"Harshness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... study of many of the chief branches of knowledge, including the sciences. His next twenty years were filled with difficulty and sorrow. Two volumes of poems which he published in 1830 and 1832 were greeted by the critics with their usual harshness, which deeply wounded his sensitive spirit and checked his further publication for ten years; though the second of these volumes contains some pieces which, in their later, revised, form, are among his chief lyric triumphs. In 1833 his warm friend Arthur Hallam, a young man of extraordinary ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... compound term, though not distinguished by hyphens. Of course the composition of words is sometimes allowable even in English: but the habit of dealing with German seems to have produced, in the pages before us, a prodigious superabundance of this form of expression; which gives harshness and strangeness, where the matter would at all events have been surprising enough. Secondly, I object, with the same qualification, to the frequent use of inversion; which generally appears as a transposition ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... his misfortunes, she felt herself a head and shoulders taller in cheerful and sterling courage. She could walk head in air along the most precarious rafter; her hand feared neither the grossness nor the harshness of life's web, but was thrust cheerfully, if need were, into the briar bush, and could take hold of any crawling horror. Ruin was mining the walls of her cottage, as already it had mined and subverted Mr. Archer's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unnatural?' said the Earl. 'At his age, with everything before him, nothing but what he felt as my harshness could so have checked hope and enjoyment. My poor Louis!' And, though eye and voice were steady and tearless, no words could express the anguish ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... already repented of his harshness and said "The human body is an aggregation of flesh and sinew, around a central bony structure. The use of clothing is primarily to protect this organism from rain and cold, and it may not be regarded as the banner of morality without danger to this fundamental premise. If a person ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... path to the freedom he has won led past the very foot of the scaffold. I am of the sex whose duty it is to be patient. My father is so good at heart, gentler possibly, in his true self, than is my mother. She indeed, absorbed in her political ambitions, often turns from me with a harshness that accords ill with mother-love. It is my fate to endure this life. Ask yourself, dear friend, how could I trust to a chance adventurous stranger whom my brother sends to me from out of his wild, artistic circle in Rheinsberg—sends ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... no villages in the track, as to beat him—yet without the precaution of putting him afterwards in fetters. The next night, accordingly, this head-man made his escape; much to the displeasure of Xenophon, who severely reproached Cheirisophus first for his harshness, and next for his neglect. This was the only point of difference between the two (says Xenophon) during the whole march; a fact very honorable to both, considering the numberless difficulties against which they had to contend. Episthenes ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... subject of complaint on the part of some foreign powers, and has been characterized with more of harshness than of justice. If comparisons were to be instituted, it would not be difficult to present repeated instances in the history of states standing in the very front of modern civilization where communities far less offending and more defenseless than ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... attracted by her fearless and independent nature and her queenly bearing. She dreams of a distinguished professional career; but the course of her life is changed suddenly by pity for her timid little brother Adrian, the victim of his guardian-uncle's harshness. The story describes the daring means adopted ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... burning blush of embarrassment, as he realized that his outburst had been overheard by her who had been the cause of it. But his eyes met her quizzical glance with candid directness. After a moment, he spoke. All the harshness was gone from his voice; its soft drawl was vibrant ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... there was a silence that was interrupted only by human voices in the distance and the sound of carriages from the streets down in the city. In the compassion that Eleanore after all felt for Eberhard she sensed the harshness of her unqualified refusal. She looked at him courageously, firmly, and said: "It is not obstinacy on my part, Eberhard; nor is it stupid anxiety, nor imagination, nor lack of respect. Truth to tell ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... roughly, "will you never have done and go to sleep?" And so, taking surly harshness for a mask when my heart was nigh bursting with shame and grief, I turned my back ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... which he filled with honor and satisfaction. Many slaves were helped to their freedom by his efforts and advice. He was bold, yet discreet; wise without pedantry; humble without religious affectation; firm without harshness; kind without weakness. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... be used with far better effect, if its principles are employed in softening the harshness and mitigating the rigour of the great style, than if in attempt to stand forward with any pretensions of its own ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... deeply regretted my mistake, for I had uttered suspicions of the observer's powers of discernment, unjust suspicions which the translator's inaccuracy led me into entertaining. May this note serve to mitigate the harshness of the strictures provoked by my overtaxed credulity! I do not scruple to attack ideas which I consider false; but Heaven forfend that I should ever attack those who uphold ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... one with whom to share my grief. I wished to tell something of it to my mother, and that caused me so many new crosses that I resolved to have no other confidante of my vexations than myself. It was not through harshness that my husband treated me so, but from his hasty and violent temper; for he loved me even passionately. What my mother-in-law was continually ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... She bore his harshness with a Griselda patience, but this seemed only to add provocation to his anger. In her he saw the daughter of the woman who had trodden his pride in the dust, and he marked her out as the object of his vengeance. Finding that bitter words and deeds of cruelty left her seemingly ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... known where—and is imbued with democratic doctrine. Passing through Constantinople in 1843 he accepts a post as schoolmaster at Trnovo, but is immediately at loggerheads with the Greek bishop and departs. Returning to his birthplace he is irritated by the pride and harshness of the upper class, and he attempts to make the people rise against them. They charge him with being a disturber of the peace. "He has travelled through Europe," says their complaint to the Government, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... him but Agrippina, he ordered her off to instant execution. And, unquestionably, if people will not be murdered quietly and in a civil way, they must expect that such forbearance is not to continue for ever; and obviously have themselves only to blame for any harshness or violence which ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... in less than an hour, I had died a thousand deaths. And yet this neighbour, balanced and equable, calm-voiced and almost beneficent despite the harshness of his first remarks, had been ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... joked, or was amazed and wept as they do in a theater, rightly complained to his friends that they had killed him, not cured him, when they roused him from his state of hallucination. There are some illusions so beautiful, so healthful, and so pleasant, that we would that no harshness of this world's ways, no bitter experience, no sad reality, could awaken us from them. It is these, we fancy, that the poet tells us to trust to; such are the illusions—so-called by the world—to which we are always to give our faith. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Latch's long face did not kill the pleasure which the little interview with that kind, sweet woman, Mrs. Barfield, had created in her. She moved about her work, happy at heart, singing to herself as she washed the vegetables. Even Mrs. Latch's harshness didn't trouble her much. She felt it to be a manner under which there might be a kind heart, and she hoped by her willingness to work to gain at least the cook's toleration. Margaret suggested that Esther should give up her beer. A solid pint extra a day could ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... unhappy, so we mustn't judge her," her father said, sighing. "Poor soul, she paid for her harshness. Later the truth of the whole bad business came out, and she would have given the world to be able to beg his forgiveness-only it ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... And praise the easy vigor of a line, Where Denham's strength and Waller's{16} sweetness join. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense: Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers{17} flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar: When Ajax{18} strives some rock's vast ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... ventured to consult him; when, on hearing whom I was seeking, he became warmly interested, and gave me just the information I wanted. He said he had little doubt that Funny Frank was a clown called Brag, with whom he had had words some years back for misusing the children. He said he did not hold with harshness to the little ones in teaching them to do the feats, which certainly were wonderful. If they were frightened, they were nervous and met with accidents; but make much of them, and they thought it all fun, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... delate sinners from the pulpit, and to publish at will the crimes of a parishioner, he may often blast the innocent, and distress the timorous. He may be suspicious, and condemn without evidence; he may be rash, and judge without examination; he may be severe, and treat slight offences with too much harshness; he may be malignant and partial, and gratify his private interest or resentment under the shelter of ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... ferocity passed like a lightning-flash across the beautiful face of my fair interrogator at the mention of the French; but it disappeared again in an instant, and, turning to Benedetto, she asked with just the slightest ring of harshness in her voice,— ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... deal more than he intended—more, even, than he believed true. For a moment he felt ashamed of himself; then he reminded himself that he wasn't really to blame; that, but for his father's harshness toward him, he would never have had such sinister thoughts about him or Adelaide. Thus his apology took the form of an outburst against Hiram. "Father has brought out the worst there is in me!" he exclaimed. "He is goading me ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... our doors, we had within us, another nation, in many points alien to ourselves; of a different race largely, of a different religion almost generally; a nation which we had treated sometimes with kindness, sometimes with harshness, sometimes with justice, and many other times with injustice; but always on the principle of the integrity of the empire. [Applause.] And I could not see how an intelligent man could see what Italy was growing to, prophesy what Germany would become, and, knowing the difficulties of the present ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... schools in Yorkshire, England. Squeers, a vulgar, crafty despot, is head of Dotheboys Hall. Nicholas is an usher or undermaster in the school; Smike, a little, friendless, starved pupil who has run away to escape from drudgery and harshness.) ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... England and Mary the wife of Philip. Small, lean and sickly, painfully near-sighted, yet with an eye of fierceness and fire; her face wrinkled by the hands of care and evil passions still more than by Time, with a big man's voice, whose harshness made those in the next room tremble; yet feminine in her tastes, skilful with her needle, fond of embroidery work, striking the lute with a touch remarkable for its science and feeling, speaking many ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the reason that Harold's whole manner was the reflection of her own. Not that he was like her in person; for nature had to him been far more bountiful. But there was a certain rigidness and harshness in his mien, and a slightly repellant atmosphere around him. Probably not one of the young lambs of his flock had ever dreamed of climbing the knee of the Reverend Harold Gwynne. Though he wore the clerical garb, he did not look at all apostle-like; he was neither a St. Paul nor ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... numbers to spare. Numbers shall press home—home to terms in their capital!" Westerling's voice grew husky as he proceeded, harsh as orders to soldiers who hesitated in face of fire. "After that—after that"—the tone changed from harshness to desire, which was still the desire of possession—"the fruits of peace, a triumph that I want you to share!" He was drawing her toward him with an impulse of the force of this desire, when she broke free with an ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... and stood before his judges amid a hum of sympathy from the spectators which conveyed the news of his acquittal to him. He was another man. His features had lost their harshness, his lips were relaxed again. He looked venerable; his face bore the impression of innocence. The President read out in tones of emotion the verdict releasing the prisoner; the audience broke into applause. The gendarme who had brought Guillergues in threw himself into his arms. The President ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... in a manner which might deserve such lenity, it gave him, on the contrary, occasion frequently to abuse it by running from one dancing bout and merry-making to another, without the least care of his master's business, who out of downright affection forbore to restrain his follies with that harshness which they deserved, and which any ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... hide one line, or one rosebud, how the whole is injured, and how much there is to study in the detail of it. Look at this little diamond crown, with a lock of the hair escaping from beneath it; and at the beautiful way in which the tiny leaf at a, is set in the angle to prevent its harshness; and having examined this well, consider what a treasure of thought there is in a cathedral front, a hundred feet wide, every inch of which is wrought with sculpture like this! And every front of our thirteenth century cathedrals is inwrought with ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... distinguished by the same fairness of mind, and by an equanimity to which perturbation and impulsive injustice were alike unknown. There seems to have been in his bearing something of that stern, impassive gravity that marked Washington, and imposed a constraint upon bystanders; but whatever apparent harshness there was in the face only concealed a genuine warmth of heart, which at times broke with an illumining smile through the mask that covered it, and was always ready to respond to the appeals of ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... to save her from the evil of marrying Leonard in case he should repent of his harshness, and later on yield himself to her wooing? The fierce movement of her whole body, which almost threw the clothes from her bed, as the shameful recollection rolled over her, marked the measure of ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... disloyalty in himself and harshness to his darling, yet disposed to persevere in it, a horribly cruel thought crossed his mind. He would not call for her, as he had promised, at the end of a quarter of an hour! Yes, it would be a punishment she well deserved. ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... Bele: "These are my last commands. On you, O Helge, my eldest son, I place a father's care. Guard and love your sister Ingeborg. Be gentle and guide her with loving words. Noble spirits fret under harshness, but loving and gentle manners win all ...
— Northland Heroes • Florence Holbrook
... man says with harshness is true in semblance, if not strictly so in action. For the moment, thinking of my wife and child, I hesitated, and when the hesitation was gone the opportunity was gone with it. My punishment has been severe; by that ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... half-forgotten impression of continual music; they render its air sacred and fill it with something so akin to an uplifted silence as to leave one—when one has passed from their influence—asking what balm that was which soothed all the harshness ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... yours, my good Lambert, seems to have been a pretty comedy forsooth," replied Sir Marmaduke lightly, "and you played to some purpose, meseems, when you once began.... Nay! I pray you," he added with unmitigated harshness, "do not drag me into your quarrels.... I cannot of a ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... almost every vice, and knowing scarcely any virtue but those of reckless bravery and uncalculating obedience to their leader, their situation still presents some aspects which affect or amuse us; and these the poet has seized with his accustomed skill. Much of the cruelty and repulsive harshness of these soldiers, we are taught to forget in contemplating their forlorn houseless wanderings, and the practical magnanimity, with which even they contrive to wring from Fortune a tolerable scantling of enjoyment. Their manner of existence ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... the downfall of the Prince, whom he had always hated, looking upon him as a usurper of his own rights upon the fortune of the Desvarennes. He began lamenting to his aunt, when she turned upon him with unusual harshness, and he felt bound as he said, laughing, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... any sorrow, and bleeding from any wound, there is a balm and a physician. There is one hand that will never be laid with blundering kindness or with harshness upon our sore hearts, but whose touch will be healing, and whose ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... of the average character leads to an amelioration of system; and further, that were it possible to ameliorate the system without the average character being first ameliorated, evil rather than good would follow. Such degree of harshness as children now experience from their parents and teachers, may be regarded as but a preparation for that greater harshness which they will meet on entering the world. And it may be urged that were it possible for parents ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... know what it cost him to utter these abrupt sentences. He seemed harsh, even in confining his harshness. She was as far ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... argued with and controlled by all the authorities concerned in king's business, his little sweetheart herself put an end to the matter. Her parents told her all unpreparedly, and with no doubt unnecessary harshness, the real position of the college lad with whom she had wandered in the fields so confidingly; and in the bewilderment of her poor little broken heart and puzzled brain, she gave herself to the river by whose flowering banks she had sworn her maiden vows,—though she knew it ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... it is past," she said. But even as she spoke she put a hand to her brow. "I am something dizzy. My condition—" She faltered on a trembling note of appeal that increased their compassion, and aroused in them a shame of their own harshness. "Leave this security with me. I will subscribe it in the morning—indeed, as soon as ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... yonder, and you and I will behold it no more. That to me is a small thing. I am weary. Hope is dead; and when that is dead what does it signify that the body die also? Yet in these last hours that we shall spend together I would at least have your esteem. I would have you forget my past harshness and the wrongs that I may have done you down to that miserable affair of your sweetheart's letter, yesterday. I would have you realize that if I am vile, I am but such as a vile world hath made me. And tomorrow when we go forth ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... we were amazed at his harshness, and the poor cook was completely overwhelmed; for little as Roger said, there was something in his manner of saying it that burned like fire. But later, when we looked back on that day and remembered how bitterly we were discouraged, we ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... bereavement, unless in such allusion to Frado. She donned her weeds from custom; kept close her crape veil for so many Sabbaths, and abated nothing of her characteristic harshness. ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... doorway and the doctor was called from his pondering by the voice of the girl. There was something about that voice which worried Byrne, for it was low and controlled and musical and it did not fit with the nasal harshness of the cattlemen. When she began to speak it was like the beginning of a song. He turned now and found her sitting a tall bay horse, and she led a red-roan mare beside her. When he went out she tossed ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... The fact is that the Latin word applied to the great tax-farming companies, who were acting for Rome, was afterwards transferred to even the smallest collecting agent with opportunities for extortion and harshness. ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... might see the white doves yonder flutter up suddenly out of the trees by the farm, little flecks of white clouds themselves, and everywhere all throughout the plain an exquisite silence, a delicious repose, not one clang or harshness of sound to shatter the beauty of it. There you might stand on the high down among the thyme and watch it, hour after hour, and still no interruption; nothing to break it up. It was something like the broad folio of an ancient illuminated manuscript, in gold, gules, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... understand the sorrow that pervades the pages of his Reminiscences. He died in 1881, and at his own wish was buried, not in Westminster Abbey, but among his humble kinsfolk in Ecclefechan. However much we may differ from his philosophy or regret the harshness of his minor works, we shall probably all agree in this sentiment from one of his own letters,—that the object of all his struggle and writing was "that men should find out and believe the truth, and match ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... gallery, and in a few moments returned with two visitors: the youthful prophetess Esther, and her companion, a man short in stature, but with a powerful and well-knit frame. His countenance was melancholy, and, with harshness in the lower part, not without a degree of pensive beauty in the broad clear brow and sunken eyes, unusual in ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... sickness, and the tedium of waiting for spring, men from the same region will best console and relieve each other. The maintenance of our cause rests on the sentiments of the people. Letters from the camp, complaining of inequality and harshness in the treatment of the men, have already dulled the enthusiasm which filled our ranks with men who by birth, fortune, education, and social position were the equals of any officer in the land. The spirit of our military law ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... in Aram any thing that savoured of the harshness of pedantry, or the petty vanities of dogmatism: his voice was soft and low, and his manner always remarkable for its singular gentleness, and a certain dignified humility. His language did indeed, at times, assume a ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... glanced up at the man's face she no longer felt it at all. For, despite the glory of the sunset on him, there seemed to be a cold shadow in his eyes. The faint lines near his mouth looked deeper than before, and now suggested most powerfully the dreariness, the harshness of long-continued suffering. The mouth itself was compressed and grim, and the man's whole expression was fierce and startling as the expression of a criminal bracing himself to endure inevitable detection. So crude and piercing indeed ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... sake, as well as for her niece's, she was resolute to defend herself against injustice. Alfred could scarcely bring himself to believe that Buckhurst Falconer had acted in the manner represented, with a rapacity, harshness, and cruelty, so opposite to his natural disposition. Faults, Alfred well knew that Buckhurst had; but they were all, he thought, of quite a different sort from those of which he now stood accused. What was to be done? Alfred was extremely ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... Geotrupes devote themselves to the general health; and these two corporations, so interesting in their hygienic functions, so remarkable for their domestic morals, fall victims to the vermin of poverty. Alas, of this discrepancy between the services rendered and the harshness of life there are many other examples outside the world ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... just far enough to let her eyes take in Savinien's window, she saw the face of her lover above the fastening of his. When one reflects on the immense services that windows render to lovers it seems natural and right that a tax should be levied on them. Having thus protested against her godfather's harshness, Ursula dropped the curtain and opened her window to close the outer blinds, through which she could continue to see without being seen herself. Seven or eight times during the day she went up to her room, always to find the young viscount writing, tearing up ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... is apt, I know,— Some harshness show, All vain asperities I, day by day, Would wear away, Till the smooth temper of my age should be Like the high leaves upon ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... residing in the pleasant quarters in the Logur valley the captives of the passes were joined by nine officers, who were the captives of Ghuznee. After the capitulation the latter had been treated with cruel harshness, shut up in one small room, and debarred from fresh air and exercise. Colonel Palmer, indeed, had undergone the barbarity of torture in the endeavour to force him to disclose the whereabouts of treasure which he was suspected ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... are called children of the bridegroom, were as yet of a weakly disposition, wherefore they are compared to an old garment." Hence while Christ was with them in body they were to be fostered with kindness rather than drilled with the harshness of fasting. According to this interpretation, it is fitting that dispensations should be granted to the imperfect and to beginners, rather than to the elders and the perfect, according to a gloss on Ps. 130:2, "As a child that ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... want of care towards the negroes. For the well being, however, of the negroes it is absolutely necessary to maintain obedience, order and discipline, to see that the tasks are punctually and carefully performed, and to conduct the business steadily and firmly, without weakness on the one hand or harshness on the other." Charles Manigault likewise required of his overseer in Georgia a pledge to treat his negroes "all with kindness and consideration in sickness and health." On J.W. Fowler's plantation in the Yazoo-Mississippi delta from ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... among those placid and humane people to be sensible that servitude, hopeless, endless servitude, could exist with so little servility and fear on the one side, and so little harshness or even sternness of authority on the other. In Europe, the footing on which service is placed in consequence of the corruptions of society, hardens the heart, destroys confidence, and embitters life. The deceit and venality of servants not absolutely ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... the poet's youth and its promise, treated the volumes unmercifully. Tennyson, always sensitive to criticism, was sensible enough to see that the critics had ground for their opinions, if not for their harshness; and for ten long years, while he labored to perfect his art, his name did not ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... there can be no translation from one language into another which shall not scant the meaning somewhat, or enlarge upon it, so there is no language which can render thought without a jarring and a harshness somewhere—and so forth; all of which seemed to come to this in the end, that it was the custom of the country, and that the Erewhonians were a conservative people; that the boy would have to begin compromising sooner or later, and this was part of his education ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... the secret she had determined that it must be made known to him. She felt that she had deserved his good opinion in all things, but in nothing more than in the way in which she had acted in this matter. And yet he had treated her with an imperious harshness which amounted to insolence. What a letter it was that he had written to her! The very tips of her ears tingled with heat as she read it again to herself. None of the ordinary courtesies of epistle-craft had been preserved either in the beginning or in the end. It was worse even ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... is no longer rank and file, or commander-in-chief. Nothing remains but individual particles, 26 millions of equal and disconnected atoms. Never was so much disintegrated matter, less capable of resistance, offered to hands undertaking to mold it. Harshness and violence will be sufficient to ensure success. These brutal hands are ready for the work, and the Assembly which has reduced the material to powder has likewise provided the mortar and pestle. As awkward in destruction ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... lay against the pink-brocaded window-hangings of the suite in the Hotel Metropolis; it even crept in like a timid hand reaching toward, yet not quite touching, the full-flung figure of Mrs. Blutch Connors, lying, her cheek dug into the harshness of the carpet, there at the closed door to the bedroom—prone as if washed there, and her yellow hair streaming back like seaweed. Sobs came, but only the dry kind that beat in the throat and then come shrilly, like a sheet ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... of your neck. My beautiful book was gone too—ravished from my grasp by the dressy lady, who joined in the outburst of denunciation as heartily as if she had been a relative—and naught was left me but to blubber dismally, awakened of a sudden to the harshness of real things and the unnumbered hostilities of the actual world. I cared little for their reproaches, their abuse; but I sorrowed heartily for my lost ship, my vanished island, my uneaten dinner, and for the knowledge that, if I wanted any angels to play ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... the destruction of the force under his command. An Indian declared, in the hearing of some inhabitants of Sudbury, that he knew this to be true. Two of the townsmen took the babbler to Boston, ostensibly to be punished for his license of speech. The Governor treated the informers with great harshness, put them under heavy bonds, and sent one of them to jail. The comment of the time was not unnatural nor uncandid:—"Although no man does accuse Sir Edmund merely upon Indian testimony, yet let it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... the formation of the touch, giving dementi's Preludes at first. "Is that a dog barking?" was his sudden exclamation at a rough attack. He taught the scales staccato and legato beginning with E major. Ductility, ease, gracefulness were his aim; stiffness, harshness annoyed him. He gave Clementi, Moscheles and Bach. Before playing in concert he shut himself up and played, not Chopin but Bach, always Bach. Absolute finger independence and touch discrimination and color are to be gained by ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... and laugh, but as we enter the forest darkness they suddenly become quiet, as if the sternness of the bush oppressed their souls. We talk but little, and only in undertones. These woods have none of the happy, sensuous luxuriance which fancy lends to every tropical forest; there is a harshness, a selfish struggle for the first place among the different plants, a deadly battling for air and light. Giant trees with spreading crowns suppress everything around, kill every rival and leave only small and insignificant shrubs alive. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... commercial world you can collect the harshness, greed, avarice, selfishness and vanity from a thousand men. With these sins you can, if you are very skilful, construct a Ralph Nickleby, a Scrooge, a Jonas Chuzzlewit, an Alderman Cute, a Mr. Murdstone, a Bounderby or a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... said, were the cause of all the woe; and whole towns were pulled down to make room for them. The prelates of the sixteenth century lament the decline of charity since the Catholic times; and a divine attributed the growing selfishness and harshness to the doctrine of justification by faith. The alteration in the condition of the poor was followed by severe enactments against vagrancy; and the Protestant legislature, after creating a proletariate, treated it as a crime. The conversion of Sunday into a Jewish Sabbath cut off the holiday ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... virtually prisoners. Every house, every apartment was visited by inspectors. Rich and poor were alike compelled to submit. Every suspicious article was seized, and the man in whose dwelling it was discovered was arrested. The inspectors performed their tasks with unnecessary harshness, ruthlessly destroying any valuable object upon which they could lay their hands. They rapped upon the walls to see if they contained any secret hiding-place; they pierced the mattresses with their swords and poignards. ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... agonies of a distracted mind were but too faithfully pourtrayed!—What more then had I to say?—The negative was to come from you.—You had perpetually recurred to your promise of meeting me in the autumn—Was it extraordinary that I should demand a yes, or no?—Your letter is written with extreme harshness, coldness I am accustomed to, in it I find not a trace of the tenderness of humanity, much less of friendship.—I only see a desire to heave a load off ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... been cast. A small, barren island, bleak and inhospitable, and strangely metallic, met his gaze. The rays of the sun beating down upon it were thrown back with an uncomfortable intensity; the substance of the island was a lustrous, copperlike metal. No soil softened the harshness of the surface; indescribably rugged and pitted was the two hundred-foot expanse. It reminded Parkinson of a bronze relief-map of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... body, in order to disengage anything which might obstruct the pores, or irritate or fret the skin, nothing can be preferable to a piece of soft sponge or flannel. Though the operation should be thorough, and also as rapid as the nature of circumstances will permit, all harshness should be avoided. When finished, the child should be wiped ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... the harshness of his providences, the severe and sharp chastisements that ofttimes overtake the very spirits of his people, plainly show that Christ died not to save from temporal punishments, prays not to save from temporal punishments—that is, absolutely. God has reserved a power ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sensational a delight as the rediscovery, when idling with a book, of a favourite lyric. That when she is at anchor; but to see her, all canvas set for light summer airs, at exactly that distance where defects and harshness in her apparel dissolve, but not so far away but the white feathers at her throat are plain, is to exult in the knowledge that man once reached such greatness that he imagined and created a thing which ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... was a fool thing to do, I must say!" commented Dade, startled into harshness. He slid the pistol into its holster and buckled the belt around his muscular body with fingers that moved briskly. "Well, my riata's no slouch—you can use it. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... [1] who afterwards became Bishop of Jesi; secondly, the Procurator-Fiscal, whose name I have forgotten; [2] and, thirdly, the judge in criminal cases, Messer Benedetto da Cagli. These three men began at first to question me in gentle terms, which afterwards they changed to words of considerable harshness and menace, apparently because I said to them: "My lords, it is more than half-an-hour now since you have been pestering me with questions about fables and such things, so that one may truly say you are chattering or prattling; by chattering I mean talking without reason, by prattling I mean ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... of the differences in their ages, and their relationship of master and pupil, a hearty friendship had sprung up between them, and one destined, in spite of Johnson's occasional resentment at the actor's success in life, to last till it was ended by the grave. Much of Johnson's occasional harshness and almost contemptuous attitude towards Garrick was, I fear, the result of the consciousness that his old pupil had thoroughly succeeded in life, and had reached the highest goal possible in the career which he had chosen; while he himself, though looked up to as the greatest ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... flowing springs gush from sheltered spots looking south, one will find many green edges, young grass, and some few tougher leaves. Now, too, in still days, the crow swings heavily through the air, cawing with a pleasing harshness. For dieting has performed its work. Your appetite is eager. A little now pleases you more than abundance did in August. Every tiny leaf is to you ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... Williams, or shall I refuse to see him? You must decide for me, and I'll act as you wish. You know how unhappy mother will be if I refuse to see him and—and, you know she will be very severe with me. I would not care so much for that, although her harshness hurts me terribly. But mother's in bad health—her heart is troubling her a great deal of late—and I can't bear to cause her pain. On the other hand, it tortures me when that man comes near me, and it must pain you ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... place and prayed to the gods that my strength might be equal to the will that now moved in me—the will to take the Gorgon's head, and take from my name the shame of a broken promise, and win back to Seriphus to save my mother from the harshness of ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... submit, that, as the state looks only at present to our being well secured, we ought to be treated with every liberality consistent with our safe custody; and that any unnecessary harshness, or arrogant display of power, is nothing more or less ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... or manufacturers), and others for civil or diplomatic employments; but the fine arts, as being at that time productive of little honor or emolument, he held in no esteem, and treated these tastes of his eldest son sometimes with contempt and sometimes even with harshness. Michael Angelo, however, had formed some friendships among the young painters, and particularly with Francesco Granacci, one of the best pupils of Ghirlandajo; he contrived to borrow models and drawings, and studied them in secret with such persevering assiduity and consequent ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... countrymen, while we call your attention to the outrage on your rights, the contempt of personal obligations and the hardened cruelty involved in this detestable resolution. Condemn us not for the harshness of our language, before you hear our justification. We shall speak only the truth, but we shall speak it ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... movement was merely local, and did not seriously interfere with William's government. He was now striving to settle the land in peace, and to make his rule as little grievous to the conquered as might be. The harrying of Northumberland showed that he now shrank from no harshness that would serve his ends; but from mere purposeless oppression he was still free. Nor was he ever inclined to needless change or to that scorn of the conquered which meaner conquerors have often shown. He clearly wished both to change and to ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... pause to remember that while I may do a mean act and keep it hidden from others, I cannot keep it hidden from myself, nor from thee. Help me to have a nobler sense of the quality of life, and less anxiety for the quantity, that I may avoid harshness and selfishness, and be given ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... secure herself by such means against the consequences? Shakspeare and Nature never committed such a solecism. Camiola doubts before she has been wronged; the firmness and assurance in herself border on harshness. What in Portia is the gentle wisdom of a noble nature, appears, in Camiola, too much a spirit of calculation: it savors a little of the counting house. As Portia is the heiress of Belmont, and Camiola a merchant's daughter, the distinction may be proper and characteristic, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... like which the muletress seemed to think might well happen concerning herself—we passed lightly to speak of kindred things, the muletress responding gayly between the blows she bestowed upon her beast. The accent of these Capriotes has something of German harshness and heaviness: they say non bosso instead of non posso, and monto instead of mondo, and interchange the t and d a good deal; and they use for father the Latin pater, instead of padre. But this girl's voice, as I said, was very musical, and ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... the General, with a cold harshness of tone so at variance with his usual bland insincerity, that James Harrington looked at him in grave surprise, as he drew a seat toward the library table. For a moment there was profound silence between the two; then the General turned stiffly in his chair, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... opportunity of seeing such delights, they had their effect. When they had made their twenty-first procession the thing certainly grew stale, and as they brought with them an infinity of dirt, they were no doubt a nuisance. But no one would have been inclined to judge these amateur actors with harshness who knew how much they themselves were called on to endure, who could appreciate the disgusting misery of a hot summer afternoon spent beneath dust and paint and tin-plate armour, and who would remember that the performers received payment neither in eclat nor in thanks, ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... they were admitted only in the presence of certain individuals. The old Queen had the care of his person, and it is currently reported that she governed his gracious Majesty (it being of course necessary to do so) with considerable harshness. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... not very pleasant to keep on refusing friends," said the captain, making amends for his harshness by pouring a serious overdose of whisky into Mr. Chalk's glass, "and it's only natural for you to be anxious about it, so I removed the temptation ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... Proclamations were made either from the pulpit or read at the church-door after Mass. Royal edicts and ordinances of the Conseil Superieur prescribed the duties of citizens, and stated without vagueness the penalties which would overtake breakers of the law. Yet in spite of this apparent harshness, the laws were administered in so patriarchal a spirit as to justify the observation: "It requires great interest for a man to be ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... hold on me by admitting I knew anything?—or Belwether—do you think I care to have that man know anything about my private and personal business? Did you expect me to say that I was in a position to prove anything one way or another? And," he added with increasing harshness, "how do you know what I might or might not prove? If she went to the Patroons Club, I did not go with her; I did not see her; I don't know whether ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... Morris I should say, you see that nothing is sure in this world: and I cannot but think that this reverse will do you good. You treated every one except your mother—as you supposed Mrs. Langdon was—with harshness, insult, and insolence: perhaps now you will learn, in the very strongest manner, the exact meaning and intention ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... feet deeply moved. The harshness vanished from his face which was now alight with wonderment and love. Dressed in a muslin frock and straw hat, she looked simple and fresh, and yet carried the air and distinction which had always marked her in any company. But though she smiled into his ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... they were accustomed to that order of things from the beginning and had no other thought; on the whole too, without doubt, they received regular and kindly treatment. Furthermore, there was no redress for the peasant in case of harshness; it was always the wise policy, therefore, for him to accept whatever was given without even the appearance of dissatisfaction. This spirit was connected with the dominance of the military class. Simple trustfulness ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... to others when executing music; and, above all, to listen with the greatest care to themselves, and never to accept any musical tone that does not fully satisfy the ear. When one considers how much harshness is passed as singing or speaking, by the student, even by those who pose as public singers and speakers, one must often wonder where they keep their ears. As a matter of fact, the ideal listeners are rare, and the critical ear, like a sentinel ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats,—messengers Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth;— With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart; Turned her obedience, which is due to me, To stubborn harshness.—And, my gracious duke, Be it so she will not here before your grace Consent to marry with Demetrius, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,— As she is mine I may dispose of her: Which shall be either to ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... contains some lesson for us. And this is the short comment on the miracle by an old writer, "Him whom the rod of terror will not rouse, love will." Or in other words, we may learn by this that gentleness will succeed where harshness will fail. ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... Michael Scott, he would no doubt have met with a warm reception. Out of pure spite to Michael, however, when Satan learned who was his billet-master, he would no more receive him than he would receive the Wife of Beth; and instead of treating the unfortunate man with the harshness characteristic of him, he showed him considerable civilities. Introducing him to his "Ben Taigh," he directed her to show the stranger any curiosities he might wish to see, hinting very significantly that he had provided some accommodation for their ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... and ordered them to proceed to Kingston, adding that he would join them there early the next morning. One of them, an old serving-man, noticing the exceeding haggardness of his looks, endeavoured to persuade him to go with them; but Wyat, with a harshness totally unlike his customary manner, which was gracious and kindly ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Among familiar scenes and well-known shapes, it is all the delight the poets sing—so tranquillizing, inspiring, fecund, that in comparison the thought of day brings up garish hues, flaunting figures—the hardness, harshness and unlovely in life. But night in the goblin-land, where Dick found himself suddenly deserted, with fantastic forms swaying in the lazy wind, would have had terrors for the most constant mind; terrors such ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... or that she would share it less willingly with her than with the others. The unwillingness was on her part. And the root of this unwillingness was pride, and an unforgiving remembrance of what she called her aunt's harshness to her. Aunt Elsie had been at times more or less hard with all her nieces. But she had been so to Christie in a way different from the rest; and the child was willing to believe that the cause lay less in her waywardness than in her aunt's unjust partiality. ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... about these rude battlements, "rich with the spoils of time!" In looking back upon the ancient days it is fortunate that the mellowing influence of time dims the vision, and we see down the long vista of years as through a softening twilight, else we should behold such harshness as would arouse more of ire than of admiration. The olden time, like the landscape, appears best in the ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... compassion. I am convinced that you have hitherto acted upon the purest motives; But though you are blind to the imprudence of your conduct, in me it would be culpable not to open your eyes. I feel that Duty obliges my treating you with harshness: I must reject your prayer, and remove every shadow of hope which may aid to nourish sentiments so pernicious to your repose. Matilda, you ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... apprehensive of their cries alarming the neighbourhood. The Moosulmaun woman, for such she secretly was, did not regard the death of the wicked Jew, who had married her against her will, and often used her with great harshness, and her sorrows for the children were softened by the salvation of her own life. She also felt sentiments of tenderness towards the prince, whose injuries in the murder of his unfortunate brothers had compelled him to revenge, and felt herself ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... professional?" whispered Adela to Arabella. She wanted little invitation to exhibit her skill, at all events, for, at a word, the clear, bold, but finely nervous voice, was pealing to a brisker measure, that would have been joyous but for one fall it had, coming unexpectedly, without harshness, and winding up the song ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they heard of his death; but they soon forgot his harshness, remembered only his bravery and all the good he had done them in his youth, and regretted their ingratitude. Long after, as you will see, his body was carried to Athens, and buried not far from the A-crop'o-lis, which was a fortified hill or citadel in the midst of the city. Here the Athenians ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... colour in the abstract, Rossetti and Holman Hunt are distinguished above the rest for rendering colour under effects of light; and of these two, Rossetti composes with richer fancy and with a deeper sense of beauty, Hunt's stern realism leading him continually into harshness. Rossetti's carelessness, to do him justice, is only in ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the woman in charge of the prison, who came to acquaint the beautiful Sol of the governor's order, that she should be cut off from all intercourse with her friends, and treated with yet greater severity and harshness. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Transportation Department says that packers must treat all the mules kindly, for a mule remembers kindness and never forgets injury. Packers must not even throw stones, to drive a mule into line. Of course, Boy Scouts know that kindness with animals always wins out over harshness, and that there is no greater cowardliness than the abuse ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... Assembly proposed this to the visitor who, as Roman Catholic, could not take it, and said as much, but offered his own declaration of friendliness to the powers that were. This was declined. Debate followed, ending with a request from the Assembly that the visitor depart from Virginia. Some harshness of speech ensued, but hospitality and the amenities fairly saved the situation. One Thomas Tindall was pilloried for "giving my lord Baltimore the lie and threatening to knock him down." Baltimore thereupon set sail, but not, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... In fact, they gave me to believe, that such was the excitement of the moment, such the embittered vengeance of those whose families or fortunes had suffered by the rebellion, that no reprisals would be thought too heavy, nor any harshness too great, for those ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... man in whom he believes, has been the main-spring of his unflagging strength. He is not liked or popular in any way, though Surgeon-Major Taggart upholds him manfully, and McFadyen is loyal to the old bond. His harshness repels regard, his coldness blights confidence, and so, though he is admired for his dazzling skill in surgery, for his dogged perseverance and unremitting power of application, for his fine horsemanship and iron nerve; he is ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... family servants were broken-hearted at the news of his death. They had been, for the most part, born and bred on the place, and in spite of his occasional harshness they loved the Colonel with the old-fashioned devotion of the slave toward his master. He was in his way exceedingly kind to them. When old Uncle Eben died my uncle watched all night ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... soon banished. The flag of France flew out from the stranger's peak. Edda looked round for her father, trembling with fear. He had fallen, and lay on the deck unable to rise. She rushed towards him, all his unkindness, his harshness and injustice forgotten. She attempted to lift him up; but her strength was unequal to the task. He soon ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... I should like to answer it as it deserves, but can't do so to-day as I am obliged to go to London on business, and have hardly a moment. The kind of "gigantic brains" which you mention are, I agree with you, often repulsive—there is a harshness of dissent from all that mankind most values, all that has raised them above this earth, which cannot be right—which is the result of deficiency in some part of their minds or hearts or both, and not of excess of intellect or any other good thing. If they ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... explains his harshness. To be deceived by one we love engenders the bitterest hatred of all. And yet how could he hate poor mamma? John says she had the most beautiful, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... I am passionately in love with this girl, and more touched with her misery and her Christian heart than even with her perfections; but I am," said he, with tears in his eyes, "still more astonished at your harshness, and I say it although I know that my fate is in your hands. Yes, monseigneur, I know the law; and if my goods fall to your domain, if I become a bondsman, if I lose my house and my citizenship, I will still keep that engine, gained by my labours and my studies, on which lies there," cried ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... doth not complaine: for it is a harme but no wrong which hee hath received. He dies, because in wofull language all his senses tell him, that such is your pleasure." Fair Pamela feels deeply moved when reading this, and confesses her harshness; she denied him a look: "Two times I must confess," says she to her sister, not without a pretty touch of humour of a very modern sort, "I was about to take curtesie into mine eyes, but both times the former resolution stopt the entrie of it: so, that hee departed ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... turned to him, and Hortensius Martius appeared just then so like a naughty child, that the look of harshness died out of the praefect's eyes, and a smile almost of amusement, certainly of indulgence, lit up for a moment the ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... happy father embraced her with tears of joy; and the princess, on her side, afforded similar testimonies of her extreme pleasure. After a short interval, devoted to mutual explanations of all that had happened, the sultan restored Aladdin to his favor, and expressed his regret for the apparent harshness with which ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... faintly said: 'I knew you at the first: though you have grown You scarce have altered: I am sad and glad To see you, Florian. I give thee to death My brother! it was duty spoke, not I. My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. Our mother, is she well?' With that she kissed His forehead, then, a moment after, clung About him, and betwixt them blossomed up From out a common vein of memory Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, And far allusion, ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... principal interest, after thirteen centuries of well-intentioned spoliation, resides in their unequalled collection of early Christian mosaics. It is an interest simple, as who should say, almost to harshness, and leads one's attention along a straight and narrow way. There are older churches in Rome, and churches which, looked at as museums, are more variously and richly informing; but in Rome you stumble at every step on some curious ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Slavery began the combat, staking its life, and determined to rule or die. That we may continue freemen there must be no slaves; so that our own security is linked with the redemption of a race. Blessed lot, amidst the harshness of war, to wield the arms and deal the blows under which the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... a thousand times if there were need," he said, in tones whose gentleness equalled the harshness of ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... employed about me, was particularly charged by the Prioress to treat me with harshness. In compliance with these orders, She frequently strove to convince me, how just was my punishment, and how enormous was my crime: She bad me think myself too happy in saving my soul by mortifying my body, and even threatened me sometimes with eternal perdition. Yet as I before observed, She always ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... Easterner—almost as clear as the Paris of Balzac and Zola. Finally, the style of the story is indissolubly wedded to its matter. The narrative, in places, has an almost scriptural solemnity; in its very harshness and baldness there is something subtly meet and fitting. One cannot imagine such a history done in the strained phrases of Meredith or the fugal manner of Henry James. One cannot imagine that stark, stenographic dialogue adorned with the tinsel of pretty words. The thing, to reach ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... brig-of-war, which was lying at anchor about half a mile above. He had been impressed two years before; and being treated with cruelty and harshness, had been eagerly watching an opportunity to escape from his inhuman bondage. At length he formed a plan with one of his messmates, to slip overboard quietly the first dark night, and relying on skill in swimming, attempt to reach ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... prophesied. He could go to her now with clean hands. The mine was his again. He would lay it at her feet, telling her once more of his love and the change it was working in him. He would make her see it, make her see that beneath the harshness his years in the wild had given him, his love for her was gentle and true and all absorbing. He would bid her be patient till she saw he had mastered himself, till he could come ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... the betrayal of the city. {62} And when the city had been captured in this base and shameful manner, the successful party governed despotically: and of those who had been their own protectors, and had been ready to treat Euphraeus with all possible harshness, they expelled some and murdered others; while the good Euphraeus killed himself, thus testifying to the righteousness and purity of his motives in opposing Philip ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... Mr. Reuben, no harshness. She is a willing, kind-hearted girl, and we shall find plenty of work for her in this big house where ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... year it becomes increasingly difficult to understand—how entirely different the world was then from what it is now. It was a dark world; it was full of preventable disorder, preventable diseases, and preventable pain, of harshness and stupid unpremeditated cruelties; but yet, it may be even by virtue of the general darkness, there were moments of a rare and evanescent beauty that seem no longer possible in my experience. The great Change has come for ever more, happiness and beauty are our atmosphere, there is peace on earth ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... feet lay the great dog Prince, who had been comforted by his master for any harshness that he had suffered necessarily, and he now lay watchful but quiet, seeming to share, in a measure, the mood of his master and ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... she would be found dead in a river or would be traced as a white slave drugged and sold and shipped to the Philippine Islands. The stories were heinously cruel to her father and mother, who mourned her in Nimrim and repented dismally of their harshness to the best ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... sounded grim and desperate. Ursula rather hated it. But her mother's contempt and her father's harshness had made her raw at the quick, she knew the ignominy of being a hanger-on, she felt the festering thorn of ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... pathetic and sublime. The theme is the appeal to God. He has turned from man and toward God. His thought swings in circles majestic as the circuits of the stars. He fronts himself toward the Eternal as if to certify, "To God I make my plea." His harshness is kinder than the kindness of man. Job's orbit includes life. He runs out to God, but he runs to God. Himself is point of departure on this long journey. This oration is an apology, a plea of a great soul, pleading for what is above life. ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... was learnt that the President might put his veto upon it. It seemed to purport, contrary to the Constitution, to attaint the property of rebels after their death, and Lincoln was unwilling that the Constitution should be stretched in the direction of revengeful harshness. The objectionable feature in the Bill was removed, and Lincoln accepted it. But the suspicion with which many Republicans were beginning to regard him was now reinforced by a certain jealousy of Congressmen against the Executive power; they grumbled and sneered about having to "ascertain the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood |
