"Soft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this invention is chiefly due. We have already spoken of Professor Henry's work in science, but none of it was more important than his invention, in 1828, of the modern form of electro-magnet—a coil of silk-covered wire wound in a series of crossed layers around a soft iron core, and in 1831, he had used it to produce the ringing of a bell at a distance. It is this magnet which forms the basis of every telegraph instrument—is essential to it, and is the foundation of the entire electrical art. ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... of our cars by this time, and examining the soft roadway with Craig. It was evident to any one that a car had been run in, and not so very long ago, in the direction of ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... He hesitated while he groped in his vocabulary and framed a complete answer. "The cap'n is Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard his other name. But you better speak soft with him. He is mad ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... had answered. But in his heart he knew that he himself had been marking time under these soft tropical skies while the world was pushing forward. The thought had not disturbed him before. Now he felt guilty. He conceived a sudden intolerance, if not contempt, for the little village of whitewashed ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... all so violent," said Dick, for whom she kept a very soft place in her heart. But Harold shook ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... to leave him. He's a first-rate man, if he was only a little sharper—got too many soft spots: that's what I hear folks say. But I think I should ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... white of an egg, break it with a fork, and, having first cleaned the leather with dry flannel, apply the egg with a soft sponge. Where the leather is rubbed or decayed, rub a little paste with the finger into the parts affected, to fill up the broken grain, otherwise the glair would sink in and turn it black. To produce a polished surface, a hot ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... what slight cover will suffice to conceal their lurking forms from the observation of the herd. During the day they generally retreat to some cool and shady spot, deep in the recesses of the jungle. Where the soft earth has been worn away with ragged hollows and deep shady water-courses, where the tallest and most impenetrable jungle conceals the winding and impervious paths, hidden in the gloom and obscurity of the densely-matted grass, the lordly tiger crouches, and blinks away the day. ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... and drawn by two more docile donkeys, bringing up the rear. The world knows the rest—that is, with one exception! Buck told me, very confidentially, that the Congress had been fast enough for anything; that Pierce was soft enough to think good would come of it; and that he only put his signature to that remarkable document proclaiming our natural right to Cuba with virtuous reluctance,—merely to keep ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... to him, soft and warm. Her fingers even returned the pressure of his. She looked at him pleasantly, and once more he felt like a man who has wandered into a strange country and has ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... then, please." There was a slight flush of vexation on the girl's face now. And, indeed, it was scarcely fair of Dogberry, when his own soft thing had fallen through, to make Jim cover his dignified retreat. With deepening colour, she led the way to the stable, and opened a loose-box, disclosing Pup, crouched, sphynx-like, with a large bone between his paws. The red collar was gone; and he was chained to the manger ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... man's body was soft. But a soft body is naturally passible as regards a hard body; therefore if a hard body had come in contact with the soft body of the first man, the latter would have suffered from the impact. Therefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... forehead and cheeks, and smoothed back his thick hair. No woman's hand had touched him thus since his mother's when he had been a little child. He was too weak to question what was happening to him, but a soft light came into his eyes, and he unconsciously ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... sand has been "unconsciously selected" from amidst the gravel in which it first lay with as much precision as if man had "consciously selected" it by the aid of a sieve. Physical Geology is full of such selections—of the picking out of the soft from the hard, of the soluble from the insoluble, of the fusible from the infusible, by natural agencies to which we are certainly not in the habit ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... shut out the light of his dear eyes from my soul! Yet, after the anguish was over, and I had laid him in the fragrant earth, amongst the roots of happy flowers, where the limpid brook murmurs its soft and never-ending requiem, and the birds come every night to dream and sleep amid the overhanging branches, although my mortal sense was all too dull to realize his presence, yet in my soul I felt that he was ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... therefore, that carried him up to the quarters, and a glance of some nervous distress that made him aware, as he stood bowing upon her threshold, clasping with both hands his soft felt hat to his breast, that Mrs. Sand was not displeased to see him. She hastened, indeed, to give him a chair; she said she was very glad he'd dropped in, if he didn't mind the room being so untidy—where there were ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the associated images, there is a tendency to superimpose the image on the impression. In this way illusion arises. Thus, a man, when strolling in a cathedral, will be apt to take any kind of faint hollow sound for the soft tones ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... As the Antipodes are vnto vs, Or as the South to the Septentrion. Oh Tygres Heart, wrapt in a Womans Hide, How could'st thou drayne the Life-blood of the Child, To bid the Father wipe his eyes withall, And yet be seene to beare a Womans face? Women are soft, milde, pittifull, and flexible; Thou, sterne, obdurate, flintie, rough, remorselesse. Bidst thou me rage? why now thou hast thy wish. Would'st haue me weepe? why now thou hast thy will. For raging Wind blowes vp incessant showers, And when the Rage allayes, the Raine begins. These ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of the children in turn affectionately upon the head with its paw, and they remembered afterwards that his paw was as soft as velvet, and really wasn't ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... here was fresh and new, but selected with excellent taste and careful attention to detail. Not a thing; was lacking, from the pretty upright piano to the enameled clock ticking upon the mantel. The dining-room was a picture, indeed, with stained-glass windows casting their soft lights through the draperies and the side-board shining with silver and glass. There was a cellarette in one corner, the Major noticed, and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... the unfamiliarity of this passage, I succeeded in making excellent progress, advancing silently along the soft sand, assured I was safe from observation by reason of the intense darkness. The waves lapping the beach helped muffle my footsteps, but no other sound reached my ears, nor could my eyes perceive the slightest movement along the water surface within reach of vision. The ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... must confess, the mysteries of the toilet rites have impressed me with a kind of superstitious awe. Only a year ago my daughter Jennie had smooth dark hair, which she wreathed in various soft, flowing lines about her face, and confined in a classical knot on the back of her head. Jennie had rather a talent for coiffure, and the arrangement of her hair was one of my little artistic delights. She always had something there,—a leaf, a spray, a bud or blossom, that looked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... A soft, balmy evening dropped down about the camp, which was established in the further cup between the hills. As evening approached the cattle from the outside cup were driven into this inner enclosure. They could be cared for at night much more easily ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... sink all the way down, and you still don't know who he is. For The Woman the beginning is done like this: "The Woman clenched her white hands till the diamonds that glittered upon her fingers were buried in the soft flesh. 'The shame of it,' she murmured. Then she took from the table the telegram that lay crumpled upon it and tore it into a hundred pieces. 'He dare not!' she muttered through her closed teeth. She looked about the hotel room with its garish ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... door is open to the night. The soft air of a beautiful evening following on a glorious day brushes past one into the room. As I stand here the nightingale from a neighbouring garden is piping his long, exquisite, repeated note till the air seems full of ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... broken, Omega sat by his dead, while the shadows of night entered the valley and wrapped all in their soft embrace. When would his own hour strike? He might retard or hasten that time, but the real answer lay in that little lake out there under the stars, daily shrinking despite the cloud curtain. There was nothing more to live for, yet he determined to ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... Italian marble, the tread of which covered with Turkish carpets, leads you to the interior. The court in the inner center of the hotel rises to a height of five or six stories, and is covered by parti-colored glass, which emits a soft and pleasing tint on all below. The dining room was "a thing of beauty," and the menu "a joy forever." The adornments of the room would well befit a palace. Oh, that I had the tongue of an orator or the pen of a ready writer, to fitly describe! Took ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... according to Dick's notion, lavishly extravagant in the provision of firearms for the expedition, the total armoury amounting to no less than twenty-one weapons; namely, three Westley-Richards five-shot .318 repeating rifles; three Remington U.M.C. five-shot 35 repeating rifles, firing soft-nosed bullets; two 12A Standard U.M.C. fifteen-shot .22 repeating rifles—the last five being especially intended for big game and fighting; three Westley-Richards double-barrel 12-gauge smooth-bores; two Smith hammerless ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... both hands grasping her cloak, which she had drawn tightly about the rich folds of her new and expensive dress; but her eyes were fixed straight before her, with a soft light in their depths which made ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... head for everything," said Aurelia Fitzloom, in a soft sentimental whisper; "I am sure we owe all our ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... thou soft natural Death, thou art joint-twin To sweetest Slumber! no rough-bearded comet Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl Beats not against thy casement; the hoarse wolf Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... is too soft a metal to give a satisfactory purchase to a screw—a thread cut in it soon wears out—it is better to support a leaden weight from underneath by means of a brass collar and screw. A collar is easily made out of a bit of tubing thickened ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... saffron and green and crimson. Simonetta—Sandro could see—was a little apart, a very tall, isolated figure, clear and cold in a recess of shade, standing easily, resting on one hip with her hands behind her. A soft, straight robe of white clipped her close from shoulder to heel; the lines of her figure were thrust forward by her poise. His eye followed the swell of her bosom, very gentle and girlish, and the long folds of her dress falling thence to her knee. While she stood there, proud and remote, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... himself, "Tito will find me: he had but to carry our manuscripts and gems to Venice; he will have raised money, and will never rest till he finds me out"? If that were certain, could he, Tito, see the price of the gems lying before him, and say, "I will stay at Florence, where I am fanned by soft airs of promised love and prosperity; I will not risk myself for his sake"? No, surely not, if it were certain. But nothing could be farther from certainty. The galley had been taken by a Turkish vessel on its way to Delos: that ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... half inclined to be afraid of her papa in his unaccustomed garb, but Ned laughed at her, and made her look at Violet, who was passing her hand over the soft fur, caressing it as if she loved it; and Jessie made them all laugh by telling them that when she became a rich woman, she meant to send a fur coat ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... charm which ever accompanies the sound of running water exercised its power over their imagination. They heard with delight the gentle whisper of the fountain, lulling the senses with its low, rippling tones; the soft purling of the brook as it rushes over the pebbles, or the mighty voice of the waterfall as it dashes on in its headlong course; and the beings which they pictured to themselves as presiding over all these charming sights and sounds of ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... thought of her? Any love for her? He, the favourite of the high-born beauties of Rome, the most splendid, the most graceful, the most eloquent of its nobles? It could not be. His voice had, indeed, been touchingly soft whenever he addressed her. There had been a fascinating tenderness even in the vivacity of his look and conversation. But such were always the manners of Caesar towards women. He had wreathed a sprig of myrtle in her hair as she was singing. She took it from her dark ringlets, and kissed it, and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... eaten on the ground, the horses were watered, given grain, and turned loose to find what pickings they might in the lean growth; and dusk had not turned to dark when the emigrants were in their beds on the soft dust. The noise of the rapids dominated the air with distant sonority, and the children slept at once, the boy with his rifle along his blanket's edge. John Clallam lay till the moon rose hard and brilliant, ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... at this sunny hour of late afternoon and at this autumnal season matched his consciousness of a tranquil metamorphosis. Idle still and empty of its more vivid significance, one yet felt in it the soft stirrings of a re-entering tide of life. Cabs passed, piled with brightly badged luggage; the drowsily reminiscent shop-windows showed here and there an adventurous forecast, and a house or two, among ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... vibration, one continuous transport of physical energy. Take sprinting alone. How could he convey to Jujubes in his disgusting flabbiness any sense of the fine madness of running, of the race of the blood through the veins, of the hammer strokes of the heart, of the soft pad of the feet on the highway? To Jujubes, who went in like a cushion no matter where you prodded him, how describe the feel of a taut muscle, the mounting swell of it, the resistance, and the small, almost impalpable ripple and ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... permitted the soft strands to slip slowly between her white fingers. "You should never say 'you bet,' Naida. Such language is not at all lady-like. I am going to call you Naida, and you must call me Phoebe. People use their given names ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... they were gone; the stillness of the house rested her. But she missed Colin. Last Sunday he had been there, sitting beside her in his chair by the hearth, reading. Today he was with Jerrold at the Manor. The soft drizzle turned to a quick patter of rain; a curtain of rain fell, covering the grey fields between the farm and the Manor, ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... doubtless possesses many resources; but it is not on the productions of Nepaul alone that the European speculator would calculate, but on the rare and precious merchandise of Thibet and the northern provinces of China—such as the miledo, or exquisitely soft material fabricated from the wool of the celebrated shawl-goat, itself a rare and valuable animal; and the chowries or tails of a peculiar species of bullock inhabiting the snowy regions, at present an article of export from the hill states in the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... our Lady, the Spaniards killed a quadruped resembling a badger, and in the sea they found considerable quantities of mother-of-pearl. Among other fish which they caught in their nets, was one resembling a swine, which was covered all over with a very hard skin except the tail, which was quite soft. In this sea among the islands, the tide was observed to rise and fall much more than in the other places where they had been hitherto; and was quite contrary to ours in Spain, as it was low water when the moon was S.W. and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... away, and the morning ushers in soft and sunny, but brings with it nothing to relieve her situation. She, however, returns the gold to Anna through a channel less objectionable than that Undine would have supplied, and sallies out to seek lodgings. ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Peachy exclaimed, after an instant of dead silence. There was a stir of wonder, flutelike in her voice, a ripple of wonder, flamelike on her face. "Our feet are too fine, too soft. Ralph says that mine are only toy feet, that no creature could really get ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... lacks, to a large extent, in the charities which come to woman as gifts of God, because of which Christ employed her as an agency to win men back to faith in God. In the sick chamber she moves with step noiseless as falling snow-flakes, and speaks in a voice soft as an angel's whisper. Her touch is so gentle that it soothes the sufferer, and her sympathy is more precious than rubies. On this account she is man's first and last solace. Suffering never appeals to woman in vain. "I ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... the castle: the day grew soft, and bright, and exhilarating.... but, alas; for the changes and chances of this transitory world. Where was the warder? He had ceased to blow his horn for many a long year. Where was the harp of the minstrel? ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... seized the girl by the arm and swung her behind him. He struck at the Doomsman with his hunting-knife, but the latter caught his wrist with the grip of a wolf-trap. Yet even at that moment of stress Quinton Edge's voice preserved its soft, mincing inflections; the man wore his irritating affectations of speech as jauntily as he did the ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... long shed, divided into narrow slips, like the stalls used for cattle. Boards fixed upon stakes driven into the ground, without mat or covering, were our only beds. On Sundays, after we had washed the salt bags, and done other work required of us, we went into the bush and cut the long soft grass, of which we made trusses for our legs and feet to rest upon, for they were so full of the salt boils that we could get no rest lying upon ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... before. He could find no name for it. It was like himself and it was like her also, only it was tiny and no thicker than his fore-arm. It had wee feet and hands, a rose-bud of a mouth and it was smooth and soft. Its head, which was the size of an apple, was covered with silky floss. Lowering his face, he sniffed it all over. It smelt sweet like the flowers that used to bloom ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... achieve were they to make their senses what they might be made. The old have outlived their opportunity, and the diseased never had it; but the young, who have still an undimmed eye, an undulled ear, and a soft hand; an unblunted nostril, and a tongue which tastes with relish the plainest fare—the young can so cultivate their senses as to make the narrow ring, which for the old and the infirm encircles things sensible, widen for them into an ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... a little America which swelled into a larger with the arrivals of the successive steamers, though the soft swift English trains bore our co-nationals away as rapidly as they could. Many familiar accents remained till the morning, and the breakfast-room was full of a nasal resonance which would have made one at home ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... child in her arms again. A fair, fragile little creature she was, with soft rings of golden hair, and great, wistful blue eyes. She was not in the least shy or frightened, but nestled in Allison's arms in ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... thirty paces in diameter. Every man of the group had fallen forward with his bayonet pointing straight out in front of him. Some had been running with such elan that in falling their shoulders had fairly plowed into the soft ground. They had nearly all been killed by shrapnel fire, which in most cases had killed cleanly. We found one, however, who had been badly mashed by a shell which had burst in the ground at his feet, ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... These holes are placed about 6 inches apart in a line. They should be about 3 inches in diameter and at least one inch deep. A line is drawn 6 feet from the first hole. The one who is "It" must stand behind this line and roll a soft ball so that it will drop into one of the holes. If he misses, he continues to roll until he succeeds. If he succeeds, the one, into whose hole the ball rolls, runs forward, picks it up and endeavors to hit any other player from the position in which he picked up the ball. The rest may run ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... applying, in all their main points, to the same race two hundred years earlier. These writers describe the Scythians as a people coarse and gross in their habits, with large fleshy bodies, loose joints, soft swollen bellies, and scanty hair. They never washed themselves; their nearest approach to ablution was a vapor-bath, or the application of a paste to their bodies which left them glossy on its removal. They lived either in wagons, or ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... was a rough one, and he saw her only now and then, always alone, and generally standing on the end of the ship, her green cape blowing in a gale of wind and showing a scarlet lining, her mignonette hat exchanged for a soft green thing with an upstanding scarlet quill. She was the only companionable person on board, but he did not know her and sat nowhere near her at table, an assemblage of facts that seemed to settle ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the evening, as they sat together in the old, panelled parlour in the soft light of the shaded lamp, the talk turned naturally and sweetly on Valentine—on all that he used to say and do; and Jack told as best he could the story of the desert march, and of that last sad parting on the river's ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... Valentine sitting at the door of the bedroom. He meant to wait till the old man had left the room, and crept to the chair at the window where he had always sat formerly, when he was such a different man. His wife heard his soft tread; she could not see his face. It seemed to her that he knew of little Annie's condition and walked so softly on that account. She looked at little Annie with a glance that said, that what she was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... of the wealthiest cities of Asia Minor. It was built upon some low hills, and occupied an important situation in the center of a very fertile district. It was famous for its money transactions and for the beautiful soft wool grown by the sheep of the country, which facts are both alluded to in the message. Verses 17, 18. During the reign of Tiberius Caesar it was entirely destroyed by an earthquake, but its wealthy inhabitants rebuilt it immediately. A Christian church was soon ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... industrial entrepot. I meant to walk to Bondy, and after a botanic stroll in its beautiful forest to retrace my steps, gaining Marly next day by Baubigny, Aubervilliers and Nanterre. "The Aladdins of our time," I said as I leaned over the soft gray water, "are the engineers. They rub their theodolites, and there springs up, not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... wonderfully strong, making midnight seem as light as an ordinary overcast midday in temperate climes. The great clearness of the atmosphere probably accounts for our having eight hours of twilight with a beautiful soft golden glow to the northward. A little rime and glazed frost are found aloft. The temperature is -20 Fahr. A few wisps of cirrus-cloud are seen and a little frost-smoke shows in one or two directions, but the cracks and leads near the ship appear ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... solitude of Vaucluse; the image of Constantine haunted the walks of Somerset. The loveliness of nature, its leafy groves and verdant meadows, its blooming mornings and luxuriant sunsets, the romantic shadows of twilight or the soft glories of the moon and stars, as they pressed beauty and sentiment upon her heart, awoke it to the remembrance of Constantine; she saw his image, she felt his soul, in every object. Subtile and undefinable is that ethereal chord which unites our tenderest ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... towards the window as he rose, and saw one of those little surprises by which Nature relieves the monotony of life in these islands. The sun had gone, a ragged slate-coloured cloud was drifting up from over the river, and the rain was falling with a soft persistency which is more fatal than the most boisterous shower. There would be no more cricket ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... detestation, numbers of wicked actions stand there, tho' equally bad and vicious in their own natures;—he will soon find, that such of them as strong inclination and custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dressed out and painted with all the false beauties which a soft and a flattering hand can give them;—and that the others, to which he feels no propensity, appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... was that Paco Gomez, being persistently followed by cocked hats, found himself obliged to avoid a blow by jumping into the larder of the confectioner shop of Don Romana, where he fell headlong to the ground on a dish of soft eggs, and completely destroyed a magnificent burrage tart destined for the precentor of the cathedral. And it was the same with Jaime Moro, who, after losing Don Nicanor's serpent in the fray, narrowly escaped being immolated by the magnificent sabre ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... other, holding out the plate to her sister, "the very nicest dainties, fit for gods and kings. Only feel this peach, does not it feel as soft as one of little Philo's cheeks? If I could always provide such a substitute you would wish I might eat up your breakfast every day. And now do you know who gave you all this? No, that you will never guess! The tall Roman gave them me, the same you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... join the purple. The corn-fields and the pastures of the plain—count them one by one till the hedges and squares close together and cannot be separated. The surface of the earth melts away as if the eyes insensibly shut and grew dreamy in gazing, as the soft clouds melt and lose their outline at the horizon. But dwelling there, the glance slowly finds and fills out something that interposes its existence between us and the further space. Too shadowy for the substance of a cloud, too delicate for ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... tans and dresses leather, and can make a very beautiful and soft material by repeatedly rubbing and beating the hides. The thick skins are converted into sandals; those of sheep and goats are dyed and made into sheaths of various kinds, purses for greegrees, covers for quivers and saddles, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... thought and conversation. An average American and an average Englishman are talking together, and one of them speaks of the beauty of a field of corn. They are thinking of two entirely different objects: one of a billowy level of soft waving wheat, or rye, or barley; the other of a rustling forest of tall, jointed stalks, tossing their plumes and showing their silken epaulettes, as if every stem in the ordered ranks were a soldier in full regimentals. ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... its little hands!" murmured Mary. "They're like pink shells, only soft. Oh! see it move them, Ruth!" She caught her sister's arm in a sudden ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... L. had the reputation of being an ingenious boy; but he used to seem old even then—he had the rheumatism or some such complaint. In thinking about him, it seems to me that the instinct of his life is to find a soft place in the world: he is hunting up cushions and soft things to surround himself with. His bent is rather scientific than religious. A man that is an oracle surrounds himself with something soft in ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... Soft water must be used to cook them. If this be not obtainable, Maignen's Ante-Calcaire will be found ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... was large, and I might have wandered long without guessing where lay the room I wanted had it not been for a slight sound that came to me—the low, soft sobbing of a woman. I groped my way along the dark passage, turned to the left, and presently came to the door from behind which issued the sound. The door was locked on the outside, and the key was in the lock. I knocked, and at once silence fell. To my second knock I got no answer. Then ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... accordingly the healthy understanding ought to be prepared for everything which happens; but that which says, Let my dear children live, and let all men praise whatever I may do, is an eye which seeks for green things, or teeth which seek for soft things. ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... interrupted by Grue's soft and rather pleasant voice from the water's edge, announcing a sail on the horizon. He did not turn ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... might be lost. Moreover, I had pined so much, in the dust and heat of that great town, for trees, and fields, and running waters, and the sounds of country life, and the air of country winds, that never more could I grow weary of those soft enjoyments; or at ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... substantial, standing there—so kind and understanding. Any one would prize him for an old friend. I gazed up at him. The drifting mist had covered his broad chest and shoulders with a glistening veil of white. It shone like frost on the nap of his soft felt hat. It sparkled on his eyebrows and the lashes of his fine eyes. "How nice," I wanted to add. But a desire not to flirt with this man honestly possessed me. Besides I must remember I was tired of men. I wanted nothing of any of them. So instead ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... praise him still, His waxen arms, his rosy-tinted neck; Ah! and all the while I thrill With jealous pangs I cannot, cannot check. See, my colour comes and goes, My poor heart flutters, Lydia, and the dew, Down my cheek soft stealing, shows What lingering torments rack me through and through. Oh, 'tis agony to see Those snowwhite shoulders scarr'd in drunken fray, Or those ruby lips, where he Has left strange marks, that show how rough his play! Never, never look to find A faithful ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... from Timothy's lips. Of Lystra, Timothy, that we shall never see again nor any of the people we have ever known. We are leaving our country and our kindred. But remember, Timothy, that it is God that calls thee Homeward. And they sat talking in the soft starlight of what had befallen them when they separated in the darkness. Timothy told that he remembered the way he had come by sufficiently not to fall far out of it, and that at daybreak he had met shepherds who ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... mind took another turn and he went over the history of that suit. He didn't want it when he bought it, but he found himself like wax, moulded by the soft, white, confidential hands of the Jew salesman, who offered it to him as a special favor below cost. In common with other young men of his sort he always felt under obligation to buy if he went into a store, even if there were nothing there that suited him. He knew ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... livres, the appendages twenty-four livres, and I send you paper and ink for twelve livres; in all, one hundred and thirty-two livres. There is a printed paper of directions: but you must expect to make many essays before you succeed perfectly. A soft brush, like a shaving-brush, is more convenient than the sponge. You can get as much ink and paper as you please, from London. The paper costs a guinea a ream. I am, Dear Sir, with sincere esteem and affection, your ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... deaf persons have an idea more or less vague of musical sounds. It comes to all who cannot hear through the sense of touch. The vibrations of the chords of a piano, when strongly played, are sufficient to produce real enjoyment by means of feeling to one who can touch the case merely. The soft, tremulous notes, even convey an impression through the nerves, similar, I fancy, to that which others obtain through the ear. But the real music for us comes through the eye. The rippling of waves, the tremulous vibration of ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... set, and great store of gamblers. The pleasures of all kinds of games, and the singular beauty of the place, where a thousand caleches were always ready to whirl even the most lazy ladies through the walks, soft music and good cheer, made it a palace of delight, grace, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... had thought of nothing further. Now an idea had been put into his head which, though he could hardly realize it, was most painful to him. He had puzzled himself before. Her manner to him had been so soft, so tender, so almost loving, that he could not but hope, could hardly not think, that she loved him. That, loving him, she should persist in refusing him because of her condition of life, seemed to him to be unnatural. He had, at ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... "Remember, Terence," Mike Murphy warned the chief, "when the blow-off comes at four o'clock and the uproar commences fore and aft, we have the means to keep them quiet. I'll go forward and you go aft. When we threaten to throw burning sulphur down the ventilators and suffocate them, they'll sing soft ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... novelty, and an advance in America. The distance from the front of the stage to the rear of the last row of seats is a trifle over forty feet. There are no balconies and no boxes. The lighting is by an indirect system, which suffuses the auditorium with a soft, restful glow. The lobby, the retiring room, and the smoking room are all done in quiet, pleasant fashion. The auditorium decoration again is novel. There is paneling in dark-brown birch, with inserted tapestries above and a curtain in gobelin ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... soul; it spoke of peace and innocence, quiet home joys, and calm delights. My own mind brought before me the image of the house where I had lived, with the shadow of great trees around, and gorgeous flowers every where, where the sultry air breathed soft, and beneath the hot noon all men sank ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... purity and love, where no trouble, no guile, no change could enter; and if his celestial creations lack force, we feel that before these ethereal beings, power itself would be powerless; his angels are resistless in their soft serenity; his virgins are pure from all earthly stain; his redeemed spirits in meek rapture glide into Paradise; his martyrs and confessors are absorbed in devout ecstasy. Well has he been named IL BEATO ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... I felt a soft warm breath fanning my cheek; I awakened as if out of the sleep of death; my mother was bending over me. "Is the Sand-man still there?" I stammered. "No, my dear child; he's been gone a long, long time; he'll not hurt you." Thus ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... She spoke in a soft voice. Everything about her expressed gentleness. She was, indeed, a beautiful woman; somewhat with an air of indolence, with great eyes seemingly black and blue—amorous eyes. Was she happy with her crabbed, rheumatic husband? The scene at which we had once been ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... front, it is clear that it must be smaller all over than the bore, or it would not pass down to its seat. A shot thrust in from behind, on the contrary, may be furnished with a band or sheath of comparatively soft metal larger than the bore; the gas then acting on the base of the projectile, forces the band through the grooves, sealing the escape, entering the projectile, and, to a great extent, mitigating the erosion of surface. This is, of course, universally known. It ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... along the smooth or broken face of rock, the sea, which cannot rest, is busy. These little waves and this long swell, that now are here at work, have been ere now at home in the great inland sea of Europe, breathed on by soft, warm winds from fruit-groves, vineyards, and wide fields of flowers,—have sparkled in the many-colored lights, and felt the trivial oars and dallying fingers of the loiterers, on the long canals of Venice,—have quenched the ashes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... more numerous, its waters less muddy, and the current is more rapid. The water is of a yellowish-white, and the round stones, which form the bars above the Bighorn, have given place to gravel. On the left side the river runs under cliffs of light, soft, gritty stone, varying in height from seventy to one hundred feet, behind which are level and extensive plains. On the right side of the river are low extensive bottoms, bordered with cottonwood, various species of willow, rose-bushes, grapevines, redberry or buffalo-grease bushes, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... Such are the "Meghaduta" and the "Ritusanhara" of Kalidasa, the "Madhava and Radha" of Jayadeva, and especially the "Gita-Govinda" of the same poet, or the adventures of Krishna as a shepherd, a poem in which the soft languors of love are depicted in enchanting colors, and which is adorned with all the magnificence ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... which had hitherto laid disconnectedly in a drawer. There was a grand ball somewhere, to which she was going that night. The dress she wore was of pale blue crape (my father's favourite colour, on her). One white flower was placed in her light brown hair. She stood within the soft steady light of my lamp, looking up towards the door from the leaves she had just tied together. Her slight figure appeared slighter than usual, in the delicate material that now clothed it. Her complexion was at its palest: her face looked almost statue-like ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... numbers! How bold and buoyant their language! How interesting the stories they tell! How perfect the preservation, and artful the presentment, of the various characters! What a fine chivalrous spirit breathes in "Palamon and Arcite!" What a soft yet purple, pure yet gorgeous, light of love hovers over the "Flower and the Leaf!"—the only poem of Dryden's in which—thanks perhaps to his master, Chaucer—the poet discovers the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... object is perceived by the senses. We see that it is blue or green or brown; we may touch it and note that it is rough or smooth, hard or soft, warm or cold. But the expressiveness of the object, its value for the emotions, does not stop with its merely material qualities, but comes with our grasp of the "relations" which it embodies; and these relations, transmitted through material by the senses, are apprehended by the mind. There ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... cook, sent me to pick up an armful of wood for her. While I stood lookin' up to de clouds, huntin' for God, I hear a sweet soft voice say, 'Chile, pray.' I look all 'mong de tree- tops, to see who's thar, an' it say, 'Chile, pray,' again. An' I was sure somebody up in de tree-tops, an' I got scared, an' drop my armful of wood, an' ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... those whom the love of money, for we think that the greatest opposite to pity, has rendered unfeeling of another's woes, are said to have no hearts, or hearts of stone; as we naturally conclude no one can be void of that soft and Godlike passion—pity, but either one who by some cause or other happens to be made up without a heart, or one in whom continual droppings of self-love or avarice have quite changed the nature of it; which, by the most skilful anatomist, is allowed in its natural state ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... wore a high felt cap known as a tiara; they had long tunics with wide sleeves, tied in at the waist by a belt, and sometimes reinforced by iron plates or scales, as well as gaiters, buskins of soft leather, and large wickerwork shields covered with ox-hide, which they bore in front of them like a movable bulwark; their weapons consisted of a short sword, which depended from the belt and lay along the thigh, one or two light javelins, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... one half-opened hand flung high above his head, and the fair soft face, in its halo of red-gold hair, bore the impress of the angelic, that only comes with sleep, and vanishes like magic at the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... wife, looking out. He was a short man, who made an instant impression of light eyes in a dark face. You would have looked at him a second time in the street, and thought of him after he had passed, so striking was the peculiar contrast. His features were European, but his complexion, and his soft glossy black hair, curling close and crisp to the head, betrayed a dark drop in him, probably African. In the West Indies he would certainly have been set down as a quadroon. There was no record of negro blood in the family, however, no trace of any ancestor ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... gondola rocked stationary on that sea of moonbeams, I pondered over that twilight of the heroic world. In the soft rattle of the water on the hull I seemed to hear the rattle of all that armor, of all those swords swinging rusty on the walls, neglected by the degenerate sons of the great champions of old. I had long been in search of a theme which I called the theme ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... natural weakness, and timorousness shall not overcome thee.—For it shall not be too hard for God. God can make the most soft spirited man as hard as an adamant, harder than flint, yea harder than the northern steel. "Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?" (Jer 15:12). The sword of him is [used] in vain that lays at a Christian, when he is in the way of his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... right to meddle with me or my board," said Piedro, put off his guard, and out of his usual soft voice of civility, by this last observation. "My character, and that of my board, are too firmly established now for any chance ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... with a pretty, little, soft ground mole, Jack," put in Ed, "and if the rest of our boxes do not arrive and unpack themselves in time for your slumber this eve, that mole has agreed to cuddle up under your left ear. I believe you ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... and awkwardly turning his soft clerical hat in his large kind-looking hands. "One might almost see in it a dispensation—we should see one, ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... for a specimen of the southern gentleman of the old school. The bland and cheerful expression of his countenance, the arrangement of his soft fine hair, the fineness of the texture and the perfect cleanliness of every part of his dress, the plaiting of his old-fashioned shirt ruffles, the whiteness of his hand, and the sound of his clear, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... Demming, in the same soft, coaxing tone. "Don' min' me. I'm all right." He crouched down lower, so that the Bishop could not see him, and the group below saw him rest the muzzle of the pistol on the window-sill ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... halting occasionally, as if the walker listened for a sound. Troy whistled a double note in a soft, fluty tone. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... as follows to Rosalie Hopper: "The Telegraph has announced that the precious life you were all so anxiously watching has 'passed on,' and that mysterious change we call death has taken it from your midst forever. It is such a beautiful day! The air is so soft, the grass so green, and the birds singing so joyously! The day and the event have become so interwoven with each other, that I cannot separate them. I think of his placid face, sleeping its last still sleep; and through the open window, I see the springing grass and the bursting ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... afterwards, that the announcement had made her tingle to her toes! Immediately she corralled Jerry, whom she found translating Latin with a dictionary on her lap and a terrible frown on her brow, and together they hurried to Pat's house. It was a soft May evening—the air was filled with the throaty twitter of robins, the trees arched feathery green against the twilight sky. Pat and Peggy sat bareheaded on the steps of the Everett house, waiting for them. A great fragrant flowering honeysuckle ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... purple cones as if they meant to live forever. The general view from the summit is one of the most extensive and sublime to be found in all the Range. To the eastward you gaze far out over the desert plains and mountains of the "Great Basin," range beyond range extending with soft outlines, blue and purple in the distance. More than six thousand feet below you lies Lake Mono, ten miles in diameter from north to south, and fourteen from west to east, lying bare in the treeless desert like a disk of burnished metal, ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... he saw was of a delicate little fairy form; a complexion of pearly white, with a cheek of the hue of a pink shell; a fair, sweet, infantine face surrounded by a fleecy radiance of soft golden hair. The vision appeared to float in some white gauzy robes; and, when she spoke or smiled, what an innocent, fresh, untouched, unspoiled look there was upon the face! John gazed, and thought of all sorts of poetical similes: of a "daisy ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... upsprung The which doth all afore him far surpass: Appearing well in that well-tuned song Which late he sung unto a scornful lass. Yet doth his trembling Muse but lowly fly, As daring not too rashly mount on height; And doth her tender plumes as yet but try In love's soft lays, and looser thoughts delight. Then rouse thy feathers quickly, DANIEL, And to what course thou please thyself advance; But most, meseems, thy accent will excel In tragic plaints ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had a soft corner in her heart for anyone but her mistress it was for Pennie. She did not at all approve of Miss Unity's taking up with these new fancies, but to please Pennie she would put up with a good deal. It was with something approaching a ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... sex in America behind the men in this matter. I have heard some most excellent speeches by women, speeches which would do credit to an orator; but they labor under a disadvantage. The female voice is soft and low, it is not easily heard in a large room, and consequently the audience sometimes does not appreciate lady speakers to the extent that they deserve. However, I know a lady who possesses a powerful, masculine voice, and who is a very popular speaker, but she ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... extensive than the Moluccas; in it the nutmeg grows. The tree is tall and wide-spreading, a good deal like a walnut tree; the fruit too is produced just in the same way as a walnut, being protected by a double covering, first a soft envelope, and under this a thin reticulated membrane which encloses the nut. This membrane we call Muskatbluethe, the Spaniards call it mace, it is an excellent and wholesome spice. Within this is a hard shell, like that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... paper (made of fine tissue paper, oiled with clarified linseed oil and then dried,) is laid on the enlarged photograph, and the outline gone over with a soft lead pencil. The tracing paper is then turned and its back is rubbed all over with charcoal, when it is laid charcoal side down on the mounted crayon paper, and carefully fastened with four thumb tacks. The lines first made are then gone over with a sharp pointed lead pencil. When the tracing paper ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt
... made no observation on the music; and the maiden, at Ramorny's beck, went on from time to time with her minstrel craft, until the evening sunk down into rain, first soft and gentle, at length in great quantities, and accompanied by a cold wind. There was neither cloak nor covering for the Prince, and he sullenly rejected that which ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... to town, Richard was again selected to sit by Mrs. Mount. Brayder and Adrian started the jokes. The pair of parasites got on extremely well together. Soft fell the plash of the oars; softly the moonlight curled around them; softly the banks glided by. The ladies were in a state of high sentiment. They sang without request. All deemed the British ballad-monger an appropriate ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... So lightly at first that it seemed a mere passing whisper to the ear, the brush of some viewless insect upon the cheek, or the soft tap of unseen fingers on the shoulders. But by the time the porter returned from his hopeless and invisible chase of the "runaway," he came in out of a swarming cloud of whirling flakes, blinded and whitened. There was a hurried consultation with the landlord, the exhibition of ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... expressor.'' When the more noticeable of the blackheads have been expressed, the face should be firmly rubbed for three or four minutes with a lather made from a special soap composed of sulphur, camphor and balsam of Peru. Any lather remaining on the face at the end of this time should be wiped off with a soft handkerchief. As this treatment might give rise to some irritation of the skin, it should be replaced every fourth night by a simple application of cold cream. Of drugs used internally sulphate of calcium, in pill, 1/6 grain three ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... earth gurgled happily beneath the soft kiss of the warm humid wind, and from somewhere afar came reverberating sounds of spring; perchance from the people in the village across the water, or perchance from the warbling ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... With these words he breathed out his soul upon the water. But Lick-platter as he sat upon the soft bank saw him die and, raising a dreadful cry, ran and told the Mice. And when they heard of his fate, all the Mice were seized with fierce anger, and bade their heralds summon the people to assemble ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... said in a soft and melancholy voice. "A lady patient—Mrs. Armadale, Room No. 1, second floor. Ah, dear, dear!" groaned the doctor, absently; "an anxious case, Benjamin—an anxious case." He opened the brand-new ledger of the establishment, and entered the Case at full ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... which he had pulled forward had very fortunately covered it up, else the contents might have been somewhat damaged. As it was, the upper edges of the biscuits, which had been exposed before being covered by the sail, were somewhat damp and soft, but otherwise they were not harmed; and Tom ate his frugal repast with extreme relish. Satisfying his appetite had the natural effect of cheering his spirits, and led him to reflect with thankfulness on the very fortunate presence of that box of biscuit in the boat. Had it ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... but the arm about her was strong. Her feet and hands were fastened with soft swathes of silk, while about her mouth and chin the Indian shawl proved an ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... the effluvia from it was exceedingly offensive, and the ground became a soft, black muddy sand. On tasting it we found that the water was neither one thing or the other, neither salt or fresh, but wholly unfit for use. Close to its margin there was a broad path leading to the eastward, or rather round the lake; and under the sand ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt |
