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More "Softening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the heathen and Arian barbarians who conquered them. Among those fierce and armed savages, the unarmed hermits stood, strong only by justice, purity, and faith in God, defying the oppressor, succouring the oppressed, and awing and softening the new aristocracy of the middle age, which was founded on mere brute force and pride of race; because the monk took his stand upon mere humanity; because he told the wild conqueror, Goth or Sueve, Frank or Burgund, Saxon or ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... CHARACTER.—But the influence of female character on the virtue of men, is not seen merely in restraining and softening the violence of human passion. To her is mainly committed the task of pouring into the opening mind of infancy its first impressions of duty, and of stamping on its susceptible heart the first image of its God. Who will not confess the influence of a mother in forming the ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... it is very beautiful here," said Miss Frances, softening, as he laid aside his strained manner, and spoke more quietly. "It is the kind of place a happy woman might be very happy in; but if ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... softening of the emotions," Pink advised impatiently. "That's the worst thing we've got to steer clear of, Andy! All them women in the game is going to make it four times as hard to stand 'em off. Irish is foolish over this one you're gettin' stuck on—you'll be fighting each other, if you don't look ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... broad ones; and that the two broad ones, when the flower is seen in profile, as at B, show their margins folded back, as indicated by the thicker lines, and have a profile curve, which is only the softening, or melting away into each other, of two straight lines. Indeed, when the flower is younger, and quite strong, both its {92} profiles, A and B, Fig. 11, are nearly straight-sided; and always, be it young or old, one broader than the other, so as to give the flower, seen from above, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... over everything which remained for us modern men to be enthusiastic about, of the energy, industry, hope, youth, and love that are squandered everywhere; tired out of loathing for the whole world of idealistic lying and conscience-softening, which, once again, in the case of Wagner, had scored a victory over a man who was of the bravest; and last but not least, tired by the sadness of a ruthless suspicion—that I was now condemned to be ever more and more suspicious, ever more and more contemptuous, ever more and more deeply ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... answered after a pause, in a more conciliatory voice, "but this is climbing down rather farther than we care to go. Now, what I thought is this. You might, if you chose, give this priest, or Moolah, who is coming to us, a hint that we really are softening a bit upon the point. I don't think, considering the hole that we are in, that there can be very much objection to that. Then, when he comes, we might play up and take an interest and ask for more instruction, and in that way hold the ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... if they had even passably good looks, that proposals would be more frequent. Of course there is no use in denying that Bessie's eyes had much to do with bringing young men to the point. Her eyes were large and dark, and they had an entrancing habit of softening just at the right moment, when there came into them a sweet, trustful, yearning look that was simply impossible to resist. They gazed thus at a young man when he was telling in low whispers how he hoped to make the world wiser and better by his presence in it, or ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... which had been sufficiently discussed with mamma, had to be referred to Mr. Gascoigne; and after Gwendolen had played on the piano, which had been provided from Wanchester, had sung to her hearers' admiration, and had induced her uncle to join her in a duet—what more softening influence than this on any uncle who would have sung finely if his time had not been too much taken up by graver matters?—she seized the opportune moment for saying, "Mamma, you have not spoken to ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the Terran could see that there was a difference among these ranked skulls, a mutation of coloring from row to row, a softening of outline, perhaps by ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... "occasion" thus "improved" by disjointed sequels—heedless, one would say, and yet glittering with the unreturnable thrust of subtle wit, or softening with simple emotion, like a thousand immortal passages of ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... it, then!" said Semple, his sharp face softening with pleasure at the news. "Yeh've pulled it ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... plans. They thought that the government of the Recollect fathers was milder, and hence they sighed for it. Those fathers tolerated their barbarous customs among a people so ferocious, and succeeded by their patience in softening and reducing them. Not so with the Dominican fathers, who learned the Zambals' tenacity at their own cost. In the village of Balacbac was an Indian chief named Dalinen; although he lived in that village, he kept his valuables ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... spoke, and her very yawn was graceful. Gwynplaine listened to the unfamiliar voice—the voice of a charmer, its accents exquisitely haughty, its caressing intonation softening its native arrogance. Then rising on her knees—there is an antique statue kneeling thus in the midst of a thousand transparent folds—she drew the dressing-gown towards her, and springing from the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... a small quantity of carbonate of soda into the pot along with the tea, and this, by softening the water, will accelerate the infusion amazingly. Should the water be hard, it will increase the strength of your tea ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... to have been due mainly to his mother. Cornelia would have been the typical Roman matron, had she lived a hundred years earlier; she would then have trained sons for the battlefield, not for the Forum. As it was, the softening influences of Greek culture had tempered without impairing her strength of character, had substituted rational for purely supernatural sanctions, and a wide political outlook for a rude sense of civic duty. Herself the product of an education ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... along the concession line for a mile, and then through the woods by the bridle-path to Peter McGregor's clearing. The green grass ran everywhere—along the roadside, round the great stump roots, over the rough pasture-fields, softening and smoothing wherever it went. The woods were flushing purple, with just a tinge of green from the bursting buds. The balsams and spruces still stood dark in the swamps, but the tamaracks were shyly decking themselves in their exquisite ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... Mr. Reynolds,—Mr. Reynolds, my cousin Mrs. Blake!" He waited uncomfortably, impatiently, while they shook hands, and then: "I'm afraid you're going to have a shock——" he exclaimed, and, suddenly softening, looked at her with a good deal of concern in his face. "There's very little doubt, Rose, ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... retired, and, as we shot forth upon wider calm, lo, Katahdin! unlooked-for, at last, as a revolution. Our boat ruffled its shadow, doing pretty violence to its dignity, that we might know the greater grandeur of the substance. There was a gentle agency of atmosphere softening the bold forms of this startling neighbor, and giving it distance, lest we might fear it would topple and crush us. Clouds, level below, hid the summit and towered aloft. Among them we might imagine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... time to think of redeeming her pledge to cousin Ward; and, to Mistress Betty's honour, the period came while Master Rowland was still too lame to leave Larks' Hall, except in his old coach, and while it yet wanted weeks to the softening, gladdening, overwhelming ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... city runs up into the Highlands. It seems to be a separate place, down in a distant valley, and the sense of its remoteness is heightened by the thin veil of gray smoke which wafts from the tall smokestacks of far-off iron furnaces, softening the serrated outlines of the city and wrapping its tall buildings in the ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... the houses of the civic notabilities, and here he had to go indoors, for he had particular business with them. This particular business consisted of a drink of palinka, which awaited him there, and whose softening effect was visible on his face when he ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... her colouring when one examined her carefully, was good too. Her hair a rich dark brown, of a shade one hardly does justice to at the first careless glance; her complexion healthily pale, with a tinge of sun-burning, perhaps a few freckles; her eyes clear, strong, hazel eyes, with long softening lashes. The whole was spoilt by a want of light—of the sunshine one loves to see in a young face—the expression was too grave and impassive; there was the suggestion of future hardness, unless time should mellow ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... I met him with the news of our change of plan, softening the blow as best I could. He bore it composedly, though sadly, while I explained that I could not possibly have shown the children the mountains of my own accord. "I have some lectures in Colorado," I explained, "but I shall not ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the old days when Miss Prime's discipline would have turned all within him to hardness and bitterness Eliphalet Hodges stood between him and despair, so now in this crucial time Elizabeth was a softening influence ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... the landscape, brown and bare though that was, left no room to regret the full verdure and radiant sunlight of high summer. The indescribable loveliness of the haze and hush, the winning tender colouring that was through the air and wrapped round everything, softening, mellowing, harmonizing somehow even the most unsightly; hiding where it could not beautify, and beautifying where it could not hide, like Christian charity; gave a most exquisite lesson to the world, of how much more mighty is spirit than matter. Diana did not see it, as she ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... the way home. He grumbled about the softening snow, about the gathering dusk, about the length of the road. His exasperation reached its height when, ignoring Thayer's advice in regard to the path, he struck out across an open snowfield, only to go crashing down through its insecure foundation of baby spruces whose lusty little branches ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... her whole body tingling; every now and then her breath came in a gasp of rage. At that moment she believed that she hated everybody in the world—the cruel, foolish, arrogant world!—even the thought of David brought no softening. And indeed, when that first fury had subsided, she still did not want to see the little boy; that destroying wind of anger had beaten her complacency to the dust, and she could not with dignity meet the child's candid eyes. It was not until the ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... foregoing, born Denise Tascheron, of Montegnac, Limousin; youngest child of a rather large family. She lavished her sisterly affection on her brother, the condemned Tasheron, visiting him in prison and softening his savage nature. With the aid of another brother, Louis-Marie, she made away with certain compromising clues of her eldest brother's crime, and restored the stolen money, afterwards she emigrated ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... a bath with 5 lb. bichromate of potash, 4 lb. sulphuric acid (168 deg. Tw.). Enter at 150 deg. to 160 deg. F., and work at this for about ten minutes. After chroming, wash thoroughly to remove all traces of acid. At this stage, the usual softening may take place if desirable, and finally ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... so ye have," said Biddy, her voice softening as she turned to look at the chicken and other things that Annorah had brought. "It's not yer mother, honey, that has a word to say against you; but when Father M'Clane talks o' yer being a heretic, it angers me. This Bible that he frets about, ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... may discern the slowly softening influences of years that bring the philosophic mind, of a calmer and easier time, and perhaps also of a different class of readers. Thackeray has now discovered that, as he says in his preface, 'to describe a real rascal you ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... each other so gallantly with a trembling compunction. Mrs. Herrick, who trusted her, was giving her hand in sublime ignorance. It was vain that Flora told herself she had given warning. She knew she had thrown the softening veil of her spiritual crisis over the ugly material fact. Had she said, "I want you to uphold me while I meet a thief whom I love and wish to protect. He's magnificent in all other ways except for this one obsession," she knew Mrs. Herrick simply would have cried, "Impossible, outrageous!" ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... tithes and spent them in the town, and left a chaplain with a bare subsistence to fill his place in the country. There was no parson's wife to drop in and speak a kind word—no clergyman's daughter to give a friendly nod, or teach the little ones at Sunday school—no softening influences, no sympathy, no kindliness. What could you expect of people with such dreary surroundings?—what but that which we know actually was the condition of affairs? The records of crime and outrage ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... away, but in a month's time came back, and this time he spoke, not to the girl, but to her stepmother. He had made up his mind, he said; he would wait any time. And he had long to wait, watching Irene bloom, the lines of her young figure softening, the stronger blood deepening the gleam of her eyes, and warming her face to a creamy glow; and at each visit he proposed to her, and when that visit was at an end, took her refusal away with him, back to London, sore at heart, but steadfast and silent as the grave. He tried to come at ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... massive, Saracenic architecture, the outgrowth of the solid rock. They were vast ranges, apparently of enormous height, their color indescribable, deepest and reddest near the pine-draped bases, then gradually softening into wonderful tenderness, till the highest summits rose all flushed, and with an illusion of transparency, so that one might believe that they were taking on the hue of sunset. Below them lay broken ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... to us, nevertheless, when the softening airs and the steady set of the breeze showed us that we had come into the latitude of the trade winds. The inky blackness of the sea had gradually turned into translucent and then into transparent azure, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... cold self-possession. It struck me that he despised them while he condescended to instruct them. The power of the man struck me again. I began to like him better. At least I venerated his thorough understanding of what was to me a splendid mystery. No softening appeared in the master's eyes in answer to the rows of pretty appealing faces turned to him; no smile upon his contemptuous lips responded to the eyes—black, brown, gray, blue, yellow—all turned with such affecting devotion to his own. Composing himself to an insouciant ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... knew well enough," said Hereward, in a low voice, "that the way to harden my father's heart was to set Godwin and Harold on softening it. They ask my pardon from the King? I would not take it at their asking, even if my ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... the cold valleys and snowy plateaux of Armenia, in districts which are separated by ten degrees of latitude from the burning shores where the fish god Oannes showed himself to the rude fathers of the race, and taught them "such things as contribute to the softening of life."[1] In Egypt progressive development took place from north to south, while in Chaldaea its direction was reversed. The apparent contrast is, however, but a resemblance the more. The orientation, if such a term may be used, of the two basins, ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... twilight o'er so bright a dawn. No wrinkle sits upon that brow!—and thus It ever was. The angry strife and cares Of avaricious miser did not leave Their base memorial on so fair a page. The eyebrows next draw closer down, and throw A softening shade o'er the mild orbs below. Let the full eyelid, drooping, half conceal The back-retiring eye; and point to earth The long brown lashes that bespeak a soul Like his who said, "I am not worthy, Lord!" From underneath these lowly turning lids, Let not shine forth ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... a little as she spoke. That name usually brought an answering smile, particularly from the men of Sour Creek. But Sinclair's saturnine face showed no softening. ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... It suggests a gigantic crozier. Before it was known what a slender metal core followed this wonderful growth, on the inside, there was a tradition that Kraft had discovered "a wonderful method for softening and moulding hard stones." The charming relief by Kraft on the Weighing Office exhibits quite another side of his genius; here three men are engaged in weighing a bale of goods in a pair of scales: a charming ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... folly to attempt to improve or even to comment, and which, a hundred times quoted, can never be stale. Sir Walter Scott died at Abbotsford on September 21, 1832, and was buried four days later at Dryburgh, a post-mortem examination having disclosed considerable softening ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... everlasting turmoil—the years of the reign of Edgar the Peaceful, whose early death had up till then been its one great sorrow. A time too of recovery from a state of insensibility to evil deeds; of increasing civilisation and the softening of hearts. For Edward was the child of Edgar and his child-wife, who was beautiful and beloved and died young; and he had inherited the beauty, charm, and all engaging qualities of his parents. It is true that these qualities were known at first-hand only ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... family to begin with. It is small wonder that she often felt a little disheartened, but even that was a cheering symptom, for in the books it is generally just when the little heroine becomes most discouraged that the seemingly impenitent relative exhibits the first sign of softening. ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... more direct way of ruling, not a more indirect way; and if we do not feel that we are all jailers, so much the worse for us, and for the prisoners. If it is really an unwomanly thing to lock up a robber or a tyrant, it ought to be no softening of the situation that the woman does not feel as if she were doing the thing that she certainly is doing. It is bad enough that men can only associate on paper who could once associate in the street; it is bad enough that men have made a vote very much of a fiction. ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... was right, for presently Grenfell stooped and picked up a discolored watch. It had fallen away from the moldering rags, but it had a solid case, and, when at length he succeeded in opening it, he recognized the dial. He gazed at it with a softening face, and then slipped it into ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... prisoner," Josephus said. "I am kindly treated, indeed, and Vespasian frequently asks my opinion of matters connected with the country; but surely I am doing more good to my countrymen, by softening his heart towards them, than if I had died at Jotapata—still more if I had been, like John of Gischala, a scourge to it. I trust even yet that, through my influence, Jerusalem may be saved. When the time comes Vespasian will, I hope, grant terms; and my only fear is that the ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... their [77] violent proceedings are the result of madness only, sent on them as a punishment for their original rejection of the god, being, as I said, when seen from the deeper motives of the myth, only a "sophism" of Euripides—a piece of rationalism of which he avails himself for the purpose of softening down the tradition of which he has undertaken to be the poet. Agave comes on the stage, then, blood-stained, exulting in her "victory of tears," still quite visibly mad indeed, and with the outward signs of madness, and as her mind wanders, musing still ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... get it, then?" said the man, softening slightly, which was not at all what the boys expected when Jane began ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... about this, and a perspicuity in making arrangements for lessening her immediate embarrassment, which had some effect in softening Eleanor's anger. So she suffered herself to walk by his side over the now deserted lawn, till they came to the drawing-room window. There was something about Bertie Stanhope which gave him, in the estimation ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... not his ideals. But he has his own dim and delicate ideals; and he would not violate these for money. He would not drink out of the soup-tureen, for money. He would not wear his coat-tails in front, for money. He would not spread a report that he had softening of the brain, for money. In the actual practice of life we find, in the matter of ideals, exactly what we have already found in the matter of ritual. We find that while there is a perfectly genuine danger of fanaticism from the ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... now, and half drowns the grassy fringe in front of the house. As I look at the stream, the vivid grass, the delicate, bright green softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water, unmindful of the awkward appearance in the drier ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... by imparting this conviction. But Lilith was afraid of a reaction of rage and hatred in her father after the terror was removed; and Karl saw that he might thus be deprived of all further intercourse with Lilith, and all chance of softening the old man's heart towards him; while Lilith would not hear of forsaking him who had banished all the human race but herself. They managed at length to agree upon a plan ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... Her mother had been the daughter of a small farmer, and she had well to do relations in an inland parish; but how much these facts were concerned in the result it would be hard to say: certainly she was one of those elect whom Nature sends into the world for the softening and elevation of her other children. She was still slight and graceful, with a clear complexion, and the prettiest teeth possible; the former two at least of which advantages she must have lost long before, had it not been that, while her husband's prudence had rendered ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... hospitality. So I thought, at least. Now and again, it is true, while his eyes were fixed on me, I would see how the soul behind them was away, far in the past, and then at a word, even at a movement, back it would come to me, with the tenderest softening I have ever seen upon ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... you bestow on me, but is for my riches, not for me. Ay, you think you have my wealth in your grasp already; you know I cannot live long. Thank God that my life is almost ended, and I hope my death will be a benefit to you, in softening your hard hearts." ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... way, these new burdens, her black dress—the first silk one since the winter before Billy came—and the softening folds of her veil, all invested her with a new and touching majesty that seemed to set her a little apart from ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... the girl sat silent. Silver mists were softening under a rising moon. The katydids were prophesying with strident music the six weeks' warning of frost. Myriads of stars were soft and low-hanging. Finally, she spoke in ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... a pauper who had once been an actress of considerable repute, but was compelled to give up her profession by a softening of the brain. The disease seemed to have stolen the continuity out of her life, and disturbed all healthy relationship between the thoughts within her and the world without. On our first entrance, she looked cheerfully at us, and showed herself ready to engage in conversation; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... manners so far softened; and though they may still occasionally be somewhat rough to the outer touch, the inward effect is plainly visible. With us, especially among our agricultural population, the absence of that inner softening is as visible. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... "I shall put the book out of the way. Your brain is softening, my dear, under the influence of ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... and patient, he is at the same time bold and uncompromising, and a bit radical into the bargain. In his own delicious way, he has been no mean advocate of liberal principles and measures. He has argued for the repeal of the corn and the modification of the game laws, the softening of the cruelties of the criminal code, and the fair administration of law for all orders and conditions of men and women. He has had no respect for ermine, lawn, or epaulets, in his assaults upon the monopolies and sinecures of Church and State, circumlocution offices, nepotism, patronage, purchase, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... been softening under the influence of these peaceful Bible words. She believed them; and in her heart was a real, earnest desire to teach her brother and sister Bible truths. Left alone, she would have explained that those who loved Jesus were struggling, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... was long and high, and too narrow; unfriendly, as only a room that is both badly proportioned and unusually large can be, but you forgot this in the softening glow of candles and rose-shaded lights. You forgot, too, that you were an exile from your own generation, among elders who bored you, though you were subtly flattered to be among them. Safe on a high window-bench ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... and where there is a minimum of those trials inseparable from human existence. The gratification of this migratory impulse has in many instances proved disastrous, the yielding to which should be only indulged after every possible effort has been made to remove local obstacles by uprightness, softening animosities, and by industry accumulate wealth. But emigrants have been illustrious as nation builders, their indomitable spirit blessing mankind and leaving impress on the scroll of time. The bump on the head of the Negro ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... them with his irritation softening. If they made him feel a trifle more lonely, they allowed him to feel also a trifle less responsible—for, after all, it was ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... journey would speak to him, but those with whom he would not care to speak; thus unconsciously involving himself in the condemnation of his countrymen. But Russia was soon to be changed; the ice of the Neva was softening under the sun of civilisation; the new ideas, 'wie eine feine Violine,' were audible among the big empty drum notes of Imperial diplomacy; and he looked to see a great revival, though with a somewhat indistinct ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her answer a few seconds, to take a last look at it before sending it to press. Then she said decisively:—"Yes." She made no softening reservation. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... from the goat the thought assailed him that one of the vedettes might be in sight; but all was still and beautiful as he stepped back slowly, eating with avidity portions of the gradually softening black-bread, and feeling the while that life and hope and strength were gradually ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... relation of objects to each other than upon their actual magnitude; and that an elevation of 3000 feet is sufficient to call forth in a most impressive degree the creative, and magnifying, and softening powers ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... battery steamer for softening sealing-compound and making covers limp, for softening compound around defective jars which are to be removed, for softening jars which are to be set in a battery ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... land breeze which faintly sighed in the treetops. A warm moon hung over Thimble Island, its soft lights catching in the ornaments Markham's companion wore, caressing her white shoulders and dusky hair, and softening the shadows in her eyes which peered like those of a seer down the path of light where the ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... perhaps I should lie in that state for many years—and get old and grey. And in the meantime you might die and leave me. [Sits in MRS. ALVING'S chair.] For the doctor said it wouldn't necessarily prove fatal at once. He called it a sort of softening of the brain—or something like that. [Smiles sadly.] I think that expression sounds so nice. It always sets me thinking of cherry-coloured velvet—something soft and ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... among the warlike Dorians, Scythians, Tartars, and Celts,[19] and, when there has been an absence of any strong moral feeling against it, the instinct has been cultivated and, idealized as a military virtue, partly because it counteracts the longing for the softening feminine influences of the home and partly because it seems to have an inspiring influence in promoting heroism and heightening esprit de corps. In the lament of David over Jonathan we have a picture of intimate friendship—"passing the love of women"—between comrades in arms among a barbarous, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... at the plump, gray-haired ladies who came a-calling in their smart black with the softening lace-effect at the throat, and they looked, smiling politely, too, at this slim, erect, pink-cheeked, bright-eyed woman with the shining golden hair and the firm, smooth skin, and the alert manner; and in their eyes was that distrust which lurks in the eyes ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... mean to deny that part of the increased conducting power in these cases of softening was probably due to the elevation of temperature (432. 445.); but I have no doubt that by far the greater part was due to the influence of the general law already demonstrated, and which in these instances came gradually, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... Against the sovereign order he decreed, All good and lovely—to blaspheme the bands Of tenderness innate and social love, 250 Holiest of things! by which the general orb Of being, as by adamantine links, Was drawn to perfect union, and sustain'd From everlasting? Hast thou felt the pangs Of softening sorrow, of indignant zeal, So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish The ties of Nature broken from thy frame, That so thy selfish, unrelenting heart Might cease to mourn its lot, no longer then The wretched heir of evils not its own? 260 O fair benevolence of generous ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... portion of humanity, who but the girls must take up her lost opportunities? It is with the class of men whose mothers have neglected to train them in the art of living that we have to deal; the man with whom feminine influence—refining, broadening, softening, graciously smoothing out soul-wrinkles, and generously polishing off sharp mental corners—has had no part. It need not necessarily mean men who have not encountered feminine influence, but it does mean those who never have yielded to it. The natural ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... his fingers move his eye can trace The once rude ivory softening into grace— Pliant as wax that, on Hymettus' hill, Melts in the sunbeam, it obeys his skill; At every touch some different aspect shows, And still, the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... done by two or three men, or it may be advisable to employ as many as can work without interfering with each other. In most cases,—especially where there is much water to contend with,—the latter course will be the most economical, as the ditches will not be so liable to be injured by the softening of their bottoms, and the ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... tracts of country: the cultivated soil imbibes the heat, and returns it to the surrounding air in warm and humid vapors. The exhalations arising from a much increased amount of animal life, together with the burning of so many combustibles, are not altogether without their influence in softening the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... strictest force against those who should be found to be offenders. Benvolio, who had been eye-witness to the fray, was commanded by the prince to relate the origin of it; which he did, keeping as near the truth as he could without injury to Romeo, softening and excusing the part which his friends took in it. Lady Capulet, whose extreme grief for the loss of her kinsman Tybalt made her keep no bounds in her revenge, exhorted the prince to do strict justice ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... idea of partitioning France, or having any other intention in the movement of the troops than the security of the French throne. This document had been sent to the Council at Berlin, and been returned by them for revision by the duke, and the softening of its rather uncourtly decisiveness of expression. It stated, that even the conquest of France, if it could be effected, must be wholly useless without the conciliation of the people: that it must be insecure, that it never ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... the ravings of delirium she was first wildly indignant and then coldly despairing; at first she thought he was cruel; then she realized, with a softening to pity, that he was only mad. He won back the pity by telling her that his mouth and throat were now in an advanced state of decomposition, having been dead many months; maggots were crawling over them, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... blue eye softening to a twinkle, "sixteen dollars a day is fair wages, to be sure; but nothin' to get wildly excited over." He surveyed the two of us with some humour. "Hadn't thought of it that way, had you?" he asked. "Nuther had I until last night. I was so dog tired I couldn't sleep, and I got to figgerin' ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... thing with which people break their fast in the evening is dates. My taleb, when visiting me, takes a few dates in his hands, and goes to a corner of the court-yard, or upon the house-top, about the softening, musing time, when the last solar rays are lingering playfully—and to the emaciated faster, teasingly, on this Saharan world, and there he listens in silence for the first accents of the shrill voice ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... nobility and gentry, though strong in numbers and in property, had among them scarcely a single man distinguished by talents, either for business or for debate. A few of them, however, were admitted to subordinate offices; and this indulgence produced a softening effect on the temper of the whole body. The first levee of George the Second after Walpole's resignation was a remarkable spectacle. Mingled with the constant supporters of the House of Brunswick, with the Russells, the Cavendishes, and the Pelhams, appeared a crowd ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... offense," she said, "I merely wished to show you that I have not been so much your enemy as you perhaps have thought me," and by the sudden softening of my lady's face, and the sudden tremor of her voice, Leone knew that she ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... spot capable of being scaled. Before them, and occupying the whole bottom of this enormous basin, stretched a placid lake, the water of which was as clear as crystal. A thin filmy veil of vapour rose everywhere from the surface of the water, softening the hard outlines of the more distant landscape, and imparting an aspect of dreamlike witchery and unreality which it ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Gailey, acting as George Cannon's precursor, prophet, and expounder. While the summer cooled into autumn, and the boarding-house season slackened and once more feebly brightened, she had daily conversed with Sarah about George's plans, making them palatable to her, softening the shocks of them, and voluntarily promising not to quit her until the crisis was past. She had had to discourse on the unique advantages of Brighton as a field for George's enterprise, and on George's common sense and on Sarah's common sense, and the interdependence of the two. When the news ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... leave Italy altogether; and at Florence he could at least more freely decide upon his future movements. He felt profoundly, incurably disgusted. Reflective benevolence stood prudently aside, and for the time touched the source of his irritation with no softening side-lights. ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... education, in the representation of which episodes are given of her progress in her own sphere to the level and companionship of man. Reference is made to the means of increasing her beauty, and employing her charms for her own and man's happiness;[1] the gentleness of her nature in softening man's lot, whilst she is supported and defended by him; woman as a mother, her devotion to her children, and her joy and gratitude in contemplating the development of their strength and beauty through the means enjoined and ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... said, with a softening of tender respect in his tone. "Forgive my intrusion. You must not risk the least trouble for me. I'll feel like a king after this rest and refreshment here, and be ready ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... after a short silence he decided to speak, and in a low voice, hoarse at first, but softening as he went on, he told Clerambault that his articles had been brought into his trench by a man just back from leave, and handed about from one to the other; to him they had been a real blessing. They answered ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... being both brief and clear is apt to render statements apparently bolder, and sometimes harsher, than where there is room for qualification or argument; and that they will not always accuse the work of unthinking boldness of assertion, where the softening is omitted for fear both of wearying and ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... under the influence of some irresistible impulse or antagonistic affinity like a musical discord, Mrs Rampy and Mrs Blathers were discussing their friends and neighbours in the abode of the former, without the softening influence of the teapot and ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... pacing brooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea; crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, softening in their fall the sound ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... is, in my own experience, most striking and startling. The difficulty is to distinguish between the insane brain and that of an individual sane, but in whom the brain is (as in time it may be) anaemic, wasted, or even with tracts of softening. Still," he adds, "I think, generally speaking, the sane organ may be distinguished from the insane, the decision turning largely on the degree of the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... Brahmanas and Vedas of India, or were retained in the popular religion of Egypt. This theory recommended itself to Lobeck. "We may believe that ancient and early tribes framed gods like unto themselves in action and in experience, and that the allegorical softening down of myths is the explanation added later by descendants who had attained to purer ideas of divinity, yet dared not reject the religion of their ancestors."(2) The senseless element in the myths would, by this theory, be for the most part a "survival"; and the age and ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... Clotilde was more clear sighted. One day meeting Malchus alone in the atrium she said to him: "Malchus, do you know that I fear Julia is learning to love you. I see it in her face, in the glance of her eye, in the softening of that full ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... and stalked across the platform into the store. The White Chief turned away with tightening lips, but there was no softening in his smoke-colored eyes. It would be to his interest to have his bookkeeper a squaw-man. The old Hudson Bay Company factors had proved the advantage of having their employees take Indian women. For his own health's sake ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... stand, still you listen, still you smile! Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, Softening, sweetening, till sweet and soft Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft I could believe your moonbeam smile has past The pallid limit and, transformed at last, Lies, sunlight and salvation—warms the soul ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... had thrown itself back into the unknown past almost tenderly towards the mother who had died long ago, to whom perhaps Bice had been what little Tom was now to herself. But when the further statement reached her ears all that softening which seemed to have swept over her disappeared in a moment. A horrible bewilderment had seized her. Was he two men, with two wives, two lives, two children ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... almost as much as Helen's did when Cardross leaped in at the window, all his good-humor restored, kissed his mother in his rough, fond way, of which he was not in the least ashamed as yet, and sat down by the wheeled chair with that tender respectfulness and involuntary softening of manner and tone which he never failed to show Lord Cairnforth, and had never shown so much to any ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Erris Boyne must now suffer. She must bear the ignominy which had been heaped upon Dyck Calhoun's head. Yet all at once there came to her mind a softening feeling. Erris Boyne had been rightly killed by a woman he had wronged, for he was a traitor as well as an adulterer—one who could use no woman well, who broke faith with all civilized tradition, and reverted to the savage. Surely the woman's crime was not ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... caught, no more his eager hopes are crost; But vain are Wit and Love, when that is lost." Thus said the god; for now a god he grew His white locks changing to a golden hue, And from his shoulders hung a mantle azure-blue. His softening eyes the winning charm disclosed Of dove-like Delia when her doubts reposed; Mira's alone a softer lustre bear, When woe beguiles them of an angel's tear; Beauteous and young the smiling phantom stood, Then sought on airy wing his blest abode. ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... any rate, dear Jane. It is very kind in you to wish to take her off our hands, but I do want to try her a little longer. I thought she seemed to be softening last night.' ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... feeling had always remained one of friendship, but, with Claudet, it had ripened into love; and now, after allowing the poor young fellow to believe that his love was reciprocated, she was forced to disabuse him. It was useless for her to try to find some way of softening the blow; there was none. Claudet was too much in love to remain satisfied with empty words; he would require solid reasons; and the only conclusive one which would convince him, without wounding his self-love, was exactly the one which the young girl could not give him. She was, therefore, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... civilization of these Normans, Europe has probably hastened the epoch of their next invasion. For let no one believe that their pompous cities, their exotic and forced luxury, will be able to retain them; that by softening them, they will be kept stationary, or rendered less formidable. The luxury and effeminacy which are enjoyed in spite of a barbarous climate, can only be the privilege of a few. The masses, which are incessantly increasing ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... began to adore her accordingly, with a girl-reverence, quite as profound, far more unselfish, and little less ardent than that of man for woman. That a female vision of perfection should engross Clara's imagination, was a step towards softening her; but, poor child! the dawn of womanhood was to come ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... paper tiger; Quaker gun. inefficacy &c (inutility) 645 [Obs.]; failure &c 732. helplessness &c adj.; prostration, paralysis, palsy, apoplexy, syncope, sideration^, deliquium [Lat.], collapse, exhaustion, softening of the brain, inanition; emasculation, orchiotomy [Med.], orchotomy [Med.]. cripple, old woman, muff, powder puff, creampuff, pussycat, wimp, mollycoddle; eunuch. V. be impotent &c adj.; not have a leg to stand on. vouloir rompre l'anguille au ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... voices as the most expert ventriloquist, and now sternly commanding, "Silence in the ranks!"—now getting up a seeming scuffle among his men, and now driving them, with thwacks and curses, to their places; and now again softening his tones and cracking jokes with his men,—Smith, Johnson, &c.,—who, in as many different tones, were heard to return various sharp and comical retorts, which raised shouts of laughter and made the forest ring with the sham merriment And thus he proceeded, to the secret amusement of the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... hoped that if Andre and Joan were brought up together a tender intimacy would arise between the two children; and that the beauty of our skies, our civilisation, and the attractions of our court would end by softening whatever rudeness there might be in the young Hungarian's character; but in spite of my efforts all has tended to cause coldness, and even aversion, between the bridal pair. Joan, scarcely fifteen, is far ahead of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... went a mile out of sight of home, so vivid in his imagination was the vision of his house burning, and his family at the mercy of pirates. Nothing happened, however, to confirm his fears. The enemy were never heard of in the fiord; and the cod-fishers who came up, before the softening of the snow, to sell some of their produce in the interior of the country, gave such accounts as seemed to show that the fishing-grounds were the object of the foreign thieves; for foreign they were declared to be: some said ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... it crumbles into a soft, brownish, powdery mass, and eventually the whole sinks into the soil, is overgrown by mosses and other vegetation, and the tree trunk has disappeared from view. In the same way the body of the dead animal undergoes the process of the softening of its tissues by decay. The softer parts of the body rapidly dissipate, and even the bones themselves eventually are covered with the soil and disintegrated, until in time they, too, disappear from any visible ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... hope of softening and subduing all their sorrows?' said Lord Montfort; 'cannot we again bring together these young ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... helplessness. All the mental energies are crushed beneath the oily mass. Sensibility is smothered in, the feculent steams of roast beef, and delicacy stained by the waste drippings of porter. The brain is slowly softening into blubber, and the liver is gradually encroaching upon the heart. All the nobler impulses of man are yielding to those animal propensities which must soon render Englishmen beasts in ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... do," thought Dick to himself as he observed the softening of Miss Philly's features and noted her very remarkable and unnatural silence—"this will do;" and reiterating his request that the order might be got ready, he walked ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford
... there is an advance in the form of the call, for only now do we read that the Lord 'came, and stood, and called' as before. A manifestation, addressed to the inward eye, accompanied that to the ear. There is no attempt at describing, nor at softening down, the frank 'anthropomorphism' of the representation, which is the less likely to mislead the more complete it is. Samuel had heard Him before; he sees Him now, and mistake is impossible. But there ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the Bible and the Methodist hymn books at night when he was supposed to be asleep. He always regarded this religious experience as the most important part of his education; it had the effect, not only of enlarging his mind, but also of restraining his impatience, and softening a disposition that was growing hard and bitter with brooding over the disadvantages suffered by himself and his race. He greatly needed something that would help him to look beyond his bondage and encourage him to ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... the sunset; on the slowly fading colours of the cloudlands overhead. Something of that colour played across her fine face, mellowing, softening, drawing as it seemed the very soul to cheeks and lips and eyes. Dave paused in his speech to regard her, and her beauty rushed upon him, engulfed him, overwhelmed him in such a poignancy of tenderness that it seemed for a moment all his resolves must be swept away and ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... when not even the passionate love of an entire nation availed to further the ends on which the Titan had set his heart, he carried his sorrow with him, and drew comfort from the goodness of the sweet soul who was his true mate. It is a very sweet picture; and we see in history how the softening home influence finally converted the, awful, imposing, tyrannical Chatham into a ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... humour dress, And watch the lucky Moment of Success; That caught, no more his eager hopes are crost; But vain are Wit and Love, when that is lost." Thus said the god; for now a god he grew His white locks changing to a golden hue, And from his shoulders hung a mantle azure-blue. His softening eyes the winning charm disclosed Of dove-like Delia when her doubts reposed; Mira's alone a softer lustre bear, When woe beguiles them of an angel's tear; Beauteous and young the smiling phantom stood, Then sought on airy wing his blest abode. Ah! truth, distasteful in poetic theme, Why is the ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... in the psychiatric clinic at Vienna, paralysis (softening of the brain) is making by far greater progress among women than among men. To 100 patients taken in, there were in ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... not give a bit of bread and cheese for one night's supper to those who labour, and who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves. It is not in breaking the laws of commerce, which are the laws of nature and consequently the laws of God, that we are to place our hope of softening the divine displeasure. It is the law of nature, which ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... his late uncle Sir Thomas had, in the closing years of his life, shown unmistakable signs of brain-softening, and that a symptom of his complaint had been his addiction to making a number of wills—"two-thirds of 'em incoherent. Every two or three days he'd compose a new one and send for Huskisson, his lawyer; and Huskisson, after reading the rigmarole through, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... put one arm about Madge. "It is all right, my dear," she said, softening a little, "but you must promise me that you will not do such harum-scarum things again, and that you will try to keep your temper." Mrs. Curtis was on the point of asking Madge to give up her acquaintance with the ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... ears had never heard his name,—Luttrell; a pretty name, too; but we all know how little is in that. I feel absurdly disappointed; and why? Because it is decreed that a man I never have known I never shall know. I doubt my brain is softening. But why has my tent been pitched in such a lonely spot? And why did he say he'd come? And why did John tell me he was good to look at, and, oh! that best ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... by a softening in her tone and manner, I told Miss Rayner all, asking her at the end if she did not think I had ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... of the closing door she had glanced up, and then, at the sight of the king, she sprang to her feet and ran towards him, her hands out, her blue eyes bedimmed with tears, her whole beautiful figure softening into womanliness ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... easier to propound this catechism to herself than to find answers to her own questions; and so she walked up and down, worrying her pretty little head with all sorts of anxieties, until it was a perfect miracle that softening of the brain did ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... your brains softening? Why does he shadow a woman who wouldn't lift her finger to save him from battle, murder, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... servitude the law allotted. I should say that he did not himself know why he did it. That intense, brooding moroseness, that wormwood hatred, does not often understand itself. So much the more dangerous is it; no argument, no softening influence can ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... dying," said the boy, his voice softening. "Holy Virgin, save him! For weeks, we've been in the hands of Aguinaldo's men. He's been so ill, all the time; ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Greifenstein who lay upstairs, dead beside his dead wife, would have chosen to tramp far into the forest, with his gun on his shoulder and his dogs at his heels. It was such a day as would have made poor Clara's lot seem easier, softening her tortured conscience in a thaw of passing satisfaction, pleasant while it lasted, transitory as the gleam of light and warmth in the dismal winter of the Black Forest. The forest itself alone was unchanged. The trees looked blacker than ever against the blue sky and under the violent light. ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... little higher still; and then, by and by, it was (as it had been in the summer-time before) circling round and round us, shining all the while; and now our hut was at midnight in the shadow of the cliff; at noon the sun was blazing down upon us, softening the snow, and making our hearts, O, how happy and thankful!—more so than ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... thirty-seven persons; seven hundred and five of these were adults, and ninety-two children. At first, the men encountered great difficulty in putting away their many wives; but finally the divine Majesty made the outcome propitious, softening the hearts of those pagans, and they brought their undertaking to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... have in mind while using these harsh epithets. But is it not the old house, and that alone, in which the martyrs shed their blood for Christianity? Where did it fulfil its lofty task of saturating the heart of mankind with love, softening the customs of rude pagans, clearing away forests, transforming barren wastes into cultivated fields, planting the cross on chapels and churches, summoning men with the consecrated voice of the bell to the sermon which proclaims love and peace? Where did it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... back her answer a few seconds, to take a last look at it before sending it to press. Then she said decisively:—"Yes." She made no softening reservation. She had ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... skeletons, as you look upward, are strikingly prominent amid the green foliage. Likewise, there are chestnuts, growing up in a more regular and pyramidal shape; white pines, also; and a shrubbery composed of the shoots of all these trees, overspreading and softening the bank on which the parent stems are growing, these latter being intermingled with coarse grass. Observe the pathway; it is strewn over with little bits of dry twigs and decayed branches, and the sear and brown oak-leaves of last ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... lichens. Below, near the foot of the moor, ran a straight dark line of firs, the one coldly-somber streak in the scene; but beyond it the rolling, sunlit plain ran back, fading through ever varying and softening colors to the ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... help Antonio on with the baggage, Charles?" said Julia, as she stood looking at the driver tottering under the weight of the trunks. Charles stared a moment with surprise—the name created no astonishment, but the request did. Julia had a habit of softening names, that were rather harsh in themselves, to which he was accustomed. Peter she called Pierre; Robert was Rubert {sic}; and her aunt's black footman Timothy, she had designated as Timotheus: but it was not usual for ladies to request gentlemen to perform menial offices—until, recollecting ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... got rid of; and the patient's recovery depends on the possibility of getting rid of it. If there is much of it, so as to be removed from the vivifying influence which adjacent living structures still maintain about it, the deposit softens at its centre. This softening gradually extends to the circumference; the mass irritates more and more the parts around it, and where the irritation is greatest the structures yield, and are removed to make a way for its escape, and the patient spits up the contents ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... year's ordinary experience would have enabled me to do. And the moral which I drew was this: that under our most terrible afflictions, we may always gain some spiritual good, if we suffer them to be softening and purifying rather than hardening influences over us. And also, that while we are suffering the most acutely, we may be sure that others are suffering still more acutely; and if we would but sympathise with them more than with ourselves—live ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... the evening before had been one of the most busy in the world. In spite of the sadness of this solitude, Napoleon, on finding Moscow abandoned like the other Russian towns, thought himself happy nevertheless in not finding it burned up, and did not despair of softening little by little the hatred which the presence of his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Mantalini's blandishments had departed. 'Miss Knag, sir,' said his wife, 'is my particular friend;' and although Mr Mantalini leered till his eyes seemed in danger of never coming back to their right places again, Madame Mantalini showed no signs of softening. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... and makes him more obstinate. Like some perverse ox in the yoke, he stiffens his neck, and stands the very picture of brute obduracy. There is an awful alternative involved in our hearing of God's message, which never returns to Him void, but ever does something to the hearer, either softening or hardening, either scaling the eyes or adding another film on them, either being the 'savour of life unto life or of death unto death.' The mission of the prophets changed forgetfulness of God's 'statutes' into 'rejection' of them, and made idolatry self-conscious ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... consummated, and between them, by way of preparing the unhappy Queen, they made up a story that the King had been led out to execution, but had been rescued by the populace. I could not see that this would be of much use in softening the blow; in fact, I thought all these delicate false-hoods only made the suspense worse, but I was told that I was a mere downright English country lass, with no notion of the refinements such things ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on a brush-dotted level, his horse, Dexter, slowly circled his picket and nibbled at the scant bunch-grass. The western sun trailed long shadows across the canon; shadows that drifted imperceptibly farther and farther, spreading, commingling, softening the broken outlines of ledge and brush until the walled solitude was brimmed with dusk, save where a red shaft cleft the fast-fading twilight, burning like a great spotlight on a picketed horse and a man asleep, his head pillowed on ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... Kiyogen. The whole entertainment having a religious intention, the Kiyogen stand to the No in the same relation as the small shrines to the main temple; they, too, are played for the propitiation of the gods, and for the softening of men's hearts. The farces are acted without wigs or masks; the dialogue is in the common spoken language, and there being no musical accompaniment it is quite easy to follow. The plots of the two farces which were played before the Duke of ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... on whom the urbanity and candour of the captain of the Foam were beginning to have a softening influence. "You have no objection to let me see your papers, and examine ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense and every heart is joy. Then comes thy glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... forms in relation to callosities on the sole of the foot is treated by paring away all the thickened skin, after softening it with soda fomentations, removing the unhealthy granulations, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... we have endeavored to point out is peculiarly great as respects music and singing, owing to the power over the natural sensibilities, which sweet sounds possess; and it is easy to mistake the emotions thus produced for the tenderness of mind and the softening influence ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends
... melancholy contrast to its brilliant opening. Health, success, prosperity—all had deserted him, and nothing remained but the editorial chair, to which he clung even after epileptic attacks had resulted in paralysis and gradual softening of the brain. The failure of his mental powers was kept secret as long as possible, but in November, 1866, he yielded to the entreaties of his wife and children, knocked off work for ever, and went home to die. ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... sympathy. It was odd that he had never seen her in all that time—the years when he had unconsciously longed for friendship, and the sight of a woman's face—a white face. The rings from his cigar melted around him, softening his face until it took on the boyish ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... you had but to do it!" cried Lionel, impetuously wrenching the door open in spite of her gentle resistance, and running off determinately, leaving her, poor girl, in great despair, at having so completely failed either in comforting, softening, or bringing him to any kind of resigned feeling, having besides vexed him, made him think her unkind; and though this was unintentional, and might be better for him, just contradicted what his ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Aniti, at the Ladrones, is, as we learn from Cantova (Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, tom. xv. p. 309, 310.) at the Caroline Islands, where dead chiefs are also worshipped, called a Tahutup; and that, by softening or sinking the strong sounding letters, at the beginning and at the end of this latter word, the Ahutu of the Carolines, the Aiti of the Ladrones, and the Eatooa of the South Pacific Islands, assume such a similarity in pronunciation (for we can have no other guide), ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the result of madness only, sent on them as a punishment for their original rejection of the god, being, as I said, when seen from the deeper motives of the myth, only a "sophism" of Euripides—a piece of rationalism of which he avails himself for the purpose of softening down the tradition of which he has undertaken to be the poet. Agave comes on the stage, then, blood-stained, exulting in her "victory of tears," still quite visibly mad indeed, and with the outward signs of madness, and as ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... remain out late without the least danger. Malaria is unknown, and, in spite of the heavy rains, there is no such thing as damp. Our way lay through very pretty country—a series of terraces, with a range of mountains before us, with beautiful changing and softening evening ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... of Charles Gould had been helped at the beginning by a period of comparative peace which occurred just about that time; and also by the general softening of manners as compared with the epoch of civil wars whence had emerged the iron tyranny of Guzman Bento of fearful memory. In the contests that broke out at the end of his rule (which had kept peace in the country for a whole fifteen years) there ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... you mean me by the sage, I was not puzzled at all. Heaven knows you do right to inculcate patience,—it is a virtue very much required—in your readers. Nevertheless," added my father, softening with the enjoyment of his joke,—"nevertheless Blanche and Helen are quite right. Patience is the courage of the conqueror; it is the virtue, par excellence, of Man against Destiny,—of the One against the World, and of the Soul against ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stealing out of a gulch to take its shining way along the range of mountains. Dropping in its flight a shower as light as a bridal veil, it sped glistening across the face of mountain after mountain, softening the stark grays and reds, while above it the peaks gleamed white. On and on it came until at last it arrived at the mouth of a deep, dark gorge in the side of a mountain that, in its strange and forbidding aspect, differed notably from all the others ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... and confirmed habits From infancy those habits have been forming, and they impel you almost unconsciously to subdue even the very tones of your voice, while strangers are present. Have you not sometimes in the middle of an irritable observation caught yourself changing and softening the harsh uncontrolled tones of your voice, or the roughness of your manner, when you have discovered the unexpected presence of a stranger in the family circle? You have still enough of self-respect to feel deep shame when such things have happened; and the very moment when you are suffering ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... us, have reminded us of your great and sudden loss; yet what had I to say to you? I have thought that the echo from your son in Calcutta may have made your grief break out afresh.... I trust that time, which has not yet at all had softening powers, has not added any fresh bitterness on a ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... a great softening in Anderson's feeling towards his father. All those inner compunctions that haunt a just and scrupulous nature came freely into play. And his evangelical religion—for he was a devout though liberal-minded Presbyterian—also entered in. ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... must first consider certain difficulties. The first that suggests itself is the question whether art is at all worthy of a philosophic treatment. To be sure, art and beauty pervade, like a kindly genius, all the affairs of life, and joyously adorn all its inner and outer phases, softening the gravity and the burden of actual existence, furnishing pleasure for idle moments, and, where it can accomplish nothing positive, driving evil away by occupying its place. Yet, although art wins its way everywhere ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... neradols of acidity 50, 40, and 30 exerted strong swelling and gave comparatively hard leathers; neradols of acidity 20, 10, and 5 exert no swelling, yield quick tannage and soft leather. The swelling (hardening) effect of the acid and the dehydrating (softening) effect of the salts in this case, therefore, are well balanced, and this fact affords an explanation of the rapid change from hardening to softening effects exhibited by partly neutralised Neradol where less acid and a greater quantity ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... was likely enough to think that he should never be troubled about the principal. But Mr. Tulliver was determined not to encourage such shuffling people any longer; and a ride along the Basset lanes was not likely to enervate a man's resolution by softening his temper. The deep-trodden hoof-marks, made in the muddiest days of winter, gave him a shake now and then which suggested a rash but stimulating snarl at the father of lawyers, who, whether by means of his ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... old age, than when we are revelling in the full tide of plenty, amid the exuberant strength and freshness of youth. Lord Bacon, who has analyzed some of the human accompaniments so well, is silent as to the softening sway and pleasing influence of this choice attuner of the human mind. But Shaftesbury, the illustrious author of the Characteristics, was so enamoured of it, that he terms "gravity (its counterpart,) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... that had respect to the recompense of reward. Like showers of rain upon the thirsty earth, the Spirit of grace descended upon the earnest seekers. Those who expected soon to stand face to face with their Redeemer, felt a solemn joy that was unutterable. The softening, subduing power of the Holy Spirit melted the heart, as His blessing was bestowed in rich measure upon the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... no dark glens, no bold scarped rocky heights or frightful precipices. Salvator Rosa would have turned away, whilst Claude would have desired to linger long to catch some new effect of bright light gradually softening away in clear yet mellowed distance. There was no eminence that could be dignified by the name of a mountain, yet there were hills in one part of the horizon, and slight undulations in the middle ground sufficient to prevent any idea of monotony. ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... for her than his coldness. The increasing frequency of the latter mood told her the sad news that he disliked her with a growing dislike. The more interesting that her appearance and manners became under the softening influences which she could now command, and in her wisdom did command, the more she seemed to estrange him. Sometimes she caught him looking at her with a louring invidiousness that she could hardly bear. Not knowing his secret it was cruel mockery that she should for the first time excite his ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... a metal that possesses both tensile strength and resistance to compression; malleability and ductility—the quality of hardening, softening, and toughening by tempering; adaptability to casting, rolling, or forging; susceptibility to luster and finish; of complete homogeneous character and unusually resistant to destructive agents—mankind will certainly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... on Barkington walls, and inside the asylum Alfred was softening hearts and buying consciences, as related; so, in fact, he had two ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... owes him so much—as myself. He couldn't have been so good—no one ever could be so good to any one else as he has always been to me. Still"—softening suddenly, for she was fond of the boy, and something in his sensitive face went to her tender heart—"think, David, dear, we owe him everything we have,—our names, our home, our clothes, our education, our very lives. ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... used by the emperor on various diplomatic missions. Next to him sat Prince Hatzfeld, the man on whom, in 1807, Napoleon's anger had fallen, and who would have been shot as a "traitor" if the impassioned intercession of his wife had not succeeded in softening the emperor, and thus saving her husband's life. Near him, and closing the circle, sat Count St. Marsan, Napoleon's ambassador at ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... the intellectual case against Catholicism, should wound or distress him. I, therefore, no sooner reached Italy than I sent for the proofs again, and worked at them as much as fatigue would let me, softening them, and, I think, improving them, too. Then we went on to Florence, and rest, coming home for the book's ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... store, but restful in fruition of it when amassed; reproves ill-natured judgement of one's neighbours almost in the words of Prior, bidding us be to their faults a little blind and to their virtues very kind, softening their moral blemishes as lovers and mothers euphemize a dear one's physical defects. (Sat. I, iii) "You will not listen to me?" he stops now and then to say; "I shall continue to cry on all the ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... hand. In a speech of terrible intensity he relates to Abner the story of the apparition of Samuel and the doom that the ghost has spoken. His children humour and soothe the broken old man, and finally succeed in softening his mind toward David—whom he at once loves, dreads, and hates, as the appointed instrument of his destruction and the successor to his crown. Act third shows David playing upon the harp before Saul, and chanting ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... window with a Fairy sled; And Little Lizzie, bundled heels-and-head, He took on such excursions of delight As even "Old Santy" with his reindeer might Have envied her! And, later, when the snow Was softening toward Springtime and the glow Of steady sunshine smote upon it,—then Came the magician Noey yet again— While all the children were away a day Or two at Grandma's!—and behold when they Got home once more;—there, towering taller than The doorway—stood ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... rather damped than fired the high spirit and generous heart of the poor Guardsman. And Randal could conscientiously say, that when he had asked the squire if he expected fortune with Frank's bride, the squire had replied, "I don't care." Thus encouraged by his friend and his own heart, and the softening manner of a woman who might have charmed many a colder, and fooled many a wiser man, Frank rapidly yielded to the snares held out for his perdition. And though as yet he honestly shrank from proposing to Beatrice or himself a marriage without the consent, and even the knowledge, of his parents, yet ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... anxiously, and Dolores shook off the spell and approached the great bed. Red Jabez closed his eyes as she leaned over him, and his lips now alone gave evidence of life. The girl, reared among the wildest of desolate isolation, knowing no softening ties of family, her impulses and emotions those of a beautiful animal, and increasingly so because of her station among the rabble that called the dying man chief, stared down at her terrible parent without a trace of visible regret: rather in her eyes shone the triumph of a victor about to enter ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... reagents, at the commencement of the working day; and at the close of the day the opening of the mud cocks shown in our engraving, to remove the collected deposit upon the plates. For the past six months this system has been in operation at a dye works in Manchester, successfully purifying and softening the foul waters of the river Medlock. It is stated that 84,000 gallons per day can be easily purified by an apparatus 7 feet in diameter. The chemicals used are chiefly lime, soda, and alumina, and the cost of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... swung at his other hip, holding her off with the hand which she had seized. But when Dakota saw Langford's hands go to his face he hesitated, smiling scornfully. He turned to Sheila, looking down at her face close to his, his smile softening. ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... stones, scattered around it, spoke of the outworks the fortification had anciently possessed, and the stout resistance they had made in "the Parliament Wars" to the sturdy followers of Ireton and Fairfax. The moon, that flatterer of decay, shed its rich and softening beauty over a spot which else had, indeed, been desolate and cheerless, and kissed into light the long and unwaving herbage which rose at intervals from the ruins, like the false parasites of fallen ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to Mr. Gresham. Had not Marie Goesler herself been most urgent with him in begging him to accept the offer; and was he not therefore justified in concluding that she at least had thought it necessary that he should earn his bread? Would her heart be softened towards him,—would any further softening be necessary,—by his obstinate refusal to comply with her advice? The two things had no reference to each other,—and should be regarded by him as perfectly distinct. He would refuse Mr. Gresham's offer,—not because he hoped that he might live ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Persis warned her sternly. Then softening: "But good land! Grandmothers nowadays are wearing simple little girlish things with ribbon bows in the back. Pick out what you want. Everything in this month's book is just about right ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... once just and lenient. His high military talents enabled him, during the memorable year 1715, to render such services to the House of Hanover, as, perhaps, were too great to be either acknowledged or repaid. He had employed, too, his utmost influence in softening the consequences of that insurrection to the unfortunate gentlemen whom a mistaken sense of loyalty had engaged in the affair, and was rewarded by the esteem and affection of his country in an uncommon degree. This popularity, with a discontented and warlike people, was supposed to be a subject ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... kind; and Atherley wisely substituted bribery for reasoning. But even with this he made little way till accidentally he mentioned the name of Mrs. de Noel, when, as if it had been a name to conjure by, Mrs. Mallet showed signs of softening. ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... with you, perhaps forever," —a letter which Charles Lee thought "a very good one, but Gage certainly deserved a stronger one, such as it was before it was softened." One cannot but wonder what part the old friendship played in this "softening." ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... countenance visibly softening however; "kisses, however sweet they be, don't heal ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... crimson curtains, which added a sense of warmth to the cheerful room, and looked at the cold white world without—a ghost of a world, it seemed to Amy. The moon, nearly full, had risen in the gap of the Highlands, and had now climbed well above the mountains, softening and etherealizing them until every harsh, rugged outline was lost. The river at their feet looked pallid and ghostly also. When not enchained by frost, lights twinkled here and there all over its broad surface, and the ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... BROTHER,—I have already written to the Queen; softening things as much as I could [Letter lost]. My Sister, to whom I address the Letter, will ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... "you are the first who has heard my tale. The law has branded me a convict, and I can only say 'Please let all this be as if it had never been said.' And yet I don't know," he continued, with his eyes softening; "it has done me good. Still I don't ask you to believe me, sir. There is plenty of deceit out here, and I have met some clever actors of innocent parts in the ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... us—the past. Her eyes grew deep and melancholy. The sunset seemed to brighten around her all at once, and enmesh her in a golden web, burnishing her hair, and it fell across her brow with a peculiar radiance, leaving the temples in shadow, softening and yet lighting the carmine of her cheeks and lips, giving a feeling of life to her dress, which itself was like dusty gold. Her hands were caught and clasped at her knees. There was something spiritual and exalted ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the least want to know Mrs. Eliott, he didn't think that he would like her. But he was soothed, flattered, insanely pleased with Anne's assumption that he would. It was as if in her thoughts she were drawing him towards her. He felt that she was softening, yielding. His approaches were a delicious wooing of ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... Louis XIV, we find many trophies of war and mythological subjects used in the decorative schemes. The second style of this period was a softening and refining of the earlier one, becoming more and more delicate until it merged into the time of the Regency. It was during the reign of Louis XIV that the craze for Chinese decoration first appeared. La Chinoiserie it was called, and it has ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... ear-shattering in that narrowly confined space; and the pirate's body literally flew into mist as a half-kilogram shell tore through his armor and exploded. Costigan shut off his beam, and, with not the slightest softening of one hard lineament, stared around the air-room; making sure that no serious damage had been done to the vital machinery of the air-purifier—the very ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... tears by this communication. She refused to be comforted, and, indeed, the position was beyond Uncle Chirgwin's power to brighten. The letter had come at a bad moment, and that calm and repose which almost appeared to be softening Joan's sorrows now spread speedy wings and departed, leaving her wholly forlorn. Curtains were falling behind her, but curtains were also rising in front. She had looked forward vaguely, and now the position was suddenly defined by the arrival of Joe's letter, with all ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... letter from you, announcing at the same time that the courier who was going to you started that very afternoon. The result is that, though I do send an answer, I am forced by the shortness of the time to write only these few words. First, as to softening my friend's feeling towards you, or even reconciling him outright, I pledge you my word to do so. Though I have been attempting it already on my own account, I will now urge the point more earnestly and press him closer, as I think I gather from your letter that you are so set upon it. This much ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... lifeless stones, with my magic harp and song, giving rest, but finding none. But at last Calliope, my mother, delivered me, and brought me home in peace; and I dwell here in the cave alone, among the savage Cicon tribes, softening their wild hearts with music and the gentle laws of Zeus. And now I must go out again, to the ends of all the earth, far away into the misty darkness, to the last wave of the Eastern Sea. But what is doomed must be, and a friend's demand obeyed; ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... and waves and the beat of spray was still to be heard, and in the manifest impossibility of quitting the place and the desire of softening him, Anne listened while he talked in a different mood from the previous day. The cynical tone was gone, as he spoke of those better influences. He talked of Mrs. Woodford and his deep affection for her, ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said, 'forgive me my words concerning thee, but men told me that ye had forgotten that you had once been so glorious a man, and were softening to ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... union with the most intimate, the most inexpressible things in nature that is revealed in such a note as the following: 'A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the Spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening days; a sudden softening, a weakening of nature.' In describing this atmosphere, this too sudden softness, he uses a word frequent in the vocabulary of Shelley—'fainting.' In truth, like the great English poet, whom he seems not to have ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... parrot-like, with his words. She watched the noble old face with its lines of kindliness and patience, the eyes now liquid with pity for the sorrowful wrongdoer, now flashing with indignation as he spoke of the unrepentant and the careless, then softening again as he expressed the hope that their hearts might be touched, and the belief that they too would win forgiveness ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... orchestra—was gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and kingdom. He even interceded at times for unfortunate British or French subjects, stranded in Brussels, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... aware of were six small men who were seated on low roots. They were all dressed in tight green clothes and little leathern aprons, and they wore tall green hats which wobbled when they moved. They were all busily engaged making shoes. One was drawing out wax ends on his knee, another was softening pieces of leather in a bucket of water, another was polishing the instep of a shoe with a piece of curved bone, another was paring down a heel with a short broad-bladed knife, and another was hammering wooden pegs into a sole. He had all the pegs in his mouth, which gave him a ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... Princess Victoria, daughter of the Crown Princess of Germany, the Czar's influence at Berlin availed to veto an engagement which is believed to have been the heartfelt wish of both the persons most nearly concerned. In this matter Bismarck, true to his policy of softening the Czar's annoyance at the Austro-German alliance by complaisance in all other matters, made himself Russia's henchman, and urged his press-trumpet, Busch, to write newspaper articles abusing Queen Victoria as having instigated this match solely with a view to the substitution ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... condition of a person whose nature had, as it were, so little surface—offered so limited a face to the accretions of human contact. Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic, had ever had a chance to fasten upon it—no wind-sown blossom, no familiar softening moss. Her offered, her passive extent, in other words, was about that of a knife-edge. Isabel had reason to believe none the less that as she advanced in life she made more of those concessions to the sense of something obscurely distinct from convenience—more ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... the son of Chrysermas, a favorite of the king's, had always shown civility to Cleomenes; there was a considerable intimacy between them, and they had been used to talk freely together about the state. He, upon Cleomenes's desire, came to him, and spoke to him in fair terms, softening down his suspicions and excusing the king's conduct. But as he went out again, not knowing that Cleomenes followed him to the door, he severely reprimanded the keepers for their carelessness in looking after "so great and so furious a wild beast." This Cleomenes ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... said, with a pathetic smile lighting her handsome features, and softening them to an almost maternal tenderness, "I'm fonder of Charlie than any creature in the world—except Helen. Don't make any mistake. I'm not in love with him. He's just a dear, dear, erring, ailing brother to me. He can't, or won't help himself. What can we do to save him? Oh, I'm glad you've come ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... coarse laugh, "or I had not disturbed myself to call you. But, maybe," added he, softening his manner a little, "you'll like some refreshments before you start? A stoup of Nantz will put you in cue ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows signs of softening." ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Children of Alice." Elizabeth might have married twice in her life, but there was no love in either case, rather a secret mortification that such incapables should dare to raise their thoughts to her. But she had some strenuous ideas on the rearing of children, quite of the older sort. Life was softening somewhat, even for childhood, but she did not approve ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... advanced in the world, she did not like the idea of my father being in the hospital, nor did she want him to be at her house—in fact, she could have done better without him; but, as that could not be, she made the best of it. It must be acknowledged that my father's boisterous and rude manner had been softening down ever since he had been in the hospital, and that he had become a very well-behaved, quiet, and sober person, and was very respectable in his appearance; but I shall say more about him when I talk of my mother again. Old Nanny went on much as usual, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the village, whose huts loomed solemnly between the woods and the dunes in the softening twilight. The van den Endes were lodged with the captain of a fishing-smack in a long, narrow wooden house with sloping mossy tiles and small-paned windows. The old man threw open the door of the little shell-decorated parlor and peered in. "Klaartje!" ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... hundred thousand purses of gold, and cheap, too—embraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the Caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour, and may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom, softening many a ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... the sovereign order he decreed, All good and lovely—to blaspheme the bands Of tenderness innate and social love, 250 Holiest of things! by which the general orb Of being, as by adamantine links, Was drawn to perfect union, and sustain'd From everlasting? Hast thou felt the pangs Of softening sorrow, of indignant zeal, So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish The ties of Nature broken from thy frame, That so thy selfish, unrelenting heart Might cease to mourn its lot, no longer then The wretched heir of evils not its own? 260 ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... thought before me. I have done such things, Being the chosen man that should destroy The traitor. You have taken up this thought To play with, for a gentle stimulant, To give a dignity to idler life By the dim prospect of emprise to come, But ever with the softening, sure belief, That all would end some strange way right ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... cure consumption, warts, heart-disease, softening of the brain, and the bloody pip! And what is ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... believe in God, Laura sat motionless, her small insurgent being stilled to the imperceptible rhythm of her breath. Over her face there passed strange lights, strange tremors, a strange softening of the small indomitable mouth. It was more than ever the face of a child, of a flower, of all things innocent and open. But her eyes were the eyes of a soul whom vision makes suddenly mature. They stared at Tanqueray without seeing him, held by ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... He lay there in the middle of the green brightness, prostrate, motionless, dying. Cal Bain! His features were wonderfully distinct, clearer than any cameo, more sharply outlined than those of any picture. It was a hard face softening at the threshold of eternity. The red tan of sun, the coarse signs of drunkenness, the ferocity and hate so characteristic of Bain were no longer there. This face represented a different Bain, showed all that was human in him fading, fading as swiftly as it blanched white. The lips wanted to speak, ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... Innuit, too, is corrupting under the influence of trade, of alcohol, and the savage lust of the white adventurer. He attained through many centuries, perhaps thousands of years, of separation from other peoples, and without any of the softening teachings of Christianity, a Jesus-like code and practice, which the custodians of Christianity have utterly failed to impress on the millions of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... seemed in tune with Esther's own sense of loneliness; but it touched her heart with the softening touch of sadness. She sank down on a big boulder beside her, and, stretching out her arms on its rough, lichen-covered breast, buried her face in them ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... passion and pain, and now the pent-up tempest broke forth with a fury that racked her little frame from head to foot; and the more because she strove to stifle every sound of it as much as possible. It was the very bitterness of sorrow, without any softening thought to allay it, and sharpened and made more bitter by mortification and a passionate sense of unkindness and wrong. And through it all, how constantly in her heart the poor child was reaching forth longing arms towards her far-off mother, and calling in secret on ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... their beds under pretence of resting yourself, but in fact, to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course of this investigation, and a sublimer one hereafter, when you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the softening of their beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat into their ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... that not withstanding the former power that attended the word to their hearts, their hearts did still abide as hard as a rock, there was no true and sound breaking, nor softening in that; wherefore there the word wanted depth of earth, as our Lord is pleased to call it; and anon when the sun was up, that which remained was presently scorched, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Ointment according to directions. It is very penetrating, and has great softening and cooling properties. Use ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... grasp the seemingly self-evident truth that a governor, one man elected by the people, is just as much their representative and is just as certain to carry out their ideas as is a legislature, a body of men elected by the people. They provided a government which accentuated, instead of softening, the defects in their own social system. They were in no danger of suffering from tyranny; they were in no danger of losing the liberty which they so jealously guarded. The perils that threatened them were lawlessness, lack of order, and lack of capacity to concentrate ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... because of an excess of sentiment softening into "slush," or of a morbid optimism, or of a weak-eyed distortion of the facts of life,—is perverted. It needs to be cured, and its cure is more truth. But this cure, I very much fear, is not entirely, or even chiefly, in the power of the "regular practitioner," the honest writer. He can be ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... the insurgent army at the beginning of hostilities, but Dru had had only occasional glimpses of her. He was wondering now, in what part of that black and bloody field she was. His was the strong hand that had torn into fragments these helpless creatures; hers was the gentle hand that was softening the horror, the misery of it all. Dru knew there were those who felt that the result would never be worth the cost and that he, too, would come in for a measurable share of their censure. But deep and lasting as ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... him,' Helena said, softening now that all was over. 'Tell him—won't you?—that I am ever so fond of him; and tell him that this must not make the least difference in our friendship. No one ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... her the memory of those fierce, compelling eyes, the dogged mastery with which he had fought her resolution, the sudden magic softening of the harsh face when he smiled. There came again the passionate thrilling of his voice; again her hands tingled in that close grip; again she thought she felt the beating of the ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... lesson had ended there and then; but he was only awaiting her compliance—as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw the veil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society? Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... African servant approached him, and at once their thoughts changed to a larger toleration. Caswall looked indeed a savage—but a cultured savage. In him were traces of the softening civilisation of ages—of some of the higher instincts and education of man, no matter how rudimentary these might be. But the face of Oolanga, as his master called him, was unreformed, unsoftened savage, and inherent in it were all ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... all that, mother; I know all that," said Nora. She did not add, "But for me he would never have done it. It was I who inserted the thin edge of the wedge." Her tone was gentle; her mother looked at her with a softening of ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... about the same age and the same height that I must have been in the days when I was here last. My first feeling is one of almost anger, to see him playing on the gravel where I had played before, as if he had usurped something of my identity; but next moment I feel a softening and a sort of rising and qualm of the throat, accompanied by a pricking heat in the eye balls. I hastily join conversation with the child, and inwardly felicitate myself that the gardener is opportunely gone for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mistake," he said, gently, softening to her distress. "I'm sorry I did not write you more plainly. But, Carley, I could not ask you to share this—this wilderness home with me. I don't ask it now. I always knew you couldn't do it. Yet you've changed so—that I hoped against hope. Love ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... in view no less the great tasks of the future. I welcome her book as an answer to the cry that the admission of women to an equal share in the right of self government will tend to soften the body politic. Most certainly I will ever set my face like flint against any unhealthy softening of our civilization, and as an answer in advance to hyper-criticism I explain that I do not mean softness in the sense of tender-heartedness; I mean the softness which, extends to the head and to the moral fibre, I mean the softness which manifests itself either in unhealthy sentimentality ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... future. Unable to bear the agony of her mind, she sought, with the patience of love, to obtain a look from the young man's eyes, and when she did so her paleness and the quiver in her face had so penetrating an influence over him that he wavered; but the softening was momentary. ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... something almost pathetic in the sudden dropping of Tavernake's voice, the softening of ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this situation, she might have considerable difficulty in finding another one. She could only hope to obtain employment from strangers and newcomers, who were ignorant of the reputation of the model lodging-house. So in view of softening the hearts of Pascal and his mother, she began to relate the history of her life, skilfully mingling the false with the true, and representing herself as an unfortunate victim of circumstances, and the inhuman ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... sealed bottles. "Now, here," he cried, holding up a dainty box tied up with a delicate-colored ribbon. For a moment his audience believed it to be candy, but he quickly undeceived them. "Now this yer is dandy truck, though I don't guess ther's a heap o' use fer it on Suffering Creek. It's fer softening alkali water. When the drummer told me that, I guessed to him ther wa'an't a heap o' water drunk in this camp. But he said it wa'an't fer drinkin' water; it was fer baths. I kind o' told him that wouldn't help the sale any, so he said it could be used fer washin'. Seein' he couldn't sell me any ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... six o'clock. The sun was tinting the enormous front of the building an orange gold, softening the colors of the greenish black smudge that the rain had left on the mansard windows. The statue of Charles II seemed to be melting into the mellow bluish transparency of the light-filled atmosphere. Through the gratings drifted the hum of a busy hive—voices calling, songs coming from ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Ah, don't ask. In old days we had all sorts, but now they have taken chiefly to moral punishments—'the stings of conscience' and all that nonsense. We got that, too, from you, from the softening of your manners. And who's the better for it? Only those who have got no conscience, for how can they be tortured by conscience when they have none? But decent people who have conscience and a sense of honor suffer for it. Reforms, when the ground ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... very few negatives and only where broad effects of light and shade are desired. To cut up a spotty negative with a succession of lines does not necessarily give a broad effect in the picture. But for softening down heavy masses of shadows, and blending them harmoniously with masses of light or half light, the process is without an equal. The bolting silk can be bought by the square yard of dealers in photographic supplies, and should be stretched evenly ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... Abbess and myself; this ending seemed rather too sarcastic, but Madame de Thianges was most anxious to let it stand. There was no way of softening or glossing it over; so the letter went off, just as ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... enigmatic, gentle, comprehending smile and caught the coat sleeve of the other. The brilliant light in the Prince's eyes was softening to a dreamier, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... same aversion and fury; then she suffered him to come near her, and even to sit down beside her (Gemma was sitting on the other side); then she fell to reproaching him,—not in looks only, but in words, which already indicated a certain softening of heart; she fell to complaining, and her complaints became quieter and gentler; they were interspersed with questions addressed at one time to her daughter, and at another to Sanin; then she suffered him to ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... cranberries we seated ourselves on a shady rock to meditate. All was silent around—nothing heard but the shepherd-boy playing his horn; the sound coming from the distant mountains into the wooded valley where we sat, first shrill, then softening into a simple irregular note. My friend asked me what I thought the instrument was. It is made, said he, of a goat's horn, and is blown to keep the fox from taking the young lambs, and as a means of communication with other shepherds when widely separated on the mountains; the sound of ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... Shadwell, or Francis Spira. It is impossible to describe it. My soul was all amazement and surprise. I thought myself just sinking into eternity, owning the divine justice of my punishment, but not at all feeling any of the moving, softening tokens of a sincere penitent; afflicted at the punishment, but not at the crime; alarmed at the vengeance, but not terrified at the guilt; having the same gust to the crime, though terrified to the last degree at the thought ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... gentle, comprehending smile and caught the coat sleeve of the other. The brilliant light in the Prince's eyes was softening to ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... decipher even this, with moderate accuracy. The haze of a foreign language, of foreign manners, and modes of thinking strange to us, confuses and obscures the sight, often magnifying what is trivial, softening what is rude, and sometimes hiding or distorting what is beautiful. To take the dimensions of Schiller's mind were a hard enterprise, in any case; harder ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... operation has for its object the restoration of the luster and suppleness of the silk, which has to some extent deteriorated from the many operations through which it has passed. The brightening and softening of the fiber are effected by immersing the silk in a bath of olive oil in the form of an emulsion. In this the silk is worked until it is thoroughly impregnated with the oil, when it is taken out and wrung dry, after which it is ready ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... be made of sal ammoniac and some galbanum, which well kneaded together and applied, seldom fails of destroying them. The general and principal cause of corns is, shoes too hard and stiff, or else too small. The cure consists in softening the corns by repeated washing, and soaking the feet in warm or hot water; then cutting the corn very carefully when softened, with a sharp penknife without wounding the quick, and afterwards applying a leaf of houseleek, ground ivy, or purslain, dipped in vinegar. Or instead of these ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... had finished Mrs. Abbott sat for a few moments petrified; but she was thirty-eight, not sixty-five, and there was neither dismay nor softening in her narrowed light ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... bent that brow of hers; Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs When pity would be softening through, Fixed me a breathing-while or two With life or death in the balance: right! The blood replenished me again; My last thought was at least not vain: I and my mistress, side by side Shall be together, breathe ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... sudden abandonment of this enterprise, he facetiously replied: "Yes, I did try to make Kansas a slave State; but I could not do it without slaves, and the South would not send slaves, and so I had to give it up." From the time these gentlemen returned from the Wakarusa there was a general softening of the asperities of feeling of the people of Atchison and vicinity, and one year after they were prepared to announce to the Free State people, "You deal fairly with us, and we will deal fairly with you"—and they made their words good by ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... altogether failed to interpret. Clotilde was more clear sighted. One day meeting Malchus alone in the atrium she said to him: "Malchus, do you know that I fear Julia is learning to love you. I see it in her face, in the glance of her eye, in the softening of that full mouth ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... where has it gone? Come with me, Bee, and look for it," said Rosy, rather softening down,—"though I'm sure ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... at the Belgian in amazement and distrust. He had only just warned her how Jacqueline had kindled Maximilian's Austrian hopes in order to get him out of Mexico, and here he was borrowing that woman's guile. And here was Maximilian, too, softening under the enervating blandishment, softening behind his ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... be bygones. I was very harsh, very disagreeable then. I wonder you have ever forgiven me; I have never forgiven myself. I know not how it is, but it seems to me that a softening change has come over me. I feel more tenderly towards the young beings committed to my care, more indulgence for the weaknesses and errors of my kind. I did not mind, then, trampling on a flower, if it sprung up in my path; now I would stoop down and inhale its fragrance, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... his mashes and Mirabeau B. Lamar, daily. Yet there is hope. Cholera infantum; Walsh's crutch; Harvey, or softening of the brain may ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... one on a journey would speak to him, but those with whom he would not care to speak; thus unconsciously involving himself in the condemnation of his countrymen. But Russia was soon to be changed; the ice of the Neva was softening under the sun of civilisation; the new ideas, 'wie eine feine Violine,' were audible among the big empty drum notes of Imperial diplomacy; and he looked to see a great revival, though with a somewhat indistinct ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... poor mother, who was proud of the beauty of her child, and brought her up more tenderly than a village girl ought to be; and ever since she has been left an orphan, the good ladies at the Hall have completed the softening and spoiling ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... you stand, still you listen, still you smile! Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, Softening, sweetening, till sweet and soft Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft I could believe your moonbeam smile has past The pallid limit and, transformed at last, Lies, sunlight and salvation—warms the soul It ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the increase of philanthropy, in the growing sentiment that war must cease among Christian nations, all disputes to be settled by arbitration, and in the feeling of universal brotherhood which is softening all true men's ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... what you like, only don't bring her here," the Colonel replied, his voice and manner softening, as they always did ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Rita, her eyes softening with compassion and anxiety. "You have a wife, Pedro Valdez,—a wife and a dear little child, is it not so? and your mother—she is old and weak. When have you seen them all, Valdez? ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... her lover had once likened to the gorgeousness of the Mosque of Omar. Yet, by this, her beauty was rather enhanced than lessened as though Nature, the master-painter, had retouched a picture already wondrous, softening its colors with a tone more spiritual. Both face and figure had lost something of roundness and the hand that lay on the table was slenderer of finger and wrist, but Mary Burton had not been robbed of her beauty, and when she spoke, very low and hesitantly, ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... for any of us to know everything, and I often find myself entirely ignorant in regard to some things; and I have lived long enough to forget many things that I learned when I was younger," added the doctor with a softening smile. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... for I was anxious to ascertain this, "about Angela. Was there any momentary softening in her gaze as she ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... of us spoke, but looked across at each other in the softening light, till suddenly Esau turned sharply round, and went and stood looking out of the window, while I sank down on a stool, turned my back to my companion, folded my arms on a desk, and ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... poor child's funeral from a distance. Ah, that Distance! What a magician for conjuring up scenes of joy or sorrow, smoothing all asperities, reconciling all incongruities, veiling all absurdness, softening every coarseness, doubling every effect by the influence of the imagination. A Scottish wedding should be seen at a distance; the gay band of the dancers just distinguished amid the elderly group of the spectators,—the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... to myself by way of consolation, as I was dressing for dinner, "she is certainly softening toward you, and when she sees the new house you ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... white wire half way up between. Form two distinct creases up the centre with the point of the pin; with the head of the latter cup the broad part of the petal. Turn the edges inward towards the point, and colour each petal upon both sides with the crimson powder, softening off the same, and leaving a margin of the yellow free from colour. The stamina are prepared (according to pattern), from double yellow wax, and painted with rich brown (cake sepia and crimson), from the broad part to the point. To a large wire affix a piece of double green wax, ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... never heard his name,—Luttrell; a pretty name, too; but we all know how little is in that. I feel absurdly disappointed; and why? Because it is decreed that a man I never have known I never shall know. I doubt my brain is softening. But why has my tent been pitched in such a lonely spot? And why did he say he'd come? And why did John tell me he was good to look at, and, oh! that ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... the sight of their tears warmed him with the sense of power. In that warmth certain of his prejudices and inhibitions began to melt away; the display of feelings and sensibilities could not be wicked or even undesirable if it prepared the way for the gospel by softening the heart. He began to dabble in emotion himself, and that was a dangerous matter, for he knew nothing whatever about it save that, if he felt strongly, he could arouse strong feeling in others. Day by day he unwittingly became less sure of the moral beauty of restraint, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... back into the unknown past almost tenderly towards the mother who had died long ago, to whom perhaps Bice had been what little Tom was now to herself. But when the further statement reached her ears all that softening which seemed to have swept over her disappeared in a moment. A horrible bewilderment had seized her. Was he two men, with two wives, two lives, two ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... and puffed away at his pipe vigorously; but he muttered, "Go on," and we discovered that he was softening rapidly. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... had brought Mrs. Burton to witness his cruelty to her, the meek, suffering girl to whom he was pledged and plighted, who she had followed to Omaha in hopes of softening his heart and winning back his wayward love, as was the burden of her sorrowing song to that most sympathetic of women, already burning with prejudice and fancied wrong of her own. One "woman scorned" is more than enough for many a reputation. ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... Derrick's interest in her. They concluded, of course, that Joan's handsome face had won her a sweetheart. They could not accuse her of encouraging him; but they could profess to believe that she was softening, and they could use the insinuation as a sharp weapon against her, when such a course was not ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "Thine own people are accusing thee. What hast Thou done?" Then comes that great answer, "My kingdom is not of this world, if so I would be resisting these leaders and these present circumstances would all be different. But my kingdom is not of your sort or theirs." Again there likely came a bit of softening and curious interest in Pilate's face, as he asks, "Art Thou really a King then?" Jesus replies, "To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Every one that is of ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... mountains, intimidated them in their plans. They thought that the government of the Recollect fathers was milder, and hence they sighed for it. Those fathers tolerated their barbarous customs among a people so ferocious, and succeeded by their patience in softening and reducing them. Not so with the Dominican fathers, who learned the Zambals' tenacity at their own cost. In the village of Balacbac was an Indian chief named Dalinen; although he lived in that village, he kept his valuables in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... neither doctor nor parson; nor would she hear of sending for her daughter. The only sign of softening that she gave was that once she folded her granddaughter in her arms and wept long and bitterly. Perhaps the thought of her dying child came back upon her, along with the reflection that the only friend she had was the child of that marriage ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... me no answer, but I seemed to see a softening in her face as she turned away towards the window, whence were to be seen the stretch of the lawn and the park-meadows beyond. I believe that with a little more coaxing she would have pardoned me, but at the instant, by another stroke ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... inward charms! These are what God asks in return. Think of it, young women, as it really is. See God clothing your forms with Beauty, rich and ravishing in its charms; see that Beauty winning for you flowery paths of life, softening all hearts that approach you, making it easy, ay, almost a necessity, for them to love and esteem you; think how much you prize it, and how pleasant it is to your friends; and then think what God asks in return for this lovely gift. It is that you should be beautiful inwardly as He has ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... came, a wan and weary guest, 17 A softening balm for many a wound to crave; And wooed the sunshine to his aching breast, Which now seems smiling on ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... mountains on the continent, bold and beautiful in outline, tranquil and immovable in their grandeur. The steady glow of the warm sunlight gilded cross and pinnacle, as we gazed on this picture through the softening haze of approaching twilight,—a view which we have hardly, ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... shout, and then an uproar of childish delight. A sudden change swept over her. Light appeared to break upon her. Something like courage came into her face, not unmingled with tenderness, softening it and dispelling the gloom which had clouded it. She rose suddenly and walked with a swift, decisive step out of the room and up the richly carpeted stairs. To a maid on the upper floor she said hurriedly: "Tell Fenderson to order the brougham—at once," and passed ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... SHE [softening and putting her hand caressingly on his shoulder] Listen to me, dear. It's very nice of you to live with me in a dream, and to love me, and so on; but I can't help my husband having disagreeable relatives, ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... light, now full of tender pathos; a happy vale of Tempe, a magnificent landscape flooded with summer glow and lustre, yet forming a background for the rehearsal of some dire scene of mortal anguish, a contrast sustained by a fusion of tones, a softening of gloomy hues, which, while saddening joy, soothes the bitterness ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... the cultivated soil imbibes the heat, and returns it to the surrounding air in warm and humid vapors. The exhalations arising from a much increased amount of animal life, together with the burning of so many combustibles, are not altogether without their influence in softening the severity ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... woman is the softest, most pliable, and most accommodating tool which has yet been discovered for conferring the finest polish on the refractory substance of steel. Can we wonder at its effect in softening the ruggedness of the other sex, and how hard must be the heart of that man which does not yield to an influence which subdues even the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... truth about this, and a perspicuity in making arrangements for lessening her immediate embarrassment, which had some effect in softening Eleanor's anger. So she suffered herself to walk by his side over the now deserted lawn, till they came to the drawing-room window. There was something about Bertie Stanhope which gave him in the estimation ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... I know that," said Grace, her eyes softening with the picture of Roy as he had said good-bye—so youthfully gay, yet so ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... areas grasshoppers are a real scourge in alfalfa fields. Because of the shade provided by the ground and the influence which this exerts in softening it, they are encouraged to deposit their eggs and remain so as to prove a source of trouble the following year. It has been found that through disking of the land both ways after sharp frosts have come is greatly effective in destroying the grasshopper eggs deposited in ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... touch of shadow being expressive of some particular truth of structure, and bearing witness to the symmetry into which the whole mass has been reduced. Where this operation has gone on long, and vegetation has assisted in softening the outlines, we have our ground brought into graceful and irregular curves, of infinite variety, but yet always so connected with each other, and guiding to each other, that the eye never feels them as separate things, nor feels inclined to count them, nor perceives ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... blood, a youth too habitually and instinctively pure-minded, to comprehend, in the first glance, that supper scene, and gain therefrom life-long disillusionment. For him, even after he had left it, there remained in some sort a glamour over it all—the softening veil of lights and laughter, the gleam of plate and the perfume of flowers, which successfully hid the blackest ugliness. The first fresh frost was still upon his glass; and through it the golden wine was beautiful as it could not be for those ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... for what seemed want of trust in her. I asked her for the keys, and she gave them; but with a mute appeal that made the concealment I desired, however necessary, no longer possible. Gently, cautiously as I could, but softening, not hiding, any part of the truth, I gave her the full confidence to which she was entitled, and which, once forced out of the silence preserved for her sake, it was an infinite relief to give. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... there in his arms, softening as best he could the more brutal details, he told her. And, at the end, for a little while she was silent; then in a strained, impulsive way ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... threatening language. Ultimately, however, Claudius Cossus, one of the envoys, a noted speaker who greatly enhanced the effect of his eloquence by concealing his skill under a well-timed affectation of nervousness, succeeded in softening the hearts of the soldiers. A mob is always liable to sudden changes of feeling, and the men were as sensible to pity as they had been extravagant in their brutality. Thus with streams of tears and importunate prayers for a better answer ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... her, noting with a softening countenance the almost maternal love that beautified her face. Now and then she spoke soothingly as the boy flinched, but her words were so softly said that the sculptor did not catch them. The eye dressed, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... your ladyship pleases," replied Lady Binks. "I mean," she added, softening the expression, "for ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... of soap, before it will give a lather. These are serious objections to the use of chalk-water in London. But they are successfully met by the fact that such water can be softened inexpensively, and on a grand scale. I had long known the method of softening water called Clark's process, but not until recently, under the guidance of Mr. Homersham, did I see proof of its larger applications. The chalk-water is softened for the supply of the city of Canterbury; and at the Chiltern Hills it is softened for the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... a lot of grub," declared the gambler, with a wonderful softening of the heart. "I was foolin'—just havin' a joke—the last time you was down to the store. You know you can have the best ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... of the nursery; a mad mother. But the point is that she will be mad about other nurseries as well as her own, or possibly instead of her own. The results will be interesting; but at least it is certain that under this softening influence government of the people, by the people, for the people, will most assuredly perish from ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... dark and mortal life, quickly recovers the light and blaze of its former bright life, whereas for those who have not had the good fortune very early, to use the language of the poet, "to pass the gates of Hades,"[202] nothing remains but a great passion for the things of this life, and a softening of the soul through contact with the body, and a melting away of it as if by the agency ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... unrelated dilemmas, and the summer heat was so intense, that the new lawyer informed him he couldn't possibly sandwich him in unless he would consent to change his plea to "guilty", contending that the combination of humility and humidity would go a long ways towards softening the judge. But Cassius sturdily ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... so, but the sudden happiness of finding herself wealthy was not without its softening effect on Amy's feelings. Generous impulses alternated with moods of discontent. The thought of her husband in his squalid lodgings tempted her to forget injuries and disillusions, and to play the part of a generous wife. It would be possible now ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... and mysterious, dotted with the monuments of a people forgotten before walls ringed the seven hills of Rome. The outlines of tors, ever softening in the distance, led the eye from rugged crest to misty beacon till, forty miles away, they dissolved into the same ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... religious fervour. They had to be guided to some quiet spot where they might work it off in solitude. Incidents of that kind during voluntary services were always a little embarrassing, for officers and men felt, as well as myself, that under the softening influences of religion we could not be over-hard on the transgressions of frail mortality. Nothing but the direst necessity would compel us at such times to resort to the process of ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... Swedish movements. While arms and bodies were bending and straightening at Teacher's command and example, the door opened and a breathless boy rushed in. He bore an unfolded note and, as Teacher had no hand to spare, the boy placed the paper on the desk under the softening eyes of the Honorable Timothy, who glanced down idly and then pounced upon the note and read its ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... one owes him so much—as myself. He couldn't have been so good—no one ever could be so good to any one else as he has always been to me. Still"—softening suddenly, for she was fond of the boy, and something in his sensitive face went to her tender heart—"think, David, dear, we owe him everything we have,—our names, our home, our clothes, our education, our very lives. We must never ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... him. He lay there in the middle of the green brightness, prostrate, motionless, dying. Cal Bain! His features were wonderfully distinct, clearer than any cameo, more sharply outlined than those of any picture. It was a hard face softening at the threshold of eternity. The red tan of sun, the coarse signs of drunkenness, the ferocity and hate so characteristic of Bain were no longer there. This face represented a different Bain, showed all that was human in him fading, fading as swiftly as it blanched white. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... second department of meat cookery, to wit, the slow and gradual application of heat for the softening and dissolution of its fibre and the extraction of its juices, common cooks are equally untrained. Where is the so-called cook who understands how to prepare soups and stews? These are precisely the articles in which ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the nest was learnt on kindergarten principles. At first he was employed in softening slender grass filaments, by dragging them through his teeth; then he learnt to intertwine them, and sat in the middle of an ever-growing sphere of delicate network; finally, like his mother, he tackled large, ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... view, a discriminatory sense that was not enjoyed in the highball period—that is to say, I found, observed with the cold and mayhap critical eye of abstinence, that a number of those with whom I was wont to associate needed the softening glow radiated by the liquor in me to make them as good as I had previously thought they were. There were some I found I did not miss, and more came to the same conclusion about me. They were all right—fine!—when seen or heard ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... with calm delight, savoring everything almost with complacency. His music, he felt, was progressing now that, undisturbed, he lived all day long in the rhythm of it; his mind and his fingers were growing supple. The hard moulds that had grown up about his spirit were softening. As he walked back and forth in front of the church waiting for Jeanne, he took an inventory of his state of mind; ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... Ephrata, in Pennsylvania, remain as monuments on this side of the water of the great pietistic movement in Germany in the early part of the eighteenth century. One of these was called Bethany, the other Sharon. A hundred and thirty or forty years ago there were other buildings with these, and the softening hand of time had not yet touched any of them. The doorways were then, as now, on the ground level, the passages were just as narrow and dusky, the cells had the same little square windows to let ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... to myself, "I'm getting superstitious or have softening of the brain," and I reached over to open the front door, so that the breeze could cool me off. In doing so my hand touched the water pipe to the injector—it was hot. The closed overflow injector was new to merit had "broke," and was blowing steam back to the tank ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the grey-headed preacher, stepping forward and thrusting a book into my father's hands. "We had best begin with a hymn, I think. I have some experience of the softening power of music ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... ministers who had been ejected from their livings for non-compliance with the Act of Uniformity: his success in this good work was due to his "soft interpretation of the terms of conformity." They needed softening; no part of Macaulay's 'History of England' is more striking and instructive than his account in chapter ii. of the sufferings of the Puritans and Nonconformists of all descriptions. "It was made a crime to attend a dissenting place of worship. A new and most unreasonable test was imposed ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... sun was tinting the enormous front of the building an orange gold, softening the colors of the greenish black smudge that the rain had left on the mansard windows. The statue of Charles II seemed to be melting into the mellow bluish transparency of the light-filled atmosphere. Through the gratings drifted the hum of a busy hive—voices ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a commanding voice, without the least softening with that southern suavity, "for how much do you want to sell me secretly, your ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... but, with Claudet, it had ripened into love; and now, after allowing the poor young fellow to believe that his love was reciprocated, she was forced to disabuse him. It was useless for her to try to find some way of softening the blow; there was none. Claudet was too much in love to remain satisfied with empty words; he would require solid reasons; and the only conclusive one which would convince him, without wounding his self-love, was exactly the one ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... startling contrast is produced by the copies of them made by the students. If the colours in the old pictures are faded, in the modern ones they blaze with a superfluity of vividness; red, yellow, green, etc., are there in all their force; such a thing as mixing, softening, or blending them, has evidently never been thought of. Even at the present moment, I really am at a loss to determine whether the worthy students intended to found a new school for colouring, or whether they merely desired to make up ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... in the unfortunate criminals who shared her prison confinement, and had done not a little to relieve, from her own purse, the necessities of some of the poor creatures. That she had done this, the public read in the journals of the day, and the simple announcement cast a softening light upon her character. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... a fine work in softening the hearts of these people. We had almost despaired of doing anything with them. Yes, you have done a won-der-ful work, and now we must reorganize a regular society here. I will be out again when you get stronger, and we'll ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... finished, he put out a hand and touched the Indian. Then he opened his tear-blurred eyes and looked at him, his face softening and working. The Squaw did not budge. His palms were still pressed tight. He blinked at ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... her judgment in the early days of their courtship. Reuther had inherited her harmony of feature from him,- -the chiselled nose, the well-modelled chin, and all the other physical graces which had made him a fine figure behind his bar. But even with the softening of her feelings towards him since she had thus set herself up in his defence, Deborah could not fail to perceive under all these surface attractions an expression of unreliability, or, as some would ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... presence, and that we were there in no way as representatives of Mr. Chase. Mr. Lincoln was visibly affected. The tones of confidence, sympathy, personal regard, were strangers to him at that time. Softening, almost melting, he came round to us, shook our hands again and again, returned to his place, and standing there, took up and opened out, from their remote origin, the whole web of matters connected with the present ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... columns from which Saints look down, long windows beautifully veined, a glorious rose at each transept's end, and high vault arches springing with a slender pointed grace, all these are of exquisite proportions; and the brilliant stained-glass adds a softening warmth of colour, but not too great a glow, to the cold fragility of the shafts of stone. Nothing in the Gothic art of the South, little of Gothic elsewhere, is more thoughtfully and lovingly wrought than this choir of Saint-Nazaire, and few churches in the Romanesque form are more ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... had had to bend his head to get into the room. Alfred liked the looks of him the first moment, and by way of salutation put up one of his weary, white, blue-veined hands to pull his damp forelock; but Mr. Cope, nodding in answer to Ellen's curtsey, took hold of his hand at once, and softening the cheery voice that was so pleasant to hear, said, 'Well, my boy, I hope we shall be good friends. ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... type. It is different from the standardized American type, of which Abraham Lincoln of a past and the Wright brothers of a present generation are perfect specimens—the ugly-beautiful face, long and lean, with its harshly contoured strength of feature and its subtly softening melancholy of expression. The look of labor in California is not so much of strength as of force, an indomitable, unconquerable force. Melancholy is not there, but spirit; that fire and light which means hope. It is as though they were molded of iron—those faces—but ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... assure you, madam." Then forming his features into a set smile, and affectedly softening his voice, he added, with a simpering air, "Have you been long in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... her hand in his. He could feel distinctly its cool, soft, exquisite texture. With an exclamation of delight he drew her toward him, but she held herself away, the expression of her beautiful face softening ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... summer night. The moon had risen now, and filtered in through the young green of the trees with a clear and fitful radiance. The forest was like a fairy scene; and over the minds of both brothers stole the softening remembrance of such woodland wonders in the days gone by, when as little lads, full of curiosity and love of adventure, they had stolen forth at night into the forest together to see if they could discover the fairies at their play, or the dwarfs and gnomes busy ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... she wandered home, And went to her bed apart, No softening tear to her eye would come, No sigh from her aching heart. The balmy milk of a woman's breast Waxed curdled green and sour, And Mary Lee was by all confessed As changed from ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... now shining benignantly once more on the world, revealed in her hair. Her chin was square and determined, but its resoluteness was contradicted by a dimple and by the pleasant good-humour of the mouth; and a further softening of the face was effected by the nose, which seemed to have started out with the intention of being dignified and aristocratic but had defeated its purpose by tilting very slightly at the tip. This was a girl who would take chances, but would take ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sight. To describe the country for the next one hundred miles from Orsk, I need only extend the table-cover. For here, there, and everywhere was a dazzling, glaring sheet of white, as seen under the influence of a mid-day sun; then gradually softening down as the god of light sunk into the west, it faded into a vast, melancholy-looking, colourless ocean. This was shrouded in some places from the view by filmy clouds of mist and vapour, which rose in the evening air and shaded the wilderness around—a picture of desolation which wearied, ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... him to the judge's lodgings in the town, and laid him there peaceably for the doctors to tend him. For a fortnight the shadow of Gildersleeve still lingered on, growing feebler and feebler in intellect every day. But the end was certain. It was softening of the brain, and it proceeded rapidly. The horror of that unspeakable trial had wholly unnerved him. The great, strong man cried and sobbed like a baby. Lady Gildersleeve and Gwendoline were with him all through. He seldom spoke. When he did, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... relieved by the introduction between the pieces of light farces called Kiyogen. The whole entertainment having a religious intention, the Kiyogen stand to the No in the same relation as the small shrines to the main temple; they, too, are played for the propitiation of the gods, and for the softening of men's hearts. The farces are acted without wigs or masks; the dialogue is in the common spoken language, and there being no musical accompaniment it is quite easy to follow. The plots of the two farces which were played before the Duke of ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... about in his thoughts for just the right word to say—something that might be as "a fire and a hammer" to the softening and breaking of that ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... great whist player, once made a mistake and said to his partner, "My brain is softening," the latter answered "Never mind, I will give you ten thousand pounds down for it, just ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... settled; at eight o'clock we had said good-bye to Pilarcita and the Cherub, softening the farewell with a hopeful "au revoir"; and with Ropes staring disconsolately after us, we flashed out of the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... pleading fatigue, a plea which during these last days had been ever on his lips, flung himself down upon the grass. For a little time Sylvia sat idly watching the great battle ships at firing-practice in the Bay. It was an afternoon of August; a light haze hung in the still air softening the distant promontories; and on the waveless sparkling sea the great ships, coal-black to the eye, circled about the targets, with now and then a roar of thunder and a puff of smoke, like some monstrous engines of heat—heat ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... landed in softening snow, for the scathing flames were melting the drifts on either side. Betty had felt the rush of heat rising from the cables and had put ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... there was so much fighting to be done; I had come on purpose to make them well, and they might make up their minds to it. My own courage had revived, and I must revive theirs; I could surely keep them alive until help should come. By softening the torturing bandages on his face, I made him more comfortable; and in an adjoining room found another man with a thigh stump, who had been served by field-surgeons, as the thieves served the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho: i.e., "stripped him, left him naked and half dead." Those ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... Highness is as wax in your hands," she answered, with a swift softening of face and voice. "I won't start being autocratic till I get you back again. Only—sit down at once, please. You don't look fit ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... boy, his voice softening. "Holy Virgin, save him! For weeks, we've been in the hands of Aguinaldo's men. He's been so ill, all the time; have ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... home very slowly, for remorse, while softening into penitence, had sapped the foundations of his life; and he had grown a feeble old man in so short a time, that those who look upon God as an avenger, rather than a chastiser, might have supposed that old age had fallen ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... entire weight of the branch it lifts up. Darwin concluded that a tendril with five disk-bearing branches, on which he experimented, would stand a strain of ten pounds, even after ten years' exposure to high winds and softening rains. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... as the poet of a decadent epoch, an epoch in which art had arrived at the over-ripened maturity of an aging civilization; a glowing, savorous, fragrant over-ripeness, that is already softening into decomposition. And to be the fitting poet of such an epoch, he modeled his style on that of the poets of the Latin decadence; for, as he expressed it for himself and for the modern school of "decadents" in French ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... burst into great sobs—dry-eyed sobs, which cut as they came, without any softening by tears. But she determined to repress all evidences of feeling. She was conquered; but she would never own it as long as she lived. Her pride was indeed brought low by despairing discoveries of her spoliation by marriage with a less pure nature than her own. She chafed to and fro in rebelliousness, ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... portion of my great map of Germany to lie spread over their knees in the diligence, whilst Temple and I pored along the lines of the rivers. One would thrust his square-nailed finger to the name of a city and pronounce it; one gave us lessons in the expression of the vowels, with the softening of three of them, which seemed like a regulation drill movement for taking an egg into the mouth, and showing repentance of the act. 'Sarkeld,' we exclaimed mutually, and they made a galloping motion of their hands, pointing beyond the hills. Sarkeld was to the right, Sarkeld to the left, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... relation to callosities on the sole of the foot is treated by paring away all the thickened skin, after softening it with soda fomentations, removing the unhealthy granulations, and applying ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Kincaid do if he were here! But the stage waited: "Ah, Colonel, Anna! poor Anna!" Might not the compassion-wilted supplicant see the dear, dear prisoner? She rallied all her war-worn fairness with all her feminine art, and to her amazement, with a gleam of purpose yet without the softening of a lineament, he said yes, waved permission across to the guard and ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... never within distinct view, of the prisoners; now jabbering in as many voices as the most expert ventriloquist, and now sternly commanding, "Silence in the ranks!"—now getting up a seeming scuffle among his men, and now driving them, with thwacks and curses, to their places; and now again softening his tones and cracking jokes with his men,—Smith, Johnson, &c.,—who, in as many different tones, were heard to return various sharp and comical retorts, which raised shouts of laughter and made the forest ring with the sham merriment And thus ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... and repose; and, in physical endurance, it is subject to general physiological laws. When exercised with moderation it acquires strength, vigor, and an accelerated activity. Excessive mental exertion is liable to result in softening of the brain, and various nervous diseases, sometimes culminating in insanity, and in many instances proving fatal to life. The mere votaries of pleasure who avoid all effort of the mind, fall into the opposite error. In all cases of intellectual activity, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the softening influence of society and the wholesome fear of restraint, for a time at least the voice of his better angel is silenced. Perhaps also the necessarily solitary position of a commander of a man-of-war, his long, lonely ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... touch, thickly laid on, I have raised the surface so that it catches the light itself and blends it with the lustrous whiteness of the high lights, and how by an opposite process, by flattening the surface of the paint, and leaving no trace of the passage of the brush, I have succeeded in softening the contours of my figures and enveloping them in half-tints until the very idea of drawing, of the means by which the effect is produced, fades away, and the picture has the roundness and relief of nature. Come closer. You will ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... make them apparent. This was the cause of Rembrandt's captivating excellence; neither a combination of Coreggio and Titian, nor of Murillo and Velasquez, but as if all the great principles of chiaro-scuro and colour were steeped and harmonized in the softening shades of twilight; and this we perceive in nature, producing the most soothing and bewitching results. These digressions may, however, come more properly into notice when Rembrandt's principles of ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... characters[23]. They are the favourite sounds of the language. Not only the guttural sounds, g, ch, and k, but also d and t, are changed in many cases into analogous sibilants, according to fixed and very simple rules. On the other hand, the Slavic nations have a way of softening the harshness of the consonants, peculiar in that extent to them alone. The Frenchman has his l mouille, the Spaniard his elle doblado and n. the Portuguese his lh and nh; the Slavic nations possess the same ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... uncle Sir Thomas had, in the closing years of his life, shown unmistakable signs of brain-softening, and that a symptom of his complaint had been his addiction to making a number of wills—"two-thirds of 'em incoherent. Every two or three days he'd compose a new one and send for Huskisson, his ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... position, had at all times nearly the same amount of weight to bear, and consequently the entire weight was pretty equally distributed amongst the four wheels of the locomotive. Thus the four floating pistons were ingeniously made to serve the purpose of springs in equalising the weight, and in softening the jerks of the machine; the weight of which, it must also be observed, had been increased, on a road originally calculated to bear a considerably lighter description of carriage. This mode of supporting the engine remained in use until the progress of spring-making had so far advanced that ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... thus been already for nearly eight months in close custody. But there were no further ministrations of kind women for Jeanne. She was now distinctly in the hands of her enemies, those who had no sympathy or natural softening of feeling ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... return to Kingfisher, who has been all this time softening some silk-worm gut in his mouth, and now says in a thick voice, "Do you know, colonel, I lost my chance of a wife once ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... than for the expedition; and, as Assunta was handing to the rider his long ebony staff, bearing an ivory caduceus, the quadruped turned suddenly round. Simplizio called him bestiaccia! and then, softening it, poco garbato! and proposed to Ser Francesco that he should leave the bastone behind, and take the crab-switch he presented to him, giving at the same time a sample of its efficacy, which covered the long grizzle hair of the worthy quadruped with a profusion of pink ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... above quotation, the softening effect of affliction on the human heart There was a widow in the neighborhood, a very worthy woman, who had lost her husband in the war. She had two children, a son and a daughter, both quite young. She owned a snug little farm, and being a very capable woman, was getting along quite comfortably. ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... way home. He grumbled about the softening snow, about the gathering dusk, about the length of the road. His exasperation reached its height when, ignoring Thayer's advice in regard to the path, he struck out across an open snowfield, only to go crashing down through its insecure foundation ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... with a more exquisite courtesy, and more true hospitality. So I thought, at least. Now and again, it is true, while his eyes were fixed on me, I would see how the soul behind them was away, far in the past, and then at a word, even at a movement, back it would come to me, with the tenderest softening I have ever ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... fit in with the picture his sister Gertrude drew me, though she conveyed the impression that she was softening things down. There can be no doubt that he was wild. That might, perhaps, be forgiven, but one or two of the stories I've heard about him filled ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... support the criticism, but cannot on the whole think it well founded. The better-bred women do not presume on their sex, and the area of good breeding is always widening. It need hardly be said that the community at large gains by the softening and restraining influence which the reverence for womanhood diffuses. Nothing so quickly incenses the people as any insult offered to a woman. Wife-beating, and indeed any kind of rough violence offered to women, is far less common among ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the pent-up tempest broke forth with a fury that racked her little frame from head to foot; and the more because she strove to stifle every sound of it as much as possible. It was the very bitterness of sorrow, without any softening thought to allay it, and sharpened and made more bitter by mortification and a passionate sense of unkindness and wrong. And through it all, how constantly in her heart the poor child was reaching forth longing arms towards her far-off mother, and calling ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Prince Henry. "I could never forgive that; I would hold your ambition responsible for it, for you have access to the king's heart, and instead of dissipating his distrust against these foreign nations, you have endeavored to nourish it—instead of softening the king's anger, you ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the wine to her lips, her stern face softening. Like many a high-spirited woman doomed to perpetual inaction, her dominion over her servants had grown to represent the larger share ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... the accompaniment of music. The gipsy band must be there, when he is in trouble or in joy—one or two fiddles, perhaps a clarionet, always a czimbalom—just these few instruments to play his favourite songs. They don't ease his sorrow, but they help to soothe it by bringing tears to his eyes and softening ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... contempt. "Jodd has no more head for plans than a doorpost! Although it is true," she added with a softening of the voice, "that he is a good man to lean on at a pinch, and a very terrible fighter; also one who can keep such brain as God gave him cool in the hour of terror, as Irene knows well enough. Yet it was you, Olaf, not even I, but you, ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... would soon be over, the birds would come again,—new birds, singing the old songs,—the sap would mount in the trees, the buds swell on the blueberry bushes, and the young ivory leaves push their ruddy tips through the softening ground. The plains were fatherland and mother-country, home and kindred, to Tom. He loved the earth that nourished him, and he saw through all the seeming death in nature the eternal miracle of the resurrection. ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the road till the moon rose and the witchery of night came to make the girlish eyes more brilliant, softening their gayety into a wistful tenderness, only to these did the close of the day seem as sweet and momentous as the morning. While the trusty horse jogged on, impatient of the slow pace set by his driver, the lovers sat with little ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... the party was tortured with alternative hopes and fears. Now it was a horse breaking through the softening crust of snow and coming down, and then it would be one playing out altogether. If in another day those in front were not overtaken, it was pretty certain they must run into Big Bear's band, and that would mean wholesale massacre. In order to ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... playwright with material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story might pass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development the scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softening stubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for a season. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of the Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resist the laws of fate ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... landscape; the sense of hearing is made more receptive by the lessening of the vision and you realize the awful sublimity of Niagara. The islands, like dark phantoms, loom in the dim shadows. Then in the east the moon rises mellowing and softening the beautiful scene, while all about you is the eternal roar of the waters. The vast spectral terribleness is quickly transformed into ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... eyes, inquisitive, searching, softening. He saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love, then suddenly strain in terrible effort of will. He heard Oldring whisper and saw him sway like a log and fall. Then a million bellowing, thundering voices—gunshots of conscience, thunderbolts of remorse—dinned horribly in his ears. He had ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... of men to one another brought also into view and recognition the rights of the lower orders of being. A sentiment against cruelty to animals of every kind had long been growing in civilized lands, and formed a distinct feature of the general softening of manners which led up to the Revolution. This sentiment now became an enthusiasm. The new conception of our relation to the animals appealed to the heart and captivated the imagination of mankind. Instead of sacrificing the weaker races to our use or ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... appreciation entertained in this country of the course pursued by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, throughout this most painful ordeal. She was wiser than her Ministers, and there can be little doubt but for her considerate interposition, softening the rigor of the British demand, the two nations would have been forced into war. On all the subsequent occasions for bitterness towards England, by reason of the treatment we experienced during the war, there was an instinctive feeling among Americans that the Queen desired ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... and any adverse appeal is little likely now to be lodged against it. Within the circle of its claims and pretensions, a more entirely satisfactory and delightful poem than "The Deserted Village" was probably never written. It lingers in the memory where once it has entered; and such is the softening influence on the heart of the mild, tender, yet clear light which makes its images so distinct and lovely, that there are few who have not wished to rate it higher than poetry of yet higher genius. Goldsmith looked ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... a refusal, it is probably softening down the 'No,' but if it is an acceptance it is rather an ungracious one, it seems ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... forget that there is nothing of this kind, no relief, no softening, in the great scene at the conclusion of the Odyssey. All is stern enough and terrible enough there; more terrible, if possible, because more distinct, than its modern counterpart in Criemhildas Hall. But ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
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