"Softening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... From infancy those habits have been forming, and they impel you almost unconsciously to subdue even the very tones of your voice, while strangers are present. Have you not sometimes in the middle of an irritable observation caught yourself changing and softening the harsh uncontrolled tones of your voice, or the roughness of your manner, when you have discovered the unexpected presence of a stranger in the family circle? You have still enough of self-respect to feel deep shame when such things have happened; and the very moment when you are suffering ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... the boy has not a long time to live, for he is suffering at once from consumption and softening of the brain, and the latter disease will soon reduce him to an idiot, and render him incapable of ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... as a mantle. From comparatively trivial wickedness I passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than the enormities of an Elah-Gabalus. What chance—what one event brought this evil thing to pass, bear with me while I relate. Death approaches; and the shadow which foreruns him has thrown a softening influence over my spirit. I long, in passing through the dim valley, for the sympathy—I had nearly said for the pity—of my fellow men. I would fain have them believe that I have been, in some measure, the slave of circumstances beyond human control. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Achmed Hariri for a moment without stirring or speaking; his lips relaxed, his eyes softening ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to use his own expression, were 'dead nuts on him,' that his love-making, under whatever circumstances, always took the form of genial banter de haut en bas. 'Don't be a bloomin' fool!' was the phrase he deemed of most efficacy in softening the female heart; and the result seemed to justify him, for after some half-hour's wrangling, Clem abandoned her hostile attitude, and eyed him with a ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... good too. Her hair a rich dark brown, of a shade one hardly does justice to at the first careless glance; her complexion healthily pale, with a tinge of sun-burning, perhaps a few freckles; her eyes clear, strong, hazel eyes, with long softening lashes. The whole was spoilt by a want of light—of the sunshine one loves to see in a young face—the expression was too grave and impassive; there was the suggestion of future hardness, unless time should mellow instead of stiffening and accentuating ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Cora, struggling with herself to speak with steady calmness. "Is it to lead us prisoners to the woods, or do you contemplate even some greater evil? Is there no reward, no means of palliating the injury, and of softening your heart? At least, release my gentle sister, and pour out all your malice on me. Purchase wealth by her safety and satisfy your revenge with a single victim. The loss of both his daughters might bring the aged man to his grave, and where ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... the impatience with which he would surround her—the scenes in which Lucy's reserve mingling with her beauty would but evoke on the man's side all the ingenuity, all the delicacy of which he was capable—and the final softening of that sweet austerity which hid ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seem to us as undesirable as the lives of toads or serpents; yet these men breathe in tolerable content and satisfaction. If a man could hear all that his fellows say of him—that he is stupid, that he is henpecked, that he will be in the Gazette in a week, that his brain is softening, that he has said all his best things—and if he could believe that these pleasant things are true, he would be in his grave before the month was out. Happily no man does hear these things; and if he did, they would only provoke inextinguishable wrath or inextinguishable laughter. ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... Burmah. From Hyderabad in the Deccan is a parcel-gilt vase, an example of pierced-work, the opus interassile of the Romans. The chased parcel-gilt ware of Kashmir occupies three cases: it is graven through the gold to the dead-white silver below, softening the lustre of the gold to a pearly radiance. Somewhat similar in method is the Mordarabad ware, in which tin soldered upon brass is cut through to the lower metal, which gives a glow to the white surface. Sometimes the engraving is filled with lac, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... want to know Mrs. Eliott, he didn't think that he would like her. But he was soothed, flattered, insanely pleased with Anne's assumption that he would. It was as if in her thoughts she were drawing him towards her. He felt that she was softening, yielding. His approaches were a delicious wooing of an ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... atmospheric shade which is really only extinguished light), Saint Francis in Ecstasy, The Angel Kitchen (Miracle of San Diego) running through several scales of tones in a marvellous chord and softening all the outlines "dulcemente ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... little to remind him of home, though it has antiquity and a proper quaintness. But not for him, not for them of his clime and faith, is the pathos of those simple memorial slates with their winged skulls, changing upon many later stones, as if by the softening of creeds and customs, to cherub's heads,—not for him is the pang I feel because of those who died, in our country's youth exiles or exiles' children, heirs of the wilderness and toil and hardship. Could they rise from their restful beds, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... spake, and related the wondrous adventure From beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened; How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his courtship, 405 Only smoothing a little, and softening down her refusal. But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken, Words so tender and cruel, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the floor, till ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... glanced at him with a touch of wondering pity, softening her pride; she who had rejected the gift of those ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... love of God. Some of you have done so—some of you have done so all your lives. Some of you, perhaps at this moment, are trying to do so, and consciously endeavouring to steel your hearts against some softening that may have been creeping over them whilst I have been speaking. Are you yielding to His seeking love, or wandering further and further from Him? He has come to find you. Let Him not seek in vain, but let the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the bird—the saliva which is formed in the mucous glands of the mouth. Of course the first and natural function of this fluid is to soften the food before it passes into the crop; but in those birds which make their nests by weaving together pieces of twig, it must be of great assistance in softening the wood and thus enabling the bird readily to bend the twigs into any required position. Thus the catbird ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... and slow, with strong emotion deepening and softening his voice, the lover at her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... prevent," replied Milady, softening her smile so as to give it an angelic expression, "my being ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... it is very beautiful here," said Miss Frances, softening, as he laid aside his strained manner, and spoke more quietly. "It is the kind of place a happy woman might be very happy in; but ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... bulblets of some varieties sprout early and at a low temperature, and an active effort should be made to get them into the ground before this comes to pass. The soil may be too cold to start the majority into growth, but the shells will still be softening and getting ready to grow as soon as there ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... range of ice stood in a kind of gold atmosphere which gave an extraordinary richness to the shadowings of its rocks and peaks, and a particular fullness of mellow whiteness to its lustrous parts, softening the dazzle into an airy tenderness of brightness, so that the whole mass shone out with the blandness visible in a glorious star. But its main beauty lay in those features by which I knew it to be ice—I ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... masquerade; and almost distracted to find he still persisted in denying he was there, or had ever made any tender professions to that lady, she proceeded to such extravagancies as he, who knew himself innocent, could not forbear replying to in terms which were far from being softening:—in fine, they quarrelled to a very high degree, and some company happening to come in at the same time, hindered either of them from saying any thing which might palliate ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Louis XIV, we find many trophies of war and mythological subjects used in the decorative schemes. The second style of this period was a softening and refining of the earlier one, becoming more and more delicate until it merged into the time of the Regency. It was during the reign of Louis XIV that the craze for Chinese decoration first appeared. La Chinoiserie it was called, and it has daintiness and a curious fascination ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... could witness Irene's patient resignation to misfortune without admiring her character and being touched by her bravery and gentleness, and association with this crippled girl was softening Alora's hard and defiant nature wonderfully. Had the association continued it might have redeemed the prospective heiress from many of the faults she had acquired through years of neglect and rebellion against fate, but the close triumvirate of ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... and Lakshman gave assent, Won by her gentle argument. So Tara's pleading, just and mild, His softening heart had reconciled. His altered mood Sugriva saw, And cast aside the fear and awe Like raiment heavy with the rain Which on his troubled soul had lain. Then quickly to the ground he threw His flowery garland, bright of ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... it seemed in tune with Esther's own sense of loneliness; but it touched her heart with the softening touch of sadness. She sank down on a big boulder beside her, and, stretching out her arms on its rough, lichen-covered breast, buried her face in them and burst ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... grief, the discovery that if he had lived he could never have claimed her, had some power in softening this, the second. On Marty's part there was the same consideration; never would she have been his. As no anticipation of gratified affection had been in existence while he was with them, there was none to be disappointed now that he ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... see you look so sad. I'm going to cheer you up. I shan't allow you to be miserable. And anyway," she added, with a sudden softening, "you've got some one who loves you, and that's worth everything else in ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... on the sixes!" "Three!" "Four!" "Ah, roll the bones! Roll the bones!" "Get off! Get off! Come on now, Spikes—cough up! You've got the money now. Pay back. No more loans if you don't." "Once on the fours—the fives—the aces!" "Roll the bones! Roll the bones! Come on!" Or, if he saw me, softening and saying, "Gee, Dreiser, I'm ahead twenty-eight so far!" or "I've lost thirty all told. I'll stick this out, though, to win or lose five more, and then I'll quit. I give notice, you fellows, five more, one way or the other, and then I'm through. ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... son from such perils, and I only ask you to let me save him. I am convinced that he has a good and a noble nature, and he is worth saving." And as he thus said he took her hand. She resigned it to him and returned the pressure, all her pride softening as she began ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... harden into caricature which the representation of feeling in sculpture must always have. What time and accident, its centuries of darkness under the furrows of the "little Melian farm," have done with singular felicity of touch for the Venus of Melos, fraying its surface and softening its lines, so that some spirit in the thing seems always on the point of breaking out, as though in it classical sculpture had advanced already one step into the mystical Christian age, its expression being in the whole range of ancient ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... face. Then he reached up and drew the slim, tremulous hand from his forehead and snuggled it against his stubbly cheek, and still he could not speak. Janet slowly backed away into the darkness of the dining room. The situation had softening tendencies and Janet's nature revolted at sentiment. It was Graham's voice that again ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... The kindness I showed to M. Hue and his companions in misfortune was prompted by humanity, and not by mean speculation. As well might it be said that hernadotte, who, like myself, neglected no opportunity of softening the rigour of the orders he was deputed to execute, was by this means working his way ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... late uncle Sir Thomas had, in the closing years of his life, shown unmistakable signs of brain-softening, and that a symptom of his complaint had been his addiction to making a number of wills—"two-thirds of 'em incoherent. Every two or three days he'd compose a new one and send for Huskisson, his lawyer; and Huskisson, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... from getting a difficult foul, all considerations of good sportsmanship should be discarded. As a matter of fact, it is doubtful if good sportsmanship should ever be allowed to interfere with the fan's participation in a contest. The game must be kept free from all softening influences. ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... the other hand, has its virtues: the softening and refining of life, gradual development of sympathy, achievement of comfort and beauty; but peace has its vices. In times of peace and prosperity there seems to be no great cause at stake. Of course, always it is there, but we do not see it. We become increasingly absorbed in selfish interests, ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... of softening skins by beating and treading upon them illustrates the common use of rhythm and song as a means of holding the attention to what otherwise would be ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... replied, with a sudden softening of my heart toward her. "I was only going to suggest that, if you love Foedric, Antonia may not like ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... had been perfect—the weather, the dinner, the company, the woodland—even the amber light in the sky softening the glow as the afternoon slipped down toward twilight ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... 'blue borage flowers' that flavor the claret-cup. I know where grows another kind of bore-age that embitters the goblet of life. I can spare you some of this herb, if you have room for it in your garden or your garret. It is warranted to destroy all peace of mind, and finally to produce softening of the ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... for Barbara; and the attorney, softening his voice, said that "Susan was a great deal too good to her; as you are, indeed," added he, "to everybody. I forgive her for your sake." Susan curtsied, in great surprise; but her lamb could not be forgotten, and she left the attorney's house as soon as she ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... has fallen," she said to Mr. Burton, "we three women shall visit the commanding officer and there make our plea—without you, as it will be necessary to use all the softening feminine influence possible. One of two things will then occur: Either he will rescue my nephew ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... three men, or it may be advisable to employ as many as can work without interfering with each other. In most cases,—especially where there is much water to contend with,—the latter course will be the most economical, as the ditches will not be so liable to be injured by the softening of their bottoms, and the caving in of ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... brooding, his head lowered, his gaze fixed. This machine forged forty millimetre rivets with the calm ease of a giant. Nothing could be simpler. The stoker took the iron shank from the furnace; the striker put it into the socket, where a continuous stream of water cooled it to prevent softening of the steel. The press descended and the bolt flew out onto the ground, its head as round as though cast in a mold. Every twelve hours this machine made hundreds ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... among them had observed Derrick's interest in her. They concluded, of course, that Joan's handsome face had won her a sweetheart. They could not accuse her of encouraging him; but they could profess to believe that she was softening, and they could use the insinuation as a sharp weapon against her, when such a ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a lot of his old childish dread remains when he has grown up. Why, I felt then—Ugh! I'm ashamed to think of it all. Poor old Stratton! he doesn't know what he's about half his time. I believe he has got what the doctors call softening of the brain. Strikes me, after to-night's work," he added thoughtfully, "that I must ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... who began to forget the Irish beggar in the gentle girl whose care, under God, had saved his wife's life; and so, as is usually the case, affliction had not come from the ground, but had fallen like a softening dew upon the irritated feelings of the afflicted, and bound heart ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... tell her all that is in his heart. If the world stands thousands of years there will never be such a golden opportunity again. She breaks off a bit of yarrow and sticks it in her belt. How beautifully the lashes droop over her eyes, deepening and softening the tint, until it looks like a glint ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... ground the line. Even so simple an apparatus as this operates with considerable accuracy. All currents below a certain critical amount may flow through the heating coil indefinitely, the heat being radiated rapidly enough to keep the wax from softening and the string from parting. All currents above this critical amount will operate the arrester; the larger the current, the shorter the time of operating. It will be remembered that the law of these heating effects is that the heat generated C^{2}Rt, so that if ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... all the masses," said the one-eyed man, softening his accent a little. "If you want it for to-morrow.... Is it ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... passage through the world, he only is able, and he ever liveth, to make intercession for their transgressions. Thus he becomes a complete Saviour, and will crown, with an eternal weight of glory, all those that put their trust in him. Beautiful, and soul-softening, and heart-warming thoughts abound in this little work, which cannot fail to make a lasting impression upon the reader. Bunyan disclaims 'the beggarly art of complimenting' in things of such solemnity. He describes ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and sloth, lack of breadth and depth in thought and planning; the softening of our fibre through easy prosperity and luxury; unwise or hampering laws, inadequacy of vision and of purposeful, determined effort, individual and national, are what we ...
— The New York Stock Exchange and Public Opinion • Otto Hermann Kahn
... the Taylors' home was one of the most softening and culturing influences of my early life. Would that I could give an impression of the dear host at the head of his dinner-table, dressed in black silk knee-breeches and velvet cutaway coat—a survival of a politer time, not an affectation ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... he said, his full-blooded face lightening and softening at the same time, as though a load were off his mind, "it's no pleasure to me to deprive any man of his billet, but you never were a nurse, and you know that as well as ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... supplied the mediaeval playwright with material, Poliziano selects a classic story: and this story might pass for an allegory of Italy, whose intellectual development the scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power of poetry and art, softening stubborn nature, civilising men, and prevailing over Hades for a season. He is the right hero of humanism, the genius of the Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought she could resist the laws of fate by verse and elegant accomplishments. To press this kind of allegory ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the grey-headed preacher, stepping forward and thrusting a book into my father's hands. "We had best begin with a hymn, I think. I have some experience of the softening power of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... days when Miss Prime's discipline would have turned all within him to hardness and bitterness Eliphalet Hodges stood between him and despair, so now in this crucial time Elizabeth was a softening ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... dark and mysterious against the sky, scarcely less sombre with only the light of the stars to illumine it, his fancy was filled with the image he had carried in his mind for so many months. The weariness of an arduous day added its softening influence, and he drifted out upon the sea of dreams and thence into a deep slumber, while yet his pipe ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... the strong sunlight as if it had been sprinkled with diamond dust. A black speck against this tremendous field of white, the giant struggled on, and they could see by the glass that he sunk to the knee in the softening snow. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... accession of ferocity since the settlement of Mr. Falkland in his neighbourhood. He now frequently forgot the gentleness with which he had been accustomed to treat his good-natured cousin. Her little playful arts were not always successful in softening his rage; and he would sometimes turn upon her blandishments with an impatient sternness that made her tremble. The careless ease of her disposition, however, soon effaced these impressions, and she fell without variation ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... sir,' he pursues, 'being acquainted with old Mr Harmon, one would have thought it might have been polite in you, too, to give him a call. And you're naturally of a polite disposition, you are.' This last clause as a softening ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the farmhouse, I saw proofs of a loving conspiracy. The addition of a broad veranda and a big bay window, with the softening effect of the young trees that had grown up all around the place, made it look much more homelike than the bare box that had sheltered my childhood. A new hammock swung between two ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... "But whatever," said Hugh softening his spirit, "I got ten soferens in hand. Next quarter less you need and more you have. Less gass and electric. You don't gobble food so ravishingly in warm ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... the surrounding air in warm and humid vapors. The exhalations arising from a much increased amount of animal life, together with the burning of so many combustibles, are not altogether without their influence in softening the severity of ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... servant approached him, and at once their thoughts changed to a larger toleration. Caswall looked indeed a savage—but a cultured savage. In him were traces of the softening civilisation of ages—of some of the higher instincts and education of man, no matter how rudimentary these might be. But the face of Oolanga, as his master called him, was unreformed, unsoftened savage, and inherent in it were all the hideous possibilities of a lost, devil-ridden child of the ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... diligently, but it failed to act as a sedative to her fears. She did not know what she feared; but that made her anxiety the more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to the subject of his Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and considerate, with a softening of his quick manner, a touch of shyness in his consideration, that sickened her with new fears. She told herself that it was because she looked badly—because he knew about the doctor and the nerve tonic—that he showed this deference ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... face around toward the light, not roughly, yet with an unconscious strength which she felt irresistible, and looked at her searchingly, his own eyes perceptibly softening. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... Owen saw the softening of her eyes and saw the blush, and misinterpreted them. Thinking that she was relenting, by instinct, rather than from any teaching of experience, he attempted to take her hand. With a turn of the arm, so quick that even Elizabeth ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... 'But,' said I, softening my tone, for I now found that they were officers of the police, 'but if you insist upon separating me from my wife, to whom I have been lawfully married, give me time to consult the men of the law. Every son of Islam has the blessed Koran as his refuge, and ye would not be such infidels as to deprive ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... confinement, it may be the old superstition of a plank between one and eternity, or it may be some occult influence of ship and ocean; but certain it is that there is no such place in all the world as a deck of a transatlantic liner for softening young hearts, until they lose all semblance of shape, and for melting them into each other so that out of twain there comes but one. I think Polly was pleased to watch this melting process, as it ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... humorous satire, which is the chief beauty of his compositions, will admit; for, as satire requires strong ideas, the language will sometimes be less polished. But the delicacy so much demanded, by softening the colours weakens the drawing. Mr. Brown has been charged with inequality in his writings: ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... interest in it. That, I admit, is an argument rather in the manner of an attorney; clearly enough the intent of this statute is to compel an attorney to cheat and lie for any rascal that wants him to. In that sense it may be regarded as a law softening the rigor of all laws; it does not mitigate punishments, but mitigates the chance of incurring them. The infamy of it lies in forbidding an attorney to be a gentleman. Like all laws it falls something short of its intent: many attorneys, even some who defend that law, are as honorable ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... said I to myself, "I'm getting superstitious or have softening of the brain," and I reached over to open the front door, so that the breeze could cool me off. In doing so my hand touched the water pipe to the injector—it was hot. The closed overflow injector was new to merit had "broke," and was blowing steam back to the tank ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... practised more naturally and happily than in his Reisebilder. In 1847 his health, which till then had always been perfectly good, gave way. He had a kind of paralytic stroke. His malady proved to be a softening of the spinal marrow: it was incurable; it made rapid progress. In May 1848, not a year after his first attack, he went out of doors for the last time; but his disease took more than eight years to kill him. For nearly ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... eternal. Thought and inquiry will satisfy themselves very readily with an answer as far as regards spiritual things: their whole vigour will be devoted to the things of this world, to science or to business, or to public matters, all alike hardening rather than softening to the mind, if its thoughts do not go to something higher and deeper still. And as years pass on, we may think on these our favourite or professional subjects more and more earnestly; our views on them may be clearer and sounder, but ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... to listen to him for?" Johnny's eyes looked down at her with no softening of his anger. "Good golly! Do you think your dad's got the only brain in the world? How do men run their affairs, and get rich, that never heard of him, do you suppose? I don't want to mock your dad—he's all right in his own ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... though not aiming at the almost antique simplicity of the Mare au Diable, is the story of Francois le Champi, the foundling, saved from the demoralization to which lack of the softening influences of home and parental affection predestine such unhappy children, through the tenderness his forlorn condition inspires in a single heart—that of Madeline Blanchet, the childless wife, whose own wrongs, patiently borne, have ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... sails to-night. So, refusing a horse or carriage, I walk down, not unwilling to be a little early, that I may pace up and down the beach, looking off to the islands and the points, and watching the roaring, tumbling billows. How softening is the effect of time! It touches us through the affections. I almost feel as if I were lamenting the passing away of something loved and dear,— the boats, the Kanakas, the hides, my old shipmates! ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... in that state-dungeon, where his lady was delivered of her burden of love. This odd fancy of building a "Bastile-House" at Greenwich, a fortified prison! suggested to his first life-writer the fine romance; which must now be thrown aside among those literary fictions the French distinguish by the softening and yet impudent term of "Anecdotes hasardees!" with which formerly Varillas and his imitators furnished their pages; lies which looked ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... cried, as he went out of the room—a cry that was almost a sob, and might have called him back again—but he was gone, and the moment had passed by. With it passed the slight quivering and softening which had been visible in her face, and she sunk again into the impassive calm which made Christian Grey so totally different, ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... was immediately followed by the reflection that a higher official, even when "fired out" (this was the precise image), has still the time as he flies through the door to launch a nasty kick at the shin-bones of a subordinate. Without softening very much the basilisk nature of his stare, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... resolution been permanently affected by either the girl's threat to make away with herself or by his momentary softening when she had fainted. The affair was thereby complicated, but that was all. In the sincerity of the threat he recognized his own iron nature, and was perhaps a little pleased at its manifestation. He knew she intended ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... He would either have been acquitted or condemned; if the former, he would find public sympathy all in his favour; it always is for the unjustly accused. And if he turns out to be guilty, my dear Ellinor, it will be far better for you to have all the softening which distance can give to such a dreadful termination to the life of a poor man whom you have ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... quota to the story or the guess. In the deportment of his lordship now there was none of the vexatious hesitancy that helped him to a part so poor as he played in his frowning tower at home among the soothing and softening effects of his family's domestic affairs. He was true Diarmaid the bold, with a calm eye and steadfast, a worthy general for us his children, who sat round in the light of the cheerful fire. So sat his forebears and ours on the close of many ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... therefore, very naturally gloomy and dejected, and hurled the lightnings of his wrath on all those who enjoyed the melancholy prerogative of being in his presence. His pains, instead of softening his disposition, seemed only to heighten still more his natural ferocity; and often might be heard through the palace of Whitehall the king's angry growl, and his loud, thundering invectives, which no longer spared any one, nor showed respect ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... seemed ominous. One finds such transparent kindness in clever people generally at parting, when one would be remembered for one's self and not for a phrase. Then Crocker for an instant glimpsed the wilder hope that the softening was for him and not for an occasion. Emma had never seemed more desirable than to-day. A white strand or two in her yellow hair, the tiny wrinkles at the corners of her steady grey eyes, and the untimely thinness ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... into her averted face. He touched her hand, soft and cool to his fingers—she turned at once to look at him. Her eyes were perhaps a little brighter than usual, the firelight played about her hair, there seemed to him to be a sudden softening of the straight firm mouth. ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you kindly, lady," replied she, softening her harsh voice as much as she could to a tone of sympathy, "and I come to help you out of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... encouraged by a softening in her tone and manner, I told Miss Rayner all, asking her at the end if she did not think ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... his side, assisted in this important and happy work; you it was who showed to the tyrant in the fields of Juchi, Aztcapozalco and others, that the sword of the Mexicans once unsheathed for liberty and justice, fights without softening or breaking; and knows how to triumph over its enemies, even when superior forces oppose it; you it was, in short, who with intrepid valour co-operated in re-establishing a liberty which, torn from the ancient children of the soil, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... noble's glance seemed bent on vacancy, it was himself as well as others he was studying; weighing the memorable events of the evening; recalling to mind every word with the princess; reviewing her features, the softening of her cold disdain; now, mentally distrustful, because she was a woman; again, confident he already dominated the citadel of ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the hills of Connemara. A pair of twinkling eyes and a mouth that was always on the point of breaking into a smile when it was not actually smiling tempered the peasant shrewdness of a face that got further softening, and a touch of superiority, from ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... I sat, of an afternoon, in that front room on the fourth floor of the clubhouse in Gramercy Park, watching the winter or summer twilight gradually softening and blurring the sharp outline of the skull until it vanished uncannily into the gloom! Edwin Booth had forgotten, if ever he knew, the name of the man; but I had no need of it in order to establish acquaintance with poor Yorick. In this association I was conscious of a deep tinge of sentiment on ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Gryffyth's eye followed her, softening gradually as her form receded, till lost to his sight. And then that peculiar household love, which in uncultivated breasts often survives trust and esteem, rushed back on his rough heart, and weakened it, as woman only can weaken the strong to whom ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the centre with the point of the pin; with the head of the latter cup the broad part of the petal. Turn the edges inward towards the point, and colour each petal upon both sides with the crimson powder, softening off the same, and leaving a margin of the yellow free from colour. The stamina are prepared (according to pattern), from double yellow wax, and painted with rich brown (cake sepia and crimson), from the broad part to the point. To a large wire affix a piece of double ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... "Have you all got softening of the brain, that you don't realise what I am? Did you really think I wanted to catch that train? Twenty Paris trains might go by for ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... a sudden change had come over the fierce purposes of Peter. For some time, the nature, artlessness, truth, feminine playfulness and kindness, not to say personal beauty of Margery, had been gradually softening the heart of this stern savage, as it respected the girl herself. Nothing of a weak nature was blended with this feeling, which was purely the growth of that divine principle that is implanted in us all. The quiet, earnest manner in which the girl had, that day, protested her desire ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... nature, the sight of even an enemy asleep, awakes softening emotions, while the sight of a loved being in the unconsciousness of slumber stirs the fountain of affection to ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... purpose there, the reason of Judge Spaulding's presence, and that we were there in no way as representatives of Mr. Chase. Mr. Lincoln was visibly affected. The tones of confidence, sympathy, personal regard, were strangers to him at that time. Softening, almost melting, he came round to us, shook our hands again and again, returned to his place, and standing there, took up and opened out, from their remote origin, the whole web of matters connected with ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... to pain her by imparting this conviction. But Lilith was afraid of a reaction of rage and hatred in her father after the terror was removed; and Karl saw that he might thus be deprived of all further intercourse with Lilith, and all chance of softening the old man's heart towards him; while Lilith would not hear of forsaking him who had banished all the human race but herself. They managed at length to agree ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... do, sir," interrupted he; "the public don't like it. Otherwise," continued this hypercritic, softening a little, "some of the chapters are amusing, and, on the whole, it may be said to ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... a great softening in Anderson's feeling towards his father. All those inner compunctions that haunt a just and scrupulous nature came freely into play. And his evangelical religion—for he was a devout though liberal-minded Presbyterian—also entered in. Was it possible that he might be the agent of his father's ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sovereign order he decreed, All good and lovely—to blaspheme the bands Of tenderness innate and social love, 250 Holiest of things! by which the general orb Of being, as by adamantine links, Was drawn to perfect union, and sustain'd From everlasting? Hast thou felt the pangs Of softening sorrow, of indignant zeal, So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish The ties of Nature broken from thy frame, That so thy selfish, unrelenting heart Might cease to mourn its lot, no longer then ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... department of meat cookery, to wit, the slow and gradual application of heat for the softening and dissolution of its fibre and the extraction of its juices, common cooks are equally untrained. Where is the so-called cook who understands how to prepare soups and stews? These are precisely the articles in which a French kitchen ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... were yet sparkling in the glorious blaze, which was gradually deepening into gorgeous crimson, while the large pillars of the cathedral, then building on the highest part of the ridge, stood out like brazen monuments, softening even as we looked into a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... as she spoke, and her very yawn was graceful. Gwynplaine listened to the unfamiliar voice—the voice of a charmer, its accents exquisitely haughty, its caressing intonation softening its native arrogance. Then rising on her knees—there is an antique statue kneeling thus in the midst of a thousand transparent folds—she drew the dressing-gown towards her, and springing from the couch stood upright. In the twinkling of an eye the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... he thinks you did it," answered Dock, softening his tones, so as not to commit himself ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... almost useless his sacrifice had been, since the dollar would go but a small way toward the relief of their necessities. Oh no, she let him feel happy in the thought that he "had helped dear mamma," and the thought went far toward softening the grief of parting with ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... persons; seven hundred and five of these were adults, and ninety-two children. At first, the men encountered great difficulty in putting away their many wives; but finally the divine Majesty made the outcome propitious, softening the hearts of those pagans, and they brought their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... slightly offensive manner, thereupon related the circumstances of the encounter at the station-yard and of the subsequent drive to the town, merely softening the detail of their preliminary altercation. Henshaw listened alertly intent, it seemed, to seize upon any point which did not ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... grasshoppers are a real scourge in alfalfa fields. Because of the shade provided by the ground and the influence which this exerts in softening it, they are encouraged to deposit their eggs and remain so as to prove a source of trouble the following year. It has been found that through disking of the land both ways after sharp frosts have come is greatly effective in destroying the grasshopper eggs deposited in the soil. They ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... other than by the corn sheller are in use. Some involve merely stepping on the nuts with a forward movement of the foot, just as the hulls are softening. This is not particularly satisfactory as the nuts must still be picked out of the mashed hulls by hand. Besides leaving a very persistent stain on the hands this method is unsatisfactory for two reasons; it is not at all ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... light was the Tower. It was suffused with the loveliest glow of gold, ivory, and delicate green, all blending. The lights revealed and interpreted the architecture softening the colors and adding the subtle charm of mystery. A hundred beautiful hues were reflected in the waters of the fountains. The floral effects made by submerged lights in the basin were exquisite, and the witchery of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... prominent egotist in turn, pondering on his chances, in the event of the extinction of the house of Valois with the three sons of Catherine de Medici, born unsound, and doomed by astrological prediction. The old manors, which had exchanged their towers for summer-houses under the softening influence of Renaissance fashions, found themselves once more medievally insecure amid a vagrant warfare of foreign mercenaries and armed peasants. It was a curiously refined people who now took down ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... hatreds, meannesses, uncharities, and Carlyleisms, as a garment, and, in a beautiful spirit of no objections to anybody, proceed to think what can be done for the poor in the way of sincerely wishing them well. The princely merchant, in his counting-room, involuntarily experiences the softening, humanizing influence of the hour, and, in tones tremulous with unwonted emotion, privately directs his Chief-Clerk to tell all the other clerks, that, on this night of all the round year, they may, before ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... or chance for any maidenly hesitation or softening aureole of words. Aunt and Mrs. Saxby had almost reached the point where they invariably turned. I had barely time to spell out a plain, blunt "yes" ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the same age and the same height that I must have been in the days when I was here last. My first feeling is one of almost anger, to see him playing on the gravel where I had played before, as if he had usurped something of my identity; but next moment I feel a softening and a sort of rising and qualm of the throat, accompanied by a pricking heat in the eye balls. I hastily join conversation with the child, and inwardly felicitate myself that the gardener is opportunely gone for the key of the house. But the child is a sort ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me in speechless dismay; his color coming and going like the color of a young girl. Anybody who understands women will understand that this behavior on his part, far from softening me towards him, only encouraged ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... any day," replied her father, softening into affection as he contemplated her; "and indeed, Sally, I think you're her match every way except—except—no ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... the globe attached to it is now held at the mouth of a glowing furnace: and by turning the rod the globe is made to revolve slowly, so as to be uniformly exposed to the heat: the first effect of this softening is to make the glass contract upon itself and to enlarge the opening of the neck. As the softening proceeds, the globe is turned more quickly on its axis, and when very soft and almost incandescent, it is removed from the fire, and the velocity of rotation being still continually ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage |
