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More "Soften" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scans thy beauty, a world of truth must read; Of life and hope and duty; our help in time of need. And I have read them often, those words so true and clear, What heart that would not soften, ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... no wise admitted the correctness of the President's statement of our conversations, though, to soften the evident contradiction my statement gave, I said (alluding to our first conversation on the subject) the President might have understood me the way he said, namely, that I had promised to resign if I did not resist the reinstatement. I ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... Fancy departs: no more invent; Contract thy firmament To compass of a tent. There's not enough for this and that, Make thy option which of two; Economize the failing river, Not the less revere the Giver, Leave the many and hold the few, Timely wise accept the terms, Soften the fall with wary foot; A little while Still plan and smile, And,—fault of novel germs,— Mature the unfallen fruit. Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, Bad husbands of their fires, Who when they gave thee breath, Failed to bequeath The needful sinew ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... benign, O Goddess! wear, Thy milder influence impart, Thy philosophic train be there, To soften, not to wound, my heart: The generous spark extinct revive; Teach me to love and to forgive; Exact my own defects to scan; What others are to feel, and ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... without intending to bring on any summer at all. In the whole month of May the sun scarce appeared three times. So that the early fruits came to the fullness of their growth, and to some appearance of ripeness, without acquiring any real maturity; having wanted the heat of the sun to soften and meliorate their juices. I saw the dropsy gaining rather than losing ground; the distance growing still shorter between the tappings. I saw the asthma likewise beginning again to become more troublesome. I saw the midsummer ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... her manners were gaining the finish that they had once perhaps lacked; in fact, she had found out that Sydney set a high value on social distinction and prestige; and, resolving to please him in this as in everything else, she had set herself of late to soften down any girlish harshness or brusquerie, such as Lady Pynsent used sometimes to complain of in her, and to develop the gracious softness of manner which Sydney liked ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... but yesterday," said Father Time, and his voice seemed to soften with the memory of bygone years. "I ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... taste but few of its sweets, would naturally feel attachment and respect for that code of morality, which, regarding the many hardships of their station, strove to alleviate its rigours, and endeavoured to soften its asperity. ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... long as nobody sees it but us?' You see, there is no medium in her mind between china and crystal and cracked earthenware. Well, I'm wondering how all these laws of the Medes and Persians are going to work when the children come along. I'm in hopes the children will soften off the old folks, and make ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "Oh, no'm," she said, with an effect of seeming to know that her refusal would hurt, and with the wish to soften ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... I know they are in Rome together Looking for Anthony: but all the charmes of Loue, Salt Cleopatra soften thy wand lip, Let Witchcraft ioyne with Beauty, Lust with both, Tye vp the Libertine in a field of Feasts, Keepe his Braine fuming. Epicurean Cookes, Sharpen with cloylesse sawce his Appetite, That sleepe and feeding may prorogue ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... reason of its achievements. Among other bits of fatherly counsel was this: "You are too young to write history. Make ready for such an enterprise slowly. Patiently collect your anecdotes and facts. Accept the opinions of other writers with reserve." As if to soften the severity of his advice, there follows a strain of modest self-depreciation: "Would that others had known less of me and I more of myself. Probe diu vivimus; may our descendants so live that they shall speak of me merely as one ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... in particular epitomize the record. In 1862 he admitted candidly that the paleontological record as then known, so far as it bears on the doctrine of progressive development, negatives that doctrine. In 1870 he was able to "soften somewhat the Brutus-like severity" of his former verdict, and to assert that the results of recent researches seem "to leave a clear balance in favor of the doctrine of the evolution of living forms ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... wood-fire and a most cheering odour of dinner, to which we did full justice, after having got rid of our saturated garments. Next morning we started on our return journey at daybreak, for it was necessary to get over the worst part of the road before the sun had had time to soften the snow, which the night's frost had so thoroughly hardened that we slipped over ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... See what great things they do every day, how much they divide amongst us, with how great crops they fill the earth, how they move the seas with convenient winds to carry us to all shores, how by the fall of sudden showers they soften the ground, renew the dried-up springs of fountains, and call them into new life by unseen supplies of water. All this they do without reward, without any advantage accruing to themselves. Let our line of conduct, if ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... all blank and desolate Was this poor man's earthly state; Hope, toil, content, can soften fate, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... terror of his midnight cries, can move the deepest caves, can shake the very foundations of the earth. "You are able both to call up the spirits that serve you and to act as their cruel and ruthless gaoler. Listen for once to a mother's prayers, and let them soften your heart." ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... during the drive home, he hardly saw the forest. Once a birch, whose faint leaves and branches dissolved in a glittering light, drew his thoughts away from Mildred. She lay upon his shoulder, his arm was affectionately around her, and, looking at him out of eyes whose brown seemed to soften in ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... have all the money! The little I have will go, too! We shall be left sitting in the street. And we might have a wooden house in San Francisco, and go to the theatre! Oh, Mother of God, why dost thou not soften the ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... and, above all, let the word of God dwell in you richly. Be much engaged in prayer. If troubles rise around you, the delightful thought that you have a Father, a Saviour, in heaven, with whom you are so happy as to hold communion, will not only soften their severity, but in a good degree elevate you ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... months did Ellen strive, By every tender care, To soften Edward's grief, and soothe The pain she wish'd ...
— The Keepsake - or, Poems and Pictures for Childhood and Youth • Anonymous
... his impatience to see me in the least slighted by my lady; and I said to Lord Davers, to soften matters, "Never, my lord, were brother and sister so loving in earnest, and yet so satirical upon each other in jest, as my good lady and Mr. B. But your ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... to find lodgings for the night. Knowing the King's hatred for animals, men feared to shelter this caravan. Only when John would pull from his breast the talisman of silver would they soften and yield to his wishes, wondering and almost worshiping, as the farmer had done on that first day. John himself was the most wondering of them all. For he saw no reason why the silver Cross should have such power. Sometimes he wondered if it was bewitched; ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... can't change me. There are various kinds of homely women—some who are hideous in blue maybe, but who soften up in pink. Then there's the one you read about, whose features are lighted up now and then by one of those rare, sweet smiles that make her plain face almost beautiful. But once in a while you find a woman who is ugly in any colour of the rainbow; ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... continued the deep voice, "may thy tender mercy and loving kindness visit the heart of our sinning sister here present and soften it, making her obedient to these thy servants, to whom Thou hast committed the ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... back to Porto Rico all the revenue derived from the customs we levy, does not seem to me to soften our dealings with her people. Our fathers were not mollified by the suggestion that the tea and stamp taxes would be expended wholly for the benefit of the colonies. It is to say: We do not need this money; it is only levied to show that your country is no ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... the years, and as far as was humanly possible she kept Jase working. She did not soften, except toward Billy Louise, who rode sometimes over from her father's ranch on the Wolverine to the flowery delights of the Cove. The place was a perfect jungle of sweetness, seven months of each year; for Marthy owned and indulged a love of beauty, even if she could not realize her dream ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... Although in his pictures there is still evidence of a very clear eye for mountainous formation and the architectonic adornment of the region, yet the monotonous, unnaturally tender and misty coloring indicates the effort to soften and equalize the contrast of forms, while life is introduced into the landscape only by means of the immeasurably rich accessories which make every rock, every valley, and especially the entire river, swarm with people. These are, in truth, cultural ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... original house was old, but while the fine bay-windows, massive porch, stately gables, and wide staircases, with their carved oak balustrades and pendants, had been preserved untouched, all such modern improvements had been added as would soften off the inconveniences of a less luxurious age. The park itself was remarkable for the size and grouping of its timber, and was well-stocked with deer. A fine sheet of water also spread itself out over ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... this singular courtship had been carried on, I have not been able to learn; nor how she has been able, with the vinegar of her disposition, to soften the stony heart of old Nimrod; so, however, it is, and it has astonished every one. With all her ladyship's love of match-making, this last fume of Hymen's torch has been too much for her. She has ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... yourself are not entirely free. I know I have been guilty of it in more than one instance to this very person; and I will own I did send Mr Dowling, not on a vain and fruitless enquiry, but to discover the witnesses, and to endeavour to soften their evidence. This, sir, is the truth; which, though I intended to conceal from ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... and under the breeze of an open window, if possible; make it the day before you use it, and put it on the ice between every "turn," as each rolling out is technically called; then leave it on the ice, as you use it, taking pieces from it as you need them, so that the warmth cannot soften the whole at once, when it would become quite unmanageable. The condition of the oven is a very important matter, and I cannot do better than transcribe the rules given by Gouffe, by which you may test ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... the deepest wounds are gradually healed, the keenest griefs are mitigated, and we, in character, feelings, tastes, and pursuits, become such altered beings, that but for some few indelible marks which past events must leave behind them, which time may soften, but can never efface; our very identity would be dubious. Who has not felt all this at one time or other? Who has not mournfully felt it? This trite, but natural train of reflection filled my mind as I approached the domain of Castle Connor some ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... for God's sake!" said Errington, in a low tone, resuming his seat. "What can be done to soften this fellow? Ah! Miss Liddell, we are quits now. If you robbed me, I ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... who had fought his attacking battalions to a standstill for sixty hours and here on his left flank was another Company of Americans who had twice attacked him and seemed never to stay defeated. April sun was likely to soften his winter road to mush very soon and then these Americans and their allies would ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... certainly helped 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 well as the frightful evil ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... and all was gay, though there was no butter. Peter Walsh came in while we were at tea, having righted the Tortoise and bailed her out, but he and Joseph Antony Kinsella went off together, which was just as well, for there weren't too many pancakes, and Lord Torrington, when he began to soften down a bit, turned out to be hungry. In the end we all went home together in Joseph Antony Kinsella's big boat, Lord Torrington having put on his clothes again and father's oilskins, which were providentially saved from ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... very sanctuary. Her every shaft is well directed, every arrow powerfully sent, every shot strikes the bull's eye in its centre. Her words are hailstones rattling fell and fast, but melt into and soften the heart on which they fall. Delusions disappear, cant and want of courtesy become odious, shams grow shameful, while all lovely things bloom lovelier in the light of truth emanating from this large brain, and poured through this living heart. We bask in its sunshine, growing strong and happy as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly to all she said, as a grown-up person listens ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... be hard, Celia; but no one can do it better than you. You will soften the blow. She will realise her debt to you, through me. Tell her that her future shall be cared for—but you know that I shall look after that. Celia, you, who are so quick, so acute, have divined the truth. It was for Miriam that I took on myself the forged cheque. I—cared ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... collected in these volumes, the general verdict of posterity will be sensibly modified. Those who judge him should bear in mind that perhaps no famous life has ever been so thoroughly laid bare, or scrutinised with greater severity. The tendency of biographers is to soften down errors and praise where they can; and in an autobiography the writer can tell his own story. But the assiduous searching out and publication of every letter and diary that can be gathered or gleaned is a different ordeal, which might try the reputation of most of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... herself, was to be taken from her in early life, and that the springs of all the lighter pleasures were to be thus stopped for her, had it not been well that in her bereavement so much had been done to soften her lot in life and give it grace and beauty? 'Twas so, she argued with herself, and yet she acknowledged to herself that she was not happy. She had resolved, as she herself had said often, to put ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... men who make a mock of holy things, Mistaken, and of man's best hope think scorn. The world does much to warp the heart of man; And I may sometimes join its idiot laugh: Of this I now complain not. Deal with me, Omniscient Father, as Thou judgest best, And in Thy season soften thou my heart. I pray not for myself: I pray for him Whose soul is sore perplexed. Shine thou on him, Father of Lights! and in the difficult paths Make plain his way before him: his own thoughts May he not think—his own ends not pursue— So shall ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... present at a sermon which, he perceived, was to finish with a collection for an object which had not his approbation. 'I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... old man who said, "How Shall I flee from this horrible Cow? I will sit on this stile, and continue to smile, Which may soften the heart of ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... Kaiser's fondness for his wife, nor his anxiety to please her, could soften the anger which he felt against his brother-in-law, and when after a prolonged voyage to India and elsewhere, the duke on landing at Trieste, ran over from there to the neighboring seaside resort of Abbazia, for the purpose ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Ingleborough saw much of this, and spent no little time in trying to soften the pangs endured by the brave lads who lay patiently bearing their unhappy lot, suffering the agony of wounds, and many ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... with ticks should be sponged or dipped at once with one part Pratts Dip and Disinfectant to 20 parts water. Repeat in ten days. This will not only kill the ticks but cure mange, soften the hair and make ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... and he had seen it at St. Johnswort that morning when St. John supposed his house to have been invaded by burglars. He vainly turned over a thousand deprecatory expressions in his mind, with which to soften the blow but he let his letter ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... cover from the packet, exposing the back of what seemed to be a photograph. Holding this to the light, its face invisible to Amber, he studied it for several minutes, in silence, a tender light kindling in his eyes to soften the almost ascetic austerity of his expression. "In the end, if you live, you shall win a rich reward," he said at length. He placed the photograph face down upon ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... the others leaned forward and spoke in a lower tone. "This Harrison promised the general to bring back with him the Gringo Yeager. Old Gabriel is crazy to get the Yankee devil in his hands. Not so? Harrison brings him a woman instead to soften his ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... his salvation, would have been the very crown and climax of her happiness— but the way of the cross was to be hers. The Father appointed to examine the young candidate thought him disqualified for religion; anxious, however, to soften the pain of an absolute refusal, he suggested that there might be a better chance at a future period, when the novitiate was less crowded. An ever-ruling Providence had destined the youth for another Order, and when God's time came, the disqualifications ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... two cantos of the Souvenirs he seemed half ashamed of the homeliness of the tale he had undertaken to relate. Should he soften and brighten it? Should he dress it up with false lights and colours? For there are times when falsehood in silk and gold are acceptable, and the naked new-born truth is unwelcome. But he repudiated the thought, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... if these things, in their benignant, admonishing, reminding beauty, had not restored his decency, he was bound to soften and unbend, when, as they were going over the rustic bridge, Stanny tried to turn himself upside down among the water lilies. And as he captured Stanny by a miracle of dexterity, just in time, he realized, as if ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... feel, as I know I say, Thy will be done! Little Ernest is the very picture of health and beauty. He has vitality enough for two children He and his little sister will make very interesting contrasts as they grow older. His ardor and vivacity will rouse her, and her gentleness will soften him. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... taken to the capital, Tai-Wan-Foo. The Bengalis were beheaded immediately. It was touch and go whether the white men would suffer the same fate, when a brilliant idea struck the ship's carpenter. Why not seek to soften the hearts of his captors by a kotow as profound as it was novel; why not stand on his head? He did, with the happiest results. The Formosans, delighted with this feat of submission, spared the lives of himself and his companions and kept them in ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... masters, and without violence, throw both their natural and legal authority at your feet. We are made of different tempers, that our defects may be mutually supplied. Your sex wanteth our reason for your conduct, and our strength for your protection; ours wanteth your gentleness to soften, and entertain us. The first part of our life is a good deal subjected to you in the nursery, where you reign, without competition, and by that means, have the advantage of giving the first impressions. Afterwards ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... more to be remembered and thought of than if I had never existed. How different it would be if I were the leader! Zounds, how I would worry the witnesses, browbeat the evidence, cajole the jury, and soften the judges! If the Lord were, in His mercy, to remove old Mills and Kinshella before Tuesday, who knows but my fortune might be made? This supposition once started, set me speculating upon all the possible chances that might cut off two king's counsel in three ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Dolce has painted for his ivory-toned madonnas,—a face which now seemed ready to expire under the increasing attacks of physical pain. You might have thought her the apparition of an angel sent from heaven to soften the iron will of the ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... that it was all in vain. I am your slave, said he, you may dispose of me as you please: but I declare unto you that I am extremely poor, and not able to redeem myself. In a word, my brother discovered to him all his misfortunes, and endeavoured to soften him with tears; but the Beduin had no mercy; and, being vexed to find himself disappointed of a considerable sum, which he reckoned he was sure of, he took his knife, and slit my brother's lips, to avenge himself, by this ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... of washerwomen, all the world over, is the same—that they are kind soft-hearted folks. Possibly the soap-suds they almost live in find their way into their hearts and tempers, and soften them. This Scutari washerwoman is no exception to the rule, and welcomes me most heartily. With her, also, are some invalid nurses; and after they have gone to bed, we spend some hours of the night ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... exceedingly; and all the way from the Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said, when I repeated it; and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to console Isabella. I daresay she had been on the watch for me since morning: I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden causeway, and I nodded to her; but she drew back, as if afraid of ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... Patty shook her head sadly—"she might think I'd got you to do it. I seen she took it to heart, you're turnin' agin her so, and I didn't believe you'd 'a' done it if you'd known all. I wanted to go up and see yer, for I knew you'd soften, but no, she wouldn't let me. She said she'd never forgive me ef I did. No; she'd think I'd been a puttin' ye up to it." Aunt Patty dried her ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... flinch. She had listened without a word, with a relentless expression which grew harder and harder as Therese's confessions became precise. No emotion seemed to soften her and no remorse to penetrate her being. At most, towards the end, her thin lips shaped themselves into a faint smile. She was holding her prey in ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... the filaments, the finer structure of the lichens is often difficult to study, and free use of caustic potash is necessary to soften ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... never heard; at the door his smile always faded. In this commercial sanctuary were enforced the exactions that made the plantation thrive. Outside, in the yard, in the "big house," elsewhere under the sky, a plea of distress might moisten his eyes and soften his heart to his own financial disadvantage, but under the moss-grown shingles of the office all was business, hard, uncompromising. It was told in the neighborhood that once, in this inquisition of affairs, he demanded the ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... bits having been cut off, the beads are now rolled in fine sand, which has been carefully heated in earthen jars, until just warm enough to soften the outside of the glass, so that a gentle friction would rub off the sharp edges. The sand gets into the holes in the beads, prevents them from closing up during this process, and ere we can believe it possible, they come forth round, perfect, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... the cap'n had been schoolfellows, though he was older, and often she treated him with scanty ceremony; now, after she had tossed him that aged formula of banter, she laughed to soften it. But ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... opposition could be expected from that quarter. The Swedish monarch was rendered propitious to the project by assurances that the house of Hesse-Cassel, of which he was the head, should be elevated into an electorate. They even endeavoured to soften his Prussian majesty, by consenting, at last, that the treaty of Dresden, confirming to him the possession of Silesia, should be guaranteed by the diet of the empire; a sanction which he now actually obtained, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the death of Lohiau, his best friend, Paoa, came before Pele determined to invite death by pouring out the vials of his wrath on the head of the goddess. The sisters of Pele sought to avert the impending tragedy and persuaded him to soften his language and to forego mere abuse. Paoa, a consummate actor, by his dancing, which has been perpetuated in the hula Pele, and by his skillfully-worded prayer-songs, one of which is given above, not only appeased Pele, but ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... me, and seal'd me for perdition..."). However, a benevolent deity touches him with the finger of grace, enabling him to repent ("I wish'd for ease, a moment's ease, that cool repentance and contrition might soften vengeance"). He can now pray for mercy and in his dying moments is vouchsafed assurance of forgiveness ("Yet Heaven is gracious—I ask'd for hope, as the bright presage of forgiveness, and like a light, blazing thro' darkness, ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... his saints he bless'd, And soften'd every bed; Where should the dying members rest, But with the ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... to her as to a child. She kept her eyes closed, as she had always done when anything overwhelmed her. She lay back on his arm, and he felt her body tremble at the sound of his voice. Her tears seemed to soften her, and from the yielding of her body now he could see how stiffly she must have held herself, and was filled with joy. It had all been for his sake, and with a tremendous effort of her will she had defied fate ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... listening. The genuine emotion in Chase's voice was as strong as the ring of truth. Belding knew truth when he heard it. The revelation did not surprise him. Belding did not soften, for he devined that Chase's emotion was due to the probing of an old wound, the recalling of a past both happy and painful. Still, human nature was so strange that perhaps kindness and sympathy might yet have a place in this Chase's heart. Belding did not believe so, but he was willing ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... as if he knew a good deal; and he was very handsome. Though I hate him, I can't help seeing he is handsome, but cruel and hard—yes, hard as nails, as poor grandfather said. I might as well try to soften that ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... yet he had sheer destruction before his eyes, for we ourselves had forewarned him not to slay the king nor wed his wife, or vengeance would come by Atreides' son Orestes, whene'er he should grow to manhood and long for his home. So spake our messenger, but with all his wisdom he did not soften the heart of Aigisthos, and now he has paid in full' (Odyssey, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... you, His mercy ready for you." You feel too weak to change. Ask God's Spirit to give you a strength of will you never felt before. You feel too proud to change. Ask God's Spirit to humble your proud heart, to soften your hard heart; and you will find to your surprise that when your pride is gone, when you are utterly ashamed of yourself, and see your sins in their true blackness, and feel unworthy to look up to God, that then will come a nobler, holier, manlier feeling—self-respect, and a clear conscience, ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... be ruled against her will. The lever for raising the standard of living was the eight-hour day. Increase the worker's leisure and you will increase his wants; increase his wants and you will immediately raise his wages. Although he occasionally tried to soften his doctrine by the argument that a shorter work-day not only does not decrease but may actually increase output, his was a distinctly revolutionary doctrine; he aimed at the total abolition of profits ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... for a fresh wound of any kind. In winter, when wormwood is dry, it is necessary to soften it in warm vinegar, or spirit, before it is bruised, ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... but every year hitherto she had knocked at that door in vain; her father was inexorable. Her brother, her only means of communication, had not come to see her for four years, and had sent her no assistance; yet she prayed to God to unseal her father's eyes and to soften her brother's heart, and no accusations mingled with her prayers. Mme. Couture and Mme. Vauquer exhausted the vocabulary of abuse, and failed to find words that did justice to the banker's iniquitous conduct; but while they heaped execrations on the millionaire, Victorine's words were ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... being verily the creator and teacher of iniquity. Thus then she spake with fawning words entangling him, right and left, around with her toils and meshes, and she began to shake the citadel of his soul, and to slacken his tension of purpose, and to soften the temper of his mind. Then the sower of these evil tares, and enemy of the righteous, when he saw the young man's heart wavering, was full of joy, and straightway called to the evil spirits that were with him, crying, "Look you how yond damsel hasteth to bring to pass all that we were unable ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... produce has been much improved, and the demand for it has been steadily growing. Many roasters who formerly used Rios straight for their lower grades, have changed to Victorias, not only to improve the appearance of the roast, but to soften the harsh drinking qualities of the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... coquette. Her delighted conception of herself is that she is the object of every man's admiration. I noticed her this morning playing a tune with her fingers on the old bathing-man's arm, as he was preparing to take her into the water, and I saw his mahogany face soften. In her indescribable childish way she would coquet with a tax-collector or a rag-and-bone man or the Archbishop of Canterbury. But she has committed no grave indiscretion, and I am sufficiently her lord ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... really could not: besides, she could not, in justice and politeness to the other friends who were to be in her house, suffer them to be exposed to such torments. Lady Mary Crawlev did not give herself any trouble to soften her expressions, because she would have been really glad if they had given offence, and if Mrs. Germaine had resented her conduct, by declining to pay that annual visit which was now become, in the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... believe she is right," Mrs. Flaxman said, with an air of sudden conviction. "We are not half thankful enough for our blessings and persist in wearing the peas in our shoes for penance, when we might as well soften them like that wise-hearted Irishman. It would be a blessing if Medoline had medicine for other griefs ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... thing that you can do, you see, is to leave your family and come and live with me. At first we will go away from Paris; you can be confined in the country. We can put the child out to nurse; they will take care of the little brat, of course. And later, perhaps, my mother will soften and will understand that we must marry. No, truly, the more I think of it, the more I believe that that is the best way to do. Yes! I know very well it will be hard to leave your home, but what can you do, my darling? You can write your ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... which one might have expected from a poet. Rather it is the design of a man endowed with a genuine artistic temperament, but with a strange desire to leave some showy and tangible memorial of his labours. His ambition is not to stir men's souls with profound thought, or to soften by some new harmonies the weary complaints of suffering humanity, but to startle the world by the splendid embodiment in solid marble of the most sumptuous dreams of a cultivated imagination. Contarini ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... despair of Iroquois Annie. She is the only thing I can get in the way of hired help out here, and yet she is hopeless. She is sullen and wasteful, and she has never yet learned to be patient with the children. I try to soften and placate her with the gift of trinkets, for there is enough Redskin in her to make her inordinately proud of anything with a bit of flash and glitter to it. But she is about as responsive to actual kindness as a diamond-back ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you—alas, it is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and as it were to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child! Father Anfim taught me to love children. The kind, silent man used often on our wanderings to spend the farthings given us on sweets and cakes for the children. He could not pass by a child without emotion. That's ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... were to each other, that only they two should ever exactly understand. It was a tone that always softened Gypsy, in her gayest frolics, in her wildest moods. For the first time since she had known Peace, it failed to soften her now. ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... you thinking of?' 'My dear Garens, you can do this quite well. It will even be very funny. We are well bred, by jove! and we will put on our most distinguished manners and our grandest style. Tell the Abbe who we are, make him laugh, soften him, seduce him and persuade ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... memories of fleshly limitation and untruth. To survive, she had been forced to lock her heart; to hold every hope in the cold white fingers of fear; cruelly to curb the sweep of feminine outpouring, lest its object soften into chaos; and roused womanhood, returning empty—overwhelm. This is the sorriest ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... himself) was not really pretty at all, only so full of expression, changing with every breath of feeling. The eyes, which had only been brown a moment before, leaped up into globes of light, yet not too dazzling, with some liquid medium to soften their shining. Even though you know that a girl is in love with another man, that she thinks of you no more than of the old gardener who has just hobbled round the corner, it is pleasant to be able to change the whole aspect of affairs to her ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... As well try to soften a sphinx. Sinclair carried the dripping bucket on the side nearest the girl and thereby gained valuable distance. "I'm mighty glad it's you and not one of the rest," confided Sally, still ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... introduced to her as Miss Gerhardt, who knew what the Kane family thought. Of course her present position, the handsome house, the wealth of Lester, the beauty of Vesta—all these things helped to soften the situation. She was apparently too circumspect, too much the good wife and mother, too really nice to be angry with; but she had a past, and that had ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... shake No. 6's faith in her own wisdom, a good effect would be produced by listening to it. Also it was not a bad thing now and then to hear of other people having to bear trials which have not fallen to our own lot. It must surely have a tendency to soften the heart, and make us feel more dependent upon the God who gives and takes away. On the whole, therefore, she would tell the story, so she made No. 6 sit quietly down again, ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... remnant that would come back. And then the Black Burgundians, the horrible English ogres, whose names would make the children shudder! No God-den(2) had got so far as Domremy; there was no personal knowledge to soften the picture of the invader. He was unspeakable as the Turk to the imagination of the French peasant, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... you take it? There was a chance for me once, you said; is it impossible to recall it? Never shake your head, but hear me; say you will hear me a year hence. If I come back to you and bring you fame, will that please you? If I do what you desire most—what he who is dead desired most—will that soften you?" ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Surangama, what freedom! It is my defeat that has brought me freedom. Oh, what an iron pride was mine! Nothing could move it or soften it. My darkened mind could not in any way be brought to see the plain truth that it was not the King who was to come, it was I who ought to have gone to him. All through yesternight I lay alone on the dusty floor before that window—lay there through the desolate hours and wept! All ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... defiant face—with a face which showed premonitions of exultation. Farnsworth felt sure of his game, but he found breathing so laborious that he did not show any emotion. Masters thought it best to soften the humiliation of his associate as much as possible by forestalling his proposition. So at the first moment he suggested to the directors that the bank needed new force, on account both of his own advancing years and of Mr. Farnsworth's ill-health, much aggravated by his excessive ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... warmth of their interview, though tender and innocent, would be apt to escape the censure of our stricter readers. Both were depressed by the prospect that lay before them, for Connor frankly assured her that he feared no earthly circumstances could ever soften his father's heart so far as to be prevailed upon to ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... held suspended at the end of his finger the thread of his royal life. Every word that fell from Fouquet's lips, and which he thought most efficacious in procuring his friend's pardon, seemed to pour another drop of poison into the already ulcerated heart of Louis XIV. Nothing could bend or soften him. Addressing himself to Fouquet, he said, "I really don't know, monsieur, why you should solicit the pardon of these men. What good is there in asking that which can be obtained ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sole, half-hidden by mussels, had been placed before him. Manders had taken trouble about the luncheon; he was a good fellow and had tried to soften the blow; throughout the time that they had worked together he had been patient and very human; he was trying to part now on a pleasant note. "Anything you like to send me . . ." It would certainly be read; for a time he would read it himself—the next three failures, say. And then . . . Eric ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... Marechal could not survive the loss of his royal master's favour, or stand up against the enmity the King's explanations had created against him; he died a few months after consumed with grief, and with an affliction nothing could soften, and to which the King was insensible to such a point, that he made semblance of not perceiving that he had lost a servitor so useful and so illustrious. Vauban, justly celebrated over all Europe, was regretted in France by all who were ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Lute sighed. "Hospitality is as natural to them as the act of breathing. But it isn't that, after all. It is all genuine in their dear hearts. No matter how severe the censure they put upon you when you are absent, the moment they are with you they soften and are all kindness and warmth. As soon as their eyes rest on you, affection and love come bubbling up. You are so made. Every animal likes you. All people like you. They can't help it. You can't help it. You are universally lovable, and the best of it is that you don't know ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... Where sin abounded to condemn, grace hath much more abounded to justify. Where sin abounded to corrupt, grace hath much more abounded to purify. Where sin abounded to harden, grace hath much more abounded to soften and subdue. Where sin abounded to imprison men, grace hath much more abounded to proclaim liberty to the captives. Where sin abounded to break the law and dishonor the Lawgiver, grace hath much more abounded to repair the breach ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... Yankee were keenly anxious to revise the text for their English readers. Clemens wrote that he had already revised the Yankee twice, that Stedman had critically read it, and that Mrs. Clemens had made him strike out many passages and soften others. He added that he had read chapters of it in public several times where Englishmen were present and had profited by ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... bestirred themselves to help the sufferer. Pentecost passed the bottle of brandy over the counter; half a dozen men ran to the spring for cold water; others hastily tore off coats, and even shirts, with which to soften a bench for the wounded man. No one went for the Doctor, for that worthy had been viewing the fight professionally from the first, and had knelt beside the wounded man at exactly the right moment. After a brief examination, he gave his opinion ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... usual. Ah! it's hard to be poor, JONES! A merry Christmas to us all. Here's my carriage come for me." And even in returning to their homes from their daily avocations, on Christmas Eve, how the most grasping, penurious souls of men will soften to the world's unfortunate! Who is this poor old lady, looking as though she might be somebody's grandmother, sitting here by the wayside, shivering, on such an Eve as this? No home to go?—Relations all dead?—Eaten nothing in ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... her. Then he asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man next to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was a forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able to control and soften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that the others had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about what he had done reawakened my old interest in the life I had put ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... from Hanlon's face, his breathing was quick and rasping. The admiral's heart went out to him in sympathy, but he had to keep on. Now, though, he tried to soften ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... with the porter, and I obtained egress or ingress at any hour. I was a proficient on the guitar; and incongruous as it may appear with my monastic vows, I often hastened from the service at vespers to perform in a serenade to some fair senora, whose inamorato required the powers of my voice to soften her ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... come up against the bedrock of her integrity; it is terrible. She has eternal youth, eternal fair hair, cold and ignorant judgments. On things relating to the world I can't further soften her; a man must do ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... the poor man's music, and that flowers are the poor man's poetry. They are "a discipline of humanity," and may sometimes ameliorate even a coarse and vulgar nature, just as the cherub faces of innocent and happy children are sometimes found to soften and purify the corrupted heart. It would be a delightful thing to see the swarthy cottagers of India throwing a cheerful grace on their humble sheds and small plots of ground with those natural embellishments which no productions of ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... made a defence of the royal prerogatives a part of their religion, and that some have gone even so far as to deny that in Prussia a Christian can be anything but a Conservative. It cannot but serve to soften many prejudices against this party to know that men like the venerable Professor Tholuck, of Halle, are decided supporters of the Government, and regard the triumph of the Liberal party as almost equivalent to the downfall ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... woman's reproaches. But think not, O bewildered and not-with-sufficient-distinctness-discerning-the-nature-of-things Titmouse! that she hath only a sharp and bitter tongue. In this woman behold a mother, and it may be that she will soften before you, who have plainly, as I hear, neither father nor mother. ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... to soften her, to win a kind word from her, from anyone, had passed away. He was beginning to take command of her as in ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... manner savoured sometimes of gruffness, while his direct, unadorned method of expressing himself harmonized well with his rough-hewn, immobile features and somewhat sluggish movements. His education was not fitted to soften these peculiarities. During the first twenty years of his life he had no prospect of succeeding to the throne, because he had an elder brother, Nicholas, who seemed of a fairly robust constitution. Even when this elder brother showed symptoms of delicate health it was ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Persian dyes have been used no mark should remain on the cloth. However, even without resorting to this, it must be a very poor eye indeed that cannot recognise at once the terrible raw colours of aniline from the soft, delicious tones of vegetable dyes, which time can only soften but never discolour. ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... no astonishment at the other's disclosures. The smoldering fire remained in his eyes, the immobility of his face unchanged. Only when Alan repeated, in his own words, Mary Standish's confession of love at Nawadlook's door did the fighting lines soften about his comrade's ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... Editor.) Uneasy at not seeing my mother arrive, I took horse to go and meet her, in order to soften as much as was in my power, the news which she had to learn upon her return; but I lost myself like her, in the uniform plains of the Vendomois, and it was only in the middle of the night that a fortunate chance conducted me to the gate of the chateau where the rites ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... food, where it may swell, soften, and be partly ground up. All birds are fond of eating sand ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... message upon the French spoliation claims, his cabinet were aghast and begged him to soften its tone. Upon his refusal, it is said, they stole to the printing-office and did it themselves. But the proofs came back for Jackson's perusal. The lad who brought them was the late Mr. J. S. Ham, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... that strike a greater chill than the scanty notices of early dentists and dentistry that appear at the latter part of the past century. The glory of having a Revolutionary patriot for a workman cannot soften the hard plainness of speech of this advertisement in the Boston Evening Post ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... can tell you. God's great goodness will do this for you. Listen," she said, putting up her hand to stay his words, "God is bringing a great joy to you to shame you and to soften you. Here, read this." She handed him Iola's letter, went to the window, and stood with her back to him, looking out upon ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... Ghost, who is the third person in the Holy Trinity, is very God: not made, not created, not begotten, but proceeding from both the Father and the Son, by a certain mean unknown unto men, and unspeakable; and that it is His property to mollify and soften the hardness of man's heart when He is once received thereinto, either by the wholesome preaching of the Gospel, or by any other way: that he doth give men light, and guide them unto the knowledge of God; to all way of truth; to newness of the ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... mild when thou wert by, The flippant put himself to school And heard thee, and the brazen fool Was soften'd, and he knew ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... for a poor, weak cow. The loss was not crippling, but it was greater than he had expected. He remembered certain biting storms which had hidden deep the grasses, and certain short-lived chinooks that had served only to soften the surface of the snow so that the cold, coming after, might ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... did not let her see. At last she soften'd her dispraise, On learning you had bought for me A carriage and a pair of bays. But here she comes! You take her in To dinner. I impose this task Make her approve my love; and win What thanks from me you choose ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... then and there. He would not remain a day longer between the two women. The mere sight of their intimacy was hateful to him. He would go away without a word. He knew the danger of leave-takings between people who love, knew how they soften us and disarm us. He wanted none of those compromises and evasions. Temptation, even if we resist it, is a fault ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... Unity ashore in order to clean her bottom, and the following day the Horn was hauled up for the same purpose, at a distance of about two hundred yards from her consort. It was providential that she was thus far. It being necessary to soften the old pitch off her bottom, to which barnacles and mud were sticking, they lighted a fire beneath her bottom. As they were in a hurry to perform the operation, they threw on more sticks and reeds, scattering the fire along her whole length. While they ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... authority, was indeed composed in the main of Asiatics, disciplined after the Greek model; but it was officered entirely by men of Greek or Macedonian parentage. Nothing was done to keep up the self-respect of Asiatics, or to soften the unpleasantness that must always attach to being governed by foreigners. Even the superintendence over the satraps seems to have been insufficient. According to some writers, it was a gross outrage offered by a satrap to an Asiatic subject that stirred ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... of the Government who had been assailed declared that Mr. O'Mahony had not as yet been quite long enough in the House to learn the little details of Parliamentary language; Mr. O'Mahony would no doubt soften down his eloquence in course of time. But the Speaker would not be content with this, and was about to order the sinner to be carried away by the Sergeant-at-Arms, when a friend on his right and a friend on his left, and a friend behind him, all whispered ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... resulting from the handling of the best steam coals (which are very brittle) are obtainable in large quantities and find no other use. Some varieties of lignite, when crushed and pressed at a steam heat, soften sufficiently to furnish compact briquettes without requiring any cementing material. Briquettes of this kind are made to a large extent from the tertiary lignites in the vicinity of Cologne; they are used mainly for house fuel ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... may as well use question with the wolf Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb; You may as well forbid the mountain pines To wag their high tops and to make no noise, When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven; You may as well do any thing most hard, As seek to soften that—than which what's harder?— His Jewish heart: therefore, I do beseech you, Make no more offers, use no farther means, But with all brief and plain conveniency Let me have judgment, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... of the wretched people who, for an entire year, had been witnesses of the immeasurable wrath of God. They could not be delivered from fear and terror by an occasional word. There was need of repeating the promise with much exposition to dry their tears and to soften their grief. For, though they were saints, they were flesh, even as ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... sack, quite at his ease, and demanded of Broadway certain canned delicacies, his appetite seeming to have a finer edge to correspond with his rising courage. He even hinted that Broadway's stock was not very complete, and that some early strawberries might soften a few of the asperities ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... shook and straightened the blankets, and smote the bear-grass pillows with his fists, he told himself that he would cut some fresh pine boughs to soften it a little as soon ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... shook her head sadly—"she might think I'd got you to do it. I seen she took it to heart, you're turnin' agin her so, and I didn't believe you'd 'a' done it if you'd known all. I wanted to go up and see yer, for I knew you'd soften, but no, she wouldn't let me. She said she'd never forgive me ef I did. No; she'd think I'd been a puttin' ye up to it." Aunt Patty ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... daughters and several girls, who were friends or relatives of his family, shared many of our lessons, also contributed essentially to soften the manners of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Time failed to soften the captain's ideas concerning his son's engagement, and all mention of the subject in the house was strictly forbidden. Occasionally he was favoured with a glimpse of his son and Miss Kybird out together, a sight which imparted such a flavour to his temper and ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... wishes for marbles, or fine clothes, the trappings of his luxury will harm no one; but with soldiers and arms I would not furnish him. If he demands, as a great boon, actors and courtesans and such things as will soften his savage nature, I would willingly bestow them upon him. I would not furnish him with triremes and brass-beaked ships of war, but I would send him fast sailing and luxuriously-fitted vessels, and ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... said, "but I must have my walk. Play to your sombre friend, Schaaf, and see if you can soften ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... persecution by Napoleon concerning his being elected a member of the French Institute. I was in too much disturbance to be able to clearly listen to the narrative, but I perfectly recollect that the censor, to soften Napoleon, had sent back the manuscript to M. de Chteaubriand, with an intimation that no public discourse could be delivered that did not contain an loge of the Emperor. M. de Chteaubriand complied with the ordinance; but whether the forced praise was too feeble, or whether the aversion ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... hurt me, or not give me any food,—or that you will not go on caring about me more than anything else in the whole world ten times over;—" And Lily as she spoke tightened the embrace of her mother's arm round her neck. "I'm not afraid you'll be hard in that way. But you must soften your heart so as to be able to mention his name and talk about him, and tell me what I ought to do. You must see with my eyes, and hear with my ears, and feel with my heart;—and then, when I know that you have done that, I must judge with ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... missionary, who, about to start for Africa, marries wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her fulfill the conditions of her uncle's will, and how they finally come to love each other and are reunited after experiences that soften and purify. ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... of Maud de Valois, the late queen." Alarmed, and not without reason, at such plain speaking, they stopped the press, and went back to Buchanan's house. Buchanan was in bed. "He was going," he said, "the way of welfare." They asked him to soften the passage; the king might prohibit the whole work. "Tell me, man," said Buchanan, "if I have told the truth." They could not, or would not, deny it. "Then I will abide his feud, and all his kin's; pray, ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... above me; and I would frequent the mixed companies of men and women of fashion, which, though often frivolous, yet they unbend and refresh the mind, not uselessly, because they certainly polish and soften the manners. ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... January, and abolished the old laws with reference to marriage, by which young people had no power of choice; but he decreed that no marriage should take place unless an intimacy had existed between the parties for at least six months. He instituted balls and assemblies, to soften the manners of the people. He encouraged the theatre, protected science, invited eminent men to settle in Russia, improved the courts of justice, established posts and post-offices, boards of trade, a vigorous police, hospitals, and alms-houses. He imported Saxony sheep, erected linen, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... helped 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 ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... us two sacks of hay to soften the rocks," said Uncle George, "and a lantern and some candles, lest they get frightened of one another in the dark,"—which I knew could never happen. All the same, Carette asked, "Is it dark ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... said to the women and children, "These skins are ready to soften. Come, join hands and show Fleetfoot ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... "advoutrers," to reconcile herself with Angus as her true husband, or out of mere natural affection for her daughter, whose excellent beauty and pleasant behaviour, nothing less godly than goodly, furnished with virtuous and womanly demeanour, should soften her heart. That she should be reputed baseborn cannot be avoided, except the queen will relinquish the "advoutrous" company with him that is not, nor may not be, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... less certain that it is silent; the deepest wounds are gradually healed, the keenest griefs are mitigated, and we, in character, feelings, tastes, and pursuits, become such altered beings, that but for some few indelible marks which past events must leave behind them, which time may soften, but can never efface; our very identity would be dubious. Who has not felt all this at one time or other? Who has not mournfully felt it? This trite, but natural train of reflection filled my mind as I approached the domain ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... followed the Secretary's lead, and kept his voice low. "I like to think so, Mr. Secretary." He recognized that Condley was preparing him for something, and he recognized that the preliminary statements were calculated to soften him. And he recognized the fact that they did soften him. ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... know how to keep his secret that time," returned Mrs. Pendleton with a smile calculated to soften ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... And, a moment afterwards, the coach drove away, and he actually heard the old dignitary lumbering up stairs, and bestowing a curse upon each particular step, as if that were the method to make them soften and become easier when he should come down again. "Pray, your worship," said the Doctor from above, "let me attend you ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her independent spirit, and perhaps fearing an outcry if they sequestered her too closely, had thought to soften her resistance by placing her in a convent noted for its leniencies; but to Fulvia such surroundings were more repugnant than the strictest monastic discipline. The corruption of the religious orders was a favourite topic with her father's friends, and the Venetian ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... good deal more than I quite know what to do with, it seems to me a very ignoble one. It chokes up everything that makes life worth living; it leaves so little time for the constant and regular practice of those ingenuous arts which faithfully to have learned is said to soften the manners, and make one an agreeable person ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... judgment, the highest gratification of which my mind is susceptible, and will, during the remainder of a life which is hastening to an end, and in moments of retirement better adapted to calm reflection than I have hitherto experienced, alleviate the pain and soften any cares, which are yet to be encountered, though hid from me ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... King James's removal to England soften this horrible persecution. In Sir Thomas Hamilton's Minutes of Proceedings in the Privy Council, there occurs a singular entry, evincing plainly that the Earl of Mar, and others of James's Council, were becoming fully sensible of the desperate iniquity and inhumanity of ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... sullen Catos, whatsoe'er they say, Even while they frown, and dictate laws, obey. You, mighty sir,[52] our bonds more easy make, And gracefully, what all must suffer, take: Above those forms the grave affect to wear; For 'tis not to be wise to be severe. True wisdom may some gallantry admit, And soften business with the charms of wit. 20 These peaceful triumphs with your cares you bought, And from the midst of fighting nations brought. You only hear it thunder from afar, And sit in peace the arbiter of war: Peace, the loathed manna, which hot brains despise. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... no answer for a space. There was nothing I could say that might soften such trouble as was stamped on her face; although I remembered having heard Jasper say that a weight clerk was wanted at the new elevator further down the line. Then, blundering as usual, ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... privilege to play to Ningirsu as he listened in his harim, and to render the life of the god pleasant in E-ninnu. Ningirsu's singer was the god Lugaligi-khusham, and he had his appointed place in E-ninnu, for he could appease the heart and soften anger; he could stop the tears which flowed from weeping eyes, and could lessen sorrow in the sighing heart. Gudea also installed in E-ninnu the seven twin-daughters of the goddess Bau, all virgins, whom Ningirsu had begotten. Their names were Zarzaru, Impae, Urenuntaea, Khegir-nuna, Kheshaga, Gurmu, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... that this general revival in the churches will soften the hearts of the extortioners, for this class is specifically denounced in the Scriptures. There is abundance in the land, but "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." I hope the extortioners may all go to heaven, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... the correctness of the President's statement of our conversations, though, to soften the evident contradiction my statement gave, I said (alluding to our first conversation on the subject) the President might have understood me the way he said, namely, that I had promised to resign if I did not resist the reinstatement. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... part of the envelope to which the flap adheres when it is sealed I placed some iron sulphate. When I sealed the envelope so carefully I brought the two together separated only by the thin film of gum. Now when steam is applied to soften the gum, the usual method of the letter-opener, the tannin and the sulphate are brought together. They run and leave these blots or dark smudges. So, you see, someone has been found at the Montmartre, even if it is not Betty Blackwell herself, who has interest enough in the case to open a letter ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... think not, Dicky," said I. "Don't say a word about it for some time to come, and then you can begin to look dull and melancholy, and to pine for the shore; and perhaps his heart will soften with compassion, and he ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... and I seemed to interest myself really in him. Besides, I have never seen him so small and humble; and if I had not known how easily his heart overflows, and how mine is impervious to every other arrow than those with which you have wounded it, I believe that I should have allowed myself to soften; but lest that should alarm you, I would die rather than give up what I have promised you. As for you, be sure to act in the same way towards those traitors who will do all they can to separate you from me. I believe that all those people have been ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... against public opinion in his own country, waited ten months for an answer, and done everything that he could in honour due to soften the feeling here. Yet just on the eve of a settlement that would have been unsatisfactory to many of our people, Germany announced the policy that we had condemned as illegal, and that plainly is illegal. The trouble in Berlin is an utter inability to see anything wrong in ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... cheek bones; his vigor was all in his eyes. But here was a new John, nevertheless, a successful man of affairs. He had on a spruce new suit of brown, no cheap ready-made affair but one carefully fitted to conceal and soften his deformity. He was wearing a bright blue tie and a cornflower in his buttonhole, and his sandy hair was sleekly brushed. He showed Roger into his private room, a small place he had partitioned off, where ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... is not Scott's phrasing—seems slightly unusual for him, although not essentially out of character. "The entertainment," he says, "which is the subject of general enjoyment, is of a nature which tends to soften, if not to level, the distinction of ranks."[158] In another mood he admitted the greater likelihood that immoral plays would injure the public character than that moral plays ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... your head, but hear me: say you will hear me a year hence. If I come back to you and bring you fame, will that please you? If I do what you desire most—what he who is dead desired most—will that soften you?" ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... apprehension, and would then excuse it with a smile, saying, 'it could not be otherwise, the shadow must lengthen as the sun went down.' When seized with paralysis he was resigned to the event, anxious to soften any alarm to his family, and was thankful that his intellect was spared. But his invariable wish was to be released. He expressed particular pleasure in seeing the usual occupations of his family resumed; ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... And Ann Veronica walked beside him, trying in vain to soften her heart to him by the thought of how she had ill-used him, and all the time, as her feet and mind grew weary together, rejoicing more and more that at the cost of this one interminable walk she escaped the prospect of—what was it?—"Ten ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... conqueror would stop, and by some effort of well meant, but rather uncouth civility, endeavor to soften the hours of captivity; efforts which were received with the courtesy of the most punctilious etiquette, but a restraint which ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... and drives a man away from God; as is manifest in the case of Adam and the fallen angels. But the least intimation of mercy, if the heart can but touch, feel, taste, or have the least probability of it, that will open the mouth, tend to soften the heart, and to make a very publican come up to God into the temple, and say, "God be merciful ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... always been inclined to devotion, never quit the churches; Planchet watched the flight of flies; and Grimaud, whom the general distress could not induce to break the silence imposed by his master, heaved sighs enough to soften ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... He has good counsel upon that.—I' faith, You'll have hot work if you engage with him; He's such an orator!—But ev'n suppose That you should gain your lawsuit, after all The trial is not for his life, but money." Perceiving him a little wrought upon, And soften'd by this style of talking with him, "Come now," continued I, "we're all alone. Tell me, what money would you take in hand To drop your lawsuit, take away the girl, ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... is generally granted to all military commanders, and I can see no good reasons why I, too, may not ask for it; and this simple concession, involving no public interest, will much soften the blow which, right or wrong, I construe as one of the hardest I have sustained in a life somewhat ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... hundreds of splashed and muddy men on the great thoroughfare, utterly hopeless of preserving any outward semblance of neatness, but each with his nosegay in his buttonhole; and as he glances down at it, from time to time, you may see his weary face soften and brighten, and an expression of cheerfulness steal over it, which renders him proof against even the depressing influences of the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... negroes speak like French persons of white blood, and British West Indian negroes often speak the cockney dialect, without a trace of "nigger." Moreover, it is pointed out that in southern countries, the world over, there is a tendency to soften the harsh sounds of language, to elide, and drop out consonants. The Andalusians speak a Spanish comparable in many of its peculiarities with the English of our own South, and the south-Italians exhibit similar dialectic traits. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... supposed to be doing wrong. She could not connect wrong with either her love or Winn's. If there was one quality more than another which had distinguished it, it had been its simple sense of rightness. She had seen Winn soften and change under it as the hard earth changes at the touch of spring. She had felt herself enriched and enlarged, moving more unswervingly than ever toward her oldest prayer—that she might, on the whole, be good. She hardly ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... into the slit of his money-box, he is merely bored, being as yet unable to unlock the box and get the coin out again, owing to ignorance of the whereabouts of the key. I explained all this to the telegraph boy, but his heart didn't soften; so, still parleying with him in the porch, I sent the maid to my wife to see what she could do to ease ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... exciting the flames arose, they set fire to it, and, pouring vinegar on the heated stones, they render them soft and crumbling. They then open a way with iron instruments through the rock thus heated by the fire, and soften its declivities by gentle windings, so that not only the beasts of burden, but also the elephants could be led down it. Four days were spent about this rock, the beasts nearly perishing through hunger: for the summits of the mountains ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... drawn in the wire mill in the usual way. Galvanizing is done by a continuous process. The coil of wire to be galvanized is placed on a reel. The first end of the wire is led longitudinally through an annealing medium—either red-hot lead or heated fire-brick tubes—of sufficient length to soften the wire. From the annealing furnace, the wire is fed longitudinally through a bath of muriatic acid, which removes the scale, and from the acid, after a thorough washing in water, the wire passes through a bath of spelter, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... impenetrable on this side as on the other, and they returned behind the first chamber. While Spendius was searching and ferreting, Matho was prostrate before the door supplicating Tanith. He besought her not to permit the sacrilege, and strove to soften her with caressing words, such as are used to an ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... Nicenes. Here came in Hilary of Poitiers. If he had seen in exile the worldliness of too many of the Asiatic bishops, he had also found among them men of a better sort who were in earnest against Arianism, and not so far from the Nicene faith as was supposed. To soften the mutual suspicions of East and West, he addressed his De Synodis to his Gaulish friends about the end of 358. In it he reviews the Eusebian creeds to show that they are not indefensible. He also compares the rival phrases of one essence and of like essence, to shew that either of them ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... Ritson liked her gentle replies and her few simple questions. So it came about that he would look for her in the mornings, and be disappointed if he did not catch sight of her good young face. Himself a silent man, he liked to listen to the girl's modest, unconnected talk. His stern eyes would soften at such times to a sort of caressing expression. This went on for months, and in that solitude no idle tongue was set to wag. At length Hugh Ritson perceived that the girl's heart was touched. If he came late he found her leaning ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... come-at-able, and he absented himself, while they were being settled, in the Isle of Man. Further, the Commission on the Scotch system of judicature almost immediately reported that his office was one of supererogation, and ought to be abolished; but, to soften the blow, they proposed to allow him a pension of 130l. per annum. This proposal was discussed with some natural jealousy in the House of Lords. Lord Lauderdale thought that when Tom Scott was ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... how far her cousin was disfigured by her infirmity; and when she saw a pale-faced little woman, somewhat melancholy, but yet pretty withal, with soft, clear eyes, and only so much appearance of a stoop as to soften the hearts of those who saw her, Clara was agreeably surprised, and felt herself to be suddenly relieved of an unpleasant weight. She could talk to the woman she saw there, as to any other woman, without the painful necessity of treating her always as an invalid. 'I think you are Miss ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... collection, as might have been expected in a pirate whose commerce lay in slinging goods from other ships' holds into her own; but the ropes were frozen as hard as iron, to remedy which we carried an armful to the cook-house, and left the tackles to lie and soften. We also conveyed to the cook-house a quantity of ratline stuff—a thin rope used for making of the steps in the shroud ladders; this being a line that would exactly serve to suspend the smaller parcels of powder in the splits. Before touching the powder-barrels we put a lighted candle into ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... truly noble nature which was in him showed itself. He accompanied his master through his dreary confinement at Esher,[140] doing all that man could do to soften the outward wretchedness of it; and at the meeting of parliament, in which he obtained a seat, he rendered him a still more gallant service. The Lords had passed a bill of impeachment against Wolsey, violent, vindictive, and malevolent. It was to ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... down I go, no more to be remembered and thought of than if I had never existed. How different it would be if I were the leader! Zounds, how I would worry the witnesses, browbeat the evidence, cajole the jury, and soften the judges! If the Lord were, in His mercy, to remove old Mills and Kinshella before Tuesday, who knows but my fortune might be made? This supposition once started, set me speculating upon all the possible chances that might cut off ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... are the hours in one's native land, Where all is dear the sunbeams bless; Life-giving breezes sweep the strand, And death is soften'd by ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... still blew like whispered consolation for a great, a pangful loss, but it could not soften the hard hearts of those who had stood with lips to the fountain of life and been denied. The people turned again to their pursuits, their planning, their gathering of courage to hold them up against the blaze of sun which soon must break upon ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... was so disgusted that he has never shown me a civil face since. I doubt whether he will send or go to France at all, and although the Duke of Mayenne despatches couriers every day with protestations and words that would soften rocks, I see ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I am far older than you; none of the brightness of my boyhood seems to linger about me. Contact with the world is an indurating process; I really did not know how hard I had grown, until I felt my heart soften at sight of you. I need you to keep the kindly charities and gentle amenities of life before me, and, therefore, I have come for you. But for my poverty I never would have given you up so long; I felt that it would be for your advantage, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... be difficult to name a poet of any race or age who has surpassed Poe in exquisite melody. His liquid notes soften the harshness of death. No matter what his theme, his verse has something of the quality which he ascribes to the ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... thick curtain inside my room door? It is true I have heard it remarked that the wails of an infant when teething will penetrate through any obstacles. Still, a baize door inside your nursery door, and thick curtains inside mine would soften the disturbance—yes, would soften it. I was going to say ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade
... explained his case and pleaded his cause with such fire in his eyes that the officer was dazed and fascinated. From the tones of the captain's voice, when he referred to the two successive rejections, Guynemer knew he had made an impression. As he had done at Stanislas when he wanted to soften some punishment inflicted by his master, so now he brought every argument to bear, one after another; but with how much more ardor he made this plea, for his future was at stake! He bewitched his hearer. And then suddenly he became a child again, ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... government from the West Indies. Lord Seaforth, and the Attorney-General, could not refrain, in explaining them, from the use of the words murder and torture. And did it become members of that House (in order to accommodate the nerves of the friends of the Slave Trade) to soften down their expressions, when they were speaking on that subject; and to desist from calling that murder and torture, for which a Governor, and the Attorney-General, of one of the islands could find ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... dash at a pair of ceiling rings set the whole line dangling along the gym and served to illustrate a possible way of rattling spectral dry bones, although Jane's graceful figure, as she swung to and fro, did much to soften the effect. ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... not met them at the town, because he wished their first impressions of his people to reach them uninfluenced by his escort. It was a form of the mountain pride—an honest resolve to soften nothing, and make no apologies. But they found arrangements made for horses and saddlebags, and the girl discovered that for her had been provided a mount as evenly gaited as any in ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... a little; seeing the abyss upon the brink of which this brave little girl was standing, he had not the heart to aggravate her by telling the failures of the past. Better to soften the inevitable discovery if possible. But his hesitation was quite apparent to Nettie. With considerable impatience she turned ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... good health about him. Only in the eyes themselves, as they rested briefly upon the prospect, did a substantial change suggest itself. They did not dwell fondly upon the picture of the lofty, spreading boughs, with their waves of sap-green leafage stirring against the blue. They did not soften and glow this time, at the thought of how wholly one felt sure of God's goodness in these wonderful new mornings ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... have been so good as to forward to me the manual published by the Institut de Droit International, and you hope for my approval of it. In the first place I fully appreciate the philanthropic effort to soften the evils which result from war. Perpetual peace is a dream, and it is not even a beautiful dream. War is an element in the order of the world ordained by God. In it the noblest virtues of mankind are developed; courage and the abnegation ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... born a negro girl, Betty, to a slave mother. Here, today, under the friendly protection of this same Jones family, surrounded by her sons and her sons' sons, lives this same Betty in her own little weather-stained cottage. Encircling her house are lilacs, althea, and flowering trees that soften the bleak outlines of unpainted out-buildings. A varied collection of old-fashioned plants and flowers crowd the neatly swept dooryard. A friendly German-shepherd puppy rouses from his nap on the sunny porch ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... destined for acclimatation, you will cease to suffer from these special conditions; but ere this can be, a long period of nervous irritability must be endured; and fevers must thin the blood, soften the muscles, transform the Northern tint of health to a dead brown. You will have to learn that intellectual pursuits can be persisted in only at risk of life;— that in this part of the world there is nothing to do but to plant cane and cocoa, and make rum, and cultivate tobacco,—or open ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... Chancellor of Barodia read this answer to his Stiff Note with a growing feeling of uneasiness. It was he who had exposed his Majesty to this fresh insult; and, unless he could soften it in some way, his morning at the Palace might be ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... been trading, as it were, for her own advantage on the sacred things of God. But he would have it. His sympathy, his sweetness, his quick spiritual feeling drew the stories out of her. And then how his bright frank eyes would soften! With what a reverence would he touch her hand when ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... your feet. We are made of different tempers, that our defects may be mutually supplied. Your sex wanteth our reason for your conduct, and our strength for your protection; ours wanteth your gentleness to soften, and entertain us. The first part of our life is a good deal subjected to you in the nursery, where you reign, without competition, and by that means, have the advantage of giving the first impressions. Afterwards you have ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Theobald to his coadjutor Warburton, who had expressed some concern about what Theobald planned to prefix to his edition. Theobald announced a major change in plan when he replied that "The affair of the Prolegomena I have determined to soften into a Preface." He then proceeded ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... how the thing could be handled. This aunt, I perceived, must fall into line with my other clients. Tuppy Glossop was knocking off dinner to melt Angela. Gussie Fink-Nottle was knocking off dinner to impress the Bassett. Aunt Dahlia must knock off dinner to soften Uncle Tom. For the beauty of this scheme of mine was that there was no limit to the number of entrants. Come one, come all, the more the merrier, and ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... upon the rainfall. In a wet winter the moisture sinks far into the ground, but not so deep that the thirsty little roots cannot find it in the summer. Early rains are needed to soften the ground for November ploughing, and young grain and crops of all kinds need rain through April. In the northern part of the state the wet season begins earlier and lasts longer than in the south, while the southeastern corner is an ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... sculpture by Cano which remains is a Virgin about a foot high in the Sacristy of the Cathedral of Granada, where there are several other statuettes by him. These are colored in a manner which the Spaniards call "estofado;" it has the effect to soften the whole appearance of the works, like an enamel. At the entrance of the choir of the cathedral there are two colossal busts by Cano; they are grand works, and are ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... Don Fernando, follow her & soften Her heart to pitty the poore gentleman: The Crime is ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... talk, sit down or walk about, and she would smile at him when his back was turned. She liked the very creases of his coat. When he was not there she would lean back for a few minutes in her arm-chair and some reminiscence of infinite sweetness would gradually brighten and soften her face. It was as though light, restfulness, and peace had suddenly come to her; her expression was joyous at such times, her eyes were looking at something in the past, her heart was living over again some happy ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... the morning, the symptoms of the storm became more thorough and decisive; the wind appeared to soften down as if to take breath for a renewed attack; the vast funereal pall above us looked like a huge bag—like the cave of AEolus, in which the storm was collecting ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Celia; but no one can do it better than you. You will soften the blow. She will realise her debt to you, through me. Tell her that her future shall be cared for—but you know that I shall look after that. Celia, you, who are so quick, so acute, have divined the truth. It was for Miriam that ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... and crossed to the door. He did not try this time to soften his footfalls—he did not care who ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... Elizabeth after a day of extreme humiliation—the day on which she called her household servants together and dismissed them. She had been able to give them no reason for her action, but a necessity for economy, and to soften the dismissal by no gift. Adversity flatters no one, and not a soul expressed any grief at the sundering of the tie. She was even conscious, as she had frequently been since Antony's failure, of an air, that deeply offended her—a familiarity that ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... eve of the arrival of his aristocratic connections, the Cavendishes, that he determined to put a stop to his son's courtship. George, at the outset of the momentous interview with his father, speculated inwardly on his chances of being able to soften the old man to a favourable view of 'the only wish that he had ever framed with a feeling ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... buryed Richard? Oh, Didier, I was a barbarous wretche in kyllinge hym. Digg up his bodye, brynge it hyther, goe: Hys wounds will fall a bleedinge & the syghte Will soften my conjealed bloode, for nowe Me thynks I am not passyonate. But stay, Let all sweete rest preserve hym: I will thynke Howe reelinge in the anguyshe of hys wounds I would not heare hym when a was about To teache ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... goddess, wear, Thy milder influence impart; Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound, my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, 45 Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are to feel, and ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... I am tempted to find fault with you, and if you take this too much to heart, I do not know what I would not do to soften the situation. But I know you are strong minded. Your first feelings of displeasure past, you will soon see that the best thing you can do is to come down to the quality of friend, a position which we have so generously offered you. You ought to consider ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... perhaps most interesting for its style. In this respect it marks a stage, and a distinct one, between the Preface of 1853 and the later and better known works. More of a concio ad vulgus than the former, it shows a pretty obvious endeavour to soften and popularise, without unduly vulgarising, the academic tone of the earlier work. And it does not yet display those "mincing graces" which were sometimes attributed (according to a very friendly and most competent critic, "harshly, but justly") to the later. ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... cells which have migrated from the vessels. Among the fibroblasts, larger multi-nucleated cells—giant cells—are sometimes found, particularly when resistant substances, such as silk ligatures or fragments of bone, are embedded in the tissues, and their function seems to be to soften such substances preliminary to their being removed by the phagocytes. Numerous polymorpho-nuclear leucocytes, which have wandered from the vessels, are also present in the spaces. These act as phagocytes, their function being to remove the red ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... "you've done more to soften dad to-day, and to prepare the way for me, than if you had got ten fellowships. He loves a plucky ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... influence upon the minds of men there is felt, for a little time at least, the sense that all humanity is one; that the strife of man against man and nation against nation is but a pitiful thing, and that we may better concern ourselves with trying to make the common lot brighter and so soften the rigors of the ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... impure; With men who make a mock of holy things, Mistaken, and of man's best hope think scorn. The world does much to warp the heart of man; And I may sometimes join its idiot laugh: Of this I now complain not. Deal with me, Omniscient Father, as Thou judgest best, And in Thy season soften thou my heart. I pray not for myself: I pray for him Whose soul is sore perplexed. Shine thou on him, Father of Lights! and in the difficult paths Make plain his way before him: his own thoughts May he not think—his own ends not pursue— So shall he best perform Thy will on earth. Greatest ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... woman he had met on a trip to Mexico to inspect the plantations in which he and his brother Samuel were interested. She was "a Southern woman," with a charming accent, as every one admitted. The accent was greatly admired. Several young girls sought to soften the vowels of their native Hoosier speech in conformity with the models introduced by Mrs. Holton. The coming of this lady, the zest with which she entered into the social life of the town, the vacillations of certain old friends of the Montgomerys who had ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... with its warm Southern tints; the dark eyes lighted with fire and passion; the perfect mouth with its proud, sweet, imperial, yet tender lips; the white, dimpled chin; the head and face unrivaled in their glorious contour; the straight, dark brows that could frown and yet soften as few other brows could; the white neck, half hidden, half revealed by the coquettish dress; the white rounded arms and beautiful hands—all would have struck the master. Her dress fell round her in folds that would have charmed an artist. ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... odes."[157] A final plea, in favor of the stage as a democratic agency—though this of course is not Scott's phrasing—seems slightly unusual for him, although not essentially out of character. "The entertainment," he says, "which is the subject of general enjoyment, is of a nature which tends to soften, if not to level, the distinction of ranks."[158] In another mood he admitted the greater likelihood that immoral plays would injure the public character than that moral plays ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... they have all so irresistible a propensity to wanton mischief—to roasting beaus and detesting old women, that I quite rejoice I shewed the book to no one ere printed, lest I should have been prevailed upon to soften his character.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... meadow streams, And soften all the hills with mist, O falling dew! from burning dreams By thee shall herb and flower be kissed, And Earth shall bless thee yet again, O ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... but most picturesque; masses of shady trees in the grounds of Woodlands and Hillfield hang over the seats placed for wayfarers, and on the east side, in spring, bushes of flowering lilac or laburnum soften the picturesque red tiles and bricks of the well-built modern houses. Here and there a small row of shops forms a straight line, but between them the villa houses are ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... suddenly lost all their haughtiness on finding that they no longer had any official powers and were free from discipline. Some of those who knew a little French, spoke of their wives and children, in order to soften the enemies that were threatening them with their bayonets. A brawny Teuton came up to Desnoyers and clapped him on the back. It was Redbeard. He pressed his heart and then pointed to the owner of the castle. "Franzosen . . . great friend of the Franzosen" ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... indisputably handsome—in her big authoritative way. Watching the arrogant lines of her profile against the blue sea, he remembered, with a thrill that was sweet to his vanity, how twice—under the dome of the Scalzi and in the streets of Genoa—he had seen those same lines soften at his approach, turn womanly, pleading and almost humble. That ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... cruel turn of making them so. He was bitterly conscious as he spoke of having chosen the wrong words and uttered them with an appearance of relentless rigour which he would have made any effort to soften. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... who because they are so numerous, and there is no room for all, leave their homes more easily. In fact, they did that, too, in order to be surer of the Zambals, in whose severe and warlike minds they did not have the greatest confidence. Thus did they soften those people, or let us say frankly, checked their vehemence. The reduction of the people of the mountain, however much it is talked about, is not known, as neither is the place where they could form villages or a village from them. Let us ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... could never bring himself even to attempt this scene with the woman, so remote was he from seeing her eye soften and her voice warm with the assurance that a few weeks more or less need not matter. The room rent, he was confident, would have to be paid strictly in advance so long as their relations continued. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... house revealed itself in the floods of electric light as large and undeniably ugly. Built before artistic ambitions and cosmopolitan architects had undertaken to soften American angularities, it was merely a commodious building, ample enough for a dozen Hitchcocks to loll about in. Decoratively, it might be described as a museum of survivals from the various stages ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Fate had been pounding him pretty hard," Mr. Grey interposed. "When a man loses in one year two of his children, and the only grandchild he knows anything about, it's not surprising that he should soften a bit toward the only ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... directors Meadows sat with a more than usually defiant face—with a face which showed premonitions of exultation. Farnsworth felt sure of his game, but he found breathing so laborious that he did not show any emotion. Masters thought it best to soften the humiliation of his associate as much as possible by forestalling his proposition. So at the first moment he suggested to the directors that the bank needed new force, on account both of his own advancing years and of Mr. Farnsworth's ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Cholmondeley[1069], a gentleman whom he always loved and esteemed. If, therefore, there was an absolute necessity for mentioning the story at all, it might have been thought that her tenderness for Dr. Johnson's character would have disposed her to state any thing that could soften it. Why then is there a total silence as to what Mr. Cholmondeley told her?—that Johnson, who had known him from his earliest years, having been made sensible of what had doubtless a strange appearance, took occasion, when he afterwards met him, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... for them all. Kolb was earning a franc for daily wage as a brick-layer's laborer; and at last poor Eve, who, for the sake of her husband and child, had sacrificed her last resources to entertain David's father, saw that she had only ten francs left. She had hoped to the last to soften the old miser's heart by her affectionate respect, and patience, and pretty attentions; but old Sechard was obdurate as ever. When she saw him turn the same cold eyes on her, the same look that the Cointets had given her, and Petit-Claud and Cerizet, she tried to watch and guess ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... rise at once and not spread. Bake at least sixty minutes. Bread is seldom baked long enough to be wholesome, especially graham and rye bread. When baked and still hot, brush the top of loaf with butter and wash the bottom of loaf well with a cloth wrung out of cold water, to soften the lower, hard-baked crust. Wrap in a damp cloth and stand aside to cool where the air will circulate around it. Always set rye bread to rise early in the morning of the same day it is to be baked, as rye sponge sours more quickly than wheat sponge. ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... blasted trees that produce no fruit, but are valued only for the timber that their trunks contain. But I beg you, Aemilianus, in future to abstain from reviling any one for their poverty, since you yourself used, after waiting for some seasonable shower to soften the ground, to expend three days in ploughing single-handed, with the aid of one wretched ass, that miserable farm at Zarath, which was all your father left you. It is only recently that fortune has smiled on you in the shape of wholly undeserved inheritances which have fallen ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... be obtained, if you know how to go about it, and possess the means of bandaging inconvenient eyes. Not only are we permitted to stampede our quotas of bedbugs, but leave may be had to decorate our cells with souvenirs of art and domesticity, to soften our sitting-down appliances with cushions, to drape the curtain of modesty before the grating of restriction, to carpet our stone flooring, to supply our leisure hours with literary nourishment, to secrete stealthy cakes and ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... near half a league, when the savage features of the country began to soften, and gradually changed to the picturesque beauty of Sicilian scenery. They now discovered at some distance a villa, seated on a gentle eminence, crowned with woods. It was the first human habitation they had seen since they embarked for Italy; and Julia, who was almost sinking with fatigue, beheld ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... what he wanted to say to his wife, not touching, or kissing her, just looking into her eyes, watching them soften and glow as they surely must, catching the infection of his new ardour. And he felt unsteady, fearfully unsteady with the desire to say it all as it should be said: swiftly, quietly, with the truth ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... soften a mourner's poignant woe, And stay the bitter tear drops that from her sad eyes flow, Then take it, honoured Empress, from the land of thy retreat, Where hearts in bitter anguish with thine now ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... parsnips; cut in halves, lengthwise, and place, cut side uppermost, on the grate of a rather hot oven to bake for thirty to forty minutes, or until soft and lightly browned. Soften one-half a cup of butter, without melting it, and rub into it the following mixture: Two teaspoonfuls of salt, four tablespoonfuls of dry mustard, one-half a teaspoonful of cayenne, one teaspoonful of white ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... by woman's quick compassion, spurred by sympathy, and feeling the exaltation such an appeal always carries, felt her heart soften toward the man beside her. But her innate wisdom and her own strong hold on her emotions prevented her from doing any rash or foolish thing. Her voice was gentle as she answered, but there was a finality in it that ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... old gentleman in no small degree of rage, may be conceived; but nothing could be more judicious than the plan Spikeman had acted upon. It is useless to plead to a man who is irritated with constant gout; he only becomes more despotic and more unyielding. Had Araminta attempted to soften his indignation, it would have been equally fruitless; but the compliance with the request of her cousin of continually railing against her, had the effect intended. The vituperation of Araminta ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... judge you for it. This may have been from the impersonal habit of his mind, but I believe it was also the effect of principle, for he would do what he could to arrest the delivery of judgment from others, and would soften the sentences passed in his presence. Naturally this brought him under some condemnation with those of a severer cast; and I have heard him criticised for his benevolence towards all, and his constancy to some who were not quite so true to themselves, perhaps. But this leniency of Longfellow's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... complain: "Trade unionism recognises the present system of society, justifies capitalism, and defends wage-slavery, and only seeks to soften the tyranny of the one and assuage the evils of the other. Social Democracy aims at destroying the whole system."[387] "We are never allowed to forget the splendid incomes earned by these aristocrats of labour, a mere ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... enormous strides in all that tends to civilize and soften mankind, while the laws have contracted a ferocity which did not belong to them in the most savage period of our history; and, to such extremes of distress have they proceeded that I do believe there never was a law so harsh as British ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... Gizeh, are, so to say, spotless and faultless. The queen's face (fig. 199) is animated and intelligent; the eyes are large and prominent; the mouth is wide, but well shaped. This head is carved in hard limestone of a creamy tint which seems to soften the somewhat satirical expression of her eyes and smile. The king (fig. 200) is in black granite; and the sombre hue of the stone at once produces a mournful impression upon the spectator. His youthful face is pervaded by an air of melancholy, such as we rarely ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... thee," and he told her all, just as it had happened, and begged her not to go there, come what might. But she consoled him and said, "Dearest father, indeed your promise must be fulfilled. I will go thither and soften the lion, so that I may return to thee safely." Next morning she had the road pointed out to her, took leave, and went fearlessly out into the forest. The lion, however, was an enchanted prince and ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... see that he is not responsible. What does it matter to you now, in any case? What are you hoping for still? If you HAVE a hope left, it is that your suffering air may soften her heart ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... their cheeks, to prevent the growth of their beards. They were short, thick-set, and with back bones curved almost into a semicircle. Herbs, roots and raw meat they devoured, tearing their food with their teeth or hewing it with their swords. To warm and soften their meat, they placed it under their saddles when riding. Nearly all their lives they passed on horseback. Wandering incessantly over the vast plains, they had no fixed habitations, but warmly clad in ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... the youngster was of her power, Rachael thought, watching him instantly soften under his ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... Abbe Boiviel conformed himself with a very good grace to the monachal existence led by its inmates. The good regimen of the house tended also to considerably soften the former asperities of his demeanor; he spoke no more of Japan, but neither did he speak of the potable gold, although Voisenon on several occasions endeavored to obtain from him an explanation on this essential point. Whenever our asthmatical abbe would lead the conversation towards subjects ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... different after this. Pelliter and Little Mystery were happy, and Billy fought with himself every hour to keep down his own gloom and despair. The sun helped him. It rose earlier each day and remained longer in the sky, and soon the warmth of it began to soften the snow underfoot. The vast fields of ice began to give evidence of the approach of spring, and the air was more and more filled with the thunderous echoes of the "break up." Great floes broke from the shore-runs, and the sea ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... which had long rent the country were exasperated, although men of all sects and parties united with equal zeal for the relief of the poor. No charities seemed to soften the heart of the Irish peasant towards those who entered strongly into political or religious combinations ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... been of her and for her; his first impulse to console, if he could not save her. His it should have been to soften, were that possible, the fate before her; to prove to her by words of farewell, the purest and most sacred, that the sacrifice she was making, not to save her own life but the lives of others, was appreciated by him who paid with her ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... many sorrows to console that I do not wish that mine, which is inconsolable, should be a burden upon you. To live forgotten, to mourn my daughter, and do some good, that is my life. If anything could soften my grief, it is the kindness of my king, it is the pleasure of seeing that Providence has not allowed our long ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... came about half an hour after I left. At first she was all humility and sorrow, hoping to soften the Regent by this conduct. Then she passed to tears, sobs, cries, reproaches, expecting to make him by these means undo what he had done, and reinstate M. du Maine in the position he had lost. But all her efforts proving vain, she adopted another course: her sorrow turned to rage,—her tears ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... child, among them a great physician whom they grew to know. He was, there every Sunday, and at length it came to be a habit with him to sit down on the bench and take Cynthia on his knee, and his stern face would soften as he talked ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... jagged bits having been cut off, the beads are now rolled in fine sand, which has been carefully heated in earthen jars, until just warm enough to soften the outside of the glass, so that a gentle friction would rub off the sharp edges. The sand gets into the holes in the beads, prevents them from closing up during this process, and ere we can believe it possible, they come forth round, perfect, and complete. ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... a gray November morning melt into an Indian summer noon? Louisa Banks was like that, when, at the sight of a man in sore trouble, sympathy was born in her to soften the rockiness ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... swirling brown trout-pools and rapids, rushing between ledges, foaming around boulders, a joyous, rolicking, dashing, headlong stream, that seemed to cheer us with its gay clamor; and I saw the Oneida's stern eyes soften as he bent his gaze upon it. Poor little Lyn Montour slipped, with a sigh, from her saddle, while my horse buried his dusty nose in the sparkling water, drawing deep, cold draughts through his hot throat. And here ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... they had returned to the military hospital, and "Pervyse," thoroughly awakened by the ceremony, had been restored to his white crib. To soften his mood, his bottle of supper had been handed to him a little ahead of time. But, unwilling to lay aside the prominence which had been his, all day, he brandished the bottle as if it were a ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... this ever since it occurred. I have been running up and down to Porthstone. I was at the inquest and in the police-court, but I thought it best to do nothing, and let the public think she was undefended. It may soften their feeling towards her. All these little things have to be ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... anguish that weighed upon his mind! Tears are the best balm that can be applied to the anguish of the heart. Religion teaches man to bear his sorrows with becoming fortitude, but tears contribute largely both to soften and to heal the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... of my last letter I confessed to you that it was I who murdered Captain Fraser-Freer. That is the truth. Soften the blow as I may, it all comes down ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... men? And where are the women to whom such men can do homage without degrading themselves? where are the men who elevate a woman without making her masculine, and the women who can brighten and polish, and yet not soften the steel of manhood—tell me, tell me instantly," said she, with still greater languor and want of earnestness, and her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling in ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Education we should give our selves, to be prepared for the ill Events and Accidents we are to meet with in a Life sentenced to be a Scene of Sorrow: But instead of this Expectation, we soften our selves with Prospects of constant Delight, and destroy in our Minds the Seeds of Fortitude and Virtue, which should support us in Hours of Anguish. The constant Pursuit of Pleasure has in it something insolent and improper for our Being. There is a pretty sober Liveliness in the Ode of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... case of a moist corn the paring should be stopped immediately the true nature of the injury has made itself apparent. Warm poultices or hot baths should then be used in order to soften the surrounding parts, lessen the pressure, and ease the pain. After a day or two day's poulticing, should pain still continue with any symptom of severity, the formation of pus may be expected, and it is then time for the paring ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... but did not let her see. At last she soften'd her dispraise, On learning you had bought for me A carriage and a pair of bays. But here she comes! You take her in To dinner. I impose this task Make her approve my love; and win What thanks from me you ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... doubt not that worthy woman sobbed herself to sleep more than once in grieving over the obstinacy of her husband and her son. Dear lady, it was this trouble which did much to shorten her days, and the end came soon afterwards. 'T is said that on her deathbed she tried to soften her husband's heart against their boy, but with such ill success that she fell sobbing into the sleep from which she was never to awaken. To such a degree can a fault persisted in change the natural ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... first two cantos of the Souvenirs he seemed half ashamed of the homeliness of the tale he had undertaken to relate. Should he soften and brighten it? Should he dress it up with false lights and colours? For there are times when falsehood in silk and gold are acceptable, and the naked new-born truth is unwelcome. But he repudiated ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... under his responsibility for me; but he is a brave old gentleman, and he manages to bear the burden very well with the aid of my mother—for I have a mother, too, Mr. Pedagog. A womanly mother she is, too, with all the natural follies, such as fondness for and belief in her boy. Why, it would soften your heart to see how she looks on me. She thinks I am the most everlastingly brilliant man she ever knew—excepting father, of course, who has always been a hero of heroes in her eyes, because he never rails ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... eye, and sat us down Upon the sloping cowslip-covered bank, Where the pure limpid stream has slid along, In grateful errors through the under-wood, Sweet murmurings, methought the shrill-tongued thrush Mended his song of love; the sooty blackbird Mellow'd his pipe, and soften'd every note; The eglantine smell'd sweeter, and the rose Assumed a dye more deep. O! then the longest summer's day Seem'd too, too much in haste: still the full heart Had not imparted half: 'tis happiness Too ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... fragments on Mount Napier these cells or pores were several inches in diameter and, unlike amygdaloidal rocks, all were quite empty. The surface consisted wholly of this stone, without any intermediate soil to soften its asperity under the feet of our horses, and yet it was covered with a wood of eucalyptus and mimosa, growing there as on the open forest land between which and this stony region the chief difference consisted ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... Beauharnais as the deputy Sovereign of the Sovereign King of Italy. He was not philosopher enough to conceal his chagrin, and bowed with such a bad grace to the new Viceroy that it was visible he would have preferred seeing in that situation an Austrian Archduke as a governor-general. To soften his disappointment, Bonaparte offered to make him a Prince, and with that rank indemnify him for breaking the promises given at Lyons, where it is known that the influence of Melzi, more than the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... family had been meant to soften my resistance, it was the worst of failures. I was no such ass but what I understood how poor a figure I had made, and that the girls would be yawning their jaws off as soon as my stiff back was turned. I felt I had shown how little I had in me of what was soft and graceful; and I longed for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by no little medical learning. In fine, she revived. She recognized her preserver. She remained with him until, by slow degrees, she fully recovered her original health. Her woman's heart was not adamant, and this last lesson of love sufficed to soften it. She bestowed it upon Bossuet. She returned no more to her husband, but, concealing from him her resurrection, fled with her lover to America. Twenty years afterward, the two returned to France, in the persuasion that time had so greatly ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... had soften'd their rage, and seem'd without speaking to intreat their favour; when the maids unanimously cry'd out, "'tis Gito, 'tis Gito; hold your barbarous hands, help madam, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... that hell-king of all human crimes, operating upon a mind rendered so sensitively susceptible of its influences, paralyzed the whole moral constitution of the devoted creature, and realized the poetical creation of despair. I felt inclined to soften the sternness of her grief, by quickening her disbelief of the raving thoughts of a fever-maniac; but I paused as I thought of the probable necessity of her suspicion for her future safety from the schemes of a murderer, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... abridged, he could not help excusing an indiscretion into which he had been hurried by the precipitancy of youth, and the allurements of an artful woman. Nay, with the utmost warmth of friendship, he undertook to wait upon Trapwell, and endeavour to soften him into some reasonable ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... disputes between father and son, and sadly did Lady Godiva forebode an evil ending to the clash of warring natures whenever Hereward and his father met; yet she could do nothing to avert disaster, for though her entreaties would soften the lad into penitence for some mad prank or reckless outrage, one hint of cold blame from his father would suffice to make him hardened and impenitent; and so things drifted from bad to worse. In all Hereward's lawless deeds, however, there was no meanness or crafty ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... in their own artless, and sometimes exaggerated way; and these are reported with, probably, high coloring; whereas, I have made it a point of honor, a matter of conscience, and a rule of justice, to adhere to truth; and am contented that the British reader should say all that fairness admits, to soften down the coloring of some of the pictures of British barbarity, provided he does not attempt ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... him all that Mr. Hope said you were to tell the lawyer, and then tell him what you have made me believe, that you love me better than your life, and that I love you better still; and that no power can part us. If you can soften him, Mr. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Southern houses set in gardens where old-fashioned flowers bloomed. Now the gardens are gone and the houses are outgrown. Progress has passed, and in its wake there have sprung up obvious structures of red brick with brownstone trimmings. The young trees leading off into avenues of shade soften the harshness of an architecture which would become New York, and which belongs as much ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... degeneration of tissue results. More cells are destroyed by wear and tear than are made up from nutriment. The friction of the machine rubs the stuff of life away faster than it can be replaced. The muscles stiffen, the hair turns white, the joints crack, the arteries ossify, the nerve-centres harden or soften: all sorts of degeneration creep on till death appears,—Mors janua vitae. There the curves unite, and men ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... costliest cambric, and jewels sparkled in their shirt bosoms and glittered upon their fingers. These fingers, however, told a tale. They told plainly as words, that they to whom they belonged had not always been accustomed to such elegant adornment. Toilet soap had failed to soften the corrugated skin, and obliterate the abrasions—the ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... to her husband about the fancy she had taken to me. That's what makes it dangerous, this very unconsciousness of their instinctive dishonesty. That is a mitigating circumstance, I admit, but it cannot nullify judgment, only soften it. ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... lass—the memory of moonlit nights, and of those sweet, vain aspirations and foiled day-dreams that in boyhood waked your blood even to such brave folly as now possesses us,—will not the memory of these things soften ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... "indignation meeting," and from the rate with which they are increasing, the political crisis must be near at hand. The Sultan, with his usual kindness of heart, has sent large quantities of tents and other supplies to the guiltless sufferers; but no amount of kindness can soften the rancor of these Turkish intrigues. Reschid Pasha, the present Grand Vizier, and the leader of the party of Progress, is the person against whom this storm of opposition ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the excited Faith. "Look into this eye, weak one, and say if thou knowest her who supplied the place of that mother whom thou refusest to remember—she who hath toiled for thy comfort, and who hath never refused to listen to all thy plaints, and to soften all thy sufferings. Look at this eye, and ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... which formerly contained a Buddha is unoccupied, but, as though to soften its decay, kindly creepers have covered its rugged exterior with a bower of foliage and flowers, while the leogryphs which once marked the entrance to its enclosure are buried in vegetation. All around are trees of many kinds, which tower above the jungle, among which large and beautiful butterflies ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... had been left open by Jim, a lucky circumstance for Foyle, as otherwise he would have been at a loss, for it was of stout oak and he must have made considerable noise in forcing it. Yet he did not make any attempt to soften his footsteps as he climbed the stairs. He hoped to be taken as an ordinary client long enough, at any rate, to discover the whereabouts of Ivan. Once that was achieved he was reckless as to his identity ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... soap (or any other good toilet soap) and hot water will suffice; in those cases in which there is considerable scale-and crust-formation the tincture of green soap (tinct. saponis viridis) is to be employed in place of the toilet soap, and in some of these latter cases it may be necessary to soften the crusts with a ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... smile passed over Warwick's face, as with an eye that fixed and held her own, he rapidly went on, never pausing to choose smooth phrases or soften facts, but seeming to find a relish in the utterance of bitter truths after the honeyed falsehood he had listened to so long. Yet through all the harshness glowed the courage of an upright soul, the fervor of ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent; Contract thy firmament To compass of a tent. There's not enough for this and that, Make thy option which of two; Economize the failing river, Not the less revere the Giver, Leave the many and hold the few. Timely wise accept the terms, Soften the fall with wary foot; A little while Still plan and smile, And,—fault of novel germs,— Mature the unfallen fruit. Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, Bad husbands of their fires, Who, when they gave thee breath, Failed to bequeath The needful ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... and discovered great moderation and magnanimity; even though the prince unfortunately, through the whole course of his life, and on every occasion, was noted for an address so cold, dry, and distant, that it was very difficult for him, on account of any interest, to soften or ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... deepest caves, can shake the very foundations of the earth. "You are able both to call up the spirits that serve you and to act as their cruel and ruthless gaoler. Listen for once to a mother's prayers, and let them soften your heart." ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... said Scaife. "He hates me, and common decency ought to have kept him out of this room. But he's not a liar. Ask him. Put it your own way. Soften it, make pap of it, if you like, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... No. 6's faith in her own wisdom, a good effect would be produced by listening to it. Also it was not a bad thing now and then to hear of other people having to bear trials which have not fallen to our own lot. It must surely have a tendency to soften the heart, and make us feel more dependent upon the God who gives and takes away. On the whole, therefore, she would tell the story, so she made No. 6 sit quietly down again, and began ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... joys were to end—but no! no! let us not think of it. It is too sweet to believe, and the distrust seems as unholy as it is unwholesome. That bright soft planet seems to persuade to confidence as it inspires love. Do you not feel your heart soften in the moonlight, Margaret? your eye glistens, dearest—and your heart, I know, must be touched. It is—I feel its beating! What a ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... before had been rankling in my breast, for had not my fair divinity seen me in the uniform of the gallant defenders of our country? And had she not also heard and seen me mistaken for a lord? If this had no power to soften and subdue that proud heart and bring it in sweet humility to my feet, then—well I should like to know what would, ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Israelites to avail themselves of the assistance of Christians in the various occupations of life—a measure which would tend strongly to soften down those feelings of difference which now exist between these two classes of His Majesty's subjects, and to obliterate that line of demarcation which His Majesty and his Government justly regard ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... texture as the great majority of his subjects. His straightforward, abrupt manner savoured sometimes of gruffness, while his direct, unadorned method of expressing himself harmonized well with his rough-hewn, immobile features and somewhat sluggish movements. His education was not fitted to soften these peculiarities. During the first twenty years of his life he had no prospect of succeeding to the throne, because he had an elder brother, Nicholas, who seemed of a fairly robust constitution. Even when this elder brother showed symptoms of delicate health it was believed that ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... no knowledge of any of the apartments in the house, except what he has received by grouping their contents. When, therefore, their arrangement is materially altered, the reasoning powers not being as yet able to soften down the effect, the former apartment appears to the child as if it had ceased to exist. He can scarcely believe it to be the same. He never thinks of the uses of the articles in the apartment, but only of their appearance;—the first being an act of the judgment,—the ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... as regards cooking, but in which vinegar is used to give flavor as well as to soften the meat and make it ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... this kind of chivalrous feeling, did these two honourable blackguards prepare to maul each other, zealously encouraged by their friends. Sawney's wife telling him, that if he did not soften that lump of goat's flesh, she would give him a lesson herself how to ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... the hair off, then we'd oil it and work it 'till it was soft. Next we'd take it to the bench and scrape or 'plesh' it with knives. It was then put in a tight cabinet and smoked with oak wood for about 24 hours. Smoking loosened the skin. We'd then take it out and rub it to soften it. It was blacked and oiled and it was ready to be made into shoes. It took nearly a year to get a green hide made into shoes. Twan't no wonder we had ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... say such dreadful things, dear Lionel! O, if I could but do anything for you!" she cried, in a tone of heartfelt grief, which seemed to soften the poor boy a little; for he twisted round, so that his face, still pillowed on one arm, was half raised to her, and she could see how flushed it was, and that the eyelids were inflamed, though not with tears, and the eyes themselves had not ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... consideration of self, he lays out his exertions in acts of benevolence. His life is one tissue of sympathy and compassion. He is an extensive benefit to mankind. His influence, like that of the sun, cheers the hopeless, and illuminates the desolate. How necessary are such characters as these, to soften the rigour of the sublunary scene, and to stamp an impression of dignity on the degeneracy of ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... Scotland Yard refused to prejudge the case despite the penny-a-liners. Several arrests were made, so that the later editions were compelled to soften "Suicide" into "Mystery." The people arrested were a nondescript collection of tramps. Most of them had committed other offenses for which the police had not arrested them. One bewildered-looking gentleman ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... quiet old bachelor, who sat nearly all day in the sun on a garden seat watching the birds, but who was much too well fed to catch mice. Miss Velveteen Purr, his sister, went with him, she was a very pretty singer, wore a fur tippet, and drank a good deal of milk to soften her voice. ...
— A Apple Pie and Other Nursery Tales • Unknown
... Mexico, seeing life in all its phases of ill luck and disappointment, with faint gleams of success here and there, but meeting all with a spirit of such cheerful bravery as makes the darkest experience yield a pleasure in the telling. Surely, it might soften the heart of the sourest enemy of the stage to read the spirit in which this family met the long-continued ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... he answered; "your heart might soften towards me. Oh, say yes to this. It is a small request, it costs you nothing, and it gives me hope, without which I cannot live. Say that I may ask you once more, and that then if you love me you ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... do? Don't make me harden my heart before it has had time to soften naturally. Give my poor pagan sympathies ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... attract the son. She was of good family, the widow of a man of rank, rich, but just two and twenty, and beautiful enough to bewitch old or young. A sweeter and gentler soul Martina had never known. Those large dewy eyes-imploring eyes, she called them—might soften a stone, and her fair waving hair was as soft as her nature. Add to this her full, supple figure—and how perfectly she dressed, how exquisitely she sang and struck the lute! It was not for nothing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... highest against the sky. In the prettiest of hollows, Watermouth Castle looks down a slope of richest pasture to the sea sparkling below, and a great mass of rock shields it from storms blowing off the water. Clouds of foliage soften the lines of the hill rising behind ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... a dreadful picture—this picture of Italy under the rule of the oligarchy. There was nothing to bridge over or soften the fatal contrast between the world of the beggars and the world of the rich. The more clearly and painfully this contrast was felt on both sides—the giddier the height to which riches rose, the deeper the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... would not willingly lessen one of thy young and generous pleasures by any of the alloy of my own bitterness; but what wilt thou? A little preparation for that which is as certain to follow as that the sun succeeds the dawn, will rather soften the disappointment thou art doomed ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... that we might baptize them, which we have done. We value this all the more because these two villages have up to this time been the most obstinate and stubborn in all the island: but God has now been pleased to soften their hearts. May He be blessed and praised that, if there had been fathers for all of them, the whole island would now be converted; for, although there are actually in this mission no more than four thousand Christians, its people are so well disposed that on the day when they shall ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... if you have it; pour over it enough vinegar to cover it, tie an oiled or buttered paper over the top of the dish or crock, and bake the shad five hours in a moderate oven. The action of the pickle will be to entirely soften the bones of the fish, so that every part of it will be eatable. One half of it will cost about fifteen cents; and with the addition of five cents' worth of bread or potatoes, will make a hearty dinner for ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... passed, while the storm raged and threatened to bury their home beneath the heavy snows. There was no food now to share between them. The last crumb had been given the child to soften her ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... which happened at Tusculum in February, 45 B.C., Cicero took refuge in the solitude of his villa at Astura, which was pleasantly situated on the Latin coast between Antium and Circeii[134]. Here he sought to soften his deep grief by incessant toil. First the book De Consolatione was written. He found the mechanic exercise of composition the best solace for his pain, and wrote for whole days together[135]. At other times he would plunge ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... too, the air was hot and breathless, broken only by the slow-stifling lift of the south-western breeze that, blowing across countless miles of sand beyond far-away Egypt, gathered up the heat of the huge waterless continent and was pouring it, with scarcely a streak of sea to soften its malignity, on this poor strip of land. Carmel, too, as he turned again, was swathed about its base with mist, half dry and half damp, and above showed its long bull-head running out defiantly against the western sky. The very table as he touched it was dry ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... Wasn't it a fix for a sensitive person to be in? But, instead of bursting into tears and making myself miserable, as once I should have done, I enjoyed the contretemps immensely. It almost cured my headache, and when Mrs. —— came to me and tried to soften matters, I told her to spare her pretty speeches, as I had heard the whole and would not have missed it ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... allured by its temptations and dazzled by its glitter, we ever forgot that love and duty which should bind, in holy ties, the children of one loved parent—a glance at the old work of our common girlhood would awaken good thoughts of bygone days, and soften our hearts ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Alexander, receding from her and approaching the king. "Your majesty knows how much I have at heart your friendship as well as your welfare—what pains I take to soften the heart of the conqueror, and to inspire him with more lenient sentiments toward Prussia. I improve every opportunity; I try to profit by my private interviews to obtain better terms for you; as, for instance, I succeeded ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... false creature to come and see her work. I promised her so much, but not from any love, for my heart was full of bitterness that night when I turned her from the door out into the rain. I shall never tell Guy that—never, lest he should soften toward her, and I would not have her here again for all the world contains. And yet I did like her, and was looking forward to her return with a good deal of pleasure. Julia had spoken many a kind word for her, had pleaded her extreme youth as an excuse for her faults, and had led me to ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... a peculiar, intimate character and mark the change of feeling which came over French artists of the time. The impersonal, unemotional and regal bearing of the thirteenth-century figures give way to a more naturalistic treatment. The Virgin's impassive features soften; they become more human; she turns to her child with a maternal smile (which later becomes conventionalised into a simper), or permits a caress. In Room X. are: 889, 890, two fifteenth-century statues, admirable and living portraitures of Charles V. and ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... combin'd with guilt alone, that melts The soften'd soul to cowardice and sloth; But virtuous passion prompts the great resolve, And fans the slumbering spark of heavenly fire. Retire, my fair; that pow'r that smiles on goodness, Guide all thy steps, calm ev'ry ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... In this commercial sanctuary were enforced the exactions that made the plantation thrive. Outside, in the yard, in the "big house," elsewhere under the sky, a plea of distress might moisten his eyes and soften his heart to his own financial disadvantage, but under the moss-grown shingles of the office all was business, hard, uncompromising. It was told in the neighborhood that once, in this inquisition of affairs, he ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... of what is given in the first chapter: Lotion to remove freckles and tan; To expel freckles; Cleopatra's Freckle Balm; Lemon Cream, for sunburn and freckles; Wash to prevent sunburn; Grape lotion, for sunburn; Pate Axerasive of Bozin, to soften and whiten the skin; To remove red pimples; To remove black specks or flesh-grubs; Preparation for whitening the face and neck (bleaches and whitens the skin); To cure profuse perspiration; Cleopatra's Enamel for whitening the hands and arms; To cure ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... author, and, going to the shelves, takes down the volume to read it aloud with decorous emphasis. If we are in the atrium (where we like him best) he has an anecdote to tell of all the great Greeks and Romans whose busts or statues are ranged about us, and who for the first time soften from their marble alienation and become human. It is this that makes him so amiable a moralist and brings his lessons home to us. He does not preach up any remote and inaccessible virtue, but makes all his lessons of magnanimity, self-devotion, patriotism seem neighborly and practicable ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... respect and esteem can be made to those who pine beneath its weight! My sister hath so long accustomed herself to think meanly of her hopes, that the appearance of liberality and justice in this youth would have been sufficient of itself to soften her feelings in his favor. I cannot say I think—for Christine will soon be his wife—but I will say, I fear that the simple fact of his choosing one that the world persecutes has given him a value in her eyes he might not ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Ancient Mariner." The mediaeval feeling is most successfully captured in this poem. It recalls the old "Debate between the Body and Soul," and still more the touches of divine compassion which soften the rigours of Catholic theology in the legends of the saints. It strikes the keynote, too, of that most modern ballad mode which employs the narrative only to emphasize some thought of universal application. There is salvation ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Oxford Declaration in favour of passive obedience had also signed the thirty-nine Articles. And yet the very man who confidently expected that, by a little coaxing and bullying, he should induce them to renounce the Articles, was thunderstruck when he found that they were disposed to soften down the doctrines of the Declaration. Nor did it necessarily follow that, even if the theory of the Tories had undergone no modification, their practice would coincide with their theory. It might, one should think, have crossed the mind of a man of fifty, who had ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... more flagrantly with the theory of the Daika reforms, according to which every acre of land throughout the length and breadth of the empire was the property of the sovereign. It might have been expected that the Tokugawa shoguns would at least have endeavoured to soften this administrative effacement by pecuniary generosity; but so little of that quality did they display that the Emperor and the ex-Emperor were perpetually in a state of financial embarrassment. As for the Court nobles, their incomes did not always suffice even for the needs ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... to 95.315 per cent. of the oil taken. It was evidently a mixture of two or more fatty acids. On trying to take its melting point, I found that it commenced to soften at 17 deg. C., was distinctly liquid at 19 deg., but not completely ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
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