereavement. You must ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... shall we 'scape the o'erwhelming Past? Can spirits broken, joys o'ercast, And eyes that never more may smile: - Can these th' avenging bolt delay, Or win us back one little day The bitterness of death to soften and beguile? ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... was standing by the window, stooping over a great pair of frayed and furrowed thigh-boots which he was labouring to soften with copious grease. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... and traced us by our blazing track, we should have had to camp out, for we had no idea where we were, or that we had wandered so many miles from home; nor had we any intention of returning just yet. We were very much ashamed of ourselves upon that occasion, and took care to soften the story considerably before it reached F——'s ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... he was so disgusted that he has never shown me a civil face since. I doubt whether he will send or go to France at all, and although the Duke of Mayenne despatches couriers every day with protestations and words that would soften rocks, I see no indications of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... oh, no, not at all! please understand me," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, touching his hand again, as though feeling sure this physical contact would soften his brother-in-law. "All I say is this: her position is intolerable, and it might be alleviated by you, and you will lose nothing by it. I will arrange it all for you, so that you'll not notice it. You did ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and as he has himself stated in the memorandum written nineteen years afterwards, which is inserted at the end of it, the opinion he entertained of him at this time was unjust. But he at the same time decided 'to leave it as it is, because it is of the essence of these Memoirs not to soften or tone down judgments by the light of altered convictions, but to leave them standing as contemporary evidence of what was thought at the time they were written.' These are his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... upon the doctor, who was utterly confounded at her behaviour, and returned her melancholy fourfold; at length, after a good many piteous sighs, she wiped her eyes, and accosted him thus: "What! not one word of comfort? Will nothing soften that stony heart of thine? Not all my tears! not all my affliction! not the inevitable ruin thou hast brought upon me! Where are thy vows, thou faithless, perjured man? Hast thou no honour—no conscience—no remorse for thy perfidious conduct towards ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... weight. The number of dippings and the length of time taken in each operation depend on the intensity of the black wanted and the amount of weighting which is desired. The chief substances used for weighting are lead salts, catechu, iron, and nut-galls, with soap and oil to soften in some degree the harshness of the fabric which these minerals cause. As the details of the operations are practically the same for all kinds of logwood blacks (raven, jet, crape, dead black, etc.), the method for producing ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... distension; it is usually called a crop, (by the scientific Ingluvies,) into which the food first descends after being swallowed. This bag is very conspicuous in the granivorous tribes immediately after eating. Its chief use seems to be to soften the food before it is admitted into the gizzard. In young fowls it becomes sometimes preternaturally distended, while the bird pines for want of nourishment. This is produced by something in the crop, such as straw, or other obstructing matter, which prevents the descent of the food ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... the hair removed, generally by the use of lime. After another washing, they are put into alum and salt for a few minutes; and after washing this off, they are dried, stretched, and then are ready for the softening. Nothing has been found that will soften the skins so perfectly as a mixture of flour, salt, and the yolk of eggs—"custard," as the workmen call it. The custard and the skins are tumbled together into a great iron drum which revolves till the custard has been absorbed and the skins are soft and yielding. ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... young missionary, who, about to start for Africa, marries wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her fulfill the conditions of her uncle's will, and how they finally come to love each other and are reunited after experiences that soften ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... so hard for others, so bitterly reviled when by chance some weakness of humanity comes to break, for an instant, the routine of their constant labour, so limited in their hopes and in their pleasures, they are of all folk upon this planet those for whom a man's heart may most justly soften. So said Frank as he gazed around him in the dark-cornered room. 'And never one word of sympathy for them, or of anything save scorn in all his letters. His pen upholding human dignity, but where was ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... Symons was a solicitor in a country town, and the problem of providing for his seven, darkened the years of childhood for the whole Symons family. The children felt that their parents found them something of a burden, and in those days there was no cult of childhood to soften the hard reality. ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... the right to make his life as he chooses. But you may be sure that wherever he has gone, there will be a place for him." The warden's voice changed, "He will be missed here. My business is not a sentimental one. It does not soften a man. We see a great deal of evil in this place, and very little that is good, and it is easy to—to question the ways of Providence, if there is any belief left in Providence. But when men like Benoix ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... Antoinette, although she is of age, never in the world would have decided to address to you a formal request of consent to this marriage. She would have made some scenes; she would have pouted; she would have endeavoured to soften you by assuming the airs of a tearful, heart-broken widow; she would have draped herself in black crape. And after that? Desperate case! These Artemisias are very tiresome, I admit; but one can accustom ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... in a lamb which had wandered away from the fold on the previous day. The shepherd had been afraid to tell his mistress of the loss, and Mary had promised to keep it from her till he had made yet another search; and then, if indeed it was hopeless, she would try to soften Mistress ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... back to Porto Rico all the revenue derived from the customs we levy, does not seem to me to soften our dealings with her people. Our fathers were not mollified by the suggestion that the tea and stamp taxes would be expended wholly for the benefit of the colonies. It is to say: We do not need this money; it is only levied to show that your country is no part ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... duty and this he would begin to carry out in the morning. As to his meeting his mother and Alec—should he fail with his father—that must be undertaken with more care, for he could not place himself in the position of sneaking home and using the joy his return would bring them as a means to soften his father's heart. Yes, he would find his father first, then his mother and Alec. If his father received him the others would follow. If he was repulsed, he must seek ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to Hobhouse, who deplores a journey he had made without the company of that friend, whose perspicacity of observation and ingenious remarks united in producing that liveliness and good-humor, which take away half the sting of fatigue, and soften the aspect of danger ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... did not know. Annie, for God's sake, let me tell. You can't know how keenly I suffer, Annie. Let me tell Mr. von Rosen. People always tell ministers. Even if he does not tell Wilbur, but perhaps he can tell him and soften it, it would be a relief. People always ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the Abbe Boiviel conformed himself with a very good grace to the monachal existence led by its inmates. The good regimen of the house tended also to considerably soften the former asperities of his demeanor; he spoke no more of Japan, but neither did he speak of the potable gold, although Voisenon on several occasions endeavored to obtain from him an explanation on this essential point. Whenever our asthmatical ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... isolated acts of obedience; it may stir up antagonism to sin's tyranny, but after that it has no more that it can do. It cannot give the purity which it proclaims to be necessary, nor create the obedience which it enjoins. Its thunders roll terrors, and no fruitful rain follows them to soften the barren soil. There always remains an unbridged gulf between the man and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... said, "will not your father soften towards us and let us be married to-morrow, so that we may have a few hours together before ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... declining to the last. All that could be done was to send Mrs. Gray a handsome present from the city; but this did not entirely relieve the mind of Mr. Bolton from the sense of obligation under which the disinterested kindness of the farmer had laid him; and thoughts of this tended to soften his feelings, and to awaken, in a small measure, the human sympathies which had so long slumbered in ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... various lustre dight, Gems undistinguished cast a changing light; Sapphire and emerald soften down the scene, Cold azure mingling with the vernal green, Pearl, amber, ruby warmer flames unfold, And diamonds brighten from the burning gold; Thro all the dome the living blazes blend, And shoot their rainbows where the arches bend. On every ceiling, painted light and gay, Symbolic forms their ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... with fortified purpose. Reestablished contact with the world brightened and humanized him, acting with an eroding effect on a surface hardened by years of lawless roving. In his voluntary exile he had not looked for or wanted the company of his fellows. Now he began to soften under it, shift his viewpoint from that of the all-sufficing individual to that of the bonded mass from which he had so long been an alien. The girl's influence had revivified a side almost atrophied by disuse. Men's were aiding ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... Hazel hastily. Then she began again, and tried to catch up her eager words and soften off their corners; speaking with a wistful affectionate tone that was half pleading, half deprecating. 'I meanI do not want anybody with me, sir. I am out a great dealand sometimes very busy at home. Andsome other ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... extraneous bodies slide, as oil in the stone in the urethra, and to expedite the expectoration of hardened mucus; or which lessen the friction of the contents in the intestinal canal in dysentery or aphtha, as calcined hartshorn, clay, Armenian bole, chalk, bone-ashes. Fifthly, such things as soften or extend the cuticle over tumors, or phlegmons, as warm water, poultices, fomentations, or by confining the perspirable matter on the part by cabbage-leaves, oil, fat, bee's-wax, plasters, oiled silk, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... and "old friendship" were quite sufficient to soften wrath in the tender hearts of the little ladies. But the lawyer had really lost his temper, and, before Miss Betty had decided how to offer the olive branch without conceding her principles ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... neighbours, and the highest against the sky. In the prettiest of hollows, Watermouth Castle looks down a slope of richest pasture to the sea sparkling below, and a great mass of rock shields it from storms blowing off the water. Clouds of foliage soften the lines of the hill ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... thievish practices, he committed petit larceny, which was immediately discovered. He thereupon was apprehended and committed to Newgate. At the next sessions he was tried, and the fact being plain, he was convicted; but being very young, the Court, through its usual tenderness, determined to soften his punishment into a private whipping. But before that was done, he joined with some other desperate fellows, forced the outward door of the prison as the keeper was going in ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... portion of a Rod of three or more pieces is so fast at the joints that you cannot draw, then hold over the flame of a candle or by the fire, and then try, the result is generally satisfactory. Let your gut soften in the water before you commence fishing. Examine old stintings of gut and hair to see there are no flaws by wear and tear, if there are, repair, or discard altogether, carelessness in such matters always brings disappointment in the long ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... older children, one tablespoonful to two ounces of water, given with the bulb syringe, will give prompt results. If the constipation is pronounced, the fecal mass very hard, an enema of sweet oil, allowed to remain in for ten minutes, will soften it ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... taste some strange berries which he found growing on a shrub. While they seemed to be edible, they were very bitter; and he tried to improve the taste by roasting them. He found, however, that they had become very hard, so he attempted to soften them with water. The berries seemed to remain as hard as before, but the liquid turned brown, and Omar drank it on the chance that it contained some of the nourishment from the berries. He was amazed at how it refreshed ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... delighted to hear it!' cried Margaret. 'Very proper of Sir Guy—very proper indeed, poor youth. It is well thought of to soften the disappointment.' ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... oath henceforward to warn to soften to escape the parrot that broke his heart the more he roared, the more I laughed ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... the senate then took care that the kingdom of Egypt should be a part of the wealth which was afterwards to be theirs by inheritance. After Berenice, his stepmother, had been queen about six months, they sent him to Alexandria, with orders that he should be received as king; and, to soften the harshness of this command, he was told to marry Berenice, and reign ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... temperamentally qualified for faith enjoy. All this may, however, turn out eventually to have been a matter of temporary inhibition. Even late in life some thaw, some release may take place, some bolt be shot back in the barrenest breast, and the man's hard heart may soften and break into religious feeling. Such cases more than any others suggest the idea that sudden conversion is by miracle. So long as they exist, we must not imagine ourselves to deal with irretrievably fixed classes. Now there are two forms of mental occurrence in human beings, which lead ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... prettily said that the melody of birds is the poor man's music, and that flowers are the poor man's poetry. They are "a discipline of humanity," and may sometimes ameliorate even a coarse and vulgar nature, just as the cherub faces of innocent and happy children are sometimes found to soften and purify the corrupted heart. It would be a delightful thing to see the swarthy cottagers of India throwing a cheerful grace on their humble sheds and small plots of ground with those natural embellishments which no productions of human ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... recognized her fate, and accepted it. A fresh bill was run up at the grocer's, and the mornings were passed in a state of torpor. Without getting absolutely drunk, she drank sufficiently to confuse her thoughts, to reduce them to a sort of nebulae, enough to blend and soften the lines of a too hard reality to a long sensation of tickling, in which no idea was precise, no desire remained long enough to grow to a pain, but caressed and passed away. Sometimes, of course, she overdosed ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... some days before this deep covering of snow is gone. The streets are still slippery with ice, which it will take some time, my lady, to soften." ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... afternoon, Esteban had fooled him irreparably; it did not need a glance at Christina, as she stood facing him, to convince him of that. There was no anger against him, he noticed, in her face, but on the contrary a great friendliness and pity. But he knew her at that moment. Her looks might soften, but not her resolve. She was heart-whole a Carlist. Carlism was her creed, and her creed would be more than a creed, it would be a passion too. So it was not to persuade her but rather in acknowledgment ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... plantations in which he and his brother Samuel were interested. She was "a Southern woman," with a charming accent, as every one admitted. The accent was greatly admired. Several young girls sought to soften the vowels of their native Hoosier speech in conformity with the models introduced by Mrs. Holton. The coming of this lady, the zest with which she entered into the social life of the town, the vacillations of certain old friends of the Montgomerys who had taken sides ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly to all she said, as a grown-up ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Selema and I went to the river to wash our hair with the pith of the wild oranges. We sat on the smooth stones near the water, and had just begun to beat the oranges with pieces of wood to soften them, when we saw a man come down the bank and enter a deep ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... and are followed by long days of idleness, during which they live on the fruits of their depredations. There is no shade of difference between the character of the nomad and the citizen; a town life does not soften their habits; they live there as they live in a tent, armed to the teeth and ready for the onslaught. Though full of duplicity, one is nevertheless liable to be taken in by their apparent frankness. They are hospitable to strangers, but only ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... common limestone. The inner one of three courses, as well as the whole superstructure, is formed of Pentelic marble of a compact crystalline structure and of dazzling whiteness. Long exposure has not availed to destroy its lustre, but only to soften its tone. The visitor, planting himself at the western front, is in a position to gain some adequate idea of the perfection of the noble building. The interior and central parts suffered the principal injury from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... White adduces in such names as Anthony and such words as authority, they have no bearing on the question, for those words are not English, and the h in them is perhaps only a trace of that tendency in t to soften itself before certain vowels and before r, as d also does, with a slight sound of theta, especially on the thick tongues of foreigners. Shakspeare makes Fluellen say athversary; and the Latin t was corrupted first ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... a sigh, taking the hand which she generously yielded to soften any suggestion of reproach which he may have read into her solicitude, "you are my guardian angel. I do not know, of course, who has told you this pack of lies,—for I can see that you have heard more than you have told me,—but I think I could guess the ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... to his followers and said he would ride away. Thorleik disliked very much that things should have taken such a turn as to go against Thorgils' will; but Bolli was at one with his mother's will herein. Gudrun said she would give Thorgils some good gifts and soften him by that means, but Thorleik said that would be of no use, "for Thorgils is far too high-mettled a man to stoop to trifles in a matter of this sort." Gudrun said in that case he must console himself as best he could at ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... of it having been of the make-shift and non-luxurious kind, is not delectable. A wooden saddle, without stuffing, made a very fair pillow; but the ridges of the lava were severe. I could not spare enough blankets to soften them, and one particularly intractable point persisted in making itself felt. I crowded on everything attainable, two pairs of gloves, with Mr. Gilman's socks over them, and a thick plaid muffled up my face. Mr. Green ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... back, having once put her hand to the plough. Indeed the blessed castle-building powers of youth disposed her to rear airy edifices as regarded the future, which lightened the present gloom. Suppose John Liddell were to soften toward her, and make her a handsome present occasionally, or forgive this debt to her mother? What a delightful reward this would be for her temporary servitude! But though Katherine really amused herself with such fancies, they never crystallized into hope. Hope still played round her ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... over here; a mangy dog will not take a piece of meat from them. I am sorry for poor Szechenyi; I do not dislike him. They will either drive things to a war from here, or let it come, and then they will stick the bayonet into the Austrians' backs; however peacefully people talk, and however I try to soften things down, as my duty demands, the hatred is unlimited, and goes beyond all my expectations. Since coming here I begin to believe in war. There seems to be no room in Russian politics for any other thought than how to strike at Austria. Even the quiet, mild Czar ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... Christ for their ransom is offered not to the tyrannical devil but to the offended God. Finally, in the progress of culture, the satisfaction theory appears; and now the suffering of Christ is neither to buy souls from the devil nor to appease God and soften his anger into forgiveness; but it is to meet the inexorable exigencies of the abstract law of infinite justice and deliver sinners by bearing for them the penalty of sin. The whole course of thought, once commenced, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... about a hundred feet, when it enlarged into a lofty, spacious room remarkable for nothing except being of an extraordinary size, and faintly lighted by an opening in the top which permitted a few rays of light to penetrate and soften the gloom below. This part of the cavern was evidently a natural freak of nature, for they found no traces of hewn rock or precious ore. From the opposite side of the cavern they found a low opening which, ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... long bill of complaints,—how badly she was treated, how she had sacrificed herself, her comfort, how she had washed and scrubbed. She would surely charge Cissie with being a thief and a drab, and all the announcements of engagements that Peter could make would never induce the old woman to soften her abuse. Indeed, they would ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... a little before such fierceness. The boy felt a faint suspicion of what had not before occurred to him: that the man was crazy. But the next second the gentle smile returned to soften the tense mouth, and the boy's fear vanished. No one could fear Donaldson when ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... black-hilted sword. In fact, he bore much more the appearance of a French lawyer of that day than anything else. The features, indeed, were there; but it was wonderful what the highly-powdered wig had done to soften the strong-marked lines of his face, and to blanch the weather-beaten appearance ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... always refuse an offer with dignity. Marmaduke was outrageous. George—a clergyman—owed his escape from actual violence to the interference of the woman, and to a timely representation that he had undertaken to bear the message in order to soften any angry feelings that it might give rise to. Marmaduke repeatedly applied foul language to his aunt and to her offer; and George with great difficulty dissuaded him from writing a most offensive letter ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... very good to you—to all of us," he said, hoping to soften her. "I like your friend Peg," ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... beautifully done," said Mrs. Bell, wishing much to soften the matter; perhaps the more so that Hetta the demure was now present. "I am telling Mr. Dunn that we can't take a ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... this inconvenience by the grandeur of the scenes; and, while the muleteer led his animals slowly over the broken ground, the travellers had leisure to linger amid these solitudes, and to indulge the sublime reflections, which soften, while they elevate, the heart, and fill it with the certainty of a present God! Still the enjoyment of St. Aubert was touched with that pensive melancholy, which gives to every object a mellower tint, and breathes a sacred ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Dora Thorne became Dora Earle. Ronald parted from his pretty wife immediately. He arranged all his plans with what he considered consummate wisdom. He was to return home, and try by every argument in his power to soften his father and win his consent. If he still refused, then time would show him the best course. Come what might, Dora was his; nothing on earth could part them. He cared for very little else. Even if the ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... food,—or that you will not go on caring about me more than anything else in the whole world ten times over;—" And Lily as she spoke tightened the embrace of her mother's arm round her neck. "I'm not afraid you'll be hard in that way. But you must soften your heart so as to be able to mention his name and talk about him, and tell me what I ought to do. You must see with my eyes, and hear with my ears, and feel with my heart;—and then, when I know that you have done that, I ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... from the side door—a tall, angular figure in a black dress. Her hair was done plainly and in no arrangement to soften the gaunt outline of her face, but there was much of it, and Sheila longed to make a change in ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... is all bosh? We are told about lots of miracles which weren't bosh, and if miracles ever existed, why can't they exist now? But there, I know what you mean and it is no use arguing. Still, if you're proud, I ain't. I'll try to soften the stony heart of Mavovo—we are rather pals, you know—and get him to unroll the book of his occult ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... dirt is washed from the fur, the flesh side well salted, rolled up and left 12 to 48 hours. Then thoroughly beam or scrape down the inside of the skin, removing all flesh, fat and muscles. Skins already dry may be placed either in clear water or tan liquor until they soften up. It takes longer to soften in the tan, but if put in water it must be watched or the hair will ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... a bloodthirsty ruffian!" said Hillard shortly. "Will time never soften the murder ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... pause and linger, and try and grasp some ineffaceable memory of sky and colour and outline. Your pace can hardly help falling into a contemplative measure at the time, everywhere so wonderful, but in Rome so persuasively divine, when the winter begins palpably to soften and quicken. Far out on the Campagna, early in February, you feel the first vague earthly emanations, which in a few weeks come wandering into the heart of the city and throbbing through the close, dark streets. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... answered Mrs. Harewood, "that in many cases much suffering may be apprehended; but our government will undoubtedly soften every evil to the inhabitants, as far as they can do it consistent with their views: you know the emancipation of the slaves takes place gradually, and by that means enables people to collect their money, to divert the channels of their merchandise, or to make themselves friends of ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... rank, rich, but just two and twenty, and beautiful enough to bewitch old or young. A sweeter and gentler soul Martina had never known. Those large dewy eyes-imploring eyes, she called them—might soften a stone, and her fair waving hair was as soft as her nature. Add to this her full, supple figure—and how perfectly she dressed, how exquisitely she sang and struck the lute! It was not for nothing that she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Soften down the intense feeling with which he relates heroic Rapid's deductions.—Harv. Mag., Vol. I. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... not met them at the town, because he wished their first impressions of his people to reach them uninfluenced by his escort. It was a form of the mountain pride—an honest resolve to soften nothing, and make no apologies. But they found arrangements made for horses and saddlebags, and the girl discovered that for her had been provided a mount as evenly gaited as any ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... be an officer. This one, Lawrence by name, was a bad lot altogether. The Colonel could add quite a respectable number of demerits to Broussard's credit. And to make matters worse, Broussard was a dashing fellow, the best rider in his troop, and had a way with him that made Anita's eyes soften and her tea-rose cheeks brighten when ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... impossible; if thou be doomed to undergo that declension and decay, from which no human institutions, no works of man appear to be exempt, may the records of thy philanthropy hold the world in subject awe and admiration, long after the dominion of thy power shall have passed away! May they soften the hearts of future nations, and be a shining sun that shall illuminate both hemispheres, and chase from every region of the earth the black reign of barbarism and cruelty ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... sunlight or moonlight, compels you to lament the 'melancholy activity' which, utterly inadequate to the restoration of its pristine glory, has deprived it of all those adventitious ornaments, trees, and herbage, and a thousand beautiful flowers, which, if they could not conceal, at least served to soften its injuries, and which mitigated the desolation they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... between the parties grew steadily in bitterness, despite the conciliatory and engaging manner in which Hamilton presented his cause in his state papers and despite the constant efforts of Washington to soften the asperity ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... and St. Antonio, and if I was foremost in the race, it was more owing to the goodness and favor of the man at my side, than any virtue which is still left in these withered sinews and dried bones. San Marco remember him in his need, for the kind wish, and soften the hearts of the great to hear the prayer of a ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... catastrophe that his imprudence occasioned, fell on his knees to the Prince, and adjured him in the most solemn manner not to shed innocent blood. He accused himself in the bitterest terms for his indiscretion, endeavoured to disculpate the youth, and left no method untried to soften the tyrant's rage. Manfred, more incensed than appeased by Jerome's intercession, whose retraction now made him suspect he had been imposed upon by both, commanded the Friar to do his duty, telling him he would not allow the prisoner many ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... vows and prayers gain the hardest hearts, Tears, vows and prayers have I spent in vain; Tears cannot soften flint nor vows convert; Prayers prevail not with a quaint disdain. I lose my tears where I have lost my love, I vow my faith where faith is not regarded, I pray in vain a merciless to move; So rare a faith ought better be rewarded. Yet though I cannot win her will with tears, Though ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... the hot air upon the peat is, in the first place, to soften and cause it to swell; it, however, shortly begins to shrink again and dries away to masses of great solidity. It becomes almost horny in its character, can be broken only by a heavy blow, and endures the roughest handling without ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... of the alcohol bottle into his shoes and, swearing like a madman, waited for the gum to soften. And the manager, who was not deaf, proved that his heart was harder than the best gum and could not be softened at all. And to this day no member of the company knows how much of the victim's salary was ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... afraid that my mother should tell it—as she thought, I suppose, she could soften it best herself—interposed, saying, "Sir, if you will give me a moment's time for recollection, sir, I will tell all. Dear sir, if one had committed murder, and was going to be put to death, one should have that much mercy shown—hard to be ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... and followed the servant to wards the Duke's own particular sitting room. He found that nobleman alone, with his foot upon a stool. He had calculated as he went thither how he might best soften the tidings he had to bring; but the Duke began the conversation himself, and in a manner which instantly put all other thoughts to flight, and, to say the truth, banished Sir John Fenwick and his whole concerns from his young companion's mind ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... his heart soften as he brushed away the tear that trembled on his lashes. Then looking at Roland, he said: "It is unfortunate that you are so hurried; I should have been pleased and delighted to spend a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... of this course of living is a question worth the attention of Darwin. Will his taking to the ground and his pedestrian feats result in lengthening his legs, his feeding upon berries and grains subdue his tints and soften his voice, and his associating with Robin put a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... most painfully the suffering his tale would produce, Douglas struggled with his own emotion, and repeated all the information he had obtained. Guardedly as he spoke, evidently as he endeavored to prepare the mind of Agnes, and thus soften its woe, his tale was yet such as to harrow up the hearts of all his hearers, how much more the frail and gentle being to whom it more immediately related; yet she stood calm, pale, indeed, and quivering, but with a desperate effort conquering the weakness ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... this offence of theirs (viz., the slaughter of the crow), do thou weaken them one by one. Prove their faults then and strike them one after another. When many persons become guilty of the same offence, they can, by acting together, soften the very points of thorns. Lest thy ministers (being suspected, act against thee and) disclose thy secret counsels, I advise thee to proceed with such caution. As regards ourselves, we are Brahmanas, naturally ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... both pairs to Maurice's and carried them into the bathroom. Here he set the plug in the tub, turned the faucets, and, after looking about him and discovering large supplies of all sorts in a wall cabinet, he tossed six cakes of green soap into the tub. He let the soap remain in the water to soften a little, and, returning to the dressing room, whiled away the time in mixing and mismating pairs of shoes along the walls, and also in tying the strings of the mismated shoes together ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... an old man who said, "How Shall I flee from this horrible cow? I will sit on this stile And continue to smile, Which may soften the ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... the offertory in these churches, and this, too, pleases my sense of the fitness of things. It cannot soften the woe of the people who are disinclined to the giving away of money, and the cheerful givers need no encouragement. For my part, I like to sit, quite undistracted by soprano solos, and listen to the refined tinkle ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... oligarchy and saved in the new democracies. I am haunted with a hint that the new structures are not so very new; and that they remind me of something very old. As I look from the balcony floor the crowds seem to float away and the colours to soften and grow pale, and I know I am in one of the simplest and most ancestral of human habitations. I am looking down from the old wooden gallery upon the courtyard of an inn. This new architectural model, which I have described, is after all one of the oldest European ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... stopped not here, for they knew well that they were subject to affliction and death. For the purpose of mutual aid, they banded themselves together in society capacity, that they might be better able to administer to each others' sufferings and to soften their own pillows. So we find the females in the early history of the church abounding in good works and in acts ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Maid, the young Charlot; 'Twill be a Task to soften her to Peace; She is all new and gay, young as the Morn, Blushing as tender Rose-Buds on their Stalks, Pregnant with Sweets, for the next Sun to ravish. —Come, thou shalt along with me, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... framed in such a way that during the fourteen years of probation the applicant should give up his previous nationality, so that for that period he would really belong to no country at all. No hopes were held out that any possible attitude upon the part of the Uitlanders would soften the determination of the President and his burghers. One who remonstrated was led outside the State buildings by the President, who pointed up at the national flag. 'You see that flag?' said he. 'If I grant the franchise, I may as well pull it down.' ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... state built these shields called the school and library, looking toward the unfortunate and those weak in body or mind, the state built bulwarks called asylum and hospital. Looking toward the chimney-sweep, the factory boys and girls, the state began to soften pain and mitigate the distress of labor. Looking toward the serf and the slave and the prisoner, the novelist and poet constructed song and story as shields for the protection of the weak and ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... men on the great thoroughfare, utterly hopeless of preserving any outward semblance of neatness, but each with his nosegay in his buttonhole; and as he glances down at it, from time to time, you may see his weary face soften and brighten, and an expression of cheerfulness steal over it, which renders him proof against even the depressing influences of the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... water on so that I can get the window open," Greg directed. "Just enough to soften the ice so that the sash will move back. Be careful not to let any of the hot water ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... in her comfort even in the simple fact of her presence. With his thought still filled with the white beauty of Keeko, the soft copper of An-ina's skin, the smiling gentleness of her dark eyes were things at all times to soften the roughness of ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... I quite know what to do with, it seems to me a very ignoble one. It chokes up everything that makes life worth living; it leaves so little time for the constant and regular practice of those ingenuous arts which faithfully to have learned is said to soften the manners, and make one an ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Redpath was maintained until Mr. Redpath's death. To General Charles H. Taylor, with whom I was employed for a time as reporter for the Boston Daily Traveler, I was indebted for many acts of self-sacrificing friendship which soften my soul as I recall them. He did me the greatest kindness when he suggested my name to Mr. Redpath as one who could "fill in the vacancies in the smaller towns" where the "great lights could not always ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... about translating Othello in consequence of the importance given to such a vulgar thing as a handkerchief, and his attempt to soften its grossness by making the Moor reiterate 'Le bandeau! le bandeau!' may be taken as an example of the difference between la tragedie philosophique and the drama of real life; and the introduction for ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... here any longer without arousing suspicion, and I went away, my heart crushed, leaving with the innkeeper some money to soften the existence ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the gloomy Roman grandeur of this speech, and that he would like to have worn a toga, and wrapped himself sternly in its folds, as he turned his back upon poor George's intercessor. George never in his own person made any effort to soften his father's verdict. He knew his father well enough to know that ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... civil and social life. "Thanks to the general ignorance, there was no intellectual life in Russia: thanks to the seclusion of women, there was no society." By degrees intercourse with Western Europe was destined to soften, in some particulars, the harsh outlines ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... yell that broke weirdly and chokingly on the gray cloak of fog, their horses' hoofs pounding dully on the earthen road. The rain had almost ceased, but enough had fallen to soften the ground. ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... I.—these settlers being protected and encouraged by the English king, who found their peaceable, industrious habits a great contrast to the turbulence and restlessness of the Welsh under their foreign yoke. Time has done but little to soften the difference between the Welsh and Flemish characters; they have never really amalgamated, and to this day the descendants of the Flemings remain a separate people in language, disposition, and appearance. In Pembrokeshire, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... more than pity, and that affection like mine might well have deserved a return; Perhaps, He may own thus much when I lye on my deathbed! He then need not fear to infringe his vows, and the confession of his regard will soften the pangs of dying. Would I were sure of this! Oh! how earnestly should I sigh for the moment ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... change. Even marriage couldn't change Jeff. You see, Jeff's got notions of life which are just part of him. Maybe he'll soften some in ways and things, but his notions'll remain, and they'll stand right out in all ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... the wrong course instead of the right one. Mr. Mill's explanation of the vehemence and decision of his father's disapproval, when he did disapprove, and his refusal to allow honesty of purpose in the doer to soften his disapprobation of the deed, gives the reader a worthy and masculine notion of true tolerance. James Mill's 'aversion to many intellectual errors, or what he regarded as such, partook in a certain sense of the character of a moral feeling.... None but those who do not care about opinions ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... speaking one more word she turned away and left the hall. Every one was terrified at her saying, when the twelfth came forward, for she had not yet bestowed her gift, and though she could not do away with the evil prophecy, yet she could soften it, so she said, ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... writer is a woman—suppressing her own agony, as she supported on her lap the head of the miserable sufferer. This account was drawn up by Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby, a Catholic lady, who, amidst the horrid execution, could still her own feelings in the attempt to soften those of the victim: she was a heroine, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... the flow of Mary's tears, than otherwise), "take this print to cry over. That won't be marked like this beautiful silk," rubbing it, as if she loved it, with a clean pocket-handkerchief, in order to soften the edges ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... accommodated itself to dark and clear nights. Their hearts were ever on the alert, and a little shade sufficed to sweeten the pleasure of their embrace, and soften their laughter. This dearly-loved retreat—so gay in the moonshine, so strangely thrilling in the gloom—seemed an inexhaustible source of both gaiety and silent emotion. They would remain there ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... new friends the like of us in Emain. CONCHUBOR — looking at her for a moment. — That's the first friendly word I've heard you speaking, Deirdre. A game the like of yours should be the proper thing for soften- ing the heart and putting ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... universally popular a story as that of King Noble and his not always loving subjects, should have been made, as usual, the battle-ground of literary fancy and of that general tendency of mankind to ferocity, which, unluckily, the study of belles lettres does not seem very appreciably to soften. Assisted by the usual fallacy of antedating MSS. in the early days of palaeographic study, and by their prepossessions as Germans, some early students of the Reynard story made out much too exclusive and too early claims, as to possession by right of invention, for the country in which Reynard ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... now, and then hastened to soften the admission by a coaxing, "But I wouldn't be troubling meself about that, if I were you, for they don't mind it a bit. I drew a picture of you the other day with a bubble coming out of your mouth, and 'Bow-wow-wow' written on it like a dog, because you are always ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... when dinner was announced. During that meal Mauleverer exerted himself to be amiable with infinite address. Suiting his conversation, more than he had hitherto deigned to do, to the temper of Lucy, and more anxious to soften than to dazzle, he certainly never before appeared to her so attractive. We are bound to add that the point of attraction did not reach beyond the confession that he was a very ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bits having been cut off, the beads are now rolled in fine sand, which has been carefully heated in earthen jars, until just warm enough to soften the outside of the glass, so that a gentle friction would rub off the sharp edges. The sand gets into the holes in the beads, prevents them from closing up during this process, and ere we can believe it possible, they come forth round, perfect, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... even upon the impious, tried to induce the prophet to release Him from His promise. To influence him He made the brook run dry (8) whence Elijah drew water for his thirst. As this failed to soften the inflexible prophet, God resorted to the expedient of causing him pain through the death of the son of the widow with whom Elijah was abiding, and by whom he had been received with great honor. When her son, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... chosen visitor to the illustrious order of the "Ladies of Fontevrault," (3) by whom he was held in such awe that, when he visited any of their convents, the nuns shook with very fear, and to soften his harshness towards them would treat him as though he had been the King himself in person. At first he would not have them do this, but at last, when he was nearly fifty-five years old, he began to find the treatment ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... in the floods of electric light as large and undeniably ugly. Built before artistic ambitions and cosmopolitan architects had undertaken to soften American angularities, it was merely a commodious building, ample enough for a dozen Hitchcocks to loll about in. Decoratively, it might be described as a museum of survivals from the various stages of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... away the oreless stones. Their movements were leisurely, but they were sharp-eyed and very few worthless bits got by the three of them. A story below, the picked material went under deafening stamps weighing tons and striking several blows a second, while water was turned in to soften the material. This finally ran down another story in liquid form into huge cylinders where it was rolled and rolled again and at last flowed on, smelling like mortar or wet lime, onto platforms of zinc constantly shaking as ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... one difficulty. It enabled me to see Red Jacket at leisure and alone. It seemed also to soften his feelings, and make him ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... confused by the weakness of his last hours, were taken down by the favorite scribe, Giannozzo Manetti, in the chamber of the dying Pope; with much more of the most serious matter to the Church and to Rome. His eager desire to soften all possible controversies and produce in the minds of the conclave about his bed, so full of ambition and the force of life, the softened heart which would dispose them to a peaceful and conscientious election of his successor, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... winter: and by both the poles Thou only wanderest. Here men ask thy rise And there thine ending. Meroe rich in soil And tilled by swarthy husbandmen divides Thy broad expanse, rejoicing in the leaves Of groves of ebony, which though spreading far Their branching foliage, by no breadth of shade Soften the summer sun — whose rays direct Pass from the Lion to the fervid earth. (20) Next dost thou journey onwards past the realm Of burning Phoebus, and the sterile sands, With equal volume; now with all thy strength Gathered in one, and now in devious streams Parting the bank that crumbles ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... horrible enemy whose throat is burning with thirst for your blood, instead of the compassionate prince who has given his own blood to assist you?" But it did not appear that these reasonings, which were sufficient to soften a rock, proved of much advantage to them, and the principal cause of their being so unsuccessful was, that not many had leisure to hear, the greater part being employed in looking at the gates; and of those who ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... stay a few days," he continued, "and then you had better go back to it," and as if to soften his advice he added, "The first cloudy day we will try for pickerel, though it is ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... not, Dicky," said I. "Don't say a word about it for some time to come, and then you can begin to look dull and melancholy, and to pine for the shore; and perhaps his heart will soften with compassion, and he ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... You'll have hot work if you engage with him; He's such an orator!—But ev'n suppose That you should gain your lawsuit, after all The trial is not for his life, but money." Perceiving him a little wrought upon, And soften'd by this style of talking with him, "Come now," continued I, "we're all alone. Tell me, what money would you take in hand To drop your lawsuit, take away the girl, And ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... companion. He was a man who might have been ten years her senior, with a keen soldier face, small well-marked features, a carefully trimmed black moustache, and a dark hazel eye which might harden to command a man, or soften to supplicate a woman, and be successful at either. His coat was of sky-blue, slashed across with silver braidings, and with broad silver shoulder-straps on either side. A vest of white calamanca ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the hour when she had been ready and willing to be his, to sacrifice love and happiness only to soften his wild mood and protect others from his unbridled rage. Yes, she might have been his wife by this time, if he himself had not proved to her that she could never gain such power over him as would control ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... as if he were going to make some angry remark; but he found no sneer on the face of the skipper's son, only a frank genial smile, which, being lit up by the warm glow gradually gathering in the west, seemed to glance upon and soften his own features, till he turned sharply away as if feeling ashamed of what he looked upon as weakness, and the incident ended by his saying suddenly—"Let's ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... sighes, your heart: Write till your inke be dry: and with your teares Moist it againe: and frame some feeling line, That may discouer such integrity: For Orpheus Lute, was strung with Poets sinewes, Whose golden touch could soften steele and stones; Make Tygers tame, and huge Leuiathans Forsake vnsounded deepes, to dance on Sands. After your dire-lamenting Elegies, Visit by night your Ladies chamber-window With some sweet Consort; To their Instruments Tune a deploring dumpe: ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... instrument better designed for that object than sex. Individuals that need not unite for the birth and rearing of each generation might retain a savage independence. For them it would not be necessary that any vision should fascinate, or that any languor should soften, the prying cruelty of the eye. But sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually toward another; makes it one of the dearest enjoyments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... presented to the Legislature of Sacramento. We had friends to offer them and foes to move they be thrown out the window. It is ever thus, "that men go to fierce extremes rather than rest upon the quiet flow of truths that soften hatred and temper strife." There was that unknown quantity, present in all legislative bodies, composed of good "little men" without courage of conviction, others of the Dickens' "devilish sly" type, who put out their plant-like tendrils for support; others "who bent the ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... fanaticism—or their policy—showed itself in a milder form than was found in the descendants of the Prophet. Like the great luminary which they adored, they operated by gentleness more potent than violence.52 They sought to soften the hearts of the rude tribes around them, and melt them by acts of condescension and kindness. Far from provoking hostilities, they allowed time for the salutary example of their own institutions to work its effect, trusting that their less civilized neighbors would submit ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... did not soften me, however. My heart was still hard with hatred and disappointment, and I was too busy with my sad thoughts to decide what to do, or to what town ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... seeming darkness and despair He has led me to light and happiness. And may I say it, we two, because of our cleaving to the light as it has been made known to us, have been brought together. Is it not true? I wish and pray also that your father may soften his heart towards the truth. I sometimes fear that his heart does already accept the gospel, but that his will says no. There now, ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... diminish or in any way soften the natural hardships of this pioneer farm life; nor did any of the Europeans seem to know how to find reasonable ease and comfort if they would. The very best oak and hickory fuel was embarrassingly abundant and cost nothing but cutting and common sense; but instead of hauling ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... Sorrow might sit throned on the ever dying heart of the universe. But never, never would I have chosen to live for that! Yes, one might choose to be born, if there were suffering one might live or die to soften, to cure! That would be to be like Paul Faber. To will to be born for that would ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... words: "He who loveth is of God," had touched his heart, and he was affected and humbled. Ethbert was also silent, secretly asking of God to enlighten and soften the heart of the chevalier, for which Matthew and himself had already ...
— Theobald, The Iron-Hearted - Love to Enemies • Anonymous
... the ruins of the old station, which he had made the most beautiful of all the mission properties. His one desire was to make peace among his people, and for this purpose he sent once and again to Henry Williams for his help. But even Wiremu, with all his efforts, could not soften the heart of Waharoa nor of the Rotorua leaders. The war accordingly went on, though now in desultory fashion. The Matamata station was finally stripped, and its occupants driven to the north. The Committee ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... immoderately eager to obtain the bishopric, formed parties and carried on the conflict with great asperity, the partisans of each carrying their violence to actual battle, in which men were wounded and killed. And as Juventius, prefect of the city, was unable to put an end to it, or even to soften these disorders, he was at last by their violence compelled ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... to another, he was very impressive in lecturing himself, and warned that other not to succumb to a temptation principally by indicating the natural basis of the allurement. Happily for young and for old, the intense insight of the young has much to distract or soften it. Rhoda thanked her father, and chose to think that she had listened to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... year than there have been for the last nine years," said Gerard, thinking to soften ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... about us like an ocean, and yet to have a heart that remains unblessed by divine love. We may make God's love in vain, wasted, as sunshine is wasted that falls upon desert sands, so far as we are concerned. The love that we do not requite with love, that does not get into our heart to warm, soften, and enrich it, and to mellow and bless our life, is love poured out in vain. It is made in vain by our unbelief. We may make even the dying of Jesus for us in vain,—a waste of precious life, so far as we are concerned. It is in vain for us that Jesus died if we ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... call upon me," he replied, "and if I can say anything to soften the old fellow, perhaps ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... good season," the governor said shortly, taking the despatches, "and if anything you can say will soften the obstinacy of these good people here, you will do ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... those colored men who soften the trade of janitor in many of the smaller apartment-houses in New York by the sweetness of their race let the Marches in, or, rather, welcomed them to the possession of the premises by the bow with which he acknowledged their permit. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... spirals, gauging the front and rear levels as I proceed by one-eighth of an inch at a time, until I can find no fault, all being square to the eye (for by nothing else can you prove your work here) when I prepare to cut the trench which was only wanted to soften off this ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... met over the vessel in silence, Nic's full of angry dislike, Pete's with an appealing, deprecating look, which did not soften Nic's in ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... tightly in deerskin robes, and in the darkening twilight of the cold winter evening it was reverently borne to the newly erected platform among the spruce trees. Here it was to lie exposed to winds and storms, but beyond the reach of marauding animals, until the next summer's sun should warm and soften the earth sufficiently to permit Mookoomahn and the trappers to dig a grave and lay it in its ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... with him," he commanded, stretching an arm towards the grey tentacle-like ropes. "We must soften his heart and break the diabolical pride that makes him persevere ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... and devours all around it. If the meekness or gentleness of a person who received the greatest injuries that ever any received, and to whom the greatest indignities were done, and who endured the greatest contradiction of sinners, if his calm composed temper do not soften our spirits, mitigate our sharpness, and allay our bitterness, I know not what can do it. I do not think but if any man considered how much long suffering God exercises towards him, how gentle and patient he is, after ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... two cantos of the Souvenirs he seemed half ashamed of the homeliness of the tale he had undertaken to relate. Should he soften and brighten it? Should he dress it up with false lights and colours? For there are times when falsehood in silk and gold are acceptable, and the naked new-born truth is unwelcome. But he repudiated ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... Britain is in South Wales, where the dust and smalls resulting from the handling of the best steam coals (which are very brittle) are obtainable in large quantities and find no other use. Some varieties of lignite, when crushed and pressed at a steam heat, soften sufficiently to furnish compact briquettes without requiring any cementing material. Briquettes of this kind are made to a large extent from the tertiary lignites in the vicinity of Cologne; they are used mainly for house fuel on the lower Rhine and in Holland, and occasionally ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... affluence did not enervate or soften the courage of Croesus.(1099) He thought it unworthy of a prince to spend his time in idleness and pleasure. For his part, he was perpetually in arms, made several conquests, and enlarged his dominions by the addition of all the contiguous provinces, as ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... the Cabbage Patch, and it was nearing Christmas again. The void left in Mrs. Wiggs's heart by Jim's death could never be filled, but time was beginning to soften her grief, and the necessity for steady employment kept her from brooding over ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... fourteen years of age!" That's mine! that's my own! [And she puts the picture away separately. She takes up a small packet of very old love-letters tied with faded old pink tape.] Old letters from mother; they must be her love-letters. She shall have them,—they may soften her. [She takes up a slip of paper and reads on the outside.] This is something for Mason, too. [She puts it back in the case. She takes up a sealed envelope, blank.] Nothing on it, and sealed. [She looks at it a moment, thinking.] Father, did you want this ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... a horse! Lassiter, the men of my creed are unnaturally cruel. To my everlasting sorrow I confess it. They have been driven, hated, scourged till their hearts have hardened. But we women hope and pray for the time when our men will soften." ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... who desire to retain or renew the charms of youth to soften the skin and open its pores by the use of steam baths and careful washing in warm water, followed by drying the surface with the finest cloths (panno mundissimo). If necessary, superfluous hair is to be removed ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... battle, ready to face about at the moment of attack, while, as they deployed, the famished Romans across the river swarmed down, under shelter of the protecting lines, and, lying thick in the turbid water below, drank as if their parched tongues and lips would never soften. ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the child's aversion," said Mr. Dundas in a half-musing, half-suspicious way. "Leam seems to be all that is good and kind to her, but nothing that she does can soften the little creature's dislike. It must be natural instinct," he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... these green leaves, closely encircling These rich scarlet blossoms, like yonder clouds, glorious and wonderful; Nothing on earth or in heaven could make fairer oblation. Abel, what have you carved on your altar, in that wild devotion By which you in vain seek to soften the anger of heaven? A circle, to show that your God is all near, is filling The seen and ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... between father and son after the duke was in a sufficiently pacified state to listen to reason. Charles betook himself to Dendermonde for a time until the duke was ready to see him[4]. His young wife made the most of her expectations to soften her father-in-law's resentment, and between her entreaties and those of the guest, proud to show his tact and his gratitude, the quarrel ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... you be so frightened, my pretty child?" said he, trying to soften his rough voice. "I promise not to do you any harm. What! You have been gathering flowers? Wait till we come to my palace, and I will give you a garden full of prettier flowers than those, all made of pearls, and diamonds, and rubies. Can you guess who I am? They call my ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... it is very easy to imagine, Mr. Harlowe's Pains, and Mrs. Harlowe's tender Concern for these Pains increasing together: her Attention to him, and earnest Endeavours to soften and alleviate the Extremity of his Torments becoming all her Care; till, his Ill-temper daily growing stronger by the Force of his bodily Disorders, he at last habituated himself to vent it on the Person who most ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... as Herbert Fitzgerald thought her. What had the Fitzgeralds done for her that she should sorrow for their sorrows? She had lived there, in that old ugly barrack, long desolate, full of dreary wretchedness and poverty, and Lady Fitzgerald in her prosperity had never come to her to soften the hardness of her life. She had come over to Ireland a countess, and a countess she had been, proud enough at first in her little glory—too proud, no doubt; and proud enough afterwards in her loneliness and poverty; and ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... brains to make of our country a brawny one, and we have used our talent to corrupt what was once equality into the unequal factions of power and poverty. The gods have given us genius to soften the crudities of the early century and to brighten our homes and our lives, and instead the inventions and the creations but serve to gild the mansions of the monopolist and to gird the iron more tightly on the wrist of the toiler. We are ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Instead of wearing the very things that she knew did not harmonize with her peculiar dark complexion, she studied what was becoming. Her hair, which was luxuriously long and heavy, she wore in such a manner as to soften the severe outline to head and face, and waved it deeply in front, so that curly tendrils of hair lessened the height of her too-high brow, and gave a more girlish look to the thoughtful face. In short, the Olive of two ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... tell you. I can't soften things, incidents, or explanations. I am so apt to go straight to the point, and though it may be honorable, it is not always wisest or best. But I can't help it now. I have enlisted in the navy. We start for ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... day of trial our witnesses appeared to have become suddenly afflicted with an almost total loss of memory; and we were only saved from an adverse verdict by the plain, straight-forward evidence of Caleb, upon whose sturdy nature the various arts which soften or neutralize hostile evidence had been tried in vain. Mr. Flint, who personally superintended the case, took quite a liking to the man; and it thus happened that we were called upon sometime afterwards to aid the said Caleb in extricating himself from the ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... dependants who come to rejoice on the birth or wedding day of a kind landlord, make one suppress one's sighs after a free country—at least suspend them; and fill one's heart with tenderness towards men, who have skill to soften authority with indulgence, and virtue to reward obedience ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... duty it was to smooth and soften, and, if possible, illuminate the last dark hours of the dying wretch, was not unwilling to admit the voluntary aid of those whom religious predispositions and natural commiseration excited to share with him in the work of piety. The task was in truth a hard one. The poor ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... case of a moist corn the paring should be stopped immediately the true nature of the injury has made itself apparent. Warm poultices or hot baths should then be used in order to soften the surrounding parts, lessen the pressure, and ease the pain. After a day or two day's poulticing, should pain still continue with any symptom of severity, the formation of pus may be expected, and it is then time for the ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
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