"Softening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gentle, comprehending smile and caught the coat sleeve of the other. The brilliant light in the Prince's eyes was softening to ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... decipher even this, with moderate accuracy. The haze of a foreign language, of foreign manners, and modes of thinking strange to us, confuses and obscures the sight, often magnifying what is trivial, softening what is rude, and sometimes hiding or distorting what is beautiful. To take the dimensions of Schiller's mind were a hard enterprise, in any case; harder ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... operation has for its object the restoration of the luster and suppleness of the silk, which has to some extent deteriorated from the many operations through which it has passed. The brightening and softening of the fiber are effected by immersing the silk in a bath of olive oil in the form of an emulsion. In this the silk is worked until it is thoroughly impregnated with the oil, when it is taken out and wrung dry, after which it is ready ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... be made of sal ammoniac and some galbanum, which well kneaded together and applied, seldom fails of destroying them. The general and principal cause of corns is, shoes too hard and stiff, or else too small. The cure consists in softening the corns by repeated washing, and soaking the feet in warm or hot water; then cutting the corn very carefully when softened, with a sharp penknife without wounding the quick, and afterwards applying a leaf of houseleek, ground ivy, or purslain, dipped in vinegar. Or instead of these ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... had finished Mrs. Abbott sat for a few moments petrified; but she was thirty-eight, not sixty-five, and there was neither dismay nor softening in her narrowed light ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... bent that brow of hers; Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs When pity would be softening through, Fixed me a breathing-while or two With life or death in the balance: right! The blood replenished me again; My last thought was at least not vain: I and my mistress, side by side Shall be together, breathe ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... sudden abandonment of this enterprise, he facetiously replied: "Yes, I did try to make Kansas a slave State; but I could not do it without slaves, and the South would not send slaves, and so I had to give it up." From the time these gentlemen returned from the Wakarusa there was a general softening of the asperities of feeling of the people of Atchison and vicinity, and one year after they were prepared to announce to the Free State people, "You deal fairly with us, and we will deal fairly with you"—and they made their words good by ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... altogether failed to interpret. Clotilde was more clear sighted. One day meeting Malchus alone in the atrium she said to him: "Malchus, do you know that I fear Julia is learning to love you. I see it in her face, in the glance of her eye, in the softening of that full mouth ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... where has it gone? Come with me, Bee, and look for it," said Rosy, rather softening down,—"though I'm sure ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... at the Belgian in amazement and distrust. He had only just warned her how Jacqueline had kindled Maximilian's Austrian hopes in order to get him out of Mexico, and here he was borrowing that woman's guile. And here was Maximilian, too, softening under the enervating blandishment, softening behind his ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... be bygones. I was very harsh, very disagreeable then. I wonder you have ever forgiven me; I have never forgiven myself. I know not how it is, but it seems to me that a softening change has come over me. I feel more tenderly towards the young beings committed to my care, more indulgence for the weaknesses and errors of my kind. I did not mind, then, trampling on a flower, if it sprung up in my path; now I would stoop down and inhale its fragrance, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... his mashes and Mirabeau B. Lamar, daily. Yet there is hope. Cholera infantum; Walsh's crutch; Harvey, or softening of the brain may ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... one on a journey would speak to him, but those with whom he would not care to speak; thus unconsciously involving himself in the condemnation of his countrymen. But Russia was soon to be changed; the ice of the Neva was softening under the sun of civilisation; the new ideas, 'wie eine feine Violine,' were audible among the big empty drum notes of Imperial diplomacy; and he looked to see a great revival, though with a somewhat indistinct ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... poor mother, who was proud of the beauty of her child, and brought her up more tenderly than a village girl ought to be; and ever since she has been left an orphan, the good ladies at the Hall have completed the softening and spoiling ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... you stand, still you listen, still you smile! Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, Softening, sweetening, till sweet and soft Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft I could believe your moonbeam smile has past The pallid limit and, transformed at last, Lies, sunlight and salvation—warms the soul It ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the increase of philanthropy, in the growing sentiment that war must cease among Christian nations, all disputes to be settled by arbitration, and in the feeling of universal brotherhood which is softening all true men's ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... what you like, only don't bring her here," the Colonel replied, his voice and manner softening, as they always did ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Rita, her eyes softening with compassion and anxiety. "You have a wife, Pedro Valdez,—a wife and a dear little child, is it not so? and your mother—she is old and weak. When have you seen them all, Valdez? ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... her lover had once likened to the gorgeousness of the Mosque of Omar. Yet, by this, her beauty was rather enhanced than lessened as though Nature, the master-painter, had retouched a picture already wondrous, softening its colors with a tone more spiritual. Both face and figure had lost something of roundness and the hand that lay on the table was slenderer of finger and wrist, but Mary Burton had not been robbed of her beauty, and when she spoke, very low and hesitantly, ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... for any of us to know everything, and I often find myself entirely ignorant in regard to some things; and I have lived long enough to forget many things that I learned when I was younger," added the doctor with a softening smile. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... for I was anxious to ascertain this, "about Angela. Was there any momentary softening in her gaze as she ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... of us spoke, but looked across at each other in the softening light, till suddenly Esau turned sharply round, and went and stood looking out of the window, while I sank down on a stool, turned my back to my companion, folded my arms on a desk, and ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... poor child's funeral from a distance. Ah, that Distance! What a magician for conjuring up scenes of joy or sorrow, smoothing all asperities, reconciling all incongruities, veiling all absurdness, softening every coarseness, doubling every effect by the influence of the imagination. A Scottish wedding should be seen at a distance; the gay band of the dancers just distinguished amid the elderly group of the spectators,—the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... to myself by way of consolation, as I was dressing for dinner, "she is certainly softening toward you, and when she sees the new house you ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... white wire half way up between. Form two distinct creases up the centre with the point of the pin; with the head of the latter cup the broad part of the petal. Turn the edges inward towards the point, and colour each petal upon both sides with the crimson powder, softening off the same, and leaving a margin of the yellow free from colour. The stamina are prepared (according to pattern), from double yellow wax, and painted with rich brown (cake sepia and crimson), from the broad part to the point. To a large wire affix a piece of double green wax, ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... never heard his name,—Luttrell; a pretty name, too; but we all know how little is in that. I feel absurdly disappointed; and why? Because it is decreed that a man I never have known I never shall know. I doubt my brain is softening. But why has my tent been pitched in such a lonely spot? And why did he say he'd come? And why did John tell me he was good to look at, and, oh! that ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... the sight of their tears warmed him with the sense of power. In that warmth certain of his prejudices and inhibitions began to melt away; the display of feelings and sensibilities could not be wicked or even undesirable if it prepared the way for the gospel by softening the heart. He began to dabble in emotion himself, and that was a dangerous matter, for he knew nothing whatever about it save that, if he felt strongly, he could arouse strong feeling in others. Day by day he unwittingly became less sure of the moral beauty of restraint, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... back into the unknown past almost tenderly towards the mother who had died long ago, to whom perhaps Bice had been what little Tom was now to herself. But when the further statement reached her ears all that softening which seemed to have swept over her disappeared in a moment. A horrible bewilderment had seized her. Was he two men, with two wives, two lives, two ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... and puffed away at his pipe vigorously; but he muttered, "Go on," and we discovered that he was softening rapidly. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... had brought Mrs. Burton to witness his cruelty to her, the meek, suffering girl to whom he was pledged and plighted, who she had followed to Omaha in hopes of softening his heart and winning back his wayward love, as was the burden of her sorrowing song to that most sympathetic of women, already burning with prejudice and fancied wrong of her own. One "woman scorned" is more than enough for many a reputation. ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... Derrick's interest in her. They concluded, of course, that Joan's handsome face had won her a sweetheart. They could not accuse her of encouraging him; but they could profess to believe that she was softening, and they could use the insinuation as a sharp weapon against her, when such a course was not ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "Thine own people are accusing thee. What hast Thou done?" Then comes that great answer, "My kingdom is not of this world, if so I would be resisting these leaders and these present circumstances would all be different. But my kingdom is not of your sort or theirs." Again there likely came a bit of softening and curious interest in Pilate's face, as he asks, "Art Thou really a King then?" Jesus replies, "To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Every one that is of ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... mountains, intimidated them in their plans. They thought that the government of the Recollect fathers was milder, and hence they sighed for it. Those fathers tolerated their barbarous customs among a people so ferocious, and succeeded by their patience in softening and reducing them. Not so with the Dominican fathers, who learned the Zambals' tenacity at their own cost. In the village of Balacbac was an Indian chief named Dalinen; although he lived in that village, he kept his valuables in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... neither doctor nor parson; nor would she hear of sending for her daughter. The only sign of softening that she gave was that once she folded her granddaughter in her arms and wept long and bitterly. Perhaps the thought of her dying child came back upon her, along with the reflection that the only friend she had was the child of that marriage ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... me no answer, but I seemed to see a softening in her face as she turned away towards the window, whence were to be seen the stretch of the lawn and the park-meadows beyond. I believe that with a little more coaxing she would have pardoned me, but at the instant, by another stroke ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... inward charms! These are what God asks in return. Think of it, young women, as it really is. See God clothing your forms with Beauty, rich and ravishing in its charms; see that Beauty winning for you flowery paths of life, softening all hearts that approach you, making it easy, ay, almost a necessity, for them to love and esteem you; think how much you prize it, and how pleasant it is to your friends; and then think what God asks in return for this lovely gift. It is that you should be beautiful inwardly as He has ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... came, a wan and weary guest, 17 A softening balm for many a wound to crave; And wooed the sunshine to his aching breast, Which now seems smiling on ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... mountains on the continent, bold and beautiful in outline, tranquil and immovable in their grandeur. The steady glow of the warm sunlight gilded cross and pinnacle, as we gazed on this picture through the softening haze of approaching twilight,—a view which we have hardly, ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... shout, and then an uproar of childish delight. A sudden change swept over her. Light appeared to break upon her. Something like courage came into her face, not unmingled with tenderness, softening it and dispelling the gloom which had clouded it. She rose suddenly and walked with a swift, decisive step out of the room and up the richly carpeted stairs. To a maid on the upper floor she said hurriedly: "Tell Fenderson to order the brougham—at once," and passed ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... SHE [softening and putting her hand caressingly on his shoulder] Listen to me, dear. It's very nice of you to live with me in a dream, and to love me, and so on; but I can't help my husband having disagreeable relatives, ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... light, now full of tender pathos; a happy vale of Tempe, a magnificent landscape flooded with summer glow and lustre, yet forming a background for the rehearsal of some dire scene of mortal anguish, a contrast sustained by a fusion of tones, a softening of gloomy hues, which, while saddening joy, soothes the bitterness ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... the cultivated soil imbibes the heat, and returns it to the surrounding air in warm and humid vapors. The exhalations arising from a much increased amount of animal life, together with the burning of so many combustibles, are not altogether without their influence in softening the severity ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... woman is the softest, most pliable, and most accommodating tool which has yet been discovered for conferring the finest polish on the refractory substance of steel. Can we wonder at its effect in softening the ruggedness of the other sex, and how hard must be the heart of that man which does not yield to an influence which subdues even the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... truth about this, and a perspicuity in making arrangements for lessening her immediate embarrassment, which had some effect in softening Eleanor's anger. So she suffered herself to walk by his side over the now deserted lawn, till they came to the drawing-room window. There was something about Bertie Stanhope which gave him in the estimation ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... I know that," said Grace, her eyes softening with the picture of Roy as he had said good-bye—so youthfully gay, yet so ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... areas grasshoppers are a real scourge in alfalfa fields. Because of the shade provided by the ground and the influence which this exerts in softening it, they are encouraged to deposit their eggs and remain so as to prove a source of trouble the following year. It has been found that through disking of the land both ways after sharp frosts have come is greatly effective in destroying the grasshopper eggs deposited in ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... touch of shadow being expressive of some particular truth of structure, and bearing witness to the symmetry into which the whole mass has been reduced. Where this operation has gone on long, and vegetation has assisted in softening the outlines, we have our ground brought into graceful and irregular curves, of infinite variety, but yet always so connected with each other, and guiding to each other, that the eye never feels them as separate things, nor feels inclined to count them, nor perceives ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... a little as she spoke. That name usually brought an answering smile, particularly from the men of Sour Creek. But Sinclair's saturnine face showed no softening. ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... blood, a youth too habitually and instinctively pure-minded, to comprehend, in the first glance, that supper scene, and gain therefrom life-long disillusionment. For him, even after he had left it, there remained in some sort a glamour over it all—the softening veil of lights and laughter, the gleam of plate and the perfume of flowers, which successfully hid the blackest ugliness. The first fresh frost was still upon his glass; and through it the golden wine was beautiful as it could not be for those ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... for what seemed want of trust in her. I asked her for the keys, and she gave them; but with a mute appeal that made the concealment I desired, however necessary, no longer possible. Gently, cautiously as I could, but softening, not hiding, any part of the truth, I gave her the full confidence to which she was entitled, and which, once forced out of the silence preserved for her sake, it was an infinite relief to give. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... there in his arms, softening as best he could the more brutal details, he told her. And, at the end, for a little while she was silent; then in a strained, impulsive way ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... threatening language. Ultimately, however, Claudius Cossus, one of the envoys, a noted speaker who greatly enhanced the effect of his eloquence by concealing his skill under a well-timed affectation of nervousness, succeeded in softening the hearts of the soldiers. A mob is always liable to sudden changes of feeling, and the men were as sensible to pity as they had been extravagant in their brutality. Thus with streams of tears and importunate prayers for a better answer ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... her, noting with a softening countenance the almost maternal love that beautified her face. Now and then she spoke soothingly as the boy flinched, but her words were so softly said that the sculptor did not catch them. The eye dressed, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... your ladyship pleases," replied Lady Binks. "I mean," she added, softening the expression, "for ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... of soap, before it will give a lather. These are serious objections to the use of chalk-water in London. But they are successfully met by the fact that such water can be softened inexpensively, and on a grand scale. I had long known the method of softening water called Clark's process, but not until recently, under the guidance of Mr. Homersham, did I see proof of its larger applications. The chalk-water is softened for the supply of the city of Canterbury; and at the Chiltern Hills it is softened for the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... a lot of grub," declared the gambler, with a wonderful softening of the heart. "I was foolin'—just havin' a joke—the last time you was down to the store. You know you can have the best ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... of the nursery; a mad mother. But the point is that she will be mad about other nurseries as well as her own, or possibly instead of her own. The results will be interesting; but at least it is certain that under this softening influence government of the people, by the people, for the people, will most assuredly perish from ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... dark and mortal life, quickly recovers the light and blaze of its former bright life, whereas for those who have not had the good fortune very early, to use the language of the poet, "to pass the gates of Hades,"[202] nothing remains but a great passion for the things of this life, and a softening of the soul through contact with the body, and a melting away of it as if by the agency ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... unrelated dilemmas, and the summer heat was so intense, that the new lawyer informed him he couldn't possibly sandwich him in unless he would consent to change his plea to "guilty", contending that the combination of humility and humidity would go a long ways towards softening the judge. But Cassius sturdily ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... so, but the sudden happiness of finding herself wealthy was not without its softening effect on Amy's feelings. Generous impulses alternated with moods of discontent. The thought of her husband in his squalid lodgings tempted her to forget injuries and disillusions, and to play the part of a generous wife. It would be possible now ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... and mysterious, dotted with the monuments of a people forgotten before walls ringed the seven hills of Rome. The outlines of tors, ever softening in the distance, led the eye from rugged crest to misty beacon till, forty miles away, they dissolved into the same ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... religious fervour. They had to be guided to some quiet spot where they might work it off in solitude. Incidents of that kind during voluntary services were always a little embarrassing, for officers and men felt, as well as myself, that under the softening influences of religion we could not be over-hard on the transgressions of frail mortality. Nothing but the direst necessity would compel us at such times to resort to the process of ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... Swedish movements. While arms and bodies were bending and straightening at Teacher's command and example, the door opened and a breathless boy rushed in. He bore an unfolded note and, as Teacher had no hand to spare, the boy placed the paper on the desk under the softening eyes of the Honorable Timothy, who glanced down idly and then pounced upon the note and read its ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... one owes him so much—as myself. He couldn't have been so good—no one ever could be so good to any one else as he has always been to me. Still"—softening suddenly, for she was fond of the boy, and something in his sensitive face went to her tender heart—"think, David, dear, we owe him everything we have,—our names, our home, our clothes, our education, our very lives. We must never ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... him. He lay there in the middle of the green brightness, prostrate, motionless, dying. Cal Bain! His features were wonderfully distinct, clearer than any cameo, more sharply outlined than those of any picture. It was a hard face softening at the threshold of eternity. The red tan of sun, the coarse signs of drunkenness, the ferocity and hate so characteristic of Bain were no longer there. This face represented a different Bain, showed all that was human in him fading, fading as swiftly as it blanched white. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... second department of meat cookery, to wit, the slow and gradual application of heat for the softening and dissolution of its fibre and the extraction of its juices, common cooks are equally untrained. Where is the so-called cook who understands how to prepare soups and stews? These are precisely the articles in which ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the nest was learnt on kindergarten principles. At first he was employed in softening slender grass filaments, by dragging them through his teeth; then he learnt to intertwine them, and sat in the middle of an ever-growing sphere of delicate network; finally, like his mother, he tackled large, ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... view, a discriminatory sense that was not enjoyed in the highball period—that is to say, I found, observed with the cold and mayhap critical eye of abstinence, that a number of those with whom I was wont to associate needed the softening glow radiated by the liquor in me to make them as good as I had previously thought they were. There were some I found I did not miss, and more came to the same conclusion about me. They were all right—fine!—when seen or heard ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... with calm delight, savoring everything almost with complacency. His music, he felt, was progressing now that, undisturbed, he lived all day long in the rhythm of it; his mind and his fingers were growing supple. The hard moulds that had grown up about his spirit were softening. As he walked back and forth in front of the church waiting for Jeanne, he took an inventory of his state of mind; ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... Ephrata, in Pennsylvania, remain as monuments on this side of the water of the great pietistic movement in Germany in the early part of the eighteenth century. One of these was called Bethany, the other Sharon. A hundred and thirty or forty years ago there were other buildings with these, and the softening hand of time had not yet touched any of them. The doorways were then, as now, on the ground level, the passages were just as narrow and dusky, the cells had the same little square windows to let ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... to myself, "I'm getting superstitious or have softening of the brain," and I reached over to open the front door, so that the breeze could cool me off. In doing so my hand touched the water pipe to the injector—it was hot. The closed overflow injector was new to merit had "broke," and was blowing steam back to the tank ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the grey-headed preacher, stepping forward and thrusting a book into my father's hands. "We had best begin with a hymn, I think. I have some experience of the softening power of music ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... ministers who had been ejected from their livings for non-compliance with the Act of Uniformity: his success in this good work was due to his "soft interpretation of the terms of conformity." They needed softening; no part of Macaulay's 'History of England' is more striking and instructive than his account in chapter ii. of the sufferings of the Puritans and Nonconformists of all descriptions. "It was made a crime to attend a dissenting place of worship. A new and most unreasonable test was imposed ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... sun was tinting the enormous front of the building an orange gold, softening the colors of the greenish black smudge that the rain had left on the mansard windows. The statue of Charles II seemed to be melting into the mellow bluish transparency of the light-filled atmosphere. Through the gratings drifted the hum of a busy hive—voices ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a commanding voice, without the least softening with that southern suavity, "for how much do you want to sell me secretly, your ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... but, with Claudet, it had ripened into love; and now, after allowing the poor young fellow to believe that his love was reciprocated, she was forced to disabuse him. It was useless for her to try to find some way of softening the blow; there was none. Claudet was too much in love to remain satisfied with empty words; he would require solid reasons; and the only conclusive one which would convince him, without wounding his self-love, was exactly the one ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... startling contrast is produced by the copies of them made by the students. If the colours in the old pictures are faded, in the modern ones they blaze with a superfluity of vividness; red, yellow, green, etc., are there in all their force; such a thing as mixing, softening, or blending them, has evidently never been thought of. Even at the present moment, I really am at a loss to determine whether the worthy students intended to found a new school for colouring, or whether they merely desired to make up ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... in the unfortunate criminals who shared her prison confinement, and had done not a little to relieve, from her own purse, the necessities of some of the poor creatures. That she had done this, the public read in the journals of the day, and the simple announcement cast a softening light upon her character. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... a fine work in softening the hearts of these people. We had almost despaired of doing anything with them. Yes, you have done a won-der-ful work, and now we must reorganize a regular society here. I will be out again when you get stronger, and we'll ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... finished, he put out a hand and touched the Indian. Then he opened his tear-blurred eyes and looked at him, his face softening and working. The Squaw did not budge. His palms were still pressed tight. He blinked at ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... her judgment in the early days of their courtship. Reuther had inherited her harmony of feature from him,- -the chiselled nose, the well-modelled chin, and all the other physical graces which had made him a fine figure behind his bar. But even with the softening of her feelings towards him since she had thus set herself up in his defence, Deborah could not fail to perceive under all these surface attractions an expression of unreliability, or, as some would ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... presence, and that we were there in no way as representatives of Mr. Chase. Mr. Lincoln was visibly affected. The tones of confidence, sympathy, personal regard, were strangers to him at that time. Softening, almost melting, he came round to us, shook our hands again and again, returned to his place, and standing there, took up and opened out, from their remote origin, the whole web of matters connected with the present ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... columns from which Saints look down, long windows beautifully veined, a glorious rose at each transept's end, and high vault arches springing with a slender pointed grace, all these are of exquisite proportions; and the brilliant stained-glass adds a softening warmth of colour, but not too great a glow, to the cold fragility of the shafts of stone. Nothing in the Gothic art of the South, little of Gothic elsewhere, is more thoughtfully and lovingly wrought than this choir of Saint-Nazaire, and few churches in the Romanesque form are more ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... had had to bend his head to get into the room. Alfred liked the looks of him the first moment, and by way of salutation put up one of his weary, white, blue-veined hands to pull his damp forelock; but Mr. Cope, nodding in answer to Ellen's curtsey, took hold of his hand at once, and softening the cheery voice that was so pleasant to hear, said, 'Well, my boy, I hope we shall be good friends. ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... type. It is different from the standardized American type, of which Abraham Lincoln of a past and the Wright brothers of a present generation are perfect specimens—the ugly-beautiful face, long and lean, with its harshly contoured strength of feature and its subtly softening melancholy of expression. The look of labor in California is not so much of strength as of force, an indomitable, unconquerable force. Melancholy is not there, but spirit; that fire and light which means hope. It is as though they were molded of iron—those faces—but ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... assure you, madam." Then forming his features into a set smile, and affectedly softening his voice, he added, with a simpering air, "Have you been long in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... her hand in his. He could feel distinctly its cool, soft, exquisite texture. With an exclamation of delight he drew her toward him, but she held herself away, the expression of her beautiful face softening ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... summer night. The moon had risen now, and filtered in through the young green of the trees with a clear and fitful radiance. The forest was like a fairy scene; and over the minds of both brothers stole the softening remembrance of such woodland wonders in the days gone by, when as little lads, full of curiosity and love of adventure, they had stolen forth at night into the forest together to see if they could discover the fairies at their play, or the dwarfs and gnomes busy ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... she wandered home, And went to her bed apart, No softening tear to her eye would come, No sigh from her aching heart. The balmy milk of a woman's breast Waxed curdled green and sour, And Mary Lee was by all confessed As changed from ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... now shining benignantly once more on the world, revealed in her hair. Her chin was square and determined, but its resoluteness was contradicted by a dimple and by the pleasant good-humour of the mouth; and a further softening of the face was effected by the nose, which seemed to have started out with the intention of being dignified and aristocratic but had defeated its purpose by tilting very slightly at the tip. This was a girl who would take chances, but would take ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sight. To describe the country for the next one hundred miles from Orsk, I need only extend the table-cover. For here, there, and everywhere was a dazzling, glaring sheet of white, as seen under the influence of a mid-day sun; then gradually softening down as the god of light sunk into the west, it faded into a vast, melancholy-looking, colourless ocean. This was shrouded in some places from the view by filmy clouds of mist and vapour, which rose in the evening air and shaded the wilderness around—a picture of desolation which wearied, ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... him to the judge's lodgings in the town, and laid him there peaceably for the doctors to tend him. For a fortnight the shadow of Gildersleeve still lingered on, growing feebler and feebler in intellect every day. But the end was certain. It was softening of the brain, and it proceeded rapidly. The horror of that unspeakable trial had wholly unnerved him. The great, strong man cried and sobbed like a baby. Lady Gildersleeve and Gwendoline were with him all through. He seldom spoke. When he did, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... relieved by the introduction between the pieces of light farces called Kiyogen. The whole entertainment having a religious intention, the Kiyogen stand to the No in the same relation as the small shrines to the main temple; they, too, are played for the propitiation of the gods, and for the softening of men's hearts. The farces are acted without wigs or masks; the dialogue is in the common spoken language, and there being no musical accompaniment it is quite easy to follow. The plots of the two farces which were played before the Duke of ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... about in his thoughts for just the right word to say—something that might be as "a fire and a hammer" to the softening and breaking of that ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... great whist player, once made a mistake and said to his partner, "My brain is softening," the latter answered "Never mind, I will give you ten thousand pounds down for it, just ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... settled; at eight o'clock we had said good-bye to Pilarcita and the Cherub, softening the farewell with a hopeful "au revoir"; and with Ropes staring disconsolately after us, we flashed out of the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... pleading fatigue, a plea which during these last days had been ever on his lips, flung himself down upon the grass. For a little time Sylvia sat idly watching the great battle ships at firing-practice in the Bay. It was an afternoon of August; a light haze hung in the still air softening the distant promontories; and on the waveless sparkling sea the great ships, coal-black to the eye, circled about the targets, with now and then a roar of thunder and a puff of smoke, like some monstrous engines of heat—heat ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... landed in softening snow, for the scathing flames were melting the drifts on either side. Betty had felt the rush of heat rising from the cables and had put ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... there was so much fighting to be done; I had come on purpose to make them well, and they might make up their minds to it. My own courage had revived, and I must revive theirs; I could surely keep them alive until help should come. By softening the torturing bandages on his face, I made him more comfortable; and in an adjoining room found another man with a thigh stump, who had been served by field-surgeons, as the thieves served the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho: i.e., "stripped him, left him naked and half dead." Those ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... Highness is as wax in your hands," she answered, with a swift softening of face and voice. "I won't start being autocratic till I get you back again. Only—sit down at once, please. You don't look fit ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... boy, his voice softening. "Holy Virgin, save him! For weeks, we've been in the hands of Aguinaldo's men. He's been so ill, all the time; have ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... home very slowly, for remorse, while softening into penitence, had sapped the foundations of his life; and he had grown a feeble old man in so short a time, that those who look upon God as an avenger, rather than a chastiser, might have supposed that old age had fallen ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... entire weight of the branch it lifts up. Darwin concluded that a tendril with five disk-bearing branches, on which he experimented, would stand a strain of ten pounds, even after ten years' exposure to high winds and softening rains. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... as the poet of a decadent epoch, an epoch in which art had arrived at the over-ripened maturity of an aging civilization; a glowing, savorous, fragrant over-ripeness, that is already softening into decomposition. And to be the fitting poet of such an epoch, he modeled his style on that of the poets of the Latin decadence; for, as he expressed it for himself and for the modern school of "decadents" in French ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... burst into great sobs—dry-eyed sobs, which cut as they came, without any softening by tears. But she determined to repress all evidences of feeling. She was conquered; but she would never own it as long as she lived. Her pride was indeed brought low by despairing discoveries of her spoliation by marriage with a less pure nature than her own. She chafed to and fro in rebelliousness, ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... portion of my great map of Germany to lie spread over their knees in the diligence, whilst Temple and I pored along the lines of the rivers. One would thrust his square-nailed finger to the name of a city and pronounce it; one gave us lessons in the expression of the vowels, with the softening of three of them, which seemed like a regulation drill movement for taking an egg into the mouth, and showing repentance of the act. 'Sarkeld,' we exclaimed mutually, and they made a galloping motion of their hands, pointing beyond the hills. Sarkeld was to the right, Sarkeld to the left, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... relation to callosities on the sole of the foot is treated by paring away all the thickened skin, after softening it with soda fomentations, removing the unhealthy granulations, and applying ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Kincaid do if he were here! But the stage waited: "Ah, Colonel, Anna! poor Anna!" Might not the compassion-wilted supplicant see the dear, dear prisoner? She rallied all her war-worn fairness with all her feminine art, and to her amazement, with a gleam of purpose yet without the softening of a lineament, he said yes, waved permission across to the guard and ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... never within distinct view, of the prisoners; now jabbering in as many voices as the most expert ventriloquist, and now sternly commanding, "Silence in the ranks!"—now getting up a seeming scuffle among his men, and now driving them, with thwacks and curses, to their places; and now again softening his tones and cracking jokes with his men,—Smith, Johnson, &c.,—who, in as many different tones, were heard to return various sharp and comical retorts, which raised shouts of laughter and made the forest ring with the sham merriment And thus ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... and repose; and, in physical endurance, it is subject to general physiological laws. When exercised with moderation it acquires strength, vigor, and an accelerated activity. Excessive mental exertion is liable to result in softening of the brain, and various nervous diseases, sometimes culminating in insanity, and in many instances proving fatal to life. The mere votaries of pleasure who avoid all effort of the mind, fall into the opposite error. In all cases of intellectual activity, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the softening influence of society and the wholesome fear of restraint, for a time at least the voice of his better angel is silenced. Perhaps also the necessarily solitary position of a commander of a man-of-war, his long, lonely ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... touch, thickly laid on, I have raised the surface so that it catches the light itself and blends it with the lustrous whiteness of the high lights, and how by an opposite process, by flattening the surface of the paint, and leaving no trace of the passage of the brush, I have succeeded in softening the contours of my figures and enveloping them in half-tints until the very idea of drawing, of the means by which the effect is produced, fades away, and the picture has the roundness and relief of nature. Come closer. You will ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... make them apparent. This was the cause of Rembrandt's captivating excellence; neither a combination of Coreggio and Titian, nor of Murillo and Velasquez, but as if all the great principles of chiaro-scuro and colour were steeped and harmonized in the softening shades of twilight; and this we perceive in nature, producing the most soothing and bewitching results. These digressions may, however, come more properly into notice when Rembrandt's principles of ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... characters[23]. They are the favourite sounds of the language. Not only the guttural sounds, g, ch, and k, but also d and t, are changed in many cases into analogous sibilants, according to fixed and very simple rules. On the other hand, the Slavic nations have a way of softening the harshness of the consonants, peculiar in that extent to them alone. The Frenchman has his l mouille, the Spaniard his elle doblado and n. the Portuguese his lh and nh; the Slavic nations possess the same ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... uncle Sir Thomas had, in the closing years of his life, shown unmistakable signs of brain-softening, and that a symptom of his complaint had been his addiction to making a number of wills—"two-thirds of 'em incoherent. Every two or three days he'd compose a new one and send for Huskisson, his ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... position, had at all times nearly the same amount of weight to bear, and consequently the entire weight was pretty equally distributed amongst the four wheels of the locomotive. Thus the four floating pistons were ingeniously made to serve the purpose of springs in equalising the weight, and in softening the jerks of the machine; the weight of which, it must also be observed, had been increased, on a road originally calculated to bear a considerably lighter description of carriage. This mode of supporting the engine remained in use until the progress of spring-making had so far advanced that ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... thus been already for nearly eight months in close custody. But there were no further ministrations of kind women for Jeanne. She was now distinctly in the hands of her enemies, those who had no sympathy or natural softening of feeling ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... return to Kingfisher, who has been all this time softening some silk-worm gut in his mouth, and now says in a thick voice, "Do you know, colonel, I lost my chance of a wife once ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... than for the expedition; and, as Assunta was handing to the rider his long ebony staff, bearing an ivory caduceus, the quadruped turned suddenly round. Simplizio called him bestiaccia! and then, softening it, poco garbato! and proposed to Ser Francesco that he should leave the bastone behind, and take the crab-switch he presented to him, giving at the same time a sample of its efficacy, which covered the long grizzle hair of the worthy quadruped with a profusion of pink ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... above quotation, the softening effect of affliction on the human heart There was a widow in the neighborhood, a very worthy woman, who had lost her husband in the war. She had two children, a son and a daughter, both quite young. She owned a snug little farm, and being a very capable woman, was getting along quite comfortably. ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... way home. He grumbled about the softening snow, about the gathering dusk, about the length of the road. His exasperation reached its height when, ignoring Thayer's advice in regard to the path, he struck out across an open snowfield, only to go crashing down through its insecure foundation ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... with a more exquisite courtesy, and more true hospitality. So I thought, at least. Now and again, it is true, while his eyes were fixed on me, I would see how the soul behind them was away, far in the past, and then at a word, even at a movement, back it would come to me, with the tenderest softening I have ever ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... fit in with the picture his sister Gertrude drew me, though she conveyed the impression that she was softening things down. There can be no doubt that he was wild. That might, perhaps, be forgiven, but one or two of the stories I've heard about him filled ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... support the criticism, but cannot on the whole think it well founded. The better-bred women do not presume on their sex, and the area of good breeding is always widening. It need hardly be said that the community at large gains by the softening and restraining influence which the reverence for womanhood diffuses. Nothing so quickly incenses the people as any insult offered to a woman. Wife-beating, and indeed any kind of rough violence offered to women, is far less common among ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the pent-up tempest broke forth with a fury that racked her little frame from head to foot; and the more because she strove to stifle every sound of it as much as possible. It was the very bitterness of sorrow, without any softening thought to allay it, and sharpened and made more bitter by mortification and a passionate sense of unkindness and wrong. And through it all, how constantly in her heart the poor child was reaching forth longing arms towards her far-off mother, and calling ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Prince Henry. "I could never forgive that; I would hold your ambition responsible for it, for you have access to the king's heart, and instead of dissipating his distrust against these foreign nations, you have endeavored to nourish it—instead of softening the king's anger, you ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the wine to her lips, her stern face softening. Like many a high-spirited woman doomed to perpetual inaction, her dominion over her servants had grown to represent the larger share ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... the accompaniment of music. The gipsy band must be there, when he is in trouble or in joy—one or two fiddles, perhaps a clarionet, always a czimbalom—just these few instruments to play his favourite songs. They don't ease his sorrow, but they help to soothe it by bringing tears to his eyes and softening ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... contempt. "Jodd has no more head for plans than a doorpost! Although it is true," she added with a softening of the voice, "that he is a good man to lean on at a pinch, and a very terrible fighter; also one who can keep such brain as God gave him cool in the hour of terror, as Irene knows well enough. Yet it was you, Olaf, not even I, but you, ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... would soon be over, the birds would come again,—new birds, singing the old songs,—the sap would mount in the trees, the buds swell on the blueberry bushes, and the young ivory leaves push their ruddy tips through the softening ground. The plains were fatherland and mother-country, home and kindred, to Tom. He loved the earth that nourished him, and he saw through all the seeming death in nature the eternal miracle of the resurrection. ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the road till the moon rose and the witchery of night came to make the girlish eyes more brilliant, softening their gayety into a wistful tenderness, only to these did the close of the day seem as sweet and momentous as the morning. While the trusty horse jogged on, impatient of the slow pace set by his driver, the lovers sat with little ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... the party was tortured with alternative hopes and fears. Now it was a horse breaking through the softening crust of snow and coming down, and then it would be one playing out altogether. If in another day those in front were not overtaken, it was pretty certain they must run into Big Bear's band, and that would mean wholesale massacre. In order to ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... playwright with material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story might pass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development the scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softening stubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for a season. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of the Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resist the laws of fate ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... landscape; the sense of hearing is made more receptive by the lessening of the vision and you realize the awful sublimity of Niagara. The islands, like dark phantoms, loom in the dim shadows. Then in the east the moon rises mellowing and softening the beautiful scene, while all about you is the eternal roar of the waters. The vast spectral terribleness is quickly transformed into ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... eyes, inquisitive, searching, softening. He saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love, then suddenly strain in terrible effort of will. He heard Oldring whisper and saw him sway like a log and fall. Then a million bellowing, thundering voices—gunshots of conscience, thunderbolts of remorse—dinned horribly in his ears. He had ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... of men to one another brought also into view and recognition the rights of the lower orders of being. A sentiment against cruelty to animals of every kind had long been growing in civilized lands, and formed a distinct feature of the general softening of manners which led up to the Revolution. This sentiment now became an enthusiasm. The new conception of our relation to the animals appealed to the heart and captivated the imagination of mankind. Instead of sacrificing the weaker races to our use or ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... appreciation entertained in this country of the course pursued by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, throughout this most painful ordeal. She was wiser than her Ministers, and there can be little doubt but for her considerate interposition, softening the rigor of the British demand, the two nations would have been forced into war. On all the subsequent occasions for bitterness towards England, by reason of the treatment we experienced during the war, there was an instinctive feeling among Americans that the Queen desired ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... and any adverse appeal is little likely now to be lodged against it. Within the circle of its claims and pretensions, a more entirely satisfactory and delightful poem than "The Deserted Village" was probably never written. It lingers in the memory where once it has entered; and such is the softening influence on the heart of the mild, tender, yet clear light which makes its images so distinct and lovely, that there are few who have not wished to rate it higher than poetry of yet higher genius. Goldsmith looked ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... a refusal, it is probably softening down the 'No,' but if it is an acceptance it is rather an ungracious one, it seems ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... forget that there is nothing of this kind, no relief, no softening, in the great scene at the conclusion of the Odyssey. All is stern enough and terrible enough there; more terrible, if possible, because more distinct, than its modern counterpart in Criemhildas Hall. But ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude |
