"Softness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some person was near him. He therefore strained his senses to the utmost in trying to discover what objects might be before or around him; but all, for a while, to no purpose. In a short time, however, his ear caught the sound of a deep sigh, the softness of which told him it came from a female, within a few feet of him. With a palpitating heart, he now doubtfully attempted to move forward, when he suddenly perceived his head on the point of coming in contact with ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... his great hands and imposed an absolute silence. Then, stepping with astonishing softness, considering his bulk, he approached the door of Sinclair's room. Into his left hand slid his .45 and instantly five guns glinted in the hands of the others. With equal caution they ranged themselves behind the big Swede. The latter glanced over his shoulder, made sure that everything was in readiness, ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... truth. The realities of war leave small room for any kind of pose. A high degree, also, of personal stoicism easily felt but not obtruded; and towards weak and small things—women and children—a natural softness and tenderness of feeling, as though a man who has upon him such stern responsibilities of life and death must needs grasp at their opposites, when and how he can; keen intelligence, bien entendu, modesty, courtesy; a habit ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... making them harmonize, but the lives of the saints and conformity with the others is not what matters; what matters is the beauty and sweetness of it. Everything must be harmonious, brief and complete. There must be in every line softness, graciousness and tenderness; not one word should be harsh or rough or unsuitable. It must be written so that the worshipper may rejoice at heart and weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown into a tremor. In the canticle to the Holy Mother are the words: 'Rejoice, O Thou ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... humility, ears laid back with pleadingness for forgiveness and protestation of a warm throbbing heart of love. Instantly, from an open- mouthed, fang-bristling dog in full career of attack, he melted into a bundle of softness and silkiness, that trotted to the open hand and kissed it with a tongue that flashed out between white gleaming teeth like a rose-red jewel. And the next moment he was in Skipper's arms, jowl against ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... to-day?' on which he set down his basket before them, and told them they might have one or two if they pleased, and down they knelt upon the pavement, examining the contents of his basket, and talked in almost breathless whispers to each other of the respective merits, the softness, colour, and prettiness, of—what do ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... judgment, engendered in her very soul by some terrible calamity through which she had personally passed, or regarding which she had been a close observer. When she spoke again, it was with low-toned softness, and she glided a step or two nearer to me, raising her beautiful eyes, now softened to an appealing quality, and clasping her hands in front of her with a gesture of suppliant ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... explain a note which went by messenger from the Livingstones' pillared palace in Middleton Street to Number Three, Lal Behari's Lane, on Monday morning. It was a short note, making a definite demand with an absence of colour and softness and emotion which was almost elaborate. Hilda, at breakfast, tore off the blank half sheet, and ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... reverse is the case, and the valuable constituents through their softness get reduced to a fine pulp long before the other parts, the ordinary operations of the ore-dresser become much more difficult to carry out. Most elaborate ore-reduction plants are constructed with the ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... severity, and indeed I cannot imagine any native trying to take advantage of her kindness and of her great-hearted love for the people. This is the more remarkable to any one with intimate personal acquaintance with the native, and of his readiness to regard kindness as weakness or softness, and his endeavour to exploit it ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... All the softness went out of the girl's brown eyes; they glittered curiously. "Yes," she said, "that is just what I thought." After which ambiguous remark she returned to her former gayety—"Come," she said, "let's go fast; we shall be the last!" Urging ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... moment, then he bent over, with an expression of almost motherly softness in his big, rugged face. He got Eileen's hand in his left hand and ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... says Scott, "have none of that thunder which appals, or that resistless and winning softness which melts, the hearts of an audience. He can never have enjoyed the triumph of uniting hundreds in one ardent sentiment of love, of terror, or of devotion. His reasoning, however powerful, and indeed ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... in the King's eyes died into instant softness. It would have been a wonder if the parents had not been proud of that boy, for he was one of the loveliest children on whom human eye ever rested. Did it ever cross the minds of that father and mother that the kindest ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... swell the hymn of thanks; Our rivers roll exulting, and their banks Send up hosannas to the firmament! Fields where the bondman's toil No more shall trench the soil, Seem now to bask in a serener day; The meadow-birds sing sweeter, and the airs Of heaven with more caressing softness play, Welcoming man to liberty like theirs. A glory clothes the land from sea to sea, For the great land and all its coasts ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... Attica is what, in physical geography, would be called maritime. "Here are allied the continental vigor and oceanic softness, in a fortunate union, mutually tempering each other."[22] The climate of the whole peninsula of Greece seems to be distinguished from that of Spain and Italy, by having more of the character of an inland region. The diversity of local temperature is greater; the extremes of summer and ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... rather shakily; the sea of faces seemed so very formidable, so many eyes looked at her—how could she ever finish! She spoke mechanically at first, but gradually the magic of the Italy of her dreams stole upon her, a singular softness crept into her voice, a mellowness like music, as she depicted the blue skies of the ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... live very much apart from the great African tribes, and keep up their race by intermarriage. The language is peculiar, and altogether devoid of that Italian softness that makes ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... kissing Gertie! He stared at the smooth rounding of her left cheek below the cheek-bone till it took a separate identity, and its white softness ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Which he gave and I accepted. This infuriate tempest stopped me. And although my powerful genius Could chain up east, south, and north wind, I cared not, as if despairing Of success, with other objects, Other aims in view, to turn them To the west wind's summer softness.— [Aside. (I have said I could, but did not, For I note the dangerous workings Of his mind, and thus to magic Bind him by these hints the stronger.) Let not my wild fury fright thee, Nor be at my power astonished, For I could my own death ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... over a layer of carpet felt and painted makes a warm covering, especially well adapted to the needs of very little children, as it has some of the softness of a carpet and yet can ...
— A Catalogue of Play Equipment • Jean Lee Hunt
... would have sworn to anything just for the look that lighted up the velvety eyes in the joy of salvation. It is doubtful if he even heard half of the program of his future existence. There was something irresistible in the softness of her eyes and the fascinating lisp. He was face to face at last with a good influence. He had met, not the type of girl that men play with lightly or madly for a month or a day, but a woman, the kind rough coarse men look up to as to a polar star, the kind ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... it was entirely strange, was yet so absurdly familiar. She was some very high-born lady, there could be no doubt of that, for the delicate fabric of her trailing kirtle was flowered with gold, and gold and coral were twined in the dusky softness of her hair and hung around her neck in a costly chain, which the King was fingering idly as he talked with her. Now she looked up to answer the jesting words, and the man in the passage saw her smile and shake back her clustering curls with a ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... was still so far under the dominion of Dicky's champagne that he started violently. Double doors and double carpets deadened all sound of coming and going, and the voice seemed to have got into the room by itself. As from its softness he judged it to be still some yards distant, he suffered a further shock on finding a lady standing ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... the Italian hound quick and brilliant. It was so easy a thing, that perforation of a torso. One would have expected more resistance. There would have been resistance had my rapier point touched bone. As it was, it encountered only the softness of flesh. Still it perforated so easily. I have the sensation of it now, in my hand, my brain, as I write. A woman's hat-pin could go through a plum pudding not more easily than did my blade go through the Italian. Oh, there was nothing amazing ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... rector's sister; and with the latter Mary studied German, and French also. From the doctor himself she learnt much; the choice, namely, of English books for her own reading, and habits of thought somewhat akin to his own, though modified by the feminine softness of her ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... her tears flow fast— O! can this fit of softness last, Which, so unlook'd for, comes to share The sickly triumph of despair? Upon the harp her head is thrown, All round is like a vision flown; And o'er a billowy surge her mind Views ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... a Jansenist book would make him unhappy by the prominence into which it brought the displeasing idea of hell, and he used now and then to pass a miserable day in wondering whether this cruel destiny should be his. Madame de Warens, whose softness of heart inspired her with a theology that ought to have satisfied a seraphic doctor, had abolished hell, but she could not dispense with purgatory because she did not know what to do with the souls of the wicked, being unable either to damn them, or to instal them among the good until they ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... which his former emotion seemed to stir for her. Evidently she had lost track of something once memorable. She was groping back for childish impressions. It was the only indication of softness he had felt in her. How impossible to believe Lorna was only fifteen! He could form no permanent conception of her. But in that moment he sensed something akin to a sister's sympathy, some vague and indefinable thought in her, too big ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... community. There is a multitude of unobserved influences which the Sabbath exerts upon the temporal welfare of men. It promotes the spirit of good order and harmony; it elevates the poor from want; it transforms squalid wretchedness; it imparts self-respect and elevation of character; it promotes softness and civility of manners; it brings together the rich and the poor upon one common level in the house of prayer; it purifies and strengthens the social affections, and makes the family circle the center of allurement and the source ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... nothing; least of all of Cho[u]bei. Kondo[u] Rokuro[u]bei appeared. With him was an old lady. O'Naka bowed to the ground before the proposed son-in-law. She was in a flutter over the beautiful man destined for O'Iwa. The admirable courtesy of his manners, the tender softness of voice, robbed her of what little judgment she had. Her only fear was that the candidate for honours and ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... came. "You must go too. There is nothing here for you but sorrow. They will take you, John." A softness touched at ...
— Now We Are Three • Joe L. Hensley
... his heart gave a jump. Then it stood dead still for a second. Then it flew off, racing perilously. Oh, for the best reasons in the world. There was something in her eyes, there was a glow, a softness, that seemed—that seemed... ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... was a ravishment—a name of spring and flowers and pure bright skies. May! He dared to whisper it, and he tingled from head to heel. His heart fondled it: May! May! May! and, with inexpressible vague, sweet longing, May! once more. Then her hair! then her voice! then the rosy softness of her hand! then, with hideous revulsion, from her perfections to himself! The gulf of shame! His boots were an epic of despair, his necktie was a tragedy. Then back to her with all the graces of the ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... following a division made by Plotinus, has distributed the poets into three classes, which he calls the musical, the amatorial, and the philosophic. In the first, he places those who are studious of softness and harmony in their numbers; in the second, such as content themselves with describing accurately the outward appearances of real or fanciful objects; and in the third, those who penetrate to the qualities ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... had yet to realise I knew anything of that at all—but I had fought once or twice to a finish with bare fists. I was used to inflicting and enduring savage hurting, and I doubt if he had ever fought. I hadn't fought ten seconds before I felt this softness in him, realised all that quality of modern upper-class England that never goes to the quick, that hedges about rules and those petty points of honour that are the ultimate comminution of honour, that claims credit for things demonstrably ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... can understand that," returned Anna softly. She thought Verity looked quite beautiful as she spoke; perhaps the costume of a Roman peasant suited her, but Anna, who was standing quite close to her, noticed the wonderful softness of the brown eyes and the length of the curling lashes. Babs had grown drowsy at last, and Verity had placed her in the cot. Then they all sat down for a brief chat before it was time for Malcolm ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of how much happiness we had lost by not being more indulgent to each other's faults, forgiving and loving one another. She also seemed to be of this opinion, if I might judge by the grateful look and passive manner in which she received my attentions. Perhaps the near approach of her end gave a softness to her nature which was unusual to her; it is not unlikely; but, of a certainty, I never felt before how much I was losing, as when I saw that poor doggess's ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... she argued warmly. "Dogs are not eaten in California. Why not leave him here? He is happy. He'll never want for food—you know that. He'll never suffer from cold and hardship. Here all is softness and gentleness. Neither the human nor nature is savage. He will never know a whip-lash again. And as for the weather—why, it never ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... fire that is lighted on the hearth in the autumn seems to bring out the cold weather. Deceived by the placid appearance of the dying year, the softness of the sky, and the warm color of the foliage, we have been shivering about for days without exactly comprehending what was the matter. The open fire at once sets up a standard of comparison. We find that the advance guards ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... story. She was leading a secluded and charming existence in an old and picturesque villa at Scarboro, in the north of England. Although her husband had been dead for several years, she still clung to the outward symbols of mourning. It added a softness to the patrician line of her features and a touch of distinction to her manner and poise. She had an illustrious example of a life-long sorrow, and, being ever loyal, Mrs. Chichester retained the weeds of widowhood and the crepe of affliction ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... to the mystery packed within the harsh lines of those dark, fierce features,—he seemed no more and no less than the same brooding, leonine creature that had mercilessly planned the deaths of men in his own Revolutionary Committee. There was no touch of softness in his eyes,—no tears, even at the sight of Lotys smiling coldly in her flower-strewn shroud. And now, unfolding her last message, the King beheld it ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the truth. More privily he transfigures himself into an angel of light—that commonly all men are tempted with—when he hides ill under the likeness of good. And that is in two manners. One is, when he eggs us on to over-great ease and rest of body, and softness to our flesh, for need to sustain our nature. For such thoughts he puts in us: that unless we eat well, and drink well, and sleep well, and lie soft and sit warm, we can not serve GOD, nor last in the labour that we have begun. But he thinks to bring us to over-great pleasure. Another is, ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... letters from your Reverence by the way of the head-post. The whole matter is in a nut-shell. That prayer is the most acceptable which leaves the best results. Results, I mean, in actions. That is true prayer. Not certain gusts of softness and feeling, and nothing more. For myself, I wish no other prayer but that which improves me in virtue. I would fain live more nearly as I pray. I count that to be a good prayer which leaves me more humble, even if it is still with great temptations, tribulations, ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... from the waterside willows in levels of meadow-land, where white and red cows were grazing, and now and then young horses romping away from groups of their elders. It was all dear and kind and sweet, with a sort of mid-Western look in its softness (as the English landscape often has), and the mud-banks were like those of my native Ohio Valley rivers. The effect was heightened, on our return, by an aged and virtuously poor (to all appearance) flageolet ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... portions, and such simple blooms as petunias and nasturtiums garlanding the sunny portion near the windows? If near the waterworks, this greenery might be enlivened by the play of a fountain, whose constant spray would give that softness to the air which is so often burned away by the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... he resumed; "great world-commerce brings great luxury, and luxury brings softness. They had everything to warn them, things happening in their own time and before their eyes, and they would not be warned. They had seen, in one generation, the rise of the military and naval power of the Japanese, a brown-skinned ...
— When William Came • Saki
... opening and closing drowsily, watched her sister like a sleepy, comfortable cat. The sunbeams, filtering through the leafy arch, coquetted with Margaret's raven hair, and alternately brightened and shadowed her features. There was little of feminine softness in those unguarded features, much of intense and apparently far from agreeable thought. It was one of her bad days, mentally as well as physically—probably mentally because physically. She had not slept more than two hours at most, and her eyes ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... the morrow of this ladylike person, who was arriving at her new residence as I came in from a walk. She had come in a cab, with her daughter and her luggage; and, with an air of perfect softness and serenity, she was disputing the fare as she stood among her boxes, on the steps. She addressed her cabman in a very English accent, but with extreme precision and correctness. "I wish to be perfectly ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... decision of all that was to follow, and yet seized by a prophetical terror, a fear which was tragic, lest her own habit of submission should still overwhelm all the personal impulse, and sweep away her very life. The girl's face, moved out of all its gentle softness into the gravity almost stern which this consciousness ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... him, at least. Yet it was true that the lap of the water, just beyond the tent door, still beat time with his lessening pulses when he realized that he was lying with his eyes open and that another sound had recently introduced itself with cunning softness between the splash and murmur of ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... his tenderness of heart. He was not taught that it was unmanly for a boy to weep. It is an easy thing to chill and harden an impressionable nature. It is not so easy to soften it again, or to bring softness to one that is too hard ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... was not allowed to finish the sentence, for Marian whirled upon her with flashing eyes, her temporary softness disappearing entirely. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... days suggested to him the idea of making the young panther answer to this name, now that he began to admire with less terror her swiftness, suppleness, and softness. Toward the end of the day he had familiarized himself with his perilous position; he now almost liked the painfulness of it. At last his companion had got into the habit of looking up at him whenever he cried in a falsetto ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... is used for all branch waste pipes and short lengths of water pipes. The advantage of lead pipes is that they can be easily bent and shaped, hence their use for traps and connections. The disadvantage of lead for pipes is the softness of the material, which is easily broken into by nails, gnawed ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... girl standing by him, her restraining hand still on his arm, the sun glinting in the gloss of her dark hair, her dark eyes fixed on him in denial, in a softness of pity that Morgan knew was not for his victims alone. And so in that revel of base surrender to his primal passions she had come to him, she whom his heart sought among the faces of women; in that manner she had found him, and found him, as Morgan knew in his ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... stone building, when not built of large masses, and uncharged with ornament, always forces upon the attention, the rectangular lines of the blocks, which, however nicely fitted they may be, are "horrible! most horrible!" There is also a great deal of ease and softness in the angular lines of the stucco, which are never sharp or harsh, like those of stone; and it receives shadows with great beauty, a point of infinite importance in this climate; giving them lightness and transparency, without any diminution ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... meal, with their elbows on the table, they talked and listened to each other with softness in their eyes. The afternoon drew on; they had to go. Otto made a last attempt to procure the bill, but Jean-Christophe nailed him to his seat with an angry look which made it impossible for him to insist. Jean-Christophe was only uneasy on one point—that he might be asked ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... not understand. Besides, to me these things were not the raw scene they were to her. It has been a very sad time for her. You see, there is not much natural softness in her, and she was driven into roughness and impatience when he worried her over racing details and other things. And then she was hurt at his preferring to have me with him. It has been very good and generous in her not to ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of you. I feel to want it, tu." And, putting it to her lips, she drank, tilting back her head. Perhaps it was the tell-tale softness of her u's, perhaps the naturally strong lines of her figure thus bent back, but somehow the plumage of the town bird seemed to drop off ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... could have seen her, Drew, I've seen a good many, but none, no, not one, who ever came up to her for softness, and fetching ways. Lord! how I loved her. The old man might have known that if I could have gone straight I'd have done it for—mother. She never lost faith in me. Every time I went wrong—she just stopped singing for a time." Filmer gulped. "Then when I pulled myself ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... is doubtful whether the project would have been received with such unanimous enthusiasm. Peggy's softness of heart interfered sadly, at times, with her theories of discipline. But in her absence the conspiracy against Mrs. Snooks' peace of mind was discussed and elaborated without a dissenting voice. Even Aunt Abigail tacitly approved, and Jack Rynson, who, it appeared, ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... hardness, productiveness, scent, density, capacity to absorb scents of all kinds, cohesion, habitableness (in respect of vegetables and animals), and that attribute of the mind which is called patience of the capacity to bear. The properties of water are coolness, taste, moisture, liquidity, softness, agreeableness, tongue, fluidity, capacity to be congealed, and power to melt many earthly products.[1105] The properties of fire are irresistible energy, inflammability, heat, capacity to soften, light, sorrow, disease, speed, fury, and invariably upward motion. The properties ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... golden showers that every now and then flicker from the trees, and the rustling sound of fallen leaves, and the autumnal smell of mignonette, and other "fall" flowers, whisper of the coming winter; still all here at present is bright and sweet, with that peculiar combination of softness and brilliancy which belongs to the autumn in this part of America. It is the pleasantest season of the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... siege was protracted, and they heard of the difficulties that pressed their army, they grew enraged against Cleon. But he turned all the blame upon Nicias, charging it on his softness and cowardice, that the besieged were not yet taken. "Were I general," said he, "they should not hold out so long." The Athenians not unnaturally asked the question, "Why then, as it is, do not you go with ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... still no news; I don't know how I shall stick it. She might have had the softness of heart to write to ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... with a narrow seat, and they were compelled to sit so close together that he felt the softness and warmth of her body. He was compelled, too, to confess that Mrs. Markham was as attractive by daylight as by lamplight. A fur jacket and a dark dress, both close-fitting, did not conceal the curves of her trim figure. Her cheeks were glowing red with the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... America; but the Virginian opossum, the size of a full-grown cat, is larger than all its relatives. The head and body measure about twenty-two inches; and the tail, fifteen. It is covered with a light grey hair of wool-like softness, short on the face and body, but long on the legs. The base end of the tail is thick and black, and is covered with small scales. So powerful is this member that the opossum can hold on with it to the bough of a tree, and even when desperately wounded it does not let go. Its face ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... material ease and comfort of its own citizens-thus repudiating its own spiritual and material stake in a peaceful and prosperous society of nations. But the enmities it will incur, the isolation into which it will descend, and the internal moral and physical softness that will be engendered, will, in the long ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... take it so hard, Bart, if it was any one but you," she said softly. She went on to say other things of this sort which would make it appear that there was in her heart an inward softness toward him which she had never yet revealed. With womanly instinct she played her little part well and did not exaggerate; but she was not speaking now to the man of drug-weakened mind and over-stimulated sense whom she had known in ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... happened as he had dreamed. He helped her into the brougham with her bags, and had afterward the vague recollection of having properly reassured her about her grandmother and given her a summary of the Beaufort situation (he was struck by the softness of her: "Poor Regina!"). Meanwhile the carriage had worked its way out of the coil about the station, and they were crawling down the slippery incline to the wharf, menaced by swaying coal-carts, bewildered horses, dishevelled express-wagons, and an ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... children's questions should be answered truthfully," and to work up the whole sermon to the final trumpet call, "The truth shall make you free." Yet this is entirely useless as long as we have not defined what we mean by freedom, and above all what we mean by truth. If the child enjoys the beautiful softness of the butterfly's coloured wing, it is surely a truth, if we teach him that seen under the microscope in reality there is no softness there, but large ugly bumps and hollows and that the beautiful impression is nothing but an illusion. But is this truth of the ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... pressed this ball with her invisible limbs, and the column rose and registered the pressure. This was entirely satisfactory to Bottazzi, who then says: 'I desire again to affirm that with her invisible limbs Eusapia feels the forms of objects and their consistency, feels heat and cold, hardness and softness, dampness and dryness neither more nor less than if she were touching and feeling with the hands imprisoned in ours. She feels with other hands, but perceives with the same brain with which she ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... back again, after having kept them so long from you: They were I thought too good to be a woman's; some of my friends to whom I read them, were of the same opinion. It is not very gallant I must confess to say this of the fair sex; but, most certain it is, they generally write with more softness than strength. On the contrary, you want neither vigour in your thoughts, nor force in your expression, nor harmony in your numbers; and me-thinks, I find much of Orinda in your manner, (to whom I had the honour to be related, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... in a state of rest exceeds the average standard in frequency, regularity, and softness, and a general feeling of uneasiness be present, together with reddened eyes, warm nose, and coated tongue, we know at once that there is an unnatural derangement of the vital functions, and that fever in some form is present. The next question to determine is, upon what does ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... the Gaelic movement, and was conscious only of the girl beside him and her glowing cheeks and her bright eyes and the softness of her.... She was older than he was, a couple of years and he noticed that she had just "put up" her hair. It had been hanging loosely when he first saw her, and he wondered which he liked better, the loose, hanging hair, or the hair bound round her head. Her slender white neck was revealed ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... felt the warmth of her lips, he saw again and again the blue softness that had come for an instant into her eyes, and he thanked God for the wonderful happiness that had come to him. For the sweetness of the woman's lips and the greater sweetness of her blue eyes told him what life held ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... with them. I doubt whether the petting, patronising equality of terms on which children now live with their parents be equally wholesome. There was then, however, strong love and self- sacrificing devotion; but not manifested in softness or cultivation of sympathy. Nothing was more dreaded than spoiling, which was viewed as idle and unjustifiable self-gratification at the expense of the objects thereof. There were an unlucky little pair in Russell Square who were said to be 'spoilt children,' and who used to be ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... except in the case of dear Father Holt, had had very little kindness for which to be thankful. O Dea certe, thought he, remembering the lines out of the Aeneis which Mr. Holt had taught him. There seemed, as the boy thought, in every look or gesture of this fair creature, an angelical softness and bright pity—in motion or repose she seemed gracious alike; the tone of her voice, though she uttered words ever so trivial, gave him a pleasure that amounted almost to anguish. It cannot be called love, that a lad of twelve years ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the following night I lay awake and listened. After about half an hour of silence, I heard the door of his room open softly. With equal softness I stole out, and followed Addison through the open chamber of the ell, down a flight of stairs into the wagon-house, and then down another flight ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... A hater of his kind? yet some would say, With them he could seem gay amid the gay; But own'd that smile, if oft observed and near Waned in its mirth and wither'd to a sneer; That smile might reach his lip, but pass'd not by; None e'er could trace its laughter to his eye: Yet there was softness, too, in his regard, At times a heart is not by nature hard. But once perceived, his spirit seem'd to hide Such weakness as unworthy of its pride, And stretch'd itself as scorning to redeem One doubt from others' half-withheld esteem; In self-inflicted penance ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... no hint of hesitation. Rather, the fixity of her gaze and the intensity of her mental concentration threw into high relief the hardness of her personality. She was singularly devoid of that quality which is generally called feminine softness. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... the matter with you, girl?" her father asked. The softness of his speech in no way disguised the iciness of ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... which gives the physiognomic expressions to all the works of nature. Like a green field reflected in a calm and perfectly transparent lake, the image is distinguished from the reality only by its greater softness and lustre. Like the moisture or the polish on a pebble, genius neither distorts nor false-colors its objects; but on the contrary, brings out many a vein and many a tint, which escape the eye of common observation, thus raising ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... and drunk their fill, playing the while all sorts of pretty plays, the moon rose and did look in so friendly at the window that they were fain to wish her welcome. So they went forth upon the balcony, and there, breathing the freshness and softness of the night, did watch the fireflies dancing in the dark bushes. All were still save only the shrilling of the insects in the grass. Then there came a sound of footsteps along the street, and Dona Maria did recognize the poor monk which was wont ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... very evident from the body, the face, the tone of voice, the conversation, the gesture, and the manners of each: from the BODY, in that there is more hardness in the skin and flesh of men, and more softness in that of women; from the FACE, in that it is harder, more fixed, harsher, of darker complexion, also bearded, thus less beautiful in men; whereas in women it is softer, more yielding, more tender, of fairer complexion, and thence more beautiful; from the ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Majesty's. A thousand ardent spectators were in feverish anxiety to see her. Donna Lola enchanted everyone. There was throughout a graceful flowing of the arms—not an angle discernible—an indescribable softness in her attitude and suppleness in her limbs which, developed in a thousand positions (without infringing on the Opera laws), were the most intoxicating and womanly that can be imagined. We never remember seeing the habitues—both young and old—taken by more agreeable surprise ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... If she paints the branch of a rose-tree, it seems to spring from the ground with its flowers in all their luxurious wantonness, and one can almost imagine one's self inhaling their delightful perfume. This talented artist knows so well how to depict with her brush the transparency and softness of the tender, ethereal rose, that one may seek in vain among a crowd of artists for her equal.... The paintings are all bright and sunny, and we are filled with enthusiasm when gazing ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... things, or his prospects of promotion altering, he early quitted that; and took vigorously to the career of arms and business. A truculent-looking Herr, with thoughtful eyes, and hanging under-lip:—HAT of enviable softness; loose disk of felt flung carelessly on, almost like a nightcap artificially extended, so admirably soft;—and the look of the man Casimir, between his cataract of black beard and this semi-nightcap, is carelessly truculent. He had much fighting with the Nurnbergers ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... Christ's seed. He is a poor workman, and an unfaithful one, who wants to pick his ground. Sow everywhere; 'Thou canst not tell which shall prosper, whether this or that.' The character of the soil is not irrevocably fixed; but the trodden path may be broken up to softness, and the stony heart changed, and the soul filled with cares and lusts be cleared, and any soil may become good ground. So the seed is to be flung out broadcast; and prayer for seed and soil will often turn the weeping ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... with no unmanly softness; luxuriant, but with no unmannered luxury. To him you owe as to their first sire in art, the grace of Ghiberti, the tenderness of Raphael, the awe of Michael Angelo. Second-rate qualities in all the three, but precious in their ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... of you to think of it." She began playing too, stroking the fur animal; their hands played together over the sleek softness, consciously, shyly, ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... furnace and heated to a welding heat. They are then lowered into a vertical iron pit with the open side uppermost. The plates are held in position by hydraulic rams, which also prevent bulging. Molten steel of medium softness is then poured into the space between the plates, by means of a distributing trough having holes in the bottom, and after this has solidified, the whole plate is placed under the hydraulic press and reduced ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... lord was better than a New York bank clerk. Judging the men on their own individual merits she might find the bank clerk to be the better of the two. But a certain sweetness of the aroma of rank was beginning to permeate her republican senses. The softness of a life in which no occupation was compulsory had its charms for her. Though she had complained of the insufficient intelligence of young men she was alive to the delight of having nothings said to her pleasantly. All this had affected her so strongly that ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... sentences, as if much crowded on the writer's mind from moment to moment which he could indicate only by a contraction. But there is dash in the book, the keenest earnestness and evidence of a mind made up, and every now and then a mystic softness and richness of pity, yearning towards a voluptuous imagery like that of the Song of Solomon. The plan is straggling. First there is a list of twelve positions which the book proves, or heads under which its contents may be distributed. Then there is an address or dedication to "the Right Honourable ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... each workman feels himself more strong in some special part his art, and those are to be regarded as most fortunate, who lay hands on the noblest, for all the parts essential to the construction of any whole are not equally precious. We find elsewhere, perhaps, greater delicacy phrase, greater softness and harmony of language; but imaginative grace, and in the store of pointed wit, I do not think he has been surpassed; and we should take the account that he made these things neither his occupation nor his ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... aniline colors, to be extracted from coal refuse, has given art new, beautiful, and durable shades of red, blue, purple, and violet. We know but by description what the lauded Tyrian purple was, for monopoly caused the art to be lost; but for softness, richness, and beauty of purple we have none to approach that extracted from this refuse. Nature means nothing to be lost, and waste arises from ignorance. She is a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... artistic renaissance of Kashmir. The pleasure-houses of the emperors before mentioned have so far escaped him, although it is to be feared he will soon have the repairing of them. Their principal charms, the turf, the great trees and the cascades, were never more beautiful, and have rather gained by the softness with which age has enriched them. The trees have been steadily growing under all flags and cults, swelling in pride and strength as they looked contemptuously and calmly down on the storms of human passion. They need no repairs, and their style, nobody knows how much older than Thebes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... peered eagerly over and round the rock, and glinted down the barrels of the double ten-bore gun which he held across his knee. It was a striking countenance, with its brownish eyes, dark peaked beard and strong features, very powerful and very able. And yet there was a certain softness in the face, which hovered round the region of the mouth like light at the edge of a dark cloud, hinting at gentle sunshine. But little of this was visible now. Geoffrey Bingham, barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple, M.A., was engaged with a very serious occupation. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... his Feldlager in Schlesien, I decided to attach no great importance to the instructions he might have received, but rather to help myself by a careful handling of this difficult score, and by introducing some softness into it through modulating the variations in tone as much as possible. I had the gratification later of receiving an exceedingly warm appreciation of my rendering from Herr Eduard Devrient, a great Gluck connoisseur. After hearing this opera as presented by us, and comparing ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner |
