"Softening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... creating artist, the king having handled the pencil and composed a poem, yet he never suffered his private dispositions to prevail over his more majestic duties. We do not discover in history that Charles the First was a painter and a poet. Accident and secret history only reveal this softening feature in his grave and king-like character. Charles sought no glory from, but only indulged his love for, art and the artists. There are three manuscripts on his art, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Ambrosian library, which bear an inscription that a King of England, in 1639, offered one ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... did not. Now I do, I own I admire some of his sonnets more than several-yes, even of Petrarch; for Lorenzo's are frequently more clear, less alembiquis, and not inharmonious as Petrarch's often are from being too crowded with words, for which room is made by numerous elisions, which prevent the softening alternacy of vowels and consonants. That thicket of words was occasioned by the embarrassing nature of the sonnet: a form of composition I do not love, and which is almost intolerable in any language but ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... time, in which the pressure of the atmosphere can be exactly regulated. This form of treatment has been found of much value in the treatment of emphysema, early pulmonary tuberculosis (not in the presence of persistent high temperature, haemorrhage, softening or suppuration), delayed absorption of pleural effusions, heart disease, anaemia and chlorosis. But compressed air is contra-indicated in advanced tubercle, fever, and in diseases of kidneys, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... being treated for worms and cerebral symptoms. After death the contents of the stomach were found in the abdominal cavity, and the esophagus was completely separated from the stomach. Flint believed the separation was postmortem, and was possibly due to the softening of the stomach by the action of the gastric acids. In this connection may be mentioned the case reported by Hanford of a man of twenty-three who had an attack of hematemesis and melanema two years before death. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... stood before the horse of Iyeyasu in his earlier trials of battles, trials in which the veteran commander would pound with his fist the pommel of the saddle until it was red with the blood from his bruised knuckles. Their tales of actual war, the sly jeers at the softening manners, spurred on younger members to find ways by which to simulate practical experience of campaigning. The result was curious. One of the organizations was the Undameshi Kwai, or Fortune Testing Society. Loaded firelocks were stacked ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... could not have more completely adopted and exemplified the marble motto: "Despair is a free man; Hope is a slave." For her the rosy mist that usually hovers over futurity had been swept rudely aside, the softening glow of the To-Come had been precipitated into a dull, pitiless leaden ever present, at which she never raved nor railed, but inflexibly fought on, expecting neither sunshine nor succour, unappalled and patient as some stony figure of Fate, which chiselled when ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... directed by Cyrus Harding, was a complete success. The wool, previously impregnated with a solution of soap, intended on the one hand to facilitate the interlacing, the compression, and the softening of the wool, and on the other to prevent its diminution by the beating, issued from the mill in the shape of thick felt cloth. The roughnesses with which the staple of wool is naturally filled were ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... elected by the people, is just as much their representative and is just as certain to carry out their ideas as is a legislature, a body of men elected by the people. They provided a government which accentuated, instead of softening, the defects in their own social system. They were in no danger of suffering from tyranny; they were in no danger of losing the liberty which they so jealously guarded. The perils that threatened them were lawlessness, lack of order, and lack of capacity to concentrate their ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... discussions, some ending well, others ill. But I never yet witnessed one in which such arrangements were (as in this case) presented crudely, to be accepted or refused, without any previous discussion as to the mode of shaping them, or any facility offered, or even intimated, for softening down such difficulties as such proposals are always more or ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... children were lifted up to look upon what was left of him who would ever be the greatest one of earth to them. And through the coffin-lid, that calm, still face seemed hourly to grow more holy and more radiant; the light of battle faded out from its softening lines and the seal of the God of Peace rested in plain ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... at Streatham are full and spirited, and exhibit Johnson in moods and situations in which he was seldom seen by Boswell. The adroitness with which he divided his attentions amongst the ladies, blending approval with instruction, and softening contradiction or reproof by gallantry, gives plausibility to his otherwise paradoxical claim to be considered a polite man.[1] He obviously knew how to set about it, and (theoretically at least) was no mean proficient in that art of ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of greater consequence than the sacrifices," returned the lady, softening as she saw her husband yielding; "the loss will soon be made up to you through an increase of friends. Party-giving ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... in silent ecstasy. In their excitement they had unconsciously seized each other by the hand, and stood like two little children in the presence of a marvel, Challenger's cheeks bunched up into a seraphic smile, and Summerlee's sardonic face softening for the moment into ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Away from the softening influence of society and the wholesome fear of restraint, for a time at least the voice of his better angel is silenced. Perhaps also the necessarily solitary position of a commander of a man-of-war, his long, lonely hours, the utter change from the jovial life he led previous to ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... which "the classes" had committed in their estimate of Lincoln had an even greater effect in softening the asperities which the war left behind it than had the exposure of the egregious miscalculations of English statesmen as to the comparative military strength of North and South. One must not blame Englishmen too severely, however, for ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... and wholly secretive, he had accustomed himself to regard romantic ideality, and susceptibility to sentimentality as a species of intellectual anaemia; holding himself always thoroughly in hand, when subjected to the softening influences that now and then invaded professional existence, and melted the conventional selfish crust over the hearts of his colleagues, as the warm lips and balmy breath of equatorial currents kiss away the jagged ledges of drifting icebergs. In his laborious life, that which is ordinarily ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... display the brightness of their talent in the midst of darkness. Others employ themselves on soft and delicate things conceiving that these should be more pleasing to the eye of the beholder; so that they pleasantly attract the greater number of men. Others again paint smoothly, softening the colours and confining the lights and shades of the figures to their places, for which they merit the highest praise, displaying their intention with wonderful skill. This smooth style is always apparent in the works of Tommaso di Stefano, called Giottino, who was born in the year ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... where has it gone? Come with me, Bee, and look for it," said Rosy, rather softening down,—"though I'm sure ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... person whose nature had, as it were, so little surface—offered so limited a face to the accretions of human contact. Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic, had ever had a chance to fasten upon it—no wind-sown blossom, no familiar softening moss. Her offered, her passive extent, in other words, was about that of a knife-edge. Isabel had reason to believe none the less that as she advanced in life she made more of those concessions to the sense of something obscurely distinct from convenience—more of them than she independently ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... bitterly cruel and unjust to say such things to me!" she cried; and then, to my utter consternation, she burst into a perfect passion of weeping, and again I felt my heart insidiously softening and warming toward her, she looked so utterly woebegone, so terribly helpless and friendless. But the moment that I became conscious of the feeling I brought my will power to bear and determinedly repressed ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... hesitate to speak of his "imperious temper and that savage manner which was too haughty for a republic." "Indeed," he adds, "there is no other advantage to be had from a liberal education equal to that of polishing and softening our nature by reason and discipline." He also tells us that Coriolanus indulged his "irascible passions on a supposition that they have something great and exalted in them," and that he wanted "a due mixture of gravity and mildness, which are the chief political virtues and the fruits ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... differently what you probably have in mind while using these harsh epithets. But is it not the old house, and that alone, in which the martyrs shed their blood for Christianity? Where did it fulfil its lofty task of saturating the heart of mankind with love, softening the customs of rude pagans, clearing away forests, transforming barren wastes into cultivated fields, planting the cross on chapels and churches, summoning men with the consecrated voice of the bell ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... endeavored to point out is peculiarly great as respects music and singing, owing to the power over the natural sensibilities, which sweet sounds possess; and it is easy to mistake the emotions thus produced for the tenderness of mind and the softening influence of "the ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends
... preach. The Chinese did not take any Spaniards with them; however, they begged for some of our people, later, thinking that the latter would take something to give them or which they could seize. During their stay here I treated them very well, but there is no way of softening their hearts, except by means of gifts—although, to my way of thinking, weapons ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... wouldn't," contradicted Radley, softening again. "You'd expect them to be intolerant of you as old fashioned. You'd withdraw behind your cigar-smoke and your old-fashioned ideas, and leave them to put the world to rights. After all, it's ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action; also, for extensive transactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven. Altogether, the Old ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... then," he went on cheerfully, "believe me when I say that the shadow which depresses you all the time now will pass. I say this confidently," he added, his voice softening, "because I hope to be allowed to help. Haven't you guessed that I am very glad indeed ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... himself had had to bend his head to get into the room. Alfred liked the looks of him the first moment, and by way of salutation put up one of his weary, white, blue-veined hands to pull his damp forelock; but Mr. Cope, nodding in answer to Ellen's curtsey, took hold of his hand at once, and softening the cheery voice that was so pleasant to hear, said, 'Well, my boy, I hope we shall be good friends. ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and seemed to bend even protectingly toward them. She smiled at them, and the softening of ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... wish. You have, of course, your money, but if you care to stay with us until you have found some work you must now obey our rules. While you remain with us you must not go out unless my sister or I accompany you." Then her voice changed, softening a little. She suddenly raised her hands in a gesture of appeal: "Oh, Maggie, Maggie, turn to God. You have rebelled against Him. You have refused to listen to His voice. The end of that can be only misery. He loves, but He also judges. Even now, within a day, a week, ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... pastures beside the pacing brooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea; crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, softening in their fall the sound ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... as proof of holy writ," of his dangerous condition. Glibly the quack discourses on the consequences of neglecting the terrible symptoms, and the great difficulty of combating them. He is told that he will be liable to spinal disease, softening of the brain, or insanity. Sometimes a collection of plates, containing hideous representations of dreadful eruption, and sores covering all parts of the body, are submitted to the patient's horrified inspection. Frightened by the hideous pictures before ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... grown unbidden and unconsciously in Madge's heart could not be content with the meagre reward of a little admiration. Such an affection was softening and ennobling in its character, and the mere desire to compel Graydon to glance at her as she had seen him look at Miss Wildmere grew into the higher ambition to become such a woman as would approach in some degree his ideal. She knew his tastes, and as she ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... all that, mother; I know all that," said Nora. She did not add, "But for me he would never have done it. It was I who inserted the thin edge of the wedge." Her tone was gentle; her mother looked at her with a softening of ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... agreed with him, and directed him to go to Secretary Stanton and have the prisoner released. But the inflexible official, on whom the general glee had no softening, refused, and the man had but two days to live. When the intermediary hurried back to the Executive Mansion, the President was dressed to go to Ford's Theater, with his wife, his son, and a ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... the wood-lined river. Somehow he could not face the gambler's stern eyes. Had he seen the sudden softening in them the moment the other was sure he was unobserved, he might have been less troubled. But the gambler had no soft side when men's ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... their labors. This final disposal of one of the most painful topics of collision between the United States and Great Britain not only affords an occasion of gratulation to ourselves, but has had the happiest effect in promoting a friendly disposition and in softening asperities upon other objects of discussion; nor ought it to pass without the tribute of a frank and cordial acknowledgment of the magnanimity with which an honorable nation, by the reparation of their own wrongs, achieves a triumph more glorious ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... new {47} brotherhood of St. Francis, named after their founder, devoted themselves to all manner of blasphemy, to all manner of offence. In a spot whose beauty might well be expected to have only a softening influence, whose memories might at least be found exalting, a handful of disreputable men gathered together to degrade the place, and, as far as that was possible, themselves, with the beastly pleasures and beastly humors ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was a hollow in the earth, a scar from some long-forgotten skirmish. Over the years, rain and wind had worked on it, softening its once harsh outlines. Grass had grown in, to further mask the crater, till now it was a mere smooth depression in the ground. From the edge of this depression, rose the slender rod of a speaker, a small, directional loud-speaker blossoming ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... with a shake of his head, ''tis hoping against hope. Time will add to my wrinkles without softening her aversion. I utterly despair. While there remained one spark of hope I should never ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... no answer. Ralston looked at him keenly, wondering with a queer amusement whether he had not blunted the keen edge of that tool which he was keeping at his side because he foresaw the need of it. But there was no sign of any softening upon Linforth's face. He could be hard, but on the other hand, when he gave his faith he gave it without reserve. Almost every word which Ralston had spoken had seemed to him an aspersion upon Violet Oliver. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... fiery as his native Desert, and an intellect as luminous as his native sky, he wanted, like that land, those softening dews without which the soil is barren, and the sunbeam as often a messenger of pestilence as ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... possible, I decided to give a few discourses on the evidences of the existence of a God as seen from the light of nature. Those of the skeptical class as well as others manifested no little interest in the subject. Soon evidences began to appear of a material softening among them in their opposition to Bible truths. One young man said to the warden, "When the chaplain commenced those discourses, I felt sure of being impregnably fixed in my ideas. After hearing one, I would retire to my cell and sit down ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... surface so that it catches the light itself and blends it with the lustrous whiteness of the high lights, and how by an opposite process, by flattening the surface of the paint, and leaving no trace of the passage of the brush, I have succeeded in softening the contours of my figures and enveloping them in half-tints until the very idea of drawing, of the means by which the effect is produced, fades away, and the picture has the roundness and relief of ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... warmth to the cheerful room, and looked at the cold white world without—a ghost of a world, it seemed to Amy. The moon, nearly full, had risen in the gap of the Highlands, and had now climbed well above the mountains, softening and etherealizing them until every harsh, rugged outline was lost. The river at their feet looked pallid and ghostly also. When not enchained by frost, lights twinkled here and there all over its broad surface, and the intervals were brief when ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... difficulties that surrounded her, Marionetta could not debar herself from the pleasure of tormenting her lover, whom she kept in a continual fever, sometimes meeting him with unqualified affection, sometimes with chilling indifference, softening him to love by eloquent tenderness, or inflaming him to jealousy by coquetting with the Hon. Mr. Listless. Scythrop's schemes for regenerating the world and detecting his seven golden candlesticks went on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... eaten nothing for sixty hours." Her face, which had been so white, flushed to the hair, her dark eyes softening. ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... and perplexity came over Erica's face that Raeburn for the first time realizing what was passing in the room, drew her toward him, his face softening, and the cold, angry light in ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... that he never touched stimulants; he had an instinct against all things that were softening and enervating, all things that tempted and enslaved. For him was the morning-air, and the shock of cold water, and the hardness of the wild things of the open. Other people did not feel this way; other people ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... "he'll be chaffed about that at the Club in the delicate manner those brutes of men affect, and the Hawley Boy will tell me all about it—softening the details for fear of shocking me. That boy is too good to live, Polly. I've serious thoughts of recommending him to throw up his Commission and go into the Church. In his present frame of mind he would ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... scene within. The playwright had taken refuge among the brass andirons of the big empty fireplace. The matinee heroes were under chairs, and Holloway behind the mahogany buffet. From the direction of the stairway came shrill cries from the speeding merchant, softening in intensity as he ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... ... by the versification, mechanically considered; and by the successful evolution of pure beauty from all that roughness and rudeness of the sin of the boar-pinner—successfully evolved, without softening one hoarse accent of his voice. But there is to be a pause now—you will not write any more—no, nor come here on Wednesday, if coming into the roar of this London should make the pain worse, as I cannot help thinking it must—and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... "What have I done, uncle, to be treated in this severe manner?" "I have my reasons," answered the magician; "I am your uncle, I supply the place of your father, and you ought to make no reply. But, child," added he, softening, "do not be afraid; for I shall not ask anything of you, but that you obey me punctually, if you would reap the advantages which I intend you." These fair promises calmed Aladdin's fears and resentment; and when the magician saw that he was appeased, ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... was, left no room to regret the full verdure and radiant sunlight of high summer. The indescribable loveliness of the haze and hush, the winning tender colouring that was through the air and wrapped round everything, softening, mellowing, harmonizing somehow even the most unsightly; hiding where it could not beautify, and beautifying where it could not hide, like Christian charity; gave a most exquisite lesson to the world, of how much more mighty is spirit than matter. Diana did not see it, as she had ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... call recollection is uniformly a process of softening the reality. When we appear to ourselves to realize events of the remote past, it is plain that our representation in a general way falls below the reality: the vividness, the intensity of our impressions disappears. More particularly, so far as our experiences are emotional, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... were made for women's kisses, their necks for women's arms. They were lovable, as men are lovable. They were capable of love. A woman's touch redeems and softens, and they needed such redemption and softening instead of each day growing harsh and harsher. And I wondered where these women were, and heard a "harlot's ginny laugh." Leman Street, Waterloo Road, Piccadilly, The Strand, answered me, and ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... of those men who cannot live without a woman's image to worship. Irene Derwent being now veiled from him, he turned to another beautiful face, in whose eyes the familiar light of friendship seemed to be changing, softening. Ambition had misled him; not his to triumph on the heights of glorious passion; for him a humbler happiness a calmer love. Yet he would not have been Piers Otway had this mood contented him. On the second day of his dreaming about Olga, she began ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... pretending the money to be his own, lends it to that master and takes bonds for it to himself, we consider guilty of a breach of trust; and the person who commits such crimes we call a cheat, a swindler, and a forger of bonds. All these offences, without the least softening, under all these names, we charge upon this man. We have so charged in our record, we have so charged in our speeches; and we are sorry that our language does not furnish terms of sufficient force and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... recreations, after a hard day's work at the candle-making), or idled away in the streets, amongst the unprofitable and unhealthy amusements provided for the people. Amongst other good results, Mr Wilson notices that of 'softening to the boys one of the greatest evils now existing in the factory—the night-work, for which the men and boys come in at six in the evening, to leave at six in the morning.' These workers do not go to bed, it seems, so soon as they leave ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... which was not the case. It was an ascent through all its circumstances executed in dreams, which, under advanced stages in the development of opium, repeat with marvellous accuracy the longest succession of phenomena derived either from reading or from actual experience. That softening and spiritualizing haze which belongs at any rate to the action of dreams, and to the transfigurings worked upon troubled remembrances by retrospects so vast as those of fifty years, was in this instance greatly ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... replied. There was a curious softening in his harsh voice, which brought the girl's eyes swiftly back ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... time she remained in the church. But she could not think clearly, reason calmly, or even pray passionately. For a vagueness had come into her mind like the vagueness of twilight that filled the space beneath the starry roof, softening the crudeness of the ornaments, the garish colours of the plaster saints. It seemed to her that her thoughts and feelings lost their outlines, that she watched them fading like the shrouded forms of Arabs fading in the tunnels of ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... and nail on his grandfather. I have lightened the blows as much as I could. I rather like this grandfather, because he displayed magnificence, and has left some fine monuments. I had great trouble about softening down the terms in which the grandson reproaches his ancestor for his vanity in having got himself made a king; it is a vanity from which his descendants derive pretty solid advantages, and the title ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... music, he felt, was progressing now that, undisturbed, he lived all day long in the rhythm of it; his mind and his fingers were growing supple. The hard moulds that had grown up about his spirit were softening. As he walked back and forth in front of the church waiting for Jeanne, he took an inventory of his state of mind; ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... to be present at a birth of beech leaves, up along Paxton Creek. It was late in the afternoon, and our reluctant feet were turning homeward, after the camera had seen the windings of the creek against the softening light, when the beeches over-arching the little stream showed us this spring marvel. The little but perfectly formed leaves had just opened, in pairs, with a wonderful covering of silvery green, as they ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... the afternoon had been but a blue haze, softening the hard outlines of the street, had now settled down in earnest, choking up the doorways, wiping out the tops of the buildings, their facades starred here and there with gas-jets, and making a smudged drawing of the columns of the ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Mr Romer, shaking hands with him. Mr Romer had not been equally cautious as Nearthewinde, and had already drunk sundry glasses of ale at the Brown Bear, in the hope of softening the stern Bear-warden. "How is it to be to-day? Which is to ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... take the slightest interest in what it represented. His composure was really disappointing! After greeting me with grave dignity, he turned to Faye and grasped his hand firmly and cordially, the whole expression of his face softening just a little. I have always thought that he was deeply moved by once again seeing the Federal Blue under such friendly circumstances, and that old memories came surging back, bringing with them ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the brain and nervous system: indicated by such names as apoplexy, epilepsy, paralysis, vertigo, softening of the brain, delirium tremens, loss of memory and that general failure of the mental power called dementia. (b) Diseases of the lungs: one form of consumption, congestion and subsequent bronchitis. ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... the fibers themselves are of different texture from those in the raw meat. In preparing meat for the table it is usual to stop short of the point of disintegration, but while the long process of cooking is going on the connective tissue is gradually softening and the fibers are gradually changing in texture. The former is the thing to be especially desired, but the latter is not. For this reason it is necessary to keep the temperature below the boiling point and as low as is consistent with thorough cooking, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... nothing about Aunt Kate Sherwood suggesting a softening of her hard lines. Her plain, ugly print dress was cut low at the throat, and had no collar or ruff to hide the scar. Nan's gaze was fastened on that blemish before she was half way to the door, and she could ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... evil, we began to appreciate and enjoy the picturesque grandeur of the scenery through which we were moving. The rugged sternness of the Appalachian mountain range, in whose rock-ribbed heart we had fought our losing fight, was now softening into less strong, but more graceful outlines as we approached the pine-clad, sandy plains of the seaboard, upon which Richmond is built. We were skirting along the eastern base of the great Blue Ridge, about whose distant and lofty summits hung a perpetual veil of deep, dark, but translucent ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... discover some negligence on the part of the mulatto girl, who was engaged in nursing the child, which was at this time suffering from a dangerous illness. Now the one tender trait of this violent woman was intense love for her offspring; but it was a love that, far from softening her manner toward others, partook, on the contrary, of the fierceness of her general character, and became, like that of a wild animal for its young, a source of constant apprehension to those whose duty compelled them to approach its object. So ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... pity. Her mind had thrown itself back into the unknown past almost tenderly towards the mother who had died long ago, to whom perhaps Bice had been what little Tom was now to herself. But when the further statement reached her ears all that softening which seemed to have swept over her disappeared in a moment. A horrible bewilderment had seized her. Was he two men, with two wives, two lives, two children ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... we were not quite satisfied with it; and at last our worthy friend volunteered to ride forward himself to prepare the way, suggesting that his rank, and his acquaintance with a large number of people, might have some little influence in softening matters. We in the meantime remained at the passangerang awaiting his return. Two hours passed away and he did not appear, and the widow began to be anxious; a third had elapsed, and no Lieutenant Jeekel was ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... man," said she, softening down, and a little shifting the subject, "when you think of that old kinsman of yours, you KNOW there must be a ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... rugged features softening to frank amusement, stared a moment in silence at Sloane's thin face, at the deeply lined forehead topped by ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... he "had smote the balls of his own eyes," and the wise baffler of the sphinx, Oedipus, the haughty, the insolent, the illustrious, is a forlorn and despairing outcast. But amid all the horror of the concluding scene, a beautiful and softening light breaks forth. Blind, powerless, excommunicated, Creon, whom Oedipus accused of murder, has now become his judge and his master. The great spirit, crushed beneath its intolerable woes, is humbled to the dust; and the "wisest of mankind" implores but two favours—to be thrust from the land ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... even a smile was findable anywhere. Halliday carried a cigar-box around on a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers and aimed the thing and said "Ready!—now look pleasant, please," but not even this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces into any softening. ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... extensive tracts of country: the cultivated soil imbibes the heat, and returns it to the surrounding air in warm and humid vapors. The exhalations arising from a much increased amount of animal life, together with the burning of so many combustibles, are not altogether without their influence in softening the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... almost as a surprise in these compositions. Overbeck's figures are manifestly more or less studied from the life, only, according to his habitual practice, he has taken pains to eliminate from his models any individual accidents which marred the generic form, softening down angularity and ruggedness into pervading grace and beauty. Here and there are traces of affectation, together with a feebleness incident to the painter's weak physique which stands in utmost contrast with the force of Cornelius. ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... harmony and brotherly love. His followers eagerly adopt this belief. But yesterday Mr. Gladstone believed (or said he believed) "That the influence of Great Britain in every Irish difficulty is not a domineering and tyrannising, but a softening and mitigating influence, and that were Ireland left to her own unaided agencies, it might be that the strife of parties would then burst forth in a form calculated to strike horror through the land." His followers believed that too, and they would believe it ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... [401] This softening was made in the later copies of the first edition. A second change seems to have been made. In the text, as given in Murphy's edition (1796, viii. 137), the last line of the passage stands:—'If he was sometimes wrong, he was often right.' Horace ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... hand, has its virtues: the softening and refining of life, gradual development of sympathy, achievement of comfort and beauty; but peace has its vices. In times of peace and prosperity there seems to be no great cause at stake. Of course, always it is there, ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... learned from lightning and the friction of trees, and cooking from the softening and ripening of things by the sun. Then men of genius invented improved methods of life, the building of cities and private property in lands and cattle. But gold gave power to the wealthy and destroyed ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... side of his writing table, looking at his tired face with a wonderful softening in ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... over, the birds would come again,—new birds, singing the old songs,—the sap would mount in the trees, the buds swell on the blueberry bushes, and the young ivory leaves push their ruddy tips through the softening ground. The plains were fatherland and mother-country, home and kindred, to Tom. He loved the earth that nourished him, and he saw through all the seeming death in nature the eternal miracle of the resurrection. ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... remarks to the singer, from cold and polite, became dry and cutting, in spite of the obvious pains she was taking to satisfy him, and the way she ogled him by way of winning his favor. The impresario prudently stopped the rehearsal just when it seemed to be hopeless. By way of softening the bad effect of Christophe's remarks, he bustled up to the singer and paid her heavy compliments. Christophe, who was standing by, made no attempt to conceal his impatience, called the ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Thuvia of Ptarth step forward with outstretched hand. He was surprised at this sudden softening toward him, and it was with a full heart that he let his fingers close upon hers, as together they turned away from forgotten Lothar, into the woods, and bent their steps ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... rose a violent rebellion in Betty's heart. All her love for Mrs. Haddo, with its softening influence, vanished; it melted slowly out of sight, although, of course, it was still there. Her pleasant time at the Mileses' farm, the delightful affection of the furious dogs, the excellent dinner, ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... we may discern the slowly softening influences of years that bring the philosophic mind, of a calmer and easier time, and perhaps also of a different class of readers. Thackeray has now discovered that, as he says in his preface, 'to describe a real rascal you must make him too hideous ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... dying," said the boy, his voice softening. "Holy Virgin, save him! For weeks, we've been in the hands of Aguinaldo's men. He's been so ill, all the ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... she had never pardoned him for the insult which he had put upon her in the Imperial Cinema de Luxe; and that, indeed, she could never pardon him for simply being Thomas Batchgrew. Nevertheless, there was that evening in her heart a little softening towards him. The fact was that the councillor had been flattering her. She would have denied warmly that she was susceptible to flattery; even if authoritatively informed that no human being whatever is unsusceptible to flattery, she ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... change in my life. After this morning's duel, I am obliged to shut up my house for some time; for there will be people who will side with the Chandours against us. In our position, and in a small town, absence is the only way of softening down bad feeling. But I shall either succeed, and never see Angouleme again, or I shall not succeed, and then I mean to wait in Paris until the time comes when I can spend my summers at the Escarbas and the winters in Paris. It is the only life for a woman of quality, ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... guns, but the night passed off tranquilly; the Cavaliers had no stomach for such an enterprise. Morning broke at last. The castle walls, wearing a battered appearance, rose above the calm water shining in the rays of the rising sun; the air was soft and balmy, a thin haze softening the more rugged features ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... stamp on them for centuries his subtilest and divinest thoughts. May I not urge that to such spaces must be given the best that is in you? for once placed so shall they remain unchanged through generations, time being powerless to add any mellow garment of tone or softening ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... was he the Pilgrim of the Deep, Following the Nereid? Had they ceased to weep For ever? or, received in coral caves, Wrung life and pity from the softening waves? Did they with Ocean's hidden sovereigns dwell, And sound with Mermen the fantastic shell? 100 Did Neuha with the mermaids comb her hair Flowing o'er ocean as it streamed in air? Or had they perished, and in silence slept Beneath the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... magistrates of Angers would not move. He could do nothing. And men and women and children—men and women and children whose blood will otherwise cry for vengeance, perhaps for vengeance on us who might have saved them—will live! Will live!" he repeated, with a softening eye. And with an all- embracing gesture he seemed to call to witness the open heavens, the sunshine and the summer breeze which wrapped them ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... pretty lass," said the mayor, his grim face softening into a smile as he looked at the beautiful girl, "you shall draw for him, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... distance into gorgeous shades of turquoise and deep maroon. They are very far away, these mountains, even though their outlines are so distinct that they appear close at hand. The desert atmosphere has cast a kindly spell upon them, softening their hellish perspective into lines of beauty in certain lights. It is well that this is so, for it helps to dispel an illusion of the imaginative and impressionable when first they visit San Pasqual—the illusion that they are ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... part of her life having been passed among them, she knew nearly all that there was to know about them, and judged them with the contemptuous lucidity of nearly twenty years of dependence. But at the present moment her animosity was diminished not only by the softening effect of love but by the fact that she had got out of those very people more—yes, ever so much more—than she and Nick, in their hours of most reckless planning, had ever dared ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... mastication of the food, the salivary glands are actively pouring out the saliva, which mingles with the food, and by softening it, aids in its division and prepares it for the action of the other digestive fluids. It also acts upon the starch, converting a portion of it ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... none, that is, but the mechanical punishment spoken of just now, which in the majority of cases only embitters the heart; and not the real punishment, the only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, which lies in the ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... ant, provident in amassing store, but restful in fruition of it when amassed; reproves ill-natured judgement of one's neighbours almost in the words of Prior, bidding us be to their faults a little blind and to their virtues very kind, softening their moral blemishes as lovers and mothers euphemize a dear one's physical defects. (Sat. I, iii) "You will not listen to me?" he stops now and then to say; "I shall continue to cry on all the same until I rouse you, as the audience in the theatre did the other day" (Sat. ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... treat her with hardness and indifference: she almost cringed to me on every occasion; she consulted my countenance incessantly, and beset me with innumerable little officious attentions. Servility creates despotism. This slavish homage, instead of softening my heart, only pampered whatever was stern and exacting in its mood. The very circumstance of her hovering round me like a fascinated bird, seemed to transform me into a rigid pillar of stone; her flatteries irritated my scorn, her blandishments confirmed my reserve. At times ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... answered. "But I'd wager it's for some better reason than people give him credit for. Or it may be merely a preference for his own society. Anyway, it is no business of ours." Then, swiftly softening the suggestion of reproof contained in his last sentence, he added: "Don't encourage me to gossip, Sara. When a man's tied by the leg, as I am, it's all he can do to curb a tendency towards tattling village scandal ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... materials; or rather it is made of materials whose strength is in that winged levity with which they brush us and pass. It is all that is in us but a brief tenderness, that is there made eternal; all that means no more than a momentary softening that is in some strange fashion become a strengthening and a repose; it is the broken speech and the lost word that are made positive and suspended unbroken; as the strange kings fade into a far country and the mountains resound no ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... up with sour cream and softening lotions that will not hurt the skin. There, child, go with Patty, who will get thee into something proper. But she is like her mother in this respect, common ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... readily, and are good reducing agents. On account of this tendency, commercial sulphites are often contaminated with sulphates. A great deal of sodium sulphite is used in the bleaching industry, and as a reagent for softening paper pulp. ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... and makes him more obstinate. Like some perverse ox in the yoke, he stiffens his neck, and stands the very picture of brute obduracy. There is an awful alternative involved in our hearing of God's message, which never returns to Him void, but ever does something to the hearer, either softening or hardening, either scaling the eyes or adding another film on them, either being the 'savour of life unto life or of death unto death.' The mission of the prophets changed forgetfulness of God's 'statutes' into 'rejection' of them, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... kill you quicker than a train. Chew a cheesy midnight "rabbit" And a grave you'll soon inhabit— Ah, to eat at all is such a foolish game. Eating huckleberry pie Is a pleasing way to die, While sauerkraut brings on softening of the brain. When you eat banana fritters Every undertaker titters, And the casket makers ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... tell me?" he asked, softening his voice to a kinder tone as he remembered that God did not make all men Englishmen, and turning just in time to cause Crothers ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... pus may cease and the wound heal without complications. Saliva may issue from the orifice and result in the formation of a salivary fistula. This requires operative treatment by a qualified veterinarian. When poulticing fails to reduce the swelling or produce softening, the inflamed area may be rubbed once daily with camphorated oil, compound iodin ointment, or painted twice daily with Lugol's solution of iodin. The diet should be as recommended under Pharyngitis ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... not say how much of it I sent you; as he designed it all for you, he might not like it if he knew I kept half. How is your father? The last time I was home I really thought he was threatened with softening of the brain, he seemed so sleepy and stupid and forgetful. Give him my love, and believe me always ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... hills extended towards the setting sun, their various projecting outlines exhibiting the several gradations of distance, and the opposite bases closing at the horizon. On the nearest eminence, the objects were clearly defined by their dark shadows; the yellow rays blended their softening hues with brilliant green on the next, and beyond it all distinction melted into gray and purple. In the long valley between, the smooth and colourless Clear Water River wound its spiral course, broken and shattered ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... smile. Were there not evident signs of softening? But Ingram, who knew the girl better, was not deceived by these appearances. He could see that Sheila merely wished that her husband should not suffer pain on her account: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... letters. While reading with her fingers her upturned face would shine with joy when repeating some of the salient, consoling, and sustaining verses. And how common are the records among those simple Boers of happy and triumphant death-bed scenes of old and young, softening the grief of the bereaved believers. Frivolous education and advanced surroundings are accountable for a certain waning of the original habits of serious piety; this is to some extent more the case among the Cape Colonial and Orange Free State Boers, the declension appearing ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... in a broken voice. "No, it is true it would not be fair to make you a beggar. I should be a cad to ask you. We must think of some way of softening my ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... godson,—he must have got into mischief. Have you come about him, my worthy magistrate?" she said, softening ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... their story; but as, unfortunately, their future career was not a happy one, we will beg the reader to advance with us at once over many years; and then, as he looks back upon La Vendee, through the softening vista of time, the melancholy termination of its glorious history ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the appearance of flame, but rather of highly luminous mist, brilliant at the core, and softening off and becoming more dim as the circumference of the globe was reached; and it emitted a feeble and unearthly light ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... she said, smiling gently into his strange, watchful yellow eyes, that looked fixedly into hers, the dark pupil opening round and softening. She smiled into his softening round eyes, the eyes of some animal which stares in one of its silent, gentler moments. And suddenly she kissed his hand, kissed it twice, quickly, on the fingers and the back. He wore a silver ring. Even as she kissed his fingers with her lips, the ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... face. Lord Winsleigh thought so;—he was spending the winter in Rome with his wife and son,—and there among the shadows of the Caesars, his long, social martyrdom ended, and he regained what he had once believed lost for ever—his wife's affection. Clara gentle, wistful, with the softening shadow of a great sorrow and a great repentance in her once too-brilliant eyes, was a very different Clara to the dashing "beauty" who had figured so conspicuously in London society. She clung to her husband with an ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... believe in retiring from business, either to have a good time or because you were old and bughouse. "Use your faculties and you will keep them," he used to repeat again and again. He agreed with Herbert Spencer that men have softening of the brain because they have failed to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... you say?" said Mrs Morgan, upon whose female soul the Perpetual Curate's good looks and good manners had not been without a certain softening effect. "I am so sorry. I don't wonder you are vexed; but don't you think there must be some mistake, William? Mr Wentworth is so gentlemanly and nice—and of very good family, too. I don't think he would choose to set himself in opposition to the Rector. I think ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... as soon as the door was shut on him and the little flicker of gas, Bernard fell into an anguish of sobs and tears, the work of her persevering love, softening and lessening the obstinate pride so far that the next visitors met with a much better reception than they might have done. The first came stumbling up with a weary step, and pushed open the door, saying, 'Here, Bear, don't ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and related the wondrous adventure, From beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened; How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his courtship, Only smoothing a little and softening down her refusal. But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken, Words so tender and cruel: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the floor, till his armor Clanged on the wall, where ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... reader, a dazed look on his rugged face. Then he reached up and drew the slim, tremulous hand from his forehead and snuggled it against his stubbly cheek, and still he could not speak. Janet slowly backed away into the darkness of the dining room. The situation had softening tendencies and Janet's nature revolted at sentiment. It was Graham's voice ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... rather he understood that I, with the exquisite intuition of genius, understood him. For right off, on that, he said that he would like to live in Vermont, and own maple-trees himself; that native sugar was a sweet business, and must have a softening tendency upon those ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... impregnated with as much salt as it will dissolve. A plaster may also be made of sal ammoniac and some galbanum, which well kneaded together and applied, seldom fails of destroying them. The general and principal cause of corns is, shoes too hard and stiff, or else too small. The cure consists in softening the corns by repeated washing, and soaking the feet in warm or hot water; then cutting the corn very carefully when softened, with a sharp penknife without wounding the quick, and afterwards applying a leaf ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... Pippitt's distaste for the manner in which the Bishop dealt with his subject, and his numerous allusions to saints in heaven and their probable guardianship of their friends on earth, the sermon was a deeply impressive one and lingered long in the memories of those who had heard it, softening their hearts, inspiring their for the news of her coming. It is the one cloud in an ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... nature, the sight of even an enemy asleep, awakes softening emotions, while the sight of a loved being in the unconsciousness of slumber stirs the fountain of affection to ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox |
