"Soft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... avenue, fronting a pair of rustic youths carved in stone, who had not yet finished some game in which he remembered seeing them engaged when he was there before. He had not walked fast, but he had walked far, and was warm enough to like the whiffs of soft wind on his uncovered head. The spring was coming; that was its breath, which you know unmistakably in Italy after all the kisses that winter gives. Some birds were singing in the trees; down an alley ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... soft and tender fork Of a poor worm] Worm is put for any creeping thing or serpent. Shakespeare supposes falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked. He confounds reality and fiction, a serpent's tongue ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... said a soft, musical voice, and a young man with a Spanish face and pink cheeks was bowing before them. "I t'ink you need-a ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... Adopting the suggestion of Wyttenbach as to the reading. The Dorian measure was grave and severe, the Lydian soft and effeminate. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... ache, and he jumped down at once and got into the middling chair, and he turned round and round in it, but he couldn't make himself comfortable. So then he went to the little chair and sat down in it, and it was so soft and warm and comfortable that Scrapefoot was quite happy; but all at once it broke to pieces under him and he couldn't put it together again! So he got up and began to look about him again, and on one table he saw three saucers, of which one was very big, one was middling, one was quite a little ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... sitting-room of the lodging-house she did not know or care. But she felt excited and gay. She knew the young men were watching her. Max gave his assistance wherever possible. Geoffrey watched her rings, half spell-bound. But Alvina was concerned only to flatter the plump, white, soft vanity of Madame. She carefully chose for Madame the finest plate, the clearest glass, the whitest-hafted knife, the most delicate fork. All of which Madame ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... comfort, and none of luxury, in the room—a strip of gray carpet, laid down beside the bed, an easy-chair with soft, padded back, arms, and seat, covered with white dimity, drawn up to the window nearest the stove, and a footstool of gray tapestry on the floor before it. These comforts were allowed to none ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... up in unaffected and sparkling affirmation before her tongue replied. To bask in this beloved sunshine for days together; to have this quaint Spanish life before her eyes, and those soft Spanish accents in her ears; to forget herself in wandering in the old-time Mission garden beyond; to have daily access to Mr. Braggs's piano and the organ of the church—this was indeed the realization of her fondest dreams! Yet ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... loitering in its smiling valleys, seen its waterfalls, and floated on its crystal torpid lakes, and rushing rivers; yet this old land of Norway yields not in all to them, but bears on her stern and rugged brow the soft impressions of a beneficent creation impartially dispensed. Such reflections failed not, day by day, to force themselves upon me; for I knew, that every step I now took removed me farther and farther from a country, whose mighty mountains had, with their solemnity, first ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... and started the next getting out stones to line the well. This was work we were both used to from the old days at Skreia. Then we put in another week digging, and by that time we had carried it deep enough. The bottom was soon so soft that we had to begin on the stonework at once, lest the clay walls should cave in on ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... literature—the note that is struck with idyllic sweetness in Theocritus, and, rising to its fullest pitch of lyrical intensity, lends a poignant charm to the work of Tasso and Guarini. For everywhere in these soft melodies of luscious beauty, even in the studied sketches of primitive innocence itself, there is an undercurrent of tender ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... appeared on the ridge a little to the east of the railway, and a shell whistled over the train, bursting some 200 yards beyond. Lieutenant Dean at once detrained two guns (the strength of his party being insufficient to man-handle more than two in the soft ground), and with them ranged on the crest line, finding the distance to be about 5,000 yards. The trains were then sent back about half a mile, leaving, however, a trolly with ammunition. The Naval guns, in conjunction with the field batteries, which had now come up, continued to shell the ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... of room in this crowded world. There was nothing distinctive about his dress. His demeanor was quiet. When he spoke he was habitually asked to repeat his remark, which he did, with patience, in the same soft, inaudible voice. ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Mary Hope reproved them sternly, rapping on the kitchen table with a foot rule of some soft wood that blazoned along its length the name of a Pocatello hardware store. "Get to work this instant or I shall be compelled to keep you ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... exclaimed. "My brother was a liaison artillery officer at Ypres; with them, at the time of the gas, you know. He liked them immensely." Her voice was soft and sad. ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... possession, staking their vanity on the success of his imposture? Who awakened in him the artist's joy in rare invention? Who urged him forward from modest to magnificent lies? Who fed and flattered him? What ladies bestowed their soft caresses on Sludge? And now and again in his course of fraud did he not turn a wistful eye towards any reckless tatterdemalion, if only the vagrant lived in ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... green slope, covered with soft grass, short thyme, and cushion-like moss, and overshadowed by a thick, dark yew-tree, shut in by brushwood on all sides, and forming just such a retreat as children love to call their own. Edmund threw himself down at full length on it, laid aside his hat, and passed his hand across his weary forehead. ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... blessings of a plenteous day; When fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain, She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain. How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours, Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy powers? While artful shades thy downy couch enclose, And soft solicitation courts repose, Amidst the drowsy charms of dull delight, Year chases year with unremitted flight, Till Want now following, fraudulent and slow, Shall spring to seize thee, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the breakers roar; And the belated nightingales Sang all their moonlight raptures o'er, Enchanted still in echoing vales. We lingered by the brightening shore; We leapt upon the roseate strand: The joy that in our hearts we bore We loved, nor longed to understand. Soft siren voices evermore ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... their names to the diplomatic masqueraders of the sixteenth century; he enters the cabinet of the deeply pondering Burghley, and takes from the most private drawer the memoranda which record that minister's unutterable doubtings; he pulls from the dressing-gown folds of the stealthy, soft-gliding Walsingham the last secret which he has picked from the Emperor's pigeon-holes or the Pope's pocket, and which not Hatton, nor Buckhurst, nor Leicester, nor the Lord Treasurer is to see,—nobody but Elizabeth herself; he sits invisible at the most ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... soft words, because such, even when they are not deeply sincere, may turn wrath aside like balm. Moreover, he had a wild charm of manner which, if it did not quite capture another man, as almost surely it would have won a woman, yet had its effect. Where exactly it lay I have never been able to decide, ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... his attendant. No questions would be asked them; they could halt where they would, in castle or town, secure of hospitality and welcome. Blondel was himself a native of the south of France, singing his songs in the soft language of Languedoc. Cuthbert's Norman French would pass muster anywhere as being that of a native of France; and although when dressed as a servitor attention might be attracted by his bearing, his youth might render it probable that he was of noble family, but that he had ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... found himself all at once held captive, his mind swayed as grass in the wind to the sweep of that other's fancy. But abruptly the voice ceased, and the stillness settled deeper. Marcus heard a rustle of soft garments upon the ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... the tents was extremely picturesque, fitted up with odds and ends of foreign products, and looking very like the temporary haunt of some pirate; tiger skins, rich soft thick rugs of Persian manufacture, interspersed with Indian mats, covered the floors; the tents were lined with flags, favouring the notion that the corsair's bark lay anchored in some creek below; while daggers, and pistols, and weapons of all ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... leagues of heaving brine (I would wager my life that the mother heard that song, were she buried in the bosom of the Appenines); and the deep melancholy of those large, dark eyes, uplifted so plaintively, the saintly refinement of sorrow that lingered in the soft, olive face which spoke of far Italy, the 'divine despair' of the mellow voice, haunted me strangely and unpleasantly as I hurried away ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... their farther ends to brass nails of a cubit long, which, at every pillar, were driven into the floor, and would keep the tabernacle from being shaken by the violence of winds; but a curtain of fine soft linen went round all the pillars, and hung down in a flowing and loose manner from their chapiters, and enclosed the whole space, and seemed not at all unlike to a wall about it. And this was the structure of three of the sides of this enclosure; but as for the fourth side, which ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... York that the fresh meat sent in to our prisoners by our Commissary was taken by the men-of-war for their own use. This he can say: he did not see any aboard the ship he was in, but they were well supplied with soft bread from our Commissaries on shore. But the provision (be it what it will) is not the complaint. Fresh air and fresh water, God's free ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... look closely for resin ducts. If these are found, note whether they are large or small, numerous or scattered, open or closed, lighter or darker than the wood. Note also whether the late wood is very heavy and hard, showing a decided contrast to the early wood, or fairly soft and grading into the early wood without abrupt change. Weigh the piece in your hand, smell a fresh-cut surface to detect the odor, if any, and taste a chip to see if anything characteristic is discoverable. Then turn to ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... Casey. And you know it. Oh, Casey,"—(I wish your imagination would supply that brogue, because it was such a deliciously soft and racy thing)—"Oh, Casey, Casey! you're a better priest than ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... fashionable aunt in town remarked, we were picturesquely impecunious—which, to that soft lady, probably meant that, we had to worry along without motor cars—we were just as desperately happy as we were poor; for we had each other at least. Every other deprivation seemed comparatively ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... has indeed a certain prettiness of a not very uncommon kind; the paint has been sweetened with a soft brush and licked smooth till all texture as of flesh is gone and the head is wooden and tight; I can see no expression in it; the hand upon the open book is as badly drawn as the hand of S. Catharine (also by Raffaelle) in our gallery, or even worse; ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... green and campus, is forever attempting the conquest of path and road. The warm red bricks of the college buildings are well-nigh hidden by ivy, which, too, is an ardent expansionist. And where neither grass nor ivy can subjugate, soft, ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Look at his soft pleading eyes. See him tremble with fear. He cannot speak for himself and this is the only way he can plead for the life that is so sweet to him. Shall we be so cruel as to kill him? Shall we be so selfish as to take from him the life ...
— History Plays for the Grammar Grades • Mary Ella Lyng
... narrow streets; fat, round paper lanterns here and there above dim doorways; silent forms, soft-shuffling, warily alert. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... behaved with as much propriety as if they had possessed the whitest of cuticles, being quiet, serious, and attentive; nor did I detect anything indecorous on the part of the spectators, beyond an occasional smile or whisper by the younger negroes, whose soft-skinned, dusky faces and white eyeballs glanced upward at the six couples with admiring curiosity, and at us, visitors, with that appealing glance peculiar to the negro—always, to my thinking, irresistibly touching, and suggestive ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the houses fall asleep Under the fleece of shadow, as in between Tall and dark the church moves, anxious to keep Their sleeping, cover them soft unseen. ...
— Bay - A Book of Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... which encircles the entire oval of the Court. The bordering columns are Roman Ionic in dull smoked ivory. The general wall tone is the same, with panels of soft pink between the pilasters. The vaulted ceiling is blue. The plants between the columns are acacias, clipped to ball form. The swinging lamps are from old Roman models in pink and verde green. Classic figures are modeled in low ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... endeavored to point out, instinctive, hardly a people, savage or refined, but has certain forms of it. When, from any cause, the men abstain from its execution it has commonly not the character of grace and agility as its dominant feature, but is distinguished by soft, voluptuous movements, suggestive posturing, and all the wiles by which the performer knows she can best please the other sex, the most forthright and effective means to that commendable end being evocation of man's baser nature. The ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... are times when soft music hath not charms; when it is put to as base uses as Imperial Caesar's dust and is taken to fill horrid pauses. Angelica Forey thumped the piano, and sang: "I'm a laughing Gitana, ha-ha! ha-ha!" Matilda Forey and her cousin Mary Branksburne wedded their voices, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is dumb, Hushed the loud chrysanthemum, Sister, sleep! Sleep, the lissom lily saith, Sleep, the poplar whispereth, Soft and deep! ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... log was thrown on the fire, and after a short chat in its warm glow the boys drew the tent flaps, and were soon sleeping soundly on the soft ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... himself or the things that held on behind were greatest. Then these latter gents of flunkeydom in frills had big sticks in their hands, with which they kept the flies from my Lord's good-natured countenance. Happy fellows were they, and, like well-stuffed mules, only wanted the long soft ears to make them marketable. Everybody said it was a big day in London. To have suggested that his Worship might be making an ass of himself in this common-sense nineteenth century would have been to render yourself a victim of hasty contempt. Smooth ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... upon the prairie she heard the night-winds come and go,—now moaning like some vast spirit wandering disquieted, now falling soft and low as the breath of the sleeping earth; and the vague voice and the cool touch seemed to quiet the fever of the young girl's heart, although she knew not how ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... low degree of cold, an increase of temperature renders them oppressive and inconvenient; while any reduction (of the first two, at least) is impracticable with safety. To this must be added, that at this temperature the snow becomes too soft for convenient walking, and the accumulation of ice in the crevices and linings of the officers' cabins is converted into a source of extreme annoyance, which, while it continues solid, is never experienced. It is true that these inconveniences occur in a much greater degree in the spring; ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... heard, and, egad! they but fire my blood. She is high mettled, but I have dealt with termagants before—and brought them down, by God!—and brought them down! There is a way to tame a woman—and I know it. Begin with a light soft hand and a melting eye—all's fair in love; and the spoils are to the victor. When I come back from Gloucestershire with my lock of raven hair"—he lifted a goblet of wine and tossed it off at a draught—"I shall leave ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you a case in point, Pen,' he was saying. 'A beautiful woman like you, an exquisite, lithe creature is sitting on a sofa under a soft light, leaning against pillows—just as you are now; and a man like me, a poor adoring devil, a regular worm, is sitting at the other end of the sofa looking at this woman, drinking in her loveliness, thrilling to the mysterious lights in her eyes, the ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... the lines of her matured figure as though she had just stepped up out of the sea itself. Around her head she had banded a crimson bandanna, but it allowed the escape of glossy black hair that waved prettily. Her lips were as red as poppies, full, voluptuous; her eyes were sloe-black and as soft as a cow's. Fortunately for the languishing girl's peace of mind—she had placed herself there at the corner of the house to wait for Tunis since the moment the Seamew had dropped anchor—she did not know that the young captain had noticed ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... them out. One of those nights that "are not made for slumber" found us lingering beneath the odorous vines which interlocked their gay blossoms around the slight columns of the veranda, until even the gray surprise of dawn,—the "soft, guileless consolations" of our cigars, as Aeschylus says of certain other incense, the cool, fragrant breezes, gentle as remembered kisses upon the brow, the tremulous tenderness of the star-beams, the listening hush of midnight, having swayed us to a mood of pensiveness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... daintily with the lustrous pendant at the throat, and her voice was exceeding low and soft; only a tapping on the floor with her silken sandal admonished him to ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... she asts me, very soft-spoken, so as not to give pain to one so faithful and so noble as what I was. ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... his health." Leopold's health is probably suffering; but his heart and spirits still more. Poor old man, he has just lost—the other week, "5th February" last—his poor old Wife, at Dessau; and is broken down with grief. The soft silk lining of his hard Existence, in all parts of it, is torn away. Apothecary Fos's Daughter, Reich's Princess, Princess of Dessau, called by whatever name, she had been the truest of Wives; "used to attend him in all his Campaigns, for above fifty years back." "Gone, now, forever ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... eyes had in them either a great deal of worry or undisguised fear. As he took the chair pointed out to him, he was being catalogued by Bristow as showing too much uncertainty, even a womanish timidity. Bristow noticed also that his thick, soft blond hair was carefully parted and brushed, and that his ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... made ridiculous. For you were not brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a woman who calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she wakes up in the night. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... soft as a woman's, yet strangely dominating. "I should like two minutes alone with you—if ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... take a trowel and make a hole," said Logan, nipping off some useless buds and shoots from the plants in his neighbourhood as he was speaking—"and be sure your hole is deep as it should be; and make the bottom soft with your trowel, or throw in a little earth, well broken, for the ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... course of the disease exhibits many peculiarities, the general results are much the same as in adults, viz., pain, orchitis and epididymitis with atrophy, cystitis, &c.; and in girls, more especially peritonitis. Other venereal infections may of course also occur in children, such as soft chancre and syphilis. No detailed account will be given of these diseases. Although we need further information as to the results of venereal infection in children, in well-informed medical circles the numerous ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... Neither is the killdeer her bird. The upland claims it, plover though it be. A barren, stony hillside, or even a last year's corn-field left fallow, is a better-loved breast to the killdeer than the soft brooding breast of the marsh. There are no grass-birds so noisy as these two. Both of them lay their eggs in pebble nests; and both depend largely for protection upon the harmony of their colors with the general ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... walls of fern-fringed rock, beneath nut, and oak, and alder, to the low bar over which the stream comes swirling and dimpling, as the water-ouzel flits piping before him, and the murmur of the ringdove comes soft and sleepy through the wood. There, as he wades, he sees a hundred sights and hears a hundred tones, which are hidden from the traveller on the dusty highway above. The traveller fancies that he has seen the country. So he has; the outside of it, at least: but the angler only sees the inside. ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... "They are yet some distance away, though not far, for the sandaled feet of the men and the pads of the lions make little noise upon the soft sands." ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a duck's back, and below he was clad in shepherd's tartan trousers, which disappeared into unpolished riding-boots. His shirt was gray flannel, and he was uncertain about a collar, but certain as to a tie,—which he never had, his beard doing instead,—and his hat was soft felt of four colours and seven different shapes. His point of distinction in dress was the trousers, and they were ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... that he employed made a great impression, and brought many to reason. For he spoke of the bees, how, when they wander too far from the hive, they can be brought back by soft, sweet melody, and so might this wild and wandering human swarm be brought back to the true hive by the soft and thrilling melody of God's holy Word. Then for conclusion he read the princely mandate from the altar; but at this the uproar recommenced, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Uncle Maurice! Whenever I have need to strengthen myself in all that is good, I turn my thoughts to him; I see again the gentle expression of his half-smiling, half-mournful face; I hear his voice, always soft and soothing as a breath of summer! The remembrance of him protects my life, and gives it light. He, too, was a saint and martyr here below. Others have pointed out the path of heaven; he has taught us to ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... very soft in 1 quart of water; strain, and add 1 pint of milk, 1 teaspoonful of soda, small piece of butter, a shake of mace, and salt to taste. Let it scald, not boil, and ...
— The Cookery Blue Book • Society for Christian Work of the First Unitarian Church, San
... men always lie down, when they can, on soft beds rather than on hard floors? Why do they sit round the stove on a cold day? ... Why does the maiden interest the youth so that everything about her seems more important and significant than anything else in the world? Nothing more can be said than ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... The soft, cool green and grey of the garden were changing the green grew golden, the shadows black, and the lake where the swans were mirrored upside down, under the Temple of Phoebus, was bathed in rosy light from the little fluffy clouds that lay ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... and bordered with brocade; her walking shoes were also purfled with gold and her hair floated in long plaits. She raised her face veil[FN139] and, showing two black eyes fringed with jetty lashes, whose glances were soft and languishing and whose perfect beauty was ever blandishing, she accosted the Porter and said in the suavest tones and choicest language, "Take up thy crate and follow me." The Porter was so dazzled he could hardly believe that he heard her aright, but he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... such music, that it might assuage The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee, Were they not deaf to all sweet melody; This song shall be thy rose: its petals pale Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale! 10 But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom, And it has no thorn left to wound ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... and was properly inconstant. In fact, he summed up all the romance that her age and environment led her to desire. She wondered if those were his dancing-shoes that fox-trotted tentatively around the soft ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... fisher folk put up that painted tablet to the dear Madonna, for all poor shipwrecked souls. To climb the high hills through the tangle of myrtle and tamarisk, and the tufted rosemary, with the kids bleating above upon some unseen height. To watch the soft night close in, and the warning lights shine out over shoals and sunken rocks, and the moon hang low and golden in the blue dusk at the end there under the arch of the boughs. To spend long hours in the cool, fresh, break of day, drifting with the tide, and leaping with bare free limbs into the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... pleasure of the mind, Forever with us stay, our hearts to bind! We cling to thee till life has fled away; Our dearest phantom, ever with us stay! Without thee, we have naught but dread despair, The worst of all our torments with us here; Oh, come with thy soft pinions, o'er us shine! And we will worship thee, a god divine: The ignis fatuus of all our skies That grandly leads us, vanishes and dies, And we are left to grope in darkness here, Without a ray ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... opened her eyes, very blue with sleep. With her rosy color and the white and blue of her little garments she looked like a cherub smiling out of the canvas of a German painter,—the soft companion of an older and more pensive grace. Hannah ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... the river, "that but for my luck I might be at the inn! Heaven above us, I might even have been leaving this enchanting spot!" He looked down at the stream. A man was fishing there, a tall, well-made fellow in knickerbockers and a soft felt hat of the sort sometimes called Tyrolean. "Good luck to you, my boy!" nodded the happy ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... us," continued the boy, "an' she talks so nice to us. You 'member the time I told you 'bout, w'en we breaker boys went down there, all of us, an' she cried kin' o' soft, an' stooped down an' kissed me? I shouldn't never forgit that if I live to be a thousan' years old. An' jes' think of her kissin' me that way ev'ry night,—think of it Uncle Billy! an' ev'ry mornin' too, maybe; wouldn't that be—be—" and ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... a soft and winning voice; "I have always believed you ingenious, and you have rendered me a service never to be forgotten. Without you, this great, this wondrous discovery would never have been made. It is my duty, therefore, to insist on ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Hilo Boarding School are three large, rounded hills which, centuries ago, were mud craters. Covered with the green of rustling cane-tops, at a distance they appear to be soft, grassy mounds. Many a tourist, gazing from the deck of an incoming ship, has yearned to "stroll over those smooth, rolling hills," only to find the pastime quite impossible on nearer view, which revealed the "velvety grass" as lusty sugar cane stalks ten to ...
— Legends of Wailuku • Charlotte Hapai
... into the greyness of the great arches, when the organ suddenly burst out into a series of chords, rolling through the echoes of the church: it seemed to be the conclusion of some service. And above the organ rose the notes of a voice; high, soft, enveloped in a kind of downiness, like a cloud of incense, and which ran through the mazes of a long cadence. The voice dropped into silence; with two thundering chords the organ closed in. All was silent. For a moment I stood ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... Russia. Sitting alongside of Lukeriya, he was all the time trying to embrace her around the waist, and she did not oppose this. But even his long arms could not encompass her amazing waist. However, she clasped his hand powerfully under the table, until it hurt, with her enormous, soft hand, as hot ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... with every passing emotion. I was one of those dangerous subjects whom anger always makes pale. My eyes were decidedly blue, everything else that may be said to the contrary notwithstanding. The whole expression of my countenance was very feminine, but not soft. It was always the seat of some sentiment or passion, and in its womanly refinement gave to me an appearance of constitutional delicacy and effeminacy, that I certainly did not possess. I was decidedly a very beautiful child, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... recognized type of prettiness; a pure oval; from the smooth forehead to the dimpled little chin all its lines were soft and graceful. Her lack of colour, by heightening the effect of black eyebrows and darkly lustrous eyes, gave her at present a more spiritual cast than her character justified; but a thoughtful firmness was native to her lips, and no possibility of smirk or simper lurked ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... brightness to the dining-room. More candles, in sconces against the walls, and two pairs of noble moderator-lamps, on bronze and ormolu pedestals six feet high, lighted the drawing-room. In the halls and corridors there was the same soft glow of lamplight. Only in kitchens and out-offices and stables was the gas permitted to blaze merrily for the illumination of cooks and ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same purpose that frankincense is carried ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... went unto him saying, 'I agree.' Then, O son of Bharata, taking him in private, she kept him chained. O conqueror of foes, returning to his hermitage, Raivya found his daughter-in-law, Paravasu's wife, in tears. O Yudhishthira, thereat consoling her with soft words, he enquired of her as to the cause of her grief. Thereupon, the beautiful damsel told him all that Yavakri had said unto her, and what she also had cleverly said unto him. Hearing of this gross misbehaviour of Yavakri, the mind ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the orator, must from the very commencement, by strong impressions, transport his hearers out of themselves, and, as it were, take bodily possession of their attention. There is a species of poetry which gently stirs a mind attuned to solitary contemplation, as soft breezes elicit melody from the Aeolian harp. However excellent this poetry may be in itself, without some other accompaniments its tones would be lost on the stage. The melting harmonica is not calculated to ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... fresh water resources in some areas; the policies of former Communist regimes promoted rapid urbanization and industrial growth that had negative effects on the environment; the burning of soft coal in power plants and the lack of enforcement of environmental laws severely polluted the air in Ulaanbaatar; deforestation, overgrazing, and the converting of virgin land to agricultural production increased soil erosion from wind and rain; desertification ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... new day widened into a soft pink flush over the tops of the bare trees that etched their fine twigs into an archaic pattern against a purple sky lit by the gorgeous flame of the morning star retreating before the coming sun, we all collected buckets and rags and bottles and sponges. In Indian file we were led by Sam around ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... an armed champion was behind those mild features, soft almost to supplication to me, that I might know her to be under a constraint. The nether lip dropped in breathing, the eyes wavered: such was her appearance in open war with me, but her will ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... but found them of the ordinary breed, in velveteens, red-sashes, and soft felt hats. As they made the noon stop, one thing struck him as peculiar. The driver of the provision carriage had little or nothing to do with his companions. "That is because he is mine," explained M. Ferraud ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... Herod's daughter. Closing his eyes slightly he saw her breasts, scarce hidden beneath jewels, and precious scarves floated from her waist as she advanced in a vaulted hall of pale blue architecture, slender fluted columns, and pointed arches. He sipped his lemonade, enjoying his soft, changing, and vague dream. But now he heard voices in the next room, and listening attentively he could distinguish ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... water, three ounces of unsweetened chocolate; add a pound of sifted powdered sugar and mix thoroughly; work to a stiff yet pliable paste with the unbeaten whites of three eggs (or less), adding vanilla to flavor. If the paste seems too soft, add more sugar. Break off in small pieces and roll out about one-fourth of an inch thick, sprinkling the board and paste with granulated sugar instead of flour. Cut with a tiny heart-shaped cake cutter ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa
... boughs drew the attention of our dogs we at length examined several of them and always found a small nest in the centre occupied by the same kind of rat. This animal had ears exactly resembling those of a small rabbit, soft downy wool and short hind legs; indeed but for the tail it might have passed ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... pretty well grown for my years, a little pert, a little proud, a little fond of tinsels and butterflies, a little too apt to make fun of my neighbours, and to believe that the sun had got a special commission to shine upon me, but withal sympathetic and soft-hearted enough when in my right senses, and, as I said before, not a bad sort of girl when properly kept down by a judicious system of snubbing. I had already begun to count the months to the happy time, two years hence, when, my education ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... the fence he went into a plowed field. Presently another stone fence crossed his path; along this he again turned toward the highway. In a few minutes he found himself in a corner formed by the meeting of two stone fences. Then he turned appealingly to me, uttering the soft note of the mallard. To use his wings never seemed to cross ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... the curious-looking object with his finger, making it wince and threaten with its claws, but they were perfectly soft, and it was evident that the creature had only just crept out of its old shell, and was hiding away in the dark hole waiting for ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... formalism and the half belief of the Established Church very freely, but he closes his chapter on Religion with soft-spoken words. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... found our situation very safe and convenient; we had shelter from all winds except the S.E. which seldom blows, and if a ship should be driven ashore in the bottom of the bay, she could receive no damage, for it is all fine soft ground. We found drift-wood here sufficient to have furnished a thousand sail, so that we had no need to take the trouble of cutting green. The water of Sedger river is excellent, but the boats cannot get in till about two ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... them he seemed to muster up courage and come right to the front like a man. My object in crawling near their camp so soon was to see in just what position they lay before the fire went out, and when the last one laid down we were within fifty yards of them. I told the boys we had a soft thing of it, for each of us had two revolvers and a good knife, and the Indians were all lying close together with their feet towards the fire. I told them we would wait two hours as near as we could guess the time and then they would be asleep; that then we would crawl up ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... emotions of the maiden were of a sort readily to show how easily she should be quickened with the inspiration of lyric song. The color came and went upon her soft white cheeks. The tears rose, big and bright, upon her eyelashes—heavy drops, incapable of suppression, that swelled one after the other, trembled and fell, while the light blazed, even more brightly from the shower, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... mapped in points of light on the opposite slope, the streets of Bursley. To the right the eternal conflagration of the Cauldon Bar furnaces illumined the sky with wavering amber. And on the keen air came to her from the distance noises, soft but impressive, ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... of the country that lies between the chain of the two Mauriennes is very much alike; yet here in the district through which the stranger was traveling there are soft undulations of the land, and varying effects of light which might be sought for elsewhere in vain. Sometimes the valley, suddenly widening, spreads out a soft irregularly-shaped carpet of grass before the eyes; a meadow constantly watered by the mountain streams that keep it fresh and green at ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... there were five people who would—in a sense who must—break prison and attempt his rescue. They were capable, hardy folks, too, who might very well succeed. Why should they not then? Why should not young Hermiston escape clear out of the country? and be happy, if he could, with his——. But soft! I will not betray my secret or my heroine. Suffice it to breathe in your ear that she was what Hardy calls (and others in their plain way don't) a Pure Woman.[50] Much virtue in a capital letter, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the physician imperatively; and the banker staggered into Rachel's dressing-room (the room which Gunther had so daintily fitted up), and brought water and a soft fine towel, which his trembling hands could scarcely bind upon his poor child's head. Then, as her moaning ceased, and her arms dropped, he passed into an ecstasy of joy, for now he began to hope that she would be ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... out not to see it. To get away from it. I meant to give things their chance. That's why I went in for medicine. I wasn't going to shirk. I wanted to be a man. Not a long-haired, weedy thing in a soft hat." ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... stooped. With madness tired, and drooped In the soft valley and slept. While morning strangely round the hush'd tree crept ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... of wild camels. Wild camels live in herds of half a dozen head. The leader is a dark-brown stallion; the mares are lighter in colour. Their wool is so soft and fine that it is a pleasure to pass one's hand over it. Several herds or families are often seen grazing on the same spot. They look well-fed, and the two humps are firm and full of fat. In spring and summer they can go without water for eight days, in winter for two weeks. For innumerable ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... other weapons, thus assist him with their prayers. And the lion brings him such effective aid, that at his first attack, he strikes so fiercely the seneschal, who was now on his feet, that he makes the meshes fly from the hauberk like straw, and he drags him down with such violence that he tears the soft flesh from his shoulder and all down his side. He strips whatever he touches, so that the entrails lie exposed. The other two avenge ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... struck something soft, and a moment later out of the den lumbered the big black bear, bristling with rage. As he came forth all of the young hunters blazed away, and the bear was struck in various places. But the shots were far from fatal, and with a grunt of rage and pain bruin ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... had been holding it up by the linen bands attached to it were relieved by others, the chanters relit their censers, and service began. The hot rays of the sun beat down vertically and a fresh soft wind played with the hair of the bared heads and with the ribbons decorating the icon. The singing did not sound loud under the open sky. An immense crowd of bareheaded officers, soldiers, and militiamen surrounded the icon. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the oak says," said the Singing Mouse. "When the wind is soft, the oak says: 'Peace! Peace!' When the breeze is sharp it sighs and says: 'Pity! Pity! Pity!' And when the storm has fallen, the oak sobs and cries: ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... went, and down the gentle slope at as round a pace as the soft ground would with safety allow. I had reckoned upon being opposed to six or even eight men, whereas there were but four, one of whom I knew was hardly to be reckoned. Doubtless St. Auban had imagined ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... not particularly steady, and on arriving at the gate of the house, he stumbled over the threshold and fell. He got up with an oath, and instantly commenced thundering at the door with the stock of his musket. "Who is it?" at length demanded a soft female voice in Gallegan. "The valiente of Finisterra," replied Antonio; whereupon the gate was unlocked, and we beheld before us a very pretty female with a candle in her hand. "What brings you here so late, Antonio?" ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... entrancing little charm which trembled up from her young and beating heart, through its softest intonations; this low tremor it was that confirmed the tale which the divine glance of that dark, but soft and mellow eye, had just told him. But to proceed, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... vegetation are piled up against them. Thus the river course is blocked, and above these natural dams the water forms lakes. Such banks of drifting or arrested and decaying vegetation are called sudd, and the more it rains the greater are the quantities that come down. At length the sudd becomes soft and yields to the pressure of the water, and then the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... glowing were the eyes with which he gazed upon the Rome of his book, the new Rome that he had dreamt of! If, first of all, the ensemble had claimed his attention in the soft and somewhat veiled light of that lovely morning, at present he could distinguish details, and let his glance rest upon particular edifices. And it was with childish delight that he identified them, having long ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... wonderful influence over the lives of others. Sordid as was his career, the man himself was not without beautiful and generous impulses. He loved nature in an age when other men simply studied nature. He liked to look at the clear blue sky, or to admire the soft green fields and shapely trees, and he was not ashamed to confess it. The emotions had been forgotten while philosophers were praising the intellect: Rousseau reminded the eighteenth century that after all it may be as sane to enjoy a sunset as to solve a problem in algebra. Rousseau possessed ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... feet high. The ruins extend for about half an hour from south to north, and consist of a number of public buildings, churches, and private habitations, the walls and roofs of some of which are still standing. I found no inscriptions here. The stone with which the buildings are constructed is a soft calcareous rock, that speedily decays wherever it is exposed to the air; it is of the same description as that found in the buildings of the towns about the mountain of St. Simon, and in the ruins of St. Simon, where ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... not in her presence to use such words and jests as but too well pleased the empress; there was something in Eleonore's glance that commanded involuntary respect and awe; an elevation, a mildness, a soft feminine majesty was shed over her whole being that enchanted even those who were inimical to her. Elizabeth had perceived that, with her eyes sharpened by jealousy; her envy was yet more mighty ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... to you, seven years ago, a ragged little brat out of the streets, that didn't know itself whether 'twas a boy or a girl? Do you know what I thought to myself the moment I set eyes on you? 'Here's a soft old juggins; I'll be all right if I can get in here!' It makes you smart, knocking about in the gutters and being knocked ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... drawn; there was terror—absolute, undiluted terror—in her unnaturally large eyes. Often when the man spoke to her she shivered. Her eyes seemed constantly trying to escape his gaze, wandering round the room, the terror of a hunted animal in their soft, luminous depths. Once they rested upon mine—I was seated in the corner facing her—and it seemed to me that there was appeal—desperate, frenzied appeal—in that long, tense look which thrilled all my pulses with passionate sympathy. Yet she ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... certain that it was nothing short of ridiculous for legionaries in hard fighting condition and well fed to consume one hundred and one days in marching from their landing-port on the coast of Gaul to Placentia: ten miles a day was despicable marching even for lazy and soft-muscled recruits; any legionaries should make fifteen, miles at day under any conditions, earnest men keyed up to hurry should have made twenty and might often march twenty-five miles between camps. These blatherskites were on fire with high resolve, by their talk, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... When one is attacked by certain maladies, all the springs of our physical being appear to be broken, all our energies destroyed, all our muscles relaxed, our bones to have become as soft as our flesh, and our blood as liquid as water. I am experiencing that in my moral being in a strange and distressing manner. I have no longer any strength, any courage, any self-control, nor even any power to set my own will ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... breach exists through which one or both may pass out of the cabinet. The truth is, that all clerks constitutionally appointed are legally exempt, and it is the boldest tyranny to enroll them as conscripts. But Mr. Memminger has no scruples on that head. All of them desire to retain in "soft places" their own relatives and friends, feeling but little sympathy for others whose refugee families are dependent ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... she had smiled, and he liked the play of light round the curves of her mouth, amid the shadows of the soft dark skin, in the black ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... inconceivable waste, for God to create man, had he not an immortal soul. He would be like the women who make little gardens, not less pleasant than the gardens of Adonis in earthen pots and pans; so would our souls blossom and flourish but for a day in a soft and tender body of flesh without any firm and solid root of life, and then be blasted and put ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison |
