"Tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... right, to discover truth, requires a keen, penetrating, just, active mind; because every thing strives to conceal from us its beauties: it needs an upright heart, one in good faith with itself, joined to an imagination tempered with reason, because our habitual fears make us frequently dread its radiance, sometimes bursting like a meteor on our darkened faculties; besides, it not unfrequently happens, that we are actually the accomplices of those who lead us astray, by an inclination ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... and Paolo joined the army of Enghien as it was on the march to Eperney. The former was now within a few months of seventeen, of middle height, strongly built, his hard exercise and training having broadened him greatly. He had a pleasant and good tempered face, his hair, which was brown with a tinge of gold, clustered closely round his head, for he had not adopted the French mode of wearing it in long ringlets, a fashion unsuited for the work of a campaign, and which de ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... from whom she is long separated. I do not suppose that she remembered St. Elmo a month after she ceased to meet him. I feel assured that she loves Gordon as well as she can love any one. She is a remarkably sweet- tempered, unselfish, gladsome woman, but is not capable of very ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... been admitted to the presence of a real notoriety, that I did not find the man, or woman—sex making little difference—an actor; and this, too, much beyond the everyday and perhaps justifiable little practices of conventional life. Inherent simplicity of character is one of the rarest, as, tempered by the tone imparted by refinement, it is the loveliest of all our traits, though it is quite common to meet with those who affect it, with an address that is very apt to deceive the ordinary, and most ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... careful of his vow, What has he left to aim at now? The sun will mark his mighty soul, His wisdom, sweetness, self-control, Will spare from pain his face and limb, And with soft radiance shine for him. For him through forest glades shall spring A soft auspicious breeze, and bring Its tempered heat and cold to play Around him ever night and day. The pure cold moonbeams shall delight The hero as he sleeps at night, And soothe him with the soft caress Of a fond parent's tenderness. To him, the bravest of the brave, His heavenly ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... was the youngest of the sisters—a pretty child of fifteen; a trifle spoiled and bad-tempered, otherwise characterless enough. So now we may pass on to the personage who considered himself of chief consequence in the house—Mr. Thomas Beresford, the only son, who now stood at the window, thrumming on the panes, to the infinite annoyance of his mother. He was ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... was a headstrong, high-tempered child to begin with; and havin' nobody to control her, she got to be the worst young one, I reckon, in the State o' Kentucky. I used to feel right sorry for her little brothers. They couldn't keep a top or a ball or marble or any plaything to save their lives. Annie would cry for 'em jest ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... reform. Keate was still reigning at Eton; and we possess, in the records of his pupils, a picture of the public school education of the early nineteenth century, in its most characteristic state. It was a system of anarchy tempered by despotism. Hundreds of boys, herded together in miscellaneous boarding-houses, or in that grim 'Long Chamber' at whose name in after years aged statesmen and warriors would turn pale, lived, badgered and overawed by the furious incursions of an irascible little old man carrying ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... swift and graceful energy of his bearing. He was not a scholar, yet his words were like martial music; in stature he was less than the medium size, yet his strength was extraordinary; he seemed made of tempered steel. His entire aspect breathed high ambition and daring. His jet-black curls, his open candid brow, his dark eyes, at once fiery and tender, his eagle profile, his mouth just shaded by the youthful growth that hid none of its ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... the young couple, and all ends happily, Stanford's music is a happy compromise between old and new. In his use of guiding themes, and in his contrapuntal treatment of the orchestra he follows Wagner, but his employment of new devices is tempered by due regard for established tradition. He is happiest in dealing with humorous situations, and in the lighter parts of the opera his music has a bustling gaiety which fits the situation very happily. In the more passionate scenes he is less at home, and the love duet in particular is ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... lying to him in both particulars. But something of the coolness of her regard, its vague insolence, something in the way she carried her head and shoulders, her whole sureness of poise, the intangible thing called personality in her tempered like fine steel, made his suspicion waver. She was young and good to look upon; there was the gloriously fresh bloom of youth upon her; and yet, were it not for the mere matter of sex, he might have looked upon her as a gay and utterly unscrupulous young adventurer of the old type, the ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... although it by no means merited Tim's aspersions. There was a nice pair of dark brown eyes, rather slumberous looking, a nose a trifle too short for perfection and a mouth a shade too wide. But it was a good-tempered, pleasant face, on the whole, intelligent and capable and matching well the physically capable body below, a body of wide shoulders and well-knit muscles and a deep chest that might have belonged to a youth of eighteen instead of seventeen. Compared with Tim Otis, who ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... mind, this dangerous woman was doubly formidable—and for a good reason; she was the bosom friend of that innocent and unwary person, Miss Jillgall. So I amiably consented to forego my walk, yielding to the superior attraction of Mrs. Tenbruggen's company. On that day the sunshine was tempered by a delightful breeze. If we had been in the biggest and worst-governed city on the civilised earth, we should have found no public vehicle, open to the air, which could offer accommodation to three people. Being only in a country town, we had a light four-wheeled ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... deceit, is greatness. Here was one who could, with natural simplicity, amuse a child; and the same one could command and successfully wield a great army, and, with equal success, direct the destinies of a great nation; whose genius was tempered with simplicity and tenderness, and when towering most in its grandeur, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... Every girl whose occupation in life is the study of men recognizes these symptoms and knows how to treat them. Barbara had dealt with many men afflicted in this manner, and the flutter of anticipation that came with his urgent plea to see her was tempered by experience. It had something of joy in it, for she cared enough for Montgomery Brewster to have made her anxiously uncertain of his state of mind. She cared, indeed, much more than she intended to confess ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... comfort can we take from the increasing strains and tensions within the Communist bloc? Here hope must be tempered with caution. For the Soviet-Chinese disagreement is over means, not ends. A dispute over how best to bury the free world is no grounds ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... was little Bertha? Well, the answer to this question can only be given in superlatives, and even then it must still fall short of full expression. For little Bertha, you must know, was the sweetest-tempered, the truest-hearted, the clearest-headed, the purest-minded, the most helpful-handed, the most willing-footed—in short, the best and the nicest little backwoods damsel that ever wore linsey-woolsey frocks and homemade shoes in winter, and homespun ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... the approbation, by quotation, of almost every sporting journal in the country. It will be seen that it contains a sentence very similar to one to be found in Mr. Rarey's "Horse Training"—"A bad-tempered man ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... window. She had given her jacket and gloves to her maid, but had kept on her hat; and she leaned forward a little as she sat, clasping her hands together in her lap and keeping her eyes on him. The lamp, in a corner, was so thickly veiled that the room was in tempered obscurity, lighted almost equally from the street and the brilliant shop-fronts opposite. "Therefore why be sapient and solemn about it, like an editorial in a newspaper?" Nick ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... done Dion good. It had set his face towards a shining future. If he came back from the war he now felt, through the feeling of his mother, that he would surely come back tempered, tried, better fitted to Robin's uses, more worthy of any woman's gift of herself. Without preaching, even without being remarkably definite, his mother had made him see in this distant war a great opportunity, not to win a V.C. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... became snipers, counter jumpers became fencibles, yokels became drillmasters, sweat-shop hands became sharpshooters, aliens became Americans, an ex-janitor—Austrian-born—became a captain, a rabble became an organised unit; the division became a tempered ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... additional terror, being convinced that mischief was meant in reality. But, when days and weeks went by, and he wandered unmolested from floor to floor, with many a kindly word from George, and not a single cuff or nip, the sweet-tempered Abel began to feel gratitude, and almost an ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... without me," muttered the old man, feeling as though a weight of anger were being lifted from his heart. "Let somebody else look after you now! I am stingy and ill-tempered. . . . It's nasty living with me, so you try living with other people . . . ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... carries a spear and two strongly tempered pistols, narrow at the mouth, hanging from his saddle. And to get the barrels of their pistols narrow they pierce the metal which they intend to convert into arms. Further, every cavalry soldier has a sword ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... she alone was to impart to her sister; there were Peggy and Maria, shot up suddenly into two amazingly-gawky girls; there was Master Castleman Lysle, the only son of the house, with his black-eyed and bad-tempered French governess. And finally there was Aunt Varina, palpitating with various agitations, not daring to whisper to anyone else the fears which this sudden home-coming inspired in her. Bishop Chilton and his wife were away, but a delegation of cousins had come; also Uncle Mandeville ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... be said in favour of Harry Hazlehurst. Few young men, of his age, were more promising in character and abilities. He was clever, and good-tempered; and, with all the temptations of an easy fortune within his reach, he had always shown himself firm in principles. There was one trait in his character, however, which had already more than once brought him into boyish scrapes, and which threatened, if not corrected, to be injurious to his ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... spare frame, with good features, somewhat austere in their expression, and of the cast which we are apt to term precise and puritanical, but tempered with great benevolence, Stephen Bloundel had a keen, deep-seated eye, overshadowed by thick brows, and suffered his long-flowing grey hair to descend over his shoulders. His forehead was high and ample, his chin square and well defined, and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sailor was the reply. Top's collar was made of a thin piece of tempered steel. They had only to sharpen it on a piece of sandstone, then to raise the edge on a finer stone. Now sandstone was abundant on the beach, and two hours after the stock of tools in the colony consisted of two sharp blades, which were easily fixed ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... made up of mixtures of very unequally tempered rock metal, which weathers in strange, weird, and impressive shapes. Much of this statuary is gigantic and uncouth, but some of it is beautiful. There are minarets, monoliths, domes, spires, and shapeless ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... out, 'Oh, daddy, daddy, don't kill my mammy!' When this would be over, he'd go off with himself to do something for the Squire, and would sing and laugh so pleasant, that you'd think he was the best-tempered man alive; and so he was, until neglecting his business, and minding dances, and ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Wilson is a great original, and the best tempered, companionable man I ever knew — I question if ever he was angry or low-spirited in his life. He makes no pretensions to letters; but he is an adept in every thing else that can be either useful or entertaining. Among other qualifications, he is a complete sportsman, and counted the ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... broad farce against the lodging-house keeper: he alone could have written broad farce in her favour. It is fashionable to represent the landlady as a tyrant; it is too much forgotten that if she is one of the oppressors she is at least as much one of the oppressed. If she is bad-tempered it is often for the same reasons that make all women bad-tempered (I suppose the exasperating qualities of the other sex); if she is grasping it is often because when a husband makes generosity a vice it is often necessary that a wife should make avarice a virtue. All this Dickens suggested ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... over feebler natures. I have seen a brawny, fellow, with no lack of ordinary courage, fairly quail before this slender stripling, when in one of his curious fits. But these paroxysms seldom occurred, and in them my big-hearted shipmate vented the bile which more calm-tempered individuals get rid of by a ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Spaniard with playful earnestness, putting his hand lightly on Jim's knee, "that shows a character of great strength, tempered with mercy and human kindness. All of which leads one to speak of a man who was once famous in this part of the country, but not popular. He always had the reputation for taking a strong liquor in his coffee, Fernet, if I remember right. His name was Alverado, but ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... my soul!" The exasperated and hot-tempered Secretary clutched the inkstand with the evident intention of hurling it at Symonds. "What ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... doorstep until the day came. Neither found a word to appease or to conciliate; each felt fear and scorn of the other. The one measured the other by the standard of his own anger, and they found each other narrow-minded and bad-tempered. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... I don't see the harm in eating pickles. My girls eat their weight in 'em, and they're just as sweet-tempered as— ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... children arrived in 1874, 1876, and 1879, and all the time I was reading, listening, talking, and beginning to write in earnest—mostly for the Saturday Review. "J.R.G.," as we loved to call him, took up my efforts with the warmest encouragement, tempered, indeed, by constant fears that I should become a hopeless bookworm and dryasdust, yielding day after day to the mere luxury of reading, and putting nothing ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... presence of the Grand Marabout, and in due time he appeared—a rough, heavy, truculent fellow enough, but making awkward salaams as one in great awe of the presence in which he stood—unwilling awe perhaps—full of superstitious fear tempered by pride—for the haughty Turks revolted against homage to one of ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... God?—"Had it been possible, Epictetus, I would have made both that body of thine and thy possessions free and unimpeded, but as it is, be not deceived:—it is not thine own; it is but finely tempered clay. Since then this I could not do, I have given thee a portion of Myself, in the power of desiring and declining and of pursuing and avoiding, and is a word the power of dealing with the things ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... work, cookery, nurse-training, wood and iron work, agriculture, and there was also a fine botanical exhibit. While the manual training work has always made a fine appearance, it was felt that this exhibit surpassed all that had preceded it. The steel tools, made and tempered by students, ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various
... pondered over his brief meeting with Mr. Mole Cricket, the more firmly he made up his mind that he had been in great danger and that he had been lucky to escape alive. Everybody knew that Grandfather Mole was a terrible-tempered person when aroused. He would rush at anybody, big or little. Perhaps that was because he couldn't see what sized person he was attacking. For Grandfather Mole was blind. But he never stopped to inquire of anybody whether ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... variety of the "fairer half of creation" displayed before us, ranged round an odoriferous heap of salted fish. Here we see crones of sixty and girls of sixteen; the ugly and the lean, the comely and the plump; the sour-tempered and the sweet—all squabbling, singing, jesting, lamenting, and shrieking at the very top of their very shrill voices for "more fish," and "more salt;" both of which are brought from the stores, in small buckets, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... me how to answer this question, if it was asked me. She taught me on ship-board what to say if I was taken to court. My mistress was an opium smoker, and she and her husband had awful quarrels, which made her bad-tempered, and then she would beat me for no reason. I used to get so tired working hard, and then she would beat me. She beat me with thick sticks of fire-wood. She would lay me on the bench, lift my clothes, and beat me on the back. Another day she would beat me thus with the fire tongs. ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... be less perky when we were all settled at a table in a perfectly charming restaurant, the most restful place to eat in that I ever saw. I can't imagine even a fiend being ill-tempered in it for long; and it was deliciously cool, as if we had come into a shadowy green wood after the blazing, brassy glare ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... fancies for a moment that this commercial move on the part of Cowperwood was either hasty or ill-considered they but little appreciate the incisive, apprehensive psychology of the man. His thoughts as to life and control (tempered and hardened by thirteen months of reflection in the Eastern District Penitentiary) had given him a fixed policy. He could, should, and would rule alone. No man must ever again have the least claim on ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... waiting for this, his big idea. His work with the Indians was the mere testing and trying of certain photographic effects, certain camera limitations. He felt like an athlete taught and trained and tempered and just stepping out now for the big physical achievement of ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... the humblest, the devoutest, and best tempered person I ever knew of that sort [having high notions for Church ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... to drive a wagon well, Shomolekae needed to be able to manage sixteen oxen all at once, and keep them walking in a straight line. He needed to know which were the bad-tempered ones and which were the good, and which pulled best in one part of the span and which in another; and how to keep them all pulling together and not lunging at ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... came into possession of an ill tempered French poodle called Crapouillot, which the patients in our hospital insisted on clipping like a lion with an anklet, a curl over his nose and a puff at the end of his tail. A most detestable, unfortunate ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... spirit of my history, than I am satisfied with his honourable testimony to my attention, diligence, and accuracy; those humble virtues, which religious zeal had most audaciously denied. The sweetness of his praise is tempered by a reasonable mixture of acid. As the book may not be common in England, I shall transcribe my own character from the Bibliotheca Historica of Meuselius, a learned and laborious German. "Summis aevi nostri historicis Gibbonus ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... robins and finches in their branches till they have a tender, brooding look. The ground, the turf, the atmosphere of an old orchard, seem several stages nearer to man than that of the adjoining field, as if the trees had given back to the soil more than they had taken from it; as if they had tempered the elements and attracted all the genial and beneficent influences in ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... side aisles, nave, and crossing, with galleries and mezzanines so arranged as to shorten the arms of the cross in its upper stages, leaving the clear-story surrounding the crossing unimpeded and well defined. The light comes for the most part from high windows, filtering down, in tempered brightness to the floor. The bones of the structure are everywhere in evidence, and an element of its beauty, by reason of the admirably direct and logical arrangement of posts and trusses. The ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... some fool Scandinavian had used instead of "Grey-Bird," his authentic and original appellative. But I stuck to my name, though we have shortened it into "Paddy." And Paddy must indeed have been a jail-bird, or deserved to be one, for he is marked and scarred from end to end. But he is good-tempered, tough as hickory and obligingly omnivorous. Every one in the West, men and women alike, rides astride, and I have been practising on Paddy. It seems a very comfortable and sensible way to ride, but ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... blue and whiteness of the morning had become a level sheet of grey, which wiped the colour out of everything; the wind, no longer tempered by the sun, was chilly, as it whirled down the narrow streets and freaked about the corners. There was little temptation now to linger on one's steps. But Maurice Guest was loath to return to the solitary room that stood to him for home, to shut himself up with himself, inside four walls: and ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... a fine-tempered fellow, but he felt very much inclined to be angry with Jack. All their plans might be upset by his having left the wreck. Even should he soon find him, they would have to swim on board, and set off in their wet clothes; but that was ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... It would seem that the species of anger are unsuitably assigned by the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 5) where he says that some angry persons are "choleric," some "sullen," and some "ill-tempered" or "stern." According to him, a person is said to be "sullen" whose anger "is appeased with difficulty and endures a long time." But this apparently pertains to the circumstance of time. Therefore it seems that anger can ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... should not be overlooked that any presumptive hard usage which the vassal peoples might look for at the hands of the German dynasty would necessarily be tempered with considerations of expediency as dictated by the exigencies of usufruct. The Imperial establishment has shown itself to be wise, indeed more wise than amiable, but wise at least in its intentions, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... think, young cove, as you'd be short-tempered if you been shied at by your feller-man from your ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... don't know anyone," answered Robin. Modesty also prevented her from saying that she thought she did. She herself was well educated, she was good tempered and well bred, and she had known for some time that ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... before replying, laid his hand upon an antique dart, or javelin, the rusty steel head of winch seemed to have been blunted, as if it had encountered the resistance of a tempered ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... family passed them with a friendly word to Martin, saying something in praise of the nice appearance of her little charges. And Hoodie smiled back to farmer Bright, as if she thought herself the best and sweetest-tempered of little girls. Then when they were out of sight, ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... joke, even while they winced under it. The girl seemed to wince, as if, in spite of her familiarity with the fact, it wounded her to have her father's scepticism recognized just then. She said nothing, and he added, "I remember we used to think that a redheaded boy was worse-tempered on account of his hair. But I don't believe the sorrel-tops, as we called them, were any more fiery ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... degrees, this unsought gift of friendship was melting the morsel of ice at his heart; was reviving in him, against his will, that keen appreciation of a cultivated woman's sympathy and companionship, which, among finely tempered men, is as potent a factor in the shaping of destinies as ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... acceptance as "The Earthly Paradise." The spirit which created the Northern mythology and composed the sagas is not extinct in the English descendants of Frisians and Danes. There is something of it in the minstrel ballads; but it has been so softened by modern life and tempered with foreign culture elements, that these old tales in their aboriginal, barbaric sternness repel. It is hard for any blossom of modern poetry to root itself ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... without any symptom of approaching crisis. But it was impossible this should continue; for, had she been capable of endless endurance, her persecutors would only have gone on to worse. But Mary was naturally quick- tempered, and the chief trouble they caused her was the control of her temper; for, although she had early come to recognize the imperative duty of this branch of self-government, she was not yet perfect in it. ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... music. Katharine's experience had but few black patches in it as yet. Furnished with a fair and healthy body, with fine breeding, with a character in which the pride and grit of her North Country ancestry was tempered by the poetic instincts and quick wit which came to her with her mother's Irish blood, Katherine Ormiston started as well furnished as most to play the great game that all are bound to play, whether they will or no, with fate. Mrs. Ormiston, still ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... and kind, and we think it would be almost impossible for one who is, whatever his minor shortcomings may be, not to be a gentleman. Just to his employees (or to his employer), to his customers, to his friends, to himself, and this justice always tempered with kindness, the one quality giving the firmness necessary in dealing with people, the other the gentleness which is ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... with heroic resolve to be patient and forbearing, sweet-tempered and polite, toward her tormentor, and ended it with a deep sense of humiliating failure, and of having lost something of the high esteem and admiration in which her almost idolized husband had been ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... policeman, who seized him by the neck and led him over close to where I stood: and whilst he was in the act of selecting a pair of handcuffs for Reuben, voice after voice was heard in the crowd—she is dead! she is dead! But what was the effect of these words upon Reuben—one of the most easy, good-tempered, innocent, inoffensive, and, in his way, religious slaves that I ever knew—satisfied apparently that Sally's death was a fact—he tore himself loose from the policeman and made his way through the crowd to where poor Sally lay, and exclaimed, Oh! Sally! O ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... by poverty to take a job in the post office late in life. He had a hale and hearty appearance, luxuriant grey whiskers, the manners of a well-bred man, and a loud, pleasant voice. He was good-natured and emotional, but hot-tempered. When anyone in the post office made a protest, expressed disagreement, or even began to argue, Mihail Averyanitch would turn crimson, shake all over, and shout in a voice of thunder, "Hold your tongue!" so that the post office had long enjoyed ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... he thus commenced:—"I hope I may say a few words on this great subject, without disturbing the sleep of any right honorable member; and yet, perhaps, I ought rather to envy than blame the tranquility of the right honorable gentleman. I do not feel myself so happily tempered, as to be lulled to repose by the storms that shake the land. If they invited any to rest, that rest ought not to be ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... the solenoid a knitting needle, or any bar of hardened or tempered steel, and sending a current through the coil, the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... store at the Flats, lived in the one frame house that the place boasted, and was reputed to be worth an amount of money which, in half-breed eyes, was a colossal fortune. Old Auguste was black and ugly and notoriously bad-tempered. But Tannis was ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and most unamiable and ill-tempered tyrant of the universe with the Absolute of Aristotle!" cried Euergetes; "he stigmatises most of what you and I and all rational Greeks require for the enjoyment of life as sin—sin upon sin. And yet if my easily persuadable brother governed at Alexandria, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... such a force there was great emotion in Venice, but an emotion tempered by bravery and intelligence. The doge, Leonardo Loredano, the same who had but lately opposed the surprisal of Padua, rose up and delivered in the senate a long speech, of which only the essential and characteristic points can be ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... whistled a third time, peering into the gloom amongst the vines. At last he went out into the road, determined to go away on foot and alone, rather than to risk another interview with the quick-tempered man who had thrown him out of ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... wonderfully sensitive," replied Aunt Rachel, growing warmer, "ought to shut themselves up at home, and not come among sensible, good-tempered persons. As far as I am concerned, I can tell them, one and all, that I am not going to pick out every hard word from a sentence as carefully as I would seeds from a raisin. Let them crack them with their teeth, if they are afraid to swallow ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... advice of his friend Giles Hoggett. "It'd dogged as does it." He certainly wanted something very strong to sustain him in this difficulty. He found that this reference to his wife and children required him to be dogged in a very marked manner. "I can only trust that the wind may be tempered to them," he said. "They will, indeed, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... him. That there was a marked similarity admitted of no discussion. If Corp's nose had been encouraged and his lower jaw suppressed, if his intensely emotional nature had been under better control, and his sentimentality tempered with humor, the analogy would have been more complete. In taste, they were one. By birth, predilection, and instinct both were philosophers of the open, preferring an untrammeled life in Vagabondia to the collars and conventions ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... If you must, pull him out by his squirming, naked tail, but do not carry him home, as he makes a poor pet, and between hen-house traps and irate farmers, he has good reason, in this part of the country at least, to be short tempered. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... "bravo" and a killer, a solitary, cross-grained, crusty-tempered old outlaw of the range. What he would or might do under any circumstances could not be predicated upon the basis of what another one of his species had done under similar circumstances. The man who generalizes the ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... occupy a certain space, to avoid being taken in flank, and that without cavalry to gain information and unite the columns. This difficulty, together with the excessive and sudden cold, rendered our position difficult. Some men, whom nature had tempered strongly enough to be above all vicissitudes of fate and fortune, seemed staggered, lost their cheerfulness and good humor, and thought of nothing but disaster and destruction; those whom she has created superior to everything, ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... of any man that hath fallen into public disgrace, he should have a mind to commiserate his mishap, and not to make him more disconsolate. To envenom a name by libels, that already is openly tainted, is to add stripes with an iron rod to one that is flayed with whipping; and to every well-tempered mind will seem ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of this world, And hold with patient intrepidity, The shield of calm resistance to its power. It seem'd as if no anger e'er could dwell Within his bosom; no blind prejudice Distract his judgment; and no folly call For a reproof: as if Affection were Too soon allied to Thought, and tempered so His morning, that the ministry of Time, The chast'ning trial of Remorse and Grief, And of stern Disappointment, ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham
... happiness and goodness too, Caressed by destiny are you, Charming you are, if you but play. But we with living overwrought, And full of grave and sombre thought, Are snappish oft: dear little men, We have ill-tempered days, and then, Are quite unjust and full of care; It rained this morning and the air Was chill; but clouds that dimm'd the sky Have passed. Things spited me, and why? But now my heart repents. Behold What 'twas that made me cross, and scold! All by-and-by you'll understand, When brows ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... Which is dearer to thee, thine elder brother or thy husband? She replied, My elder brother is dearer. Then he said, If I be truly the dearer to thee, let me and thee rule the empire. And he gave her a finely tempered dagger and said to her, Slay the emperor with this in his sleep. So the emperor, unconscious of danger, was sleeping one day with his head on the lap of the empress. And she, thinking the time had come, was about to strike him ...
— Japan • David Murray
... doctrine. A similar change follows when man is placed at the centre of the religious and moral system. We still retain the faiths at which theologians arrived by a complex machinery of arbitrary contrivances destined to compensate one set of dogmas by another. The justice of God the Father is tempered by the mercy of God the Son, as the planet wheeled too far forward by the cycle is brought back to its place by the epicycle. When we strike out the elaborate arrangements, the truths which they aim at expressing are capable of far simpler statements; infinite error ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... gentle, obedient, loving, pure. You will see the face full of sunshine. But look at the face of a child who has done something wrong; who has told a lie, or done some cruel, mean, or dishonest act. There is no sunshine on that face. There is nothing but a dark heavy cloud. The ill-tempered child has no sunshine on his face. He lives down in a dark cellar. The discontented child has no sunshine on his face. He lives down in a black dungeon with Giant Despair. My children, ask God to keep you innocent; or if you have done wrong, ask God to forgive you for Jesus Christ's sake, ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... not surprised," said Mr. Dinsmore, "he is just the sort of man one would expect to be at such work,—headstrong, violent tempered, and utterly selfish and unscrupulous. Yet I think you may dismiss your fears of him, and feel it rather a safeguard than otherwise to have a member of the Klan ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... and smiled, and she smiled back. He had a good-tempered face and kind eyes, and she thought ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... bounding, and endeavouring by all expedients to unseat his rider, as well as striking and lashing out furiously at whatever else approached him. It was thought by many of the household, that Raoul preferred this vicious cross-tempered animal upon all occasions when he travelled in company with his wife, in order to take advantage by the chance, that amongst the various kicks, plunges, gambades, lashings out, and other eccentricities of Mahound, his heels might come in ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... of "pickled pork and taturs." Old Bill and Bob were gruffly but cordially invited to join the family circle, which they did; Bob making a thoroughly hearty meal, quite unmoved by the coquettish endeavours of Miss Turnbull, a stout, good-tempered, but not particularly beautiful damsel of some seventeen summers, to attract the attention and excite the admiration ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... informers had secured their victim. They had him in their toils. Accusation was formally preferred, and retribution most signal was looked for. Mr. Hathaway, the then steward (for this happened a little after my time), with that patient sagacity which tempered all his conduct, determined to investigate the matter, before he proceeded to sentence. The result was, that the supposed mendicants, the receivers or purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be the parents of ——, an honest couple come ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... boy to begin with, and strive to show how he was spoiled by the school system. On the contrary he endows him with a good many disagreeable qualities; he makes him bright, sharp, and full of vitality, with a strong bent for mischief. He is high-tempered, quarrelsome, and disobedient, and yet in the hands of one who understands his mental peculiarities plastic as dough. It is the aim of the author to show how utterly useless it is to treat such boys—and our schools ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... Two hot-tempered, pugnacious chaps, by name Bob Morley and Fred Short, afforded great amusement by the ease with which they could be set at punching one another. It was only necessary for some one to take Bob Morley aside and whisper meaningly that Fred Short ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... street-cars bloomed, even as the distant larkspur in the distant field. At six o'clock with darkness came a spattering of rain, heavy single drops that fell each with its splotch, exuding from the asphalt the warming smell of thaw. Then came wind, right high-tempered, too, slanting the rain and scudding it and blowing pedestrians' skirts forward and their umbrellas inside outward. Mr. Alphonse Michelson fitted his hand like a vizor over his eyes and peered out into the wet dusk. Lights gleamed and ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... beginning the jollity and laughter were forced, and the new era of perpetual spring festival soon became an era of brainless indecency. Even the wit of the Restoration was bitter, acid, sardonic (as Charles's own death-bed apology for being an unconscionable time a-dying). Generally it was ill-tempered, and employed to inflict pain. And there was not even wit in most of the plays. It is hard to see what even the worst age could discover to laugh at in Shadwell's Libertine, the story of Don Juan told in English, and, in a sense, ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... side of the country is very populous, and is full of potters and earth makers; that is to say, people that tempered the earth for the China ware; and, as I was going along, our Portuguese pilot, who had always something or other to say to make us merry, came sneering to me, and told me, he would shew the greatest rarity in all the country; and that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... open-tempered, frank lad, and he soon won the regard of Pierre and his little sister. In spite of the prejudices of country, and the difference of language and national customs, a steady and increasing friendship grew up between the young Highlander and the children of his hostess; therefore it was not without ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... which, as far as I know, only exists in England; that sense as if the bushes and the roads were human, and had kindness like men; as if the tree were a good giant with one wooden leg; as if the very line of palings were a row of good-tempered gnomes. On one side of the white, sprawling road a low hill or down showed but a little higher than the hedge, on the other the land tumbled down into a valley that opened towards the Mendip hills. The road was very erratic, for every true English road exists in order to lead one a dance; and ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... career which had been checkered indeed. He did strenuous work as a Justice these last years and carried on an efficacious campaign against criminals: but the lights were dimming, the play was nearly over. The pure gust of life which runs rampant and riotous in the pages of "Tom Jones" is tempered in "Amelia" by a quieter, sadder tone and a more philosophic vision. It is in this way a less characteristic work, for it was of Fielding's nature to be instantly responsive to good cheer and the ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton |
