"Smoothing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... girl," she went on, smoothing out Didy's petticoats, "and I've had you for ever and ever, and I'se mos' six. But you grow no bigger. You never, never cry, you don't. You'se a stupid old thing, and I'm tired of you, I am! I b'leve you'se only a make b'leve baby, and I want a ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... threat, for anything might be expected from her. "This comes of living a good, moral life," he thought, looking at the beaming, healthy, cheerful, and kindly president, who, with elbows far apart, was smoothing his thick grey whiskers with his fine white hands over the embroidered collar of his uniform. "He is always contented and merry while ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... exclaimed, pushing her ruffled hair behind her ears, and smoothing down her purple skirt, "to think o' my bein' kissed by so many men, in my old days!—but why not?—it may be my last chance, as Joe Fairthorn says, and laugh if you please, I've got the best of it; and I don't belie my natur', for twistin' your head away and screechin' is only make-believe, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... instance, the man with the fat face—I forget his name—is sure, the moment he takes his chair, to screw up his face like this. [Imitates him.] And then he has a trick of sticking his hand under his necktie and smoothing down his beard. It doesn't matter, of course, if he makes a face at the pupils; perhaps it's even necessary. I'm no judge of that. But you yourself will admit that if he does it to a visitor, it may turn out very badly. The Inspector, or anyone else, might take it as meant ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... to a Birmingham inventor is dated May 22, 1722, it being granted to Richard Baddeley for having "with much pains, labour, and expense, invented and brought to perfection 'An Art for making streaks for binding Cart and Wagon Wheels and Box Smoothing Irons' (never yet practised in this our kingdom) which will be more durable and do three times the service of those made of bar iron," &c., &c. It is not particularly wonderful that the toyshop of England should stand first on the ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... to watching the girl. She was frightened. She sat all alone, plucking nervously at the red-and-white checkered tablecloth. She sat with her back to the light, bunching the cloth up into little folds, then smoothing it out again. ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long
... exclaimed Jack, running his hands through his hair, and smoothing his torn and rumpled garments, "then we must make ready for inspection. But I'm afraid we won't do much honor to old New York. Can I get a ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... being hungrily engaged in smoothing her child's cheeks against her own dirty ones, first one side of the face and then the other, and twitching down the dainty pink gown, gone awry during the hugging process, and alternately scolding and patting the little figure. This done, she administered ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... female friends. I know, of course, that I am only a poor, ignorant, bewildered man creature; but to my uninitiated eyes they looked as if they had all, after a very restless and perturbed sleep, come out of bed without smoothing their tumbled and disordered locks. Then, every young lady, without exception, seemed to have one kind of hair, and that the kind which was rather suggestive of the term "woolly." Every sort of wild abandon of frowzy locks seemed ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... fu' meesure, pressed doun an' rinnin' over, nae bit-pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion he's no soond, wi' his parleyvoos an' his clish-maclavers!... Mr. C?" (Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first blanket.) "Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind ance he prayed for our Free Assembly, an' then he turned roun' an' prayed for the Estaiblished, maist in the same breath,—he's a broad, leeberal mon is Mr. C!... Mr. D? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be waur, though he's ower fond o' ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... millimeters at each end. Except on the upper Agsan[5] no means are taken to strengthen this stock by winding rattan around it, unless the bamboo or wood shows indications of splitting, in which case a girdle of plaited rattan obviates the danger. No attempt at ornamentation is made except the smoothing and polishing of the wood. In the case of bamboo stocks, the projecting pieces of the joints are not removed on the proximal side of the bow. At about 2 or 3 centimeters from the extremities, two notches are made to hold the string. At the extremity, ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... a pair of cheeks! I wish you 'd get a color like this, Fanny," said Mr. Shaw, as Polly came into the dining-room after smoothing her hair. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... from above forces the ice and rock masses forward. Thus the sharp-edged blocks of granite become the blades in the tools that are to help cut out the contours of a world's surface. In other words the mass of glacial ice is the grooving or smoothing plane, and the granite blocks, aided by the ice, become the many and diverse blades in this vast and irresistible tool. Some cut deep and square, others with flutings and bevelings, or curves, but each helps in the great work of planing off, in some way, the rocky ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... man in the world, Clive," she murmured, her eyes fixed dreamily on his face. "Always you have been making life delightful for me; smoothing my path, helping me where the road is rough."... She sighed: "Clive, you are very wonderful ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... over here close to Forrest City. We all picked cotton, then we all went to gin. A coupling pin broke and let a wooden block come down on him. It weighed one thousand pounds I expect. He was spreading a sheet and smoothing the cotton. It mashed and smothered him both. That ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... Hazard and Plague of reforming them when married? Strike home, Sir, then, and spare not, or all our maiden Hopes, our gilded Hopes of nuptial Felicity are frustrated, are vanished, and you your self, as well as Mr. Courtly, will, by smoothing over immodest Practices with the Gloss of soft and harmless Names, for ever forfeit our Esteem. Nor think that I'm herein more severe than need be: If I have not reason more than enough, do you and the World judge from this ensuing Account, which, I think, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... dirty—she had apparently run dusty hands across her forehead several times—had come to the door of the storage-room. At the sight of Rupert she flushed and made a hurried attempt at smoothing ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... because he comprehended its meaning as applied to his case, but because it was associated with Granny and all things good, and, therefore, gave him a sense of comfort. For he felt as though he were home by the fireside, and she was smoothing his curls and singing those words, as she so often did when ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... friend. Mindful of his counsel, I got close to the apple blossoms and smelled them. As I did so I noticed a crumpled sheet of paper in a crotch of one of the trees. I no sooner saw it than I seized it, and, smoothing it out, read, written in a ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... and tenderly back into the room, whilst the cart rumbled away upon its mournful errand, and smoothing the tresses of the girl, and drawing her to rest upon a ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... very often when sickness does not, and you may grow very weary of staying always at home," he said, softly smoothing her hair, then bending to touch his lips to her smooth white forehead and smile into the large dark eyes lifted to his as she knelt at the ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... dear Charles?" she said, stopping and looking at him; then, gently removing his hair and smoothing his forehead, she said, "you are ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... Mrs. Graham, smoothing the fair hair lovingly, "if you had heard me out, you would have seen that we had no idea of leaving you alone, or of leaving you in this house either. You are ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... his watch as he entered the Council Chamber at Literates' Hall, smoothing his smock hastily under his Sam Browne. He'd made it with very little time to spare, before the doors would be sealed and the meeting would begin. He'd been all over town, tracking down that report ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... back half turned towards me, was so near that I could have taken him by the hair. A little removed from him, on the right, sat the baroness, in a captivating little bonnet and gloves of pearl gray, smoothing one hand over the other on her silk-clad knees with a purring satisfaction in the charm of her own attire. At her side sat poor Constance Pleyel with a wineglass in her left hand, looking into its last spot ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... was quite charming. She was at that tender age when such work becomes barely possible, and the performance of it seems quite miraculous! Her father gazed at her in bewilderment while she went about gravely smoothing his pillow and tucking in corners of blankets, and bringing cups, and tumblers, and spoons, and handkerchiefs, and sundry other articles, to a chair at his bedside, so as to be within reach of his hand. Molly and Loo, besides being highly interested, were intensely ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... So to their task Epeios and his teams Went valiantly, and heaved and hauled great beams Of timber from far Ida, and hacked amain And rought the framework out. Then to it again They went with adzes and their smoothing tools, And made all shapely; next bored for their dools With augurs, and made good stock on to stock With mortise and with dovetail. Last, they lock The frames with clamps, the nether to the upper, And body forth a horse from crest to crupper In outline. ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... not the least sick, but I am not feeling at all well. So have made a will, and left everything to Mrs. Walters. She has been over five times to-day, and this evening sat by me a long time, holding my hand and smoothing my forehead, and urging me to try a cream poultice—a mustard-plaster—a ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... said, nodding and smiling, and, with tremulous hands, smoothing down the front of her black silk gown. "I had told these young ladies that we hoped for the honor of Monsieur's society. Will Monsieur permit me ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... down, ma'am," replied Babette, who was smoothing down the jagged skin at her ankles; "or we should never have got the nasty biting brute out ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... thus much with the colonel, I turned my attention, on his departure, to smoothing Clara. I reminded her that nearly everybody North and South had kinsmen or friends in both armies. To be sure, it was unfortunate that we, having only one kinsman, should have had him on the wrong side. That was better ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... didn't read the book for Catherine, but for the sake of knowing Robert and what he did to make such a stir in the world. I'm opposed to novels, as a rule, and read as little of one as I can," said Mrs. Dyke, smoothing her lap and looking at the minister. Mrs. Hayden motioned to Kate to play, and presently the rooms ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... obligatory appropriation, the certain recruitment, and for the quality and universality of primary instruction. At the same time, during eighteen years, the university administration, moderating its pressure or smoothing its sharp points, operates at the three stages of instruction in tolerant or liberal hands, with all the caution compatible with its organization. It does so in such a way as to do a great deal of good without much harm, by half-satisfying the majority which, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Sylvia, smoothing his tie unnecessarily (a process that he endured like a martyr who had been very well brought up), "Felicity's coming to fetch me to go to Madame Tussaud's this afternoon. Would you like to come ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... over their plans. They did not conceal from themselves the difficulties of their project; but still, like brave men, they resolved to accomplish it. Though their saw was too small to cut out the planks of the proposed vessel, they might obtain them by splitting up trees with wedges, and then smoothing them down with the axe. Though they had no nails, the planks might be secured to the ribs with tree-nails or wooden pegs. "Ya, ya!" exclaimed the brave skipper for the hundredth time; "where there's a will there's a way. We will do it, we will do it; ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... effects upon his own health and comfort. He remained, however, at his post at Calcutta, with the exception of a brief stay at a bungalow lent to him by Mr. Beadon at Bhagulpore; his pleasantest occupation being the arrangement of plans for smoothing the path of Lady Elgin, who had settled to join ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... her silver-mounted crutches leaned against the arm of her chair. An ugly and very diminutive brown terrier snarled and frisked on the rug, tormenting a staid and aged black cat, who occasionally arched her back and showed her teeth; and Dr. Grey stood leaning over his sister's chair, smoothing the soft grizzled locks that clustered under the rich lace border of her cap. He was talking of other days,—those of his boyhood, when, kneeling by that hearth, she had pasted his kites, found strings for his tops, made bags ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... not so good as that," John Huxford answered, smoothing back her rich brown hair; "but I have an offer of a place in Canada, with good money, and if you think as I do, I shall go out to it, and you can follow with the granny whenever I have made all straight for you at the other side. What say ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... them sound guidance in their studies. So long as you are sound in your principles, there is no fear of you," said the timid diplomatist, trying to aid the warning look of her eyes by emphasis and inflection. Poor Miss Dora! it was her unlucky fate, by dint of her very exertions in smoothing matters, always ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... little fingers had braided the Indian basket which came with Joyce's picture, and Jack himself had killed the wildcat, whose skin he sent to make a rug for her room. Lloyd was proud of that skin. As she stood smoothing the tawny fur, the diamond on her finger flashed like fire, and she stood turning her hand this way and that, that the glow of the flames might fall ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... more or less permanent in character, clovers may be renewed by disking the ground, adding more clover seed, and then smoothing the surface by running over it the harrow, and in some instances also the roller. This work is best done when the frost has just left the ground for a ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... over the gate, the walnut branches dark overhead, a level ray of sunlight on her strange alluring eyes and full bosom. Mr. Muller lingered, smoothing his hat before ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... now, but next spring I shall coax you into all manner or repairs. I do wonder what makes that spot on your nose so red at times. You are really very fine looking when it is not there. It is gone," she continued, and smoothing away a wrinkle in his forehead, she said, "We won't talk of the future now, but seriously, we must have some new Brussels carpets, and a furnace to warm ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... house Polikey began to arrange his clothes, smoothing down his fur collar, re-tying his sash, and stroking his hair. To do the latter he had to take off his hat, and when doing so felt in the lining for the envelope. Quicker and quicker he ran his hand around the lining, and ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... digging away in the soft ground till he had made a large and deep hole. Not caring how much the earth would spoil Miss Lucy's wax face and pretty dress, he placed her in it, and then covered her completely over, smoothing the ground so that, as he thought, no one would discover that he had been ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... know," she responded, smoothing the glittering shapes with half chary touches. "I should not be wholly willing to have the vase in my room at night. They might, you know, come to life and go gliding about ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... she hastily; "he is a man, a thorough man. He would make an intolerable woman. A fine life if one had a parcel of women about, all blurting out their real minds every moment, and never smoothing matters." ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... his cheerfulness again; Pond'ring how best his moments to employ, He sings his little songs of nameless joy, Creeps on the warm green turf for many an hour, And plucks by chance the white and yellow flow'r; Smoothing their stems, while resting on his knees, He binds a nosegay which he never sees; Along the homeward path then feels his way, Lifting his brow against the shining day, And, with a playful rapture round his eyes, Presents a sighing parent with ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... a steel engraving. About the real man who lived and loved and hated and schemed we know but little. The glass through which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features are exceedingly indistinct. Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face—forcing all features to the common mold—so that he may be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as he ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... Lawrence, into which it empties. The long, navigable water-way thus open from Canada to the very heart of New York was to the British a most tempting path for an invading expedition. By the shore of the lake a road wound along; thus smoothing the way for a land force, whose advance might be protected by the fire of the naval force that should proceed up the lake. Naturally, so admirable an international highway early attracted the attention ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... she heard the voice of the wise woman calling, "Agnes!" and, smoothing her face, she tried to look as good as she could, and walked back into the cottage. There stood the wise woman, looking all round the place, and examining her work. She fixed her eyes upon Agnes in a way that ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... cane go, supporting himself by leaning hard against the table; his arms curved inward, his fingers were like claws, standing apart. Slowly the hands descended; the fingers began gathering the few gold pieces, stacking them, lingering with each separate one, smoothing at it. Gold spoke directly and eloquently to what stood for a soul in Loony Honeycutt; banknotes had a voice which he understood but which could never move him, thrill him, lift him to ecstatic heights, as pure musical, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... about with amazing agility, considering her size and weight, dusting a chair, smoothing her apron, shading her eyes with her hand, and peering towards the brow of the hill for some ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... meetings were made all the more memorable by reason of their surroundings. The scene and the associations went to the making of the poet; they were among the treasures he carried up to London when he was compelled to leave Stratford behind him and time and distance were smoothing all the little troubles that had beset his short and uneventful life. He must have heard Stratford and Shottery calling to him in the heart of the town, for when his name was made and his future ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... What did you do that for?" gasped Harry indignantly, smoothing out his hat, and looking round helplessly for his friend Plunger. But now that one of the Senior Form had taken up the baiting, Plunger had been compelled to give way to him. He was only a cipher in the mob of laughing, jeering boys ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... I saw his face, and saw his hands smoothing Verka's tights. The others were less restrained. But this fellow ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... gladdened by the sight, and approached them and returned to them a second time in like guise and at the third time he drew up hard beside them and nearing the King fell to rubbing his cheeks upon the stirrups whilst the ruler put forth his hand and gentled the steed by smoothing his head and forehead. As soon as the fifty riders saw this, they marvelled thereat, but the King's son who had kept his ground was astounded and said to himself, "The horse fled me and when this host drew nigh he sought me again."[FN545] Presently ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... his handsome niece, whose hair he was gently smoothing, to her equally handsome brother, who was lying back in the softest chair he could find (and they were all comfortable, 'all of the best,' as Mark Clay said of them, as of everything else he possessed). 'No; and as for you, I don't suppose ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... tell you!" cried Link, sitting down and smoothing out the paper which he carried. "Rhoda, and none other, ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... DEVENISH (hastily smoothing it down). Really, Baxter, you're vulgar. (He turns away and resumes his promenading, going down R. and then round deck-chair to front of hammock. Suddenly he sees his book on the grass beneath the hammock and makes a dash ...
— Belinda • A. A. Milne
... Laurence as chief of our sartorial playwrights. No actress ever boasted a neater fit. Can you not picture him, all nice little enthusiasms and dainty devices, bustling about his fair patroness, tape in hand, mouth bristling with pins, smoothing out a wrinkle here, adjusting a line there, achieving his little chef d'oeuvre of perfect tailoring? We have had playwrights who were blacksmiths, playwrights who were costumers, playwrights who were musical-boxes, playwrights who were, if I may ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... ashamed of manhood's toil, Too wise to fancy that a gulf lay wide Betwixt the labouring hand and thinking brain, Or that a workman was no gentleman, Because a workman, clothed himself again In his old garments, took the hoe or spade, Or sowing sheet, or covered in the grain, Smoothing with harrows what the plough had ridged. With ever fresher joy he hailed the fields, Returning still with larger powers of sight: Each time he knew them better than before, And yet their sweetest aspect was the old. ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... Austria could keep her demand within reasonable limits, and the stronger the justification she could produce for making any demand, the more chance there would be of smoothing things over. I hated the idea of a war between any of the great powers, and that any of them should be dragged into a war by Servia ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... make amends for the telegrams, was full of suggestions for smoothing out the difficulties of the road. Like many men of his type, whatever he did he did it with all his heart and soul—hating, loving, avenging, or forgiving with equal energy; and he now applied himself to helping the Maluka ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Had she been honest to her better womanhood,—had she still possessed the "child's heart," with which his remembrance and imagination had endowed her, he would have resigned every other thought save that of so smoothing the path of life for her that she might tread it easily to the end. But now that she had disappointed him, he had, so he told himself, done with fine illusions and fair beliefs for ever. And he had started on a lonely quest,—a ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... that this is a turning of the tables upon them which they may not be disposed to admire—to be placed at the bar, when they expected a seat on the Bench, and were just smoothing down their ermine, and adjusting their wigs, in order to enter on their duties with the greater impressiveness and dignity; but they must believe us when we tell them, that we, too, have an opinion on this subject, to which we must be permitted to attribute ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... found nothing of the kind we seek. We have now passed into the Bistritza, and if we are wrong in our surmise our chance is gone. We have overhauled every boat, big and little. Early this morning, one crew took us for a Government boat, and treated us accordingly. We saw in this a way of smoothing matters, so at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the Sereth, we got a Roumanian flag which we now fly conspicuously. With every boat which we have overhauled since then this trick has succeeded. ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... Federal troops had already obtained possession of the strongest positions, while some of the Confederate commanders were quarreling with each other and otherwise working at cross purposes. For a time, therefore, Lee had to devote himself to smoothing over the differences which had arisen among his jealous subordinates, but when he at last began an aggressive movement, bad weather and a lack of cooperation between the various parts of his small army defeated his designs, and in October, 1861, the three-months' ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... asserted Zora, dreamily, smoothing out the pillows of the couch, "'little people,' I call them. The difference is, I think, that there I know how the story will come out; everything is changing, but I know how and why and from what and to what. Now here, everything seems to be happening; ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Mr. Westmore divested himself of his great-coat, and stood warming himself by the kitchen fire, while Mrs. Stickles bustled around, smoothing down the bedclothes and putting the room to rights in which her sick husband lay. The kitchen floor was as white as human hands could make it, and the stove shone like polished ebony. Upon this a kettle steamed, while underneath a sleek Maltese cat was curled, softly ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... had been wanting to prove how agreeable it had been, it appeared now in the pretty reluctance with which the ladies rose. There was the customary pushing back of chairs, smoothing down of garments, recovering of handkerchiefs from beneath the board. The room and the table were the objects of new compliments, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... children by the influence of reason and affection. Their method may be exemplified by supposing that, under circumstances similar to those described under the preceding head, the mother calls Mary to her side, and, smoothing her hair caressingly with her hand while she speaks, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... a return from a long voyage, tearing round a world full of beauty and interest, and yet, at the same time, full of pettiness, fuss, annoyance: a home-coming beyond words. There was a sense of eternity, a harmony which drew everything to itself, smoothing out the pattern of life, the present life and the life to come, so crumpled that, up to this time, he had had no real idea ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... still, smoothing down the hair on each side of the little round head, while Mrs. Randolph was ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... this sort of thing," she remarked. "People in the mass amuse me. Jack couldn't get away until midnight, but I wouldn't wait for him. I told him it didn't worry me a bit to come without an escort," smoothing away what little embarrassment might linger. The music started up again. The Keiths arose and made their adieux. Mrs, Sherwood looked after them, her bright eyes tender. Mrs. Keith was the only woman who had ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... he, stroking the tousled head and smoothing away its stabbing pain, "there are some little soldiers in this world who are handicapped when they come into Life's battlefield. Their parents haven't fitted them for the fight. Poor little moon-moths! They ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... on in this fashion, smoothing down all difficulties, and making everything comfortable, the poor sisters grew more and more desperate, and Kate felt a tendency to recklessness coming on. Suddenly a ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... of inquiry was sent from the dinner table at which he was a guest. No doubt Sterne's flourish in Tristram Shandy about his preferring to die at an inn, untroubled by the spectacle of "the concern of my friends, and the last services of wiping my brows and smoothing my pillow," was a mere piece of bravado; and the more probably so because the reflection is appropriated almost bodily from Bishop Burnet, who quotes it as a frequent observation of Archbishop Leighton. But, considering that Sterne was ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... mutual good wishes, the mistress remarking, after they left, that God spoke in divers ways and their presentation of His truths, though rude and wild to us, doubtless suited the frontier population among whom they had lived and did good. 'The ax before the plow, the ox-drag before the smoothing harrow,' added the master. ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... in trim Gardens takes his pleasure; But first, and chiefest, with thee bring, Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation, And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will daign a Song, In her sweetest, saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of night, While Cynthia checks her Dragon yoke, Gently o're th'accustom'd Oke; Sweet Bird that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musicall, most melancholy! Thee Chauntress oft the Woods among, I woo to hear ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... smoothing back the grey hair. "Go on and tell me what you want. There, see, now, ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... in the color of that gold!" went on Sah- luma dreamily, as with careful, somewhat tremulous fingers, he gently loosened the twisted shining threads that were so delicately knotted together, and smoothing them out to their full length, displayed what was indeed a lovely tress of hair bright as woven sunlight with a rippling wave in it that, like the tendril of a vine caught and wound about his hand as though it were a fond and ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... good he is!" thought Helen, as his hand passed gently over her brow, smoothing back the moist and tangled hair, then glided against her cheek, while he arranged the twisted bonnet and untied the dangling strings, which had tightened into a hard and obstinate knot. "I wonder what makes him so kind ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... out of a door that led into the garden. Then, when he was alone, he ran to an old Venetian mirror, and looked at himself for a moment in its deep, bluish surface, smoothing his curly gray hair ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... her appearance again, and was diligently taking away broken meats and soiled dishes and refreshing the look of the table; setting some things to warm and some things to cool; giving the spare plate and knife and fork the advantage of the best place at table; brushing away crumbs, and smoothing down the salt-cellar. "You are over particular!" thought Elizabeth; — "it would do him no harm to come after me in handling the salt-spoon! — that even that trace of me should be removed." She looked ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... behind his chair, and her trembling little hands were smoothing his brow, and her earnest face was looking pale and abstracted over him. He could not see her face, but he knew by her touch that the tender act was done some how mechanically to-night, and that she was thinking of other things. She started ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... continue to be angry, and would not forget the humiliation he had suffered. There was nothing more to be done at present, and Don Paolo prepared to take his departure, gathering his cloak around him, and smoothing the felt of his three-cornered hat while he held his green umbrella under ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... principle, send your composition in such a shape that it shall not need the slightest literary revision before printing. Many a bright production dies discarded which might have been made thoroughly presentable by a single day's labor of a competent scholar, in shaping, smoothing, dovetailing, and retrenching. The revision seems so slight an affair that the aspirant cannot conceive why there should be so much fuss ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... looked at him sorrowfully, and continued smoothing down his hair, and inundating his temples with Cologne; at last she ventured to inquire, "How do matters progress with you and Miss Bates? Clary, you have ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... Negro dialect is to elide all troublesome consonants and sounds. This negative effort may be after all only positive laziness of the vocal organs, but the result is a softening and smoothing which makes Negro dialect so delightfully easy ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... the time by observing the women. I noticed, for instance, that Auntie Yetta, whose fingers were a veritable jewelry-store, now and again made a pretense of smoothing her grayish hair for the purpose of exhibiting her flaming rings. Another elderly woman, whose fingers were as heavily laden, kept them prominently interlaced across her breast. From time to time she would flirt ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... mediator by German people. To this extent Gerard's telegram is premature. If Wilson neglects to take such action, there is danger that the animosity may become irremediable and possibility of mediation driven into distant future. Smoothing the way for peace, of course, always desired. Action against England, however, seems necessary to encourage conciliatory attitude there, if a peace exclusively favorable to England is to ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... leave since you wish it," replied Silver, rising slowly and smoothing his silk hat with his sleeve. "But of course I shall try and earn the reward you offered, by taking the ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... one might count As many beads as he had boroughs,— At length replies; from his mean front, 665 Like one who rubs out an account, Smoothing away the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... a little better. Her head ached less; she sat up on her pillows and drank a cup of tea. Mary was smoothing her mother's hair with soft pats of the brush, when suddenly the church bells began to ring. She had never heard such sounds before. The bell at Valley Hill was cracked, and went tang—tang—tang, as if the meeting-house were an old cow walking ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... and was silent, for her heart was too full of emotion, to coin its thoughts into words. Mrs. Carlton, like a sensible mother, said nothing until the floods of Jessie's grief passed away. Then smoothing her head with her hand, she spoke in tones, so soft and lute-like, that they sounded like sweet music in Jessie's ears, ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... doing? God has blessed me with wife and children and worldly goods; am I today for the first time to wish that it were otherwise?" He sat down gently beside his wife, who at these words had flushed up and fallen on his neck. "Tell me!" said he, smoothing the curls away from her forehead. "What shall I do? Shall I give up my case? Do you wish me to go to Tronka Castle, beg the knight to restore the horses to me, mount and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it will really make you happy, Alexia," said Phronsie, smoothing down her pinafore in great satisfaction, "I will get my children." And she ran over to the sofa, and came ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... improved by the judicious use of a handsaw, had that extremely radical tool been able to work aesthetically as it does practically; and while I have read certain other stories, and essays, and poems, I have been tormented by an intense desire to apply to them a smoothing-plane, a pair of compasses, or a square, or even to so far interfere with their arrangement as to cut a window-hole or two, and an occasional ventilator. Still, admitting that the carpenter should stick to his bench—or to his office or carriage, if he is a master builder, as I am—I ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... the third the blocks are very well and finely jointed, and the faces smoothed; they are mostly polygonal in form and are much larger (the maximum about 10 by 6 ft.) than those of the city wall. A flat surface was formed partly by smoothing off the rock and partly by the erection of huge terrace walls which rise to a height of over 50 ft., enclosing a roughly rectangular area of 235 by 115 yds. Two approaches to the citadel were constructed, both passing through the wall; the openings of both are rectangular. The architrave of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the ...
— The Republic • Plato
... he has altered the C flat in the second half of the first bar into a C natural, thus smoothing down the hard progression to the key of B flat minor. Now this very passage had already, nearly a hundred years previously, attracted the notice of Forkel, who admitted that, apart from the context, it jarred against his musical feeling. But he ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... pitture! It was nothing short of a miracle! The nose perhaps a little shorter—but Madre Dio! what could one expect in twenty minutes! Did not the mustache need a little smoothing? Upon the morning of the performance it was Cleofonte's custom to dress it with pomatum. The cap, the earrings, the mole upon his cheek—everything was as like as possible. Si, Monsieur Philidor was a great artist—a very great artist. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... as he mentioned her brother. "Poor Ed," she said in a low voice. She went over to the man, leaning over him and smoothing back the hair from his forehead, Hollis looking glumly on, clenching his teeth ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... emotion that she could not answer a word, she could only shudder and submit to his will. And Mr. Harrison, supposing that her emotions were very different from what they were, rested her head upon his shoulder, smoothing back her tangled hair and whispering into her ear how beautiful she was beyond any dream of his, and how the present moment was the happiest ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... their cares. Former friends appeared to stand aloof, self-dependent and unsympathizing; but God was ever near, kindly bringing help in every extremity, which always seemed at hand, yet ever kept away: smoothing the pillow of sickness, comforting the troubled spirit, and treading down calamity and calumny and care; as a conqueror conquering for them. So, they learned the priceless wisdom which adversity would teach to all on whom she frowneth; when earthly ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... urge him against his duty and yet afraid for him. He had not been able to muster courage enough to speak to her of what was in his heart, foolish though that was in him, and he sat there in the saddle for a moment, looking tenderly down on her as she stood smoothing out his ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... he have enemies?" said Mathilde, smoothing his hair. "He is so good to everybody. He has only two thoughts—to hide his illness from his mother, and to earn enough for my future. And as for having enemies in Germany, how can that be, when he is so kind to every poor ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... apologise, cousin Emma, once for all,' said the young man, surprising her glance, and despairingly smoothing down his recalcitrant locks. 'Let us hope that mountain air will quicken the pace of it before it is necessary for me to present a ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and I thought their best course would be to summon their State Legislatures. These would certainly provide for conventions of the people to repeal ordinances of secession and abolish slavery, thus smoothing the way for the restoration of their States to the Union. Such action would be in harmony with the theory and practice of the American system, and clear the road of difficulties. The North, by its Government, ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... and of all known arts it is the most ancient and one of the most beautiful. And no two master-workmen have gone about it after precisely the same manner, but each has followed his own method of treating the bone, of cutting, which is a delicate business, of smoothing, and of polishing. At different ages widely differing means were employed to bring about the same effect. There were many curious things to be learned in the way of what and what not to do,—how to treat bone ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Mamma Vi is almost as thankful as either of you," Violet said, coming to his side and softly smoothing Lulu's hair. ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... Budget Bill passed Report stage, CHANCELLOR smoothing the passage by concessions to the brewers and publicans by way of easing ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... more attached than ever to Lord Byron, and, speaking of his qualities, expressed himself thus:—"To perspicacity of observation and ingenious remarks, Lord Byron united that gayety and good-humor which keeps attention alive under the pressure of fatigue, smoothing ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... should immediately have the mouth, palatal slit, and nostrils, stopped with tow or cotton wool, to prevent the blood from running out and soiling the feathers; then, if possible, always wrap each specimen separately in paper, smoothing the feathers in their proper places before doing so. Also, never carry a shot bird by its neck, as the weight of the bird's body depending from the neck must stretch the latter beyond its ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... you wish,' he said, and turned to the paper, which he dated as from his hotel. Mrs Manderson looked down at his bent head with a gentle light in her eyes, and made as if to place a smoothing hand upon his rather untidy crop of hair. But she did not touch it. Going in silence to the piano, she began to play very softly. It was ten ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... an old fogy to cut myself out of a big fee by smoothing the wrinkles without a lawsuit. It's the professor in me, Phil; it's ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson |
