"Softening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the risk of overtaxing the horses by a trying journey through softening snow; but I sent a telegram to Minnie, and when we left the cars she was there to meet us, looking weak and ill, with shadows in ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... that her lover had once likened to the gorgeousness of the Mosque of Omar. Yet, by this, her beauty was rather enhanced than lessened as though Nature, the master-painter, had retouched a picture already wondrous, softening its colors with a tone more spiritual. Both face and figure had lost something of roundness and the hand that lay on the table was slenderer of finger and wrist, but Mary Burton had not been robbed of her beauty, and when she spoke, very low and hesitantly, one realized that out of ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... spring. The epoch of the great prophets, with a new life of thought and aspiration, breaks in abruptly on this commingling of all sorts of religion within the precincts of Jehovahism. Even in February the sap is softening and warming in the veins which show no greening on the tips of the patient trees. Israel was swelling toward the day that was sure to come, ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... shade over the tombs of countless generations, and, as it stood forming a link between the present and the past, won men's reverence by force of contrast with their own ephemeral existence—yet atones for his delinquencies by softening the bitterness of grief, blunting the sharp edge of pain, and affording to the broken-hearted the rest, and to the slave the freedom, of the grave;—old Time, I say, who should be praised at all events ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Saints, which supplied the mediaeval playwright with material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story might pass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development the scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softening stubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for a season. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of the Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resist the laws ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... had been afraid of softening of the brain, and of a long and painful illness like that which preceded the death of his friend Professor Bache; it had been his hope that he might rather go quickly. Yet it was not easy for him to think ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... complaints respecting the "Sant' Iago," Corsica, and Hayti. The conduct of the Marquis del Campo at London was equally sinister; his despatches represented the policy and conduct of England in the darkest colours. In the hope of softening these asperities Pitt and Grenville decided to send the Earl of Bute to Madrid in place of Jackson, who desired to escape from the insolences of that capital. Thus by one of the subtle ironies of history, the son of Chatham despatched to the Court of Madrid the son of the man ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... cried Trevanion, in a rage; and then softening his look as he drew on his gloves, he turned to my mother and said, with more politeness than was natural to, or at ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... proud, poor man. His expression was so piteous, so imploring at sight of his friend's frowning brow, that the baron took pity on him. The cemetery had a decidedly softening ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... blaspheme the bands Of tenderness innate and social love, 250 Holiest of things! by which the general orb Of being, as by adamantine links, Was drawn to perfect union, and sustain'd From everlasting? Hast thou felt the pangs Of softening sorrow, of indignant zeal, So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish The ties of Nature broken from thy frame, That so thy selfish, unrelenting heart Might cease to mourn its lot, no longer then The wretched heir of evils not its own? ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... me my words concerning thee, but men told me that ye had forgotten that you had once been so glorious a man, and were softening to a fool.' ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... when you might have saved its fairest descendant, was it the time to falter and fail? She looked up piteously in her great extremity; there was a prayer for help in her eyes, but between them and heaven was interposed a stern bronze face, not a line of it softening. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... coats-of-arms. Madame la Comtesse Ferraud stepped out in a dress which, though simple, was cleverly designed to show how youthful her figure was. She wore a pretty drawn bonnet lined with pink, which framed her face to perfection, softening its outlines and making it ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... church. Our insane asylums are full of them. We find their wives unfaithful or unhappy; and their offspring—when they are cursed with any—poor, miserable, weak fledgelings, with aged, wasted faces, water on the brain, with rickets and softening of the bones—idiots or imbeciles—dying early and scarcely regretted even by the parent whose progeny they are, for every wail of the little suffering voice pierced his heart and reminded him of his lustful sin, and passionate, inexcusable indulgence that ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... in a garden-tent on the lawn of Balmoral Castle. Her parasol leans beside her. Writing-materials are on the table before her, and a small fan, for it is hot weather; also a dish of peaches. Sunlight suffuses the tent interior, softening the round contours of the face, and caressing pleasantly the small plump hand busy at letter-writing. The even flow of her penmanship is suddenly disturbed; picking up her parasol, she indulgently beats some unseen object, ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... to soften the severity of his speech; but she was not looking at him just then, and so missed the softening accompaniment. She felt it was herself who was taken to task instead of Lyster, and stood with drooped, darkening face until ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... no softening in Cedric's manner, and she became alarmed and threw some tenderness in her voice and spoke softly, that she might lead or manage her lord ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... the Perkins front gate and the road running both ways," teased Rebecca, and then, softening her tone, she said: "How is it getting on, Emmy? Tell me what's happened ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... came back with a small bit of the medicine; and going quickly for a piece of red silk cutting, she got the scissors and slit two round slips off as big as the tip of a finger. After which, she took the medicine, and softening it by the fire, she spread it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... uncle Sir Thomas had, in the closing years of his life, shown unmistakable signs of brain-softening, and that a symptom of his complaint had been his addiction to making a number of wills—"two-thirds of 'em incoherent. Every two or three days he'd compose a new one and send for Huskisson, his lawyer; and Huskisson, after reading the rigmarole ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... on, and our boat sails to-night. So, refusing a horse or carriage, I walk down, not unwilling to be a little early, that I may pace up and down the beach, looking off to the islands and the points, and watching the roaring, tumbling billows. How softening is the effect of time! It touches us through the affections. I almost feel as if I were lamenting the passing away of something loved and dear,— the boats, the Kanakas, the hides, my old shipmates! Death, change, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... with a sweet and trustful smile which would have satisfied a harder adversary than Reckage. He was not so hard, however, as he was egoistic, and it was not a question of softening his heart. Sara had the far more difficult task of soothing ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... radical into the bargain. In his own delicious way, he has been no mean advocate of liberal principles and measures. He has argued for the repeal of the corn and the modification of the game laws, the softening of the cruelties of the criminal code, and the fair administration of law for all orders and conditions of men and women. He has had no respect for ermine, lawn, or epaulets, in his assaults upon the monopolies and sinecures of Church and State, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... hands with me, Mr. Mayne?" asked poor Nan, much distressed at the evil temper of Dick's father; but there was no sign of softening. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Aunt Kate Sherwood suggesting a softening of her hard lines. Her plain, ugly print dress was cut low at the throat, and had no collar or ruff to hide the scar. Nan's gaze was fastened on that blemish before she was half way to the door, and she could see ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... speak of his "imperious temper and that savage manner which was too haughty for a republic." "Indeed," he adds, "there is no other advantage to be had from a liberal education equal to that of polishing and softening our nature by reason and discipline." He also tells us that Coriolanus indulged his "irascible passions on a supposition that they have something great and exalted in them," and that he wanted "a due mixture of gravity and mildness, ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... the right shade it is one of the most beautiful ornaments to edge neck and sleeves. It may be allowed to extend beyond the dress material, so that the flesh tints may show through the design, thus gradually softening the outline. Often a narrow passementerie can be found with one strong edge and a good border can be made by joining the two. This cannot be done where the pattern is united by a band running through the ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... "Now, darlin',"—softening—"here we stand fussin', and you ain't even guessed what your presents are. Guess something that's real fine: something you'd like in the city, pettie." She began to unwrap the larger of ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... Cunegonda watches my every step. An express is arrived from my Father; I must depart immediately for Madrid, and 'tis with difficulty that I have obtained a week's delay. The superstition of my Parents, supported by the representations of my cruel Aunt, leaves me no hope of softening them to compassion. In this dilemma I have resolved to commit myself to your honour: God grant that you may never give me cause to repent my resolution! Flight is my only resource from the horrors of a Convent, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... discovery that there was more beauty in those eyes than merely soft brown colour and long black lashes. It was a long time since her heart had been so light. It was as if a cold hard weight was removed. That one softening had been an inexpressible relief, and when she had thrown aside the black veil that had shrouded her view, everything looked so bright and sweet that she ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a voice of praise sent up from the earth, till, like the soaring lark, it "becomes a sightless song." Indeed, our unbidden thoughts, that wild-ivy of the mind, are trained upward by the spire, till it is hung round with the tenderest associations and recollections of all that is sweet and softening in our natures. Thus, when the painter has represented on his canvas some wild phase of scenery, where the gadding vine, the tangled underwood, the troubled brook, the black, frowning rock, the untamed savage growth of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... seen, And fly back now to tell thee, mistress dear!" But when she knew such wonders of the man, More certainly she deemed those acts and gifts Betokened Nala; and so-minded, full Of trust to find her lord in Vahuka, With happier tears and softening voice she said To Keshini: "Speed yet again, my girl; And, while he wots not, from the kitchen take Meat he hath dressed, and bring it here to me." So went the maid, and, waiting secretly, Broke from the mess a morsel, hot and spiced, And, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... "This admonition, instead of softening him, only provoked him to a higher degree; so that, falling upon me like a madman, without regard to my age or rank, he pulled me off my horse, and put me into this miserable plight. I beseech your majesty to consider, that it is on your account I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... risks; and even when we were on our way, through by-streets known to Simon, to the farther end of the Ruelle d'Arcy, and the red and frosty sunset shone in our faces, and gilded for a moment the dull eaves and grey towers above us, I felt no softening. Whatever the end, there was but one in the world whom I should regret, or who would regret me; and she hung, herself, on ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... efficient police in his dominions, and was a patron of literature. Their sun went down full and cloudless, with the merit of having shed some rays of blessing upon the earth, scorching and withering as had been its day. It is remarkable also that all three had something of a misgiving, or softening of mind, miserably unsatisfactory as it was, shortly before their deaths. Attila's quailing before the eye of the Vicar of Christ, and turning away from Italy, I have already spoken of. As to Zingis, as, laden at once with years and with the spoils of Asia, he reluctantly ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... have deposited in my strong-box, in all its imperfections, to attend to the other; I well know correction may always be summoned, Imagination never will come but by choice. I received her, therefore, a welcome guest,—the best adapted for softening weary solitude, where only coveted to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... led to a great softening in Anderson's feeling towards his father. All those inner compunctions that haunt a just and scrupulous nature came freely into play. And his evangelical religion—for he was a devout though liberal-minded Presbyterian—also entered in. Was it ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... required of his secretary that he should read off into French the leading newspapers of England. And many were the times when he started up in fury, and passionately taxed his interpreter with mistranslation; sometimes as softening the expressions, sometimes as over-coloring their violence. Evidently he lay at the mercy of one whom he knew to be wanting in honor, and who had it in his power, either by way of abetting any sinister views of his own, or in collusion with others, to suppress—to add—to garble—and ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... France, the native deformity of this taste appears in its real light, without the colouring of any such adventitious circumstances as conceal it in this country. It does not appear there under the softening veil of ancient manners; its avenues do not conduct to the decaying abode of hereditary greatness—its gardens do not mark the scenes of former festivity—its fountains are not covered with the moss which has grown for centuries. ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... prayed a new {47} brotherhood of St. Francis, named after their founder, devoted themselves to all manner of blasphemy, to all manner of offence. In a spot whose beauty might well be expected to have only a softening influence, whose memories might at least be found exalting, a handful of disreputable men gathered together to degrade the place, and, as far as that was possible, themselves, with the beastly pleasures and beastly humors of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of the Saviour in softening down the severe and aged type common to Byzantium, assume a physiognomy not sufficiently intellectual for the Greatest of Teachers. These "images" in fact inspire little reverence except with blind worshippers; they are mostly wrought up and renovated, so as to fulfil the preconceived ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... words here occurred to Lady Carse, linked with a sweet old psalm tune—words of longing to have wings like a dove, to flee away and be at rest. She murmured these words; and they brought softening tears. ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... he's sick 'r not. I'll drag 'im out by the scruff o' the neck! Come on!" He ended with a sudden resolution, leading the way out into the street, where the falling snow was softening the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... failed to grasp the seemingly self-evident truth that a governor, one man elected by the people, is just as much their representative and is just as certain to carry out their ideas as is a legislature, a body of men elected by the people. They provided a government which accentuated, instead of softening, the defects in their own social system. They were in no danger of suffering from tyranny; they were in no danger of losing the liberty which they so jealously guarded. The perils that threatened them were lawlessness, lack of order, and lack of capacity to concentrate ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... meat cookery, to wit, the slow and gradual application of heat for the softening and dissolution of its fibre and the extraction of its juices, common cooks are equally untrained. Where is the so-called cook who understands how to prepare soups and stews? These are precisely the articles in which a French kitchen excels. ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which they pretend to see in the nighttime, and serpents and men and everything that they see about them. What would they not be able to manufacture, Most Illustrious Prince, if they knew the use of iron and steel? They begin by softening the inner part of pieces of wood in the fire, after which they dig them out and work them with ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... heart were useful in softening her husband's severity. Once, when Ptolemy was unbending his mind at a game of dice with her, one of his officers came up to his side, and began to read over to him a list of criminals who had been condemned to death, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... ship flies to milder skies, The wave more gently flows, The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas The breath of Beaufort's rose. "What fold is this the sweet winds kiss, Fair-striped and many-starred, Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls, The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... man, whose softening heart Feels all another's pain; To whom the supplicating eye ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... about in a mixture of soap and oil until they absorb these softening ingredients and become pliable. All leather, whether chrome or vegetable tanned, has to go through this process. The liquid is put into paddle-wheels just as the tanning mixture is. The dyeing is done in paddle-wheels too, and some kinds of leather have in addition a coat ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... no answer, but I seemed to see a softening in her face as she turned away towards the window, whence were to be seen the stretch of the lawn and the park-meadows beyond. I believe that with a little more coaxing she would have pardoned me, but at the instant, by another stroke of perversity, a small figure sauntered ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... the two cousins to dine. They thanked her, but no, they must find the wheelbarrow. "We shan't say, certain positive, that bugglers took it, but we s'pose so," said Dotty, softening her judgment, as she remembered her mistake about the "screw-up pencil." They went home through the broiling sun, but found no trace of ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... Babet?" said the old Baron, softening his voice like any sucking dove. "Anything ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... against Rome had been increased by the fierce struggle about Emancipation, and by the political conduct of the Roman Catholic party afterwards; and his growing dissatisfaction with the ordinary Protestantism had no visible effect in softening this feeling. Hurrell Froude's daring questions had made his friends feel that there might be more to be known about the subject than they yet knew; yet what the fellow-travellers saw of things abroad in their ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... object of her resentment, "and retire to prepare for an interview with our rebel lords. We will use the ante-chamber of our sleeping apartment as our hall of audience. You, young man," she proceeded, addressing Roland Graeme, and at once softening the ironical sharpness of her manner into good-humoured raillery, "you, who are all our male attendance, from our Lord High Chamberlain down to our least galopin, follow us to prepare ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... in the old days when Miss Prime's discipline would have turned all within him to hardness and bitterness Eliphalet Hodges stood between him and despair, so now in this crucial time Elizabeth was a softening influence in his life. ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... he was there, or had ever made any tender professions to that lady, she proceeded to such extravagancies as he, who knew himself innocent, could not forbear replying to in terms which were far from being softening:—in fine, they quarrelled to a very high degree, and some company happening to come in at the same time, hindered either of them from saying any thing which might palliate the resentment ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... it, then?' said the man, softening slightly, which was not at all what the boys expected when ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... the everlasting turmoil—the years of the reign of Edgar the Peaceful, whose early death had up till then been its one great sorrow. A time too of recovery from a state of insensibility to evil deeds; of increasing civilisation and the softening of hearts. For Edward was the child of Edgar and his child-wife, who was beautiful and beloved and died young; and he had inherited the beauty, charm, and all engaging qualities of his parents. It is true that these qualities ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... being defined by it as worthy of death. This state of things had been denounced as a national disgrace, and Sir Samuel Romilly had frequently brought it under the notice of parliament, and in some instances had been the means of softening down the rigour of our laws. That great man was now dead; but in this session the subject was taken up by Sir James Mackintosh, who proved to be a worthy successor to the deceased philanthropist. A petition from the corporation of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... wanted, the bales are opened, the manojas and gabillos are separated, and the latter carried in their dry state to the moistening room. Here are a number of men whose business it is to place the leaves, for the purpose of moistening and softening them, into large barrels in which is a solution of saltpetre in water; this done, the water is poured off, and other workmen spread out the leaves with their hands upon the edges of the barrels, ridding them as much as possible, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... the quarrels and the impatience with which he would surround her—the scenes in which Lucy's reserve mingling with her beauty would but evoke on the man's side all the ingenuity, all the delicacy of which he was capable—and the final softening of that sweet austerity which hid Lucy's ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be affirmed, that there is as much refinement in his works, as the nature of humorous satire, which is the chief beauty of his compositions, will admit; for, as satire requires strong ideas, the language will sometimes be less polished. But the delicacy so much demanded, by softening the colours weakens the drawing. Mr. Brown has been charged with inequality in his writings: which is ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... the wig and cravat of the early Georges than with the close-cropped hair and black frock-coat of the end of the nineteenth century. He was clean shaven, for his mouth was too good to cover—large, flexible, and sensitive, with a kindly human softening at either corner which with his brown sympathetic eyes had drawn out many a shame-struck sinner's secret. Two masterful little bushy side-whiskers bristled out from under his ears spindling away upwards to merge in the thick curves of his brindled hair. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shall not utter a word in mitigation of the dreadful sentence certain to be pronounced upon him; nor shall I advise the slightest clemency to be shown him on the part of his Majesty. Such an offender cannot be too severely punished. I do not say this," he continued, somewhat softening his harshness, "to aggravate the distress and shame you naturally feel; but I wish to check at once any hopes you may have formed. Yet though I have no pity for him, I have much for you, since, doubtless, you are innocent of all ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... for you, I want no pay, and cannot take it," said Jacob, his voice softening as he spoke. "I will get the shells, that I will gladly, as many basketfuls as you may want; only tell me when I bring them if there are not enough, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Carlyleisms, as a garment, and, in a beautiful spirit of no objections to anybody, proceed to think what can be done for the poor in the way of sincerely wishing them well. The princely merchant, in his counting-room, involuntarily experiences the softening, humanizing influence of the hour, and, in tones tremulous with unwonted emotion, privately directs his Chief-Clerk to tell all the other clerks, that, on this night of all the round year, they may, ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... nooks in his character into which one could creep for shelter from his hard daylight. He was all daylight. He looked at everything in the same broad glare of intellectual sunlight, and would see no softening shadows that might alter the sharp outlines of cruel facts, subduing them to beauty. I do not know if I express what I mean, when I say that there were no curves in his character—that his mind ran in straight lines, ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... There was a curious softening in his harsh voice, which brought the girl's eyes swiftly back ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... townsfolk to be better citizens and worthier men."[268] Aeschylus then goes on to show that he has merited well of his countrymen because he has preached the military virtues and his dramas have been full of Ares. Euripides he accuses of softening the moral fibre of the Athenians by introducing on the stage immoral plots and love-sick women. Such drama Aeschylus asserts to be immoral in its effect. "For boys a school teacher is provided; but we, the poets, are teachers ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... rendering of ballads above his comprehension. For the voice of song is often heard in these mountains; and, as in the days of Orpheus, the lyre still moves the rock of the Caucasian heart, taming with its gentle influences its wildness, and softening its asperity. ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... clay and wheat grass pulp on her lumps, somewhat like the warm castor oil poultices I used on my mother's arthritic deposits. Poultices not only feel very comforting, but they have the effect of softening up deposits and tumors so that a detoxifying, fasting body is more able to re absorb them. Poultices draw, pulling toxins out through the skin, unburdening the liver. Clay (freshly-mixed potters clay I purchase ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... many wells, is bad. It surrounds Death with revolting associations, that insensibly become connected with those whom Death is approaching. Indifference and avoidance are the natural result; and all the softening influences of the great ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... silent, dignified acceptance. Following a forceful law of human nature this unreasonable resistance (as he saw it) was fixing him very firmly in his own resolution. But the thought of all the older man had been to him rushed upon him again with softening effect, and he ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... the most precious, the most fantastic girl in the world, although she passed for the most dazzling and the beautiful, and the one who best understood the art of bamboozling cardinals and softening the hardiest soldiers and oppressors of the people. She had brave captains, archers, and nobles, ready to serve her at every turn. She had only to breathe a word, and the business of anyone who had offended her was settled. A free fight ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... of hostilities, but Dru had had only occasional glimpses of her. He was wondering now, in what part of that black and bloody field she was. His was the strong hand that had torn into fragments these helpless creatures; hers was the gentle hand that was softening the horror, the misery of it all. Dru knew there were those who felt that the result would never be worth the cost and that he, too, would come in for a measurable share of their censure. But deep and lasting as his sympathy was for those who had been brought into this maelstrom of war, yet, ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... that the courier who was going to you started that very afternoon. The result is that, though I do send an answer, I am forced by the shortness of the time to write only these few words. First, as to softening my friend's feeling towards you, or even reconciling him outright, I pledge you my word to do so. Though I have been attempting it already on my own account, I will now urge the point more earnestly and press him closer, as I think I gather ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... it in the enlarging spirit of love among Christians, in the increase of philanthropy, in the growing sentiment that war must cease among Christian nations, all disputes to be settled by arbitration, and in the feeling of universal brotherhood which is softening all true ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... each other which is necessary for the existence of the body. Pus is not the solvent of cells: but is itself dissolved tissues. A part becomes soft and liquefies, while suppurating, but it is not the pus which causes this softening; on the contrary, it is the pus which is produced as the result of ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... standardized American type, of which Abraham Lincoln of a past and the Wright brothers of a present generation are perfect specimens—the ugly-beautiful face, long and lean, with its harshly contoured strength of feature and its subtly softening melancholy of expression. The look of labor in California is not so much of strength as of force, an indomitable, unconquerable force. Melancholy is not there, but spirit; that fire and light which means hope. ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... the persistence of husbands in certain moods or points of view on which even wheedling has no effect. The wise woman perceives that in these cases she must trust entirely to the softening influences of time, and as much as possible she changes the subject; or if this is impossible she may hope something from presenting a still worse aspect of the affair. Mrs. Elmore said, in lifting the letter from the table: "If she sailed the 3d in the City of Timbuctoo, she ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... condition of a person whose nature had, as it were, so little surface—offered so limited a face to the accretions of human contact. Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic, had ever had a chance to fasten upon it—no wind-sown blossom, no familiar softening moss. Her offered, her passive extent, in other words, was about that of a knife-edge. Isabel had reason to believe none the less that as she advanced in life she made more of those concessions to the sense of something obscurely distinct from convenience—more of ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... kindly and kept in restraint far from the locality of their former reservation; they should be subjected to efforts calculated to lead to their improvement and the softening of their savage and cruel instincts, but their return to their old home should ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... evil-doing, no real chastisement for it afterwards; none, that is, but the mechanical punishment spoken of just now, which in the majority of cases only embitters the heart; and not the real punishment, the only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, which lies in the recognition of sin ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... subject differentiates between various waters, takes them up from industrial and hygienic standpoints, considers softening, filtering, purifying ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... plainly, Mademoiselle Gillenormand had gained rather than lost as she grew older. This is the case with passive natures. She had never been malicious, which is relative kindness; and then, years wear away the angles, and the softening which comes with time had come to her. She was melancholy with an obscure sadness of which she did not herself know the secret. There breathed from her whole person the stupor of a life that was finished, and which had ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... sinful humanity. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce, sitting there, looking on, seeing many faces that represented scorn of creeds, hatred of the social order, desperate narrowness and selfishness, marveled that even so soon under the influence of the Settlement life, the softening process had begun already to lessen the bitterness of hearts, many of which had grown bitter from neglect ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... ask you to believe me now," he said, his voice softening, "but if you will come to where I say I can ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... support, and flowering into an exquisitely proportioned spiral. It suggests a gigantic crozier. Before it was known what a slender metal core followed this wonderful growth, on the inside, there was a tradition that Kraft had discovered "a wonderful method for softening and moulding hard stones." The charming relief by Kraft on the Weighing Office exhibits quite another side of his genius; here three men are engaged in weighing a bale of goods in a pair of scales: a charming arrangement ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... tell her all that is in his heart. If the world stands thousands of years there will never be such a golden opportunity again. She breaks off a bit of yarrow and sticks it in her belt. How beautifully the lashes droop over her eyes, deepening and softening the tint, until it looks like a ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... two opposite modes of wearing the hair; we can recommend both to those studious of elegance. The locks may be suffered to flow about the shoulders in ringlets, resembling the tendrils of the vine, by which means much will be done towards softening down the asperities of sex; or they may be cropped close to the scalp in such a manner as to impart a becoming prominence to the ears. When the development of those appendages is more than usually ample, and when nature has given the head a particularly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... his room to the nurses, and when he slept stretched himself out on the couch in the dining-room. He was watching anxiously for his friend's moment of softening when Desmond would need and ask for a priest. By a special arrangement the Archbishop had granted to Father Healy the permission to attend Desmond, if he desired a confessor. Then, day or night, as soon as the telephone carried ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... indeed!" said Bristles; "and a truly talented friend. The case, as you justly observe," proceeded the critic, while he untied the cords, "contains the most glorious manifestation of the softening influences of sex." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... in the gentle art, he surpasses them in the number of his acquirements. The Arab, the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin address him and have answers each in his mother's tongue. Knew you ever a scholar, O Princess, whose soul had utterly escaped the softening influence of thought and study? It is not learning which tames the barbarian so much as the diversion of mind from barbaric modes required of him while in the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... man! Mr. Myghail!" said the Judge, softening the asperities of the name as much as possible. "Consider the inhospitality of refusing shelter from the inclemency of the weather to helpless females. Really, my dear sir—" But a succession of "Miggles," ending in a burst of laughter, drowned ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... position was precarious, and in a short time he was destined to lose the one friend who had so generously shared his fate. Yet the notion of recovering his position as a student in one of our great Universities, of softening his father's indignation, or of ameliorating his present circumstances by the least concession, never seems to have occurred to him. He had suffered in the cause of truth and liberty, and he willingly accepted his martyrdom ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... rather a writer in Brownson's "Quarterly Review," July, 1863) takes another way of softening the terrors of hell. With him too, hell is an everlasting state; but he maintains that the Roman Church has not made it an article of faith to believe that there is any positive suffering therein. If you believe in an eternal hell, that is enough; you are ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... interceded for Barbara; and the attorney, softening his voice, said that "Susan was a great deal too good to her; as you are, indeed," added he, "to everybody. I forgive her for your sake." Susan curtsied, in great surprise; but her lamb could not be forgotten, and she left the attorney's house as soon as she could, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... instinctively pure-minded, to comprehend, in the first glance, that supper scene, and gain therefrom life-long disillusionment. For him, even after he had left it, there remained in some sort a glamour over it all—the softening veil of lights and laughter, the gleam of plate and the perfume of flowers, which successfully hid the blackest ugliness. The first fresh frost was still upon his glass; and through it the golden wine was beautiful as it could not be for those about him, who saw, as it ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... a strange fatality has pursued and overturned my projects. I had hoped that if Andre and Joan were brought up together a tender intimacy would arise between the two children; and that the beauty of our skies, our civilisation, and the attractions of our court would end by softening whatever rudeness there might be in the young Hungarian's character; but in spite of my efforts all has tended to cause coldness, and even aversion, between the bridal pair. Joan, scarcely fifteen, is far ahead of her age. Gifted with a brilliant and mobile mind, a noble and lofty character, a lively ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... reminded us of your great and sudden loss; yet what had I to say to you? I have thought that the echo from your son in Calcutta may have made your grief break out afresh.... I trust that time, which has not yet at all had softening powers, has not added any fresh bitterness on ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... told you," he said, softening his words with a smile, and with a brief explanation of his view of the matter he turned away from the papers, and said: "So do it that way, if you please, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... in every point, including that most important point of all, that she preferred him to Geoff Templestowe and loved him as heartily as he loved her. Happiness and satisfied affection had a wonderfully softening influence on Clarence, but it was equally droll and delightful to Clover to see how absolutely Elsie ruled, how the least indication of her least finger availed to mould Clarence to her will,—Clarence, who had never ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... inside, the curtains were half drawn and the electrics not yet turned on, but even so, in that half light, the judge could mark the change here revealed to him. He could sense, too, that the change was more spiritual than physical, and he could feel his animosity for this woman softening into something distantly akin to sympathy. At her left side, harbored in the crook of her elbow, lay a cuddling bundle; a tiny head, all red and bare, as though offering to Judge Priest's own bald, pinkish pate the sincere flattery of imitation, was ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... under the slanted slate roof, and below was a long stone esplanade, black with the grouped figures of giants. At the windows, propped on sofa cushions, chin in hand some few conned the approaching lesson, softening the task by moments of dreamy contemplation of the scuffle below or stopping to catch a tennis ball that traveled from the esplanade to the window. Meanwhile, a constant buzz of inquiry and ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... soul too," answered Mrs Clere, softening a little in response to Rose's tone. "Well! folks know their own troubles best, I reckon, and it's no good harrying other folks with them. What priced serge would ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... themselves for summer shadow, scowl'd At their great lord. He, when it seem'd he saw No pale sheet-lightnings from afar, but fork'd Of the near storm, and aiming at his head, Sat anger-charm'd from sorrow, soldierlike, Erect: but when the preacher's cadence flow'd Softening thro' all the gentle attributes Of his lost child, the wife, who watch'd his face, Paled at a sudden twitch of his iron mouth; And 'O pray God that he hold up' she thought 'Or surely I shall ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... awakened, to whom the needs of childhood and the precautions required for adolescence were unknown, had neither the indulgence nor the compassionate intelligence of a mother; such sufferings as those of Pierrette, instead of softening her heart ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... And the softening twilight fell upon the doomed but unconscious cities. Unpitying Nature smiled joyously. The cruel sun, possibly knowing the secret of the angels, gayly flaunted his myriad colors, and disappeared in a blaze of glory without wasting one regret ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and gave a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and that he had wielded the power of absolute disinterestedness. Morgan was a fine specimen of manhood. He stood perfectly erect, with well poised head, his large, lustrous eyes inviting confidence; and the urbanity of his manner softening the answers that showed he possessed a mind of his own. No man among his contemporaries had a larger number of devoted friends. He was a New Englander by birth. More than one person of his name and blood in Connecticut was noted for public spirit, but ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... that the boy has not a long time to live, for he is suffering at once from consumption and softening of the brain, and the latter disease will soon reduce him to an idiot, and render him incapable ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... my policy. I'm not just certain that I have you sized up right, as yet. I'm of a suspicious nature. But I'm finding this sunshine softening." Mr. Wagg rambled on, squinting up at the sky. "Seven years is a long while to wait for a good time to come. Figuring that your time will be paid for at the rate of about ten thousand dollars a year, while you're in here, helps to smooth the feelings somewhat, ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... gazing down the wood-lined river. Somehow he could not face the gambler's stern eyes. Had he seen the sudden softening in them the moment the other was sure he was unobserved, he might have been less troubled. But the gambler had no soft side when men's ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... old face softening. "Josie Lockwood's party, eh? And she's sent you an invitation. Well, that was kind ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... drinking-vessels, for these objects become the denouncers of rough, disorderly, and undisciplined movements. Thus the child is led to correct himself, and he accordingly trains himself not to knock against, overturn, and break things; softening his movements more and more, he gradually becomes their perfectly free and self-possessed director. In the same way the child will accustom himself to do his utmost not to soil the gay and pretty things which enliven his surroundings. ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... Beyond are the barracks. And to the right are the copra-sheds. We dry quite a bit already. Old Koho's getting civilized enough to make his people bring in the nuts. There's the mouth of the stream where you found the three women softening." ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... earth. Philanthropy or charity, which forms the centre of the system, has also been immensely intensified by increased knowledge and realisation of the wants and sorrows of others; by the sensitiveness to pain, by the softening of manners and the more humane and refined tastes and habits which a highly elaborated intellectual civilisation naturally produces. The sense of duty plays a great part in modern philanthropy, and lower motives of ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... humanity to some sort of super-plane. Yet through these same centuries they had been busily engaged in the extermination of "weaklings," whom, by their very persecutions, they had turned into "super men," now rising in mighty wrath to destroy them; and in reducing themselves to the depths of softening vice and flabby moral fiber. Is it strange that they looked at me in amazed wonder when I laughed outright in the midst of some of their most ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... at him half smiling, half wistful, longing for some sign of softening which might break down the barrier between them, but Mr Farrell did not even meet her glance. His eyes had already strayed towards his newspaper; he was settling himself in his chair and preparing to resume the interrupted reading. Mollie ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a hundred yards, my meditation was unexpectedly and most agreeably interrupted by the friends who attended beginning to sing a funeral psalm. Nothing could be more sweet or solemn. The well-known effect of the open air in softening and blending the sounds of music, was here peculiarly felt. The road through which we passed was beautiful and romantic. It lay at the foot of a hill, which occasionally re-echoed the voices of the singers, ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... began at last, in such a forlorn little pipe that Peggy was forced to steel herself against an immediate softening of heart. "Aunt Peggy, I guess you'd better whip me. If you send me to bed 'thout any supper it wouldn't make me a good girl a bit, 'cause me and Annie ate lots of cookies and I don't ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... scratched; windows dingy and dim; walls dingy and gray and smoked; everything unhomelike, unattractive, narrow, and rickety. Think, now, of taking a boy away from his home, from his mother and sisters, from carpets and curtains and all the softening influences of cultivated taste, and turning him loose with dozens of other boys into a congeries of pens like this! Who wonders that he comes out a boor? I felt a sinking at the heart in climbing up those narrow, uncouth staircases. We talk about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... extremities which should have mention here. Osteomalacia is a disease of the bones in adult life, occurring most frequently in puerperal women, but also seen in women not in the puerperal state, and in men. It is characterized by a progressive softening of the bone-substance, from a gradual absorption of the lime salts, and gives rise to considerable deformity, and occasionally ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... unexpected and generous service," replied West, who, softening down the first portion of the scene we have described, proceeded to recount to the fair orphan the narrative of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... is not uncommon to see one woman suckling the child of another, while the latter happens to be employed in her other domestic occupations. They are in the habit also of feeding their younger children from their own mouths, softening the food by mastication, and then turning their heads round, so that the infant in the hood may put its lips to theirs. The chill is taken from water for them in the same manner, and some fathers are very fond of taking their children on their knees and thus feeding them. The women are more ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... his neck, and stands the very picture of brute obduracy. There is an awful alternative involved in our hearing of God's message, which never returns to Him void, but ever does something to the hearer, either softening or hardening, either scaling the eyes or adding another film on them, either being the 'savour of life unto life or of death unto death.' The mission of the prophets changed forgetfulness of God's 'statutes' into ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... ruddy light I saw Jack Mount approaching. He halted, touched his cap, and smiled; then his blue eyes wandered to the straw where Lyn Montour lay, sleeping the stunned sleep of exhaustion; and into his face a tenderness came, softening his bold mouth and ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... deeply, evenly, with an evident relish. The action of the opium was visibly renewing his powers. His expression, softening, became terrible with brute tenderness and longing. Gazing into shadows in which he saw that which he wished ardently to see, he stretched forth his arms, and his ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance |
