"Smoothness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and thenceforward, for more than a month, extends the reign of this our woodland queen. I know not why one should sigh after the blossoming gorges of the Himalaya, when our forests are all so crowded with this glowing magnificence,—rounding the tangled swamps into smoothness, lighting up the underwoods, overtopping the pastures, lining the rural lanes, and rearing its great pinkish masses till they meet overhead. The color ranges from the purest white to a perfect rose-pink, and there is an inexhaustible vegetable vigor about the whole thing, which puts to shame ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... judicious, not to the crowd, whose opinion is worthless. He is to observe, like the author of Aeneas' speech, the 'modesty' of nature. He must not tear a 'passion' to tatters, to split the ears of the incompetent, but in the very tempest of passion is to keep a temperance and smoothness. The million, we gather from the first passage, cares nothing for construction; and so, we learn in the second passage, the barren spectators want to laugh at the clown instead of attending to some necessary question of the play. Hamlet's hatred of exaggeration is marked ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a thoroughfare attracted my attention; and next, the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded their way among the other passengers with a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement; and no single creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or looked after them. In passing before my windows, they both stared up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I could ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... wax-like smoothness, and, to a certain extent, the whiteness of her complexion, had yielded to the fervid rays of the prairie sun; but the slight embrowning appeared rather an improvement: as the bloom upon the peach, or the russet on the nectarine, proves the superior ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... and melt, harden and halt instantly in a new shape; and evenly and steadily the ranked fours swing off, turn out into the road, and go tramping down between the poplars. There has been no flurry, no hustle, no confusion. The whole thing has moved with the smoothness and precision and effortless ease of a properly adjusted, well-oiled machine—which, after all, is just what the regiment is. The pace is apparently leisurely, or even lazy, but it eats up the miles amazingly, and it can be kept up with ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... height of fancy, but dignity of words, to set it off. I might well answer with that of Horace, Nunc non erat his locus; I knew I addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression, and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just defence. But I will not further bribe your candour, or the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Aaron, deliverers of their people, while the mother and child who illustrate the statistics of the maternity exhibition have the grace and beauty of mediaeval madonnas. Russia is only now emerging from the middle ages, and the Church tradition in painting is passing with incredible smoothness into the service of Communist doctrine. These pictures have, too, an oriental flavour: there are brown Madonnas in the Russian churches, and such an one illustrates the statistics of infant mortality in India, while the Russian mother, broad-footed, ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... hose, made of India rubber, a comparatively new thing, for heretofore hose had been made of riveted leather. Bert Taylor made him feel the inside of this hose with his forefinger to test its superlative smoothness. ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... accurately relate all that he said." "You must not expect to always find people agreeable." Whether we shall place the adverb before the verb or after it must often be determined by considerations of emphasis and smoothness as well as of clearness and correctness. In the foregoing sentences it is better to place accurately after the verb, and ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... of its shell. His head was black and shining where it was not bald and shining. He had gold-rimmed spectacles and a sallow face. He glided his hands over the knobs on the front of the dock with a reptilian smoothness. He had persuaded a number of tradesmen and hotel-keepers that he was an English peer. He had even complained to one shopkeeper of the smallness of a wallet, as he needed something larger to hold the title-deeds relating to the peerage. In another case, a young ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... daily into silence, to relax our muscles, govern our breathing, and meditate on eternal things. Every Hindoo child is trained to this from a very early age." The good fruits of such a discipline were obvious in the physical repose and lack of tension, and the wonderful smoothness and calmness of facial expression, and imperturbability of manner of these Orientals. I felt that my countrymen were depriving themselves of an essential grace of character. How many American children ever hear it said by ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... series ranging from five to ten feet in length, according to the number of divisions. The walls are made of sandstone. In each compartment a flat grinding stone is firmly set, inclining at an angle of forty-five degrees. These slabs are of different degrees of smoothness, graduated successively from coarse to fine. The squaws, who alone work at the mills, kneel before them and bend over them as a laundress does over the wash-tub, holding in their hands long stones of volcanic lava, which they rub up ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... intervening space, and pounced upon him with an impetuous mirth that precipitated the child almost into the middle of the beck; but, happily, the stones preserved him from any serious wetting, while their smoothness prevented his being too much hurt to laugh at the ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... pleasantly; we had a very agreeable captain, and the smoothness of the water enabled the ladies to enjoy it in comfort, and also to spend an hour or two on deck afterwards, in the full beauty of the clear moon ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... place from the surface of the gullet or oesophagus which leads from the mouth to the stomach. This is due to the smoothness of the surface and to the rapidity with which food passes over it. Infection by the stomach also is rare, for this contains a strong acid secretion which destroys many of the bacteria which are taken in with the food. It is found impossible to infect animals with ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... the Luggie growls, And to the polished smoothness curlers come Rudely ambitious. Then for happy hours The clinking stones are slid from wary hands, And Barleycorn, best wine for surly airs, Bites i' th' mouth, and ancient jokes are cracked. And oh, the journey homeward, when the sun, Low-rounding ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... a doubting mood, expressing a strong disbelief of his offspring's abilities in writing poetry. Thus put upon his mettle, John resolved to do his best to change the scepticism of his father, and having written some verses which he liked, and corrected them over and over again into desirable smoothness, he one evening read them to his astonished parents. But the result was thoroughly disappointing. So far from admiring his son's poetry, Parker Clare expressed his strong conviction that it was mere rubbish, not to be compared to the half-penny songs of the ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... while she ties it, beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the breeze. A bit of her naked arm is visible between the buff leather of the gauntlet and the sleeve of her gown; and as the day wears on its feminine smoothness becomes scarified ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... true, we have almost forgotten the old accomplishment of "bridling"—the head up and the chin in, with the pliant knees bent in a low curtsey. Dulcie "bridled," as she prattled, to perfection. She had light brown hair, of the tint of a squirrel's fur, and the smoothness of a mouse's coat, though it was twisted and twirled into a kind of soft willowy curls when she was in high dress. Ah! no wonder that Kit Cowper, the cloth-worker, groaned to see that bright face pass from his ninepin alley; but it was the way ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... his berth. Twice it came, the second time ending in a moaning wail and a man's husky shout. Feet ran swiftly past his window. He heard another shout and then a voice of command. He could not distinguish the words, but the ship herself seemed to respond. There came the sudden smoothness of dead engines, followed by the pounding shock of reverse and the clanging alarm of a bell calling ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... You can touch it anywhere and nothing comes off. Its face glows with soap and water. From the appearance of its hands it is evident that mud-pies and tar are joys unknown to it. As for its hair, there is something uncanny about its smoothness and respectability. Even ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... port tack, under every rag that her crew could spread to the light and almost imperceptible draught of warm, damp air that came creeping out from the northward. So light was the breeze that it scarcely wrinkled the glassy smoothness of the long undulations upon which the brig rocked and swayed heavily while her lofty trucks described wide arcs across the paling sky overhead, from which the stars were vanishing one after another before the advance of the pallid dawn. And at every lee roll her canvas flapped with ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... dressing for beds, for in spite of its heavier body, it wrinkles and musses much more readily than good cotton. For table service, however, for the toilet, and for minor ornamental purposes linen has no equal. Its smoothness of texture, its brilliancy which laundering increases, its wearing qualities, its exquisite freshness, make it the one fabric fit ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... press Archivarius Lindhorst now brought out a black fluid substance, which diffused a most peculiar odor; also pens, sharply pointed and of strange color, together with a sheet of especial whiteness and smoothness; then at last an Arabic manuscript; and as Anselmus sat down to work, the Archivarius left the room. The student Anselmus had often before copied Arabic manuscripts; the first problem, therefore, seemed to him not so very difficult to solve. "How these pot-hooks came ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... reached the site of the old Exhibition. They looked at the tulips. Stiff and curled, the little rods of waxy smoothness rose from the earth, nourished yet contained, suffused with scarlet and coral pink. Each had its shadow; each grew trimly in the diamond-shaped wedge as ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... road was easier; and either from the smoothness of the travelling or through some partial relief from his anxieties, Wogan, who had kept awake so long, suddenly fell fast asleep, and when he woke up again the night was come. He woke up without ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... fear, Young as I was, a child not nine years old, Possessed me, for my inner eye had seen Such sights before, among the shining streams Of faery land, the forest of romance. 455 Their spirit hallowed the sad spectacle With decoration of ideal grace; A dignity, a smoothness, like the works Of Grecian art, and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... thought to have been suggested by Aaron Burr: "Helena Cleves was endowed with every feminine and fascinating quality. Her features were modified by the most transient sentiments and were the seat of a softness at all times blushful and bewitching. All those graces of symmetry, smoothness, and luster, which assemble in the imagination of the painter when he calls from the bosom of her natal deep the Paphian divinity, blended their perfections in the shade, complexion, and hair of this lady." But, alas! "Helena's intellectual deficiencies could not be concealed. She was ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... From the excessive smoothness of his manner I could guess that, had I been a native of the land, he would have told me to remove the vicious brute and myself likewise. I rose at once to go and ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... that all might drink the health of the new captain, whose troop was down the road at Sidney. Verily, Fortune was smiling on the gallant fellow on whom she had seemed to frown. Even the course of true love was defying all previous record, and had run with exceptional smoothness. Barring the one fearful task of having to write to her father, his courtship had been sweet and unimpeded as all its first surroundings had been bitter. And now, free, hopeful, redeemed, what was there to wait ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... I go and stand by the window, though there are yet ten minutes before he is due. Once I open the casement to listen, but hastily close it again, afraid lest the wintry wind should ruffle the satin smoothness of my hair, or push the mob-cap awry. Then I sit carefully down, and, harshly repulsing an overture on the part of Vick to jump into my lap, fix my eyes upon the dark bare boughs of the tall and distant elms, from between which I shall see him steal into sight. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... ubiquity had ceased. When the spring came he could no longer drag himself up and down stairs. His feet and legs were swollen; they were like enormous weights attached to his pitifully weedy body. His skin had the sallow smoothness, the waxen substance that marked the deadly, unmistakable progress of his disease. He could not always lie down in his bed. Sometimes he lived, day and night, motionless in his invalid's chair, with his legs propped ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... and, for explanation's sake, we may add that gourmands practically know the mantle as the beard of the oyster. When living in its glossy house, should any foreign substance find its way through the shell to disturb the smoothness so essential to its ease, the fish coats the offending substance with nacre, and a pearl is thus formed. The pearl is, in fact, a little globe of the smooth, glossy substance yielded by the oyster's beard; yielded ordinarily to smooth the narrow home to which his nature ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... waves of the sea, when it was agitated by a tempest; [24:2] He made the storm a calm, so that the wind at once ceased to blow, and the surface of the deep reposed, at the same moment, in glassy smoothness; [24:3] He cast out devils; and He restored life to the dead. Well might the Pharisees be perplexed by the inquiry—"How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?" [23:4] It is quite possible that false prophets, by the help ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... noticed this child, he was looking at her intently from a pair of large, clear brown eyes that had in them a wistful, hungry expression. His hair, thick and wavy, had been smoothly brushed by some careful hand, and fell back from a large forehead, the whiteness and smoothness of which was noticeable in contrast with those around him. His clothes ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... of her dwelling, where she had lived alone since the death of her mother. It was a good room she entered, very white on the walls, and the floor white also, with the works of her own fingers on the smoothness of it. In a niche of the thick wall stood a bronze god, and a medicine bowl with serrated edges, and a serpent winged and crowned painted in fine lines to encircle it. On the wall was a deerskin of ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... much inversion and occasional obscurity, and lacks smoothness; but it seemed to me to give the general reader a better idea of the poem than a mere prose translation would do, in addition to the advantage of literalness. While it would have been easy, by means of periphrasis and freer translation, to mend some of the defects chargeable ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... potatoes, pass'd through kitchen sieve, Smoothness and softness to the salad give: Of mordent mustard add a single spoon, Distrust the condiment that bites too soon; But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault. To add a double quantity of salt: Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, And twice with vinegar ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... time, there had been a bunk. The flat shelf still projected out from the wall. Donald entered with an armful of spruce boughs, and threw them on the bunk. While he was arranging them to a semblance of smoothness for the blankets, his hand struck something hard and cold. He picked the object up and held it to the light of the fire. Then, with a cry, he leaned forward, and examined ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... all its peaceful smoothness; looking out of the window, I perceived that the high rampart, on which the kiosk was constructed, was built at a distance of thirty or forty yards from the water, and that the intervening space was covered with boats, hauled up high and dry, and animated with the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... spirit of Dongan has entered into the heart of his successor, who may be less passionate and less interested, but who is, to say the least, quite as much opposed to us, and perhaps more dangerous by his suppleness and smoothness than the other was by his violence. What he has just done among the Iroquois, whom he pretends to be under his government, and whom he prevents from coming to meet me, is a certain proof that neither he nor the other English governors, nor their people, will ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... where they live poorly and dirtily, are hard-featured, and of very brown, or rather tawny complexions. As they seldom eat meat, their juices are destitute of that animal oil which gives a plumpness and smoothness to the skin, and defends those fine capillaries from the injuries of the weather, which would otherwise coalesce, or be shrunk up, so as to impede the circulation on the external surface of the body. As for the dirt, it undoubtedly blocks up the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... practices after a long stay in Bithynia with King Nikomedes, and the charge was very often renewed. Caesar was proud of his physical beauty, and, like some modern inverts, he was accustomed carefully to shave and epilate his body to preserve the smoothness of the skin. Hadrian's love for his beautiful slave Antinoues is well known; the love seems to have been deep and mutual, and Antinoues has become immortalized, partly by the romance of his obscure ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had retired beyond a little ledge of roughened ice and snow which cut the improvised arena into two nearly equal parts from where they could conveniently see Monsieur de St. Aulaire and Mr. Calvert as they skated about. This rift in the smoothness of the ice was some fifteen feet wide and extended far out from the shore, so that those wishing to pass beyond it had to skate out around its end and so get to the other side. Monsieur de St. Aulaire came up close to it, and, as he did so, he ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... moment, glanced cursorily at the place into which Folliot had led him. It was a square building of old stone, its walls unlined, unplastered; its floor paved with much worn flags of limestone, evidently set down in a long dead age and now polished to marble-like smoothness. In its midst, set flush with the floor, was what was evidently a trap-door, furnished with a heavy iron ring. To this Folliot pointed, with a glance of ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... immense pillars. The pillars end in cones that resemble nothing in the world so much as sugar-loaves, and the whole structure is marvellously unique. Yet strange to say, the effect of the facade, with the smoothness and roundness of its pillars and the uncompromising squareness of its towers, while altogether bad, is not altogether unpleasing. Standing before it the traveller was both bewildered and fascinated as he saw that even in the extravagance of their combinations, ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... he said, none of the monkeys paid any attention to this question. But one of the professor-monkeys appeared to listen attentively, and remarked to friend: "There seems to be a smoothness and variety of sound in his speech that indicates that he possesses some sort of language. Had I time to study this brute, I might learn his method of communicating with his fellows. Indeed, there is a possibility that he may turn out to be ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... outward. Twilight, sunset, moonlight (the Court-house in moonlight), dawn, morning, noon (Main Street at noon), high summer, first spring, red autumn, midwinter, all were there—illimitably detailed, worked to a smoothness like a glaze, and all lovingly ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... young mountains always wear the look of age, from their deep lines and jagged and angular character, while the really old mountains wear the look of youth from their comparative smoothness, their unwrinkled appearance, their long, flowing lines. Time has taken the ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... of England are incomparable for excellence, of a beautiful smoothness, very ingeniously laid down, and so well kept that in most weathers you could take your dinner off any part of them without distaste. On them, to the note of the bugle, the mail did its sixty miles a day; innumerable chaises whisked after the bobbing postboys; or some young blood would ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pillowy dependence; it was so much easier to be good-natured than to contend. As for Miss Roxy, if you have ever carefully examined a chestnut-burr, you will remember that, hard as it is to handle, no plush of downiest texture can exceed the satin smoothness of the fibres which line its heart. There are a class of people in New England who betray the uprising of the softer feelings of our nature only by an increase of outward asperity—a sort of bashfulness and shyness leaves them no power of expression for these unwonted guests ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... acquired a great reputation. He was said to equal, if not exceed, Sarasate in the wonderful celerity of his scales, and in lightness and certainty. His tone is not very full, but is sweet and clear. His playing is also marked by exceptional smoothness, scholarly phrasing, and graceful accentuation, but, in comparison with some of the other great players, he lacks breadth and passion. He appeals rather to the educated musician than to the general public, and for ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... garment swished against the long grass. He sprang up. Then he was holding her, bending her head back. He exulted to find that his gripping hand was barred from the smoothness of her side only by thin silk that glided and warmed under his fingers. She sat on his knees and snuggled her loosened hair tinglingly against his bare chest. He felt that she was waiting for him ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... that To this impression my rash yielding heart, Trusting the smoothness of the father's prate, Opposed no more resistance. Fool—I sprang A second time into the flame, and then I wooed, ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... resolution. He probably however counted too securely upon the ascendancy of his sentiments, when imperiously pronounced, to think it necessary to take precautions against a sinister event. For myself, I drew a favourable omen as to the final result of my project, from the smoothness of success that attended it ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... subtle for you; her smoothness, her very silence, and her patience speak to the people, and they pity her. You are a fool to plead for her, for you will seem more bright and virtuous when she is gone; therefore open not your lips in her favor, for the doom which I have ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... feelings, her impassive manner had deceived me. Now that my sympathy with her made me more keenly alive to her distress, I saw the deep pain in her pale face, and the unnatural look of grief in one so young. She tied on her hat in her old, hopeless way, and the ivory smoothness of her face spoke ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... and gentle, a murmur vast and faint; the murmur of trembling leaves, of stirring boughs, ran through the tangled depths of the forests, ran over the starry smoothness of the lagoon, and the water between the piles lapped the slimy timber once with a sudden splash. A breath of warm air touched the two men's faces and passed on with a mournful sound—a breath loud and short like an uneasy ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... this year had deprived me of all opportunities of judging for myself how far the appearances of his domestic state gave promise of happiness; nor had any rumours reached me which at all inclined me to suspect that the course of his married life hitherto exhibited less smoothness than such unions,—on the surface, at least,—generally wear. The strong and affectionate terms in which, soon after the marriage, he had, in some of the letters I have given, declared his own happiness—a declaration which his known frankness left me no room to question—had, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... monstrous rhymes are to be found in all literature than some of those we come across in Mrs. Browning's poems. But her ruggedness was never the result of carelessness. It was deliberate, as her letters to Mr. Horne show very clearly. She refused to sandpaper her muse. She disliked facile smoothness and artificial polish. In her very rejection of art she was an artist. She intended to produce a certain effect by certain means, and she succeeded; and her indifference to complete assonance in rhyme often gives a splendid richness to her verse, and ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... appearances, civil as well as military business was being transacted in Pretoria with perfect smoothness, in spite of the proximity of the enemy. The yeomanry were acting as police both there and in Johannesburg. The gaol, of which we had a glimpse, was crowded with 240 prisoners, but was under the competent direction of the usual English under-official, who had been ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... and soothing to the average male adult in the feel of a sharp razor being guided over a bristly jowl by a deft and skillful hand, to the accompaniment of a gentle grating sound and followed by a sensation of transient silken smoothness. Nor do I refer to the barber's habit of conversation. After all, a barber is human—he has to talk to somebody, and it might as well be you. If he didn't have you to talk to he'd have to talk to another barber, and that would ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... for more palatable food. The rats, after I had killed four or five, had become cautious. They are at all times cunning fellows, and must have discovered my mode of trapping them. The ship all this time was gliding on with tolerable smoothness, and on some occasions, by putting my ear down to the planks, I could hear the rippling of the water. At other times, I guessed by the dashing of the sea against the sides, that there was a strong breeze. I knew also, by the steadiness of the movement, that the ocean ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... mortal he was too; one of those whom you know at a glance to have been tried hard and long in the furnace of affliction. His face was an absolute puzzle; though sharp and sallow, it had neither the wrinkles of age nor the smoothness of youth; so that for the soul of me, I could hardly tell whether he ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... hand's breadth of the western horizon, while the wind had dwindled away until it had become the faintest zephyr, scarcely to be distinguished save by the slight ruffling of the water here and there where it touched, it being so nearly a flat calm that already great oily-looking patches of gleaming smoothness had appeared and were spreading momentarily through the faint blue ripplings that still betrayed a movement in the air. As for me, I was utterly exhausted with my long day's toil under the roasting sun; every bone in my body was aching; I was in a burning ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... saw the sorceress Mahbracca enter the apartment. This worthy dame presented a remarkable appearance. Short, with a large head partly covered with stubbly white hair, she had a face of the color and smoothness of an Irish potato, which has been lying in the sun for about eighteen months. Her eyes opened in the middle of the pupil, with a slit, like those of a cat, and she had three long hairs, or whiskers, on each side of her upper lip. She ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... of style which gives a smoothness to the sentence, so that when the words are sounded their connection becomes pleasing to the ear. It adapts sound to sense. Most people construct their sentences without giving thought to the way they will sound and as a consequence we have many jarring and discordant combinations ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... performance. His face and hands were of very dark complexion, either from constant exposure to wind and sun, or, as his black hair and dark eyes tended to show, from some strain of southern blood. His head was small, his face of an exquisite beauty of modelling, while the smoothness of its contour would have led you to believe that he was a beardless lad still in his teens. But something, some look which living and experience alone can give, seemed to contradict that, and finding yourself completely puzzled as to his age, you ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... the same for several different tones. But there should never be an abrupt change, either audible to the audience or felt in the singer's throat. Every tone must be imperceptibly prepared, and upon the elasticity of the vocal organs depends the smoothness of the tone production. Adjusting the vocal apparatus to the high register should be both imperceptible and mechanical whenever a high note has ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... leapt from a sea of glassy smoothness—for the swell had subsided during the night—and again the wretched men locked into each other's dreadful faces and mutely asked what was to be done. How should they head the boat? Without a compass they might as well steer one way as another, for none of them knew even approximately the ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke
... I know not if all poetry ever exceeded the smoothness and delicacy of those lines. They flow with an irresistable enchantment, and as the inserting them will shew the spirit both of the original and translation, we shall make no further ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... and beyond that the ground rose again in fields sprinkled with the drab and white of sheep and lambs and backed by the elm trees of Sales Hall. She could see the chimneys of the house and the rooks' nests in the elm tops and, as though the sight reminded her of something mildly amusing, the smoothness of her face was ruffled by a smile, the stillness of her pose by a quick glance about her, but if she looked for anyone she did not find him. There were small sounds from the larch wood, little creakings and rustlings, but there was no human footstep, and the only visible ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... veranda. She was a handsome girl, smartly dressed in white, with a fashionable hat that had a tall plume. Her hair and eyes were black, the latter marked by a rather hard sparkle; her nose was prominent and her mouth firm. Her face was colorless, but her skin had the clean smoothness of silk. She had a firmly lined, round figure, and her manner was easy and confident. Sadie Keller was then twenty-one years ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... air was stirring; the red hills smouldered in the heat, and the waters of Genesareth at our feet glimmered with an oily smoothness, unbroken by a ripple. We untwisted our turbans, kicked off our baggy trowsers, and speedily releasing ourselves from the barbarous restraints of dress, dipped into the tepid sea and floated lazily out until we could feel the exquisite ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... them, inaudible to the court; but they had the unexpected effect of apparently restoring the sufferer to complete tranquillity. He again stood erect; his brow, and it was a noble one, resumed its marble smoothness; his features grew calm, and his whole aspect returned to the stern and moveless melancholy of an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... rolling in, once in every lifetime that deserves to be called a lifetime, and sweeps away every one of our landmarks, and changes all our coast-line. But though the waters do not subside, yet the crest of them falls rippling away into smoothness after the first mad rush, else should we all be but shipwrecked mariners in the sea of love. And so, after a time, Margaret drew away from Claudius gently, finding his hands with hers as ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... convulsed the orphan's features, and shivered the smoothness of her usually sweet voice, touched the old lady's sympathy, and she wept silently; straining her imagination for some argument that would make an impression on the adamantine will with which she found ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... bulk of the low-pressure cylinder, frowning portly from above, emitted a faint wheeze at every thrust, and except for that low hiss the engines worked their steel limbs headlong or slow with a silent, determined smoothness. And all this, the white walls, the moving steel, the floor plates under Solomon Rout's feet, the floors of iron grating above his head, the dusk and the gleams, uprose and sank continuously, with one accord, upon the harsh wash of the waves ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... proportionate development of all the vocal organs. Depth is increased by the expansion of the pharynx; roundness and volume are promoted by the enlargement of the oral cavity, especially its back part; and smoothness is the result of the free vibration of the vocal chords, while resonance is produced by the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... grandeur, which in these days are never witnessed; and, which, though the modern muse may imagine, she generally fails in attempting to pourtray, from the violent desire to be smooth and tuneful, forgetting that smoothness and tunefulness are nearly ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... practically forgot death. She began to count how much money her mother owed her for eggs—which reminded her to look into the nests; and when, in spite of a clucking remonstrance, she put her hand under a feathery breast and touched the hot smoothness of a new-laid egg, she felt perfectly happy. "I guess I'll go and get some floating-island," she thought. "Oh, I hope they ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... cried mechanically aloud. He put down the hairbrush and inspected the razors on their shelf. The bright morning light flashed along the rubbed fine blades; they were beautiful, flawless, without a trace of defilement. He felt the satin smoothness of the steel with an actual thrill of pleasure; his eyes narrowed until they were like the glittering points of knives; he held the razor firmly and easily, with ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the way of all sailors; the punch was made and I was made half drunk with it: and in that one night's wickedness I drowned all my repentance, all my reflections upon my past conduct, all my resolutions for the future. In a word, as the sea was returned to its smoothness of surface and settled calmness by the abatement of that storm, so the hurry of my thoughts being over, my fears and apprehensions of being swallowed up by the sea being forgotten, and the current ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... of his slow movements, in their sudden moments of unsuspected depths of feeling, prophesy of the coming of the great human Beethoven rather than the ethereal, divinely beautiful Mozart. Suavity, smoothness, piquancy, perfect balance between section and section, and each movement and the other movements—these characterize all the later quartets. They were intended for chamber use only—to play them in a large hall is ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... had completed his sentence before he died. Hilary would have chanced a sudden rush forward to reverse it, to bring on a deluge of rain and clouds, even though it meant certain death. The machine seemed to gleam at him mockingly; the hum continued with tantalizing smoothness. ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... most luxuriant growth. Many of the young men were perfect models in shape, of a complexion as delicate as that of the women, and, to appearance, of a disposition as amiable. Others, who were more advanced in years, were corpulent; and all had a remarkable smoothness of the skin. Their general dress was a piece of cloth, or mat, wrapped about the waist, and covering the parts which modesty conceals. But some had pieces of mats, most curiously varied with black and white, made into a sort of jacket without ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... on in front of him, silent and thoughtful. Gabinius followed him into his writing-room, and there said with fulsome smoothness: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sixty. Near him his granddaughter knelt weeping. There was a strong family resemblance between them. Seeing them side by side, you thought of two beautiful Greek medals struck from the same matrix, but one old and worn and the other bright and clear-cut with all the brilliancy and smoothness of a ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... of smoothness was all off him by this time. His temper was roused. His pride—even such a man has his pride!—was wounded to the quick. Twice had he matched his wits against a woman's; and twice the woman had ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... of being Sophia's mother for nearly sixteen years had not been lost on Mrs. Baines, and though she was now discovering undreamt-of dangers in Sophia's erratic temperament, she kept her presence of mind sufficiently well to behave with diplomatic smoothness. It was undoubtedly humiliating to a mother to be forced to use diplomacy in dealing with a girl in short sleeves. In HER day mothers had been autocrats. But Sophia ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... that had fled Deveny had said certain things to her that she had not repeated to her father; he had looked at her with a significance that no man could have understood; and there had been a gleam in his eyes at these times which had convinced her that behind the bland smoothness of him—back of the suave politeness of his manner—was a primitive animalism. His suave politeness was a velvet veil of character behind which he masked the slavering fangs of the beast he ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Liszt?— infinite nuance and the mingling of silvery bells,—these are a few of the least exuberant notices. Was it not Heine who called "Thalberg a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Madame Pleyel a sibyl, and Doehler—a pianist"? The limpidity, the smoothness and ease of Chopin's playing were, after all, on the physical plane. It was the poetic melancholy, the grandeur, above all the imaginative lift, that were more in evidence than mere sensuous sweetness. Chopin had, we know, his salon side when he ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... and the width just below the confluence of the main tributaries about twenty-five miles. Though apparently motionless as the mountains, it flows on forever, the speed varying in every part with the seasons, but mostly with the depth of the current, and the declivity, smoothness and directness of the different portions of the basin. The flow of the central cascading portion near the front, as determined by Professor Reid, is at the rate of from two and a half to five inches an hour, or from five to ten feet a day. A strip of ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... excelled, evincing on every topic the fruits of extensive reading and reflection. He was readily moved by the pathetic; at the most joyous hour, a melancholy incident would move him into tears. The tenderness of his heart was frequently imparted to his verses, which are uniformly distinguished for smoothness ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... he lay within the reach of the shot of his powerful foe, though still so distant as to render her also a little uncertain, more especially should a set get up. The felucca had burnt to the water's edge; but, owing to the smoothness of the water, her wreck still floated and was slowly setting into the bay, there being a slight current in that direction, where she now lay. The town was basking in the afternoon's sun, though hid from view, and the whole island of Elba had the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... thereupon gave himself up a voluntary captive to the sway of his own passions, determining to enjoy the immediate present, no matter what the future might have in store. Outside, the water-lilies nodded themselves to sleep in their shrouding, dark leaves, . . and the unbroken smoothness of the lake spread itself out in the moon like a sheet of molten gold over the spot where Nir-jalis had found his chilly rest. "THE CURSE OF THE DEAD NIR-JALIS SHALL CLING!" Yes,—possibly!—in the hereafter! ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... filled the chasm with drifts. Later in the afternoon he brought forth the buckskin bag from a niche in the log wall where it had been concealed, and one after another carefully examined the golden nuggets. He found, as he had expected, that they were worn to exceeding smoothness, and that every edge had been dulled and rounded. Rod's favorite study in school had been a minor branch of geology and mineralogy, and he knew that only running water could work this smoothness. He was therefore confident that ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... may laugh together—or separately—that I have, I may say, sought your acquaintance. To speak with almost impudent frankness, you interest me!" All this was uttered by M. de Bellegarde with the modulated smoothness of the man of the world, and in spite of his excellent English, of the Frenchman; but Newman, at the same time that he sat noting its harmonious flow, perceived that it was not mere mechanical urbanity. Decidedly, there was something in his visitor that ...
— The American • Henry James
... bottom of its window with strings of actresses' photographs, and stood there with a jaunty rising and falling of the heels, bestowing an exaggerated attention on the glossy black and white patterns that indicated the glittering facades of these charmers' smiles, the milky smoothness of their bean-fed femininity. Ah, these were the really fine women that it was worth troubling your head about, from whose satin slippers, it was well known, dukes and the like drank champagne. Who would bother about a wee typist ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... city, in the alluring country places, we see a landscape that delights the senses, ornate with hedges, flowers, vine-clad cottages, highways of surpassing smoothness, fertile fields, and thrifty flocks and herds. There are carts and wagons on the roads bearing the products of field and garden to the marts of trade. Men, women, and children zealously ply the hoe, the plow, ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... act like a veritable madman. He had yet to learn the profound wisdom, for poets as well as actors, of Hamlet's rule to "acquire and beget, in the whirlwind of passion, a temperance that may give it smoothness." ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... streets, as a rule, would just allow of the progress of one vehicle, though a few of the principal ones would permit the passage of two; and the pavements consisted of huge stones, not remarkable either for evenness or smoothness. A channel ran down the middle of the street, into which every housewife emptied her slops from the window, and along which dirty water, sewerage, straw, drowned rats, and mud, floated in profuse and odoriferous mezee. Margery found it desirable ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... words, if so that any be Known guilty here of incivility; Let what is graceless, discomposed, and rude, With sweetness, smoothness, softness be endued: Teach it to blush, to curtsey, lisp, and show Demure, but yet full of temptation, too. Numbers ne'er tickle, or but lightly please, Unless they have some wanton carriages:— ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... was an expression such as is found in the eyes of some leashed beast when the butcher approaches, axe in hand. She was tortured by the smoothness of the man from whom she had never once in the last quarter of a century received anything but brutality and scorn, and from whom she had suffered the grossest of humiliations—when ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... was occasionally said. Her mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just' enough to let out a 'yes' and 'no,' and 'an't please you, sir.' But the wide mouth was one soft curve of rich red lips; and the skin, if not white and fair, was of an ivory smoothness and delicacy. If the look on her face was, in general, too dignified and reserved for one so young, now, talking to her father, it was bright as the morning,—full of dimples, and glances that spoke of childish gladness, and boundless hope ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... would call to her if she failed to come. He would hold out his big hand to her as he would have held it to a child. Her smallness, her fineness and fragility enchanted him. The palms of her hands had the smoothness and softness of silk, and they made a sound like silk as they withdrew themselves with a lingering, stroking touch from his. He still felt, with a fearful and admiring wonder, the difference ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... cajoled, and wheedled Steve until his conscience had been overpowered and, yielding to their arguments, he had set forth for the adjoining village with the triumphant throng of tempters. At first all had gone well. The fourteen miles had slipped past with such smoothness and rapidity that Stephen, proudly enthroned at the wheel, had almost forgotten that any shadow rested on the hilarity of the day. He had been dubbed a good fellow, a true sport, a benefactor to the school—every complimentary pseudonym imaginable—and had glowed with pleasure ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... that I should wish Lieutenant Walters to be made acquainted with. I have quite come into my property now, you know, and—and I don't know what to do with it. If I could be at all useful in a pecuniary point of view, I should glide into the silent tomb with ease and smoothness.' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... have end in their effects" "when blood and sorrow finish my desires," "these were spectacles to please my soul." In "Titus," even the Satanic Aaron, "in the whirlwind of passion," "acquires and begets a temperance" that "gives it smoothness." ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... and mealy, with his coat off, but wearing a waistcoat to which were attached flannel sleeves, was busily engaged in his agreeable task of administering to their necessities. Such was his smoothness of manner, and the singular control which a long life of hypocrisy had given him over his feelings, that it was impossible to draw any correct distinction between that which he only assumed, and that which he really ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... Cabinet Unlocked;' and there was not a cosmetic in the latter which she had not faithfully prepared. Thus by means, as she believed, of distilled waters of various kinds, maydew and buttermilk, her skin retained its beautiful texture still and much of its smoothness, and she knew at times how to give it the appearance of that brilliancy which it had lost. But that was a profound secret. Miss Trewbody, remembering the example of Jezebel, always felt conscious that she had committed a sin when she took the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... it to pay attention to the feet. A stable with a damp and smooth floor will spoil the best hoof which nature can give. (7) To prevent the floor being damp, it should be sloped with channels; and to avoid smoothness, paved with cobble stones sunk side by side in the ground and similar in size to the horse's hoofs. (8) A stable floor of this sort is calculated to strengthen the horse's feet by the mere pressure on the part in standing. In the next place it will be the groom's business to lead out ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... these friendly aspirations in behalf of his client, Mr Sampson composed his face into its usual state of smoothness, and waiting until the shriek came again and was dying away, went up to the wooden house, and knocked ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... we looked out across the broad river there was no narrow, dark line undulating over its surface, nor even a faint, continuous inequality to hint that trail had been, on snow "less hideously serene"; its perfect smoothness and whiteness were unscarred and unsullied. The trail was wiped out and swallowed up by the ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... many changes of direction that I became confused when trying to keep any one animal in view, they never collided nor even came near enough to touch one another. The whole performance resembled, on a greatly magnified scale and without its beautiful smoothness and lightning swiftness, the fantastic dance of small black water-beetles, frequently seen on the surface of a pool or stream, during which the insects glide about in a limited area with such celerity as to appear like black curving ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... given to Homer, and Pope gave them by aid of his dazzling rhetoric, his antitheses, his nettete, his command of every conventional and favourite artifice. Without Chapman's conceits, Homer's poems would hardly have been what the Elizabethans took for poetry; without Pope's smoothness, and Pope's points, the Iliad and Odyssey would have seemed rude, and harsh in the age of Anne. These great translations must always live as English poems. As transcripts of Homer they are like pictures drawn ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... noisy than ours, having a shrill, infantile whistle that contrasts strongly with the loud, demoniac yell that makes a residence near a railway or a depot, in this country, so unbearable. The trains themselves move with wonderful smoothness and celerity, making a mere fraction of the racket made by our flying palaces as they go swaying and jolting ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... old work he always corrected where he could; and if we notice the changed lines in 'Paracelsus' or 'Sordello', as they appear in the edition of 1863, or the slighter alterations indicated for the last reprint of his works, we are struck by the care evinced in them for greater smoothness of expression, as well as ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the lively Opera of Rosamond. This piece was ill set to music, and therefore failed on the stage; but it completely succeeded in print, and is indeed excellent in its kind. The smoothness with which the verses glide, and the elasticity with which they bound, is, to our ears at least, very pleasing. We are inclined to think that if Addison had left heroic couplets to Pope, and blank verse to Rowe, and had employed himself in writing ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... widely for table use, and were imitated locally from the fourth century onwards. The clay is pale or reddish (genuine Greek fabrics are usually quite red within) and the glaze thick, black, and of a brilliant glassy smoothness. Imitations are of all ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... and firmer texture than that spun by the jenny, it was specially suited for warp, but the Lancashire manufacturers declined to make use of it. Arkwright and his partners therefore wove it at first into stockings, which, on account of the smoothness and equality of the yarn, were greatly superior to those ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... is that of which we are immediately aware, and the awareness itself is the sensation. It is plain that if we are to know anything about the table, it must be by means of the sense-data—brown colour, oblong shape, smoothness, etc.—which we associate with the table; but, for the reasons which have been given, we cannot say that the table is the sense-data, or even that the sense-data are directly properties of the table. Thus a problem arises as to ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... originally intended to continue for eight hours, but at the end of the seventh, as the light began to fade, and as, moreover, the engines were working with a smoothness and efficiency that showed no signs of flagging, it was considered expedient to terminate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... "current" of Public Opinion. To direct this great power, to harness its tremendous forces, to convert them into light, heat, and energy and set the wheels of moral, social, and political life running with greater smoothness, rapidity, and strength, should be the noble effort and the great ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... and questions shall be answered in their proper places; here I will but say that I scorn and detest lying, and quibbling, and double-tongued practice, and slyness, and cunning, and smoothness, and cant, and pretence, quite as much as any Protestants hate them; and I pray to be kept from the snare of them. But all this is just now by the bye; my present subject is my Accuser; what I insist upon here is this unmanly attempt of his, in his concluding pages, to cut ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... how I might youth prolong By knowing what was right and wrong; How from my heart to bring supplies Of lustre to my fading eyes; How soon a beauteous mind repairs The loss of changed or falling hairs; How wit and virtue from within Send out a smoothness o'er the skin Your lectures could my fancy fix, And I ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... of the girl who had washed her mother's hair, however, was slight compared with M. Joseph's dexterity. The comb flashed in his white narrow hands; in no time at all every knot was urged out into a shining smoothness. "Just the front?" he inquired. Not waiting for Mrs. Condon's reply, he detached a strand from the mass over her brow, impaled it on a hairpin, while he picked up what might have been a thick steel knitting-needle ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer |
