"Smoothness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the deep, rich green colour of its broad leaves, which were twelve or eighteen inches long, deeply indented, and of a glossy smoothness, like the laurel. The fruit, with which it was loaded, was nearly round, and appeared to be about six inches in diameter, with a rough rind, marked with lozenge-shaped divisions. It was of various colours, from light pea-green to brown and rich yellow. ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... done!" gallantly slushed his way into the water alongside, in his Sunday trousers, lifted the gunwale and started her afloat, amidst a shower of final "Au revoirs," and the rose chaloupe moved with noiseless smoothness down the current. ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... roads of England are incomparable for excellence, of a beautiful smoothness, very ingeniously laid down, and so well kept that in most weathers you could take your dinner off any part of them without distaste. On them, to the note of the bugle, the mail did its sixty miles a day; innumerable chaises whisked after the bobbing post-boys; or some young ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... carriage with the horses taken out. Fillimore seemed to think that if nature had not made such a nobleman a horseman, the Queen-Empress should not have made him Governor-General of India. Fillimore was full of prejudices. Gianacchi, however, found it impossible to treat him coldly. His smoothness of temperament stood in the way. Instead, he imparted the melodious information that Musquito had pecked badly twice at Tollygunge that morning, and smiled with pathetic philosophy. "Always let 'em use ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... narrow box, like one of those which considerate pawnbrokers provide for their more diffident clients, and in a similar, but more intense, degree, pervaded by a subtle odour of uncleanness. The woodwork was polished to an unctuous smoothness by the friction of numberless dirty hands and soiled garments, and the general appearance—taken in at a glance as I entered—was such as to cause me to thrust my hands into my pockets and studiously avoid contact with any part ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... a new interest. It was the first time since the new owner had come to the Double R that he had dropped the mask of sleek smoothness behind which he concealed his passions. Even now the significance was more in his voice than in his words, and Duncan began to comprehend that Langford was deeper ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... smoothness for a short moment, but cleared again before the Duke dropped back with a ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... the whole body, we proceed to those of particular parts. The affections of the tongue appear to be caused by contraction and dilation, but they have more of roughness or smoothness than is found in other affections. Earthy particles, entering into the small veins of the tongue which reach to the heart, when they melt into and dry up the little veins are astringent if they are rough; or if not so rough, they are only harsh, ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... noon. A visit from Villa Rocca of a half-hour. Sauntering up the Elysees, after his departure, the count, shadowed carefully, strolled to his club. He seemed to know nothing. The waxen mask of Italian smoothness fits him like a glove. He hums a pleasant tune as he strolls in. The morning journals? Certainly; an hour's perusal is worthy the attention of the elegant "flaneur." Ah! another murder. He enjoys ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... column; then a strong oscillation began to be visible in the body of the water-spout; it swayed heavily to and fro; the cloud at its apex seemed to stoop, and the whole mass broke and fell, with a noise that might have been heard for miles. The sea, far around, was crushed into smoothness by the shock; immediately where the vast pillar had stood, it boiled like a caldron; then a succession of waves, white with foam, came circling outward from the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... when he perceived that he lay within the reach of the shot of his powerful foe, though still so distant as to render her also a little uncertain, more especially should a set get up. The felucca had burnt to the water's edge; but, owing to the smoothness of the water, her wreck still floated and was slowly setting into the bay, there being a slight current in that direction, where she now lay. The town was basking in the afternoon's sun, though hid from view, and the whole ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... who looked to the king's furniture, as he was breaking up the ground near the river Oxus, to set up the royal pavilion, discovered a spring of a fat, oily liquor, which after the top was taken off, ran pure, clear oil, without any difference either of taste or smell, having exactly the same smoothness and brightness, and that, too, in a country where no olives grew. The water, indeed, of the river Oxus, is said to be the smoothest to the feeling of all waters, and to leave a gloss on the skins ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... In carrying out this undertaking a very little weakness, a very small display of indecision, might easily have meant an appalling amount of bloodshed. As it was, the whole business was completed in a wonderfully short while, and with remarkable smoothness. The judicial and municipal administration of these centres was to remain English; but supreme authority was vested in the officer commanding the German forces in each place, and the heads of such departments as the postal ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... all her smoothness, I am not quite cured of my jealousy; but I have thought of a way that will clear my doubts. [Exit ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... bragging, puft" language. A ghost concludes "Jeronimo" whose "hopes have end in their effects" "when blood and sorrow finish my desires," "these were spectacles to please my soul." In "Titus," even the Satanic Aaron, "in the whirlwind of passion," "acquires and begets a temperance" that "gives it smoothness." ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... she was in her mother's arms, so near that she could feel the warmth and smoothness of her shoulder through the fine texture of her gown, so near that a fresh fragrance, like that from a bank of violets, seemed to breathe upon her, Imogen found it a little difficult to control the discomfort that the contact aroused in her. "Of course I forgive you, dear mama," she ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Saxon with a chill pang that she was surely older than Billy. She stole glances at the smoothness of his face, and the essential boyishness of him, so much desired, shocked her. Of course he would marry some girl years younger than himself, than herself. How old was he? Could it be that he was too young for her? As he seemed to grow inaccessible, she was drawn toward ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... thin-bladed knife shave off in a horizontal manner the first slice, leaving the round flat and smooth. The meat is disfigured if this smoothness is not preserved; it is therefore necessary that your knife be sharp and your hand steady. It must be ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... picked a stone up with a little pout, Stones looked so ill in well-kept flower-borders. Where should she put it? All the paths about Were strewn with fair, red gravel by her orders. No stone could mar their sifted smoothness. So She hurried to the river. At the edge She stood a moment charmed by the swift blue Beyond the river sedge. She watched it curdling, crinkling, and the snow Purfled upon its wave-tops. Then, "Hullo, My Beauty, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... disappointed in Joe Bacon; how young and shabby he looked! He wore a monkey jacket, probably a remnant of his sea-going father's wardrobe. He had done his best, however, for his hair was greased, and combed to a marble smoothness; its sleekness vexed me, not remembering at that moment the pains I had taken to dress my own hair, for ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... things, had put on his best clothes for this occasion, and it happened that the most superior garment in his wardrobe was a thick pilot-jacket, which stood out from his square person with solid angularity. He had brushed his hair very carefully, applying water to compass a smoothness which had been his life-long and hitherto unattained aim. His shock hair—red turning to grey—stood up four inches from his honest, wrinkled face. It was unfortunate that his best garments should have been purchased for the amenities of a northern climate. His trousers were as stiff ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... August 4th, the order for mobilisation was received, and conveyed throughout the county that night by the police and eager parties of volunteers. The plan of mobilisation had been closely studied in all its details, and worked with complete smoothness. By 2 p.m. on the 5th the assemblage at Reading was complete, and after a laborious day spent in medical inspection, drawing of equipment and of ammunition, 28 officers and 800 other ranks entrained in the evening for their war station ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... illustration of the main idea that it gives an illusion of an infinity like that of life. It is constructed closely and subtly for the stage. It is more full of the ingenuities of play-writing than any of the plays. The verse and the prose have that smoothness of happy ease which makes one think of Shakespeare not as a poet writing, but as a ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... perhaps never cared much for poetry, except ballads and his contemporary Byron. He desired, as he said in the note to "Romantic Ballads," not the merely harmonious but the grand, and he condemned the modern muse for "the violent desire to be smooth and tuneful, forgetting that smoothness and tunefulness are nearly synonymous with tameness and unmeaningness." He once said of Keats: "They are attempting to resuscitate him, I believe." He regarded Wordsworth as ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... him up with delicate precision, and drew the snowy counterpane into absolute smoothness. "There!" she said, her gentle eyes beaming with maternal pleasure. "Is there anything else, dear doctor—I ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... Express'd, the dog with open mouth her throat Attempted still, and how the fawn with hoofs Thrust trembling forward, struggled to escape. That glorious mantle much I noticed, soft 290 To touch, as the dried garlick's glossy film; Such was the smoothness of it, and it shone Sun-bright; full many a maiden, trust me, view'd The splendid texture with admiring eyes. But mark me now; deep treasure in thy mind This word. I know not if Ulysses wore That cloak at home, or whether of his train Some warrior gave it to him on his way, Or else some host ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... knelt weeping. There was a strong family resemblance between them. Seeing them side by side, you thought of two beautiful Greek medals struck from the same matrix, but one old and worn and the other bright and clear-cut with all the brilliancy and smoothness of a first impression. ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... on which this machinery operates may perhaps be made intelligible to the reader by description; but the great charm in these processes consists in the high perfection and finish of the machines, the smoothness, grace, and rapidity of their motions, and in the seemingly miraculous character of the performances ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... consummately organized, astutely managed, and unremittingly maintained intimidation; and accordingly never in our history has a measure of such revolutionary character and of such profound importance as the Eighteenth Amendment been put through with anything like such smoothness and celerity. The intimidation exercised by the AntiSaloon League was potent in a degree far beyond the numerical strength of the League and its adherents, not only because of the effective and systematic use of its black-listing methods, but also ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... be off, senor," said Sancho, "for I have taken the beards and tears of these ladies deeply to heart, and I shan't eat a bit to relish it until I have seen them restored to their former smoothness. Mount, your worship, and blindfold yourself, for if I am to go on the croup, it is plain the rider in the saddle must ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... none others as remarkable. But if less various he would have been less attractive. If he had shone without a cloud in any one direction, he would not have pervaded a period with the splendour of his nature, and become its type. More smoothness in his fortunes would have shorn them of their tragic picturesqueness. Failure itself was needed to colour all with the tints which surprise and captivate. He was not a martyr to forgive his persecutors. He was not a hero to endure in silence, and without an effort at escape. His character had many ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness, Her very silence, and her patience Speak to the people, and they pity her. Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name; And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous When she is gone: then open not thy lips; Firm and ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... know not what they do.' I confess I felt an indignation for you, which for myself I have been able, under every trial, to keep entirely passive. However, the storm is over, and we are in port. The ship was not rigged for the service she was put on. We will show the smoothness of her motions on her republican tack. I hope we shall once more see harmony restored among our citizens, and an entire oblivion of past feuds. Some of the leaders, who have most committed themselves, cannot ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a fox of the first quality. He lied with the smoothness of silk. He could show a dozen colors in as many moments. Come to the windward of Joe Rix? It was a delicate business! But since there was nothing else to do, she fixed her mind upon it, working ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... Jno. Peters, "is to learn to draw quickly. Like this!" he added, producing the revolver with something of the smoothness and rapidity with which Billie, in happier moments, had seen conjurers take a bowl of gold fish out of a tall hat. "Everything depends on getting the first shot! The first ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... small pieces, which he afterwards printed. He sometimes imitated the English poets, and professed to have written at fourteen his poem upon "Silence," after Rochester's "Nothing." He had now formed his versification, and the smoothness of his numbers surpassed his original; but this is a small part of his praise; he discovers such acquaintance both with human life and public affairs as is not easily conceived to have been attainable by a boy ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... Tibullus and Ovid may claim the advantage over Propertius: Tibullus for refined simplicity, for natural grace and exquisiteness of touch; Ovid for the technical merits of execution, for transparency of construction, for smoothness and polish of expression. But in all the higher qualities of a poet Propertius is ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... second Punic war. The Aeneid of Virgil was his model, and the narrative of Livy furnished his materials. It is considered the dullest and most tedious poem in the Latin language though its versification is harmonious, and will often, in point of smoothness, bear comparison with ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... statesman. The smoothness of his manipulation was marvellous. No other man in politics, indeed no other man who had ever been in politics in this country, could—his admirers said—have brought together so many hostile interests and made so fantastic a combination. Some men went ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... for its myriads; for its height, Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite; But Paris for the smoothness of the paths That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... slightly purgative properties of the oil contained in the seed. The change made in the appearance of the animals receiving some of the bolls in their steamed food is very apparent after a few weeks' trial; and the smoothness and sleekness of their shining coats plainly show the benefit derived. Is it not surprising, with this fact before our eyes, that many agriculturists—indeed, I fear the majority—persist in the old-fashioned system of taking the flax to a watering-place with its valuable ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... home with a certain humouring, smoothness, she promised herself that the first use she would make of Jon would be to take him up there, and show him "the view" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to honey-smoothness. And a flavor that has won more than 100,000 taste tests. No artificial treatment ... just better tobacco, that's all. And it has put OLD GOLD among the leaders in THREE years! Take a carton home. Do it today. For this is the weather ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... is a simple thing for a big vessel. There is no struggle, no tearing asunder of resisting forces. Thus might a boat caught in the pitiless current of Niagara glide towards the brink of the cataract with cunning smoothness. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... looked out from a narrower sphere upon my individual portion, and found it rich in advantages over many others: to feel that in spite of all my harassing little cares, my life could assume an exterior aspect of smoothness and happiness, was a short-lived, though powerful stimulant, even to my childish heart; and I could not forfeit the small pleasure I took in the consciousness, that at least my sufferings were hidden, though my ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... means of what rare mechanism did her nerve force ebb and flow from moment to moment, bringing about these fascinating surface changes in her body? Could anything, even any skin, be better made than that superb skin of hers—that master work of delicacy and strength, of smoothness and color? How had it been possible for him to fail to notice it, when he was always looking for signs of a good skin down town—and up town, too—in these days of the ravages of pastry and candy? . . . What long graceful fingers she had—yet what small hands! Certainly here was a peculiarity ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... with smoothness and ease. Archie, his back to the wall, saw the rogue laughing into his partner's face as lightheartedly as though he had not, within a few minutes, imperiled his freedom in an act of ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... As to 'The Lost Bower,' I am penitent about having caused you so much disturbance. I sometimes fancy that a little varying of the accents, though at the obvious expense of injuring the smoothness of every line considered separately, gives variety of cadence and fuller harmony to the general effect. But I do not question that I deserve a great deal of blame on this point as on others. Many lines in 'Isobel's ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... vaguely called the safe-room, between the shop and what had once been the kitchen. It was a considerable safe, and it had the room practically to itself. As Edwin unlocked it, and the prodigious door swung with silent smoothness to his pull, he was aware of a very romantic feeling of exploration. He had seen the inside of the safe before; he had even opened the safe, and taken something from it, under his father's orders. But he had never had leisure, nor licence, to inspect its interior. From his boyhood had survived the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... that. I want it to be rough. I'm tired to death of the smug smoothness of my life so far. Oh, if you only knew how I have hated Fern Hill, these last three years, especially since I graduated. Just the same petty little lives lived in the same petty little way, day in and day out. Every Sunday the class in Sunday school, and the bells ringing and the same ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... grew girlishly pink. She told of the saving of Ella—she told of Bennie, explaining that he was the same child whom the Young Doctor had met in the hall. She told of Mrs. Volsky's effort to better herself, and of Jim's snake-like smoothness. And then she told of Lily—Lily with her almost unearthly beauty and her piteous physical condition. As she told of Lily the Superintendent's kind eyes filled with tears, and ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... consonants certain points claim special attention. And first among these is the sounding of the doubled consonants. Whoever has heard Italian spoken recognizes one of its greatest beauties to be the distinctness, yet smoothness, with which its ll and rr and cc—in short, all its doubled consonants—are pronounced. No feature of the language is more charming. And one who attempts the same in Latin and perseveres, with whatever difficulty and pains, will be amply rewarded in ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... into her usual state of pillowy dependence; it was so much easier to be good-natured than to contend. As for Miss Roxy, if you have ever carefully examined a chestnut-burr, you will remember that, hard as it is to handle, no plush of downiest texture can exceed the satin smoothness of the fibres which line its heart. There are a class of people in New England who betray the uprising of the softer feelings of our nature only by an increase of outward asperity—a sort of bashfulness and shyness leaves them no power of expression for these unwonted ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... allotted years of man, still his form is erect, his step is firm, his hair retains its sable hue, and, more than all, he hath a winning way about him, an air of docility and sweetness, if you will, and a smoothness of speech, together with an exhaustless fund of funny sayings; and, lastly, an overflowing stream, without beginning, or middle, or end, of astonishing reminiscences of the ancient Mississippi, which, taken ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... propriety in dress, as something due to society, and avoids tawdriness in apparel, as offensive to good taste; it avoids selfishness in conduct and roughness in manners: hence, a polite person is called a gentle man. True politeness is the smoothness of a refined mind and the tact of a ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... broadcast. The rockets roared. With the coming of air about the ship, they no longer made a mere rumbling. They created a tumult which was like the growl of thunder if one were in the midst of the thunder-cloud. It was a numbing noise. It was almost a paralyzing noise. But Jamison talked with professional smoothness. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the Earth consisted of one and the same homogeneous fluid mass, or of strata of rock having the same color, density, smoothness, and power of absorbing heat from the solar rays, and of radiating it in a similar manner through the atmosphere, the isothermal, isotheral, and isochimenal lines would all be parallel to the equator. In this hypothetical condition of the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch ground. If you stood four or five foot away ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... did not strike Matt, but the girl held her head in such a strong way, she drew her short breaths with such a smoothness, she so visibly concealed her anxiety in the resolution to believe herself what she said that he could not refuse it the tribute of an apparent credence. "Yes, that certainly makes ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... that property of style which gives a smoothness to the sentence, so that when the words are sounded their connection becomes pleasing to the ear. It adapts sound to sense. Most people construct their sentences without giving thought to the way they will sound and as a consequence we have many jarring and discordant combinations ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... graver face than the one I associated with her girlhood. Yet I could scarce forbear an impression that it was now a sweeter one, more womanly, faint lines beginning to mark its satin smoothness with impress of sorrow. To my thought a new, higher womanhood had found birth within, during weary days and nights of suspense and suffering. It was yet torture to me constantly beholding these two together, but, as I observed her then, I thanked the good God who had permitted me to be near her ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... of the owner. From these causes it results that the people standing in the place of nobles and gentry are official personages, and though many (indeed the greater number) of these potentates are humbly born and bred, you will seldom, I think, find them wanting in that polished smoothness of manner, and those well-undulating tones which belong to the best Osmanlees. The truth is, that most of the men in authority have risen from their humble station by the arts of the courtier, and they preserve in their high estate those gentle powers of fascination to which they owe ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... in which Donizetti's opera called them into activity, at least, are of the highest rank. Her style is exquisite, and plainly the outgrowth of a thoroughly musical nature. It unites some of the highest elements of art. Such reposefulness of manner, such smoothness and facility in execution, such perfect balance of tone and refinement of expression can be found only in one richly endowed with deep musical feeling and ripe artistic intelligence. She carries her voice wondrously well throughout a wide register, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... chair is. Don't I, Grandma?" and was groping my way out through the green curtained "keepin'" rooms, towards Grandma's culinary apartment, thankful for a momentary escape from the heated atmosphere of the "parlor," when I heard just behind me a voice of the most exquisite smoothness:— ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... When I am a Sychophant And a base gleaner from an others favour, As all you are that halt upon his crutches,— Shame take that smoothness and that sleeke subjection! I am myself, as great in good as he is, As much a master of my Countries fortunes, And one to whom (since I am forc'd to speak it, Since mine own tongue must be my Advocate) This blinded State that plaies at boa-peep with ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... a blue beech, straight as could be found, and nearly an inch in thickness. From this he had cut a length of perhaps ten feet, which, with infinite labor and risk of jack-knife, he had whittled down to smoothness and to whiteness. Upon one end he left as large a head as the sapling would allow, and this, after shaving it into the fashion of a spear-blade, he had plunged into the fire until it had begun to ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... east wall. Suddenly Dundee had it.... Broadway! This was no Hamiltonian, no comfortably rich and socially secure Middle-westerner. Broadway in every line of his too-well-tailored clothes, in the polished smoothness ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... insinuations and questions shall be answered in their proper places; here I will but say that I scorn and detest lying, and quibbling, and double-tongued practice, and slyness, and cunning, and smoothness, and cant, and pretence, quite as much as any Protestants hate them; and I pray to be kept from the snare of them. But all this is just now by the bye; my present subject is my Accuser; what I insist upon ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... is it to pay attention to the feet. A stable with a damp and smooth floor will spoil the best hoof which nature can give. (7) To prevent the floor being damp, it should be sloped with channels; and to avoid smoothness, paved with cobble stones sunk side by side in the ground and similar in size to the horse's hoofs. (8) A stable floor of this sort is calculated to strengthen the horse's feet by the mere pressure on the part in standing. In the next place it will be the groom's ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric epithet, "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines of the nose—and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection. There were the same luxurious smoothness of surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things heavenly—the magnificent turn of the short upper lip—the soft, voluptuous slumber ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... handled that crisis, and she handled the present one with equal smoothness. When her grandfather made his announcement, which he did rather as one stating a generally recognized fact than as if the information were in any way sensational, she neither screamed nor swooned, ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... that the omelet pan is hot and dry. To insure this, put a small quantity of lard or suet into a clean frying pan, let it simmer a few minutes, then remove it; wipe the pan dry with a towel, and then put in a tablespoonful of butter. The smoothness of the pan is most essential, as the least particle of roughness will cause the omelet to stick. As a general rule, a small omelet can be made more successfully than a large one, it being much better ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... presently. "Really quite amazing! And yet things could scarcely have turned out more—" She paused, a faint wrinkle marring the smoothness of her forehead. "Really, I must guard against this habit of talking to myself," she went on with mild vexation. "They say it's one of the surest signs ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... to do as she liked being evidence of the fact, if only she could have interpreted it; but she had failed to do so, his quiet undemonstrative manner having sufficed to deceive her superficial observation of him as effectually as the treacherous smoothness of her own placid face when in repose, upon the unruffled surface of which there was neither mark nor sign to indicate the current of changeful moods, ambitious projects, and poetical fancies, which coursed impetuously within, might excusably have ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the nicht, Marget?" he said, still in a tone of conciliatory smoothness, through which, however, he could not prevent a certain hardness from cropping out plentifully. "Ye're busy as usual, I see. Weel, the hand o' the diligent maketh rich, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... cut the sharp borders of it, and leave the marks of their wheels in deep ruts of cut-up, ruined turf. The other morning, I had just been running the mower over the lawn, and stood regarding its smoothness, when I noticed one, two, three puffs of fresh earth in it; and, hastening thither, I found that the mole had arrived to complete the work of the hackmen. In a half-hour he had rooted up the ground like a pig. I found his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the plan and structure, are probably much more faithful in detail than those of the other, we find two from Apollodorus, and the rest from Menander. Julius Caesar has honoured Terence with some verses, in which he calls him a half Menander, praising the smoothness of his style, and only lamenting that he has lost a certain comic vigour which ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... difficulty marred the current smoothness of the operation. The Security men were attempting to instruct the computer to precess the wheel back to ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... the smoothness of his way in those days, before her advent, when that group of canny pirates sat about the Beaubien's table and laid their devious snares. It was only the summer before she came that this same jolly ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the site of the old Exhibition. They looked at the tulips. Stiff and curled, the little rods of waxy smoothness rose from the earth, nourished yet contained, suffused with scarlet and coral pink. Each had its shadow; each grew trimly in the diamond-shaped wedge as ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... was intensely gloomy; the proper spot for a catastrophe rather than a happy denouement. I was not impressionable, of course; but now that I thought of it, our jaunt had been going with a smoothness almost ominous. Could one expect such clock-like regularity to ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... English poets about the close of the sixteenth century, was Donne. Unlike many of those trivial writers of verse who succeeded him after an interval of forty or fifty years, and who won for themselves a brilliant reputation by the smoothness of their numbers, the elegance of their conceptions, and the politeness of their style, Donne was full of originality, energy and vigour. No man can read him without feeling himself called upon for earnest exercise of his thinking powers, and, even with the most ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... passed, and the situation did not change. The steersman returned on deck, and the captain, descending, watched the movement of the engines. Even when our speed increased, these engines continued working without noise, and with remarkable smoothness There was never one of those inevitable breaks, with which in most motors the pistons sometimes miss a stroke. I concluded that the "Terror," in each of its transformations must be worked by rotary engines. But I could not assure myself ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... smoothness of his skin turned an ashen colour and the whites of his eyes were rolling. He pushed back away from the doorway and stared at Joe. Gradually the terror began to fade out of his face and it was superseded by a sickly grin. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... forgotten the old accomplishment of "bridling"—the head up and the chin in, with the pliant knees bent in a low curtsey. Dulcie "bridled," as she prattled, to perfection. She had light brown hair, of the tint of a squirrel's fur, and the smoothness of a mouse's coat, though it was twisted and twirled into a kind of soft willowy curls when she was in high dress. Ah! no wonder that Kit Cowper, the cloth-worker, groaned to see that bright face pass ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... to himself his first sensation was delight in the softness and smoothness of the turf on which he lay. Then the strange colour of the grass commended itself to his notice, and presently he perceived that the thing under his head was a pillow, and that he was in bed. He was supported in this conclusion by the opinion of the young man who sat ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... custard, highly flavoured with almonds, gives the best general idea of it; but intermingled with it come wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, brown-sherry, and other incongruities. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp, which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid, nor sweet, nor juicy; yet one feels the want of none of these qualities, for it is perfect as it is. It ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... the judicious, not to the crowd, whose opinion is worthless. He is to observe, like the author of Aeneas' speech, the 'modesty' of nature. He must not tear a 'passion' to tatters, to split the ears of the incompetent, but in the very tempest of passion is to keep a temperance and smoothness. The million, we gather from the first passage, cares nothing for construction; and so, we learn in the second passage, the barren spectators want to laugh at the clown instead of attending to some necessary question of the play. Hamlet's hatred of exaggeration ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... had made him well acquainted with the Latin tongue, but he had never discovered all its native smoothness of sound, and elegance of structure, until he had heard it spoken by Antonina. Word by word, he passed over in his mind her varied, natural, and happy turns of expression; recalling, as he was thus employed, the eloquent looks, the rapid gesticulations, the changing tones which had ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... But there should never be an abrupt change, either audible to the audience or felt in the singer's throat. Every tone must be imperceptibly prepared, and upon the elasticity of the vocal organs depends the smoothness of the tone production. Adjusting the vocal apparatus to the high register should be both imperceptible and mechanical whenever a high note has to ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... on our island under an assumed name," said Darrow in tones that had the smoothness and the rasp of silk. "Rather annoying. Not good form, ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... into which Folliot had led him. It was a square building of old stone, its walls unlined, unplastered; its floor paved with much worn flags of limestone, evidently set down in a long dead age and now polished to marble-like smoothness. In its midst, set flush with the floor, was what was evidently a trap-door, furnished with a heavy iron ring. To this Folliot pointed, with a glance of ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... fixed mood of the English upper class. The proprietor knew all his waiters like the fingers on his hand; there were only fifteen of them all told. It was much easier to become a Member of Parliament than to become a waiter in that hotel. Each waiter was trained in terrible silence and smoothness, as if he were a gentleman's servant. And, indeed, there was generally at least one waiter to every ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... not annoyed; there was Pedro, Yacob's nephew; and there was Medina-sarote, who was the youngest daughter of Yacob. She was little esteemed in the world of the blind, because she had a clear-cut face and lacked that satisfying, glossy smoothness that is the blind man's ideal of feminine beauty, but Nunez thought her beautiful at first, and presently the most beautiful thing in the whole creation. Her closed eyelids were not sunken and red after the common way of the valley, but lay as though ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and—as I may say—whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... lens of surprising magnitude, polished to such a smoothness that the eye could scarcely meet its reflections. Here was a crystal in whose depths were to be seen more wonders than had been revealed by the crystals ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... the flowers, because these creatures would devour or injure them without effecting fertilisation. The spines, hairs, or sticky glands on the stem or flower-stalk, the curious hairs or processes shutting up the flower, or sometimes even the extreme smoothness and polish of the outside of the petals so that few insects can hang to the part, have been shown to be related to the possible intrusion of these "unbidden guests."[42] And, still more recently, attempts have been made by Grant Allen and Sir John Lubbock to account for ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Quong Wo, but my brother Ajax always called him Mary, because the boy's round, childish face had a singular smoothness and delicacy. A good and faithful servant he proved during three years. Then he ran away at the time of the anti-Chinese riots, despite our assurance that we wished to keep him and ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... with cold water, to a smooth paste, and boil it gently. It answers all the purposes of wheat flour paste, while it is far superior in point of transparency and smoothness. This composition, made with so small a proportion of water as to have it of the consistence of plastic clay, may be used to form models, busts, basso-relievos, and similar articles. When made of it, they are susceptible of a very high polish. Poland starch is a nice cement ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... hair, in its dips and convolutions, was altogether a puzzle. "How did she ever fix it like that?" Her low evening dress—"what was it made of—some white stuff, but was it silk or muslin or what?" Her shoulders were startling in their bare powdery smoothness—"how dare that young pup dance with her?" And her face, that had seemed so jolly and friendly, floated past the window as pale and illusive as a wisp of fog. His longing for her passed into clumsy awe. He remembered, without resentment, that once on a hilltop in ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... arrant scoundrels. There was the cunning right hand of Hawk Rufe, the slick, villainous intriguer, Lem Marks. No diplomatic imp, serving his master in the kingdoms of the world, moved with more unscrupulous smoothness. There was Malan with his clubfoot, owned by the devil, the drovers said, and leased to Woodford for a lifetime. And there was Parson Peppers, singing the hymns of the Lord up the Stone Coal and down the ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... a grace beyond the reach of art," to blind us for a moment to the presence of the consummate workman, judiciously blending his colours, heightening his effects, and skilfully managing his transitions or consciously introducing an abrupt outburst of a new mood. The smoothness of the verses imposes monotony even upon the varying passions which are supposed to struggle in Eloisa's breast. It is not merely our knowledge that Pope is speaking dramatically which prevents us from receiving the same kind of impressions as we receive from poetry—such, ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... topic the fruits of extensive reading and reflection. He was readily moved by the pathetic; at the most joyous hour, a melancholy incident would move him into tears. The tenderness of his heart was frequently imparted to his verses, which are uniformly distinguished for smoothness and simplicity. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... acquainted with the externals of Nature, then, of course, you will ask how they are made; and the lessons of science will attract you. Looking at the smoothness of the rounded stones, you will be led to examine their ancient homes beneath the waves; noticing the long straight lines on the rocks, you will wander back to the period when ice covered the land, and the earth was wrapped in chaotic gloom. Observe, only observe! and curiosity ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... seemed in Carlsruhe a trifle strained. It was only in these last six years that any one had gossiped of remorse, in answer to the sphinx-like question of his marble brow. Such questions vex the curious. Furrows trouble nobody—money matters are enough f them; but white smoothness in old age is a bait, and tickles curiosity. Some said at home he was a ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... might befall him inside the haven. So he hoisted sail again, and took the tiller, and steered right for the midmost of the gate between the rocks, wondering what should await him there. Then it was but a few minutes ere his bark shot into the smoothness of the haven, and presently began to lose way; for all the wind was dead within that land-locked water. Hallblithe looked steadily round about seeking his foe; but the haven was empty of ship or boat; so he ran his eye along the shore to see where he should best lay ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... idea of the good I may do for you. It's that," Madame Merle pursued, "that made me so jealous of Isabel. I want it to be MY work," she added, with her face, which had grown hard and bitter, relaxing to its habit of smoothness. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... neighbours. It is likely that the magic of presence, voice, and action, exaggerated their merits, since he possessed the gifts of a trained orator, rivalling the forceful declamation of Erastus Root, the mellow tones and rich vocabulary of William W. Van Ness, and the smoothness of Martin Van Buren. But, if his speeches equalled his pamphlets, the judgment of his contemporaries must be accepted without limitation. Chancellor Kent objected to giving joint stock companies the right to engage in privateering, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... carefully removed his hat and his beautiful new Melton overcoat (which had the colour and the soft smoothness of a damson), he animadverted upon the astounding negligence of women. There were Nellie (his wife), his mother, the nurse, the cook, the maid—five of them; and in his mind they had all plotted together—a conspiracy of carelessness—to leave the inexcusable tool in his lobby for him ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... points of controversy which had, as it were, drifted to leeward with the change of times, Butler incurred the censure of his father-in-law; and sometimes the disputes betwixt them became eager and almost unfriendly. In all such cases Mrs Butler was a mediating spirit, who endeavoured, by the alkaline smoothness of her own disposition, to neutralise the acidity of theological controversy. To the complaints of both she lent an unprejudiced and attentive ear, and sought always rather to excuse than absolutely to defend the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... send you copies of his letters, by which you will see that the spirit of Dongan has entered into the heart of his successor, who may be less passionate and less interested, but who is, to say the least, quite as much opposed to us, and perhaps more dangerous by his suppleness and smoothness than the other was by his violence. What he has just done among the Iroquois, whom he pretends to be under his government, and whom he prevents from coming to meet me, is a certain proof that neither he nor the ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... Hamlet to his players: "Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness."] ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... and ladies—by modern standards they would hardly be called "ladies"—do not bear the test of even the most elemental demands of modern taste. They are as different as the characters in Saxo Grammaticus's "Hamblet" are from those in Shakespeare's "Hamlet." But I may enjoy the smoothness of the "Idylls of the King," their bursts of exquisite lyricism, their cadences, and their impossibilities, and at the same time read Sir Thomas Malory with delight. When I hear raptures over Browning and Swinburne, when people grow dithyrambic over ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... taught how I might youth prolong By knowing what was right and wrong; How from my heart to bring supplies Of lustre to my fading eyes; How soon a beauteous mind repairs The loss of changed or falling hairs; How wit and virtue from within Send out a smoothness o'er the skin Your lectures could my fancy fix, And I ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... are the men who are publicly useful, and whom the necessities of the age supply,—as to whom I have never ceased to wonder that stones of such strong calibre should be so quickly worn down to the shape and smoothness of ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... scale, with the mouth on the narrow side of the pipe. The block is sunk, and the lip, which is of considerable thickness, is usually coated with a thin strip of leather to impart to the tone the requisite smoothness and finish. It is voiced on any wind pressure from 4-inch upwards. The Tibia Plena is the most powerful and weighty of all the Tibia tribe of stops. It is, therefore, invaluable in large instruments. * * * The Tibia Profunda and ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... has an open grain, and a tender, oily smoothness; a pleasant carnation color, and clear white suet, betoken good meat; yellow suet is ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... face,— A rich, dark oval, crowned with raven hair; Her lustrous eyes were shrines of tenderness, Large, dark, profound, and tremulously bright, And fringed by lashes of the deepest hue, Which swept the downy smoothness of her cheek; While her full lips, inimitably arched And exquisitely mobile, told her thoughts, Ere their soft motion framed them into speech; Divinely there had Beauty set her seal; As who should say,—"Behold a perfect type Of southern loveliness, in whose warm veins The blood of good, ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... cares for skill pure and simple. "Les Odes Funambulesques" and "Les Occidentales" are like ornamental skating. The author moves in many circles and cuts a hundred fantastic figures with a perfect ease and smoothness. At the same time, naturally, he does not advance nor carry his readers with him in any direction. "Les Odes Funambulesques" were at first unsigned. They appeared in journals and magazines, and, as M. de Banville applied the utmost lyrical skill to light topics of the moment, they were the ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... changed considerably outwardly. Whilst Wolfgang had grown taller and stronger and broader like a young tree, her figure had drooped like a flower that is heavy with rain or is about to wither. Her fine features had remained the same, but her skin, which had retained almost the delicate smoothness of a young girl's for so long, had become looser; her eyes looked as if she had wept a great deal. Her acquaintances found Frau ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... is next covered with cedar bark; all the interstices are filled with it, and an upper or final layer is spread with some regularity and smoothness. Earth is then thrown on from base to apex to a thickness of about six inches, but enough is put on to make the hut perfectly wind and water proof. This operation finishes the house, and usually there are enough volunteers to complete the work in ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... brief upon the table, and hurried to his side. A few words passed between them, inaudible to the court; but they had the unexpected effect of apparently restoring the sufferer to complete tranquillity. He again stood erect; his brow, and it was a noble one, resumed its marble smoothness; his features grew calm, and his whole aspect returned to the stern and moveless melancholy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... instantly in a new shape; and evenly and steadily the ranked fours swing off, turn out into the road, and go tramping down between the poplars. There has been no flurry, no hustle, no confusion. The whole thing has moved with the smoothness and precision and effortless ease of a properly adjusted, well-oiled machine—which, after all, is just what the regiment is. The pace is apparently leisurely, or even lazy, but it eats up the miles amazingly, and it can be kept up with the shortest of halts ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... and through every exposed part of the mechanism. Soon the explosions became irregular, and we found the cams operating the sparker literally plastered over with mud, so that the parts that should slide and work with great smoothness and rapidity would not operate at all. This happened about every four or five miles. This mechanism on this particular machine was so constructed and situated as to catch and hold mud, and the fine grit worked in, causing irregularities in the action. This ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... and, marveling at her words, looked ahead. He was within a half-mile of a sandy beach which bordered a wooded island. The sea was now like glass in its level smoothness, and the air was warm and fragrant with the smell of flowers and foliage. He shipped the oars, and pulled to the beach. As the boat grounded she arose, and ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... first chapter of the second book Ka@nada deals with substances. Earth possesses colour, taste, smell, and touch, water, colour, taste, touch, liquidity, and smoothness (snigdha), fire, colour and touch, air, touch, but none of these qualities can be found in ether (akas'a). Liquidity is a special quality of water because butter, lac, wax, lead, iron, silver, gold, become liquids only when they are heated, while water ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... one time, there had been a bunk. The flat shelf still projected out from the wall. Donald entered with an armful of spruce boughs, and threw them on the bunk. While he was arranging them to a semblance of smoothness for the blankets, his hand struck something hard and cold. He picked the object up and held it to the light of the fire. Then, with a cry, he leaned forward, ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... unprotected through the dark side-streets as though she were creeping along moorland paths. Her thought was dulled to everything but physical discomfort and the illness which menaced the beloved. Woman's eternal agony for the sick of her family had transformed the trim smoothness of the office-woman's face into wrinkles that were tragic and ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting, that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! Be our joys three parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... been superseded in our day, by improved piston guides and cross-heads, the construction of which in Watt's day was impossible, but no invention has commanded in greater degree the admiration of all who comprehend the principles upon which it acts, or who have witnessed the smoothness, orderly power and "sweet simplicity" of its movements. Watt's pride in it as his favorite invention in these respects is ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... effects of the nickel, he was confident, would be quite astounding; but that lead might always be applied with impunity. A piece of nickel was produced by the Doctor, about three quarters of an ounce in weight, together with a piece of lead of the same shape and smoothness, but somewhat larger. Elizabeth Okey was seated in a chair; and, by a few passes and manipulations, was thrown into the state of "ecstatic delirium." A piece of thick pasteboard was then placed in front of her face, and held in ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... locked press Archivarius Lindhorst now brought out a black fluid substance, which diffused a most peculiar odor; also pens, sharply pointed and of strange color, together with a sheet of especial whiteness and smoothness; then at last an Arabic manuscript; and as Anselmus sat down to work, the Archivarius left the room. The student Anselmus had often before copied Arabic manuscripts; the first problem, therefore, seemed to him not so ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... luxuriant growth. Many of the young men were perfect models in shape, of a complexion as delicate as that of the women, and, to appearance, of a disposition as amiable. Others, who were more advanced in years, were corpulent; and all had a remarkable smoothness of the skin. Their general dress was a piece of cloth, or mat, wrapped about the waist, and covering the parts which modesty conceals. But some had pieces of mats, most curiously varied with black and white, made into a sort of jacket without sleeves; and others wore conical caps of cocoa-nut ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... the thing Dab Kinzer intended to do. There were places of comparative smoothness, here and there, in the tossing and plunging line; but they were bad enough, at the best, and they would have been a good deal worse but for that ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... be a wholly different person. His face was all smiles, and there was a jaunty air about him as though he had received good news. His management of the car, too, left nothing to be desired. He started off swiftly, but with a smoothness that told of perfect mastery of the clutch and gears. He took chances, too, as he dashed through town, cutting corners, darting before this car, back of the other until, used as the colonel was to taxicabs in New York, he held ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... Diplomacy meant deceit, and he hadn't yet reached the stage of polite and comfortable compromise where deceit figures merely as an amiable convenience for promoting smoothness in human intercourse. But he believed that his father would "come round all right," as Mrs. Whitney had so comfortingly said. How could it be otherwise when he had done nothing discreditable, but, on the contrary, had been developing himself in a way that reflected the highest credit ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... knack for fashioning pretty and quaint little wooden charms and pendants, which he polished to satin smoothness and painted and stained in bright colors. Norma Guerin had worn one at boarding school, and it was through her and her father that Bob had secured a large number of orders which had netted him a tidy ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... evils, Mr. Henson, who has the charge of the waggon- building department at Camden, has built and patented a covered waggon with buffers, which unites with great strength, safety, capacity, and smoothness of motion. The scientific manner in which these waggons are framed, gives them strength in proportion to their weight. The buffers with which they are fitted, and the roof, protecting from the weather, render them ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... shoulders its contents. Again and again he bent and filled the vessel, dipping it into a shallow basin from which came the bubbling and chuckling of a little spring. And again I marveled at the marble smoothness and fineness of her skin on which the caressing water left tiny silvery globules, gemming it. The eunuch slithered to one side, drew from a quaint chest clothes of white floss; patted her dry with them; threw over her shoulders a silken ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... surprised at the smoothness with which matters proceeded. He took a young clerk to the ship. He showed him the ship's papers as edited by himself. He took him through the cargo holds. He discussed in some detail ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... your world than the world of Semitic haggling and exchange; of caution and smoothness; of the disasters born of daintiness; of sliding over the ship's side in women's clothes to live, when it was a moral duty to be drowned. Better your world than any such worlds ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... afterwards the appetites of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the possession of their objects, and by the subsequent digestion of the aliment; and, lastly, the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of the milky fountain, the source of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... across in Mrs. Browning's poems. But her ruggedness was never the result of carelessness. It was deliberate, as her letters to Mr. Horne show very clearly. She refused to sandpaper her muse. She disliked facile smoothness and artificial polish. In her very rejection of art she was an artist. She intended to produce a certain effect by certain means, and she succeeded; and her indifference to complete assonance in rhyme often gives a splendid richness to her ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde |
