"Tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and rarer than this—the sort so often lacking even in generals who have served with utmost distinction in high subordinate places, when they are called to the sole and decisive direction of armies: he had that royal mettle, that preternatural decision of character, ever tempered with caution and wisdom, which leads a great commander, when true occasion arises, resolutely to give general battle, or a swing out away from his base upon a precarious but promising campaign. Here you have moral heroism; ordinary valor is ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... at the great festivals. I heard the Walkyria in the pit of the Real Theatre, another night I went to a concert; but the greatest night of all was the one on which I heard the Ninth Symphony of that ugly old fellow, of that deaf, bad-tempered genius ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... imagination and in that of a wonderful number of mankind) is intolerable. His wife too, whom in my conscience I cannot condemn for any capital bad quality, is so narrow-minded, and, I don't know how, so set upon keeping him under her own management, and so suspicious and so sourishly tempered that it requires the utmost exertion of practical philosophy to keep myself quiet. I however have done so all this week to admiration: nay, I have appeared good-humoured; but it has cost me drinking a considerable quantity of strong ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... weapons of the middle ages seem so that were borne at a time when every soldier took the field cased in armor of proof. The slim scimitar or slender rapier would have availed but little against massive iron helmets or mail coats of tempered steel. And so the warriors of the period armed themselves with ponderous maces, battle-axes as massive as hammers, and double-handed swords of great ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... wall around it. It was owned by a man named Creakle, who had begun by raising hops, and had gone into the school business because he had lost all of his own and his wife's money and had no other way to live. He was fat and spoke always in a whisper, and he was so cruel and bad-tempered that not only the boys, but his wife, too, was ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... world could he find a woman so exquisitely tempered to his needs, so intimately responsive to his desires, one who would lead him into the darker land of matrimony through meadows of ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... Helena - tropical; marine; mild, tempered by trade winds; Tristan da Cunha - temperate; marine, mild, tempered by trade winds (tends to ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Nor had they freedom of movement. When old Gow Yum needed to go to San Francisco to sign certain papers before the Chinese Consul, permission had first to be obtained from San Quentin. Then, too, neither man was nasty tempered. Saxon had been apprehensive of the task of bossing two desperate convicts; but when they came she found it a pleasure to work with them. She could tell them what to do, but it was they who knew how do. Prom them she learned all the ten thousand tricks ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... absorbed dealer began immediately to exercise a serious fascination over the man watching him. He did not appear altogether human, he seemed rather like some perfectly adjusted machine, able to think and plan, yet as unemotional as so much tempered steel. There was no perceptible change passing in that utterly impassive face, no brightening of those cold, observant eyes, no faintest movement of the tightly compressed lips. It was as though ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... spirit of my history, than I am satisfied with his honourable testimony to my attention, diligence, and accuracy; those humble virtues, which religious zeal had most audaciously denied. The sweetness of his praise is tempered by a reasonable mixture of acid. As the book may not be common in England, I shall transcribe my own character from the Bibliotheca Historica of Meuselius, a learned and laborious German. "Summis aevi nostri historicis Gibbonus sine dubio adnumerandus est. Inter capitolii ruinas stans primum hujus ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... walked perversely, carelessly, and with a frivolity that was almost wicked. Then, suddenly, she had seen a great light. Love had entered her world. In her new heaven a new light was fixed, and all other things were seen only because of this light; all other things were touched by it, tempered by it, ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... of the lower order, and mischievous from their ignorance and their greediness. He is always talking, and generally joking; and the most serious subjects never meet with five minutes' consecutive attention. The favorable side of his character is, that he is good-tempered and good-natured; by no means cruel; and, in a certain way, generous, though rapacious to a high degree. His rapacity, indeed, is carried to such an excess as to astonish a European, and is evinced ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... more systematic lines than to-day. The records of the leading sale rooms often supply matter for surprise, the prices asked and obtained for rare and choice specimens being such as to excite both wonder and amazement, sometimes tempered with scepticism. ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... now felt on the footing of a friend rather than an acquaintance. Concerning the girls, there was no question in her mind. They were dears, not dears of the same calibre as Vie and plain Hannah, dears of a less interesting, more conventional description, but dears all the same, lively, good-tempered, and affectionate. The only brother was a far more complex character, with regard to whom Darsie changed her mind a dozen times a day. At one time he was all that was delightful, full of natural, boy-like good-comradeships at another he was a bored and supercilious dandy, looking down on schoolgirls ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Grenouille," as he styled himself in one of his babyish epistles to England's sovereign majesty, there was a certain knight more inclined to the study of letters than to the breaking of lances,—the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin, who being much about the court in the wake of his somewhat capricious and hot-tempered master, came, unfortunately for his own peace of mind, into occasional personal contact with one of the most bewitching young women of her time, the Lady Penelope Devereux, afterwards Lady Rich, she in whom, according to a contemporary ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... just at sunrise. A flag of truce was unfurled, and at once answered by an officer on picket-duty. A short parley ensued. At a word of command the Federal guard fell back and were replaced by Confederates. A moment later, I, with my charges, descended, to be greeted with enthusiasm, tempered with the most chivalrous respect, by the "boys in gray," who proved to be members of the battalion to which my husband was attached, and who at once relieved my fears by assurances of his safety. It was a supreme moment, such as comes seldom in a ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... attractive about George the First and his two ugly old mistresses, the "Elephant" and the "Maypole"; nor about his court of Germans, utilizing their time in England by accumulating money to carry back to Hanover when the harvest time had passed. George the Second, brave, but narrow and ill-tempered, embodied in himself the coarseness of the time. He loved his wife, who was faithful to him through every outrage and every neglect. He caused one side to be taken out of her coffin, so that when he should be laid ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... acted as our cook on the journey from the coast, sharing in the despair of the rest of the Canadians, refused to make the slightest exertion. Hepburn on the contrary, animated by a firm reliance on the beneficence of the Supreme Being, tempered with resignation to His will, was indefatigable in his exertions to serve us and daily collected all the tripe de roche that was used in the officers' mess. Mr. Hood could not partake of this miserable fare, and a partridge which had been reserved for him was I lament to say this day ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... merry son of Bias's Amalekite friend gladly rendered him the help and guidance for which he had been reluctant to ask his ill-tempered slave, and he soon became accustomed to the simple fare of the nomads. Bread and milk, fruits and vegetables from his neighbour's little garden, satisfied him, and when the wine he had drunk was used, he contented himself, obedient to old Tabus's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... great comfort to the whole family; for, although she was one of the plainest women in the world, and also very illiterate, and full of superstition, yet she was an unequalled servant both as to cleanliness and work. I was a great plague to her in various ways. She not being the best tempered woman in the world, I used to irritate her very much, by imitating the howling of dogs; and the complaints that she frequently made to my father of my conduct to ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... attractiveness. The brilliant, impulsive girl had but ripened into the still more lovely woman. Her cheek was not faded nor her eye dimmed. There was the same frankness, the same heart in her glance, her smile, the warm pressure of her hand, but tempered by experience, reflection, and self-control. One felt that she could be loved and trusted with the whole heart and judgment. Her personal attractions, and yet more the charm of her sensible, genial, and racy conversation, brought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... even more unconcerned in its dramatic effect than were the "missal marge" pictures of the illuminators, by her simple presentation of the childishness of childhood she won all hearts. Her little people are the beau-ideal of nursery propriety—clean, good-tempered, happy small gentlefolk. For, though they assume peasants' garb, they never betray boorish manners. Their very abandon is only that of nice little people in play-hours, and in their wildest play the penalties that await torn knickerbockers or soiled frocks are not absent from their minds. Whether ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... An ill-tempered letter, once sent, will sometimes embitter a life-time. We once saw an old gentleman, with a wise, fine head, calm face, and a most benevolent look, beg of a postmaster to return him a letter which he had dropped into the box. To do so, as everybody knows, is ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... twenty-four hours had sufficed to change the lonely stranger of the day before into the heroine of this evening, and the satisfaction that shone in her face tempered the somewhat haughty and disdainful expression ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... monotony of my grass-plat was only broken by the marrow-bones and beef-ribs which my dog first picked and then played with under my windows. I was as fond of him as my brother-officer was of his flowers. I am sorry to say that Dash had a fancy for the gayer garden, and for some time my good-tempered neighbour bore patiently with his inroads, and with a sigh buried the beef-bone that Dash had picked among the mignonette at the roots of a magnificent rose which he often alluded to as 'John Hopper,' and seemed to treat as a friend. Mr. Hopper ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... with drums of every shape and kind, swords and dirks, helmets and breast-plates, guns and pistols, were the only presents that his childhood knew. Morestal was a little strict; a little too fond of everything that had to do with principle, custom, discipline, exactness; a little quick-tempered; but, at the same time, he was the kindest of men and had no difficulty in winning his son's love, his frank ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... out with her to the gate, where her superb, high-tempered horse pawed the gravel, and champed upon his bit. Jim sent her springing to the saddle from his horny palm like a bird let out of it, and they watched in silence while she crossed two paddocks, leaped two sets of slip-rails, and ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Negro's business operations judgment should be tempered by consideration of his past and of the tremendous odds of the present. There are handicaps due to the denial of the chances of getting experience, to inefficiency born of resulting inexperience, to the difficulty of securing capital and building ...
— The Negro at Work in New York City - A Study in Economic Progress • George Edmund Haynes
... to distrust also the adorning of those to which we seek, for temptation; but the verity of gains like these can only be known by our confession of the divine seal of strength and beauty upon the tempered frame, and honour in the fervent heart, by which, increasing visibly, may yet be manifested to us the holy presence, and the approving love, of the Loving God, who visits the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children, unto the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... speeches and admiring glances, not less than his mother's endless disquisitions on fashion and the pedigree of all the best families of W—— and its vicinage. Grace had grown up very pretty, highly accomplished, even-tempered, gentle-hearted, but full of her mother's fashionable notions, and, withal, rather weak and frivolous. She and Irene were constantly thrown into each other's society, but no warmth of feeling existed on either side. Grace could not comprehend her companion's character, and Irene wearied ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Irish question, is he?" he thundered. "Drop it, is it? And why? Why, sir? I'm one of the best-tempered men that ever came from Ireland, let me tell you, and I will not stay here to be insulted by the insinuation that I cannot discuss Irish affairs as ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... enjoying all beautiful things that it seemed as if Fortune did him as much wrong in not supplying them as in withholding a sufficiency of vital breath from ordinary men. All kinds of mild magnificence, tempered by his taste, would have become him well; but he had not the grim dignity that assumes nakedness as the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... to enter her private box at Drury Lane; this my friend endeavoured to prevent; violent language was used, and a duel was the consequence. The parties met a few miles from London, in a field close to the Uxbridge Road, where B—, who was a hot-tempered man, did his best to kill my friend; but, after the exchange of two shots, without injury to either party, they were separated by their seconds. B— was the son of Lady Bridget B—, and the seconds were Payne, uncle to George Payne, ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... father if she proves to be industrious and skillful with her needle and in all woman's work. Then she can have a fine teepee and make it all cheerful within. The indolent woman has a small teepee, and it is very smoky. All her children will have sore eyes, and her husband will soon become ill-tempered," declares the mother, ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... as we entered; we could feel their covert antagonism. Jarvis is one of those affable, good-tempered individuals that most persons take for "easy." In some ways he may be so, but I soon realised that he was a keen judge of men and their ways, and he whispered to me: "They mean to block us if possible." Sousi understood French and had some English, but the others professed ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... touching element in the novel is the history of the grasp that this barbarous fanatic has laid upon the fastidious and high-tempered Zenobia, who, disliking him and shrinking, from him at a hundred points, is drawn into the gulf of his omnivorous egotism. The portion of the story that strikes me as least felicitous is that which deals with Priscilla and with her mysterious ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... a sweet tempered man. He had a pretty strong will of his own, and was called, not without reason, obstinate. ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... communion with Divine perfection which seemed to her to be expressed in the best Christian books of widely distant ages, she found in Mr. Casaubon a listener who understood her at once, who could assure her of his own agreement with that view when duly tempered with wise conformity, and could mention historical examples before unknown ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... left me.... However, I shall endeavor to comply with all their Lordships' directions in such manner as, to the best of my judgment, will answer their intentions in employing me here." The words italicized strike the true note of subordination duly tempered with discretion. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... to meet, or brave despair; And sterner hearts alone may feel 920 The wound that Time can never heal. The rugged metal of the mine Must burn before its surface shine,[dz][112] But plunged within the furnace-flame, It bends and melts—though still the same; Then tempered to thy want, or will, 'Twill serve thee to defend or kill— A breast-plate for thine hour of need, Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed; But if a dagger's form it bear, 930 Let those who shape its edge, beware! Thus Passion's fire, and Woman's art, Can turn and tame the sterner heart; From these its ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... a limited space) of a molecule differs entirely from that known as mechanical elasticity. In perfectly soft iron we have feeble mechanical elasticity, while in tempered steel we have that elasticity at its maximum. The contrary takes place as regards molecular elasticity. In tempered steel the molecules are extremely rigid, and in soft iron its molecular elasticity is at its maximum. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... recorded in Mrs. Sylvester's brain. That she felt a genuine sorrow for Rainham is certain, for the grain of her nature was kindly enough beneath its veneer of worldly cleverness; but her grief was more than tempered by a sense of self-congratulation, of unlimited approval of the prudence which had enabled her to marry her daughter so irreproachably before the bubble burst. Indeed, the little glow of pride which mingled quite harmoniously with her nevertheless perfectly sincere regret, was an almost ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... there was Celeste, radiant with a wonderful piece of news which she alone was to impart to her sister; there were Peggy and Maria, shot up suddenly into two amazingly-gawky girls; there was Master Castleman Lysle, the only son of the house, with his black-eyed and bad-tempered French governess. And finally there was Aunt Varina, palpitating with various agitations, not daring to whisper to anyone else the fears which this sudden home-coming inspired in her. Bishop Chilton and his wife were away, but a delegation of cousins had come; also Uncle Mandeville ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... a wonderful little fellow; there is no end to the good he does. Again and again I have seen a man grow better tempered or more cheerful, without knowing why he did so, just because Chickadee stopped a moment to be cheery and sociable. I remember once when a party of four made camp after a driving rain-storm. Everybody was wet; everything soaking. The lazy man had upset a canoe, ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... thy rich gifts. I should rue thy death, for in thee a virtuous man would fall. Behold, good knight, the sword thou gavest, in my hand. It hath never failed me in my need. Its edge hath killed many a warrior. It is finely tempered and stark, and thereto bright and good. So goodly a gift, I ween, never knight will give more. If thou forbear not, but fall upon us, and slay any of my kinsmen here, thou shalt perish by thine own sword! Much I pity ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... difficulties as well as dangers to be encountered. The native courage of the man must be tempered, ground and polished. On land it is the massing of numbers that accomplishes the result—the accumulation of vital forces and intelligence upon the objective point. The innumerable threads of individual enterprise, like the twist ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... woman's side. It is delightful to see a husband who is proud of his wife's cleverness, and good-natured men are pleased by his innocent boasting. The most pleasant of households may be found in cases where a clever, good-humoured, dexterous woman rules over a sweet-tempered but somewhat stupid man. She respects his manhood, he adores her as a superior being, and they live a life of pure happiness. But, sad to say, the husband is not usually good-humouredly willing to acknowledge his partner's superiority, and in that case the girl's doom is a cruel one. She may marry ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... hundred dollars a year family income. To the right of the red-glass pickle-dish were the elderly Ebbitts—Samuel Ebbitt, Esq., also Mrs. Ebbitt. Mr. Ebbitt had come from Hartford five years before, but he always seemed just to have come from there. He was in a real-estate office; he was gray, ill-tempered, impatiently honest, and addicted to rheumatism and the newspapers. Mrs. Ebbitt was ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... reader will doubtless be tempered to exclaim: "Well, you have demonstrated to your own satisfaction that the medical profession entertains erroneous opinions as to the true nature of disease, and also that drugs are absolutely useless—nay, injurious—in such conditions: but is this all? ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... instinct of blind courage, met her gaze and tried to think he was defying it bravely. But he was overwhelmed with shame for her because she was avowedly what she was. Often he could laugh at her good-tempered cynicism. Over her now, for he actually did have a kind of affection for her, he could ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... make amends for the dryness of her fare. This is a choice Margaux, and I can recommend it. But, Sophy, here, you haven't warmed this quite enough. Ah! my dear sir, you experience the trouble of a Greenland life. One can never get his wines properly tempered." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... certainly bore out her words, it was so good-tempered and confiding; and pleased with her manner in spite of myself, I accepted her invitation to make use of her own little parlor, and sat down in the glow of a brilliant autumn afternoon ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... to which the loss of the normal function of his nervous system was due transformed him from the docile and even-tempered man that he had been into a quarrelsome and irritable individual, so that he was less regular in his work, less moral and honest in his family life, and was finally sentenced for a grave assault in a saloon brawl. He was condemned ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... There was a good-tempered wrestling bout on the landing, and then the two lads, Fred Forrester and Sir Godfrey Markham's son Scarlett, stood panting ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... a wagon well, Shomolekae needed to be able to manage sixteen oxen all at once, and keep them walking in a straight line. He needed to know which were the bad-tempered ones and which were the good, and which pulled best in one part of the span and which in another; and how to keep them all pulling together and not lunging at one ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... at this point in my story, that I had never been what would be called an even-tempered man. Truth to tell, I was a spoiled boy. My mother was a saint, but she was a soft-hearted one. My father was a scholar. Like many another boy of decided individuality, I came up anyhow. Nobody managed me. At an early age my profession made it my duty ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... made His Majesty very angry. The favor of the court was completely withdrawn from the poet. An amiable woman with a large fortune might indeed have been an ample compensation for the loss. But Lady Drogheda was ill-tempered, imperious, and extravagantly jealous. She had herself been a maid of honor at Whitehall. She well knew in what estimation conjugal fidelity was held among the fine gentlemen there, and watched her town husband as assiduously as Mr. Pinchwife watched ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pictures and labours, as it has been said in the treatise on Theory; for it is a very certain fact that they are aged, and not allowed to be purified by time, by being covered with colours that have a different body, being tempered with gums, with tragacanths, with eggs, with size, or some other similar substance, which tarnishes what is below, and does not allow the course of time and the air to purify that which has been truly wrought in fresco on the soft ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... reading is cold work,—very few women really enjoy knowledge for its own sake,—you are tempted to throw it up, and to drift in an easy good-tempered way, which pleases the others much more than your shutting yourself up to read. And the others are quite right in expecting you, now school is over, to be a woman, "with a heart at leisure from itself" and from ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... invalidism about her—but I think that already they had pronounced her doom unless perhaps the change to a southern climate could re-establish her declining strength. For me it seems the very happiest period of my existence. There was my cousin, a delightful, quick-tempered little girl, some months younger than myself, whose life, lovingly watched over as if she were a royal princess, came to an end with her fifteenth year. There were other children, too, many of whom are dead now, and not a few ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... above her head, the old squaw brought it crashing upon a rock at Carmody's feet. There was the sharp ring of tempered steel, and upon the pine-needles lay the broken blade, and beyond the rock the hilt, with a scant inch of blade protruding at ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... Grey, the elder, was a little roly-poly woman, with a meek, round, fair- complexioned face, and pulpy soft-hands—one of those people who irresistibly remind one of a white mouse. She was neither clever nor wise, but she was very sweet-tempered. She had loved Dr. Grey all her life. From the time that she, a big girl, had dandled him, a baby, in her lap; throughout her brief youth, when she was engaged to young Mr. Gascoigne, who died; up to ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... major 2004 tsunami. Following the military coup in September 2006, investment and consumer confidence stagnated due to the uncertain political climate that lasted through the December 2007 elections. Foreign investor sentiment was further tempered by a 30% reserve requirement on capital inflows instituted in December 2006, and discussion of amending Thailand's rules governing foreign-owned businesses. Economic growth in 2007 was due almost entirely to robust export performance ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... dogma—in the quality of their temperaments accoladed the boy. It was not only that his voice thrilled with the higher enthusiasms of youth. It held besides an inflexibility of tone that James Thorold's lacked. Its timbre told that Peter Thorold's spirit had been tempered in a furnace fierier than the one which had given forth the older man's. The voice rang out now in excited pleasure as the boy gripped his father's shoulders. "Oh, but it's good to see you again, dad," he cried. "You're ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... like to be starved outright, at one time; had not a certain Mr. Franklin come to him, with charitable oxen, with 500 pounds-worth provisions live and dead, subscribed for at Philadelphia,—Mr Benjamin Franklin, since celebrated over all the world; who did not much admire this iron-tempered General with the pipe-clay brain. [Franklin's AUTOBIOGRAPHY;—Gentleman's Magazine,—xxv. 378.] Thereupon, however, Braddock took the road again; sprawled and staggered, at the long last, to the top; "at the top of the Alleghanies, 15th June;"—and forward ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... of Montpellier are sociable, gay, and good-tempered. They have a spirit of commerce, and have erected several considerable manufactures, in the neighbourhood of the city. People assemble every day to take the air on the esplanade, where there is a very good walk, just without the gate of ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... raiders collected about the pile of golden ingots which the Abyssinians had uncovered, and there awaited the return of their leader. Their exultation was slightly tempered by the glimpse they had had of the strange apparition of the naked white man galloping away upon the horse of one of their foemen and carrying a companion who was now among them expatiating upon the superhuman strength of the ape-man. None of them there but was familiar ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a veritable British dominion beyond the seas. For its Governor, Colonel Percy Kirke, recently returned from Tangier, was considered, but Randolph, whose advice was asked, knowing that a man like Kirke, "short-tempered, rough-spoken, and dissolute," would not succeed, urged that his name be withdrawn. It was agreed that the Governor should have a council, and at first the Lords of Trade recommended a popular assembly, whenever the Governor saw fit; but in this important ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... sleep with his bitter thoughts, which were tempered with a memory of the gentle girl at whom the evil agencies of his enemies were directed. They were eager to get possession of Mary Bransford's property, but their real fight would ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... that is to say, and Homer's); I name these two out of the numberless great Tory writers, because they were my own two masters. I had Walter Scott's novels and the Iliad (Pope's translation), for my only reading when I was a child, on weekdays; on Sunday their effect was tempered by Robinson Crusoe and the Pilgrim's Progress, my mother having it deeply in her heart to make an evangelical clergyman of me. Fortunately, I had an aunt more evangelical than her mother, and my aunt gave me cold mutton for Sunday's dinner, which, as I much preferred it ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... anyway?" demanded the taller of the two men, and Hugh saw that he had better address himself to this person, since he seemed to be the more even-tempered of the pair. ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... was little Bertha? Well, the answer to this question can only be given in superlatives, and even then it must still fall short of full expression. For little Bertha, you must know, was the sweetest-tempered, the truest-hearted, the clearest-headed, the purest-minded, the most helpful-handed, the most willing-footed—in short, the best and the nicest little backwoods damsel that ever wore linsey-woolsey frocks and homemade shoes ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... and to declare themselves against things which dishonor them and disgrace their independence." * But an invitation to enter the European maelstrom and battle for neutral rights made no impression upon the mild-tempered President. ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... road, a prey to very great disturbance of mind. The patience—humbleness even—of Betts's manner struck a pang to the young man's heart. The farm director was generally a man of bluff, outspoken address, quick-tempered, and not at all accustomed to mince his words. What Newbury perceived was a man only half persuaded by his own position; determined to cling to it, yet unable to justify it, because, in truth, the ideas put up against him by Newbury and his father ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... morals of the Renaissance, personalities were essentially positive. They were devilishly wicked or angelically good. There was nothing rosse, non-moral about the Renaissance Italian. The women were strongly tempered. I love to believe the story told by Machiavelli and Muratori of Catherine Sforza in the citadel of Forli. "Surrender or we slay your children which we hold as hostages," cried the besiegers. "Kill them if you like. I can breed more ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the story with indignation, such as Forester would have felt in similar circumstances; but prudence tempered his enthusiastic feelings; and prudence renders us able to assist others, whilst enthusiasm frequently defeats its own purposes, and injures those whom it wildly attempts to serve. Henry, knowing the character of Archibald, governed himself accordingly; ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... bed-side. She, too, was broken down with grief, and her wearied frame had lost all its power of endurance; but though the hand which held Isabel's drink trembled with weakness, the little creature never complained, nor ever acknowledged that she was ill enough to be in bed. Patient and sweet-tempered as an angel, she watched by the child of those who had done so much for her. The love and gratitude of her whole being seemed centered in that ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... consult, as the stoutest among them lost all presence of mind in overwhelming fear. The news rapidly spread through the town, and a subordinate officer, of the most mild and kind disposition, hurried to the scene, and came calm and collected into the midst of the officers. The most equable-tempered and the mildest man in the government was in this hour of peril ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... "He's Jewish-tempered," said Norton. "He has his own way of looking at things, and he don't like yours. I mean, anybody's but his own. What a quantity it must take to feed this ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... is a tall, thin, bony man; always wears shoes and black cotton stockings with his surtout; and eyes you, as you pass his parlour-window, as if he wished you were a pauper, just to give you a specimen of his power. He is an admirable specimen of a small tyrant: morose, brutish, and ill-tempered; bullying to his inferiors, cringing to his superiors, and jealous of the influence and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... sketches and drawing-material: these attracted visitors, and visitors were a trouble. Perhaps there was impertinence in their curiosity, very likely their presence hindered him; but, nevertheless, it was by no means like the sweet-tempered Clarian to show irritability and petulance, and finally, closing his door obstinately against all comers, to elect for solitude and silence at his work. No,—the boy was changed, grown morbid, a pervert, ripe for whatever Devil's sickle might be put ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... pretty just now, as she stood with her eyes cast down: like a generous tempered horse first feeling the bit; you can see that the creature will be as docile as possible, yet he is a little shy of your curb. Anything like control was absolutely new to her; and though her face was never more sweet, there was with that a touch ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... be at last in the tropics, deep into them, and to wear white all day and feel the heat tempered by the Trades. We played games and sang and lazed and loafed, and life had no troubles. Why should I think of future difficulties when there were none at hand, and the weather was lovely? We ran at last into Apia, the harbour of Upolu, the island where the late Robert Louis Stevenson lived. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... worst of it is, I doubt I love her, or I should never bear all this. However, I'll never be weak enough to own it. But I meet with nothing but crosses and vexations—and the fault is entirely hers. I am, myself, the sweetest-tempered man alive, and hate a teasing temper; and so I tell her a hundred times a day.—Ay! and what is very extraordinary, in all our disputes she is always in the wrong. But Lady Sneerwell, and the set she meets at her house, encourage the perverseness of her disposition. Then, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... approval of both parents all along. But a rather curious change had come over her father, she thought, a few months ago. What it was that had caused it she could not say, but he grew nervous and moody, often absent-minded, and sometimes even short-tempered and snappish, a thing she had never known before. Also he read the daily papers with much care and eagerness. It was plain that Miss Peytral had no idea of any cause which might have led to a quarrel between Bowmore and her father, and Hewitt's ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... moment from his search after the essential and the abiding. Outward circumstances were of little interest to him. And in this direction lay the main defect of his mind; it was too exclusively Platonic, subjective and spiritual. Had his profound Germanic intuitiveness of vision been tempered with a little more of our homely Anglo-Saxon common sense, the combination ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... a frequency of forms and figures of speech (originally the offspring of passion, but now the adopted children of power), greater than would be desired or endured, where the emotion is not voluntarily encouraged and kept up for the sake of that pleasure, which such emotion, so tempered and mastered by the will, is found capable of communicating. It not only dictates, but of itself tends to produce, a more frequent employment of picturesque and vivifying language, than would be natural in any other case, in which there did not exist, as there does in the present, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... figure which the riding costume that he was wearing well set off. Fair-haired and blue-eyed, with good though irregular features, he was pleasant-faced and attractive rather than handsome. The cheerful, good-tempered manner that he displayed even at that trying early hour was a true indication of a happy and light-hearted disposition that made him as liked by his brother officers as by other men who did not know him so well. In his regiment all the native ranks adored the young sahib, who was always ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... her skin of snow that the fierce sun could not darken, was like the shining angel who walks at the right hand of a good Mohammedan. They saw no wrong in Ahmara's presence; but she was haughty and high-tempered, and took part against them with Stanton. The whisper ran that the dancing-woman had brought bad luck to the expedition for so long as she was with the caravan; whereas, if fortune were to come, it would come through the white girl who nursed the sick and had a smile or a ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... not, although often pressed by Lord Grey's friends, have any communication with him without either deceiving him or deceiving the King; and he would not do either. The King asked what sort of a man Lord Grey was? The Duke said he really did not know. He had the reputation of being an ill-tempered, violent man; but he knew very little of him. He had never had any political conversation with him. The King ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... and Miss Waddington made up the party. Of the former, little more need be said, and that little should be all in her praise. She was a lady-like, soft-mannered, easy-tempered woman, devoted to her niece, but not strongly addicted to personal exertions on her own part. The fact that she was now at Jerusalem, so far away from her own comfortable drawing-room, sufficiently proved that she ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... is still something he must do before that: he has a vague recollection of a long-standing coolness between himself and his younger brother, Lionel. They never have got on very well together; Lionel is so different—much cleverer even already, for one thing; better looking too, and better tempered. Whatever they quarrelled about Wilfred is very sure that he was the offender; Lionel never begins that kind of thing. But he will put himself in the right at once, and ask Lionel to make friends again; he will consent readily ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... not for want of badness, but cleverness to tell them smoothly; you know it, you know it; and so out of your abominable slyness you won't say a word. There, it is no use my trying to provoke him. I wish you were not so good-tempered; so apathetic I mean, of course." Then, with one of her old rapid transitions, she began to caress him and fawn on him: she seated him in an arm-chair and herself on a footstool, and suddenly curling round his neck, murmured, "Dear, dear brother, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Gay has rendered his saw completer by the invention of a tubular perforator for drilling the preliminary well. It is based upon the same principle as the Leschot rotary drill, but differs from that in its extremity being simply of tempered steel instead of being set with black diamonds. A special product, called metallic agglomerate, is used instead of sand for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... tempered Perk, "I've rubbed that on, an' witch hazel, an' all sorts o' lotions till I guess now I smell like a stick-pot set out, with old rags smoulderin' to keep the skeets away. Salt water helps a mite, but this scratchin' which I just can't let up ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... Perfect health, which yet a slight thing was enough to shake to the foundation;—joyous spirits, which a look could quell;—happy energies, which a harsh hand might easily crush for ever. Well for little Fleda that so tender a plant was permitted to unfold in so nicely tempered an atmosphere. A cold wind would soon have killed it. Besides all this there were charming studies to be gone through every day with Hugh; some for aunt Lucy to hear, some for masters and mistresses. There were amusing walks ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... pages, as I think in after years, if we live, the impressions now put down will recall more vividly her chief characteristics. From whatever point I look back at her, the main feature in her disposition which at once rises before me is her buoyant joyousness, tempered by two other characteristics; namely, her sensitiveness, which might easily have been overlooked by a stranger, and her strong affection. Her joyousness and animal spirits radiated from her whole countenance, and rendered every movement elastic and full ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... OR BASTARDS also furnish strong proof of the correctness of this our leading doctrine. They are generally lively, sprightly, witty, frolicsome, knowing, {225} quick of perception, apt to learn, full of passion, quick-tempered, impulsive throughout, hasty, indiscreet, given to excesses, yet abound in good feeling, and are well calculated to enjoy life, though in general sadly deficient in some ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... creatures seemed to recognise our traps and avoid them; so that at length a time came when we were pretty hard put to it to make a living. Then, too, we began to feel lonesome, and to get snappy and short-tempered with each other; to dream and think and talk about home and its comforts, until we grew thoroughly dissatisfied with the life we were living; and one day, after we had had one of our now frequent quarrels, I ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... boy evidently was in a chastened mood. If I had handled him gently and diplomatically, I might have done something with him. I suppose I'm an irritable, nasty-tempered beast. It is easy to lay the blame on my helpless legs. It isn't my legs. I've conquered my damned legs. It isn't ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... down, as any truly self-respecting sun should, on a fine August afternoon; yet its heat was tempered by a soft, cool breeze that just stirred the leaves above my head. The river was busy whispering many things to the reeds, things which, had I been wise enough to understand, might have helped me to write many wonderful books, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... your very striking illustration, and your doubts as to my having read the papers correctly," I remarked, "I am sure that the Russian peasant does, occasionally, murder with premeditation. He is a fine-tempered, much-enduring, admirable fellow, I admit, but he is human. He cannot be so different in this respect from all other races of men. Moreover, I have the testimony of a celebrated Russian author on ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... to me to be very agreeable," continued the curate. "At first I misjudged him—he's a little quick-tempered—but he knows so well how to atone for his faults afterwards that one can't hold anything against him. If it were ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... greffiers and burgomasters, and be as merry in a dyke as my lady frog herself. The moment your curiosity is agog, or your cambric seized, you recollect a good cousin in England, and, as folks said two hundred years ago, begin to write "upon the knees of your heart." Well! I am a sweet-tempered creature, I ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... the Lower Thebaid, was Paul left at the death of both his parents, in a rich inheritance, with a sister already married; being about fifteen years old, well taught in Greek and Egyptian letters, gentle tempered, loving God much; and, when the storm of persecution burst, he withdrew into ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... Concorde the fiacre had to stop altogether. The immense square was a sea of white hats and flowers and happy faces, with carriages anchored like boats on its surface. Flag after flag waved out from neighbouring roofs in the breeze that tempered the August sun. Then hats began to go up, and cheers rolled across the square like echoes of firing in an enclosed valley. Chirac's driver jumped madly on to his seat, and cracked ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... hot-tempered, they make many enemies, and when engaged in public life, which they are usually well fitted for, they often find themselves bitterly attacked ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... man also not a little studied (as he seemeth) in his art; for I heard him once myselfe, in a publique act in Oxford, and that in presence of my Lord of Leicester (if I be not deceived), maintain that poyson might be so tempered and given as it should not appear presently, and yet should kill the party afterward, at what time should be appointed; which argument belike pleased well his lordship, and therefore was chosen to be discussed in his audience, if I be not deceived of his being that day present. ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Victor Hugo's "La Legende des Siecles," but I happened to be in Paris while they were afoot. I might have seen one of Hugo's dramas at the Theatre Francais, but I avoided this experience, my admiration for Hugo being tempered after the manner of M. Andre Gide's. M. Gide, asked with a number of other authors to say who was still the greatest modern French poet, replied: "Victor Hugo—alas!" So I chose Brieux instead of Hugo, and saw "La Robe Rouge" ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... disengaging and accenting qualities. Who could ever have foreseen that Hugh might some day be described as "a man of the world"? Yet if that vague phrase were to be taken in its best sense, as describing a personality both tempered and refined by the play of the world's forces upon it, it might certainly be now used of the man ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lady carry her admiration of her own candour, that she was actually upon the point of quarrelling with Emilie again, the next morning, because she did not seem sufficiently sensible of the magnanimity with which she had confessed herself to be ill-tempered. These few specimens are sufficient to give an idea of this lady's powers of tormenting; but, to form an adequate notion of their effect upon Emilie's spirits, we must conceive the same sort of provocations to be repeated every ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... dear son. And I pray thee, pardon me that I spoke harshly to thee. For indeed I am ill-tempered by reason of my infirmities; and as for thee, GOD will reward thee for thy goodness to me, as I never can. Moreover, I believe it is thy modesty, which is as great as thy goodness, that hath hindered thee from telling ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... been then. Oh, she had loved him then, had loved the very faults she had imagined in him. Perhaps after he was dead she would remember him with her earlier tenderness. She would blame herself for making him the irascible, hot-tempered brute he had ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the southward. Matters did not improve. The captain, having abstained from liquor while on shore, recompensed himself by taking a double allowance, and became proportionably morose and ill-tempered, never speaking civilly to me, and often passing a whole day without exchanging a word with his poor mate; and when he did open his mouth it was to abuse. The brig, though tolerably tight when light, now that she had a full cargo, ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... In reality, however, the sobriquet was more ancient than that, for it had belonged to the hero of this story from babyhood. Now, when a man has a nickname, it generally implies two things: first, that he is good-tempered, and, secondly, that he is a good fellow. Bottles, alias John George Peritt, of a regiment it is unnecessary to name, amply justified both these definitions, for a kindlier-tempered or better fellow ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... although the temperature in the interior ranges from 90 deg. in the shade to over 60 deg. below zero Fahr. May, June, and July are the best months for travelling, for the days are then generally bright and pleasant and the heat tempered by a cool breeze. On the coast during the summer rain and fogs prevail, and the sun is only occasionally visible, for there are on an average only sixty-six fine days throughout the year. In 1884, a rainfall of sixty-four ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... position of assistant chemist of the Harrisville Iron & Steel Co., to which, six months before, he had been promoted. He had fine physique, dark hair and eyes, and a military bearing that made him the natural commander of men. His firmness, tempered with great kindness of heart, always won for him the respect of both men ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... unspring, and the spirit of the fathers of New England is not seen, hovering and shedding around the benign influences of sound, social, moral, and religious institutions, stronger and more enduring than knotted oak or tempered steel? The swelling tide of their descendants has spread upon our coasts, ascended our rivers, taken possession of our plains. Already it encircles our lakes. At this hour, the rushing noise of the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... left to it for decision, to attempt a bold move. In a flash—in fact, as a black cat with angry yellow-slitted eyes put its head around the door jamb—a jade-green parakeet with red and yellow breast feathers hopped onto Osterbridge Hawsey's ankle, and with a speed tempered by its most engaging ways, sidled up ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson |
