"Softening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... humour dress, And watch the lucky Moment of Success; That caught, no more his eager hopes are crost; But vain are Wit and Love, when that is lost." Thus said the god; for now a god he grew His white locks changing to a golden hue, And from his shoulders hung a mantle azure-blue. His softening eyes the winning charm disclosed Of dove-like Delia when her doubts reposed; Mira's alone a softer lustre bear, When woe beguiles them of an angel's tear; Beauteous and young the smiling phantom stood, Then sought on airy wing his blest abode. Ah! truth, distasteful in poetic theme, Why is the ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... in the psychiatric clinic at Vienna, paralysis (softening of the brain) is making by far greater progress among women than among men. To 100 patients taken in, there were in ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... not give a bit of bread and cheese for one night's supper to those who labour, and who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves. It is not in breaking the laws of commerce, which are the laws of nature and consequently the laws of God, that we are to place our hope of softening the divine displeasure. It is the law of nature, which ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... his late uncle Sir Thomas had, in the closing years of his life, shown unmistakable signs of brain-softening, and that a symptom of his complaint had been his addiction to making a number of wills—"two-thirds of 'em incoherent. Every two or three days he'd compose a new one and send for Huskisson, his lawyer; and Huskisson, after reading the rigmarole through, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... put one arm about Madge. "It is all right, my dear," she said, softening a little, "but you must promise me that you will not do such harum-scarum things again, and that you will try to keep your temper." Mrs. Curtis was on the point of asking Madge to give up her acquaintance with the ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... ears had never heard his name,—Luttrell; a pretty name, too; but we all know how little is in that. I feel absurdly disappointed; and why? Because it is decreed that a man I never have known I never shall know. I doubt my brain is softening. But why has my tent been pitched in such a lonely spot? And why did he say he'd come? And why did John tell me he was good to look at, and, oh! that best ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... by a softening in her tone and manner, I told Miss Rayner all, asking her at the end if she did not think I had ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... of the closing door she had glanced up, and then, at the sight of the king, she sprang to her feet and ran towards him, her hands out, her blue eyes bedimmed with tears, her whole beautiful figure softening into womanliness ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... easier to propound this catechism to herself than to find answers to her own questions; and so she walked up and down, worrying her pretty little head with all sorts of anxieties, until it was a perfect miracle that softening of the brain did ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... your brains softening? Why does he shadow a woman who wouldn't lift her finger to save him from battle, murder, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... servitude the law allotted. I should say that he did not himself know why he did it. That intense, brooding moroseness, that wormwood hatred, does not often understand itself. So much the more dangerous is it; no argument, no softening influence can ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... dying," said the boy, his voice softening. "Holy Virgin, save him! For weeks, we've been in the hands of Aguinaldo's men. He's been so ill, all the time; ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Greifenstein who lay upstairs, dead beside his dead wife, would have chosen to tramp far into the forest, with his gun on his shoulder and his dogs at his heels. It was such a day as would have made poor Clara's lot seem easier, softening her tortured conscience in a thaw of passing satisfaction, pleasant while it lasted, transitory as the gleam of light and warmth in the dismal winter of the Black Forest. The forest itself alone was unchanged. The trees looked blacker than ever against the blue sky and under the violent light. ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... little higher still; and then, by and by, it was (as it had been in the summer-time before) circling round and round us, shining all the while; and now our hut was at midnight in the shadow of the cliff; at noon the sun was blazing down upon us, softening the snow, and making our hearts, O, how happy and thankful!—more so than ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... thirty-seven persons; seven hundred and five of these were adults, and ninety-two children. At first, the men encountered great difficulty in putting away their many wives; but finally the divine Majesty made the outcome propitious, softening the hearts of those pagans, and they brought their undertaking to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... have in mind while using these harsh epithets. But is it not the old house, and that alone, in which the martyrs shed their blood for Christianity? Where did it fulfil its lofty task of saturating the heart of mankind with love, softening the customs of rude pagans, clearing away forests, transforming barren wastes into cultivated fields, planting the cross on chapels and churches, summoning men with the consecrated voice of the bell to the sermon which proclaims love and peace? Where did it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... back her answer a few seconds, to take a last look at it before sending it to press. Then she said decisively:—"Yes." She made no softening reservation. She had ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... skeletons, as you look upward, are strikingly prominent amid the green foliage. Likewise, there are chestnuts, growing up in a more regular and pyramidal shape; white pines, also; and a shrubbery composed of the shoots of all these trees, overspreading and softening the bank on which the parent stems are growing, these latter being intermingled with coarse grass. Observe the pathway; it is strewn over with little bits of dry twigs and decayed branches, and the sear and brown oak-leaves of last ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... lichens. Below, near the foot of the moor, ran a straight dark line of firs, the one coldly-somber streak in the scene; but beyond it the rolling, sunlit plain ran back, fading through ever varying and softening colors to the ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... softening and mansuetude slipped quickly by, and was succeeded by a burst of anger; for Mr. Tapster suddenly became aware that Flossy's left hand, the little thin hand resting on the back of the chair, was holding two keys ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... help Antonio on with the baggage, Charles?" said Julia, as she stood looking at the driver tottering under the weight of the trunks. Charles stared a moment with surprise—the name created no astonishment, but the request did. Julia had a habit of softening names, that were rather harsh in themselves, to which he was accustomed. Peter she called Pierre; Robert was Rubert {sic}; and her aunt's black footman Timothy, she had designated as Timotheus: but it was not usual for ladies to request gentlemen to perform menial offices—until, recollecting ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... got rid of; and the patient's recovery depends on the possibility of getting rid of it. If there is much of it, so as to be removed from the vivifying influence which adjacent living structures still maintain about it, the deposit softens at its centre. This softening gradually extends to the circumference; the mass irritates more and more the parts around it, and where the irritation is greatest the structures yield, and are removed to make a way for its escape, and the patient spits up the contents ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... year's ordinary experience would have enabled me to do. And the moral which I drew was this: that under our most terrible afflictions, we may always gain some spiritual good, if we suffer them to be softening and purifying rather than hardening influences over us. And also, that while we are suffering the most acutely, we may be sure that others are suffering still more acutely; and if we would but sympathise with them more than with ourselves—live ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... the evening before had been one of the most busy in the world. In spite of the sadness of this solitude, Napoleon, on finding Moscow abandoned like the other Russian towns, thought himself happy nevertheless in not finding it burned up, and did not despair of softening little by little the hatred which the presence of his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Mantalini's blandishments had departed. 'Miss Knag, sir,' said his wife, 'is my particular friend;' and although Mr Mantalini leered till his eyes seemed in danger of never coming back to their right places again, Madame Mantalini showed no signs of softening. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... and makes him more obstinate. Like some perverse ox in the yoke, he stiffens his neck, and stands the very picture of brute obduracy. There is an awful alternative involved in our hearing of God's message, which never returns to Him void, but ever does something to the hearer, either softening or hardening, either scaling the eyes or adding another film on them, either being the 'savour of life unto life or of death unto death.' The mission of the prophets changed forgetfulness of God's 'statutes' into 'rejection' of them, and made idolatry self-conscious ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... consummated, and between them, by way of preparing the unhappy Queen, they made up a story that the King had been led out to execution, but had been rescued by the populace. I could not see that this would be of much use in softening the blow; in fact, I thought all these delicate false-hoods only made the suspense worse, but I was told that I was a mere downright English country lass, with no notion of the refinements such things ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on a brush-dotted level, his horse, Dexter, slowly circled his picket and nibbled at the scant bunch-grass. The western sun trailed long shadows across the canon; shadows that drifted imperceptibly farther and farther, spreading, commingling, softening the broken outlines of ledge and brush until the walled solitude was brimmed with dusk, save where a red shaft cleft the fast-fading twilight, burning like a great spotlight on a picketed horse and a man asleep, his head pillowed on ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... Kiyogen. The whole entertainment having a religious intention, the Kiyogen stand to the No in the same relation as the small shrines to the main temple; they, too, are played for the propitiation of the gods, and for the softening of men's hearts. The farces are acted without wigs or masks; the dialogue is in the common spoken language, and there being no musical accompaniment it is quite easy to follow. The plots of the two farces which were played before the Duke of ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... on whom the urbanity and candour of the captain of the Foam were beginning to have a softening influence. "You have no objection to let me see your papers, and examine ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense and every heart is joy. Then comes thy glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... forms in relation to callosities on the sole of the foot is treated by paring away all the thickened skin, after softening it with soda fomentations, removing the unhealthy granulations, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... we have endeavored to point out is peculiarly great as respects music and singing, owing to the power over the natural sensibilities, which sweet sounds possess; and it is easy to mistake the emotions thus produced for the tenderness of mind and the softening influence ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends
... melancholy contrast to its brilliant opening. Health, success, prosperity—all had deserted him, and nothing remained but the editorial chair, to which he clung even after epileptic attacks had resulted in paralysis and gradual softening of the brain. The failure of his mental powers was kept secret as long as possible, but in November, 1866, he yielded to the entreaties of his wife and children, knocked off work for ever, and went home to die. ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... sympathy. It was odd that he had never seen her in all that time—the years when he had unconsciously longed for friendship, and the sight of a woman's face—a white face. The rings from his cigar melted around him, softening his face until it took on the boyish ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... you had but to do it!" cried Lionel, impetuously wrenching the door open in spite of her gentle resistance, and running off determinately, leaving her, poor girl, in great despair, at having so completely failed either in comforting, softening, or bringing him to any kind of resigned feeling, having besides vexed him, made him think her unkind; and though this was unintentional, and might be better for him, just contradicted what his ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Aniti, at the Ladrones, is, as we learn from Cantova (Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, tom. xv. p. 309, 310.) at the Caroline Islands, where dead chiefs are also worshipped, called a Tahutup; and that, by softening or sinking the strong sounding letters, at the beginning and at the end of this latter word, the Ahutu of the Carolines, the Aiti of the Ladrones, and the Eatooa of the South Pacific Islands, assume such a similarity in pronunciation (for we can have no other guide), ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the result of madness only, sent on them as a punishment for their original rejection of the god, being, as I said, when seen from the deeper motives of the myth, only a "sophism" of Euripides—a piece of rationalism of which he avails himself for the purpose of softening down the tradition of which he has undertaken to be the poet. Agave comes on the stage, then, blood-stained, exulting in her "victory of tears," still quite visibly mad indeed, and with the outward signs of madness, and as ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... remain out late without the least danger. Malaria is unknown, and, in spite of the heavy rains, there is no such thing as damp. Our way lay through very pretty country—a series of terraces, with a range of mountains before us, with beautiful changing and softening evening ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... of Charles Gould had been helped at the beginning by a period of comparative peace which occurred just about that time; and also by the general softening of manners as compared with the epoch of civil wars whence had emerged the iron tyranny of Guzman Bento of fearful memory. In the contests that broke out at the end of his rule (which had kept peace in the country for a whole fifteen years) there ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... you mean me by the sage, I was not puzzled at all. Heaven knows you do right to inculcate patience,—it is a virtue very much required—in your readers. Nevertheless," added my father, softening with the enjoyment of his joke,—"nevertheless Blanche and Helen are quite right. Patience is the courage of the conqueror; it is the virtue, par excellence, of Man against Destiny,—of the One against the World, and of the Soul against ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stealing out of a gulch to take its shining way along the range of mountains. Dropping in its flight a shower as light as a bridal veil, it sped glistening across the face of mountain after mountain, softening the stark grays and reds, while above it the peaks gleamed white. On and on it came until at last it arrived at the mouth of a deep, dark gorge in the side of a mountain that, in its strange and forbidding aspect, differed notably from all the others ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... and confirmed habits From infancy those habits have been forming, and they impel you almost unconsciously to subdue even the very tones of your voice, while strangers are present. Have you not sometimes in the middle of an irritable observation caught yourself changing and softening the harsh uncontrolled tones of your voice, or the roughness of your manner, when you have discovered the unexpected presence of a stranger in the family circle? You have still enough of self-respect to feel deep shame when such things have happened; and the very moment when you are suffering ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... us, have reminded us of your great and sudden loss; yet what had I to say to you? I have thought that the echo from your son in Calcutta may have made your grief break out afresh.... I trust that time, which has not yet at all had softening powers, has not added any fresh bitterness on a ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... a great softening in Anderson's feeling towards his father. All those inner compunctions that haunt a just and scrupulous nature came freely into play. And his evangelical religion—for he was a devout though liberal-minded Presbyterian—also entered in. ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... must first consider certain difficulties. The first that suggests itself is the question whether art is at all worthy of a philosophic treatment. To be sure, art and beauty pervade, like a kindly genius, all the affairs of life, and joyously adorn all its inner and outer phases, softening the gravity and the burden of actual existence, furnishing pleasure for idle moments, and, where it can accomplish nothing positive, driving evil away by occupying its place. Yet, although art wins its way everywhere ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... neradols of acidity 50, 40, and 30 exerted strong swelling and gave comparatively hard leathers; neradols of acidity 20, 10, and 5 exert no swelling, yield quick tannage and soft leather. The swelling (hardening) effect of the acid and the dehydrating (softening) effect of the salts in this case, therefore, are well balanced, and this fact affords an explanation of the rapid change from hardening to softening effects exhibited by partly neutralised Neradol where less acid and a greater quantity ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... was likely enough to think that he should never be troubled about the principal. But Mr. Tulliver was determined not to encourage such shuffling people any longer; and a ride along the Basset lanes was not likely to enervate a man's resolution by softening his temper. The deep-trodden hoof-marks, made in the muddiest days of winter, gave him a shake now and then which suggested a rash but stimulating snarl at the father of lawyers, who, whether by means of his ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... old age, than when we are revelling in the full tide of plenty, amid the exuberant strength and freshness of youth. Lord Bacon, who has analyzed some of the human accompaniments so well, is silent as to the softening sway and pleasing influence of this choice attuner of the human mind. But Shaftesbury, the illustrious author of the Characteristics, was so enamoured of it, that he terms "gravity (its counterpart,) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... that had respect to the recompense of reward. Like showers of rain upon the thirsty earth, the Spirit of grace descended upon the earnest seekers. Those who expected soon to stand face to face with their Redeemer, felt a solemn joy that was unutterable. The softening, subduing power of the Holy Spirit melted the heart, as His blessing was bestowed in rich measure upon the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... no dark glens, no bold scarped rocky heights or frightful precipices. Salvator Rosa would have turned away, whilst Claude would have desired to linger long to catch some new effect of bright light gradually softening away in clear yet mellowed distance. There was no eminence that could be dignified by the name of a mountain, yet there were hills in one part of the horizon, and slight undulations in the middle ground sufficient to prevent any idea of monotony. ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... for her than his coldness. The increasing frequency of the latter mood told her the sad news that he disliked her with a growing dislike. The more interesting that her appearance and manners became under the softening influences which she could now command, and in her wisdom did command, the more she seemed to estrange him. Sometimes she caught him looking at her with a louring invidiousness that she could hardly bear. Not knowing his secret it was cruel mockery that she should for the first time excite his ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... a metal that possesses both tensile strength and resistance to compression; malleability and ductility—the quality of hardening, softening, and toughening by tempering; adaptability to casting, rolling, or forging; susceptibility to luster and finish; of complete homogeneous character and unusually resistant to destructive agents—mankind will certainly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... on Barkington walls, and inside the asylum Alfred was softening hearts and buying consciences, as related; so, in fact, he had two ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... owes him so much—as myself. He couldn't have been so good—no one ever could be so good to any one else as he has always been to me. Still"—softening suddenly, for she was fond of the boy, and something in his sensitive face went to her tender heart—"think, David, dear, we owe him everything we have,—our names, our home, our clothes, our education, our very lives. ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... used by the emperor on various diplomatic missions. Next to him sat Prince Hatzfeld, the man on whom, in 1807, Napoleon's anger had fallen, and who would have been shot as a "traitor" if the impassioned intercession of his wife had not succeeded in softening the emperor, and thus saving her husband's life. Near him, and closing the circle, sat Count St. Marsan, Napoleon's ambassador at ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... the intellectual case against Catholicism, should wound or distress him. I, therefore, no sooner reached Italy than I sent for the proofs again, and worked at them as much as fatigue would let me, softening them, and, I think, improving them, too. Then we went on to Florence, and rest, coming home for the book's ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... store, but restful in fruition of it when amassed; reproves ill-natured judgement of one's neighbours almost in the words of Prior, bidding us be to their faults a little blind and to their virtues very kind, softening their moral blemishes as lovers and mothers euphemize a dear one's physical defects. (Sat. I, iii) "You will not listen to me?" he stops now and then to say; "I shall continue to cry on all the ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... hand. In a speech of terrible intensity he relates to Abner the story of the apparition of Samuel and the doom that the ghost has spoken. His children humour and soothe the broken old man, and finally succeed in softening his mind toward David—whom he at once loves, dreads, and hates, as the appointed instrument of his destruction and the successor to his crown. Act third shows David playing upon the harp before Saul, and chanting ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... window with a Fairy sled; And Little Lizzie, bundled heels-and-head, He took on such excursions of delight As even "Old Santy" with his reindeer might Have envied her! And, later, when the snow Was softening toward Springtime and the glow Of steady sunshine smote upon it,—then Came the magician Noey yet again— While all the children were away a day Or two at Grandma's!—and behold when they Got home once more;—there, towering taller than The doorway—stood ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... rather damped than fired the high spirit and generous heart of the poor Guardsman. And Randal could conscientiously say, that when he had asked the squire if he expected fortune with Frank's bride, the squire had replied, "I don't care." Thus encouraged by his friend and his own heart, and the softening manner of a woman who might have charmed many a colder, and fooled many a wiser man, Frank rapidly yielded to the snares held out for his perdition. And though as yet he honestly shrank from proposing to Beatrice or himself a marriage without the consent, and even the knowledge, of his parents, yet ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... anxiously, and Dolores shook off the spell and approached the great bed. Red Jabez closed his eyes as she leaned over him, and his lips now alone gave evidence of life. The girl, reared among the wildest of desolate isolation, knowing no softening ties of family, her impulses and emotions those of a beautiful animal, and increasingly so because of her station among the rabble that called the dying man chief, stared down at her terrible parent without a trace of visible regret: rather in her eyes shone the triumph of a victor about to enter ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... reagents, at the commencement of the working day; and at the close of the day the opening of the mud cocks shown in our engraving, to remove the collected deposit upon the plates. For the past six months this system has been in operation at a dye works in Manchester, successfully purifying and softening the foul waters of the river Medlock. It is stated that 84,000 gallons per day can be easily purified by an apparatus 7 feet in diameter. The chemicals used are chiefly lime, soda, and alumina, and the cost of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... swung at his other hip, holding her off with the hand which she had seized. But when Dakota saw Langford's hands go to his face he hesitated, smiling scornfully. He turned to Sheila, looking down at her face close to his, his smile softening. ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... stones, scattered around it, spoke of the outworks the fortification had anciently possessed, and the stout resistance they had made in "the Parliament Wars" to the sturdy followers of Ireton and Fairfax. The moon, that flatterer of decay, shed its rich and softening beauty over a spot which else had, indeed, been desolate and cheerless, and kissed into light the long and unwaving herbage which rose at intervals from the ruins, like the false parasites of fallen ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to Mr. Gresham. Had not Marie Goesler herself been most urgent with him in begging him to accept the offer; and was he not therefore justified in concluding that she at least had thought it necessary that he should earn his bread? Would her heart be softened towards him,—would any further softening be necessary,—by his obstinate refusal to comply with her advice? The two things had no reference to each other,—and should be regarded by him as perfectly distinct. He would refuse Mr. Gresham's offer,—not because he hoped that he might live ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Persis warned her sternly. Then softening: "But good land! Grandmothers nowadays are wearing simple little girlish things with ribbon bows in the back. Pick out what you want. Everything in this month's book is just about right ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... once just and lenient. His high military talents enabled him, during the memorable year 1715, to render such services to the House of Hanover, as, perhaps, were too great to be either acknowledged or repaid. He had employed, too, his utmost influence in softening the consequences of that insurrection to the unfortunate gentlemen whom a mistaken sense of loyalty had engaged in the affair, and was rewarded by the esteem and affection of his country in an uncommon degree. This popularity, with a discontented and warlike people, was supposed to be a subject ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... kind; and Atherley wisely substituted bribery for reasoning. But even with this he made little way till accidentally he mentioned the name of Mrs. de Noel, when, as if it had been a name to conjure by, Mrs. Mallet showed signs of softening. ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... with you, perhaps forever," —a letter which Charles Lee thought "a very good one, but Gage certainly deserved a stronger one, such as it was before it was softened." One cannot but wonder what part the old friendship played in this "softening." ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... countenance visibly softening however; "kisses, however sweet they be, don't heal ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... crimson curtains, which added a sense of warmth to the cheerful room, and looked at the cold white world without—a ghost of a world, it seemed to Amy. The moon, nearly full, had risen in the gap of the Highlands, and had now climbed well above the mountains, softening and etherealizing them until every harsh, rugged outline was lost. The river at their feet looked pallid and ghostly also. When not enchained by frost, lights twinkled here and there all over its broad surface, and the ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... BROTHER,—I have already written to the Queen; softening things as much as I could [Letter lost]. My Sister, to whom I address the Letter, will ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... "you are the first who has heard my tale. The law has branded me a convict, and I can only say 'Please let all this be as if it had never been said.' And yet I don't know," he continued, with his eyes softening; "it has done me good. Still I don't ask you to believe me, sir. There is plenty of deceit out here, and I have met some clever actors of innocent parts in the ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... us—the past. Her eyes grew deep and melancholy. The sunset seemed to brighten around her all at once, and enmesh her in a golden web, burnishing her hair, and it fell across her brow with a peculiar radiance, leaving the temples in shadow, softening and yet lighting the carmine of her cheeks and lips, giving a feeling of life to her dress, which itself was like dusty gold. Her hands were caught and clasped at her knees. There was something spiritual and exalted ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the least want to know Mrs. Eliott, he didn't think that he would like her. But he was soothed, flattered, insanely pleased with Anne's assumption that he would. It was as if in her thoughts she were drawing him towards her. He felt that she was softening, yielding. His approaches were a delicious wooing of ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... Louis XIV, we find many trophies of war and mythological subjects used in the decorative schemes. The second style of this period was a softening and refining of the earlier one, becoming more and more delicate until it merged into the time of the Regency. It was during the reign of Louis XIV that the craze for Chinese decoration first appeared. La Chinoiserie it was called, and it has ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... ear-shattering in that narrowly confined space; and the pirate's body literally flew into mist as a half-kilogram shell tore through his armor and exploded. Costigan shut off his beam, and, with not the slightest softening of one hard lineament, stared around the air-room; making sure that no serious damage had been done to the vital machinery of the air-purifier—the very ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... tears by this communication. She refused to be comforted, and, indeed, the position was beyond Uncle Chirgwin's power to brighten. The letter had come at a bad moment, and that calm and repose which almost appeared to be softening Joan's sorrows now spread speedy wings and departed, leaving her wholly forlorn. Curtains were falling behind her, but curtains were also rising in front. She had looked forward vaguely, and now the position was suddenly defined by the arrival of Joe's letter, with all ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... letter from you, announcing at the same time that the courier who was going to you started that very afternoon. The result is that, though I do send an answer, I am forced by the shortness of the time to write only these few words. First, as to softening my friend's feeling towards you, or even reconciling him outright, I pledge you my word to do so. Though I have been attempting it already on my own account, I will now urge the point more earnestly and press him closer, as I think I gather from your letter that you are so set upon it. This much ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... lifeless stones, with my magic harp and song, giving rest, but finding none. But at last Calliope, my mother, delivered me, and brought me home in peace; and I dwell here in the cave alone, among the savage Cicon tribes, softening their wild hearts with music and the gentle laws of Zeus. And now I must go out again, to the ends of all the earth, far away into the misty darkness, to the last wave of the Eastern Sea. But what is doomed must be, and a friend's demand obeyed; ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... and waves and the beat of spray was still to be heard, and in the manifest impossibility of quitting the place and the desire of softening him, Anne listened while he talked in a different mood from the previous day. The cynical tone was gone, as he spoke of those better influences. He talked of Mrs. Woodford and his deep affection for her, ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said, 'forgive me my words concerning thee, but men told me that ye had forgotten that you had once been so glorious a man, and were softening to ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... union with the most intimate, the most inexpressible things in nature that is revealed in such a note as the following: 'A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the Spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening days; a sudden softening, a weakening of nature.' In describing this atmosphere, this too sudden softness, he uses a word frequent in the vocabulary of Shelley—'fainting.' In truth, like the great English poet, whom he seems not to have ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... parrot-like, with his words. She watched the noble old face with its lines of kindliness and patience, the eyes now liquid with pity for the sorrowful wrongdoer, now flashing with indignation as he spoke of the unrepentant and the careless, then softening again as he expressed the hope that their hearts might be touched, and the belief that they too would win forgiveness ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... orchestra—was gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and kingdom. He even interceded at times for unfortunate British or French subjects, stranded in Brussels, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... aware of were six small men who were seated on low roots. They were all dressed in tight green clothes and little leathern aprons, and they wore tall green hats which wobbled when they moved. They were all busily engaged making shoes. One was drawing out wax ends on his knee, another was softening pieces of leather in a bucket of water, another was polishing the instep of a shoe with a piece of curved bone, another was paring down a heel with a short broad-bladed knife, and another was hammering wooden pegs into a sole. He had all the pegs in his mouth, which gave him a ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... Princess Victoria, daughter of the Crown Princess of Germany, the Czar's influence at Berlin availed to veto an engagement which is believed to have been the heartfelt wish of both the persons most nearly concerned. In this matter Bismarck, true to his policy of softening the Czar's annoyance at the Austro-German alliance by complaisance in all other matters, made himself Russia's henchman, and urged his press-trumpet, Busch, to write newspaper articles abusing Queen Victoria as having instigated this match solely with a view to the substitution ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... condition of a person whose nature had, as it were, so little surface—offered so limited a face to the accretions of human contact. Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic, had ever had a chance to fasten upon it—no wind-sown blossom, no familiar softening moss. Her offered, her passive extent, in other words, was about that of a knife-edge. Isabel had reason to believe none the less that as she advanced in life she made more of those concessions to the sense of something obscurely distinct from convenience—more ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... the son of Chrysermas, a favorite of the king's, had always shown civility to Cleomenes; there was a considerable intimacy between them, and they had been used to talk freely together about the state. He, upon Cleomenes's desire, came to him, and spoke to him in fair terms, softening down his suspicions and excusing the king's conduct. But as he went out again, not knowing that Cleomenes followed him to the door, he severely reprimanded the keepers for their carelessness in looking after "so great and so furious a wild beast." This Cleomenes ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... said, with a pathetic smile lighting her handsome features, and softening them to an almost maternal tenderness, "I'm fonder of Charlie than any creature in the world—except Helen. Don't make any mistake. I'm not in love with him. He's just a dear, dear, erring, ailing brother to me. He can't, or won't help himself. What can we do to save him? Oh, I'm glad you've come ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... coarse laugh, "or I had not disturbed myself to call you. But, maybe," added he, softening his manner a little, "you'll like some refreshments before you start? A stoup of Nantz will put you in cue ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows signs of softening." ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Children of Alice." Elizabeth might have married twice in her life, but there was no love in either case, rather a secret mortification that such incapables should dare to raise their thoughts to her. But she had some strenuous ideas on the rearing of children, quite of the older sort. Life was softening somewhat, even for childhood, but she did not approve ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... strictest force against those who should be found to be offenders. Benvolio, who had been eye-witness to the fray, was commanded by the prince to relate the origin of it; which he did, keeping as near the truth as he could without injury to Romeo, softening and excusing the part which his friends took in it. Lady Capulet, whose extreme grief for the loss of her kinsman Tybalt made her keep no bounds in her revenge, exhorted the prince to do strict justice ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... advanced in the world, she did not like the idea of my father being in the hospital, nor did she want him to be at her house—in fact, she could have done better without him; but, as that could not be, she made the best of it. It must be acknowledged that my father's boisterous and rude manner had been softening down ever since he had been in the hospital, and that he had become a very well-behaved, quiet, and sober person, and was very respectable in his appearance; but I shall say more about him when I talk of my mother again. Old Nanny went on much as usual, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the village, whose huts loomed solemnly between the woods and the dunes in the softening twilight. The van den Endes were lodged with the captain of a fishing-smack in a long, narrow wooden house with sloping mossy tiles and small-paned windows. The old man threw open the door of the little shell-decorated parlor and peered in. "Klaartje!" ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... hundred thousand purses of gold, and cheap, too—embraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the Caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour, and may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom, softening many a ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... the sovereign order he decreed, All good and lovely—to blaspheme the bands Of tenderness innate and social love, 250 Holiest of things! by which the general orb Of being, as by adamantine links, Was drawn to perfect union, and sustain'd From everlasting? Hast thou felt the pangs Of softening sorrow, of indignant zeal, So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish The ties of Nature broken from thy frame, That so thy selfish, unrelenting heart Might cease to mourn its lot, no longer then The wretched heir of evils not its own? 260 ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... thought before me. I have done such things, Being the chosen man that should destroy The traitor. You have taken up this thought To play with, for a gentle stimulant, To give a dignity to idler life By the dim prospect of emprise to come, But ever with the softening, sure belief, That all would end some strange way right ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... cure consumption, warts, heart-disease, softening of the brain, and the bloody pip! And what is ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... believe in God, Laura sat motionless, her small insurgent being stilled to the imperceptible rhythm of her breath. Over her face there passed strange lights, strange tremors, a strange softening of the small indomitable mouth. It was more than ever the face of a child, of a flower, of all things innocent and open. But her eyes were the eyes of a soul whom vision makes suddenly mature. They stared at Tanqueray without seeing him, held by ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... He lay there in the middle of the green brightness, prostrate, motionless, dying. Cal Bain! His features were wonderfully distinct, clearer than any cameo, more sharply outlined than those of any picture. It was a hard face softening at the threshold of eternity. The red tan of sun, the coarse signs of drunkenness, the ferocity and hate so characteristic of Bain were no longer there. This face represented a different Bain, showed all that was human in him fading, fading as swiftly as it blanched white. The lips wanted to speak, ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... Innuit, too, is corrupting under the influence of trade, of alcohol, and the savage lust of the white adventurer. He attained through many centuries, perhaps thousands of years, of separation from other peoples, and without any of the softening teachings of Christianity, a Jesus-like code and practice, which the custodians of Christianity have utterly failed to impress on the millions of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... seemed in tune with Esther's own sense of loneliness; but it touched her heart with the softening touch of sadness. She sank down on a big boulder beside her, and, stretching out her arms on its rough, lichen-covered breast, buried her face in them ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... passion and pain, and now the pent-up tempest broke forth with a fury that racked her little frame from head to foot; and the more because she strove to stifle every sound of it as much as possible. It was the very bitterness of sorrow, without any softening thought to allay it, and sharpened and made more bitter by mortification and a passionate sense of unkindness and wrong. And through it all, how constantly in her heart the poor child was reaching forth longing arms towards her far-off mother, and calling in secret on ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... their beds under pretence of resting yourself, but in fact, to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course of this investigation, and a sublimer one hereafter, when you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the softening of their beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat into their ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... that not withstanding the former power that attended the word to their hearts, their hearts did still abide as hard as a rock, there was no true and sound breaking, nor softening in that; wherefore there the word wanted depth of earth, as our Lord is pleased to call it; and anon when the sun was up, that which remained was presently scorched, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Ointment according to directions. It is very penetrating, and has great softening and cooling properties. Use ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... grasp the seemingly self-evident truth that a governor, one man elected by the people, is just as much their representative and is just as certain to carry out their ideas as is a legislature, a body of men elected by the people. They provided a government which accentuated, instead of softening, the defects in their own social system. They were in no danger of suffering from tyranny; they were in no danger of losing the liberty which they so jealously guarded. The perils that threatened them were lawlessness, lack of order, and lack of capacity to concentrate ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... because of an excess of sentiment softening into "slush," or of a morbid optimism, or of a weak-eyed distortion of the facts of life,—is perverted. It needs to be cured, and its cure is more truth. But this cure, I very much fear, is not entirely, or even chiefly, in the power of the "regular practitioner," the honest writer. He can be ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... the insurgent army at the beginning of hostilities, but Dru had had only occasional glimpses of her. He was wondering now, in what part of that black and bloody field she was. His was the strong hand that had torn into fragments these helpless creatures; hers was the gentle hand that was softening the horror, the misery of it all. Dru knew there were those who felt that the result would never be worth the cost and that he, too, would come in for a measurable share of their censure. But deep and lasting as ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... him,' Helena said, softening now that all was over. 'Tell him—won't you?—that I am ever so fond of him; and tell him that this must not make the least difference in our friendship. No one ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... her the memory of those fierce, compelling eyes, the dogged mastery with which he had fought her resolution, the sudden magic softening of the harsh face when he smiled. There came again the passionate thrilling of his voice; again her hands tingled in that close grip; again she thought she felt the beating of the ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... lesson had ended there and then; but he was only awaiting her compliance—as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw the veil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society? Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... African servant approached him, and at once their thoughts changed to a larger toleration. Caswall looked indeed a savage—but a cultured savage. In him were traces of the softening civilisation of ages—of some of the higher instincts and education of man, no matter how rudimentary these might be. But the face of Oolanga, as his master called him, was unreformed, unsoftened savage, and inherent in it were all ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... all that, mother; I know all that," said Nora. She did not add, "But for me he would never have done it. It was I who inserted the thin edge of the wedge." Her tone was gentle; her mother looked at her with a softening of ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... about the same age and the same height that I must have been in the days when I was here last. My first feeling is one of almost anger, to see him playing on the gravel where I had played before, as if he had usurped something of my identity; but next moment I feel a softening and a sort of rising and qualm of the throat, accompanied by a pricking heat in the eye balls. I hastily join conversation with the child, and inwardly felicitate myself that the gardener is opportunely gone for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mistake," he said, gently, softening to her distress. "I'm sorry I did not write you more plainly. But, Carley, I could not ask you to share this—this wilderness home with me. I don't ask it now. I always knew you couldn't do it. Yet you've changed so—that I hoped against hope. Love ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... in view no less the great tasks of the future. I welcome her book as an answer to the cry that the admission of women to an equal share in the right of self government will tend to soften the body politic. Most certainly I will ever set my face like flint against any unhealthy softening of our civilization, and as an answer in advance to hyper-criticism I explain that I do not mean softness in the sense of tender-heartedness; I mean the softness which, extends to the head and to the moral fibre, I mean the softness which manifests itself either in unhealthy sentimentality ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... future. Unable to bear the agony of her mind, she sought, with the patience of love, to obtain a look from the young man's eyes, and when she did so her paleness and the quiver in her face had so penetrating an influence over him that he wavered; but the softening was momentary. ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... something almost pathetic in the sudden dropping of Tavernake's voice, the softening of ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this situation, she might have considerable difficulty in finding another one. She could only hope to obtain employment from strangers and newcomers, who were ignorant of the reputation of the model lodging-house. So in view of softening the hearts of Pascal and his mother, she began to relate the history of her life, skilfully mingling the false with the true, and representing herself as an unfortunate victim of circumstances, and the inhuman ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... sealed bottles. "Now, here," he cried, holding up a dainty box tied up with a delicate-colored ribbon. For a moment his audience believed it to be candy, but he quickly undeceived them. "Now this yer is dandy truck, though I don't guess ther's a heap o' use fer it on Suffering Creek. It's fer softening alkali water. When the drummer told me that, I guessed to him ther wa'an't a heap o' water drunk in this camp. But he said it wa'an't fer drinkin' water; it was fer baths. I kind o' told him that wouldn't help the sale any, so he said it could be used fer washin'. Seein' he couldn't sell me any ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... six o'clock. The sun was tinting the enormous front of the building an orange gold, softening the colors of the greenish black smudge that the rain had left on the mansard windows. The statue of Charles II seemed to be melting into the mellow bluish transparency of the light-filled atmosphere. Through the gratings drifted the hum of a busy hive—voices calling, songs coming from ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Ah, don't ask. In old days we had all sorts, but now they have taken chiefly to moral punishments—'the stings of conscience' and all that nonsense. We got that, too, from you, from the softening of your manners. And who's the better for it? Only those who have got no conscience, for how can they be tortured by conscience when they have none? But decent people who have conscience and a sense of honor suffer for it. Reforms, when the ground ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... very few negatives and only where broad effects of light and shade are desired. To cut up a spotty negative with a succession of lines does not necessarily give a broad effect in the picture. But for softening down heavy masses of shadows, and blending them harmoniously with masses of light or half light, the process is without an equal. The bolting silk can be bought by the square yard of dealers in photographic supplies, and should be stretched evenly ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... Abbess and myself; this ending seemed rather too sarcastic, but Madame de Thianges was most anxious to let it stand. There was no way of softening or glossing it over; so the letter went off, just as ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... enigmatic, gentle, comprehending smile and caught the coat sleeve of the other. The brilliant light in the Prince's eyes was softening to a dreamier, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... same aversion and fury; then she suffered him to come near her, and even to sit down beside her (Gemma was sitting on the other side); then she fell to reproaching him,—not in looks only, but in words, which already indicated a certain softening of heart; she fell to complaining, and her complaints became quieter and gentler; they were interspersed with questions addressed at one time to her daughter, and at another to Sanin; then she suffered him to ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... cranberries we seated ourselves on a shady rock to meditate. All was silent around—nothing heard but the shepherd-boy playing his horn; the sound coming from the distant mountains into the wooded valley where we sat, first shrill, then softening into a simple irregular note. My friend asked me what I thought the instrument was. It is made, said he, of a goat's horn, and is blown to keep the fox from taking the young lambs, and as a means of communication with other shepherds when widely separated on the mountains; the sound of ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... Shadwell, or Francis Spira. It is impossible to describe it. My soul was all amazement and surprise. I thought myself just sinking into eternity, owning the divine justice of my punishment, but not at all feeling any of the moving, softening tokens of a sincere penitent; afflicted at the punishment, but not at the crime; alarmed at the vengeance, but not terrified at the guilt; having the same gust to the crime, though terrified to the last degree at the thought ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe |
