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More "Soften" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Andy flirted with the proposition, and let his eyes soften appreciably to meet her last sentence and the tone in which she spoke it. "Do you think I could get by with the right line of talk with ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... sweep of prairie where dawn gave a gray tinge to soften the distance and mark the rounded billows of the ever-rippling grass. He tried to analyze what it was about this world which made it seem so untouched, so fresh and new. There were large sections of his own Terra which had been abandoned after ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... Calvinism was shaken, at this time, with a controversy among its professors, of which it is enough to say, that while one party rigidly adhered to the word and letter of the Confession of Faith, and preached up the palmy and wholesome days of the Covenant, the other sought to soften the harsher rules and observances of the kirk, and to bring moderation and charity into its discipline as well as its councils. Both believed themselves right, both were loud and hot, and personal,—bitter with a bitterness only known in religious ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... I will not ask for your help,' she returned, so promptly that he looked quite hurt. And she hastened to soften her words. 'If one makes a mistake of that kind, one must ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the village with his 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
... various changes due to the penetrating heat of the volcanic outflow, so that its surface is metamorphosed as far as that heat reaches. The granite cliff slowly deposits at its base a rock-waste slope to soften the sudden transition from its perpendicular surface to the level plain at its feet. The line where a land-born river meets the sea tends to become a sandbar or a delta, created by the river-borne silt and the wash of the waves, a form intermediate between land and sea, bearing ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... 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 satisfaction ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... is not easy. One's own taste must be the guide regarding strength. Soften and smooth the chocolate with cold water in a jar on the range; pour in boiling water, then add milk, stirring constantly. Serve as soon as it boils. When each cup is filled with the chocolate, place two tablespoons ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... presence of a resinous oil, an oleaginous material of disagreeable odor and taste called by Peckolt caricin, a fatty acid, papayic acid and a resin. In India the seeds are considered emmenagogue. In some countries they wrap meat in papaya leaves for several hours before eating in order to soften it. For the same purpose they sometimes boil the meat in water containing a few leaves or pieces of the green fruit; some even go to the length of saying that it is only necessary to hang a piece of meat in a papaya tree for a time ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... Queen was in prison she had a little baby, and a friend of hers, named Paulina, had the baby dressed in its best, and took it to show the King, thinking that the sight of his helpless little daughter would soften his heart towards his dear Queen, who had never done him any wrong, and who loved him a great deal more than he deserved; but the King would not look at the baby, and ordered Paulina's husband to take it away in a ship, and leave it in the most desert and dreadful ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... of individuals and groups to enhance the pleasures and diminish the ills of life, and therefore cannot tend to unselfishness in either individuals or nations. Civilization in the past has not operated to soften the relations of nations with each other, so why should it do so now? Is not modern civilization, with its attendant complexities, rivalries, and jealousies, provocative of quarrels rather than the reverse? In what respect is modern civilization better than past civilization, except in material ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... which she opened to discharge her volley of anathematization, and shut again as the lightning glanced through the aperture, were unable to repel his importunate request for admittance, in a night whose terrors ought to soften all the miserable petty local passions into one awful feeling of fear for the Power who caused it, and compassion for those who were exposed to it.—But Stanton felt there was something more than national bigotry in the exclamations of ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... to let her hear?" suggested Mrs. Merrill; "we cannot very well soften that shock: I talked the matter over a little with Mr. Merrill, and he thinks that we must take time over it, Miss Penniman. Whatever we do, we must ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sorry," said he, gravely, "that you think me too presumptuous. I must own I had flattered myself, that, to soften the inquietude of an absence, which seems attended by so many inexplicable circumstances, would not have been to incur your displeasure." This seriousness hurt me; and I could not forbear saying, "Can you indeed desire, my Lord, that I should, a second time, expose myself, by an ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... inside the globe—which must be kept at a certain degree to maintain human life—what can we do? We tried bullets. We might as well have used peas and pea-shooters. If our friends try bombs they will still be unsuccessful. If only we could somehow open up the outer rind or soften it, so that our friends could see the inner globe and reach it with ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... sudden pause. I had caught up the letter, and stood near the candle to soften the wax and lift the cover with a small sharp paper-knife, when it flashed on my mind that my cousin would condemn and scorn what I was doing. Unconsciously I must have made him now my standard of human judgment, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... find that the Bible has not civilized mankind. A book that establishes and defends slavery and wanton war is not calculated to soften the hearts of those who believe implicitly that it is the work of God. A book that not only permits, but commands religious persecution, has not in my judgment developed the affectional nature of man. Its influence has been bad and bad only. It ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... Dave," replied Robert lightly. "I took your first lesson to heart, learned it, and I've never forgotten it. I'm so calm that I've unfolded my blanket and put it under me to soften the stone." ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... and I leave myself, my whole self, with you, to do with as you think best for him. If you think better to have it over at one blow, tell him the worst. The facts are enough if you leave out the excuses. But if you want to soften it for the sake of his faith in general,—isn't there some such idea, that men lose their faith in all women through the fault of one?—why, soften it all you like. Make me the victim of circumstances. I can show you how. I had forgiven myself, you know. I thought I was ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... title of the "Scottish Solomon." His general character will be more fully developed as we proceed; and we shall show the perfidy and dissimulation which he practised in carrying out his schemes, and tried to soften down under the plausible ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... allowed her to lift her clasped hands in supplication. Her eyes she could not lift. But neither her agony, nor the lovely features on which it was depicted, nor the slender grace of the form which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of the young man. He was the personification of ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... girl threw a strange spell over this strong, turbulent man. Her presence alone seemed enough to soften his stubborn will, and he would watch their games for hours, his eyes fixed on her graceful movements. Once, when the ball had fallen into the water, the king sprang in after it, regardless of his costly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... young men's eyes met over the vessel in silence, Nic's full of angry dislike, Pete's with an appealing, deprecating look, which did not soften Nic's in ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... intended to finish with a collection, and 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, (about twenty-five dollars). 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 pockets wholly into the collector's dish, ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Mulholland managed the servants, and enquired into the food. Connie brought books and flowers, and all the Oxford gossip she could collect. Their visit was the brightness of the boy's day, and thanks to them, many efforts were made to soften his calamity. The best musical talent that Oxford could furnish was eager to serve him; and a well-known orchestra was only waiting for the completion of his symphony and the result of his examination to produce the symphony ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... out before I get home," was his laughing remark as he vaulted into his saddle and dashed off across the fields, where, beneath the warm Kentucky sun, the snow was already beginning to soften. ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... herself in her most proper and patronising manner, Mrs. Morton twisted her fingers into the boy's hand, and, opening the door that communicated with the bedroom, left the brother and sister alone. And then Mr. Morton, with more tact and delicacy than might have been expected from him, began to soften to Catherine the hard ship of the separation he urged. He dwelt principally on what was best for the child. Boys were so brutal in their intercourse with each other. He had even thought it better represent Philip to Mr. ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with 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
... Pa-, prefix is one of the most puzzling in its distribution and its phonetic changes. A very large number of the Bantu languages in the north, east and west have a dislike to the consonant P, which they frequently transmute into an aspirate (H), or soften into V, W, or F, or simply drop out. There is too much evidence in favour of this prefix having been originally Pa- or Mpa-pa to enable us to give it any other form in reconstructing the Bantu mother-tongue. Yet in the most ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... spirit of peace within the household dwelt. In Jerry a swift-sent age these years had brought, To soften him, wrought with all the woe at home Such open, gracious dignity, that all For cheer and guidance learned to look to him. But chiefly th' younger Reuben sought his aid, And he with homely wisdom shaped the lad To a life's ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... wherein he was wrapped. A thousand knights were again dispatched to the desert, and ordered to spread themselves all around the fountain; but their search was in vain. Bohetzad concealed their want of success from his inconsolable spouse, and endeavoured to soften her ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... 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
... "Soften it, perhaps, depending upon the resistance." Sykes refused to share the other's excitement. "But we ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... in these tunnels was of felt and pitch, six-ply felt and seven layers of pitch. The felt was required to be Hydrex, or of equal quality, and the pitch, "Straight run coal-tar pitch which will soften at 60 Fahr., of a grade in which the distillate oils will have ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... did. I could hear the joy in her tone, too. It has been a good time for many, I know, and gladness will soften the hardest and coldest, Joyce. Don't falter because wrong must still be, daughter. People have to be educated in enjoyment as well as in anything else. It may not be one of the first, or best, things ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... defend the absent, without wholly excusing her levity, struck Flora very forcibly. Mrs. Dalton's conduct upon deck had created in her own mind no very favourable opinion of her good qualities. Miss Leigh's remarks tended not a little to soften her disgust and aversion towards that individual, whose attack upon her she felt was as ill-natured, as it was unjust. She was now inclined to let them pass for what they were worth, and to dismiss Mrs. ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... thou come, O joyous spirit? From realms beyond this human ken, To paint with beauty the earth we inherit, And soften to love the hearts ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... 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 ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... rather a trial to his fastidious nerves and refined taste. The drive of between three and four miles in a fly (very different from his own luxurious carriage), through intricate lanes and rural winding avenues, did not tend to soften his acerbities, and I perceived at once, on alighting from the carriage, that the aspect of the place did not ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... 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
... does not go. At that point, we are Negroes, members of a vast historic race that from the very dawn of creation has slept, but half awakening in the dark forests of its African fatherland. We are the first fruits of this new nation, the harbinger of that black to-morrow which is yet destined to soften the whiteness of the Teutonic to-day. We are that people whose subtle sense of song has given America its only American music, its only American fairy tales, its only touch of pathos and humor amid its mad money-getting plutocracy. ...
— The Conservation of Races - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 2 • W. E. Burghardt Du Bois
... hair in desperation, and to swear that no man in the world had ever touched her lips; in vain, did she exclaim indignantly that it was impossible that such a dreadful thing could be; that the man had made a mistake or was joking with them. In vain, did she try to calm them, and to soften them by her entreaties; they turned away their heads, and had only one reply ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Amelia!" screamed the lady, in a voice that resounded through the Gardens. "Oh, my darling, try to soften his hard heart; pray him that he make an honest ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... zenith, these strong shadows gradually disappear, and the whole group is veiled by an aerial vapour of a much deeper azure than that of the lower regions of the celestial vault. These vapours, circulating around the rocky ridge, soften its outline, temper the effects of the light, and give the landscape that aspect of calmness and repose which in nature, as in the works of Claude Lorraine and Poussin, arises from the harmony of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Miss Barrett. She took her friend so far into her confidence as to speak plainly of the household difficulties caused by her father's autocratic temper. The conversation was immediately followed by a letter in which she endeavoured to soften or qualify the impression her words had given, and her heart, now astir and craving sympathy, led her on to write of her most sorrowful and sacred memories—those connected with her brother's death. Browning was ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... casuist at the Bar. Appear in public as an individual authority, not one of that nameless troop of shadows contemned while dreaded as the Press. Write for renown. Go into the world, and make friends. Soften your rugged bearing. Lift yourself above that herd whom you call "the people." What if you are born of the noble class! What if your career is as gentleman, not plebeian Want not for money. Use what I send ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... All things change and glide, Corrupt and crumble, suffer wreck and decay, But, obstinate dark Integrities, you abide, And obey but them who obey. All things else are dyed In the colours of man's desire: But you no bribe nor prayer Avails to soften or sway. Nothing of me you share, Yet I cannot think you away. And if I seek to escape you, still you are there Stronger than caging pillars of iron Not to be passed, in an air Where human wish and word ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... hidden in the tangled golden red hair which fell in floods about her. The perfect oval of her cheek, the long wet lashes, the arched eyebrows, the low broad forehead, the straight nose, the saucy chin—all presented a picture of beauty and pathos sufficient to soften a heart of stone. Mary had no heart of any sort, therefore she was not moved to pity. That emotion, I am sure, she never felt from the first to the last day of her life. She continued to probe Dorothy's wound until I told her the girl was asleep. I changed Dorothy's position and placed her head ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... you know that 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 ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... determinations of the Lords; and we do not think such a mode of proceeding at all justified by the most numerous and the best precedents. None of these sentiments is the Committee, as I conceive, (and I feel as little as any of them,) disposed to retract, or to soften in the smallest degree. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... British sea-power, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, which, between them, narrowed the French line of communication with Canada into a single precarious strait. The New England indemnity was meant, in the first instance, to be a payment for service done. But it was also intended to soften colonial resentment at the giving up of Louisbourg. A specially gracious royal message was sent to 'The Council and Assembly' of Massachusetts, assuring them, 'in His Majesty's name, that their conduct will always entitle them, ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... yet small; but the following year one cluster alone will weigh some sixty or more pounds. Even in the South they are always cut down when green, as they lose much of their flavor when left to ripen or soften on ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... austere face did not soften as Father Anselm's had done. The Cistercian monk, true to the severity of his order, permitted nothing of pleasure to appear in his face as he looked at the youth whose character he had done so much to form. He did not even raise his hand at once in the customary ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and duty And scatter the kisses of love at his feet; 'Tis a world that is wild with the laughter of living When hands do the brotherly kindness they can, And its hearts are the treasures of tenderness giving To soften and sweeten the nature ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... surrender;" when General Churchill said: "You see, sir, that we are in their power, and you may surrender." Deshler turned to his staff-officers and ordered them to repeat the command to "stack arms," etc., to the colonels of his brigade. I was on my horse, and he was on foot. Wishing to soften the blow of defeat, I spoke to him kindly, saying that I knew a family of Deshlers in Columbus, Ohio, and inquired if they were relations of his. He disclaimed any relation with people living north of the Ohio, in an offensive tone, and I think I gave him ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... 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?" ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he realised that he had been deceived. His wife, in whom he had so trusted, had loved another before him; and at the bitter truth, John Ashford utterly broke down, and, hiding his face in the counterpane, sobbed like a child. Tears sometimes are Nature's own medicine, and do more to soften the heart than any words. After the first shock had worn away, Ashford commenced to look back on the happy days he had spent with Lucy; the way she had worked with him, and for him. These thoughts ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... falsely misrepresent her actions, and misinterpret her purposes? Her mind went staggering back over the past, seeking for means of self-justification and defense. She had only meant to benefit him—to amplify and soften his character—to inspire him with more ideal views and aims; and to do this she had—what? Sophie paused, and shuddered. Could it, after all, be true? Had she, forgetful of maidenly modesty and reserve, opened to this man's eyes her secret ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... after the example of his predecessors in Greece, would have employed the Drama to wear out of our minds everything that is mean or little, to cherish and cultivate that Humanity which is the ornament of our nature, to soften Insolence, to soothe Affliction, and to subdue our minds to the dispensations of ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... without an escort? She had not given it a thought. Surely one might go about a matter of business without a gentleman's escort? The Fremont girls did so. That it might be improper had not occurred to her, and it vexed her to be reminded of it by Hugh, so his well-meant offer failed to soften her. ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... the opinion of Leo, who consulted him on private and public affairs before anyone else. He placed him in the senate, the first time that the bishop had sat there. Acacius is said to have used his influence with Leo to soften a severe temper, to restore many persons to his favour, to obtain the recal of many from banishment. He took special care of the churches, and of the clergy serving them, and they in return put his portrait everywhere. ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... carcass any blood and dirt is washed from the fur, the flesh side well salted, rolled up and left 12 to 48 hours. Then thoroughly beam or scrape down the inside of the skin, removing all flesh, fat and muscles. Skins already dry may be placed either in clear water or tan liquor until they soften up. It takes longer to soften in the tan, but if put in water it must be watched or the hair will start, especially in ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... gentleman rather ugly than handsome and rather poor than rich. But his ugliness was to be nobly expressive and his poverty delicately proud. She had a fortune of her own which, at the proper time, after fixing on her in eloquent silence those fine eyes that were to soften the feudal severity of his visage, he was to accept with a world of stifled protestations. One condition alone she was to make—that he should have "race" in a state as documented as it was possible to have it. On this she would stake her happiness; and it was so to happen that several ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... Julius, inheritor of great Iuelus' name. Him one day, thy care done, thou shalt welcome to heaven loaded [290-321]with Eastern spoils; to him too shall vows be addressed. Then shall war cease, and the iron ages soften. Hoar Faith and Vesta, Quirinus and Remus brothers again, shall deliver statutes. The dreadful steel-riveted gates of war shall be shut fast; on murderous weapons the inhuman Fury, his hands bound behind him with an hundred ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... sent her to me, the governor of a distant dependency, the man whom they knew she had wickedly wronged, being certain that her tongue, which it was said could turn the hearts of all men, would never soften mine. Then afterwards they would declare that the warrant was a forgery, that I had but wreaked a private vengeance upon an ancient foe, and, to still the scandal, degrade me from my governorship—into some place of greater ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 you have stronger influences, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Lancashire countryside. He could tell a story in dialect admirably. And I realized that he had thought much—in his balanced, reticent way—on matters in which I was then groping: how to humanize the relations between employer and employed, how to enrich and soften the life of the workman, how, in short, to break down the barrier between modern industrialism and the stored-up treasures—art, science, thought—of man's ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... single me out and stigmatize me as the proper object of disgrace, or how the merit of so many of my friends who are acting in their support, and whom they might think it possible would feel hurt, did not, in their prudential light, tend to soften the rigour of their aversion towards me, does, I confess, puzzle me. I don't exactly know from what particular quarter the blow comes; but I must think Lord Bute has, at least, a share in it, as, since his ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... would send whatever she could get. I used to borrow a mule from one of the neighbors to ride to see him. Sometimes when my medicine gave out and I had to go without any money, I would pray to God the whole distance that he might soften the doctor's heart so that he would let me have my medicine. I don't know whether my prayers were needed or not, but I do know that the doctor always treated me kindly and finally he told me that I could be treated whenever my medicine gave out, money or no money. He treated me in this way until ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... had been begun while Mary was dying, had since her death been, in external show at least, completed. This was one of those occasions on which Sunderland was peculiarly qualified to be useful. He was admirably fitted to manage a personal negotiation, to soften resentment, to soothe wounded pride, to select, among all the objects of human desire, the very bait which was most likely to allure the mind with which he was dealing. On this occasion his task was not difficult. He had two excellent assistants, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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
... the mean tyrant who ruled in Spain. And here, at last, he was at peace, or would have been but for the thought of this woman—this Marquise de Chantenac—who had gone to such lengths in her endeavours to soften his exile that her ultimate object could never have been in doubt to a coxcomb, though it was in some doubt to Antonio Perez, who had been cured for all time of Coxcombry by suffering and misfortune, to say nothing of increasing age. It was when he bethought ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... all patent rights, but exclusive of lime mixing tanks, agitators, lime water and softening tanks, engine and boiler, and suitable buildings, the cost of which would not be far short of L5,000, or a total of L11,400 to soften 2,000,000 gallons per 24 hours. The labor and other working expenses in connection with this plant would not be less than that necessary to work the Porter-Clark process, which is given as O.55d. per ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... to soften or palliate the fact, that nothing would reconcile Miss Templeton and her sister to such a marriage; that her brother's character was regarded by them with abhorrence; that their cherished brother should marry the sister of a billiard-marker—a mere adventurer and gambler—was ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the Middle Ages. The race—depend on't—the race was unbeautiful; and not even the picturesque dress of the period (which, according to your theory, should have helped to make the wearers of it more attractive) could soften ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... gentlemen, they were condemned as guilty of high treason, the punishment deferred till the king's pleasure should be known; and thereafter their punishment was made banishment, that the cruel sentence might somewhat seem to soften their severe punishment, as the king ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... doctor, who was utterly confounded at her behaviour, and returned her melancholy fourfold; at length, after a good many piteous sighs, she wiped her eyes, and accosted him thus: "What! not one word of comfort? Will nothing soften that stony heart of thine? Not all my tears! not all my affliction! not the inevitable ruin thou hast brought upon me! Where are thy vows, thou faithless, perjured man? Hast thou no honour—no conscience—no remorse for thy perfidious ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... the grim eyes now, though the even, stern voice did not soften. "I never knew myself. I didn't name it Eight Colors. Maybe it's the original ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... successfully. It was out of this incident that the strange story which follows arose. It would not have been easy to tell that story without relating the episode just concluded; and when one has to be tragic it is well to soften the horrors by a little love-making, or some other such emollient. I regret to say that the little Greek girl—who was tyrannously pretty by the way—was as thorough-paced a little flirt as ever yet the psychic philosopher dissected. She had very large eyes, and very pretty lips, and a very ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... every issue. No matter to what extremes the organs of this or that opinion may go, they will never go quite far enough to please the purists on their own side; even as the portrayer of this magnificent personage is pretty certain to be accused of exaggeration, whereas he has done his best to soften down some of the cruder tones and dim the more startling tints ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... inscrutable green eyes to his lazy blue ones. Mrs. Vandervelde had prevailed upon her to retain her own fashion of wearing her hair in plaits wound around her head, and the new maid had managed to soften the severity of the style and so heightened its effectiveness. A small string of black pearls was around her throat, and pendants of the same beautiful jewels hung from her ears. Berkeley Hayden started, and his eyes widened. Mrs. Vandervelde, who ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... our friends or acquaintances, we should never communicate bad news abruptly; but should lead the way to it in such a manner as to soften the blow. A great deal of pain may be avoided by a proper choice ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... the bitumen used by the Egyptian artists has ever been known to soften after this great ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... 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
... which they had been familiar in their early days in Spain. They remembered decorations in Catalonia, Cantabria, Mallorca, Burgos, Valencia, and sought to imitate them; having neither exactitude nor artistic qualities to fit them for their task. No amount of kindliness can soften this decision. The results are to be regretted; for I am satisfied that, had the fathers trusted to themselves, or sought for simple nature-inspirations, they would have given us decorations as admirable as their architecture. What I am anxious to emphasize in this criticism is the principle ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... the appeal of Christ's love hardens where it does not soften. That gentle voice drove the traitor nearer the verge over which he fell into a gulf of despair. It should have drawn him closer to the Lord, but he recoiled from it, and was thereby brought nearer destruction. Every pleading of Christ's grace, whether by providences, or by books, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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. The larger and smaller ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... feminine phrases, which the men condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence, and despising that weak elegancy of mind, exquisite sensibility, and sweet docility of manners, supposed to be the sexual characteristics of the weaker vessel, I wish to show that ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... working for his life. Tools were improvised. So energetically did the soldiers work that the road rapidly grew before them. As it was cut into the rock it was supported by solid foundations below. Many ancient authors say that Hannibal used vinegar to soften the rocks, but this we have no ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... for an image, madam, in one word, To show you as the lightning night reveals, Your error and your perils: you have erred In mind only, and the perils that ensue Swift heels may soften; wherefore to swift heels Address your ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in a favorite 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, ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... candidate. Whoever you nominate, men of the convention, shall receive our heartiest and most earnest efforts for their success. But we beg to submit that in Governor Hayes you have those qualities which are calculated best to compromise all difficulties, and to soften all antagonisms. He has no personal enemies: His private life is so pure that no man has ever dared to assail it. His public acts throughout all these years have been above suspicion even. I ask you, then, if, in ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... herself. She knew that Mary was a cripple, but did not know 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 ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... realized that they were looking into the cold steel muzzles of 45-calibre revolvers, for there was no concealing the money-or-your-life inference of the message. I had honestly tried to soften the blow as well as I could, but all they could see was 50,000 shares more at something like a million dollars less than its market value—or in twenty-four hours a panic and no market for their stock at any price. What could they do? With perspiration streaming in big ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... there is in them," said Alex. "It takes some sort of grease to soften up a hide after it has been dried. The Injuns always said they could tan a hide with the brains of the animal. Sometimes in tanning a buffalo hide, however, they would have marrow and grease and scraps thrown ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... these engines for the working of artillery. Cardan's reply of March 19, 1539, is friendly—too friendly indeed—and the wonder is that Tartaglia's suspicions were not aroused by its almost sugary politeness. It begins with an attempt to soften down the asperities of their former correspondence, some abuse of Giovanni Colla, and an apology for the rough words of his last epistle. Cardan then shows how their misunderstanding arose chiefly from a blunder made by Juan Antonio in delivering the message, ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... their raptures o'er some specious rhime Dub'd by the musk'd and greasy mob sublime. 96 For spleen's dear sake hear how a coxcomb prates As clam'rous o'er his joys as fifty cats; "Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, To soften rocks, and oaks"—and all the rest: 100 "I've heard"—Bless these long ears!—"Heav'ns what a strain! Good God! What thunders burst in this Campaign! Hark Waller warbles! Ah! how sweetly killing! Then that inimitable Splendid Shilling! Rowe breathes all Shakespear here!—That ode of Prior 105 ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... 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 for all, is the thought, even for the blackest soul ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... person who received the greatest injuries that ever any received, and to whom the greatest indignities were done, and who endured the greatest contradiction of sinners, if his calm composed temper do not soften our spirits, mitigate our sharpness, and allay our bitterness, I know not what can do it. I do not think but if any man considered how much long suffering God exercises towards him, how gentle and patient he is, after so many provocations, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... and he had spent the time between Euston and Willesden in saying all he could to harden my brother's heart and set him against me. That is what I fancy, for I had never found him so impossible to soften or to move. I tried this way and I tried that; I pictured his future in an English gaol; I described the sorrow of his mother when I came back with the news; I said everything to touch his heart, but all ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... press for tuition tax credits to expand opportunities for families and to soften the double payment for those paying public school taxes and private school tuition. Our proposal would target assistance to low- and middle-income families. Just as more incentives are needed within our schools, greater competition is needed among our schools. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... of saying to ourselves, as we are too apt to do, 'This is what I like, and done it shall be,' we would generously and courteously think more of what other people like; what will please them, instruct them, comfort them, soften for them the cares of life, and lighten the burden of mortality—how much happier would not only they be, ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all things; it was quite a different ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the army and the navy to the Catholic; let him purchase at the same price as the Protestant (if either Catholic or Protestant can purchase such refined pleasures) the privilege of hearing Lord Castlereagh speak for three hours; keep his clergy from starving, soften some of the most odious powers of the tithing-man, and you will for ever lay this formidable question to rest. But if I am wrong, and you must quarrel at last, quarrel upon just rather than unjust grounds; divide the Catholic and unite the ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... expectoration of hardened mucus; or which lessen the friction of the contents in the intestinal canal in dysentery or aphtha, as calcined hartshorn, clay, Armenian bole, chalk, bone-ashes. Fifthly, such things as soften or extend the cuticle over tumors, or phlegmons, as warm water, poultices, fomentations, or by confining the perspirable matter on the part by cabbage-leaves, oil, fat, bee's-wax, plasters, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... had marked 240 In life or nature of those charms minute That win their way into the heart by stealth (Still to the very going-out of youth), I too exclusively esteemed that love, And sought that beauty, which, as Milton sings, 245 Hath terror in it. [E] Thou didst soften down This over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend! My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood In her original self too confident, Retained too long a countenance severe; 250 A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds Familiar, and a favourite ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... me. Some I have chosen of peculiar grace, Elect above the rest; so is my will: The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warn'd Their sinful state, and to appease betimes The incensed Deity, while offer'd grace Invites; for I will clear their senses dark, What may suffice, and soften stony hearts To pray, repent, and bring obedience due. To prayer, repentance, and obedience due, Though but endeavour'd with sincere intent, Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut. And I will place within them as ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... shameful that a daughter should so hate the father that begat her; and I know the angels weep to see her desire that the great and noble prince should be cast down and slain by his enemies. But, sir, it were the better task to seek to soften her mind. Such knowledge as I have of goodly writers should aid me rather to persuade her heart towards her father; for I know no texts that should make me skilful as a spy, but I can give you a dozen from Plautus alone ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... one lb. Spikenard Root, one lb. Yellow Dock Root. Boil in two gallons of water down to one, then press the strength out of the bark and roots and boil the liquid down to one-half gallon. Add 8 lbs. of best Resin, one lb. Beeswax, and Tallow enough to soften. Apply to the sores, etc., ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... three or four months from the time of planting, and are then gathered by the women. Only the inside seeds are eaten (not the pod); and even these are so hard that twenty—four hours' boiling does not soften them—indeed, they are ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... he declined the salutation of his friends by arriving in the night; and went by night, as he was commanded, to the palace. There, after being received with a slight embrace, but not a word spoken, he was mingled with the servile throng. In this situation, he endeavored to soften the glare of military reputation, which is offensive to those who themselves live in indolence, by the practice of virtues of a different cast. He resigned himself to ease and tranquillity, was modest in his garb and equipage, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... Mrs. Ashleigh the magistrate's anger was more decidedly manifested. He ceased his visits; and in answer to a long and deprecatory letter with which she endeavoured to soften his resentment and win him back to the house, he replied by an elaborate combination of homily and satire. He began by excusing himself from accepting her invitations, on the ground that his time was valuable, his habits domestic; and though ever willing to sacrifice both time and habits where ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... himself very hard. There is not much weathering on the surface of an asteroid. Micro-meteorites soften the contours of the rock a little over the millions of millennia, but not much, since the debris in the Belt all has roughly the same velocity. Collisions do occur, but they aren't the violent smashes that make the brilliant meteor displays of Earth. ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... is soft. After a while it goes into a state of rigidity known as rigor mortis. Then it begins to soften again. This third stage is really a form of decay, called ripening. It is believed that the lactic acid formed is one of the principal agents producing this softening. Some people enjoy their meats, especially that of fowls and game, ripe enough to deserve the name of rotten. ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... 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 two king's counsel in three days, and left me fairly convinced ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... yield to your wishes. It is the privilege of the women whom we love more than they love us to make the men who love them ignore the ordinary rules of common-sense. To smooth the frown upon their brow, to soften the pout upon their lips, what obstacles we miraculously overcome! We shed our blood, ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... the hearts that love us—a world which for him, the multi-millionaire, was just a tiny village with one sweet woman living in it—resembled a garland of flowers flung down from the rocks as though to soften their ruggedness,—a garland broken asunder at the shoreline, even as all earthly garlands must break and fade at the touch of the first cold wave of the Infinite. As for the further road in which he was about to turn and go, that, to his fancy, was a nearer similitude of an approach ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... 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 of family history. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... for it a good name from the critics. It was truly an innocent affair and an unpretending performance. But notwithstanding these, at least seeming, qualities of young doubtfulness and timidity, they did not soften the austere nature of the bleak and blighting criticism which was ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... beneficent 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
... said I:—"She must know it sooner or later: you cannot keep it long from her, and the intelligence may break upon her in a more startling manner than if imparted by yourself; for the accents of those we love soften the harshest tidings. Besides, you are depriving yourself of the comforts of her sympathy; and not merely that, but also endangering the only bond that can keep hearts together—an unreserved community of thought and feeling. She will soon perceive that something ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... opened to favorite hymns, especially some of the Methodist and Quietist character. Many had noticed, that certain tunes, as sung by the choir, seemed to impress her deeply; and some said, that at such times her whole expression would change, and her stormy look would soften so as to remind them of her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... generally in the most luxuriant honey-blossomed clover—and all without working? Mr. Lush had passed for a scholar once, and had still a sense of scholarship when he was not trying to remember much of it; but the bachelor's and other arts which soften manners are a time-honored preparation for sinecures; and Lush's present comfortable provision was as good a sinecure in not requiring more than the odor of departed learning. He was not unconscious of being held kickable, but he preferred counting that estimate ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... said Faith, "and think you do your friend injustice. The idea is, that the guardian genius exercised a controlling influence over the destiny of the young man; and I see no reason why if we concede the power to the genius to soften his nature, we may not grant also ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... thoughts which musing Pity pays, And fond Remembrance loves to raise, Your faithful hours attend; Still Fancy, to herself unkind, 10 Awakes to grief the soften'd mind, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... occur, shown by involuntary spasmodic elevations due to reflex irritation of the muscles. There is loss of appetite, rapid emaciation, the flank is tucked up and the back arched. In from three to six days, the tumefaction around the joint tends to soften at a particular place, and bursts, and a discharge that is sometimes of a sanious character, mixed with synovia, escapes. Great exhaustion at times supervenes, and if the joint is an important one, the horse lies or falls ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... the salt water hole, and our wheat and meat boiled in it did not soften and get tender as it did in fresh water. There was plenty of salt grass above; but the oxen did not eat it any more than the horses did, and wandered around cropping a bite of the bitter brush once in awhile, and looking very sorry. This was near the place ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... from her with unexpected violence, burst into a wild laugh, and began in her delirium to rave against the Moors. Yet, even in the midst of her reproaches, the poor thing prayed that God would soften their hearts and forgive ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... enough to see that the more she sought to soften the wind to her Eastern tenderfoot the more surely he was to be shorn, so she gave over her effort in that direction, and turned to the old folks. To Mrs. Meeker she privately said: "Mr. Norcross ain't used to rough ways, ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... very hard. There is not much weathering on the surface of an asteroid. Micro-meteorites soften the contours of the rock a little over the millions of millennia, but not much, since the debris in the Belt all has roughly the same velocity. Collisions do occur, but they aren't the violent ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... very easy to imagine, Mr. Harlowe's Pains, and Mrs. Harlowe's tender Concern for these Pains increasing together: her Attention to him, and earnest Endeavours to soften and alleviate the Extremity of his Torments becoming all her Care; till, his Ill-temper daily growing stronger by the Force of his bodily Disorders, he at last habituated himself to vent it on the Person who most patiently submitted, tho' her Heart was most nearly touched and affected by ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... with provisions and refreshments, which came very opportunely to save Nicuessa and his men from starving, which they certainly must have done without this seasonable relief. Yet this did not in the least soften his resentment against Olano for deserting him, whom he would have hanged, if he had not been afraid of irritating the men, and instead of that he put him in irons, threatening to send him to Spain in that condition. The authority, however, did not remain long in his hands; for, endeavouring ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... back a little before such fierceness. The boy felt a faint suspicion of what had not before occurred to him: that the man was crazy. But the next second the gentle smile returned to soften the tense mouth, and the boy's fear vanished. No one could fear ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Indian regiments in the Army Corps. The mountain battery occupied a position on "Pluggey's Plateau" in the early stage of the campaign, and they had a playful way of handing out the shrapnel to the Turks. It was placed in boiling water to soften the resin in which the bullets are held. By this means the bullets spread more readily, much to the joy of the sender and the discomfiture of Abdul. The Indians were always very solicitous about their wounded. When one came ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... superbly fitted up, and every way adapted to its purpose; the charges moderate; the audience large and well dressed; the officers and attendants up to their business, and everything orderly and quiet. The play was Scribe's "L'Enfant Prodigue" (The Prodigal Son), which in England they soften into "Azael the Prodigal," but here no such euphemism is requisite, and indeed I doubt that half who witness it suspect that the idea is taken from the Scriptures. The idea, however, is all that is so borrowed. There were no great singers included in the cast ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... that Mr Twemlow had said to himself in his lodgings, with his hand to his forehead: 'I must not think of this. This is enough to soften any man's brain,'—and yet was always thinking of it, and could ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... "that the clips are lined with tiny bands of cork to soften the pressure upon the nose. One of these is discoloured and worn to some slight extent, but the other is new. Evidently one has fallen off and been replaced. I should judge that the older of them has not been there more than a few months. They ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spirits who look with interested eyes on earthly doings; and, deeply attached to the old families, or, on the contrary, regarding all their members with a hatred beyond that known to mortals, lingers about their dwellings to soften or to aggravate the sorrow of the approaching death. The Banshee attends only the old families, and though their descendants, through misfortune, may be brought down from high estate to the ranks of peasant-tenants, she never leaves nor forgets them till the last member has been gathered to his ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... ye tears! that have long refused to flow, Ye are welcome to my heart—thawing, thawing, like the snow; I feel the hard clod soften, and the early snowdrops spring, And the healing fountains gush, and the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... enter distrust and discord, mutual accusation, and stubborn self-defence; they regard each other with alienated minds, and dread their creator as the avenger of their transgression. At last they seek shelter in his mercy, soften to repentance, and melt in supplication. Both before and after the fall, the superiority of Adam ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... common phrase, throughout the borders, and, together with others of less note, served to kindle the fire of vengeance in the bosoms of the settlers, and excite a deeper hostility than ever against the savage foe. Nor was the subsequent conduct of the Indians themselves calculated to soften this bitter feeling against them; for, to use the words of a modern writer, "The woods again teemed with savages, and no one was safe from attack beyond the walls of a station. The influence of ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... of taking post at New York, or any point you may name within the new military division other than Washington. This privilege is generally granted to all military commanders, and I see no good reason 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 checkered with adversity. With great ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... the year, and after the treatment they had received in the dungeons in which they had groaned, even strong men would have shrank from crossing the Alps, to say nothing of the aged women and young children. Alas! O Rome, thy tender mercies are cruel! The Swiss Protestants did nobly to soften the horrors of the treatment awarded to their suffering co-religionists. They not only remonstrated at the Court of Turin, but provided clothing and food to assist the sufferers; they kept a solemn fast-day; they made collections; they stationed themselves, ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... given him a well-lighted cell on the upper tier, and some of his own things had been brought in to soften its bareness, but my first glance at Swain told me that he ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... said Father Time, and his voice seemed to soften with the memory of bygone years. ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... pretended want of evidence, but that these two had determined that the law should take its course, and were quite inexorable. Before the jury retired to consult upon the verdict, it was determined by the friends of the prisoner that an attempt should be made by bribery to soften down the resolution of these two men. As they were retiring, a snuff-box was put into the hands of one of them by a gentleman, with the observation that he and his friend would probably find a pinch of snuff agreeable after so long a trial. The snuff-box contained bank notes to the amount ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... things change and glide, Corrupt and crumble, suffer wreck and decay, But, obstinate dark Integrities, you abide, And obey but them who obey. All things else are dyed In the colours of man's desire: But you no bribe nor prayer Avails to soften or sway. Nothing of me you share, Yet I cannot think you away. And if I seek to escape you, still you are there Stronger than caging pillars of iron Not to be passed, in an air Where human wish and word Fall ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... 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 ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... that they soil; Oh! if there be in retrospection's chain One link that knits us with young dreams again— One thought so sweet we scarcely dare to muse On all the hoarded raptures it reviews; Which seems each instant, in its backward range, The heart to soften, and its ties to change, And every spring untouched for years to move, It is—the memory ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... uncompromising in the whole aspect of the sick-room; there was nothing to tone down and soften the harsh details of bodily suffering; everything was in spotless order; the sheets were white as the driven snow; a formidable phalanx of medicine-bottles stood on the small square table; there were no books, no pictures, no flowers; a sampler hung over the mantelpiece, ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... purple, by Jupiter, who must disapprove these proceedings, why dost thou look at me as a step-mother, or as a wild beast stricken with a dart? While the boy made these complaints with a faltering voice, he stood with his bandages of distinction taken from him, a tender frame, such as might soften the impious breasts of the cruel Thracians; Canidia, having interwoven her hair and uncombed head with little vipers, orders wild fig-trees torn up from graves, orders funeral cypresses and eggs besmeared with ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... common limestone. The inner one of three courses, as well as the whole superstructure, is formed of Pentelic marble of a compact crystalline structure and of dazzling whiteness. Long exposure has not availed to destroy its lustre, but only to soften its tone. The visitor, planting himself at the western front, is in a position to gain some adequate idea of the perfection of the noble building. The interior and central parts suffered the principal injury from the explosion of the Turkish ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... Nearly every farmhouse in the Eastern and Northern States has its setting or its background of apple-trees, which generally date back to the first settlement of the farm. Indeed, the orchard, more than almost any other thing, tends to soften and humanize the country, and to give the place of which it is an adjunct, a settled, domestic look. The apple-tree takes the rawness and wildness off any scene. On the top of a mountain, or in remote pastures, it sheds the sentiment of home. It never loses its domestic air, or lapses into ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... the girl, raising herself hastily. Her features expressed terror; her eyes, which had appeared to soften as Harry looked at her, became quite wild again. "Alone!" repeated she, "alone!"—and she fell back on the bed, as ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... de Lisle and Pauline Viardot. I hope that you will be pleased with what I said about your friend; I have done a second fantastic tale for the Revue des Deux Mondes, a tale for children. I have written about a hundred letters, for the most part to make up for the folly or to soften the misery of imbeciles of my acquaintance. Idleness is the plague of this age, and life is passed in working for those who do not work. I do not complain. I am well! every day I plunge into the Indre and into its icy cascades, my sixty-eight years and my whooping-cough. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... thinks, will "promote harmony and good feeling, where it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage frequent intercourse, and soften prejudices by increasing acquaintance, and tend to peace and union and good-will." "It will work no injury to the State [Massachusetts], by violating any public law of the State. The only law in the statute-book applicable to ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... refraction is far greater than that of water). Because we no longer create gods and goddesses, or people the woods and brooks with fairies and nymphs, and the forest with gnomes and the hills with hobgoblins—because we do not soften our lives with an atmosphere of gracious supernaturalism, and fresco our azure ceiling with angels—it is assumed that the mythopoetic instinct is dead. Far from it! It is as lively as ever, and we may watch it at play in the building up of legends, in ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... almost true, with him looking so earnestly and hopefully at her, and in the moonlight—moonlight that can soften even falsehood until true and false seem gently to merge. She hesitated to say No. "I don't know just what I ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... Natives' Land Act. We made no promises, as previous requests for such permission had been invariably ignored. But we hoped that the Government Secretary's meeting with the sufferers and speaking with them face to face would soften the implacable red-tape and official circumlocution, and perhaps even open the way towards a modification of the administration of this legislative ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... relief, 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 night the ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... Beauseant; "we have both of us gone too far. By giving you the sad reasons for a refusal which I am compelled to give, I meant to soften it and not to elicit homage. Coquetry only suits a happy woman. Believe me, we must remain strangers to each other. At a later day you will know that ties which must inevitably be broken ought not to be formed ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... these tunnels was of felt and pitch, six-ply felt and seven layers of pitch. The felt was required to be Hydrex, or of equal quality, and the pitch, "Straight run coal-tar pitch which will soften at 60 Fahr., of a grade in which the distillate oils will have a ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... who had come in her retinue, established a sort of court, which threw a degree of lustre over the half savage island. The young ladies were soon married to the wealthiest colonists, and contributed greatly to soften those rude manners which had grown up in a state of society hitherto destitute of the salutary restraint and pleasing decorum produced by ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... disturbed by the noise, would come out—pale and frowning. But at the sight of the seminarists and of the old priest in command of them, his irritable look would soften. He would stand indeed with his hands on his sides, laughing and chatting with the boys, his head uncovered, his black curls blown backward from the great furrowed brow; and in the end Lucy peering from ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... long duration; for soon a frightful rumor reached her, that she was to be carried away by this captain and his soldiers no one knew whither. She sent immediately for lord Chandos, constable of the Tower, whose humanity and courtesy had led him to soften as much as possible the hardships of her situation, though at the hazard of incurring the indignation of the court; and closely questioning him, he at length plainly told her that there was no help for it, orders were given, and she must ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... had a hundred thousand times more influence over the people than all the poems, odes, elegies and elegant epistles of the authors of that age. Lecky, the historian, says that "the three short years of the active life of Jesus have done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all of the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists." Could this be said of a man labouring under a delusion as to ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... the Finance Bill, he shocked his temperance colleagues by boldly demanding cheaper beer. But, although he received the powerful support of Admiral Sir R. HALL, he failed to soften the heart of the CHANCELLOR, who declared that he must have his increased revenue, and that the beer-drinker must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... opinion of Leo, who consulted him on private and public affairs before anyone else. He placed him in the senate, the first time that the bishop had sat there. Acacius is said to have used his influence with Leo to soften a severe temper, to restore many persons to his favour, to obtain the recal of many from banishment. He took special care of the churches, and of the clergy serving them, and they in return put his portrait everywhere. Acacius was considered an excellent bishop when Basiliscus ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... will forgive me," Mr. Gordon went on, and his rich voice was so filled with regret and humility that I felt my heart soften ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... tuneful voice rehearse The measures of thy Poet's verse And charm the list'ning Throng! Believe me, Fairest, all our cares Will soften at the melting airs That deck the ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... for several hours before her door, in hopes of seeing her as she might come by accident to the window, or cross her apartment with a candle in her hand. But all his assiduity and tenderness were without effect, for he could neither soften her heart nor open her hand, and was reduced to the utmost miseries of want, while he was endeavouring to awaken the affection of a mother. He was therefore obliged to seek some other means of support; and, having no profession, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... 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 ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... pause in the music, and the silence was filled with the melodious voice of Elinor Wildegrave. She sang a sweet plaintive ditty, and the tones of her voice had power to soften and subdue the rugged nature of Mark Hurdlestone. His knees trembled, his heart beat faintly, and tears, for the first time since his querulous infancy, moistened his eyes. He softly unclosed the gate, and traversed the little garden with noiseless steps, carefully ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... of Justice, I sighed, send your Spirit down On those lords so cruel and proud, And soften their hearts, and relax their frown, Or else, I cried aloud, Vouchsafe Thy strength to the peasant's hand To drive them at length from ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... the violent sobs of little Alice. In his earnestness he had neglected to soften clown the narrative so that it might not terrify the heart of this unworldly infant. Since Grandfather began the history of our chair, little Alice had listened to many tales of war. But probably the idea had never really impressed itself upon her mind that men have shed the blood of their fellow-creatures. ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... did not soften. She merely accepted this as she did all else that he had to give ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... is very human, and, in spite of his stern resolve never to see Dorothy again, the baron's naturally kind heart soon began to soften, and in a short space of time his feelings had entirely undergone a change. He longed to clasp his lost darling to his heart again, and tell her she was forgiven, but he was proud, and his pride held him ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... fond of sending them up into the streets of London, I think." Lucy said nothing more, knowing that it would be impossible to soften the heart of this dowager in regard to the other. But she kissed the old woman at parting, and then was taken down to Richmond ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... more irresistible than the soldier's, his lips touched with persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child, soften all hearts to pity and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... could have was probably not much more than this: of the Valkyrs and the Hall of Odin; of an inflexible Destiny; and that the one thing needful for a man was to be brave. The Valkyrs are Choosers of the Slain: a Destiny inexorable, which it is useless trying to bend or soften, has appointed who is to be slain; this was a fundamental point for the Norse believer;—as indeed it is for all earnest men everywhere, for a Mahomet, a Luther, for a Napoleon too. It lies at the basis this for every such man; it is the woof out of which his whole system ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... suppose they discover that the whole scale of precedence and honour in their land is a stupendous sham;— what then? Suppose they see quite clearly that all these pretensions of an inviolate superiority of birth and breeding vanish at the touch of a Whitaker Wright, soften to a glowing cordiality before the sunny promises of a Hooley. Suppose they perceive that neither King nor lords really believe in their own lordliness, and that at any point in the system one may find men with hands for any man's tip, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... actor on a similar occasion. Alas! my own wife fell sick and died. I made every remonstrance I could to the king not to expose me, a foreigner, to this inhuman law. I appealed in vain. The king and all his court, with the most considerable persons in the city, sought to soften my sorrow by honoring the funeral ceremony with their presence; and, at the termination of the ceremony, I was lowered into the pit, with a vessel full of water and seven loaves. As I approached the bottom, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... simple and poor strain, but with many sorts of passions all at once, or rather indeed with all sorts, in one and the same manner, into the many and various and differing minds of either hearers or judges that he is either to turn and change, or else, by Jupiter, to soften, appease, and quiet—should overlook all this business, and never consider or reckon upon the labor or struggle he had undergone, but pick up certain loose expressions, which the rapid motion of the discourse had carried along with it, as by the current of its course, and so had ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... is still going on among us. One of the individuals, who has lately been brought to the knowledge of the truth, used to say in his unconverted state, when he was tempted not to go to the chapel,—"I will go; the Lord may bless me one day, and soften my hard heart. "—His expectation ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... wages forfeited at the end of the voyage into the bargain." Alas, this wicked threat was too often carried into effect so far as the forfeiture of wages and ill-treatment were concerned. Whereas the diplomatic, sensible master would deal with a case of this kind in a way that was calculated to soften Jack into a condition that resembled penitence, and make him feel as though he were a pig for having complained in this direct way at all. I know there are cases that cannot be dealt with at sea in any other than a despotic ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... things, but that hers 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 worst sense of the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... window seat, had been a silent onlooker to the strange scene. His pallid, thin face was set in an aspect of grieved wonder. And Peter Grimm, meeting his glance, sought to soften the ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... 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 appointed, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... That water is a worry! And doubtless, if the iron glove Should meet us here in Kent or Surrey, Its clasp might soften into love; We might despatch him with a grey grin, And all the German Scribes would vow "Our bugbear is the Montenegrin; We do not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... close, enquiring how I might send thee the poems of Battiades for use, that I might soften thee towards us, nor thou continually attempt to sting my head with troublesome barbs—this I see now to have been trouble and labour in vain, O Gellius, nor were our prayers to this end of any avail. Thy weapons against us we will ward off with our cloak; but, transfixed with ours, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... struggle he had suffered, and how the great temptation had wrung and tortured him before he, victorious, had set the thing behind him. I went to him and clasped his hand: this action of mine seemed to soften him. ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... taken to diminish or in any way soften the natural hardships of this pioneer farm life; nor did any of the Europeans seem to know how to find reasonable ease and comfort if they would. The very best oak and hickory fuel was embarrassingly abundant and cost nothing but cutting and ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... you did but know what a noble part your dear father has acted throughout, in doing his best endeavors to further our plans, and to soften Lady Griffin! It is not his fault that she is inexorable as she is. I send you a note sent by her to Lord Crabs; we will laugh ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a lotion for her hands which, put on regularly every night, was sure to soften and whiten them. She showed her how to treat her hair to make it lose its 'hard, stringy look. Camilla had written out full instructions and sent a piece of the soap that ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... revealed—and were other inducement to keep it wanting, is it not to be found here? But at this moment I will ask nothing which you may feel reluctance in granting. To-morrow we will speak of this again—to-morrow you shall know how much I have sought—how much I have risked—to soften the pang which I knew would, soon or late be inflicted on ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... skilful diplomacy. The Queen's earnest and only wish is peace, and a maintenance of friendly relations with her allies, consistent with the honour and dignity of her country. She does not think, however, that the last would be compromised by attempts to soften the irritation still existing in France, or by attempts to bring France back to her former position ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... carries the eye up to the foot-bridge crossing the moat, thence to the ivy-mantled walls which overhang it, and upward again to the flag-topt tower that crowns the height. Clusters of ivy, and foliage here and there intervening, serve to soften and beautify the mouldering remains. The scene brings to our minds the ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... plaster readily absorbs up to a certain point. Then the surplus water is poured off, the skin or skins are placed within the box, the lid is fastened down, and the whole placed in the cellar for so long a time as is required to thoroughly soften ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... are all favourable to new methods. The opportunity must not be allowed to slip. It may well be that, when the tumult of war is a distant echo and the making of munitions a nightmare of the past, the effort now being made to soften asperities, to secure the welfare of the workers, and to build a bridge of sympathy and understanding between employer and employed, will have left behind results of permanent and enduring value to the workers, to the nation and to mankind ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... his recalcitrant fellow-countrymen to accept them all at once. They were naturally taken aback by so imperious a demand, and their opposition created the atmosphere of controversy in which Brandes has ever since for the most part lived—with slight effort to soften its asperities, but, it must be added, with the ever-increasing respect of those not of his own way of thinking. On the whole, his work has been healthful and stimulating; it has stirred the sluggish to a renewed mental activity, and has ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... adjective prefix is joined to a noun proper, namely, by the interposition of a consonant before the noun, whenever the latter begins, and the former ends, with a vowel. We cannot say, iawba-addik—male deer; but euphony requires that, in these cases, the letter w should precede, and soften the sound of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... mixture in which the spirit nestles, yet there are other kinds; for example, a great love charm is made of the water the lover has washed in, and this, mingled with the drink of the loved one, is held to soften the ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Felix, "I know that both Hugh and Maura love me in their hearts; and although they make a show of anger in the beginnin', yet they'll soon soften, and will love you ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... true, they assemble on Sundays at church or chapel when their devotions forbid the gaiety which ought to vary the grave pursuits of life—and they meet also in the common receptacle of mortality in the parish cemetery—but they seldom or never meet to cheer life's dull round, to soften asperities, to remove formal distances, to cultivate friendships, and to perform social and neighbourly offices of courtesy and kindness. Why is there not, in every populous vicinage or adjoining to every town, a public gravelled, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... after a considerable pause, "before leaving your hospitable roof, to have expressed to the Lady Margaret my deep sense of the interest she deigned to display in my regard, and which I fear has done more to soften my feelings toward her father, than the nobler and holier motive you ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... 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
... when she said, "No," that Miss Pilbeam, despite her father's wrongs, began to soften a little. The upsetter of policemen was certainly good-looking; and his manner towards her so nicely balanced between boldness and timidity that a slight feeling of sadness at his lack of moral character began ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... was Rogers the millman, whose method was more like Bill's, who gave the gathering call. On a patch of earth, close by the side of the rampart and where the moisture had percolated sufficiently to soften the ground, was the plain imprint of a man's foot, shod in miner's brogans, and half-soled. Nor was that all. The half-soling had evidently been home work, and the supply of pegs had been exhausted. In lieu of them, ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... and who won't be bothered by any of these damned modern ideas about public service and woman's mission and all the rest of the tomfoolery the modern generation of women is addicted to. (I paraphrase, and soften our young man's ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... intestines have been over-loaded with irritating material, an enema is one of the quickest measures for relief. In obstinate constipation two or three ounces of warm olive oil injected slowly into the rectum at night and allowed to remain until morning will soften the waste material so it can be evacuated easily in ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... says again I shot or sought to kill him that night at the ford. Again I could have done so, and again I sought to save. He was my enemy. He was"—and here, with affection all could see, the glittering eyes seemed to soften as they turned on Harris, sitting pale, silent and observant—"the enemy of this my brother and my friend. I would no longer go within the soldier lines. In spite of what I had done the white-haired ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... explain it. What equity is, and how impossible in it's very essence to be reduced to stated rules, hath been shewn in the preceding section. I shall therefore only add, that there are courts of this kind established for the benefit of the subject, to correct and soften the rigor of the law, when through it's generality it bears too hard in particular cases; to detect and punish latent frauds, which the law is not minute enough to reach; to enforce the execution of such matters of trust and confidence, as are binding in conscience, though perhaps ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... The BITTERN was gone to the river, to fish, And procure, before dinner, his favorite dish: The SWALLOW was building; the HARRIER[3] hunting, The BANTAM was sitting, and so was the BUNTING. In vain, then, our Travellers hop'd to obtain But a word, or a hint, that might soften their pain. From county to county they thus made their way, And submitted to all things, except to delay. From Norfolk they came up to town in a hurry, And found themselves soon on the borders of Surry. From thence off to Lincoln, and Heaven knows ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... 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 us; while in the case of an ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Mr. Wedmore exerted himself so much to please any woman as he now did to soften the outraged feelings of the cook, who was a stout, red-faced woman, whose days of comeliness and charm were long since gone by. He at last succeeded in inducing her to accompany him to the hall, where he arrived in triumph, with a flushed face and nervous manner, after an ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... Raymond an earnest little note, which was read and contemptuously consigned to the waste-basket as unworthy of answer. Long were the talks Constance and Marjorie had on the sore subject of Mary's unreasonable stand, and many were the plans proposed by which they might soften her stony little heart, but none of them were carried out. They were voiced, only to be laid ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... are who treat you, once a year, To the same stupid set; Good cheer Such hardship cannot soften. To listen to the self-same dunce, At the same leaden table, once Per annum's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... if watching for words that might soften the dire meaning of his message, and Mrs. Hastings saw Agatha shiver. The girl turned slowly around with a drawn white face. It was, however, ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... condescension that he seeks. He felt his own life offered for hers. So that the more he loved her, the more set, the more rigid became all the habits and purposes of religion. Again and again he was tempted to soften them—to spend time with her that he had been accustomed to give to Catholic practice—to slacken or modify the harshness of that life of self-renouncement, solitude, unpopularity, to which he had vowed himself for years—to conceal from her the more startling ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... remembered all her pride of blood, and birth, and family. And Grey, his only boy, of whom he was so proud, and who, he fully expected, would some day fill one of the highest posts in the land;—what would he say if he knew his father was the son of a murderer? Burton would not soften the crime even in thought, though he knew that had his father been arrested at the time, he could only have been convicted of manslaughter, and possibly not of that. But he called it by the hard name murder, and shuddered as ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... station at the heart of war. We took hold of a room knee-high with battered furniture and wet plaster, cleaned it, spread army blankets on springs, found a bowl and jug, and made a den for the chauffeur. In our own room, we arranged an old lamp, then a shade to soften the light. On a mantel, were puttees, cold cream and a couple of books; in the wall, nails for coats and scarfs. The soldiers, entering, said it was homelike. It was a rest after the dreariness of the trench. ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... were tired to death, and so sleepy," said Pierron, trying to soften his rough voice. "I had no idea when you would come, so gave them some supper and put them to bed, and then I went to make a declaration at the police office. Zidore generally sleeps up in the garret, but ...
— The Lost Child - 1894 • Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee
... the butter to oil, but soften it by putting in a moderately warm place before you commence other preparations for your cake; then put it into an earthen dish—tin, if not new, will discolor your cake as you stir it—and add your sugar; beat the butter and sugar ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Garens, you can do this quite well. It will 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 ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... holding their wings half-spread for coolness. All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter morning as ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... has rarely been my lot to see: stretches of mud road with neither houses nor fields to outline it, and then for a block or more bare and ugly houses, hideous in their newness, not having even the grace of age to soften their ill proportions. I was glad mademoiselle was not there to gaze upon the capital of America with eyes that knew so well how to be scornful, and that would so soon find her own ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... 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 ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... that, when we think of Christ dying, dying for us, and so purchasing for us the forgiveness of sins, and everlasting life, such a love, and such a prospect of peace with God, and of glory, should in the highest degree soften and enkindle us; and from love for him, and confidence of hope through the prospect which he has given us, we should be able to overcome all temptations. "I am persuaded," says St. Paul, "that neither ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... consent that she should go, ordering mules and a coach to be prepared. And Nausicaa brought from her chamber all her vestments, and laid them up in the coach, and her mother placed bread and wine in the coach, and oil in a golden cruse, to soften the bright skins of Nausicaa and her maids when they came out of ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... keeping out the rain, a remark that applied with almost equal force to my prison-made breeches and gaiters. Apart from the discomfort, however, I was not much disturbed. I have never been an easy victim to chills, and three years in Princetown had done nothing to soften a naturally tough constitution. ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... the soft ground and from her shadow, cast athwart the path, that she had come on another couple of steps, that she had stopped again, that her gaze was now no doubt concerned with his profile. He did not seek to make it the less harsh, to soften the expression of bitterness and uncouth hardness which his bit of a mirror had shown him in the dugout. He found that without turning to see he could remember just what her eyes looked like. And he had seen them only once and that when ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... the mask of grave melancholy which was fast becoming his natural expression began to soften, as if it could not ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... 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
... "generally they are most mischievous, as well as common and filthy, mixtures, with nothing refined or elegant about them but their titles." For greasy compounds he has no tolerance, charging upon them, that, although they may for the moment lubricate and soften the hair, they burden the scalp, clog its pores, deaden the roots of the hair, and cause or increase many abnormal conditions of the cuticle. And certainly the formulae; which are quoted in the Appendix go far to arouse in the reader the disgust for the popular ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... with its soothing influences, rises full in my view,—from the wall-like rocks, out of the damp underwood, the silvery forms of past ages hover up to me, and soften the austere ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... this opportunity, Mr. Pakenham," said Mr. Tyler presently, with a smile which he meant to set all at ease and to soften as much as possible the severity of that which was to follow, "I gladly take this opportunity to mention in an informal way my hope that this matter which was already inaugurated by Mr. Upshur before his untimely death may come to perfectly pleasant consummation. I refer ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... weighing social advantages against those of the least objectionable climate within the Union. It is not yet proved that this equability and the daily out-door life possible there will change character, but they are likely to improve the disposition and soften the asperities of common life. At any rate, there is a land where from November to April one has not to make a continual fight with the elements to ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... silent face, with fondness, Let me gaze, fair queen of night, For my Annie's tears of sorrow Sparkle in thy soften'd light. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... in the latter, and if I were called upon to test the two men by commanding them respectively to sell what they have and give to the poor, I should be disappointed were the deacon to behave the best. A character which religion does not fructify—does not soften, enlarge, beautify, and enrich—is not benefited by religion—or, rather, has not possessed itself of religion. God loves that which is beautiful and attractive in character, just as much as we do, and it makes no difference where he sees it. He does not dislike the amiable ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... 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, first ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... no cure for his grief; but he did know that continued occupation would relieve him, and therefore he occupied himself continually. "Totos dies scribo." By doing so, he did contrive not to break his heart. In a subsequent letter he says, "Reading and writing do not soften it, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... and refining influence of family life leads inevitably to a hardening of character and a brutalising of life in general. The ferocious nature of the theological disputes of the early Christian period never fail to arouse the comments of historians. But there was really nothing to soften or restrain them. Everything was dominated by the theological interest. And we owe it in no small measure to the vogue of the monk that the tolerance of Pagan times, with its widespread respect for truth-seeking, was replaced ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... despite his disregard for forms, and his dislike to Randal, was too high-bred not to be polite to his junior in age or inferior in rank-rose and bowed. But his bright piercing eyes did not soften as they caught and bore down the deeper and more latent fire in Randal's. Harley did not resume his seat, but moved to the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... articles we directed special attention to the advantage accruing from arranging the sitter in such a position that he received as much direct light as possible, so that it practically helps to soften the shadows; hence the sitter should be placed so that he is turned as little away from the source of light as will enable the desired view of the face being obtained. That this may the more advantageously be done the camera should always be placed as close as possible to the side ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... you may long serve your country with those excellent talents and unblemished integrity, which have so powerfully recommended you to the most gracious and amiable monarch that ever filled a throne. May the frankness and generosity of your spirit continue to soften and subdue your enemies, and gain you many friends, if possible, as sincere as yourself. When you have found such, they cannot wish you more true happiness than I, who am with the ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... premature. 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 gave himself up (as if he were a riddle), but the police would ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... thirty miles the internal heat of the earth is probably great enough to melt every known substance. Confinement may keep in a rigid condition the material which lies beneath the solid crust, but if an avenue of escape is once opened the stuff would soften and ooze upward. There is a growing tendency, moreover, to recognize the importance of gravitation in producing eruptions. The weight of several miles of rock is almost inconceivable, and it certainly ought to compel "potentially ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... come out through the fire really purified, might it not be possible that at some long future time Emily should become his wife? Or, if some sort of half promise such as this were made to Emily, would not that soften her for the time, and induce her to go abroad with a spirit capable of satisfaction, if not of pleasure? If this could be brought about, then time might do the rest. It would have been a delight to him to see ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... don't think so, and I know Ermie so well. I know, father, she's awfully unhappy, and she's getting so cross and hard, and perhaps this would soften her. I can't make out what's up with her, but I think this might soften her. Do try it, father; do, ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... 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
... fame enjoyed but a limited sale for their works—that it was impossible to make the avaricious public purchase what the stupid public would not take an interest in—in short, he used all those arguments which naturally suggested themselves as best calculated to convince and soften Castruccio; and he did this with so much evident sympathy and kindness, that at length the Italian could no longer justify his own resentment. A reconciliation took place, sincere on the part of Maltravers, hollow on the part of Cesarini; for the disappointed author could ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... And seek with tears to soften, I am a woman; A woman that have lov'd him, Sir, have honour'd ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... deference for Mr. Edwards led him, in a certain degree, to sacrifice his own opinions and feelings upon that subject; and that he became, perhaps almost unconsciously, the supporter of a cause of which he disapproved. That he should have been under any temptation to suppress or soften any important opinion, or to deviate in any respect from that ingenuousness and good faith which naturally belonged to his character, is a circumstance which cannot be sufficiently lamented. But if there are any who feel disposed to pass a very severe censure upon Park's ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... polite society, as we may see from Lamb's Essay on Hogarth, and from an early edition of Chambers's "Cyclopaedia of English Literature" (1843), where we are told: "Nor is it needful to show how elegant and reflective literature, especially, tends to moralise, to soften, and to adorn the soul and life of man." "Unfortunately the taste or circumstances of Defoe led him mostly into low life, and his characters are such as we cannot sympathise with. The whole arcana of roguery and villany seems to have been open to him.... It might be thought that the good ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... willing to let me go ahead with it and do it my way. Our way, Lite, because, once you start with it, you can help me plan things." Whereupon, having said almost everything she could think of that would tend to soften that stubborn look in Lite's face, ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... kept; flesh, however, requires salt to keep it in good condition. The voice of women is shrill, not so the voice of men; when soft viands are cooked, no sound is heard, but let a bone be put in a pot, and at once it crackles. A man is easily placated, not so a woman; a few drops of water suffice to soften a clod of earth; a bone stays hard, and if it were to soak in water for days. The man must ask the woman to be his wife, and not the woman the man to be her husband, because it is man who has sustained the loss of his rib, and he sallies forth ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... on the window would soften the light on hot afternoons," Miss Alice thought. So she made one of some white barred muslin she had and put it up. She also thought that as Jennie still had not much appetite, some prettier dishes than those Mrs. Scott had—they were very few, and very ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... aunt's shoulder. All thoughts of quiet habitual love, of tenderness for years, of relationship to the dead,—all that inexplicable likeness in look, tone, and gesture, that seem to belong to one family, and which reminded Margaret so forcibly at this moment of her mother,—came in to melt and soften her numbed heart into ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... can charm, And fate's severest rage disarm; Music can soften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please; Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound. When the full organ joins the tuneful quire, Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear; Borne on the swelling ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... and two make five, and five make ten, and ten make twenty. "Item, on the 24th, a small, insinuative clyster, preparative and gentle, to soften, moisten, and refresh the bowels of Mr. Argan." What I like about Mr. Fleurant, my apothecary, is that his bills are always civil. "The bowels of Mr. Argan." All the same, Mr. Fleurant, it is not enough to be civil, ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... beyond the Confederate lines, Grant met General John C. Pemberton, the defender of Vicksburg. The two men had fought side by side in the Mexican War, and had been friends. Now although divided by cruel strife they shook hand as of old. But memories of bygone days did not soften Grant's heart. His terms were hard. Once more he demanded unconditional surrender. And Pemberton, knowing that ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... Carleton's supersession by a junior. 'Can Sir John Ligonier (the commander-in-chief) allow His Majesty to remain unacquainted with the merit of that officer, and can he see such a mark of displeasure without endeavouring to soften or clear the matter up a little? A man of honour has the right to expect the protection of his Colonel and of the Commander of the troops, and he can't serve without it. If I was in Carleton's place I wouldn't stay an hour in the Army after being aimed at and ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... 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 mud and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... statement—and had expressed a lively sense of his courage, and perhaps implied (for I suppose the arts of ladies are the same as those of men) a modest consciousness of his good looks, our bear began insensibly to soften; and it was already part as an apology, though still with unaffected heat of temper, that he volunteered some sketch of ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays, Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise. To make a pavement for your feet I stripped My soul for you to walk upon, and slipped Beneath your steps to soften all your ways. But now my letters are like blossoms pale We strew upon a grave with hopeless tears. I ask no recompense, I shall not fail Although you do not heed; the long, sad years Still pass, and still I scatter flowers frail, And whisper ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... hint I was obliged to give up every fact, except that he propped up the roof of his house and built downwards, and to generalise all; to make him a man of expedients, of ingenious substitutes, such as any clever Irishman in middle life is used to. I was obliged to retain, but soften, the despotism, and exalt the generosity, to make it a character that would interest. Not one word I ever heard said by the living man, or had ever heard repeated of his saying, except "Drop what you ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... God's people did the same; This all may learn who will take pains to seek The Word of Truth. All arguments are lame. Men use against it, and not free from blame. Can we, dear friends, remember Christ too often? Ah, no indeed! To save our souls he came! And his vast Love to us our hearts should soften, And plume the, wings, of Faith, which we may soar ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... luxuries and pleasures," and "set themselves up as an example of sin and vanity." But Catherine's use of the first person in this connection, strained though it may appear, is more than a figure of speech, to soften the severity of her rebuke. We learn from the legend that till the end of her life she never ceased to repent, bitterly and with tears, for having at the age of twelve allowed an older sister to dress her prettily, and blanch her hair after the fashion ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... which he maintained his 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 ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... unregistered. It would have been indeed absurd to ask one of the Censors to license a pamphlet cutting up the whole system of Censorship. Still here was another deliberate breach of the law by Milton. It was probably to soften and veil the offence that the pamphlet was cast into the form of a continuous Speech or Pleading by Milton to Parliament directly, without recognition of the public in preface or epilogue. [Footnote: That Nov. 24, 1644, was the day ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... tortoiseshell and metal are used is got by rubbing with blocks of charcoal used endways with oil and the finest rotten-stone powder, much like polishing marble, using oil instead of water. Wet polishing should not be used for inlaid works; the water may soften the glue. A superficial wetting is likely to warp the woods and make them curl up at the edges, and the grain of the wood is almost certain to rise. Oil is better than water, but light woods are almost certain ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... she thrust me from her with unexpected violence, burst into a wild laugh, and began in her delirium to rave against the Moors. Yet, even in the midst of her reproaches, the poor thing prayed that God would soften their hearts and forgive her for being ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the 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 ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... also is the attitude of all hard-minded analysts and Verstandesmenschen. Lotze, Renouvier, and Hodgson promptly say that of experience as a whole no account can be given, but neither seek to soften the abruptness of the confession nor to reconcile us with ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... moment and a moment longer from other company, seeking a sweet excuse in some remark on the books that strewed the tables, or the music in that recess, or the forest scene from those windows through which the moon of autumn now stole with its own peculiar power to soften and subdue. As these recollections came across her, her step faltered and her colour faded from its glow: she paused a moment, cast a mournful glance round the room, and then tore herself away, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... you. Oh, Rachel! how kindly you told me, only the other day, that my place in your estimation was a higher place than it had ever been yet! Am I mad to build the hopes I do on those dear words? Am I mad to dream of some future day when your heart may soften to me? Don't tell me so, if I am! Leave me my delusion, dearest! I must have THAT to cherish, and to comfort me, if I have ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... mariners in their respectful consternation—so truly English—knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching about for his ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... its rays are focussed. That spot I have found, by experiment, to be one of a series of small bosses set in the pivot-base of the big chair. I applied the flame of a match and immediately the metal boss began to soften. I understand now. The boss is made of a fusible alloy that melts at a certain prearranged temperature; it is simply a variation of the common safety plug used in all the systems of mechanical protection against fire. At noon to-morrow, March 21st, the rays of the ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... 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
... private conversation with the king. What passed between them is unknown, but Horace Walpole says, that his reception was most flattering, and the king all condescension and goodness. It does not appear, however, that the interview satisfied Chatham, for it by no means tended to soften his opposition. When parliament met, indeed, he took his place in the house of lords, vigorous and more eloquent than ever, and the administration was doomed to feel his power, like that of a giant refreshed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... 1833. 'You are now my only hope,' she writes, '... do not grieve, my dear George. I trust we shall all meet in heaven. Put a crape on your hat for some time.' Had George Borrow's brother lived it might have meant very much in his life. There might have been nephews and nieces to soften the asperity of his later years. Who can say? Meanwhile, Lavengro contains no happier pages than those concerned with this ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... compares for "weird impressiveness and power" with "The 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 for all, is the thought, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... constraint its life doth chill. If pity soften not thy wayward will, Love, feigned and real, will lead ...
— The Countess of Escarbagnas • Moliere
... him but have, Glad to sleep I sink; From his heart the flood he gave Shall to mine be food and drink; And, with sweet compelling, Mine shall soften, deep throughout ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... entreatingly at Ashe. He and she had often conspired before this to soften down Kitty's enormities. But he said ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... grease there is in them," said Alex. "It takes some sort of grease to soften up a hide after it has been dried. The Injuns always said they could tan a hide with the brains of the animal. Sometimes in tanning a buffalo hide, however, they would have marrow and grease and scraps thrown into a kettle with the brains. I think the main secret of the Injun ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... Her children were healthy children and fell in with the routines of governess and tutor that their wealth provided. She saw them often, she noted their increasing resemblance to their father, she did her best to soften the natural secretiveness and aggressiveness of their manners, she watched their teachers and intervened whenever the influences about them seemed to her to need intervention, she dressed them and gave ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... 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
... called up from their farms; they were enthusiastic for their old commander. Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, and Roscius, a praetor, begged for a week's delay, that they might go to Caesar, and explain the Senate's pleasure. Others proposed to send a deputation to soften the harshness of his removal. But Lentulus, backed by Cato, would listen to nothing. Cato detested Caesar as the representative of everything which he most abhorred. Lentulus, bankrupt and loaded with debts, was looking for provinces to ruin, and allied sovereigns to lay presents at his feet. He ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... rather from her training than from intrinsic force of character. The qualities of womanhood well developed, were so entirely the staple of her composition, that there is little to describe in her. Was not she one made to learn; to lean; to admire; to support; to enhance every joy; to soften every sorrow of the object of ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dora Thorne became Dora Earle. Ronald parted from his pretty wife immediately. He arranged all his plans with what he considered consummate wisdom. He was to return home, and try by every argument in his power to soften his father and win his consent. If he still refused, then time would show him the best course. Come what might, Dora was his; nothing on earth could part them. He cared for very little else. Even if the very worst came, and his father sent him from home, it would only be for a time, and there ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... for the skies to grow bluer, And breezes to soften, and days to grow long; For eyes to grow brighter, and hearts to grow gladder, And Earth to rejoice in her jubilant song. Almost time for the sweetest of seasons: Nearer it comes with each new-born day, And soon the smile of the beautiful spring-time Winter's ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... intelligent eyes, who had sat by the side of Leonard in his garret. She was about the middle height, still slight but beautifully formed; that exquisite roundness of proportion, which conveys so well the idea of woman, in its undulating pliant grace—formed to embellish life, and soften away its rude angles—formed to embellish, not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied the critical eye of an artist—it was not without defects in regularity; but its expression was eminently gentle and prepossessing; and there ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... morally improved by it. The love of art, therefore, differs widely in its influence from the love of nature; whereas, if art had not strayed away from its legitimate paths and aims, it ought to soften and sweeten the lives of its worshippers, in even a more exquisite degree than the contemplation of natural objects. But, of its own potency, it has no such effect; and it fails, likewise, in that other test of its moral ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... by this mild address, embraced him with affection, and said: "From henceforth you and your brethren may preach in my diocese. I give you a general leave, it is what your humility has merited." Is there anything which can soften minds and obtain favors sooner than ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... peasants went into court, and had each other fined and imprisoned, it did not soften their hearts in the least. They would only taunt one another on such occasions, saying: "Never mind; I will repay ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... life depends upon it. Plead with him, Watson. There is no good feeling between us. His nephew, Watson—I had suspicions of foul play and I allowed him to see it. The boy died horribly. He has a grudge against me. You will soften him, Watson. Beg him, pray him, get him here by any means. He ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... truces caused, as a rule, but little bloodshed, being in fact but cattle lifting expeditions, it was very different in time of war, when wholesale massacres took place on both sides, towns and villages were burned down, and the whole of the inhabitants put to the sword. Ten years had sufficed to soften the memory of these events, especially among young people, but each had heard numberless stories of wrong and slaughter, and felt that, when war once again broke out in earnest, there was little hope that there would be any change in the manner in ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... More—for advice, for guidance. Such tendrils seeking a foot-hold, make a strong appeal to every womanly woman. She sees in them a call to her nobility of soul, to the mother that is a part of her spiritual nature—a call that gives her pleasant good-angel sensations, that soften her heart and flatter her self-esteem. To the Widow Clemm, with her self-reliance and her highly developed maternal instinct, the appeal was irresistible and between her and The Dreamer the ivy and oak relation was promptly established, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... be cabbage. Maybe that will soften her up. She likes it; gor, how she likes cabbage!" ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... chosen visitor to the illustrious order of the "Ladies of Fontevrault," (3) by whom he was held in such awe that, when he visited any of their convents, the nuns shook with very fear, and to soften his harshness towards them would treat him as though he had been the King himself in person. At first he would not have them do this, but at last, when he was nearly fifty-five years old, he began to find the treatment he had formerly contemned very pleasant; and reckoning ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... him for one moment. For three-quarters of an hour he harangued the Parliament, and his defence was remarkable both for its presence of mind and the art with which he made the most of any circumstances likely to suggest doubts to the magistrates and soften the severity of the first sentence. Found guilty on every point, he yet protested that he was innocent of poisoning. Remorse, which often merely means fear of punishment, had no place in his soul, and torture he seemed not to dread. As strong ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... suspicions attached to his birth, ignorant of the fault of his mother, Florestan doubted not the success of his trick, believing he had only to soften a father who, at once a misanthrope and very proud of his name, would be capable, rather than see his name dishonored, to ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... only keep this up, and not soften should I see her distressed, and not weaken or give the show away, I must inevitably win the game, perhaps sooner than ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... instrument better designed for that object than sex. Individuals that need not unite for the birth and rearing of each generation might retain a savage independence. For them it would not be necessary that any vision should fascinate, or that any languor should soften, the prying cruelty of the eye. But sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually toward another; makes it one of the dearest enjoyments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... in reward of which they would receive remission of all their sins. However benevolent the intention of this "Peace," it led to nothing but perjury, and violence reigned as uncontrolled as before. In the year 1041, another attempt was made to soften the angry passions of the semi-barbarous chiefs, and the "Truce of God" was solemnly proclaimed. The truce lasted from the Wednesday evening to the Monday morning of every week, in which interval it was strictly ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... cynical, bitter at thy disappointment. Let us discourse together hard by. A flask of good Rhenish will soften and assuage thy humours. A drop of kirchenwasser, too, might not be taken amiss ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... like a magic painting of charm, fascination, and desire, glowing mysteriously on the dark background. Something imperceptible in the lines of her attitude, in the modulations of her voice, seemed to soften that suggestion of calm unconscious pride which enveloped her always like a mantle. He, sensitive like a bond slave to the moods of the master, was moved by the subtle relenting of her grace to an infinite tenderness. He fought down the impulse ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... us with contempt, and oppress us in the most opprobrious manner. In all our afflictions the truth of the gospel shone among us, and gave us comfort; and we only wished for the grace of Jesus Christ, (not only to ourselves, but to soften the hearts of our enemies) and the sympathy of our ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... Cyrus comes, the world redressing, 95 Love and pleasure in his train; Comes to heighten every blessing, Comes to soften every pain. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... universal sunshine." It is more than sixty years since those words were uttered, and in those years society has had large experience of industrial and social strife, of its causes and consequences, and of many attempts to remedy or soften it; but all this experience only goes to show that there is but one remedy for these ills. It is to be found in kindness, good fellowship, and the affections. In Emerson's words, "We must be lovers, and at once the impossible becomes possible." The ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... soften the asperities of the scene, the dialogue is cast into a rude Hudibrastic metre, full of forced rhymes, and strange double-endings, with a rhythm ever changing, ever rough and lively, which might almost be compared to the hard, irregular, fluctuating sound ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... Constable and many others into that holy engagement, must needs see with displeasure the work of his eloquence endangered, by the retreat of so important an associate from his favourite enterprise. To soften, therefore, his disappointment as much as possible, the Constable offered to the Archbishop, that, in the event of his obtaining license to remain in Britain, his forces should be led by his nephew, Danxian Lacy, already renowned for his early feats of chivalry, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Massachusetts have ever been distinguished for their patriotism; and although their peculiar province is to soften the cares, and soothe the sorrows of life, yet they have never neglected any proper and decent opportunity of advancing the publick good:—When the Ladies found that Government had established a Lottery to ease the taxes of the ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks
... wine, to reconcile the irreconcilable, to bring the Bible and the dogmas of the churches to be good friends with history and criticism, are prompted by the humanest intention.[21] One sympathises with this amiable anxiety to soften shocks, and break the rudeness of a vital transition. In this essay, at any rate, there is no such attempt. We know that it is the son against the father, and the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law. ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... gently and reassuringly 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 ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and patted his shoulder. But the line around Jock's jaw did not soften. He turned his head to gaze ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... soft hearts can do for a sick man. Mrs. Mulholland managed the servants, and enquired into the food. Connie brought books and flowers, and all the Oxford gossip she could collect. Their visit was the brightness of the boy's day, and thanks to them, many efforts were made to soften his calamity. The best musical talent that Oxford could furnish was eager to serve him; and a well-known orchestra was only waiting for the completion of his symphony and the result of his examination to produce the symphony in ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I imagine." There was an honesty about Crosstrees which would never allow him to soften anything. ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... of the pinnace. Then Anton struck his flag, was taken aboard the Golden Hind, and, with all his crew, given a splendid banquet by his English foes. After this the millions and millions of treasure were loaded aboard the Golden Hind, and the Spaniards were given handsome presents to soften their hard luck. Then they and their empty treasure ship were ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... choir is screened off from the nave by a rich, although somewhat heavy rood-loft, and great is the contrast between the two portions of the church; in the first, all is subdued, quiet in tone, and refreshing; in the last, the eye is troubled by too much light, there is no stained glass to soften down the brilliant sunshine of this fine October day, and, although the architectural proportions of the entire building are graceful and on a vast scale, the beholder is much less delighted than he ought to be on this ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... French, the English were never regarded with favor by the various Indian tribes. Constant encroachments by the English from year to year, though they were lavish of their gifts did not tend to soften the hostility of the tribes. Thus matters continued until Mackinaw passed into the hands of the English, which event took place after the fall of Quebec in the year 1759. This transfer of jurisdiction from a people that the Indians loved to one that ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... 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 of family history. At each advance ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... tea for just ages; not, in fact, since Aggie upset the spirit-lamp. I think Miss Morley's forgotten that now, though. You must do the asking yourself. You're our champion wheedler. If anybody can soften Miss Morley's hard heart it will be you. Tell her Peachy will be homesick, and we feel it'll be our duty to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... he parted from the Queen and the Prince on shore, returned in the evening to London, went to New Cross—where he found the station on fire—proceeded by train to Dover, and sailed next day, amidst wind and rain, in French steamer to Calais. In order to soften the disappointment to the officers and crew of the Gomer, the Queen and Prince Albert breakfasted on board that vessel before they proceeded to the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... continued the earl, his hands still busy with his hat, "and I've done my best. Just now, in the Piazza, I asked her to marry me, and she laughed. We went into St. Mark's, and the lights and the music and the pictures and the perfume seemed to soften her. 'Did you mean it?' she said to me. I told her I did. 'Don't speak to me for a little while,' she said, 'I want to think.' ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... with the Rocks and Sparrs, they often meet with, before they come at the Ore? Whether they use Fire to soften, calcine, or crack them? How they employ it, and ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... I have for some years been the victim of a peculiar insanity, which has greatly distressed several of my friends and relatives. They generally soften it in their talk by the name monomania; but they do not hesitate to aver, when speaking their minds, that it has in truth infected my whole soul, and made me incapable of doing or thinking anything useful or rational. This sad delusion, which they endeavor to remove by serious advice, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... the accursed Iblis was moved to delight and put his finger to his arse, whilst Meimoun danced and said, 'O Tuhfet es Sudour, soften the mode;[FN201] for, as delight, entereth into my heart, it bewildereth my vital spirits.' So she took the lute and changing the mode, played a third air; then she returned to the first and sang ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... nothing would turn him from a set purpose, if he were persuaded it was a right one; and whatever woman's arts she might possess, they would be as the waves against a granite rock. They might play round him, and sprinkle foam on him, and soften his aspect, but they would not move him. So, with an inner strength not unlike his own, she accepted his decree. For some reason, or set of reasons, love might not come into being between them. He was determined ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... "Dikak" used by way of soap or rather to soften the skin: the meal is usually of lupins, "Adas""Revalenta Arabica," which costs a penny in Egypt ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... best he could, and saw a smouldering fire beneath a large pot. In this pot was a large quantity of tar which had been somewhat heated to soften it, and close by lay a gunny bag containing feathers, while still beyond was a long fence rail which had been taken from a ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... 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 ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... tonga was well on its way, speeding at a hand-gallop over the dead level of road, with never an incident of shade, or a spear-point of green, to soften the forbidding face of it; with never a sound to shatter the sunlit stillness, save the three-fold sound of their going—the clatter of hoofs, the clank and rattle of the tonga-bar rising and falling to a tune of its own making, and the brazen-throated ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Side, who had been 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 to be taken ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... a friend pure and simple, she had thoroughly liked Mr Judge, and at the bottom of her heart there lived a lingering hope that perhaps if he loved her very much, and expressed his devotion in very eloquent words, her heart might soften in response. But so far he had not even mentioned love! She was silent for several minutes, and when she did speak it was to ask ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... county?—The commissioner was informed by the private secretary, that his services would be acceptable. There happened also, at this time, to be some disputes and grievances in that part of the country about tax-gatherers. Mr. Falconer hinted, that he could soften and accommodate matters, if he were empowered to do so—and he was so empowered. Besides all this, there was a borough in that county, in which the interest of government had been declining; attempts were ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... had gone to join the queen in Provence. Charles of Durazzo and Robert of Tarentum, who were the eldest respectively of the two branches of the royal family, after hastily consulting, decided to soften the Hungarian monarch's wrath by a complete submission. Leaving their young brothers at Naples, they accordingly set off for Aversa, where the king was. Louis received them with every mark of friendship, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... him that his house at Gravesend bore more resemblance to the home of a missionary than the quarters of an English officer. His efforts to improve and soften the hard lot of the poor in a place like Gravesend began in a small way, and developed gradually into an extensive system of beneficence, which was only limited by his small resources and the leisure left him by official duty. At first he ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... the art an unco devel."[471] Sir George Beaumont's dead; by far the most sensible and pleasing man I ever knew; kind, too, in his nature, and generous; gentle in society, and of those mild manners which tend to soften the causticity of the general London [tone] of persiflage and personal satire. As an amateur, he was a painter of the very highest rank. Though I know nothing of the matter, yet I should hold him a perfect critic on painting, for he always ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... of abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires, with a syren sweetness, drawing the mind to the serpent's tail of sinful fancies; and herein, especially, comedies give the largest field to ear, as Chaucer saith; how, both in other nations and ours, before poets did soften us, we were full of courage, given to martial exercises, the pillars of manlike liberty, and not lulled asleep in ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... the French divine who under the name of Fenelon has made for himself a household name in England as in France, was Bertrand de Salignac, Marquis de la Mothe Fenelon, who in 1572, as ambassador for France, was charged to soften as much as he could the resentment of our Queen Elizabeth when news came of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Our Fenelon, claimed in brotherhood by Christians of every denomination, was born nearly eighty years after that time, at the ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... compels you to lament the 'melancholy activity' which, utterly inadequate to the restoration of its pristine glory, has deprived it of all those adventitious ornaments, trees, and herbage, and a thousand beautiful flowers, which, if they could not conceal, at least served to soften its injuries, and which mitigated the desolation they were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... been less abruptly revealed—and were other inducement to keep it wanting, is it not to be found here? But at this moment I will ask nothing which you may feel reluctance in granting. To-morrow we will speak of this again—to-morrow you shall know how much I have sought—how much I have risked—to soften the pang which I knew would, soon or late be inflicted on ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... assert that there was any thing in this concession which should attach more firmly the Irish Catholics to the Irish House of Commons? Will he say that this was one of those gracious measures which an enlightened legislature would adopt to soften the exasperation of national discontent? Probably he will rather say, it was fitted to evince more strongly than ever the necessity of reforming the constitution of that assembly, which, from the inconsistency of its measures, appeared ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... which the concrete is emptied at the bottom, the bag serving like the buckets previously described simply as means of conveyance, and the other method is to use bags of paper or loose woven gunnysack which are left in the work, the idea being that the paper will soften or the cement will ooze out through the openings in the cloth sufficiently to bond the separate bagfuls ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... such a force impending over them, as not only to occasion a considerable reinforcement of their upper posts, but to occasion their fomenting, secretly, at least, the opposition of the Indians." How any official of the government with the report of Antoine Gamelin in his hands, could hope to soften the animosity of the tribes by the taking of half measures, or to propitiate the British by a display of timidity, is hard to conceive. Four months later the hesitating ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... rolled around, and I spent the greater part of the time driving to and from the polling places in my own county. I was particularly anxious to carry H——, even though all the other counties failed me. That would soften the blow to the family pride, I thought. Not a morsel of food passed my lips during the whole of that trying fifth of November. From sunrise to sunset I never left my buggy, except once to vote, and at nightfall I was fairly done up. When all ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... clear moon, with its soothing influences, rises full in my view,—from the wall-like rocks, out of the damp underwood, the silvery forms of past ages hover up to me, and soften the austere ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... with the firmament, Julius, inheritor of great Iuelus' name. Him one day, thy care done, thou shalt welcome to heaven loaded [290-321]with Eastern spoils; to him too shall vows be addressed. Then shall war cease, and the iron ages soften. Hoar Faith and Vesta, Quirinus and Remus brothers again, shall deliver statutes. The dreadful steel-riveted gates of war shall be shut fast; on murderous weapons the inhuman Fury, his hands bound behind ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... nodded and said, "You have guessed it correctly. And that is why we laugh so much at you stupid Humans. You know as well as we do what's going on, but you are afraid to tell us so. You keep clinging to the idea that your turn-the-other-cheek policy will soften us ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... sword. In fact, he bore much more the appearance of a French lawyer of that day than anything else. The features, indeed, were there; but it was wonderful what the highly-powdered wig had done to soften the strong-marked lines of his face, and to blanch the weather-beaten appearance of ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... be termed the winter season; that is to say, the period of the year when, after a long-continued spell of fine weather, during which the crops ripen and are gathered in, the season of rain, wind, and violent thunderstorms begins which is to soften, nourish, and invigorate the baked earth and prepare it to bring forth the luxuriant vegetation of another summer. And it was one of those violent thunderstorms which provided our friends with the opportunity to escape for which they had been so ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... quivering and her eyes dilated with an agitation which the man at her side could interpret as he pleased. A prompting devil—a devil roused by that thing in his eyes—urging a finesse in double-dealing which only devils understand, made her lips hypnotically turn in a smile, her eyes soften, and sent her hand out to Westerling in a trance-like gesture. For an instant it rested on his arm with telling pressure, though she felt it burn with shame at the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... a space they talked of Violet, touching no tragic note, recalling her as an absent friend. Olga dwelt fondly upon the thought of her, scarcely realizing her loss. The new life she had entered had done much to soften the blow when it should fall. Here in a strange land she did not feel her friend's death as she would inevitably have felt it at Weir. Circumstances combined with Nick's sheltering presence to lift the weight which otherwise must have pressed heavily upon her. Moreover, the longer ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... 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 aside ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... when the stomach and intestines have been over-loaded with irritating material, an enema is one of the quickest measures for relief. In obstinate constipation two or three ounces of warm olive oil injected slowly into the rectum at night and allowed to remain until morning will soften the waste material so it can be ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... his assiduity was without effect, for he could neither soften her heart, nor open her hand, and while he was endeavouring to rouse the affections of a mother, he was reduced to the miseries of want. In this situation he was obliged to find other means of support, and became by ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... when we think of Christ dying, dying for us, and so purchasing for us the forgiveness of sins, and everlasting life, such a love, and such a prospect of peace with God, and of glory, should in the highest degree soften and enkindle us; and from love for him, and confidence of hope through the prospect which he has given us, we should be able to overcome all temptations. "I am persuaded," says St. Paul, "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... curious colloquy was going on, my poor Irish friend sat on thorns, and tried, by throwing in a little judicious blarney, to soften the thrusts of the home truths to which he had unwittingly exposed me. Between every pause in the conversation, he broke in with—"I am sure Mrs. M—- is a fine-looking woman—a very young-looking woman for her age. Any person might know ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... effort to redeem the wretch whose hardness of heart fills her with incredulous amazement—a heavenly instinct akin to the divine love that desires not that a sinner should perish, which enables her to postpone her own relief and that of those precious to her till she has exhausted endeavor to soften Shylock; and Shakespeare thus not only justifies the stern severity of her ultimate sentence on him, but shows her endowed with the highest powers of self-command, and patient, long-suffering with evil; her teasing her husband half to death ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... swiftly went a woman to her with a wirree of water. "Too late, too late," she said. "Why should a mother live when her children are dead?" And she lay back with a groan. But as she felt the water cool her parched lips and soften her swollen tongue, she made a final effort, rose to her feet, and waving her hands round the camps of the tribes, cried aloud: "You were in such haste to get here. You shall stay here. Googoolguyyah. Googoolguyyah. Turn into trees. Turn into trees." Then back she ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker
... should be the same in both places: this singular coincidence of custom, confirmed by that of language, seems to furnish an irrefragable proof of the inhabitants of both places being the same nation. We know, that it is the general property of the Otaheite dialect, to soften the pronunciation of its words. And, it is observable, that, by the omission of one single letter (the consonant t), our Arreoys (as spelled in Hawkesworth's collection), or Erreoes (according to Mr Anderson's ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... was between us, but I could see her face as she said this as plainly as if I had been the fortunate man at her side. And I could see his face too, though it was only in fancy I had ever beheld it soften as I knew it must be softening now. Silence such as followed her words is eloquent, and I feared my own passions too much to linger till it should be again broken by vows I had not the courage to hear. So I crept away conscious ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... 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
... horizon the blue mountains of Santa Ana. They went to the mountains. The heat was great. Gray-colored locusts chirped in the cacti; the sun's rays poured down upon the earth in streams; the dried-up earth was covered with a network of cracks; the stiff leaves of the cacti seemed to soften from the heat, and the flowers were languid and half-wilted. The children proceeded, silent and thoughtful. But all that surrounded them was so new that they surrendered themselves to their impressions, and for the moment forgot even their weariness. Jenny's ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... absolutely alone, we should be astonished and often horrified at the unconscious revelations we would receive. The woman with the Madonna face may unmask and show the lineaments of a common shrew in her chamber. And the virago may soften into the gentleness of a saint as she gives way to the penitence of her own thoughts. The dignified man with the air of virtue and authority might show himself as a nimble-motioned rascal, timid and furtive, ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... and he turned into the softest breeze that ever fanned a woman's cheek in summer, for fear lest he should trouble her sleep. There was a poor woman in rags, in the streets of London, on that March night, but she could not soften the heart of the cruel blast for all her shivering and praying; for she was very poor and wretched, and never was beautiful, even ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... bargain." Alas, this wicked threat was too often carried into effect so far as the forfeiture of wages and ill-treatment were concerned. Whereas the diplomatic, sensible master would deal with a case of this kind in a way that was calculated to soften Jack into a condition that resembled penitence, and make him feel as though he were a pig for having complained in this direct way at all. I know there are cases that cannot be dealt with at sea in any other than a despotic fashion, and although there is no necessity to show weakness, there is as ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... has nothing to do with the children, poor devoted souls!—If your heart is closed to Victorin and Celestine, I shall love them so much that perhaps I may soften the bitterness of their souls caused by your anger. You are punishing your ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... lady standeth! 'tis a dream—a dream of mercies! 'Twixt the purple lattice-curtains, how she standeth still and pale! 'Tis a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self-curses— Sent to sweep a patient quiet, o'er the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... sorrowing soul and a suffering body.—And so much the more because, since the writings of Rousseau and the economists, a spirit of humanity, daily growing stronger, more penetrating and more universal, has arisen to soften the heart. Henceforth the poor are thought of, and it is esteemed an honor to think of them. We have only to read the registers of the States-General[1311] to see that spirit of philanthropy spreads from Paris even to the chateaux and abbeys of the provinces. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... if entirely separated from Great Britain. Their professions and petition breathed peace and moderation; their actions and preparations denoted war and defiance; every attempt that could be made to soften their hostility had been in vain; their obstinacy was inflexible; and the more England had given in to their wishes, the more insolent and overbearing had their demands become. The stamp tax had been repealed, but their ill will had grown rather than abated. The ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... the sound, when oft at evening's close Up yonder hill the village murmur rose. There as I pass'd, with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came soften'd from below: The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, The sober herd that low'd to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... friendly guard was allowed free access to the apartments, in order to facilitate, as was imagined, his wish to agonize and annoy. By this means, he was enabled to caution the illustrious prisoners never to betray any emotion at what he read, and to rely upon his doing his best to soften ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... 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
... intended to soften the reply of the Japanese Emperor, but now, being irritated, I gave ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... 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 to be carried further, until the question ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... love thus accommodated itself to dark and clear nights. Their hearts were ever on the alert, and a little shade sufficed to sweeten the pleasure of their embrace, and soften their laughter. This dearly-loved retreat—so gay in the moonshine, so strangely thrilling in the gloom—seemed an inexhaustible source of both gaiety and silent emotion. They would remain there until midnight, while the town dropped off to sleep ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... read to himself for a bit something which made his weather- beaten face soften, and brought a sparkle to ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... had assisted, had confined his activities to a narrower circle. The last time they had met was when An Wolf had come over to Norcester to aid in the burial of his friend's wife. In the process of years, however, the shadow over Norman's life had begun to soften; when his baby had grown to be something of a companion, they met again. Norman, 'who had never since his wife's death been able to tear himself, even for a night, away from Normanstand and Stephen, wrote to his old friend asking him to come to him. An Wolf gladly promised, and for a week ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... can handle Number Seven in one of his tantrums half so well as Number Five can do it. She can pick out what threads of sense may be wound off from the tangle of his ideas when they are crowded and confused, as they are apt to be at times. She can soften the occasional expression of half-concealed ridicule with which the poor old fellow's sallies are liable to be welcomed—or unwelcomed. She knows that the edge of a broken teacup may be sharper, very possibly, than that of a philosopher's jackknife. ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... healthful ways of independence. This family renders the residence of such a head still more valuable to the colony; and the half-pay officer, by thus leading the advanced guard of civilization, and bringing into these rough districts gentle and well-educated females, who soften and improve all around them by mental refinements, is serving his country as much by founding peaceful villages and pleasant homesteads in the trackless wilds, as ever he did by personal courage, or military stratagem, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... it!' cried Margaret. 'Very proper of Sir Guy—very proper indeed, poor youth. It is well thought of to soften the disappointment.' ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... aethereum, upon which the occupant would find luxurious repose. The deck, or floor, of the apartment was covered with a thick, rich Turkey carpet, the colouring of which matched the upholstery of the furniture; and the ports were draped with costly silk and lace curtains of the finest texture, to soften or exclude the light ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... interpreter, we may suppose that Nature has adapted the works of creation to our moral as well as our physical wants; and while she has instituted the night as a time for general rest, she has provided means that shall soften the gloomy effects of darkness. The birds, which are the harbingers of all rural delights, are hence made to sing during twilight; and when they cease, the nocturnal songsters become vocal, bearing pleasant sensations to the sleepless, and by their lulling melodies preparing us to be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... enemies, and his army of travellers made him still more; for they were more rapacious than the scorpion, and more obstinate than the ox. Indeed, there is still the proverb, 'With honey it is possible to soften the heart of the he-goat; but a blow from an iron cleaver is taken as a mark of welcome by an agent of Ti Hung.' So that people barred the doors at their approach, and even hung out signs of death ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... Opposite to her sat Mrs. Goodrich with her quiet smile. Everyone had something pleasant to say; when Kate spoke, all were inclined to listen. The atmosphere was quiet, urbane, gracious. Even David Fulham's exotic personality seemed to soften under the regard ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... the floor beside the unfortunate seaman, "things look bad, there's no doubt about that, an' it would be unkind deception to say otherwise, for that villain Bearpaw seems to git harder and harder the more they try to soften him. Now what I want to know is, are you an' the others prepared to join me, if I manage to cut your cords an' ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... young, monsieur; I have never done you any harm; protect me, have pity on me, help me to soften him!" ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and he said to her one day, when his passion was excessive: "O desire of souls, verily the love that I have for thee is great, and I have relinquished for thy sake all my worldly portion, and been patient with thee a whole year. I beg God that He will, in His grace, soften thy heart toward me, and that thou mayest speak to me. Or, if thou be dumb, inform me by a sign, that I may give up hope of thy speaking. I also beg of God that He will bless thee with a son that may inherit my kingdom after me; for I am solitary, having none ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... is seen in Fig. 90. The foundation of the dwelling, it will be observed, was laid with well-formed hard-burned brick, these being necessary to prevent capillary moisture from the ground being drawn up and soften the earth brick, making the ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... all I believed. Insensibly the flowers changed to iron chains, because I was changing as I probed deeper into life and thought, and saw my dreams of influencing English Judaism fading in the harsh daylight of fact. And yet at moments the iron links would soften to flowers again. Do you think there is no sweetness in adulation, in prosperity—no subtle cajolery that soothes the conscience and coaxes the soul to take its pleasure in a world of make-believe? ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... 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 ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... and went to sleep in the cot. He found it cold and unfriendly. But habit, the much maligned, is kind as well as cruel; if it can accustom us to evil, so can it soften pain. Freddy was beginning to assume proprietary airs toward the cot, which appeared in every town, and even to express views as to the relative values of cots in Springfield, Akron, or Joliet—when one night he woke to ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... had begun as an unflinching advocate of the stern old utilitarianism of his father and Ricardo. He had become, as Fitzjames observes, 'humane' or 'sentimental' in later years. He tried, as his critics observe, to soften the old economic doctrines and showed a certain leaning to socialism. In regard to this part of his teaching, in which Fitzjames took little interest, I shall only notice that, whatever his concessions, he was still in principle an 'individualist.' He maintained ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... distinctly mutual. One has no right to encroach on the other; and, indeed, there can be no encroachment, no favour asked, on either side, without a certain loss of independence. This feeling of independence should be carefully cultivated and preserved, along with those habits of courtesy which soften the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... beware of him who jests at everything! Such men disparage by some ludicrous association all objects which are presented to their thoughts, and thereby render themselves incapable of any emotion which can either elevate or soften them, they bring upon their moral being an influence more withering than the blast of the desert. A countenance, if it be wrinkled either with smiles or with frowns, is to be shunned; the furrows which the latter leave show that the soil is ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
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