"Smooth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vague narrative of a misadventure that had befallen her putative offspring, the doll that Sister Nora had given her last year. Struvvel Peter had met with an accident, his shock head having got in a candle-flame in Mrs. Picture's room upstairs, so that he was quite smooth before he could be rescued. The interest of this ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the Atlantic know, or, indeed, care to know, that their comfort and the rate at which they travel through the water—they who talk so glibly of making the passage in such and such a time, be the sea smooth or rough, and the wind fine or contrary—that all this depends on the unceasing vigilance of the officers in charge of the ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... for a summer residence, she selected fine straw-matting, instead of woollen carpets for it. She put it down with great care, perfectly smooth and even. The wall was covered with the same cool material, delicately woven. ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... he writes to please, and not to serve, he is a flatterer and a hypocrite; if to serve and not to please, he turns cynic and satirist. The first deals in smooth falsehood, the last in rough scandal; the last may do some good, though little; the first does no good, and may do mischief, not a little; the last provokes your rage, the first provokes your pride; and in a word either of them is hurtful rather than ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... she do it, some one come up swift, and catch her hand and say: 'Ma'm'selle, let's do it together'—like that! It take her breath away. It is M'sieu' Hadrian. He not seem like the other men she know; but he have a sharp look, he is smooth in the face, and he smile kind like a woman. P'tite Louison, she give him her hand, and they run away, and every one stop to look. It is a gran' sight. M'sieu' Hadrian laugh, and his teeth shine, and the ladies say things ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "laborers" who had been brought from Chimbota, Peru, where there is a colony of twenty thousand Japanese, planted an acre with cotton seed and sat them down to rest, imperturbable, silent, waiting. The plowed land is now as smooth and level as the acres at Corinto in ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... sure of the origin of even the commonest surnames. For instance, every person named Smith is not descended from a smith, for the name also comes from the old word smoth, or "smooth," and this is the ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... the chubby little eccentricity revolved in his humble orbit among the castor-oil bushes and in the dust; always fashioning magnificent palaces from stale flowers thrown away by the bearer, smooth water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers pulled, I fancy, from my fowls—always alone, and always crooning ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... Transylvania, the province farthest removed from their homes, to be garrisoned in a region, the population of which is Rumanian, Hungarian and Saxon. I was told later that the Rumanians who had left the garrisons at Prasso had gone to Bohemia. As I observed these initial steps in the great smooth-running Austro-Hungarian military machine, I was impressed with the impossibility of revolution. With the soldier element scientifically broken up and scattered all over the country, who ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... cried the youth with a shout, as he hurried towards the shore, intending to fling off his garments and bathe in the mighty ocean, which, from the place where he first beheld it, appeared to be smooth and still as a mill-pond. But Oliver was compelled to restrain his ardour, for on nearing the sea he found that he stood on the summit of high cliffs, beyond which the Land's End stretched in a succession of broken masses of granite, ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... train, Deck'd out in all their best array, Who, months of toil and care disdain, Paid by the pleasures of a day. The village girl still let me view, Hast'ning to the neighb'ring fair; Her cap adorn'd with pink or blue, And nicely smooth her ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... accomplished—need never fear failure in the career of instruction. Children will be docile with them, will improve under them; parents will consequently repose in them confidence. Their task will be comparatively light, their path comparatively smooth. If the faculty be absent, the life of a teacher will be a struggle from beginning to end. No matter how amiable the disposition, how strong the sense of duty, how active the desire to please; no matter how brilliant and varied the accomplishments; if the governess has ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... the shore had in it something sweet and incredible. It was as if we were but dreaming together and might at any moment awaken again, countless miles and a thousand things apart. I rowed slowly with those clumsy Swiss oars that one must thrust forward, breaking the smooth crystal of the lake, and she sat sideways looking forward, saying very little and with much the same sense I think of enchantment and unreality. And I saw now for the first time as I watched her over my oars that her face was changed; ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... The river was smooth and peaceful in the sunrise. They hustled to gather their little herd and drive them in—but remembering their fright of yesterday, not an animal would take to the water. They all balked, and scampered. Soon they were ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... Bos the horns are placed high up on the vertex of the skull, which forms a marked transverse ridge from which the hinder portion falls sharply away. The horns are nearly circular in section and almost smooth; usually they curve outward, then upward and often inward at the tip; the premaxillaries are long and generally reach to the nasals, and the anterior dorsal vertebrae are without sharply elongated spines, so that the line of the back is nearly straight. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... the eyot, she went down to the landward-looking shore, and took the water, and swam slowly across the warm ripple till she came once more to the strand and her raiment. She clad herself, and set her hand to her pouch and drew forth bread, and sat eating it on the bank above the smooth sand. Then she looked around, and stood up with her face toward the house, to see if the dame would call to her. But she saw the witch come out of the porch and stand there looking under the sharp of her hand toward her, and thereafter she went back again into the house without giving any sign. ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... seeming disturbed, at least outwardly, yet the peace of mind of each home was whirled about like the water in a pond: while the surface appears smooth and clear, in the depths the silent fishes swarm, dive about, and chase one another. For one part of the population crosses, decorations, epaulets, offices, prestige, power, importance, dignities began to whirl about like butterflies in a golden atmosphere. For the other part a dark cloud arose ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... fulfilled—and I receive a legal claim to be the partner of your sorrows, and tenderest comforter. Then on the bosom of your wedded Julia, you may lull your keen regret to slumbering; while virtuous love, with a cherub's hand, shall smooth the brow of upbraiding thought, and pluck ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... animal had passed Custer was cut from the hillside. At the left an embankment rose steeply to a height of ten or fifteen feet. On the right there was a drop of a hundred feet or more into a wooded ravine. Ahead, the road apparently ran quite straight and smooth for a ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that is so often enjoyed in purer atmospheres, but the panorama of the head-land was clothed in a soft, magical sort of semi-distinctness, that rendered objects sufficiently obvious, and exceedingly beautiful. The rounded, shorn swells of the land, hove upward to the eye, verdant and smooth; while the fine oaks of the park formed a shadowy background to the picture, inland. Seaward, the ocean was glittering, like a reversed plane of the firmament, far as eye could reach. If our own hemisphere, or rather this latitude, may boast of purer skies than are enjoyed by the mother country, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... never had heard of his existence till, in 1873, I think, I was at Mentone, in the interests of my health. Here I met Mr. Sidney Colvin, now of the British Museum, and, with Mr. Colvin, Stevenson. He looked as, in my eyes, he always did look, more like a lass than a lad, with a rather long, smooth oval face, brown hair worn at greater length than is common, large lucid eyes, but whether blue or brown I cannot remember, if brown, certainly light brown. On appealing to the authority of a lady, I learn that brown was the hue. His colour was a trifle hectic, ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... of it I had even then, watching her; and since I have come to read it word for word: "But that woman—that woman that loves you, that you love. Ah, I know—why do you play with me? She is rich. With her your life will be smooth. And the boy—it will be better far for him. Cannot you three wait a little longer? What more can I do? Cannot you see that I am surely dying—dying as quickly as I can—dying as that poor creature your friend once told us ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... in the sail, with great smooth stones from the beach, and with some rope and his knife he sewed it all tightly together, and pulled each knot home with a jerk that was meant to be final, and his hairy old face was crumpled into ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... with a smooth face and ringlets two feet long greeted us and led us to the little Russian hospital which was fitted into the Abbey, warning us not to bang our heads against the heavy oak beams in ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... the warriors axe Lopt it at once from the parental stem. This as a sacred relick was consigned To Argus' hands, an image meet to frame Of Rhea, dread Divinity, who ruled Over Bithynia's mountains. With rude art He smooth'd and fashion'd it in homely guise. Then on a high and lonely promontory Rear'd it amid a tall and stately grove Of antient beeches. Next of stones unwrought They raise an altar; and with boughs of oak Soft wreaths of foliage weave ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... the news of his son's victory. By lessening the power of Ptolemy, it had done much to smooth his own path to the sovereignty of Alexander's empire, which was then left without an heir; and he immediately took the title of king, and gave the same title to his son Demetrius. In this he was followed by Ptolemy and the other generals, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... been ingeniously provident of many things; though, to be sure, it is just part of their legal stock in trade to be so. But the author of that arrangement in the passage-nooks—have you noticed it in your between-dances saunterings?—smooth-hewn pyramids of crystal ice, embowered in ferns and palms, and lit up from behind by some device which makes them glow a lovely rose-color all over—that man deserves a prize, I protest, for an inspiration ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... King. My first move will be now to go out to him and tell him that thou art possessed of a Jinn and hence thy madness; but that I will engage to heal thee and drive away the evil spirit, if he will at once unbind thy bonds. So when he cometh in to thee, do thou speak him smooth words, that he may think I have cured thee, and all will be done for us as we desire." Quoth she, "Hearkening and obedience;" and he went out to the King in joy and gladness, and said to him, "O august King, I have, by thy good fortune, discovered her disease and its ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... they can get them. Passes are for the rich. Only those are expected to pay who can scarcely afford it. Nothing shortens a journey, nothing makes the road as smooth, nothing keeps down the dust and keeps out ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Scotland in this her princely court, saving her own crown-lands—and who should minister to the wants of a mother, save an affectionate son like the Earl of Murray, who possesses so wonderfully both the power and inclination?—Or said you it was the danger of the task which clouded your smooth and hospitable brow?—No doubt, a page is a formidable addition to my body-guard of females; and I bethink me it must have been for that reason that my Lord of Lindesay refused even now to venture ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... notified the king [Philip] and herself of your good-will respecting this matter), until she saw it performed; for you had often before made them the same promises, but no result had ever followed. She feared that your Majesties might be dissuaded from action by the smooth speeches of certain persons in your court, until the enemy gained the opportunity of forming new designs, not only against the king's authority, but even against yourselves. The apprehension kept her in a constant ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... and wounded; but when I look at Katie there is no shrinking in me. Her face has not a sign of fretful weakness. It seems as if it had caught the glitter of the home, of the pewter covers, and the old silver teaspoons. It is bright. That is its characteristic. The broad brow is smooth, and the mouth, though showing the lines of suffering—what control these lines suggest!—is firm and content. The dark eyes look out from under their straight black brows with a friendly searching. "Come near," they say; "are you to be trusted?" and you know you are being found ...
— Beyond the Marshes • Ralph Connor
... little centre of regeneration. Here, with keen edges and smooth curves, were forms in the exact likeness of those he had seen abraded and time-eaten on the walls. These were the ideas in modern prose which the lichened colleges presented in old poetry. Even some of those antiques might have been called prose when they were new. They had ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... the girl continued to dance, and whirled about so eagerly that the blackened moss which had collected in the unevennesses of the rocks flew about her. An old, dry fir root, smooth and gray with age, lay upturned among the heather. She took it and whirled about with it. Chips flew out from the mouldering wood. Centipedes and earwigs that had lived in the crevices scurried out head over heels into the luminous air and ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... conclusion, he rose hastily and approached the attorney. A smooth smile—an unwonted expression on his features—seemed to come on demand. Again he looked over the lawyer's shoulder. He saw the name of Henry Carroll, and his former severe expression returned, and his frame was stirred by angry emotions. A half-suppressed oath ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... pinions, fly Across that still intenser sky; Fish, with cold plunge, with startling leap, Or arrow-flight across the deep; And stilted insects, light-o-limb, Would dimple o'er the even brim; If, with my hand, in play, I chose The cold, smooth current to oppose, As fine a spell my senses bound As ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... the motor, which imparted such prodigious speed to the machine, I could see nothing of it, nor of the propeller. However, the fast speeding boat left behind it only a long, smooth wake. The extreme fineness of the lines of the craft, caused it to make scarcely any waves, and enabled it to ride lightly over the crest of the billows ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... who their assailants could be. They were not the Bhuttias again, for those had no guns. And the man that he had just shot was not a mountaineer. Although it was evident that the firearms used were mostly old smooth-bore muskets, and the smoke from the powder rose in clouds over the undergrowth and drifted to the tree-tops, he had detected the sharp crack of a modern rifle occasionally among the duller reports of the more ancient weapons. The mysterious attackers were apparently numerous and completely ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... As many more waddled out among the alders and willows. Eagerly Baree watched for Umisk and his chums. At last he saw them, swimming forth from one of the smaller houses. They climbed out on their playground—the smooth bar above the shore of mud. Baree wagged his tail so hard that his whole body shook, and hurried ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... roses and clematis; to the right extended a range of costly conservatories, terminating in vistas of trellis-work which formed those elegant alleys called rosaries, and served to screen the more useful gardens from view. The lawn, smooth and even, was studded with American plants and shrubs in flower, and bounded on one side by a small lake, on the opposite bank of which limes and cedars threw their shadows over the clear waves. On the other side a light fence separated the grounds ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... natural law, alternated from this wonderful cupboard, very regularly, to another, or sister cupboard, also presided over by the good old maternal nut-cracker, wherein the energetic pill lived in its little pasteboard house next door to the crystal palace of smooth, insinuating castor oil; and passionate fiery essence of peppermint grew hot with indignation at the proximity of plebeian rhubarb and squills. In the present case he quietly took his anti-bilious globule: which, besides being a step in the direction ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... hesitation his friend admitted that he thought the K.C. erred occasionally in being too long. This apparently somewhat annoyed the K.C., and his friend feeling he had perhaps spoken too freely, thought he would smooth matters by inviting similar criticism of himself from the K.C., who at once replied, "My dear boy, I don't think really you have any fault. Except, you know, you are so ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... capsule, which contains the seeds and cotton fibre, when ripe splits into valves, which vary in number from three to five. A characteristic feature of the pod is the sharp top point formed by the meeting of the pointed valves. The seeds are numerous and very seldom smooth, being usually thickly covered with fibrous matter known as raw cotton. As is well known, the wind performs a very important function in the dispersal of seeds. It is clear that when a seed is ready to be set ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... I have thanked my heavenly Father for this respite from public labor, or how earnestly I have prayed that whilst I am thus dwelling at ease I may not forget the captives of my land, or be unwilling to go forth again on the high places of the field, to combat the giant sin of Slavery with the smooth stones of the river of Truth, if called to do so by Him who put me forth and went before me in days that are past. My dear Theodore entertains the noblest views of the rights and responsibilities of woman, and will never lay a ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... in that dingy little room saw was a smooth-faced young man, with blue eyes set far apart and light hair that exposed the temples far back; they heard a soft voice which made them forget for a time that they were very tired—forget all else but ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... sheep are common at Aden, whither they are imported from the opposite African coast. They have hair like smooth goats, no wool. Varthema also describes them (p. 87). In the Cairo Museum, among ornaments found in the mummy-pits, there is a little figure of one of these sheep, the head and neck in some blue stone and the body in white agate. (Note by Author of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... without visible bridges, small, dark, oblique eyes, with heavy lids and imperceptible eyebrows, wide mouths, full lips, thick, big, projecting ears, deformed by great hoops, straight black hair nearly as coarse as horsehair, and short, square, ungainly figures. The faces of the men are smooth. The women seldom exceed five feet in height, and a man is tall ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... the quaint rustic belfry which stood solitary in the open space in front of the Mission buildings. Its strong columns were the trunks of trees that looked as though they might have grown there for the purpose of shouldering the heavy cross-beams from which the chimes hung. Its smooth timbers had been laboriously hewn by hand, as must be the case in a land where there are no saw mills. The parts that were not bound together with thongs of rawhide, were held in place by wooden pegs. The strips of rawhide attached to the clappers dropped low enough for me to reach, and often ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... house confronted him at the next bend in the road, and presented a charming aspect of tranquillity. The grass in front of it was smooth as velvet and emerald-green, and in one of the flower borders Ronsard himself was digging and planting. He looked up as he heard the gate open, but did not attempt to interrupt his work;—and Von Glauben advanced towards him with a considerable sense of anxiety and insecurity in his mind. Anon ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... she whined; "dear me! I never get any thing nice that it isn't spoiled somehow or other. Isn't that too bad? This dress has been wrinkled for a week, and now it will never come smooth at all." ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... through the bushes when there are none to rustle through? It's just like being in an awful great temple, with the tall smooth ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... in the hills of Habersham, And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook stone Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl; And many a luminous jewel lone (Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, or amethyst) Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... massive conical roof which originally covered the tomb. Nature has done her utmost for nigh two thousand years to bring back this monument to her own bosom, but she has been foiled in all her attempts,—the travertine blocks of its exterior, though fitted to each other without cement, being as smooth and even in their courses of masonry as when first constructed, and almost as free from weather-stains as if they had newly been taken from the quarry. Only on the broad summit, where medieval Vandals broke down the noble pile and desecrated ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... at right angles from the way they were going, and they pitched onward for another hundred yards. Then they came out upon the hard, smooth sand, and heard the water lapping on the shore. Captain Perez got out once more and walked along the strand, bending forward as he walked. Soon Miss ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... even in the hottest weather, and she would rather have gone to roost on the nearest tree than to have slept on any thing else. The quilt was of a domestic blue and white, her own manufacture, and the cases to the pillows were very white and smooth. A little, common trundle bedstead was underneath, and on it was the bedding which was used for the younger children at night. The older ones slept in the servants' wing in the house, Phillis making use of two enormous chests, which were Bacchus's, and her wardrobes, for sleeping ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... is not in the long voyage between Europe and America, or between the East and California, or yet in the far-off trade among the calms and pacific seas of the East-Indies and the Pacific Islands; it is not in the smooth, lake-like seas of the West-Indies, where there is no freight whose transport price will pay for putting it on and taking it off the steamer; nor in the trade of Brazil whence a bag of coffee can be transported ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... reality ([Greek: ete]) are the atoms and the void. Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities is here anticipated. Thus, the atoms of water and iron are the same, but those of the former, being smooth and round, and therefore unable to hook on to one another, roll over and over like small globes, whereas the atoms of iron, being rough, jagged and uneven, cling together and form a solid body. Since all phenomena are composed of the same ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... cook a quart of peas as for Peas Puree When well done, if the Scotch peas, rub through a colander to remove the skins. If the split peas are used, mash perfectly smooth with a potato masher. Season with a teaspoonful of salt and a half cup of sweet cream, if desired. Beat well together, turn into an earthen or granite-ware pudding dish, smooth the top, and bake in a moderate oven until dry and mealy throughout, and nicely browned on top. Serve ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... the courtyard was leveled and strewn with ashes, so that the feet of the fighters should neither clog nor slip upon the smooth surface. There was unusual excitement in the ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... epochs in which some one person took upon their own shoulders the hopes and the sorrows of the world, and in their own person, through many struggles bore them onward. Suddenly or gradually, as the case might be, men found the rugged path made smooth and the way opened for the world's rapid advance. Such an epoch exists now, and such a person is Susan ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... malice he might conceal in his heart. Neither was Elizabeth a novice in the arts of feigning; and even without the promptings of those tender regrets which accompany a sacrifice extorted by reason from inclination, she would have been careful, by every manifestation of friendship and esteem, to smooth over the affront which her change of purpose had compelled her to put upon the brother and heir of so potent a monarch as the king ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the cellar the wall had been begun and was about two feet high; but in another part there was nothing but the smooth dirt at the bottom, and the smooth sides of the cellar ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... having found so rich a prize, Gompachi was making off for the Yoshiwara, when Seibei, who, horror-stricken, had seen both murders, came up and began to upbraid him for his wickedness. But Gompachi was so smooth-spoken and so well liked by his comrades, that he easily persuaded Seibei to hush the matter up, and accompany him to the Yoshiwara for a little diversion. As they were talking by the way, Seibei said ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... washing clothes, in the public tanks, and in every stream and ditch, that one cannot help wondering, in the midst of all this dirt, who wears them when they are clean. The custom is to lay the wet linen which is being operated upon, on a smooth stone, and hammer away at it, with a flat wooden mallet. This they do, as furiously as if they were revenging themselves on dress in general for being connected ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... say that in thine orb is movement dire, Tempest and flame, as on a million oceans: Well may it be, thou heart of heavenly fire; Such looks and smiles befit a god's emotions, We know thee gentle in the midst of all, By those smooth orbs in heaven, this ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... hell-raisers, for they had a lust for life and were maddened by tame respectability. Nobody but obsequious politicians and priggish "Daughters" wants to make them out as models of virtue and conformity. A smooth and settled society—a society shockingly tame—may accept Cardinal Newman's definition, "A gentleman is one who never gives offense." Under this definition a shaded violet, a butterfly, and a floating summer cloud are ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... again. "Bless the boy! It's an undeniable risk. And what the family will say to our Midsummer madness, God knows! Jane can be trusted to make the deuce of a row. And we can't even smooth matters by telling ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... that, no doubt, he knew. But I knowed more. The bottom where his bottle was lying happened to be fine sand with a clear lift to the little beach; and so, given a proper tool, 'twas easy enough to rake over the river-bed and fetch up anything of any size on that smooth surface. ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... enough! After being cast, the sections of stereotype were put into the machine indicated and moved quickly along, being planed off as they went; when they emerged the wrong side of them was smooth ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... Jediah—Jeremiah, I would say—when you make change, never take a ten cent piece and two cents for a shilling, but give it as often as practicable; look out for the fractions in adding up, and beware of crossed six-pences, smooth shillings, and what are called Bungtown coppers," said ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... as possible. The condition of the sire ought to be good, but at the same time it is not desirable to have him over fat. The more striking indications of good health in the sheep are dry eyes, red gums, sound teeth, smooth, oily skin, and regular rumination. The color of the excreta should ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... do its office. Unlike the magazines of his youth, its aim was to soothe and flatter, not to disconcert and impeach. He looked at the refined illustrations of South American capitals and of picturesque corners in Provence, and at the smooth or the rugged portraits of great statesmen and great bridges; all just as true to reality as the brilliant letterpress; and he tried to slip into the rectified and softened world offered by the magazine. He did not criticise the presentment. He did ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... feet below the summit of Cardigan we came out from the stunted under-growth and found ourselves traversing the smooth granite mass which constitutes the entire mountain top. The rock is full of minute particles of mica, which glitter and flash in the sun like "gems of purest ray serene." A brisk wind was blowing and the rarefied air infused us with new strength ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... look more closely. The substance was glistening and smooth—yellowish—almost transparent. It was made up of a tangle of woven cords which clung tightly to the metal sides. Harkness reached out in sudden fury to grip it and tear it loose. He grasped the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... or thrice, upon the stair, I've seen his face—most strangely wan,— Each time upon me unaware He came—smooth'd past me, and was gone. So like a whisper he went by, I listened after, ear and eye, Nor could my chafing fancy tell ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... day. They defied those very volcanic and meteoric phenomena of their land, to which their countrymen were slaying their own children in the clefts of the rocks, and, like Theophrastus' superstitious man, pouring their drink-offerings on the smooth stones of the valley; and declared that, for their part, they would not fear, though the earth was moved, and though the hills were carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters raged and swelled, and the mountains shook ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... feminine world, at Lady Wathin's assemblies. The elevation of her husband had extended and deepened her influence on the levels where it reigned before, but without, strange as we may think it now, assisting to her own elevation, much aspired for, to the smooth and lively upper pavement of Society, above its tumbled strata. She was near that distinguished surface, not on it. Her circle was practically the same as it was previous to the coveted nominal rank enabling her to trample on those beneath ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... eyelids with the sharp burning sensation of summer. He longed regretfully for this fever. His heart no longer beat as powerfully as it had beaten when on knolls in the flame-colored heath a shot scattered the earth like rain about him. Under the smooth caress of the lawn-like grass hair grew again on the callous parts of his paws where it had been so sparse. And he began to deplore the over-abundance of heaven. He was like the gardener who, having ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... her slender waist as if to smooth some trifling wrinkle in her gown, turning sideways to see if its folds fell properly, and as she did so, she caught sight of the king on the couch behind her. The carpet had so muffled the sound of his steps that he had slipped in ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... grateful to you, Mr. Hillyard," said Graham. "I can't say anything more to you now. Things, as you know, are altogether very doubtful. We may slip over into smooth water. On the other hand," and he twiddled his thumbs serenely, "we may be at war in a month. If that were to be the case, I might want to talk with you again. Will you leave your address with ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... their great cannons had broken and torn tip the roads. Our cavalry were longing with all their hearts to issue from the town and attack him behind; but M. de Guise never let them, saying on the contrary we had better make their way smooth for them, and build them gold and silver bridges to let them go; like the good pastor and shepherd, who will not lose ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... push from the Outside to the Inside, being in Guard towards half Quart; the Wrist must be raised a little at the Time that you lower the Point and raise it again, which should be done as close as possible, by a smooth and quick Motion, that you may be covered and lose no Time, and be able to push with your ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... other both at Paris and St. Germains: nor were any of those demonstrations which virtue and innocence permitted, wanting between them, to render them as perfectly easy as people can possibly be, who have yet something to desire, and much to fear. But as smooth as now their fortune seemed, they knew not how soon a storm might rise, and give a sudden interruption to that felicity they enjoyed.—The charms of Charlotta were every day making new conquests; and among the number of those who pretended to admire her, how probable was it that ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... words were smooth and oily. To Hal it really looked as though this fellow respected gameness enough not to take it ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... next, because of the striking form and colour of the cliffs themselves. They are formed of what is called "Papa." This is a blue, calcareous clay often found with limestone, which it somewhat resembles. The Maori word "papa" is applied to any broad, smooth, flattish surface, as a door, or to a slab of rock. The smooth, slab-like, papa cliffs are often curiously marked—tongued and grooved, as with a gouge, channelled and fluted. Sometimes horizontal lines seem to ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... gently, as she stood at the side of the bed. And she reached her hand in the darkness to touch his forehead. Delicately, her fingers met the nose and the eyebrows, she laid her fine, delicate hand on his brow. It seemed fresh and smooth—very fresh and smooth. A sort of surprise stirred her, in her entranced state. But it could not waken her. Gently, she leaned over the bed and stirred her fingers over the low-growing ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... considering these things, that the time passed like one of my thoughts; and before I knew I found myself on the verge of the perilous moor over which Harry had ridden in the teeth and heart of the storm. How smooth yet cruel it looked in its thick covering of snow! There was heather beneath, within which lay millions of purple bells, ready to rush out at the call of summer, and ring peals of merry gladness, making the desolate ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... little consideration had been directed to the result, Miss Chancellor certainly would not have incurred this reproach. She was habited in a plain dark dress, without any ornaments, and her smooth, colourless hair was confined as carefully as that of her sister was encouraged to stray. She had instantly seated herself, and while Mrs. Luna talked she kept her eyes on the ground, glancing even ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... trade winds took us there in a jiffey. I liked my captain and officers very much; and what was better, we took some good prizes. But somehow or other, I never had the luck to remain long in one ship, and that by no fault of mine; at least, not in this instance. All went on as smooth as possible, until one day the captain took us on shore to a ball, at one of the peaceable districts. We had a very merry night of it; but as luck would have it, I had the morning watch to keep, and see the decks cleaned, and as I never neglected my duty, I set off about three o'clock in ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... the wind had increased to a heavy gale, and we were compelled to reduce our canvass to a close-reefed main topsail, staysail, and trysail. We rounded Cape Goth within a quarter of a mile, and lay to under the lee of the island, where the sea was comparatively smooth. Towards the evening the wind subsided, and we again made sail. Saw the island of Guilpat, and the next morning anchored off the north-east side of it, in a channel between Guilpat and a small island. ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... three quarters of a pound of the best brown sugar. Stone them, and as you do so throw the sugar gradually into the pan with them. Cover them and let them set all night. Next day, boil them slowly till the cherries and sugar form a thick smooth mass. Put ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... victim of a punctuality my own people had foisted on a land only too happy without it! There was poetic justice in the situation, after all. Besides, the course of one's true love should not run too smooth. Judicious difficulty whets desire. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... either of an evil disposition or of deep and constant grief. From behind his half-lowered eyelashes they shone with a kind of phosphorescent gleam—if I may so express myself—which was not the reflection of a fervid soul or of a playful fancy, but a glitter like to that of smooth steel, blinding but cold. His glance—brief, but piercing and heavy—left the unpleasant impression of an indiscreet question and might have seemed insolent had it not been so ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... solution of all difficulties—"I will work harder!" He had said that in Lithuania when one official had taken his passport from him, and another had arrested him for being without it, and the two had divided a third of his belongings. He had said it again in New York, when the smooth-spoken agent had taken them in hand and made them pay such high prices, and almost prevented their leaving his place, in spite of their paying. Now he said it a third time, and Ona drew a deep breath; it was so wonderful to have a husband, just like a grown woman—and a husband who ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... of wind arises, and the great waves swell, We will scud along the billows like a blown foam-bell, When 'tis glassy calm beneath a sky without one fleck, I'll play a game of skittles on the calm smooth deck. ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... seat on the front door step to talk to Dan, as he smoked his evening pipe. Jane dressed in her favorite white dress, trimmed with black velvet, her beautiful hair fastened in a true Grecian coil, and perfectly smooth at the temples, is in the parlor attending to her choice plants, presently her beau comes to spend ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... determin'd; that's enough:— Gee, Bayard! move your poor old bones, I'll take to-morrow, smooth or rough, To go ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... rose, then fell to whispering undertones and suddenly, unexpectedly, crashed and stopped. The girls were running from the floor. A wave of smooth, polite applause rippled around ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... ignorance. The kind and affectionate terms of these letters never altered except with the facts they described—teething, creeping, measles, cheeks growing round and rosy, all were conveyed in the same smooth, pat, and proper phrases, so absolutely empty of any glimpse of the child's personality that after the first few months it was like reading about a somewhat uninteresting infant in a book. I was sure Cecily was not uninteresting, but her chroniclers were. ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... which was fully reported in the newspapers. And I was very much astonished when a lady called my attention to another young and very pretty lady, and expressed intense disgust at the way the latter wore her hair. It was simply parted in the middle, and fell down on either side, smooth as a water-fall, and then broke into curls at the ends, just as water, after falling, breaks into waves and rapids. But as she spoke, I felt it all, and saw that Mrs. Petulengro was in the right. The girl with the end-curled hair was uncanny. Her hair curled at the ends,—so ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... a springtime breeze, A breeze in the time when the song-birds pair, I'd tenderly smooth and caress your hair, And hide from your eyes ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... of that glittering hue which is so rarely seen except upon the head of a child—a sunny lock, which curled as naturally as the tendril of a vine; and was very opposite in texture, if not different in hue, to the soft, smooth tresses which the landlady at Ventnor had given to George Talboys after his wife's death. Robert Audley suspended his examination of the book, and folded this yellow lock in a sheet of letter paper, which he sealed with his signet-ring, and laid aside, ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... along the shore of a brook or river. Some are quite smooth and round. They were not always so, but had sharp edges. Do you know ...
— Home Geography For Primary Grades • C. C. Long
... either Wantonness or Sloth? Or who in such straits, would permit themselves to be distracted either by Hypocrisy or Inconsiderateness? No, no! they are too awake then, and not one of the infernal flies of Bewilderment, which shows its beak, will buzz, during one of these storms. But Ease, smooth Ease, is the nurse of you all: in her calm shadow, and in her teeming bosom ye are all bred, and also every other infernal worm of the conscience, which will come to gnaw its possessor here for ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... a hundred feet or more, the smooth steel sides of the vast oxygen tank rose, studded ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... as uniform physical properties as S. A. E. No. 1020 steel and at the same time was sufficiently free cutting to produce a smooth thread and enable the screw-machine manufacturers to produce, to the same thread limits, approximately 75 per cent as many parts as from ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... are," he went on, reverting to the special case, "I don't see why you make his path smooth to Janie Iver." ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... past the long Slow smooth strong lapse of Lethe—past the toil Wherein all souls are taken as a spoil, The Stygian web of waters—if your song Be quenched not, O our brethren, but be strong As ere ye too ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... repicture what was, for those who understood, the gigantic finality of the first German strides. It seemed as if the forces of the ancient valour fell away to right and left; and there opened a grand, smooth granite road right to the gate of Paris, down which the great Germania moved like a tall, unanswerable sphinx, whose pride could destroy all things and survive them. In her train moved, like moving mountains, Cyclopean guns that had never been seen among men, before which ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... I dare say the barber did not gap his razor when he shaved you. I always feel better after I have been shaved," added Mr. Wittleworth, as Andre laid a brush full of lather upon his smooth chin. ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... precincts of which the ground is reclaimed and admirably tilled, the drainage being carried over ingenious turf conduits, the soil lacking firmness to hold stone or brick. The vast bulk of Slievemore soon looms full in front, and after a long stretch of smooth Balfour road and a sharp turn on the edge of a deep ravine on the right with a high ridge beyond it, the Great mountain on the left, Dugort, with Blacksod Bay, heaves in sight. A final spurt up the hilly road and the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... 'How smooth it is! how calm! Many have found peace there, who never found it in life. Drowning's an easy death, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... embedded in the sand, draperied over by the heavy pendent olive-green seaweed. The waves were nearer at this point; the advancing sea came up with a mighty distant length of roar; here and there the smooth swell was lashed by the fret against unseen rocks into white breakers; but otherwise the waves came up from the German Ocean upon that English shore with a long steady roll that might have taken its first impetus far away, in the haunt of the sea-serpent ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and with ban We prostrate the man Who with smooth-woven wile And a fair-faced smile Hath planted a snare for his friend! Though fleet, we shall find him, Though strong, we shall bind him, Who planted a ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis |
