"Harshness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of liberty advanced a step by such injudicious harshness in the field?" continued the surgeon, bent on the favorite principle ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... screamed Mrs. Mumpson. "If we save his house he will relent. Gratitude will overwhelm him. So far from turning us away, he will sue, he will plead for forgiveness for his former harshness; his home saved will be our home won. Just put our things in the trunk first. Perhaps the house can't be saved, and you know we must save OUR things. Help me, quick! There, there; now, now"—both were sneezing and choking in a half-strangled manner. "Now let me lock it; my hand ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... commission with Cimon to the war, he took notice that Pausanias and the other Spartan captains made themselves offensive by imperiousness and harshness to the confederates; and by being himself gentle and considerate with them and by the courtesy and disinterested temper which Cimon, after his example, manifested in the expeditions, he stole away the chief command ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... from the gallery, and in a few moments returned with two visitors: the youthful prophetess Esther, and her companion, a man short in stature, but with a powerful and well-knit frame. His countenance was melancholy, and, with harshness in the lower part, not without a degree of pensive beauty in the broad clear brow and sunken eyes, unusual in ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... poor parents, and brought up with extreme severity by a stern father, had himself known the condition in which Oscar now was. Accordingly, he felt an interest in him, but the sort of interest which alone he could take, checked by the apparent harshness that characterized him. The aspect of this gaunt young man, with a muddy skin and hair cropped like a clothes-brush, who was curt of speech and possessed a piercing eye and a gloomy vivaciousness, ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... giving dementi's Preludes at first. "Is that a dog barking?" was his sudden exclamation at a rough attack. He taught the scales staccato and legato beginning with E major. Ductility, ease, gracefulness were his aim; stiffness, harshness annoyed him. He gave Clementi, Moscheles and Bach. Before playing in concert he shut himself up and played, not Chopin but Bach, always Bach. Absolute finger independence and touch discrimination and color are ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... greatly when they heard of his death; but they soon forgot his harshness, remembered only his bravery and all the good he had done them in his youth, and regretted their ingratitude. Long after, as you will see, his body was carried to Athens, and buried not far from the A-crop'o-lis, which was a fortified hill ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... his. Therefore at that moment he searched for accusations against her, and found a bitter-tasting comfort in every offence that she had given him, and made treasure of any scornful speech, rescuing himself from the extreme of foolishness by such excuse as harshness might afford. Now Barbara Quinton had told Mistress Nell that I was forward for my station. What man could, what man would, lay bare his heart to a lady who held him to be ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... learning, upon them that are without it. A king should renounce these seven faults that are productive of calamity, inasmuch as they are able to effect the ruin of even monarchs firmly established; these are women, dice, hunting, drinking, harshness of speech, severity of punishment, and misuse of wealth. These eight are the immediate indications of a man destined to destruction, viz., hating the Brahmanas, disputes with Brahmanas, appropriation of a Brahmana's possessions, taking the life of Brahmana, taking a pleasure in reviling ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... liberty for all, not only the abolition of slavery, but the very mode of action followed in this matter by the Popes, has gained for them immortal honor, and the esteem of all good men. When the Church abolished slavery in any country where it existed, the Popes did not compel masters, by harshness or threats, to manumit their slaves; they did not bring into action the base intrigues, the low chicanery, the canting hypocrisy of modern statesmen; they did not raise armies, and send them into the lands of their masters to burn and ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... in every instance a present of their year's crop, stock, &c., and either finding them other farms, or giving them money to enable them to enter into other pursuits: such, sir, have been my transactions with the small number who have left my land, none of whom, I dare say, every charged me with harshness or injustice. As you have thought proper to turn public accuser, I beg to refer you to Mr Charles Seegrue, the only gentleman in Cork with whom I have had any transactions regarding tenants, and he will inform you on the determination of his interest in a large farm, how many of his under-tenants ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... to please her father—married me. As my wife, she hated me. I hated her. She brought up my daughter to look upon me as a monster. Everything I did was unreasonable, eccentric, wicked; everything I said, absurd; every admonition, harshness; every economy, meanness. Well; I'm the sort of man that, when people pull me one way, I go the other. She spoiled my life, and ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... itself unmistakably known to the distrustful New Yorker by an increased harshness of wind and prevalence of dust, when one day Evelina entered the back room at supper-time with a cluster of ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... not displeased at the harshness I showed towards you. It rose from a father's love, and ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... slaves, should look distrustfully at emancipation, and strive to justify to his conscience opposition to any plan, however gradual, which leads thereto. Nevertheless, however satisfied in his mind that the slaves are kindly treated, and that harshness even is never used, he cannot contemplate the institution from a sufficient distance to be beyond its influences, without feeling that emancipation is the goal towards which his thoughts should ever bend, and that in proportion as the steps towards it must be gradual, so should they speedily ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... roundly smooth or languishingly slow; And praise the easy vigour of a line, 360 Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an Echo to the sense: 365 Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... long face did not kill the pleasure which the little interview with that kind, sweet woman, Mrs. Barfield, had created in her. She moved about her work, happy at heart, singing to herself as she washed the vegetables. Even Mrs. Latch's harshness didn't trouble her much. She felt it to be a manner under which there might be a kind heart, and she hoped by her willingness to work to gain at least the cook's toleration. Margaret suggested that Esther should give up her beer. A solid pint extra a day could not fail, she said, to win ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... sufficient available food over the general surface for more than a few tufts of the hardiest plants, chiefly carices and eriogonae. And it is interesting to learn in this connection that the sparseness and repressed character of the vegetation at this height is caused more by want of soil than by harshness of climate; for, here and there, in sheltered hollows (countersunk beneath the general surface) into which a few rods of well-ground moraine chips have been dumped, we find groves of spruce and pine ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... such swiftly flashed across the young man's brain, lending an echo of harshness to ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... and presently returned, leaning on her husband's arm. They sat down beside the bed and Jeanne began to talk. She told them all, quietly, in a weak voice, but clearly; all about Julien's peculiar character, his harshness, his avarice, and, finally, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... soon to be president of Harvard, observed that, "though David had spared the infant Hadad, yet it might have been better for his people if he had been less merciful." These bloodthirsty counsels did not prevail, but the course that was adopted did not lack in harshness. Among the sachems a dozen leading spirits were hanged or shot, and hundreds of captives were shipped off to the West Indies to be sold into slavery; among these was Philip's little son. The rough soldier Church and the apostle Eliot were among the few who disapproved of this policy. Church ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... Claude's regard, when the voice of the advocate was heard calling upon his son to attend him in the room above. Narcisse obeyed; but filled with a sentiment of rising rebellion and new-born insolence, as of one who intends no longer to be checked, nor submit to unmerited harshness and tyranny. There the two had an altercation, provoked by the old grudges, and aggravated by Narcisse's recent dissipation, escapade, and neglect of duty, and still more sharpened by his present pertness and contumacy. Anger rose high between parent and child, and the latter, in unconcealed ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... the doorway and the doctor was called from his pondering by the voice of the girl. There was something about that voice which worried Byrne, for it was low and controlled and musical and it did not fit with the nasal harshness of the cattlemen. When she began to speak it was like the beginning of a song. He turned now and found her sitting a tall bay horse, and she led a red-roan mare beside her. When he went out she tossed her reins over the head of her horse and strapped his valise ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... sings, shouts, or jokes while on the march. He is probably not much as a porter, but he is worth his wages nevertheless. He may or may not aspire to his giddy eminence. We had one droll-faced little Kavirondo whose very expression made one laugh, and whose rueful remarks on the harshness of his lot finally ended by being funny. His name got to be a catchword ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... touching evidence of sweetness in the strong man who had been so readily accused of harshness by grasping courtiers. The ignorant ingratitude of the people was even perhaps more melancholy than the wilful ingratitude of the King. The great Colbert had to be buried by night, lest his remains should be insulted by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... her husband, but without harshness, 'if you cut in when requested not, I'll get a pillow and carry you out of the room upon it. What do you want ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... down to the present day) that towards the end of his life a stroke of paralysis, in 1785, and other unfortunate circumstances, threw Von Vizin into a gloomy religious state of mind, under the influence of which he judged himself and his works with extreme severity, and condemned them with excessive harshness. ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... which was lying at anchor about half a mile above. He had been impressed two years before; and being treated with cruelty and harshness, had been eagerly watching an opportunity to escape from his inhuman bondage. At length he formed a plan with one of his messmates, to slip overboard quietly the first dark night, and relying on skill in swimming, attempt to reach ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the song of birds; but it was simply not in him to understand how she loved and craved for music. She was a cloudy little creature, up and down in mood—rather like a brown lady spaniel that she had, now gay as a butterfly, now brooding as night. Any touch of harshness she took to heart fearfully. She was the strangest compound of pride and sell-disparagement; the qualities seemed mixed in her so deeply that neither she nor any one knew of which her cloudy fits were the result. Being ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fruit of his brilliant resolution. There were plenty of gentlemen with bags and valises in their hands, but not a single one of them wanted any assistance; and some of them answered his civil salutation with insult and harshness. The experiment did not work so well as he had anticipated, for Noddy's great expectations led him to believe that he should make about half a dollar out of the arrival of this train, instead of which he did not make ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... her recent stormy mood, Nature seemed full of regretful relentings on Monday, and, as if to make amends for her harshness, assumed something of a summer softness. The sun had not the glaring brightness that dazzles, and the atmosphere, purified by the recent rain, revealed through its crystal depths ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... with thick lips and an aquiline nose—only the flashing grey eyes set under overhanging brows redeemed his face from harshness. Mirandola, on the other hand, was gifted with remarkable personal beauty. Long fair curls hung to his shoulders and surrounded a face that was both gentle and gracious. He had an extraordinary knowledge of languages and a ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... ruler—by death. He is no longer a king, but a dying man—nothing more. A father taking leave of his children, a husband embracing his wife for the last time; pressing his last kisses upon her tearful face, and pleading for forgiveness for his harshness and cruelty. Frederick William has made his peace with God and the world; his proud spirit is broken; his hard heart softened. Long he had striven in the haughtiness of his heart before acknowledging his sins, but the brave and pious Roloff approached his couch, and with accusations ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... phrase was prefaced by typical wren scolding. He could not help but voice his emotions, and the harsh notes told plainly what he thought of my poor imitation. Then another feeling would dominate, and out of the maelstrom of harshness, of tumbled, volcanic vocalization would rise the pure silver ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... confined to the question of divinity studies. Brother Hecker's general education was scant, and his English [sic] was still faulty. And yet he was silently asking ordination in a preaching order, for which a thorough education is a prerequisite. Father de Held, therefore, is not to be condemned for his harshness as wanting in sympathy or in judgment of character. Gold is tried by fire, and fire is an active agent and a painful one. But Brother Hecker soon found both solace and ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... killed her husband in the bridal room. Lucia herself enters to confirm his awful news; she is still in bridal attire and in her demented condition believes that Arthur will presently appear for the nuptial ceremony. Everybody is full of pity for her, and her brother repents his harshness, too late, alas!—Lucia is fast dying and Eliza leads her away amid the lamentations of ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... startled by her tone. Its unexpected, unlady-like harshness fell on his trained ear with the disagreeable effect of a false note. "Yes. I am going away. And the best thing for all of you is to go away too, as soon as you like. You can go now, to-day, this moment. You had your wages paid you only last week. The longer ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... it came to pass that Laman and Lemuel did take me and bind me with cords, and they did treat me with much harshness; nevertheless, the Lord did suffer it that he might show forth his power, unto the fulfilling of his word which he ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... the great dog Prince, who had been comforted by his master for any harshness that he had suffered necessarily, and he now lay watchful but quiet, seeming to share, in a measure, the mood of his master ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... marble pestle, adding soft water to it until it forms a soft paste, which, laid neatly on furniture, or even on paintings, and carefully rubbed when dry with a woollen rag, gives a polish of great brilliancy, without the harshness of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the enemy of your person, Sir;—as you would be convinced, if you saw her last letter* to me. But were she not an enemy to your actions, she would not be my friend, nor the friend of virtue. Why will you provoke from me, Mr. Lovelace, the harshness of expression, which, however, which, however deserved by you, I am unwilling just now to use, having suffered enough in the two past days from my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... an emblem of long resignation, of the patience of a fisherman and his quiet ways. The man had a voice without harshness, kind lips, evidently no ambition, and something frail and puny about him. Any other sort of countenance would, at that ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... it seemed to Weyburn. But the man who could crown a long term of cruel injustice with the harshness to his wife at Steignton would naturally behold women with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... toward the reedy shore That fated remnant pour, Had Fear and Death beside; And other spectres yet Of darker vision flit,— Old unforgotten wrongs, the harshness and the pride Of that imperial race which sway'd the land ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... from her trials, resolutely refusing to the last to acknowledge in any way the invalidity of her marriage with Henry. She had derived some comfort from the papal sentence in her favour, but that was not calculated to soften the harshness with which she was treated. Her pious soul, too, was troubled with the thought that she had been the occasion, innocent though she was, of the heresies that had arisen in England, and of the enormities which had been practised against the Church. ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... of timid care for his wife, not only because he deprecated any harshness of judgment from her, but because he felt a deep distress at the sight of her suffering. She had sent her daughters away to board at a school on the coast, that this crisis might be hidden from them as far as possible. Set free by their absence from the intolerable ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... those chattering pages which talk so much and say nothing. There are plenty of them, for example, like that piece of Goldmark's, of which the old watchmaker had just said with a delighted smile: "It is pretty. There is no harshness in it. All the corners are rounded off...." The boy was very quiet then. He became drowsy. He did not know what they were playing hardly heard it; but he was happy; his limbs were numbed, and he ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... what cruel harshness they dispute the little pleasures which remain to him. In spite of his jests over the periwinkles, he has a taste for flowers, and had obtained from the gardener the concession of a little plot of ground ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... you reasons for my late harshness, You'll pardon, and excuse me: for, believe me; Tho' now I part abruptly in my service, I ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... Holcombe, formerly Secretary of the American Legation at Peking and a member of the Chinese Immigration Commission of 1880, cites some illlustrations of the harshness and unreasonableness of the exclusion law.[45] A Chinese merchant of San Francisco visited his native land and brought back a bride, only to find that she was forbidden to land on American soil. Another Chinese merchant and wife, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... brightness. She could yet be called pretty. Her eyes were large and easily assumed a look of inquiry and innocence, such as one might expect to see in a young girl. By disposition she was retiring; she easily obliterated herself. She was not made for the harshness of the world, and yet she had known these harshnesses in her younger days. Magnus had married her when she was twenty-one years old, at a time when she was a graduate of some years' standing from the State Normal School and was teaching literature, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... sympathy of the world is always with a weak people as opposed to a strong one, as England discovered when she attempted to impose her rule upon the Boers. Once let the Italian administration of the Upper Adige permit itself to be provoked into undue harshness (and there will be ample provocation; be certain of that); once let an impatient and over-zealous governor-general attempt to bend these stubborn mountaineers too abruptly to his will; let the local Italian officials provide the slightest excuse for charges of injustice ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... quite soft in its outline; the harshness died out of her bright eyes, leaving them lovely beyond expression. Gladys felt drawn to her once more, and, leaning forward, without a moment's hesitation she kissed her on the brow. It was a very simple act, no effort ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... longer rank and file, or commander-in-chief. Nothing remains but individual particles, 26 millions of equal and disconnected atoms. Never was so much disintegrated matter, less capable of resistance, offered to hands undertaking to mold it. Harshness and violence will be sufficient to ensure success. These brutal hands are ready for the work, and the Assembly which has reduced the material to powder has likewise provided the mortar and pestle. As awkward in destruction as it is ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Aram any thing that savoured of the harshness of pedantry, or the petty vanities of dogmatism: his voice was soft and low, and his manner always remarkable for its singular gentleness, and a certain dignified humility. His language did indeed, at times, assume a tone of calm ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he said that, Aunt Amy; and I will take care of you all," his glance including even Eddie, who sat silent in a corner. "It was good of him to trust me!" and then the remembrance of his other uncle's want of confidence and harshness rushed back on Bertie, and he sobbed bitterly. Aunt Amy made him sit beside her, and comforted him tenderly till his sobs ceased, and then listened with patient, loving sympathy to all his troubles, which Eddie ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... been more lately in his turn the observer of the keeper's demeanour, so soon as the interview betwixt Phoebe and him had become so interesting. And when he remarked the closeness of Joceline's argument, he raised his voice to a pitch of harshness that would have rivalled that of an ungreased and rusty saw, and which at once made Joceline and Phoebe spring six feet apart, each in contrary directions, and if Cupid was of the party, must have sent him out at the window like it wild duck flying from a culverin. Instantly throwing ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the opening of the fifth book of his Institutes of Divinity, Lactantius regrets the imperfect literary support given to Christianity by his two eminent predecessors. The obscurity and harshness of Tertullian, he says (and to this may be added his Montanism, which fluctuated on the edge of heresy), prevent him from being read or esteemed as widely as his great literary power deserves; while Minucius, in his single treatise, the Octavius, gave a brilliant ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... has been the subject of complaint on the part of some foreign powers, and has been characterized with more of harshness than of justice. If comparisons were to be instituted, it would not be difficult to present repeated instances in the history of states standing in the very front of modern civilization where communities far less offending and more defenseless ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... their number should be handcuffed and shut up without good reason being given, they might naturally rebel, and it would be very hard to give satisfactory reasons for arresting Rovinski. Even Gibbs might object to such harshness upon grounds which might seem to him vague and insufficient. Sammy knows Rovinski, I know him, but the others do not, and it might be difficult to convince them that he is the black-hearted scoundrel we think him; so we must be very careful ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... handling of these humbler figures, but it is compassionate and almost affectionate. If he laughs at Father Joyeuse there is no harshness and no hostility in his mirth. For the Joyeuse daughters he has indulgence and pity; and his humor plays about them and leaves them scart-free. It never stings them or scorches or sears, as it does Astier-Rehu and Christian ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... were made to President Lincoln by victims of Secretary of War Stanton's harshness, rudeness, and refusal to be obliging—particularly in cases where Secretary Stanton had refused to honor Lincoln's passes through the lines—the President would often remark to this effect "I cannot always be sure that permits ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... as he could. The watchful Spithridates, however, at last found an opportunity to attack him, and, with Herippidas the Spartan, took his camp and all his property. On this occasion Herippidas acted with great harshness in ordering all the plunder to be given up to be sold by auction, according to Greek usage. He forced the barbarian allies to disgorge their booty, and searched for all that had been captured in so offensive ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... forth from the palace, and bade Cassandra descend from the car and enter the gates. For why, she said, should she struggle against fate which made her to be a slave? Happy indeed was the lot which had brought her to a house of ancient wealth. 'Twas the newly rich that used harshness to their slaves. But her persuasion availed nothing with the maiden, for she sat and made no answer; and though the old men joined their counsel to the same end, she moved not nor spake. But when the Queen was ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... directing this punishment to this end, yet it must first be justified in itself as punishment, i.e., as mere harm, so that if it stopped there, and the person punished could get no glimpse of kindness hidden behind this harshness, he must yet admit that justice was done him, and that his reward was perfectly suitable to his conduct. In every punishment, as such, there must first be justice, and this constitutes the essence of the notion. ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... impression of continual music; they render its air sacred and fill it with something so akin to an uplifted silence as to leave one—when one has passed from their influence—asking what balm that was which soothed all the harshness of sound ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... youth—as youth is apt, I know,— Some harshness show, All vain asperities I, day by day, Would wear away, Till the smooth temper of my age should be Like the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... source. As a matter of fact, he was thoroughly out of health, as well as out of spirits; he had been over-working himself in London, and was scarcely out of the doctor's hands before he went to Scotland; then the shock of his brother's death and the harshness of his mother toward him had contributed their share to the utter disorganisation of his faculties. In short, Brian was not himself at all; it might even be said that he was out of his right mind. He had attacks of headache, generally terminating in a kind ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... oblique position, from the conviction that the features of a new-born infant are ill-adapted to please the eye; but that of the Virgin is warmly irradiated, and yet so disposed, that in bending with maternal fondness over her offspring, it exhibits exquisite beauty, without the harshness of deep shadows. The light strikes boldly on the lower part of her face, and is lost in a fainter glow on the eyes, while the forehead is thrown into shade. The figures of Joseph and the shepherds are traced with the same skillful pencil; and the glow which illuminates the piece ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... under his father's harshness, he could assure her of his own affection, which no earthly influence could change, while they walked together toward the farmhouse; but he could do no more. He durst not confide to her the subject that was uppermost in his mind; of all human beings ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... that dreamy, vague expression shot, when least expected, the hard and practical judgment of the City—or vice versa. But the whole was gentle—admirable quality for an audience, since it invited confession and assured a gentle hearing. No harshness lay there. Herbert Minks might have been a fine, successful mother perhaps. The one drawback to the physiognomy was that the mild blue eyes were never quite united in their frank gaze. He squinted pleasantly, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... The same harshness characterized the reception by the emperor of the great Prussian nobles. "Do not come into my presence," said he to the Prince of Hatzfeld, who brought before him the civil magistrates of Berlin. "I have ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... cellar is handy they may at once be placed therein; the object should be to keep them as cool and at as even a temperature as possible. In all the operations of handling apples from picking to market, remember that carelessness and harshness always bruise the fruit, and that every bruise detracts much from its keeping and market value; and remember another thing, that "Honesty is the best policy."—J.S. Woodward, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... mentally, that he may well want breath, such a message would add hoarseness to the raven. That even the bird, whose harsh voice is accustomed to predict calamities, could not croak the entrance of Duncan but in a note of unwonted harshness. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... bitterly for a long while. As she recalled her own severity in the past regarding women whose conduct had caused scandal, she employed in her turn the harshness of her judgment in examining her own actions. She felt herself more guilty than all the others, for her weakness appeared less excusable to her. She felt that she was unworthy and contemptible, and wished to die that she might ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... cold, brusque manner is only assumed, you need not deal with it as if it were characteristic. It indicates no more than the habit of wariness. You should proceed confidently with your selling process, undeterred by the bearing of your prospect. Do not attempt to mollify his assumed harshness. It will take but a few moments for you to sell him the idea that you have brought him something he really needs. When he first glimpses your service purpose, his icy pose will begin to melt and his rough tones ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... tension and revulsion of feeling caused by his awakened conscience, his confession, and the gnawing sense of shame, the failure of his ambition, and then his mother's death coming as the awful climax of the calamities he had undergone, and followed by the cold unfeeling harshness of his guardian, and the damping of his hopes—all these things had broken the boy's spirit utterly. Disgrace, and sorrow, and bereavement, and the stings of remorse, and the suffering of punishment—the forfeiture of a guilty past, and the gloom of a lonely future—these things unmanned him, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... might be liberated under it. It was learnt that the President might put his veto upon it. It seemed to purport, contrary to the Constitution, to attaint the property of rebels after their death, and Lincoln was unwilling that the Constitution should be stretched in the direction of revengeful harshness. The objectionable feature in the Bill was removed, and Lincoln accepted it. But the suspicion with which many Republicans were beginning to regard him was now reinforced by a certain jealousy of Congressmen against the Executive power; they grumbled and sneered about ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... sentence be suspended. This, Justice Zane seemed prepared to do, but I objected. I was a newspaper writer (as I explained), and I felt that if I criticized the court thereafter for what I believed to be a harshness that amounted to persecution, I could be silenced by the imposition of the suspended sentence; and if I failed to criticize, I should be false to what I considered my duty. I did not wish to be put in any such position; ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats,—messengers Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth;— With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart; Turned her obedience, which is due to me, To stubborn harshness.—And, my gracious duke, Be it so she will not here before your grace Consent to marry with Demetrius, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,— As she is mine I may dispose of her: Which shall be either to this ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a moment, I found relief in the more personal, as it were, but also the more natural of the two phenomena. The next, as I embraced this image of her having come to him on leaving me and of just what it accounted for in the disposal of her time, I demanded with a shade of harshness of which I was aware—"What on earth did she come for?" He had now had a minute to think—to recover himself and judge of effects, so that if it was still with excited eyes he spoke he showed a conscious redness and made ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... that Roman Catholicism of to-day is the same as Roman Catholicism was hundreds of years ago, we desire to quote a letter written by Pope Leo XIII during his reign, which will thoroughly demonstrate to the reader that Roman Catholicism of the present retains all of her harshness and cussedness that she possessed when our forefathers were burned at the stake and our mothers were punished for worshiping a true and living God, Pope Leo's ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... it had all the effect of a thunder-bolt in a clear sky. I stood stunned, the words which I was dictating to my secretary dying on my lips. For I knew the King too well, and had experienced his kindness too lately to attribute the harshness of the order to chance or forgetfulness; and assured in a moment that I stood face to face with a grave crisis, I found myself hard put to it to hide my feelings from those ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... nearly similar principles. A prison, which is to punish, but at the same time to correct and redeem, demands strict discipline: in fact, milder punishments have very little effect and their constant repetition is harmful, although any exaggeration of brute force is more injurious than useful. Harshness may cow criminals, but does not improve them: on the contrary, it only serves to irritate them or to convert them into hypocrites. Even the adult offender should be looked upon in the light of a child ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... than the milder waters which require so large potions to be effective, it is not characterized by the harshness and irritating power of some of the more recently discovered springs. It seems to us a sort of golden mean between ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... here, a true test of such characters? One result of the present violation of law and order is inhumanity, cruelty, disregard of the fellow-man. Especially marked is their contrast with Eumaeus, who, in response to the harshness of Antinous, says: "The famous men of earth (such as the seer, the doctor, the builder, the bard) are invited to the feast; no one would invite a beggar to an entertainment." Still the beggar is here to be invited. ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... she said, and he was surprised by the harshness that came into her voice. "To-morrow morning was the time set for my marriage to that wretch up there. I could have avoided it only by destroying myself. If you had come to-morrow night instead of to-night you would have found me dead, that is all. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... says, gravely, but in a tone whose gentleness takes all harshness from the words, "you are talking nonsense, and you know as well as I do that ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Masons. It was their pride that they never shirked an obligation, or evaded a responsibility: they did not evade this one. Having accepted "Pocahontas" as the name by which their ancestress was best known, they never swerved from it; holding to it undaunted by its length and harshness, and unmoved by the discovery of historians that Pocahontas is no name at all, but simply a pet sobriquet applicable to all Indian girls alike, and whose signification is scarcely one of dignity. Historians might discover, disagree, wrangle ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... ever be respectful To those above thee; and, should others share Thy husband's love, ne'er yield thyself a prey To jealousy; but ever be a friend, A loving friend, to those who rival thee In his affections. Should thy wedded lord Treat thee with harshness, thou must never be Harsh in return, but patient and submissive. Be to thy menials courteous, and to all Placed under thee, considerate and kind: Be never self-indulgent, but avoid Excess in pleasure; and, when ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... amorphous state may fail entirely to suggest the same idea to another brain. He will be able to preserve and perpetuate his idea in a style of language which the world may understand, and in a rhythm which may not offend the reader's sense of propriety with conspicuous harshness, breaks, or sudden transitions. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... regards with horror the savage cruelties of Great Britain to the unfortunate Jacobites, after their defeat under Charles Edward, at Culloden, in 1746, their barbarous treatment of the United Irishmen in 1798, and her brutality to the mutinous Hindoos in 1857-'58; the harshness of Russia toward the insurgent Poles, defeated in their mad attempts to recover their lost nationality; the severity of Austria, under Haynau, toward the defeated Magyars. The liberal press kept up for years, especially in ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... or Rachel, and one I hate to see or be seen by and indeed I hate now to see any body. Strange things I have to tell you, that happened since last night, that good Mr. Jonathan's letter, and my master's harshness, put me into such a fluster; but I will not keep you ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... singularly characteristic of the man, that even then he made no explanation of the course he had seen fit to take—no excuses for seeming harshness—no pledge of future yielding to any will but his own. The simple words he spoke were wholly impersonal; firm declaration that he would bend the future to his purpose; calm and solemn iteration of abiding faith that a united South, led by him, must ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... if he were going away; and indeed he did feel he would rather think it over in quiet. But Susan, grieved at her incautious words, which had all the appearance of harshness, went a step or two nearer—paused—and then, all over blushes, said in a ...
— Lizzie Leigh • Elizabeth Gaskell
... relates her ill-treatment to her granddaughter, Evelina could only find occasion to say: "Though this narrative almost compelled me to laugh, yet I was really irritated with the captain, for carrying his love of tormenting—sport, he calls it to such harshness and unjustifiable extremes." And Miss Burney expected, no doubt with reason, that her reader would be amused ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... readiness, his control of temper under rebuff and superfluous harshness, his odd, impersonal summing up of men and things, and good-natured patience with the world in general, were, she knew, business assets. She was even moved—no less—by the remote connection of such a life with that of the first Reuben ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... opportunity was seized for proselytizing in the interests of the Orthodox Church, and Sczeptycki the Archbishop of Lemberg, a member of the Uniate Church which had made terms with Roman Catholicism, was treated with a harshness compared with which the indignities inflicted by the Germans upon Cardinal Mercier of Malines were trivial; he was interned in a Russian monastery and deprived of all religious rites save those which ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... silently berating the brutal harshness of grown people. We went, airily, flutteringly, luminously, like a bunch of butterflies. At the head of the stairs the music caught us up in a maelstrom of excitement and whirled us down into the throng of pleasure. And when ...
— Different Girls • Various
... Hamlet.—Among the distinguishing features of that wonderful character, one of the most interesting (yet painful) is that soreness of mind which makes him treat the intrusions of Polonius with harshness, and that asperity which he puts on in his interviews with Ophelia. These tokens of an unhinged mind (if they be not mixed in the latter case with a profound artifice of love, to alienate Ophelia by affected discourtesies, so to prepare ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... and simplest cosmetic for women is constant gentleness and sympathy for the noblest interests of her fellow-creatures. This preserves and gives to her features an indelibly gay, fresh, and agreeable expression. If women would but realize that harshness makes them ugly, it would prove ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... required different methods of management and inspired different precautions; yet experience soon proved that the hellenised sons of the East had a better capacity for organising revolt than their fellow-sufferers from the North and West, and much of the harshness of Roman slavery was prompted by the panic which is the nemesis of the man who deals in human lives. But more of it was due to the indifference which springs from familiarity, and from the cold practical spirit in which the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... preachers of this sermon of bewilderment and scramble. A consciousness on which these tumultuous pages hammer day by day must lose the subtler sense of proportionate harmony and must develop an instinctive desire for harshness and crudeness and chaos. To overcome this riot of the printing press is thus a truly cultural task, and yet it is evident that the mere appeal to the cultural instinct will not change anything as long as the publisher and, above all, the advertiser, are convinced ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... infidelity was common, especially of the husband, and divorce was not unknown. In the civilized lands of Christendom monogamy was the only form of marriage recognized by civil law, and with the slow growth toward higher standards of civilization the harshness of patriarchal custom has become softened and the rights of women and children have been increased by law, though not without endangering the solidarity of the family. Similarly, the standards ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... brimming harbour, is to me as rare and sensational a delight as the rediscovery, when idling with a book, of a favourite lyric. That when she is at anchor; but to see her, all canvas set for light summer airs, at exactly that distance where defects and harshness in her apparel dissolve, but not so far away but the white feathers at her throat are plain, is to exult in the knowledge that man once reached such greatness that he imagined and created a thing ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson |
