"Refine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prose would oft his mind engage: For he had joined th' Mechanics' Institute— And in its praises I would not be mute. Mechanics! It deserves your best support, And to its rooms you often should resort. There you may learn from books to act your parts, While they refine and elevate ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... J., in the waning of that first winter, began actually to refine his own superlative elegance by spraying his superior garments with perfume, by munching tiny confections reputed to scent the breath desirably, by a more diligent grooming of the always superb moustache, the little boy suspected no motive. He saw these works only as the outward ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... say you will agree with me, that as there is no Moral in these Jests, they ought to be discouraged, and looked upon rather as pieces of Unluckiness than Wit. However, as it is natural for one Man to refine upon the Thought of another, and impossible for any single Person, how great soever his Parts may be, to invent an Art, and bring it to its utmost Perfection; I shall here give you an account of an honest Gentleman of my Acquaintance ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... springs less from the desire which each author feels to show his skill in putting forth choice and delicate ideas than from the mysterious working of the human intellect. It is characteristic of man to purify and refine everything that he lays up in the treasury of his thoughts. What human faces, what monuments of the dead are not made more beautiful than actual nature in the artistic representation? The soul of the reader assists in this conspiracy against the truth, either by means of the profound silence which ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... seems already to have a taste for flowers, which I shall encourage as much as possible. It is a study that tends to refine and purify the mind, and can be made, by simple steps, a ladder to heaven, as it were, by teaching a child to look with love and admiration to that bountiful God who created and made flowers so fair to adorn ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... to exhibit the Riseholme spirit in its full panoply, and then crush into dazzled submission any potential rivalry. She meant also to exert an educational influence, for she allowed that Olga had great gifts, and she meant to train and refine those gifts so that they might, when exercised under benign but autocratic supervision, conduce to the strength and splendour of Riseholme. Naturally she must be loyally and ably assisted, and Georgie realized that the tableau of King Cophetua (his tableau as she had said) partook of the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... way to elevate men, to let the Lord have the use of them? However coarse and mean we are by nature, He can refine and elevate us. And any part of our life that is in danger of baseness may be lifted to beauty and blessing by putting it under the Christ. What a change came over this animal in one short day! An ass ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... what they had thought of each other from the first moment they met, and tried to make out that they neither had ever since had a thought that was not the other's; they believed this. The commonplaces of the passion ever since it began to refine itself from the earliest savage impulse, seemed to have occurred to them for the first time in the history of the race; they accused themselves each of not being worthy of the other; they desired to be very good, and to ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... members. As in all frontier regions, the population was chiefly male. The brave women who took their share of the common work and hardship were treated with much respect, and did their part well, no doubt, but they had little leisure for those arts which brighten the lives and refine the characters of ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... Schoenvorts and Olson while out hunting the other day discovered oil about fifteen miles north of us beyond the sandstone cliffs. Olson says there is a geyser of oil there, and von Schoenvorts is making preparations to refine it. If he succeeds, we shall have the means for leaving Caspak and returning to our own world. I can scarce believe the truth of it. We are all elated to the seventh heaven of bliss. Pray God we shall not ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... one. "God hath made of one blood, all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth."—(Acts 17: 26.) Much of our happiness, and usefulness in this world arises from this quality which man possesses over the animal creation. And just in proportion, as we shall cultivate, and refine our social and intellectual natures, just in that proportion, shall we rise above the level of the ...
— A Narrative of The Life of Rev. Noah Davis, A Colored Man. - Written by Himself, At The Age of Fifty-Four • Noah Davis
... he found himself wholly at the mercy of Lapierre. For somewhere behind that barrier of logs was the woman he loved. He shuddered at the thought. He knew Lapierre. Knew that the man's white blood and his education, instead of civilizing, had served to heighten and to refine the barbaric cruelty and savagery of his heart. He knew that Lapierre would stop at nothing to gain an end. His heart chilled at the possibilities. He dreaded to act—yet he knew that ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... man means to be honest solely because honesty is right, and not because honesty is profitable, there is a perpetual and beautiful tendency of his honesty to refine ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... people should remain a manly people. Corinth, yes; Sybaris, no. Whoever becomes effeminate makes himself a bastard. He must be neither a dilettante nor a virtuoso: but he must be artistic. In the matter of civilization, he must not refine, but he must sublime. On this condition, one gives to the human race the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Let us not mistake the nature of a real civilization, nor suppose we have it because we can convert crude iron into the most delicate mechanism, or transport ourselves sixty miles an hour, or even if we shall refine our carnal tastes so as to be satisfied at dinner with the tongues of ortolans and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and comic. Shakespeare, though not yet an idol, had still a hold upon the stage, and was beginning to be imitated by Rowe and to attract the attention of commentators. The sturdy Briton would not be seduced to the foreign model. The attempt to refine tragedy was as hopeless as the attempt to moralise comedy. This points to the process by which the Wit becomes 'artificial.' He has a profound conviction, surely not altogether wrong, that a tragedy ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... cultivate their morals, refine their tastes, manners, habits. I wish to lift from them that ever-depressing sense of hopelessness which keeps them in ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... pyre Of flame, to brighten and refine:— A singer, in the starry choir, That will not tend the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... their rights; that a herald had raised his voice to immortalize their renown. The distant or hostile tribes resorted to an annual fair, which was abolished by the fanaticism of the first Moslems; a national assembly that must have contributed to refine and harmonize the Barbarians. Thirty days were employed in the exchange, not only of corn and wine, but of eloquence and poetry. The prize was disputed by the generous emulation of the bards; the victorious performance was deposited in the archives ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... the pure, the delicate, and timid creatures that they now are—if they should cease to overawe profligacy, and to win and to shame men into decency, fidelity, and love of unsullied virtue—it is easy to see that this influence, which has hitherto been exerted to strengthen and refine our society, will operate entirely to its corruption and debasement; that domestic happiness and private honour will be extinguished, and public spirit and national industry most probably annihilated ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... this society," says Defoe, "should be to encourage polite learning, to polish and refine the English tongue, and advance the so much neglected faculty of correct language; also, to establish purity and propriety of style, and to purge it from all the irregular additions that ignorance ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851 • Various
... cannot call their morals pure, Their judgment nice, or their decisions sure; Merit they have to mightier works unknown, A style, a manner, and a fate their own. We, who for longer fame with labour strive, Are pain'd to keep our sickly works alive; Studious we toil, with patient care refine, Nor let our love protect one languid line. Severe ourselves, at last our works appear, When, ah! we find our readers more severe; For, after all our care and pains, how few Acquire applause, or keep it if they do! Not so these sheets, ordain'd to happier fate, Praised ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... not to REFINE in the education of my children. 'Life (said he,) will not bear refinement: you must ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Shakspeare[1], whither wouldst thou fly, With hurried step, and dove-like trembling eye? Thou, as from heav'n, that couldst each grace dispense, Fancy's rich stream, and all the stores of sense; Give to each virtue face and form divine, Make dulness feel, and vulgar souls refine, Wake all the passions into restless life, Now calm to softness, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... ready for the market. At 38 other works the crude oil alone is produced, and although most of the crude oil so made is refined at other works in Scotland, a not inconsiderable quantity is sent to the Welsh refiners, while some of it is sent to the Continent. Of the remaining works, 16 refine the crude oil only. There are altogether 3804 retorts in operation, both vertical and horizontal. It is a moot point, which is now engaging the attention of those in the trade, whether vertical or horizontal retorts are the best suited for the ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... skilful anatomists are perceivable at the end of the wonderful net, where all the arteries close in a terminating point; which arteries taking their rise and origin from the left capsule of the heart, bring, through several circuits, ambages, and anfractuosities, the vital spirits, to subtilize and refine them in the ætherial purity of animal spirits. Nay, in such a studiously meditating, musing person, you may espy so extravagant raptures of one, as it were out of himself, that all his natural faculties for that time will seem to lie suspended from each their proper charge and office, and his ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... come to his temple; But who can endure the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, And like fullers' lyes; And he will sit as a refiner and purifier, And he will purify the sons of Levi, And refine them as gold and silver; And they shall offer offerings in righteousness. Then shall the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant to Jehovah, As in the days of old, and as ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... to solicit their votes. Marcus Porcius Cato, a young man of about forty years, who had been brought up on a farm, and looked with the greatest respect upon the virtue of the olden times, before Grecian influences had crept in to soften and refine the hard Roman character, represented the party of conservatism. Now, thought he, is an opportunity for me to stand against the corrupting influence of Magna Grcia. He therefore rose and made a long speech in opposition to the petition of the ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... the delicacy and artistic taste of refine womanhood, has in this work shown great ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... Bavaria and Austria and France have not introduced their civilization to him yet. But Bavaria and Austria and France are on their way. They are coming. They will rescue him; they will refine the vileness out ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... will be bitterly disappointed. It is said: There must be hewers of wood and drawers of water, scavengers and coalheavers, day labourers and domestic servants, or the work of society will come to a standstill. But, if you educate and refine everybody, nobody will be content to assume these functions, and all the world will want to be ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the age of fair Rosamond, of Crusades, of lion-hearted King Richard, and of Robin Hood. It is more soberly an age of builders, of reformers, of scholars, and of poets. If troubadours did not exactly "touch guitars," at least songsters tackled verse-making and helped to refine the table manners of barons and retainers by singing at dinner time. The voice of law too was not silent amid arms. Our constitutional government, already begotten, was being born and swaddled. The races were being blended. ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... rightly or wrongly, that they are preparing the esthetics of the future). It must be here admitted that there exists an altogether special manner of feeling, dependent on temperament at first, which many cultivate and refine as though it were a precious rarity. There lies the true source of their invention. Doubtless, to assert this pertinently, it would be necessary to establish the direct relations between their physical and psychical constitution and that of their work; to note even the particular states ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... only because of the available information they give; when they do not instruct, they elevate and refine. ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... and enriching your style. These should be selected with great discrimination and care, with reference both to their style and their moral tendency. Poetry, to a limited extent, tends to elevate the mind, cherish the finer sensibilities of the heart, and refine the taste. ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... have to do so still more; which will leave them all even more bewildered than the boldest definition would have done. But that's quite a different thing. The furthest we have gone in the way of definition—unless indeed this too belongs but to our invincible tendency to refine—is by the happy rule we've made that Lorraine shall walk with me every morning to the Works, and I shall find her there when I come out to walk home with me. I see, on reading over, that this is what I meant by "our" in speaking above of ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... this effect in several countries of Europe; but their influence in Germany was very limited: the disposition to subtilize, which was at that time universal throughout the German empire, led those who cultivated literature rather to refine upon what was before them, than to new inquiries. The language of the Pandects is of the silver age; it might therefore be expected, that it would have improved the general style of the times; but ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... Christian churches and congregations, heirs of Heaven and children of God, to preach the truth, to administer the rites of baptism, communion, and marriage, to dispense charities, and in every way to quicken and refine the religious life of individuals ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... in vain; But that is may his worthy cradle be, Whereof I speak, shall so the heaven ordain. For where men look for fruit they graff the tree, And study still the rising plant to train; And artist uses to refine the gold Designed by him the precious ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... history? Are not the principles that should regulate clothing, the rules of cleanliness, the advantages of early rising and domestic exercise, as readily communicated as the principles of mineralogy, or rules of syntax? Are not the rules of Jesus Christ, applied to refine domestic manners and preserve a good temper, as important as the abstract principles of ethics, as taught by Paley, Wayland, or Jouffroy? May not the advantages of neatness, system, and order, be as well illustrated ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... Mr. or Mrs. or Dr. even to a highly educated Negro. They call them by their first names, like servants. Think what an hourly pin-prick of insult that must be. Ever since her letter came, I've been thinking about it, the things she told me, about what happens when they try to raise themselves and refine themselves, how they're made to suffer intimately for trying to be what I thought we all wanted all Americans to be." He looked at Marise with troubled eyes. "I've been thinking how it would feel to be a Negro myself. What a different ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... knowledge of all that has been written on this hackneyed subject will never supply the want of natural poetic taste, of that union of mental and moral refinement which produces the only infallible touchstone of the beautiful; still such criticisms will tend to refine and sharpen a natural taste, where it does exist; and without bringing its technical rules practically to bear upon the objects of your delighted admiration,[82] they will insensibly improve, refine, and subtilize the ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... "As we refine, our checks grow finer," said Emerson. As life becomes more elaborate and ambitious, the critical tests increase. Contemporary fame can be created for the artist by favorable contemporary comment; but it rests with himself, after all; it rests in the abiding significance of his work—or ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... in the cant and quip of schools, Uncouth, if only city ways refine; Ungodly, if 'tis creeds that make divine; In station poor, as judged by human rules, And yet a giant towering o'er them all; Clean, strong in mind, just, merciful, sublime; The noblest product of the age and time, Invoked of God ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... hard drinking. Many a scene of riot and orgies did those log-walls witness. Such is generally the life in a lumber-camp: hard, wholesome labour in the day, loud revelling at night. The rough, adventurous life, with no home charm or female influence to refine or restrain, is probably the principal reason of such low practice of life in the ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... the cockneys chosen should be tailors, he will of course think it his duty, on the old established equation, to murder eighteen. And, here, in this attention to the comfort of sick people, you will observe the usual effect of a fine art to soften and refine the feelings. The world in general, gentlemen, are very bloody-minded; and all they want in a murder is a copious effusion of blood; gaudy display in this point is enough for them. But the enlightened connoisseur is more refined in his taste; and from our art, as from all the other ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... judgment, or would vote against it as such if it were in their power, are mistaken." In short, though he did not suppose that the movers of the Bill "did it in mere kindness to the Dissenters, in order to refine and purge them from the scandals which some people had brought upon them," nevertheless it was calculated to effect this object. The Dissenter being a man that was "something desirous of going to Heaven," ventured the displeasure of the civil magistrate at the command of his conscience, which ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... verses in the morning, and pass the day in retrenching the exuberances, and correcting inaccuracies; and it was Pope's custom to write his first thoughts in his first words, and gradually to amplify, decorate, rectify, and refine them. Others employ, at once, memory and invention, and, with little intermediate use of the pen, form and polish large masses by continued meditation, and write their productions only, when, in their opinion, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... transformation. Secure that, and all nobleness will follow, and 'whatsoever things are lovely and of good report' will come, like doves to their windows, flocking into the soul that has ceased to find its centre in its poor rebellious self. All love derives its power to elevate, refine, beautify, ennoble, conquer, from the fact that, in lower degree, all love makes the beloved the centre, and not the self. Hence the mother's self-sacrifice, hence the sweet reciprocity of wedded life, hence everything in humanity that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... the trust that I shall gather home my crops in season due, Lies a joy, which he may never grasp, who rules in gorgeous state Fertile Africa's dominions. Happier, happier far my fate! Though for me no bees Calabrian store their honey, nor doth wine Sickening in the Laestrygonian amphora for me refine; Though for me no flocks unnumbered, browsing Gallia's pastures fair, Pant beneath their swelling fleeces, I at least am free from care; Haggard want with direful clamour ravins never at my door, Nor wouldst thou, if more ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form.... She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her ...; and all this lives only ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... even so; Extremity of passions still are dumb, No tongue can tell love's chief perfections: Persuade thyself my love-sick thoughts are thine; Thou only may'st those drooping thoughts refine. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... her day to die, So heavenly, that on high Change could not glorify Nor death refine her: Pure gold of perfect love, On earth like heaven's own dove, She cannot wear, ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Work, nor minded the Guilt of any Measure if it had a promising Aspect. I question if an Instance of such an hellish Contrivance, and so detestable a Scandal, can be found in any History. A Man to whom a whole Kingdom had committed its only Hope, a Man who had been chosen to rectify and refine the Morals of its King, endeavours by all Means to corrupt them; and, as a Return for the vast Favours received from him, he draws him in to forfeit his Innocence, the Love of his Consort, and the Esteem of ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... Cherish the tulip, prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimmed the eglantine: Nay, my friend, nay—Since oft thy praise Hath given fresh vigour to my lays; Since oft thy judgment could refine My flattened thought, or cumbrous line; Still kind, as is thy wont, attend, And in the minstrel spare the friend. Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale, Flow forth, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... affects the arts:' so said the old maxim, but it has rarely been found a truism. They who feel it, feel also the virtue which dictated the aphorism. Men whose object is to enlighten the nations or exalt the judgment or (the least ambition) to refine the tastes of others—men who feel that this object is dearer to them than a petty and vain ambition—feel also that all who labor in the same cause are united with them in a friendship which exists in one climate as in another—in a I republic or in a despotism: these are the best cosmopolites, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... speaks the language of chivalry, and ought not, to use an expression of Lord Herbert, to have spoken like a paillard, but a cavalier. Indeed, we have before noticed it as the most obvious and most degrading imperfection of Dryden's poetical imagination, that he could not refine that passion, which, of all others, is susceptible either of the purest refinement, or of admitting the basest alloy. With Chaucer, Dryden's task was more easy than with Boccacio. Barrenness was not the fault of the Father of English ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... moved lazily in the sluggish air. It was a season of general repose, just such a day, I think, as a saint would choose to assist his fancy in describing the sunny regions whither his thoughts delight to wander, or a poet would select to refine his ideas of the climate of Elysium. At length I arrived at the old meeting-house where I had often gone, when a lad ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... lighted up his old face, was genuine and sympathetic. No one could have known by his behaviour that he was not at court. And I thought—Surely even the contact with such a man will do something to refine the taste of my people. I felt more certain than ever that a free mingling of all classes would do more than anything else towards binding us all into a wise patriotic nation; would tend to keep down that foolish emulation which makes one class ape another from afar, ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... in anything, yet such an excessive humility, as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resorted, and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university in less volume; whither they came not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions, which laziness and consent made current in vulgar ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... arena of action bearing on their brows the impress of their noble origin, and cultivating in their hearts the pure and exalted feelings that should ever distinguish those who bear the image of their Maker. Association is destined to do much for poor, suffering humanity—to elevate, refine, redeem the race and restore the purity and love that made the bowers of Eden so surpassingly beautiful. You, sir, and your associates are pioneers in a noble reform. May the blessing of God ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... best. On the Sabbath he always had a poor man to meals. He gave away large sums of money in charity. And he himself went to the house of another to lend him money as a favour. He engaged the best teachers for his children. In a word, Mayer "Polkovoi" tried to refine himself—to be a man amongst men. He wanted to get his name inscribed in the books of the best society, but did not succeed. In our town, Mazapevka, it was not easy to get into the best society. We did not forget readily a man's antecedents. A tailor may try to refine himself ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... emotions are caused by some agent acting on us. This is true of all the senses and the spiritual faculties. Hence we should by all possible means purify and refine our organism, so that we may hear the most delicate, the sweetest, the stillest sounds and murmurings of the angels who are about us. How much fuller and richer would be our life if we were more acutely sensitive and finely textured! ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... where vanity is so predominant, require the greatest care, for the failing is difficult to eradicate and would, if not cured, be a source of great unhappiness in after life. To prevent such a result, generally, means are taken to refine the taste of the patient (if I may use the word), and call out the quality most opposed to the infirmity, viz., that of looking out for beauties instead ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... of the earth—what a meaningful phrase From the lips of the Saviour, and one that conveys A sense of the need of a substance saline This pestilent sphere to refresh and refine, And a healthful and happy condition secure By making it pure as the ocean ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... and daisies Are jewels to be worn By all sons and daughters Of Nature, truly born; They speak a perfect language, They lead to the divine, They cheer the weak and weary They strengthen and refine. ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... he made a furnace into which passed an air-blast pipe, through which a stream of air was forced into the mass of melted metal. He produced refined iron. Following this he made what is now called a "converter," in which he could refine fifteen hundred pounds of metal in five minutes, effecting a great saving in time and fuel, and in his little establishment the old processes were thenceforth dispensed with. It was locally known as "Kelley's air-boiling process." ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... to soften and refine manners by the stress which it laid upon such "Christian" virtues as humility, tenderness, and gentleness. By dwelling on the sanctity of human life, Christianity did its best to repress the very common practice of suicide as ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... true conservative forces of our world? On what did Luther and Cranmer build the hopes of regeneration? The cant of dilettanti would be laughed at by the old apostles and martyrs. Art amuses, and may refine when it is itself pure. It does not brace up the soul to conflict. It does not teach how to resist temptation. It presents temptations rather. It gilds the fascinations of earth. It does not point to duties, or the life to come. That which is conservative is what saves, not what adorns. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... prayer to tender your affections, to refine your nature, to make you very sensitive to the feelings of your child, and to help you to love the tender "olive plants" round about thy fireside. Some day there may be a vacant chair, and there can be no sweeter ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... it, as little a gainer by the revolution as morals. The pieces which were best calculated to form and refine the minds of the people, all abound with maxims of loyalty, with respect for religion, and the subordinations of civil society. These are all prohibited; and are replaced by fustian declamations, tending to promote anarchy and discord —by ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... absorbing interest that we are caught up in spirit and carried to the Attic Plain and the hills of Latium. They are useful, not because they teach us anything that may not be learned and learned more accurately from modern books, but because they move the mind, fire the heart, ennoble and refine the imagination in a way which nothing else has power to do. They are sources of inspiration; they first roused the modern mind to activity; and the potency of their influence can never cease to be felt by those whose aptitudes ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... literature on a scale and with a distinctness that cannot be mistaken. To this end he keeps a deep hold of the savage, the unrefined, and marshals the elements and influences that make for the virile, the heroic, the sane, the large, and for the perpetuity of the race. We cannot refine the elements,—the air, the water, the soil, the sunshine,—and the more we pervert or shut out these from our lives the worse for us. In the same manner, the more we pervert or balk the great natural impulses, sexuality, comradeship, the ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... people can claim to be religious at all, and yet not see to what awful evil the small beginnings of vice must lead. I tell you, if a man is allowed by Providence to lead an easy life, and remains unfaithful, he may still have some good metal in him which adversity might refine; but when people have gone through all that Toyner and his wife have been through—not a child that has been born to them but has died at the breast—I say, when they have been through all that, and ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... appropriate to all classes, ages, and conditions. No yard connected with a dwelling is complete without a flower-bed. The cultivation of flowers is eminently promotive of health, refinement of manners, and good taste. Constant familiarity with the most exquisite beauties of nature must refine the feelings and produce gentleness of spirit. Association with flowers should be a part of every child's education. Their cultivation is suitable for children and young ladies in all the ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... self-expression of the democratic spirit through beauty. Its enemies are of its own household; those who by nature and training should be its helpers hinder it instead. Why do they do this? Because their fastidious, aesthetic natures are outraged by a crudeness which they themselves could easily refine away if they chose; because also they recoil at a lack of conformity to existing conventions—conventions so hampering to the inner spirit of the Newness, that in order to incarnate at all it must ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... scutcheon upwards upon a gibbet all the honour and gentility extinguishes of itself, like a candle that's held with the flame downwards. Other arms are made for the spilling of blood, but his only purify and cleanse it like scurvy-grass; for a small dose taken by his prescription will refine that which is as base and gross as bull's blood (which the Athenians used to poison withal) to any ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... at one end of the furnace come hot air and gas, which burn in the furnace, producing sufficient heat to melt the charge and refine it of its impurities. Lime and other nonmetallic substances are put in the furnace. These melt, forming a "slag" which floats on the metal and aids materially ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... is so. I cannot see that even in this short chapter I have left out anything that is important in Buddhism. It is such a simple faith that all may be said in a very few words. It would be, of course, possible to refine on and gloze over certain points of the teaching. Where would be the use? The real proof of the faith is in the results, in the deeds that men do in its name. Discussion will not alter these one ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... the academy of Paris has been to refine and correct their own language, which they have done to that happy degree that we see it now spoken in all the courts of Christendom, as the language ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... want to draw a lesson, especially for the boys, today. Perhaps we cannot own any stock in the Standard Oil company, but we have something just as good, and better. Perhaps we have found in ourselves what we think is a useless talent—useless unless we refine it and cultivate it. One day some people living on a certain street in New York raised a big row because a small, ragged street boy drew pictures all over their sidewalks with chalk. To them, he ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... disenchanting the dream of his existence. Those imaginary, or, at least, retrospective sorrows, in which he had once loved to indulge, and whose tendency it was, through the medium of his fancy, to soften and refine his heart, were now exchanged for a host of actual, ignoble vexations, which it was even more humiliating than painful to encounter. His misanthropy, instead of being, as heretofore, a vague and abstract feeling, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... aiming to have, so far as could be, two suits to a man, a common, every day suit, and one better for Sabbaths, &c., it being thought that this would tend to refine and elevate the prisoners. Hence, he left them with a generous supply, well fitted up. But it would need more or less renewing and refitting in the fall, which it did not receive, but was made to answer by patching. Hence, patched and ragged clothes ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... refine; but all moral power issues out of moral forces. And it may be well, therefore, rapidly to sketch the history of religion, which is the greatest of moral forces, as it sank and rose in this island through the last two ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... was eminently characteristic of the eighteenth century, an age of staid and decorous subsidence from the energetic restlessness of the seventeenth—an age in which men eschewed revolution and innovation, and devoted themselves assiduously to conserve, consolidate, polish, refine, and make the best ...
— The evolution of English lexicography • James Augustus Henry Murray
... Mahoudeau purposely exaggerated his intentional roughness, and clasped his hands like an ogre kneading human flesh; while Gagniere, in ecstasy, as if freed from the everlasting greyishness of his art, sought to refine sensation to the utmost limits of intelligence; and Dubuche, with his matter-of-fact convictions, threw in but a word here and there; words, however, which were like club-blows in the very midst of the fray. Then Sandoz, happy and smiling at seeing them so united, 'all in one shirt,' ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... peace, Her balls of discord in thy way: Here Beauty's day doth never cease; Day is abstracted here, And varied in a triple sphere. Hero, Alcmane, Mya, so outshine thee, Ere thou come here, let Thetis thrice refine thee. Love calls to war; Sighs his alarms, Lips his swords are, The field ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... wonderful, or pathetic side, the prose, mixed with the elevated language of verse, serves to mark the contrast between vulgar and ideal sentiments; it is a positive means of exhibition. Continued prose in Comedy is nothing but the natural language, on which the poet has failed to employ his skill to refine and smoothe it down, while apparently he seems the more careful to give an accurate imitation of it: it is that prose which Molire's Bourgeois Gentilhomme has been speaking his whole lifetime ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... Racine, and Corneille's noble fire, Showed us that France had something to admire. Not but the tragic spirit was our own, And full in Shakespeare, fair in Otway shone: But Otway failed to polish or refine, And fluent Shakespeare scarce effaced a line. Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art, the art to blot. Some doubt, if equal pains, or equal fire The humbler muse of comedy require. But in known images of life, I guess The labour greater, as th' indulgence less. Observe ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... maiden as her mother must have been, one of Nature's own ladies, but more refined in type, texture, and form, as the American atmosphere and food and life always refine the children of European stock,—slenderer, more delicate, finer of complexion, and with a soft, exquisite sweetness of voice, more thrilling than her mother's, larger and more robust heartfeltness of tone,—and with the same, but shyer ways, and swift blushes and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... inheritance of legitimate pride. I couldn't give the finest loyalty and comradeship I had to give to a man, have it returned disdainfully, and then furbish up the pieces and present it over again. If I can patch those same pieces and so polish and refine them that I can make them, in the old phrase, "as good as new," possibly in time—but, Linda, one thing is certain as the hills of morning. Never in my life will any man make any headway with me again with vague suggestions and innuendoes and hints. If ever any man wants to be anything ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and unsubdued and he can transform it again as he has. He can build again everything on land and sea, the farms, towns, and cities, and the floating palaces. He can again dig out the mines and refine the silver and gold, mould the clay, smelt the ore and shape the iron. His needs and his power, however, give him no claim ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... with those unsophisticated Italian workmen. With him, as with them, and with the writer of the Letter to a Friend upon the occasion of the death of his intimate Friend,—so strangely! the visible function of death is but to refine, to detach from aught that is vulgar. And this elfin letter, really an impromptu epistle to a friend, affords the best possible light on the general temper of the man [154] who could be moved by the accidental discovery ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... thing like a defence upon this ground, the Citizen at length, p. 24, dismisses his whole train of statements, certificates and letters, & undertakes very learnedly and elaborately to refine upon the distinction; and insists that if a man expresses his personal wish to resign, it is to all intents and purposes a resignation, and that no other was ever heard of; as if it was impossible to consult the opinions of others, and ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... something like this in England, Paul," she said, laying a hand on his arm—"lots of places like this out-of-doors in the fresh air, under the stars and trees, where people can go and drink their tea or coffee, and listen to music that must refine them ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... so far from poisoning the springs of human joy, so far from imbittering the cordials of our cup, will refine every enjoyment and purify every pleasure. It will blunt the keen edge of sorrow, and smooth the asperities of adversity. It will bring down heaven to earth, and render death itself a desirable passage to everlasting life. Let us accustom ourselves to contemplate the most eminent examples of this ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... consequent struggle between Will and Power. The former faculty exacted approbation of that which it was considered orthodox to admire; the latter groaned forth its utter inability to pay the tax; it was then self-sneered at, spurred up, goaded on to refine its taste, and whet its zest. The more it was chidden, however, the more it wouldn't praise. Discovering gradually that a wonderful sense of fatigue resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began to reflect whether I might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... they sing out for mate. It's no use; they can't spake the language, and it's no use t'achin' thim. They're good min to wurruk—all bone and sole leather, but ye can't refine thim." ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... man, whom he had prepared for salvation by sending perfection embodied in Christ. We may not attach ourselves to any system or effort as absolutely true or good, nor condemn any as utterly false. All knowledge and arts are related to religion. They refine man and aid him in his emancipation from whatever is ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... institution ten years. Every avenue of communication with the soul was closed—but one. The sense of touch remained; and by means of that they have contrived to reach the mind, to inform it, to instruct it, to refine and elevate it. We found her exactly corresponding to the beautiful description given of her by Dr. Howe, who is at the head of the institution. That description has so often been published in England that I will not transcribe it. Her figure is genteel, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... by our alphabetic symbols b, c or s, d, f, g, j, q, x, and z—a poverty for which no richness in vowel sounds can make amends. The Hawaiian speech, therefore, does not call into full play the uppermost vocal cavities to modify and strengthen, or refine, the throat and mouth tones of the speaker and to give reach and emphasis to his utterances. When he strove for dramatic and passional effect, he did not make his voice resound in the topmost cavities of the voice-trumpet, but left it to rumble and mutter low down in the throat-pipe, thus producing ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... Is it not only the proof that God sees something to be accomplished that can be accomplished in no other way, and that he is pleased for the sake of that gain to let us suffer? The things that are worth while come through pain. Joy does not make us stronger nor bring us nearer God; nor does it refine, ennoble, or enrich us. The pure gold comes from the fire only and the tempered steel also must have passed through the flame. God would have us pure as gold and as strong as steel, and to have us so he can not spare the flame. We must pass through the furnace of affliction. We are told ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... refine the Russian tongue the more thoroughly, something like half the words in it were cut out: which circumstance necessitated very frequent recourse to the tongue of France, since the same words, if spoken in French, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... not exhaust its treasury of romance. Earthquake and fire shall not change it, terror and suffering shall not break its glad, mad spirit. Time alone can tame the town, restrain its wanton manners, refine its terrible beauty, rob it of its nameless charm, subdue it to the commonplace. May time be merciful—may it delay its fatal duty till we have learned that to love, to forgive, to enjoy, ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... that students of great mental powers studied the objects with which working craftsmen were in daily contact, could not fail to deepen, refine and purify their more practical and, in some respects, grosser aims; while the knowledge that every science-study had an industrial as well as a scientific aspect would make the thinking craftsmen more alive to the needs ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... not refine too much upon this charade.—You will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning which may be affixed to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... rest; Cares do still their thoughts molest, And still th' unhappy poet's breast, Like thine, when best he sings, is placed against a thorn. She begins, let all be still! Muse, thy promise now fulfil! Sweet, oh! sweet, still sweeter yet! Can thy words such accents fit? Canst thou syllables refine, Melt a sense that shall retain Still some spirit of the brain, Till with sounds like these it join? 'Twill not be! then change thy note; Let division shake thy throat. Hark! division now she tries; Yet as far the muse outflies. Cease then, prithee, cease thy tune; Trifler, wilt thou sing till ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... multiplied, where his interests clash, that he is obliged to have recourse to government, to laws, to public worship, in order to maintain concord. It is then, that men approximating, reason together, combine their ideas, refine their notions, subtilize their theories; it is then also, that those who govern them avail themselves of invisible powers, to keep them within bounds, to render them docile, to enforce their obedience, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... philosophy. English young men never played in order to expand their lungs, to increase their circulation, to develop their muscles in power and agility, to improve their figures, to add grace to their bearing, to awaken and refine their intellectual powers, or to make them manly, courageous, and chivalrous. They played enthusiastically for the mere love of play, and all these, and other advantages resulted from ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... woman who begins her nervous degeneration by indulging herself in jealousy—which is really a gross emotion, however she may refine it in appearance—could be made to see the truth, she would, in many cases, be glad to use her will in the right direction, and would become in reality the beautiful character which her friends believe her to be. This is ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... "Refine Vincart!" repeated Claudet, sternly, "what business have you to mix up her name with those creatures to whom you refer? Mademoiselle Vincart," added he, "has nothing in common with that class, and you have no right, Monsieur de Buxieres, to use her ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... plantation, and subjected to all the cruelties and deprivations of a bondman. His natural abilities were above mediocrity, but having never had the advantages of an education, or the privileges of a society calculated to cultivate and refine his natural aspiring intellect, and to direct his indomitable will in the acquirement of the more imperishable graces of the human heart, he had come to manhood with a determined, selfish disposition, to accomplish whatever gratified his vanity or administered to ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... many; what we call refined. Why? Because we get them as we get our old swords and gems and laces—from our grandsires, mothers, and all. Refined they are—after centuries of refining. But the feelings handed down to Clemence had come through ages of African savagery; through fires that do not refine, but that blunt and blast and blacken and char; starvation, gluttony, drunkenness, thirst, drowning, nakedness, dirt, fetichism, debauchery, slaughter, pestilence and the rest—she was their heiress; they left her the cinders of human ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... unable to go abroad without being hissed and pelted by the mob, and it is hard for a minister to convince himself of the admiration of a nation when a strong bodyguard is necessary to secure him from the constant danger of personal attacks. Bute's character did not refine under the tests imposed upon it. His objectionable qualities grew more and more unpopular. The less he was liked the less he deserved to be liked. Adversity did not magnify that small soul. In his mean anger he sought for mean revenge. Every person who owed an appointment ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... he is to be thwarted in what would best raise and refine him. That great, bright leading star of a well-placed affection is not to be allowed to help him through all the storms and quicksands ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Juice of Spanish squeez'd Grapes is It That makes a dull Braine so full of witt; The Lemonades cleere sparkling wine The grosser witts too, doth much refine. Then to bee foxd[264] it is no crime, Since thickest and dull Braines It makes sublime. The Stillyards Reanish wine and Divells white, Who doth not in them sometimes take delight? If with Mimique Gestures ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... never been a majority of women who for a great length of time have shirked this problem by any one of these methods. By individuals and by groups woman has always been seeking to develop the business of life to such proportions, to so diversify, refine, and broaden it that no half failure or utter failure of its fundamental relations would swamp her, leave her comfortless, or prevent her working out that family which she knew to be her part in the scheme of things. It is from her conscious attempt to make the best of things ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... improvement, will not easily be persuaded that his project is ripe for execution; but will superadd one contrivance to another, endeavour to unite various purposes in one operation, multiply complications, and refine niceties, till he is entangled in his own scheme, and bewildered in the perplexity of various intentions. He that resolves to unite all the beauties of situation in a new purchase, must waste his life in roving to no purpose from province to province. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... conchs! not fit for warp or woof! Till cunning come to pound and squeeze And clarify,—refine to proof The liquor filtered by degrees, While the ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Yes, he would refine her; prune away all that reminded him of her wild growth, so that it might no longer humiliate him to think to what a companion he had sunk. How happy they would be! Of course the world would censure him if it knew, but ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... found in the world. It is most easily converted into kerosene or lamp oil, and contains a larger proportion of such oil. It is the finest petroleum in the world, except that found in Indiana and Ohio, and that costs more to refine. ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... This marred one heedless day, This heart take Thou to scan Both within and without: Refine with fire its gold, Purge thou its dross away— Yea, hold it in Thy hold, Whence none can pluck ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... broken down, Nero gave a loose to appetites that were not only sordid, but inhuman. There was a sort of odd contrast in his disposition: for while he practised cruelties sufficient to make the mind shudder with horror, he was fond of those amusing arts which soften and refine the heart. He was particularly addicted, even from childhood, to music, and not totally ignorant of poetry; chariot-driving was his favourite pursuit; and all these ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... which might not "disoblige the nicest ear." This modest style, not practiced in early plays, is achieved admirably in The Busie Body. Yet, as she says in the epilogue, she has not followed the critics who balk the pleasure of the audience to refine their taste; her play will with "good humour, pleasure crown the Night." In dialogue, in plot, and particularly in the character of the amusing but inoffensive Marplot, she fulfills her simple theory of comedy designed not for reform but ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... thy generous indignation check'd, Nor check'd the tender tear to Misery given; From Guilt's contagious power shall that protect, This soften and refine the soul for Heaven. But dreadful is their doom whom doubt has driven To censure Fate, and pious Hope forego: Like yonder blasted boughs by lightning riven, Perfection, beauty, life, they never know, But frown on all that pass, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... To refine it, a good man who ran a whisky-still tried his plan of the worm that never dies, with the oil. The vapor condensed and was caught in the form of an oil that was nearly white. This oil burned with a steady flame, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... was that he might be a blessing to them. He came "not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" not to have friends, but to be a friend. He chose the Twelve that he might lift them up to honor and good; that he might purify, refine, and enrich their lives; that he might prepare them to be his witnesses, the conservators of his gospel, the interpreters to the world of his life and teachings. He sought nothing for himself, but every breath he drew was full of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... with inestimable benefits to institutions of this kind, that at a meeting of this nature those who in all things are our best examples, encouragers, and friends, are not excluded. The abstract idea of the Graces was in ancient times associated with those arts which refine the human understanding; and it is pleasant to see now, in the rolling of the world, the Graces popularising the practice of those arts by their example, and adorning ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... hand of a woman is often, in youth, Somewhat rough, somewhat red, somewhat graceless, in truth; Does its beauty refine, as its pulses grow calm, Or as sorrow has crossed the life line in the palm? Lucile, Pt. I. Canto III. (Owen ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. ...
— The Federalist Papers
... it; but then why should they interfere with one another? Let them keep their prejudices, which, though different, are not worse than their neighbours, and do you retain your excellencies, and draw from them the happiness they ought to give you. People reason and refine themselves into a thousand miseries, by chusing to settle that they can only be contented one way; whereas, there are fifty ways, if they would but look about them, that would commonly do as well." "I believe, indeed, you ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... sweeter than the first; she had made a good supper, and drunk well, though moderately; thus she was disposed to refine on her pleasure, and to deliver herself with greater ardour to all the voluptuous enjoyments ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... not only conduce to the comfort of woman, but they refine and do away with the rough and selfish side of man's nature, for without this refining contact with gentle womanhood, a man will never lose the innate roughness with which ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... scarce contain himself; but still he kept a grave countenance; and, when the Master had ended his song, and said:—"How likes it thee?" he answered:—"Verily, no lyre of straw could vie with you, so artargutically(4) you refine your strain." "I warrant thee," returned the Master, "thou hadst never believed it, hadst thou not heard me." "Ay, indeed, sooth sayst thou," quoth Bruno. "And I have other songs to boot," said the Master; "but enough of this at present. ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... so unconscionable, after so many years of cohabitation, as to take exceptions to an expedient by which she would not only enjoy the conversation of her husband, but even the fruits of those talents which the knife would so remarkably refine. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... scarcely think that Pope was capable of epic or tragic poetry; but, within a certain limited region, he has been outdone by no poet."—Dr. Blair cor. "I who now read, have nearly finished this chapter."—Harris cor. "And yet, to refine our taste with respect to beauties of art or of nature, is scarcely endeavoured in any seminary of learning."—Kames cor. "The numbers being confounded, and the possessives wrongly applied, the passage is neither English nor grammar."—Buchanan cor. "The letter G is wrongly named Jee."—Creighton ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Operation, and to look on very attentively, and that they may have the less Reason to doubt, to perform the whole Operation with their own Hands, while I stand at a Distance, and don't so much as put my Finger to it. I put them to refine the melted Matter themselves, or carry it to the Refiners to be done; I tell them beforehand, how much Silver or Gold it will afford: And in the last Place, I bid them carry the melted Mass to several Goldsmiths, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... to give their plans the uniform success already mentioned. Kindness and warm affection, clearness of moral vision, and purity of heart, with a lively relish for quiet intellectual pleasures, for society and books adapted to refine, improve and elevate, were among the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... varied and numerous elements had nothing in common, and Commodore de la Ronciere soon saw that extraneous help would afford us no additional security; and, in short, that the 'Refine Bortense'— obliged to go fast—as her short supplies would not allow long voyages, had to reckon on herself alone. However, the [English] captain of the 'Saxon' expressing a great desire to visit these northern ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Unhelp'd by practice, books, or art: For wit and humour differ quite; That gives surprise, and this delight, Humour is odd, grotesque, and wild, Only by affectation spoil'd; 'Tis never by invention got, Men have it when they know it not. Our conversation to refine, True humour must with wit combine: From both we learn to rally well, Wherein French writers most excel; [2]Voiture, in various lights, displays That irony which turns to praise: His genius first found out the rule For an obliging ridicule: He flatters ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... no wish to refine curiously upon the origin of government. If any one insists, with the honorable gentleman from Broome, that there are no such things as natural political rights, and that no man is born a voter, I will ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... talent which converts itself to money; talent which glitters to-day that it may dine and sleep well to-morrow; and society is officered by men of parts, as they are properly called, and not by divine men. These use their gifts to refine luxury, not to abolish it. Genius is always ascetic, and piety, and love. Appetite shows to the finer souls as a disease, and they find beauty in rites and ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... period when England was flushed with success. Artists in such times grow wealthy, and by their work refine their time. But in spite of the number of wealthy Academicians living upon Society in the mid-Victorian time, the influence of Art upon Society was less than at any time in history in which circumstances have ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... Leyden jars and blow the Houses of Parliament to atoms. Farraday amazes us by his statement of the energy required to embroider a violet or produce a strawberry. To untwist the sunbeam and extract the rich strawberry red, to refine the sugar, and mix its flavor, represents heat sufficient to run an engine from Liverpool to London or from Chicago to Detroit. But because nature does her work noiselessly we must not forget that each of her ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... virtues of knighthood, flourishing among his hardy qualities like wild flowers among rocks. He was, in truth, a hero of chivalry struck off by Nature at a single heat, and though little care may have been taken to refine her workmanship, he stood forth a miracle of her skill. In all his dealings he was headstrong perhaps, but open and above board; if there was anything in the whole world he most loathed and despised, it was cunning and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... and chatter and mix his punch and make his cigarettes. Ah! how much more entrancing would be Ralph's chamber with Suzette to garnish it! He would make a thousand studies of her face; she should be his model, his professor, his divinity! What was gross in her he would refine; what dark he would make known. They would walk together by the river side, into the parks, into the open country. He would know no regrets for the friends across the sea. Europe would become beautiful to him, and his art would find inspiration ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... compass the essence of information which usually runs through many volumes, and place it into a practical form for the common reader. We hope, however, that this work will give the reader a greater longing to extend his inquiries into these most interesting subjects, so rich in everything that can refine the taste, enlarge the understanding and improve the heart. It has been our object, so far as possible, to avoid every expression of opinion, whether our own or that of any school of thinkers, and to supply first, facts, and secondly, careful references by which the citations of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... not neglected. Alas! the only use I have ever made of what I acquired, has been to gild my vices when acted, or refine upon the manner of acting them while in contemplation. I look back, at this moment, to the period of my life I am describing, as prosperous men recall the day-spring of their fortunes. They, from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... all strands of thought. Over and above a large number of philological and other writings of scientific purport, he created a momentous religio-philosophic system, with the aim to clarify Judaism and refine religious conceptions. He was an encyclopedic thinker, a representative of the highest Jewish culture and of Arabic culture as well—he wrote his works in Arabic by preference. In this way Jewish thought gained ground ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... dirty skill to freight such a drunken ship with so much gilded dirt"—was one of the mildest of his phrases, as, "breathing out these and many other passions," he harangued those who had "no thought, no discourse, no hope, and no work but to dig gold, wash gold, refine ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... moment—before the brain had begun to refine on the situation—what was asked of him. He was to be Melrose's tool and accomplice in all that Melrose's tyrannical caprice chose to do with the lives of human beings; he was to forfeit the respect of good ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... subject until he found that the drainings really of those rich beds of coal furnished the coal-oil that was worth pumping, and then he found how it came up with the living springs. He studied until he knew what it looked like, smelled like, tasted like, and how to refine it. Now said he in his letter to his cousin, "I understand the oil business." His cousin answered, "All ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... knowledge covers a natural lack of aesthetic sense. Where, on the contrary, insensibility to higher forms of beauty does not exclude a natural love of the lower, we have every reason to be encouraged; there is a true and healthy taste, which only needs experience to refine it. If a man demands light, sound, and splendour, he proves that he has the aesthetic equilibrium; that appearances as such interest him, and that he can pause in perception to enjoy. We have but to vary his observation, to enlarge his thought, to multiply his ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... satisfy the natural cravings of the great body of Taoist followers. Chuang Tzu had already placed the source of human life beyond the limits of our visible universe; and in order to secure a return thither, it was only necessary to refine away the grossness of our material selves according to the doctrine of the Way. It thus came about that the One, in whose obliterating unity all seemingly opposed conditions were to be indistinguishably blended, began to be regarded as a fixed point of dazzling intellectual luminosity, ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... alkali, when the process of refining is finished. A few refiners improve the quality of their refined oil by redistilling it after treating it with acid and alkali. All distillates of petroleum have to be treated with acid and alkali to refine them. There is one thing peculiar about the distillates of petroleum, and that is that the run which follows naphtha, which is called "the middle run oil," is the highest test oil that is made, running as high as 150 and 160 degrees flash, while the common oil which follows, viz., ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... 14th century, metrical romances continued to be translated from the French, homilies and saints' legends and rhyming chronicles were still manufactured. But the poems of Occleve and Lydgate and James I. had helped to polish and refine the tongue and to prolong the Chaucerian tradition. The literary English never again slipped {46} back into the chaos of dialects which had ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... is our guide in determining our duty, and the test of universality perpetually comes in to correct the commands of this sentiment and to clear and so to refine the ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... homeless. "Home-keeping hearts," said Longfellow, "are happiest." What is a good wife, a good mother? Is she not a gift out of heaven, sacred and delicate, with affections so great that no measuring line short of that of the infinite God can tell their bound; fashioned to refine and soothe and lift and irradiate home and society and the world; of such value that no one can appreciate it, unless his mother lived long enough to let him understand it, or unless, in some great crisis of life, when all else failed ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... character of a fine temper, for, in seeing abroad diverse honourable customs, even though he might be perverse in nature, he learns to be tractable, amiable, and patient, with much greater ease than he would have done by remaining in his own country. And in truth, he who desires to refine men in the life of the world need seek no other fire and no better touchstone than this, seeing that those who are rough by nature are made gentle, and the gentle become more gracious. Gherardo di ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... pity us: we have no making power; Then give us making will, adopting thine. Make, make, and make us; temper, and refine. Be in us patience—neither to start nor cower. Christ, if thou be not with us—not by sign, But presence, actual as the wounds that bleed— We shall not bear it, but shall ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... reduced to almost imperceptible wires; and he had ended by possessing only those books which could submit to such treatment and which were so solidly tempered as to withstand the rolling-mill of each new reading. In his desire to refine, he had restrained and almost sterilized his enjoyment, ever accentuating the irremediable conflict existing between his ideas and those of the world in which he had happened to be born. He had now reached such a pass that he ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... greenest cabbage-leaf ever grown in a garden was wrapped about this steak, before it was delivered over to Tom. But the butcher had a sentiment for his business, and knew how to refine upon it. When he saw Tom putting the cabbage-leaf into his pocket awkwardly, he begged to be allowed to do it for him; 'for meat,' he said with some emotion, 'must ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... body is intelligent and capable of being instructed into finer grades of expression; this is the process by which we refine matter into spirit and by which we pass from a lower to a higher expression of wholeness and build our cells into a grade of consciousness so high that we produce objective expressions of such perfect response that we become the higher revelation ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... care. The whole world, without art and dress, Would be but one great wilderness; And mankind but a savage herd, 235 For all that nature has conferr'd. This does but rough-hew, and design; Leaves art to polish and refine. Though women first were made for men, Yet men were made for them agen; 240 For when (outwitted by his wife) Man first turn'd tenant but for life, If women had not interven'd, How soon had mankind had an end! And that it is in being yet, 245 To us alone you are in debt. And ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler |
