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Soft

adverb
1.
In a relaxed manner; or without hardship.  Synonym: easy.



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"Soft" Quotes from Famous Books



... disappeared, having been directly in the line of the railroad. But, best of all, by ascending Witch Hill you may get a good historic outlook over the past and the present of the place. Looking down from here you behold the ancient city spread before you, rich in chimneys and overshadowed by soft elms. At one point a dark, strong steeple lifts itself like a huge gravestone above the surrounding houses, terminating in a square top or a blunt dome; and yonder is another, more ideal in its look, rising slight and fine, and with many ascents and alternating ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... where now in native negligence it springs and dies, it may spread the white and glistening garment of cultivation—testify the existence—and promote the comfort of social life. The same seed was found near Hanover Bay, by Lieutenants Grey and Lushington, and throve exceedingly well in the soft and luxurious climate of the ever-verdant Mauritius. Leaving some presents in a conspicuous situation for the present rightful possessors of the island, whose temporary shelter we had obtained, we hastened back to the boats, and stood away ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... moved in the capital, the democratic emigrants had again bestirred themselves in Spain. The soul of this movement was Quintus Sertorius. This excellent man, a native of Nursia in the Sabine land, was from the first of a tender and even soft organization—as his almost enthusiastic love for his mother, Raia, shows—and at the same time of the most chivalrous bravery, as was proved by the honourable scars which he brought home from the Cimbrian, Spanish, and Italian wars. Although wholly untrained as an orator, he excited the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... had scarcely run, when to his arms, The other took a wife with seraph charms; And William was allowed to have a kiss, That filled his soul with soft ecstatick bliss. Cried he, I wish, (and truly I am grieved) That when the gentleman a kiss received, From her I love, he'd gone to greater height, And with my Petronella ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... still. A woman and a man walked to the fountain and sat down upon the carved balustrade. The woman unfastened her white cloak. The man laughed low and bent and kissed her white throat where it rose above soft silken folds. Clodia loosened the folds. ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... afforded time to look about the town after dinner. Passing down the main street after leaving the hotel, we found that the river and a canal wound their way in several places between the old buildings closely bordering on each side. The whole effect was delightful and so soft with sunset colors as to be suggestive of Venice. We noted that although Canterbury is exceedingly ancient, it is also a city of nearly thirty thousand population and the center of rich farming country, and, as at Chester, ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... Otherwise the river of contempt runs betwixt them and it: and if they go not by these passages, they must of necessity either turn back with shame, or suffer in the desperate venture. Of trees, I observe, God hath chosen the vine, a low plant that creeps upon the helpful wall. Of all beasts, the soft and patient lamb. Of all fowls, the mild and gall-less dove. Christ is the rose of the field, and the lily of the valley. When God appeared to Moses, it was not in the lofty cedar, nor the sturdy oak, nor the spreading plane; but in a bush, an humble, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various

... rejoicing that Dick was absent. It was a day of sunshine—not the ardent blaze of summer, but the crisp glow of October that seems all light with little heat. The lake was so pale as to be hardly blue, and girdled with soft yellow, touched only here and there with the intenser red of the rock maples. Back farther from shore rose the tawny bronze of oaks. The light breeze flung the Swallow along with those caressing wave-slaps that are the ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... Guanahani was aught but the flooding of the low grounds by excessive rains; and even if it was one communicating with the ocean, its absence now may be referred to the effect of those agencies which are working incessantly to reshape the soft structure of the Bahamas. ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... every advantage of mind, person, and fortune, whose fatal gifts, and lawless ambition, made him the evil genius of his country. His high birth, his wealth, his wit, and his wonderful beauty, attracted to him a host of flatterers, who fed his vanity with soft adulation, and led him to believe that nothing was too great for such powers as his. Like most of the brilliant young men of his day, he attached himself for a time to the philosopher Socrates, for whom he seems to ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... below Cedar Grove. It can be entered only in a boat, and the entire floor is deeply covered with soft mud. ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke

... represented Barbarina in the fascinating costume of a shepherdess, as he had seen her for the first time ten years ago; it had been painted by Pesne for the king. What recollections, what dreams arose before the king's soul as he gazed at that bewitching and lovely face; at those soft, melting eyes, whose glance had once made him so happy! But that was long ago; it had passed like a sunbeam on a rainy day, it had been long buried in clouds. These remembrances warmed the king's heart as he now stood so solitary and loveless before ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... the wood of glistening birch, and with the first fires of the sun blazoning her unbound hair raced lightly across the dew-dripping meadow. The earth was fat with excessive moisture and soft to her feet, while the dank vegetation slapped against her knees and cast off flashing sprays of liquid diamonds. The flush of the morning was in her cheek, and its fire in her eyes, and she was aglow with youth ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... forms of magnet—permanent and temporary. If steel is magnetized, it remains so; but soft iron loses practically all its magnetism as soon as the cause of magnetization is withdrawn. This is what we should expect; for steel is more closely compacted than iron, and the molecules therefore would be able to turn ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... screens in the apple cellar, one is likely to find small moths on them in the spring, larger than a clothes moth, about three-fourths inch in spread of the soft gray watered-silk wings. This is the imago or mature form of the insect known as the codlin-moth (it lives on codlins or apples). The larvae or "worms" were brought into the cellar in the apples; some of them ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey

... is," said he, "that I show myself up as such a confounded fool. Of course, it may work out all right, and I don't see that I could have done otherwise; but if I have lost my crib and get nothing in exchange, I shall feel what a soft Johnny I have been. I'm not very good at telling a story, Dr. Watson, but it is ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... commend you before his chosen. When we look at our dear teachers, our hearts warm to you with no common love, because you led them to leave the sweet place of their nativity for our sakes. You have been parents to them, wiping away their tears with the soft hand of a mother, and sharing their trials with a father's heart. While you have helped them in every department of their school, the ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... soft gentle silvery light began to spread itself over the heavens. The moon was rising, and as the beneficial effects of the storm of the preceding evening were still felt in the clearness of the air, the rays appeared to be more lustrous and full ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... without any bones, soft and plump. She is by destiny a woman of excessive curiosity, always disappointed, always deceived in her incessant investigation, but she is not fundamentally ardent. In vain would she like to be so, but she does not find it possible. Her ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... They will be distanced sooner or later; but the white wings of these messengers of the covenant will never be far away from the journeying child, and the air will often be filled with the music of their comings, and their celestial weapons will glance around him in all the fight, and their soft arms will bear him up over all the rough ways, and up higher at last to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... was bathing all summits in soft, crimson light, and the pale lustre of the orbed moon appeared in the east, we arrived ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... discern the outline of the steamer ahead, only its stern light disclosing its position. For some moments she scarcely dared breathe. Suddenly a light burst over the crest of the hills opposite, and the edge of the moon's disk rose higher and higher, until the glowing ball threw its soft, pale light over Cayuga and the surrounding country. Once more the tug took form, and the deck of the scow was revealed to the girl in all its murkiness. Shaking with anxiety, she allowed her eyes to rove about ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... hev' in t'other han'?—a Boasting paper, an' not a Sunday one, nuther! Millicent ain't a Christian name, nohow ye can fix it—it amounts to jest 'bout's much ez she does, an' that's nothing. She's got a soft face, an' purty hair—ef it's all her own, which I powerfully doubt—an' after that ther's nothin' to her. She's never been to sewin' meetin', an' she's off a boatin' with that New York chap every Saturday afternoon, instead of goin' to ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... fortnight, while the grass was ripening, was a wonderful time for Nedda, given up to her single passion—of seeing more of him who so completely occupied her heart. She was at peace now with Sheila, whose virility forbade that she should dispute pride of place with this soft and truthful guest, so evidently immersed in rapture. Besides, Nedda had that quality of getting on well with her own sex, found in those women who, though tenacious, are not possessive; who, though humble, are secretly very self-respecting; who, though they do not say much about ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... is one way and only one, to avoid it, and that is to dress in proportion to the cold. No need for the clothing to be thick or heavy. It should rather be the reverse, only soft and warm. Heavy clothing is sure to cause fatigue in walking, and also perspiration, and both states of body lay open the pores ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various

... manner one problem after the other was solved. As to their clothes, overcoats were made of sheep-skins, and some burghers wore complete suits made of leather. The worn-out clothes were patched with soft leather and then they were said to be "armoured." Besides this there was the "shaking out" process, as it was called by the burghers. The Boers thought that they were quite justified in exchanging clothes with Tommy Atkins whenever he was captured; for the English had destroyed ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... deadly calm came over me, which makes soft dispositions so desperate, and to which light-haired persons are so peculiarly subject. In these temperaments, when the paleness becomes fixed and unnatural, beware of them in their moods. They concentrate the vindictiveness of a life in a few moments; and, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... which opened with the enmity of the two families, closes with their reconciliation over the breathless remains of their children; and no violent, frightful, or discordant feeling, is suffered to mingle with that soft impression of melancholy left within the heart, and which Schlegel compares to one long, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various

... in the divisions of a box on the table. The man took up these bars, one by one, and broke off small pieces of them, of the colors that he wanted, with a pair of pincers, and set them into the work. He put them in perpendicularly, and the lower ends went into some soft composition, placed there to receive and hold them. The upper ends, of course, came together at ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott

... soft spring air came the roar of excited thousands sweeping down the avenue from the Capitol toward the White House. Above all rang the cries of struggling newsboys screaming an "Extra." One of them darted around the corner, his ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... but in all other creatures; he gives instance in a kid and lamb, if either of them suck of the other's milk, the lamb of the goat's, or the kid of the ewe's, the wool of the one will be hard, and the hair of the other soft." Giraldus Cambrensis Itinerar. Cambriae, l. 1. c. 2. confirms this by a notable example which happened in his time. A sow-pig by chance sucked a brach, and when she was grown [2108]"would miraculously hunt all manner of deer, and that as well, or rather better, than any ordinary hound." His conclusion ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... This soft, sweet, yellow evening, how the trees Stand crisp against the clear, bright-colored sky! How the white mountain-tops distinctly shine, Taking and giving radiance, and the slopes Are purpled with rich floods of peach-hued light! Thank ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... wherefore he made the table be set, and sate thereat beside the damsel at meat. He made his shield and his helmet and spear be brought into the hall. He leant back upon a rich couch that was therewithin, with his sword by his side, all armed. He was weary and the bed was soft, so he went to sleep. Howbeit, the dwarf mounteth on his horse that he had left still saddled, and goeth his way to the other hold where the robbers were, all five, that were Lancelot's mortal enemies. The damsel remained all ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown

... interminable, never varying prairie. Overhead the deep blue firmament, with its hosts of bright stars; at my feet, and all around, an ocean of magical light, myriads of fire-flies floating upon the soft still air. To me it was like a scene of enchantment. I could distinguish every blade of grass, every flower, each leaf on the trees, but all in a strange unnatural sort of light, and in altered colours. Tuberoses and asters, prairie roses and geraniums, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... out into the soft sunshine. It fell around her in a flood and dazzled her. She stood quite still and waited, till out of the brilliance someone came to her and took her hand. The waves were dashing loudly on the shore. The south wind raced by with ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... went. I don't know whether the grown people observed the day then, and I don't know whether the boys keep it now; I haven't been back at Easter-time for several generations. But when I was a boy it was a serious thing. In that soft Southwestern latitude the grass had pretty well greened up by Easter, even when it came in March, and grass colors eggs a very nice yellow; it used to worry me that it didn't color them green. When the grass hadn't got along far enough, winter wheat would do as well. I ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells

... Eagle Feather. "Done last night when all dark. Indians at corn dance and maybe sleepy. No hear some one come up soft to Eagle Feather's barn and take out horse. Have to cut rope 'cause Indian tie knot white man find too much hard to ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope

... the lines of his ancestry. In all the wonderfully mixed and varied dog-tribe I never saw any creature very much like him, though in some of his sly, soft, gliding motions and gestures he brought the fox to mind. He was short-legged and bunchy-bodied, and his hair, though smooth, was long and silky and slightly waved, so that when the wind was at his back it ruffled, making him look shaggy. At first sight his only noticeable feature was ...
— Stickeen • John Muir

... shoots and the foliage which they will carry perform is in the thickening of the larger branches to which they are attached and overcoming the tendency of the tree to become too tall and spindling. This can be done at any time, even to the pinching of young, soft shoots as they appear. It must be said, however, that in ordinary commercial fruit growing little attention is paid to these fine points, which are the great enjoyment of the European fruit-gardeners and are of questionable value in our standard orcharding. It is, however, ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... He knew that he had lost command of his temper; he regretted the manner in which he had stormed at Westby; but he thought nevertheless that the treatment had been effective and therefore not entirely to be deplored. The boys had thought him soft; he had shown them that he was not; and he determined that from this time forth he would bear down upon them hard. If by showing them amiability and kindliness he had failed to win their respect, he would now compel it by ferocity. He would ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... not end with this great catastrophe. On the contrary, he adds three more chapters. His fine tact warned him that the tumult and thunder of the final ruin must not be the last sounds to strike the ear. A resolution of the discord was needed; a soft chorale should follow the din and lead to a mellow adagio close. And this he does with supreme skill. With ill-suppressed disgust, he turns from New to Old Home. "Constantinople no longer appertains to the Roman historian—nor ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... who was still questioning herself and her author, moulding every idea in a thousand ways, ardently desirous for the discovery of truth in every sentence. She sought to improve her understanding; mechanically her heart and dispositions became soft and gentle under this benign discipline. After awhile she discovered, that amidst all her newly acquired knowledge, her own character, which formerly she fancied that she thoroughly understood, became the first in rank ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... in her companionship. What standard of womanhood and wifehood remained to such men? However, his wonder ceased when he had bowed to La Belle Colette in her own parlor, heard her sweet voice, and looked into the most entrancing eyes ever owned by a woman, soft, fiery, tender, glad, candid eyes. He recalled the dancer, leaping like a flame about the stage. In the plainer home garments he recognized the grace, quickness, and gaiety of the artist. Her charm won him at once, the ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... people. When Aby heard the double knock, he darted like an arrow from his parent's arms, in order to prevent the entrance of his friend, and to remove him from all possible contact with the astute and too persuasive Moses, senior. In vain did the latter gentleman rush to the window, and, by every soft endearment, seek to call back the retreating forms of Aby and Fitzalbert, now arm-in-arm, making for the corner of the street, and about to turn it. One was unconscious of the voice—the other heard it, and defied it. What passed between ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... place. When this was done they found they had a very tolerable house; only the sides, being formed of brushwood alone, did not sufficiently exclude the wind. To remedy this inconvenience, Harry, who was chief architect, procured some clay, and mixing it up with water, to render it sufficiently soft, he daubed it all over the walls, both within and without, by which means the wind was excluded and the house rendered much ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... Sometimes it steals along with a tranquil and noiseless course; at other times, for miles and miles, it dashes on in a thousand rapids, wild and beautiful to the eye, and lulling the ear with the soft ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... soft and cool and inviting. The myriad noises of the jungle seemed far distant and hushed to a mere echo of blurred sounds, rising and falling like the surf upon a ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... in the background of every interview with responsible persons. It was the unobtrusive note of a soft clarinet played in a great symphony, all the more telling because it was never played loudly or insistently, but it was there all the same. Whenever the question of the Nipe's actual whereabouts came up, the note seemed to ring a trifle more clearly, but never more loudly. That single ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... to spring, and Number 3, Dull Street is empty. Jemima Shuckleford still nurses her sorrow in secret, and it will be a year or two yet before the happy man is to turn up who shall reconcile her to life, and disestablish the image of Reginald Cruden from her soft heart. Meanwhile she and her mother are constant visitors at the little house in Highbury where the Crudens now live, and as often as they go they find a welcome. Samuel writes home from the country that he is doing great things, and expects ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... reappeared, condensed with an icy reality, even more paralysing than the burning presentation of them in the morning's sermon. She was spared questions herself, as she was a stranger; and sat to hear girls of her own age and older men and women who looked as soft-hearted as herself, utter definitions of the method of salvation and the being and character of God that compelled the assent of her intellect, while they jarred with her spiritual experience as fiercely as ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... not her last act of the kind, and at length Parliament so arranged matters that this fatal signing business could be done by royal commission, ostensibly to "relieve Her Majesty of a painful duty," but really because they could not trust her soft heart. She might have sudden caprices of commiseration which would interfere with stern military discipline, and the honest trade ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... shut the world out, Soul and Temptation face to face, And perfumed air and music sweet, And soft desire fill'd ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith

... grasped in their paw a lance, the top of which was a colored lamp. The ceiling was emblazoned with the Hauteville arms, and was radiant with burnished gold. A cresset lamp was suspended from the centre of the shield, and not only emitted an equable flow of soft though brilliant light, but also, as the aromatic oil wasted away, distilled an ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... cattle. Boards fixed upon stakes driven into the ground, without mat or covering, were our only beds. On Sundays, after we had washed the salt bags, and done other work required of us, we went into the bush and cut the long soft grass, of which we made trusses for our legs and feet to rest upon, for they were so full of the salt boils that we could get no rest ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... soft, a heart as kind, A heart as sound and free Is in the whole world thou canst find, That heart I'll ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke

... door, dear children; your mother is here, and has brought something back with her for each of you.' But the little kids knew that it was the wolf, by the rough voice. 'We will not open the door,' cried they, 'you are not our mother. She has a soft, pleasant voice, but your voice is rough; you are the wolf!' Then the wolf went away to a shopkeeper and bought himself a great lump of chalk, ate this and made his voice soft with it. Then he came back, knocked at the door of the house, and called: 'Open ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... veiling the sky, And over the landscape its soft shadows lie; The old year is passing, a new year will reign, Ere earth ...
— Grandma's Memories • Mary D. Brine

... all that I am to expect from you?" said Vallombreuse, who had become pale to ghastliness, and been fiercely gnawing his under lip, while Isabelle was speaking, in her sweet, clear tones, which fell on his ear like the soft chiming of silver bells, and only served to enhance his ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... awake of my sweving{1}, The ioyfull birdis merily did syng For myrth of Phebus tendir bem{e}s schene{2}; Swete war the vapouris, soft the morowing{3}, Halesum the vale, depaynt wyth flouris ying{4}; The air attemperit, sobir, and amene{5}; In quhite and rede was all the feld besene{6} Throu Naturis nobil fresch anamalyng{7}, In mirthfull May, of ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat

... prophecy made one night, suddenly and dramatically, at a gathering of New Yorkers, brought together for hilarious purposes, including a little supper, in the Washington Square apartment of Bobby Vallis—her full name was Roberta. There were soft lights and low divans and the strumming of a painted ukulele that sang its little twisted soul out under the caress of Penelope's white fingers. I can still see the big black opal in its quaint setting that had replaced her wedding ring and the yellow serpent of pliant gold coiled on her ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... previous, just before closing my eyes for that long sleep. I stood for some time silently looking about me. I saw that my companion was furtively regarding me with an expression of awed and sympathetic curiosity. I put out my hand to her and she placed hers in it, the soft fingers responding with a reassuring pressure to my clasp. Finally she whispered, "Had we not better go out now? You must not try yourself too far. Oh, how strange it must be ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... propitious and the thoughts of the young seaman were busy with the recollections of a short but adventurous life. At moments he leaned forward, as if he would catch the gentle respiration of one who slept beneath the dark and rude canopy, and as though he might distinguish the soft breathings of her slumbers from those of her companions. Then would his form fall back into its seat, and his lip curl, or even move, as he gave inward utterance to the wayward fancies of his imagination. But at no time, not even in ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... placed smoothly on the wooden table and secured firmly thereto by copper tacks. If the plate should be bent or buckled, it may be flattened by beating it with a heavy hammer, taking care to interpose a piece of inch-thick soft wood ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... went on to say, "are now passing out of the blue into the gray. After the holidays, when their hair becomes long, and their winter coat is quite grown, their hide is soft and tender, and tears easily when dressed, and it would be folly to kill them, even if there were no law against it." He went on to find a parallel to the case of the deer-skins in the hides of neat-cattle, which, when brought from a hot country, like South America, are firmer and tougher ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... separation of mother and child, of husband and wife. Sometimes they told her how Mary—so luxurious, so smiling, so avid of warmth and food and kisses—had shivered in that bleak wind, as she sat coatless, torn from David's sheltering embrace. They had given her elfish reminders of how soft, how pink, how perfumed was that woman's tender flesh. Then as she looked the blue eyes glazed with agony, the supple body grew rigid with cold, and down, down, through miles of water, sank the man ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... Nom de Dieu! that might be all very well, but there was no necessity to pull me out of bed to take care of me; and it was not till I had shown that my papers were all en regle, and threatened an appeal to the French Ambassador, that they gave me these soft words, and expressed their regret at my discomfiture. Du reste, what can you expect? they are only Prussians." This ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... answer, Alice, glancing through the window, caught sight of a very beautiful train standing before the veranda, and in a moment she found herself stepping on board with her friends, while a soft-spoken guard at the door was handing her an engraved card upon a silver salver "Respectfully Inviting Miss Alice to ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs

... Belle knew; her soft brown eyes could see much farther through the stone wall than could his piercing eyes of blue. She estimated at its true potency the passion that now threatened to wreck his career. A lover of horses always, an absolute worshipper of Blazing Star, he was barely held in restraint ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... preserves are made from the fruit, which was also eaten raw by the Indians. The leaves of the tree have medicinal properties and were used as poultices. Mabolo (Diospyros discolor—Willd.) signifies in Tagal a thing or fruit enclosed in a soft covering. The tree is not very high. The leaves are large, and incline to a red color when old. The fruit is red and as large as a medium-sized quince, and has several large stones. The inside of the fruit is white, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... that of the hind leg of an ox taken off at the knee, which is fitted to the foot of the wearer while green, turning the hair side inmost, and sewing up one of the ends, the skin of the knee serving for the heel. By being constantly worn and frequently rubbed with tallow, these shoes become as soft and pliant as the best dressed leather[85]. Though these mountaineers are valiant and hardy soldiers, yet are they fond of adorning themselves like women, decorating themselves with ear-rings and bracelets of glass-beads, with which also they ornament their hair, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... did not like to wait, and, least of all, for dinner. Wobbles knew that, and when he heard the soft gong of the clock in the lower hall beat seven times, and reflected that while four guests had been bidden to dinner only three had yet come, Wobbles was agitated. Mrs. Throcton, Mr. Maddledock's sister, ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... the sword, tie your hand to the hilt, and no man shall have a better will to do harm to the English. Frode the Dane will experience great pride when he looks out of Valhalla to-day." Putting out one great hand, he patted her soft curls as though she were some shaggy dog, then hurried out ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... my tent always standing, being a piece of a sail spread over poles, set up for that purpose, and which never wanted any repair or renewing; and under this I had made me a squab or couch with the skins of the creatures I had killed, and with other soft things, and a blanket laid on them, such as belonged to our sea-bedding, which I had saved; and a great watch-coat to cover me. And there, whenever I had occasion to be absent from my chief seat, I ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... flare. Night gradually came on. The warm fragrance of the lavender became cooler on the wings of the light evening breeze which now arose. From time to time a deep sigh fell on the ear as if that fearful land, consumed by ardent passions, had at length grown calm under the soft grey rain of twilight. Abbe Mouret, hat in hand, delighted with the coolness, once more felt ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... trackers were following up the footprints of a panther that had killed and carried off a young kid. He had crossed a wide bare slab which, of rock, of course, gave no mark of his soft feet. The tracker went at once to the far side of the rock where it came to a sharp edge; he wetted his finger, and just passed it along the edge till he found a few kid's hairs sticking to it. This showed him where ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... was not really very nice. Marie Louise realized it for the first time. Her fastidious right hand tried to escape from the embrace of the stranger's fingers, but they clung devil-fishily, and Lady Webling's soft cushion palm was there conniving in the abduction. And her voice had a ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... the gradations of social life. It was this opinion which mitigated kings into companions, and raised private men to be fellows with kings. Without force or opposition, it subdued the fierceness of pride and power; it obliged sovereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem, compelled stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a dominating vanquisher of laws ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... cream-tart. I beg your lordship's pardon for my imprudence in following you out of town; I was at that time not myself, and scarcely knew what I did. You dragged me after you, and the violence of the pull was so soft, that I could not withstand it. Agib, astonished at what Bedreddin said, replied thus: There is an excess in the kindness you express; and unless you engage, on oath, not to follow me when I go from hence, I will not enter your ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... it—without anger, without a word of reproach, with heartfelt wishes even for his happiness—the firmness of it, I say, left him no hope. He appealed to my compassion; he appealed to his love for me. You know what women are. I too was soft-hearted—I said, Very well: yes! In a week more (I tremble as I think of it) we ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... fifteen miles behind the wide headland gateway to the East, which guarded its entrance from the storming Atlantic. Its shores were of virgin forest, peopled with the delicate-hued spruce, and all the many other varieties of soft, white, long-fibred timber demanded in the manufacture of the groundwood pulp needed ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... upon as she came, led by the carnifex, her form, draped in soft, transparent linen, like that of a goddess in its outline, her face lighted even with that light of which ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller

... the exquisite services, were so generally talked of, that Mr. Underwood thought himself fortunate in obtaining the appointment. Mr. Bevan too, the Rector, was an exceedingly courteous, kindly-mannered man, talking in a soft low voice in the most affectionate and considerate manner, and with good taste and judgment that exceedingly struck and pleased the new curate. It was the more surprise to him to find the congregations thin, and a general languor and indifference about the people who attended the church. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... found in the pantry some cold tongue, bread, butter, cheese, and part of a cold pudding—very much nicer than cook ever made when they were at home. And in the kitchen cupboard was half a Christmassy cake, a pot of strawberry jam, and about a pound of mixed candied fruit, with soft crumbly slabs of delicious sugar in each cup of lemon, orange, ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... that many New Yorkers were familiar with the face of David Morrison. It was a peculiarly guileless, kind face for a man of sixty years of age; a face that looked into the world's face with something of the confidence of a child. It had round it a little fringe of soft, light hair, and above that a big blue Scotch bonnet of ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... the only person who can make any house of mine perfect. Will you?' He took her hand, which she did not withdraw from his grasp. He bent his head and kissed the little hand in its soft Swedish glove. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... that was far from being unpleasant to his gentle listener, whose inclinations, for a few minutes, blinded her to the resolutions already made on principle. So urgent was her suitor, indeed, that she should solemnly plight her faith to him, ere he sailed, that a soft illusion came over the mind of one as affectionate as Mary, and she was half-inclined to believe her previous determination was unjustifiable and obdurate. But the head of one of her high principles, and clear views of duty, could not long be deceived by her heart, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... the night; restless about my journey. Determined now to take the Fezzan route. Weather very soft, with murky clouds. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... screams when startled. This showed a fearful degree of physical weakness in one who was generally so self-controlled; and the medical man, whom at length, through Miss W—-'s entreaty, she was led to consult, insisted on her return to the parsonage. She had led too sedentary a life, he said; and the soft summer air, blowing round her home, the sweet company of those she loved, the release, the freedom of life in her own family, were needed, to save either reason or life. So, as One higher than she had over-ruled that for a time she might relax her strain, she returned ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... most certainly, let the patient be thoroughly bathed with warm soap suds, quite strong, in a room at the temperature of 90 to 100 deg., continuing the bathing and rubbing for an hour or more, then dry off the surface with soft cloths, and apply the Hepar sul. with water, at the strength of thirty drops of the strong alcoholic solution, with a gill of water, wetting every eruption on the whole surface and let it dry on. This causes some smarting, but it is effectual; ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill

... disappointed, and his disappointment had an angry spark in it. The sense of wasted time, of wasted hope and faith, kept him constant company. There were times when the beautiful things about him only exasperated his discontent. He went to the Pitti Palace, and Raphael's Madonna of the Chair seemed, in its soft serenity, to mock him with the suggestion of unattainable repose. He lingered on the bridges at sunset, and knew that the light was enchanting and the mountains divine, but there seemed to be something horribly invidious and unwelcome in the fact. He felt, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... lightest heart might moralize? Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids To watch their own repose? 25 Will they, when morning's beam Flows through those wells of light, Seek far from noise and day some western cave, Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds A lulling murmur weave?— 30 Ianthe doth not sleep The dreamless sleep of death: Nor in her moonlight chamber silently Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb, Or mark her delicate cheek 35 With interchange of hues mock the broad moon, Outwatching weary night, Without ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... you're a better man than the other fellow, down him. If he's the champion, enlist under him. But be in it. What's the use of being a kicker all your life? You only let some one else come in for the soft things, while you stay outside and gnaw your finger-nails and plot and plan and starve. You spend your life hoping to live to-morrow, while the Tausigs are living high to-day. The thing to do is to be humble if you can't be ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... Dr. Dudley took me to see. It's a 'Cherry-Pudding Story.'—Oh, you just wait till I put my coat and hat away, and change my dress!" Polly danced off, the young nurse following with a soft sigh. What should she ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... turned back to the quiet inn at which we had taken up our abode, and her mother, with her soft face, advanced to meet us, I ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of water, as rain, hail, or snow, in descending from the atmosphere, are not entirely without effect; for in acting upon the projections of solids, drops of water or particles of snow, and still more of hail, have a power of abrasion, and a very soft substance, from its mass assisting gravitation, may break a much harder one. The glacier, by its motion, grinds into powder the surface of the granite rock; and the Alpine torrents, that have their origin under glaciers, are always turbid, from the destruction ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... wanted it to be so clear!—was the maddest, merriest little mother that ever came back to haunt a lad. By holding tight to the memory he could see that her eyes were blue like his own, but her hair was black. He could hear the ring of her laugh as she told him Irish stories, and the soft drone of her voice as she sang him old Irish songs. It was she who told him about the fairies and witches that lived up behind the peat-flames. He remembered holding her hand and putting his cheek against it when the goblins came too near. Then the picture would ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... all times, it nevertheless reached its highest degree of comfort when the dusky green curtains were drawn, when the old wainscoted walls were lighted up by the red glow from the fire, and the well-worn books on the shelves were mellowed by the soft light into a uniform and respectable brown. One November evening, when without was the thickest of London fogs, Erica was sitting at her writing table with Friskarina on her lap, and Tottie curled up at her feet, preparing for one of her science classes, when she was interrupted by the sound ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... opportunity, that once gone might not come again; he soon guessed that this was the hour and power of darkness in the soul of Julia, the hour in which she would seek to flee from her own pride and mortification. And if Humphreys knew how to approach with a soft tread, very slowly and cautiously, he also knew—men of his "profession" always know—when to spring. He saw the moment, he made the ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... the soft spring twilight, Mr. Johnson walked up and down in front of the station, curiously scanning the faces of the assembled crowd. Presently he noticed a gentleman who was performing the same operation upon the faces of the alighting passengers. Throwing himself directly in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... always cheerful. If I did think of it at odd moments now and then, I had only to be busy and forget it. I felt it more than I had hoped I should once when a child said, "Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?" But when I found the child was not less fond of me, and drew its soft hand over my face with a kind of pitying protection in its touch, that soon set me up again. There were many little occurrences which suggested to me, with great consolation, how natural it is to gentle hearts ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... voice that sings, but I could feel no guilt. I heard men and women sing upon the village green, and I sang also. I heard bands of music. One instrument seemed to me more than all the rest. I bought one like it, and learned to play. It was the flute—its note so soft and pleasant. I learned to play it—years ago—in the woods of Beedon beyond the hill, and I have felt no guilt from then till now. For these ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... birds, but there was no singing. The forest was silent, and the only noises in it were the scratching of four-footed beasts, the dropping of fir cones, and the heavy stamping of the horse of power in the soft path. ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome

... the narrow paths made of sods of grass alongside the newly-metalled roads, because he thought they had been put there to make soft going for the bare feet of little children. Children knew, I think, that he wished them well. In Bellmullet on Saint John's eve, when we stood in the market square watching the fire-play, flaming sods of turf soaked in paraffine, hurled to the sky and caught and skied ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats

... blaame, too?" he said, turning to me. "Never be rash, young man, an' remember that a soft ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... darkness of the grave hang within its huge Egyptian columns. Corruption more loathsome than the mouldering remains of mortality dwells in those lone and accursed cells. I gazed on the massy walls, as they frowned on the soft blue sky, till their shadow seemed to darken the heavens. I thought of the inmate of one lonely cell; of the sighs and tears, the curses and wailings that had gone up from that abode of shame, despair, and misery; and I wondered why the Almighty did not rend the heavens and ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... over her work and then put before her face and eyes her two beautiful hands, rose-white, with long delicate nails pink-flushed and transparent; and tears, clearer than dewdrops, gushed between her ringers and fell in bright showers upon the embroidery. Then she arose and flung her soft white arms around Levarcam and wept on ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... not mentioned a quarter of the things to be found even in this pool," answered Gregson. "Ah, look at that soldier-crab now! He has just come out from among the sea-weed with his stolen shell in which he has stowed away his soft tail. I'll tell ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... there a soft whistle sounded from the bushes across the gully, and Jim Burdon pushed a ghostly face into ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... remounted the horse, barebacked but for his blanket-pad, and thrusting his knees in the loose girths, again dashed forwards,—with such good results that, as Van Loo galloped up to the stagecoach office, at the next station, and was about to enter the waiting coach for Marysville, the soft hand of Mr. Hamlin was laid ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... loved her; aye, months before that, when he merely looked his love, her heart had received the whisper, had acknowledged the glance, unconscious as she was herself, and resolved as she was to rebuke his advances. When, in her hearing, he had said soft nothings to Patience Oriel, a hated, irrepressible tear had gathered in her eye. When he had pressed in his warm, loving grasp the hand which she had offered him as a token of mere friendship, her heart had forgiven him the treachery, nay, almost ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... the only blanket he had, and made as soft a bed as possible. On this he laid Andy, who was fast asleep almost ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... in the soft lamplight like an enormous azalea in full bloom. She sat with folded hands humming a tune, not any known air, but one of those nasal harmonies women sometimes accomplish through their noses as a cat ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... with meaning. The stream, the whispering boughs, the rising breeze in the tree-tops joined in the soft chorus of their nuptial-song. The night fell, shrouded in mystery. Behind them over their shoulders a new moon rose, a harbinger of good fortune, but they did not turn to look at it. It could not foretell them a fortune that was already theirs. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... grim and gray no longer. Hilary felt as if she must be in some strange, delightful dream. The cool green of the wall paper, with the soft touch of pink in ceiling and border, the fresh white matting, the cozy corner opposite—with its delicate old-fashioned chintz drapery and big cushions, the new toilet covers—white over green, the fresh curtains at the windows, the cushioned window seats, the low table and sewing-chair, ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs

... can't. Never mind, Peter," said Lady Mary. She sat up, and lifted her pretty hands to smooth the soft waves of her brown hair. "So I'm to settle down happily in my Dower House, and take your aunts to ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... are applied together, it will be seen that the apposed ridges are nowhere parallel, but that they frequently cross; and that thus, in the act of mastication, a hard surface in the one is constantly applied to a soft surface in the other, and vice versa. They thus constitute a grinding apparatus of great efficiency, and one which is repaired as fast as it wears, owing to the long-continued growth of ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley

... contradictions of the same or like words, in all the books, show that the authors had no distinct ideas of what is right, and what is wrong;" and ignorantly imagines, that, "The use of ible rather than able, in any case, originated in the necessity of keeping the soft sound of c and g, in the derivatives; and if ible was confined to that use, it would be an easy and simple rule."—Red Book, p. 170. Hence, he proposes to write peacible for peaceable, tracible for traceable, changible ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... bookcases. The oil paintings which hung upon the walls belonged to a remote period. In a distant corner, four other men were playing bridge, speechless and almost motionless, the white faces of two of them like cameos under the electric light and against the dark walls. There was no sound except the soft patter of the cards and the subdued movements of a servant preparing another bridge table by the side of the three men. Then the door of the room was quietly opened and closed. A man of youthful middle-age, carefully dressed, ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... cadet began to figure out the plan of the ship, first locating the power deck by its roaring purr. He climbed a ladder to the next deck, walked slowly down the passageway toward what he thought to be the control room, and leaned against the hatch. He heard the soft tinkle of a radar signal and his heart skipped a beat. He had stumbled onto the astrogation and radar bridge. Wondering if he should burst into the room and attempt to overpower the men on duty, or wait for a better chance later, he was suddenly ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell

... a scout, eh?" he demanded. "Well, you watch me!" He planted the kitchen with a trackless forest through which boomed a wind off Lake Champlain. The forest was dark, mysterious. Through it, stealing on soft, moccasined feet, went Johnnie and the cruel Magua, following the trail of the fleeing ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... fellows are out in the open and take athletics say at a certain time every-day; These fellows are in good health and allert in their lessons, while those who take no exercise are logy and soft. Organized athletics in a school bring the former, while if a school has no athletics every-thing goes more or less slipshod, and the fellows are more liable to get into trouble, because they are nervious from having ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... from his father's knee. Again, the only sound to be heard in the room was the soft whick-whicker of the burning coal as the flames licked the chimney breast, or the occasional rustle of falling ash. Suddenly footsteps pounded up on the porch and the bell rang loudly. John opened the door, and Silvey came ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... been alive with signs and tokens, saying 'Spring is coming, Spring is here.' And though this may not be the 'merry month of May,' yet it is the time of glorious Golden Wattle,—wattle waving by the river's bank, nodding aloft its soft plumes of yellow and its gleaming golden oriflamme, or bending low to kiss its own image in the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris



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