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Mollify   Listen
verb
Mollify  v. t.  (past & past part. mollified; pres. part. mollifying)  
1.
To soften; to make tender; to reduce the hardness, harshness, or asperity of; to qualify; as, to mollify the ground. "With sweet science mollified their stubborn hearts."
2.
To assuage, as pain or irritation, to appease, as excited feeling or passion; to pacify; to calm.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mollify" Quotes from Famous Books



... people on account of proselytes. God's answer to him was: "If thou dost not bring near them that are far off, thou wilt remove them that are near by." To satisfy their vengeful feelings, the Gibeonites demanded the life of seven members of Saul's family. David sought to mollify them, representing to them that they would derive no benefit from the death of their victims, and offering them silver and gold instead. But though David treated with each one of them individually, the Gibeonites were relentless. ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... to take a black dog to sacrifice to Hecate and a cake to mollify Cerberus, as was usual; but he would not listen to such tales and meant to force his way to Theseus. When he found himself face to face with Cerberus he seized him, threw him down and chained ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... brigands; but he consoled himself by the thought that if he ever escaped he could hunt up the owner and make good the loss. Escape for himself was the first thing, and he tried to hope that the boat might prove a prize sufficiently valuable to mollify the mind of the brigand, and dispose him to mercy and compassion. So, as the brigand inspected the boat, David stood watching the brigand, and looking earnestly to see whether there were any signs of a relenting disposition. But the face of the brigand preserved ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... formidable question, "Have I a real message to utter and the technical skill to present it in communicable form?" There are no accessory appeals to the other senses in the way of a dramatic story, scenic effect, dancing and costumes—as in opera—to cloak poverty of invention and to mollify the judgment of the listener. I grant that the composition of an original opera is a high achievement, but we know how many composers have won success in the operatic field from whom we should never ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... [Exeunt all except Queen Isabella. From my embracements thus he breaks away. O, that mine arms could close this isle about, That I might pull him to me where I would! Or that these tears, that drizzle from mine eyes, Had power to mollify his stony heart, That, when I had him, we might ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe

... see me quite alone. Why Mr. Rhodes was so insistent as to an interview I cannot tell, unless it was that he had been rather worried about The Spectator's hostility to him, and he thought he might be able to mollify me in the course of a private talk. I remember Mr. Boyd told me how he had heard Rhodes often express great trouble and surprise at my attitude towards him. Why should a journalist whom he had never seen be so hostile? What could have induced him to take the line he took in The Spectator? ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... always pleasant, for when her husband falls out of work the rent must be paid, or she must mollify a disappointed landlord. In many of our London "model" dwellings, if she is likely to have a fourth child, three being the limit, she must seek a new home. And it ought to be known that on this account there is a great exodus every year from some of ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... epistolary literature. Personally Mrs. Carlyle was by no means a general favourite. She had a fearfully sharp tongue, and a still sharper wit in directing it upon her victims; her experiences were not very likely to edulcorate her acids and mollify her asperities. The letters show that, as so often happens, there was plenty of sweetness within the sharp exterior, and that her strength was the strength of passion, not of obduracy. But this is not all. There might have been biographical whitewashing ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... right, that we have done him a wrong for which his blow is a sort of just reaction. We are checked by these cerebral activities, we choose some other reaction than fight; perhaps we prevent him from further assault, or we turn and walk away, or we start to explain, to mollify and console, or to remonstrate and reprove. In other words, "intelligence" steps in to inhibit, to bring to the surface the possibilities, to choose, and thus overrides the emotional instinctive reaction. It may not succeed ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... cold winter day, but to resist a soldier while in the discharge of duty is considered disgraceful in the extreme. When I reached the lodge I told Faribault of the predicament in which I was placed. We concluded the best policy, would be to prepare a feast to mollify them. We got together all the best things we could muster and when the soldiers arrived in the evening we went out and invited them to a feast in our lodge. The temptation was too strong to be resisted." They responded, ...
— Sioux Indian Courts • Doane Robinson

... strike a man who saved my life?" I urged, trying to mollify him. "See here, Louis, I'm on a message for my company to-night. I can't wait. Some other day you can pay me all you like—not ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... been attracted by the sound of altercation behind him, but who was utterly unconscious of its origin or his own relation to it, came forward impatiently. As he did so, Miguel took to his heels. The act did not tend to mollify Guest's surly suspicions, and, pausing a few feet from the old man, he roughly demanded his business ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... little you understand boys," returned her husband. Evidently the whiskey, though it was the best Glenlivat, had failed to mollify him. It might be dangerous to go too far with Dick, for he had a way of turning around and defending himself that somewhat embarrassed Mr. Mayne, but with his wife there would be no such danger. He would dominate her by his sharp speeches, and reduce her to abject submission ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... What, then, Shimei, is the fault of poverty so black? is it of so general concern that thou and all thy family must rise up as one man to reproach it? When it lost everything, did it lose the right to pity too? Or did he who maketh poor as well as maketh rich strip it of its natural powers to mollify the heart and supple the temper of your race? Trust me you have much to answer for. It is this treatment which it has ever met with from spirits like yours which has gradually taught the world to look upon it as the greatest of evils, and shun it as the worst disgrace. ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... he has, but I know little of his affairs. The time has come, however, when I ought to expect him. See, Eccellenza," a title that never failed to mollify the magistrate, and turn his attention from others entirely to himself, "the lugger really appears disposed to look into your bay, if ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... consultations among the wise-heads, it was agreed that Dr. Holtum and Fred, with the captain and mate of the Norna, should go over to Boden next day and interview Mr. Adiesen. I need not describe what they meant to say, or how they hoped to mollify the irascible old man, for their intention was never carried out. In crossing the sound they spied Yaspard gesticulating wildly ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby

... appeared I had shown the same figger for a Pirut named Gibbs in that town the previs season, which created a intense toomult, & the audience remarked "shame onto me," & other statements of the same similarness. I tried to mollify em. I told 'em that any family possessin children might have my she tiger to play with half a day, & I wouldn't charge 'em a cent, but alars! it was of no avail. I was forced to leave, & I infer from a article in the ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne

... justice, he saw through the artifice of this proposition, the instant it was uttered. It had the effect, notwithstanding, a good deal to mollify his feelings, since it induced him to believe that Daggett was manoeuvring to get at his great secret, rather than ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... the scene of the disaster to Winnie's feather-bed, felt inclined to laugh heartily, but wishing to mollify the old creature preserved his gravity while he offered her quite a handsome sum "to buy some more feathers." A look from Mr. Grey put a stop to the old woman's talk. Soon the visitors took their leave, having given and received most pleasant impressions. Their ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... of the distant thunders of revolution as the precursor of a new era to them. It did furnish an opportunity for them in Maryland to prove themselves patriots and brave soldiers. And how far their influence went to mollify public sentiment concerning them, will be considered in its appropriate place. Suffice it now to say, that cruel and hurtful, unjust and immoral, as the institution of slavery was, it had not robbed the Negro of a lofty conception of the fundamental principles that inspired white ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... respected, but unpopular, by killing, with one lightning stroke of a great fore hoof, a huge mongrel mastiff belonging to the storekeeper. The mastiff had sprung out at him wantonly, resenting his peculiar appearance. But the storekeeper had been so aggrieved that Jabe had felt constrained to mollify him with a five-dollar bill. He decided, therefore, that his favourite's value was as a luxury, rather than a utility; and the young bull was put no more to the practices of a horse. Jabe had driven a bull moose in harness, and all the settlement could swear to it. ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... by driving away the people, and to govern peaceably, by having no subjects, is an expedient that argues no great profundity of politicks. To soften the obdurate, to convince the mistaken, to mollify the resentful, are worthy of a statesman; but it affords a legislator little self-applause to consider, that where there was formerly an insurrection, there ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... imagine that if he could once persuade the woman to marriage, he should soon mollify the heart of her relation, and so become happy at once. With a great deal to do, Madam was prevailed upon to consent, and going to the Fleet they were there married, and soon returned to St. Catherine's, to new lodgings which ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... and chagrined, but I was not at all angry, for I knew what the Will meant. My aunt Dorothy supplied the interlining eagerly to mollify the seeming cruelty. 'You have only to ask to have it all, Harry.' The sturdy squire had done his utmost to forward his cherished wishes after death. My aunt received five-and-twenty thousand pounds, the sum she had thrown away. 'I promised that no money of mine should ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... time Auge replied, advising him to return, as the duke was 'graciously minded.' But this was not enough; Schiller knew his man too well and had probably never expected that his appeal would have any other effect than possibly to mollify the duke a little and thus avert trouble for ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... Englishmen in France, a very small percentage of whom have any knowledge of French, the liaison enjoys no sinecure. To assist in the billeting of British battalions in French villages, to conduct negotiations with the canny countryfolk for food and fodder, to mollify angry housewives whose menages have been upset by boisterous Tommies billeted upon them, to translate messages of every description, to interrogate peasants suspected of espionage—these are only a few of the duties which the liaison officers are called upon ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... a new torture to him. Jacintha told them he was angry, and that made them nervous and flurried, and their fingers strayed wildly among hooks and eyes, and all sorts of fastenings; they were not ready till half-past nine. Conscious they deserved a scolding, they sent Josephine down first to mollify. She dawned upon the honest soldier so radiant, so dazzling in her snowy dress, with her coronet of pearls (an heirloom), and her bridal veil parted, and the flush of conscious beauty on her cheek, that instead of scolding her, he actually ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... "near the sun" have found their increased sensibility flame into crimes of a deeper dye—crimes attesting the treachery and the violence of the professors of an art which, it appears, in softening the souls of others, does not necessarily mollify those of the artists themselves. The dreadful story of ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO seems not doubtful. Having been taught the discovery of painting in oil by Domenico Venetiano, yet, still envious of the merit of the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... into such a belief, but—[resolutely] I'll stake everything on my next book! I give you my word that if it isn't a success—an indisputable popular success—I will join you both, in all sincerity, in urging Ottoline to break with me. Come! Does that mollify you? ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... circumstances were such that it behoved him to reappoint Mr. Harding. He did not feel that he should at all derogate from his new courage by promising Mrs. Proudie that the very first piece of available preferment at his disposal should be given to Quiverful to atone for the injury done to him. If he could mollify the lioness with such a sop, how happy would he think his first efforts ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... tenet, that the Deity is both happy and immortal. Supposing he is so, would his happiness be less perfect if he had not two feet? Or cannot that blessedness or beatitude—call it which you will (they are both harsh terms, but we must mollify them by use)—can it not, I say, exist in that sun, or in this world, or in some eternal mind that has not human shape or limbs? All you say against it is, that you never saw any happiness in the sun or the world. What, then? Did you ever see any world but this? No, you will say. Why, therefore, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... bet a sardine that you could put it all over him," Siebold said, desiring to mollify an upper classman. ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple

... when his Highness came aboard, there were distinctly mutinous mutterings. Captain Galvez tactfully settled the matter, however, by explaining to the crew that the Sultan was, after all, an American subject, which seemed to mollify, even if it did not entirely satisfy them. The armament of the Negros had been removed after the armistice, so that we were without anything in the nature of a saluting cannon, but, as we wished to observe all the formalities of naval etiquette, the Doctor and Hawkinson ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... imitate the surgeons, who, when they have performed an operation, do not leave the suffering part to pain and smart, but bathe and foment it; so those who do their rebuking daintily run[496] off after paining and smarting, and by different dealing and kind words soothe and mollify them, as statuaries smooth and polish images which have been broken or chipped. But he that is broken and wounded by rebuke, if he is left sullen and swelling with rage and off his equilibrium, is henceforth ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... the bishop with the idea that I had robbed the church at Point Coupee." This is not the only mention of his sister during this time, and it is evident that two years' occupation of New Orleans by the Union forces had done much to mollify public sentiment; for immediately after the surrender he had written home, "It is a strange thought that I am here among my relatives, and yet not one has dared to say 'I am happy ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... his jesting manner altogether and spoke with the deep earnestness of the expert airing his pet topic. He was so serious that Desmond burst out laughing. It must be said, however, that he laughed as much like a German as he knew how. This appeared to mollify Crook who, nevertheless, read him a long lecture against ever, for a moment, even when alone, quitting the role he was playing. Desmond took it in good part; for he knew the ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... with which, as well as tir'd With conquering toil, he now retir'd 300 Unto a neighb'ring castle by, To rest his body, and apply Fit med'cines to each glorious bruise He got in fight, reds, blacks, and blues, To mollify th' uneasy pang 305 Of ev'ry honourable bang, Which b'ing by skilful midwife drest, He laid him down to take his rest. But all in vain. H' had got a hurt O' th' inside, of a deadlier sort, 310 By CUPID made, who took his stand Upon a Widow's jointure land, (For ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... the Lord Jesus takes him in hand to make him partaker of the benefit, is found an enemy to his redeemer; nor doth all the intelligence that he has had of the grace and love of Christ to such, mollify him at all, to wit, before the day of God's power comes (Rom 4:5, 5:7-10). And this is a strange thing. Had man, though he could not have come to Christ, been willing that Christ should have come to him, it had been something; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... with regard to the actor and actress. Nevertheless it was worth while looking at Caterna while his papers were being examined. He assumed the attitude of a criminal endeavoring to mollify a magistrate, he made the sheepiest of eyes, and smiled the most deprecating of smiles, and seemed to implore a grace or rather a favor, and yet the most obdurate of the Chinamen had not a ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... cooks the relish call; For when the market sends in loads of food, They all are tasteless till that makes them good. Besides, 'tis no ignoble piece of care, To know for whom it is you would prepare. You'd please a friend, or reconcile a brother, A testy father, or a haughty mother; Would mollify a judge, would cram a squire, Or else some smiles from court you would desire; Or would, perhaps, some hasty supper give, To show the splendid state in which you live. Pursuant to that interest you propose, Must all your wines and all your meat be chose. Tables should ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss

... because you don't know. Miss Chancellor came round—came round considerably, there's no doubt of that; because a year or two ago she was terribly unapproachable. If I have mollified her, madam, why shouldn't I mollify you? She realises that I can help her now, and as I ain't rancorous I am willing to help her all she'll let me. The trouble is, she won't let me enough, yet; it seems as if she couldn't believe it of me. At any rate," he pursued, addressing himself more particularly to Ransom, "half ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... alternations she knew. She would bear it all proudly to the world, but proudly towards him too; her woman's weakness might shriek a cry for pity under a heavy blow, but voluntarily she would do nothing to mollify him, unless he first relented. What had she ever done to him but love him too well—but believe in him too foolishly? He had no pity on her tender flesh; he could strike the soft neck he had once asked to kiss. Yet she ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... wished, though she had hardly hoped, so to mollify Norman as to induce him to promise to be at the wedding; but she soon found that this was out of the question. There was no mitigating ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... order to mollify Grim, turned to the boy, and asked, with her sweetest manner, "What is ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... deities, male and female, as many as you can use. Separate them into two equal parts, and keep Jupiter in the middle. Let Juno put him in a ferment, and Venus mollify him. Remember on all occasions to make use of volatile Mercury. If you have need of devils, draw them out of Milton's Paradise, and extract your spirits from Tasso. The use of these machines is evident; for since no ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the engines of eloquence,—who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and mollify it,—and then harden ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... assist in keeping friendly relations; but his conduct was calculated to do nothing but harm. When the news of the Jay treaty came to France, the Directorate chose to regard it as an unfriendly act, and Monroe, sharing their feelings, exerted himself rather to mollify their resentment ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... its exterior, however, the season of the year was one—a mild afternoon in May—to mollify and sweeten the severe and sterile aspect of the scene. Sun and sky do their work of beauty upon earth, without heeding the ungracious return which she may make; and a rich warm sunset flung over the hills and woods a delicious atmosphere of beauty, burnishing the dull heights and the gloomy ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... frightening him. But Ivan Petrovich went on living abroad, and, apparently, troubled himself but little about his father. "Silence! don't dare to say another word!" exclaimed Peter Andreich to his wife, every time she tried to mollify him. "That puppy ought to be always praying to God for me, since I have not laid my curse upon him, the good-for-nothing fellow! Why, my late father would have killed him with his own hands, and he would have done well." All that ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... from these bits of evidence would be rash. We can perhaps reason somewhat from the general attitude of the government. Throughout the Protectorate there was a tendency, which Cromwell encouraged, to mollify the rigor of the criminal law. Great numbers of pardons were issued; and when Whitelocke suggested that no offences should be capital except murder, treason, and rebellion, no one arose in holy horror to point out the exception of witchcraft,[50] and ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... oaths, nor treaty, nor submission can secure peace, pursue your impious warfare"—thus Constantine despatched to Mahommed. "My trust is in God; if it shall please him to mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the change; if he delivers the city in your hands, I submit without a murmur to his holy will. But until he shall pronounce between us, it is my duty to live and die in defence of ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... and gazed at his wife with an admiring eye, as she busied herself with the preparations of the morning meal. Hoping to mollify her, he commenced flattering her, speaking in a low tone as if it were not his wish that she should hear him, but taking good care, at the same time, that nothing ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis

... her to consider things for all that, and not drive me to extremities; that I married her to love and cherish her, and use her as a good wife ought to be used, but not to be ruined and undone by her. In a word, nothing could mollify her, nor any argument persuade her to moderation; but withal she took it so heinously that I should pretend to restrain her, that she told me in so many words she would drop her burthen with me, and then if I did not like it she would take care of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... my dear Creature, even this hard old Man is mollify'd at last into good Nature; yet you'll ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... requires a greater Genius than we can pretend to. Terence, tho' reckon'd very genteel in his Days, seems in some place to have a sort of familiarity and bluntness in his Discourse, not so agreeable with the Manners and Gallantry of our Times; which we have mollify'd as well as we cou'd, still making the Servants sawcy enough upon occasion. In some places we have had somewhat more of Humour than the Original, to make it still more agreeable to our Age; ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard

... Chinese Emperor could not possibly escape the grasp of the desert chief. In this strait one of his officers suggested as a last chance that the most beautiful virgin in the town should be discovered, and sent as a present to mollify the conqueror. Kaotsou seized at this suggestion, as the drowning man will catch at a straw, and the story is preserved, though her name has passed into oblivion, of how the young Chinese girl entered into the plan and devoted all her wits to charming the Tartar conqueror. She succeeded as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... of food to the best of thy power, forgiveness, sincerity, mildness, and honour to whom honour is due, these constitute a weapon that is not made of steel. With soft words alone turn away the anger of kinsmen about the utter cruel speeches, and mollify their hearts and minds and slanderous tongues. None who is not a great man with cleansed soul and possessed of accomplishments and friends can bear a heavy burthen. Take up this great weight (of governing the Vrishnis) and bear ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... no. Miss Rose is endeavouring, like a handsome young Christian lady as she is, to pacify and mollify her aunt and Biddy; and right down sensible talk does she ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... the rigidity of his doctrine, which he cannot in conscience mollify, even for the tender ears of Adele, it disturbs him strangely to hear that she has qualified his regimen as harsh or severe. Has he not taught, in season and out of season, the fulness of God's promises? Has he not labored and prayed? Is it not the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... six drachms, two and a half drachms each of black hellebore and polypody; a drachm and a half each of agaric, lapis lazuli, sal Indiae, coloquintida, mix them and make two pills. After purging, mollify the hardness as follows:—the privy parts and the neck of the womb with an ointment of decalthea and agrippa; or take two drachms each of opopanax, bdellium, ammoniac and myrrh, and half a drachm of saffron; dissolve the gum ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... was complied with, and the whole thereof paid on the 10th of October that year. And the said Rajah did write to the said Hastings a letter, in order to mitigate and mollify him, declaring to the said Hastings that his sole reliance was on him, "and that in every instance he depended on his faith, religion, promises, and actions." But he, the said Warren Hastings, as if the being reminded of his faith ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... went to school, you and I—" I hoped my putting us both in the same age group would tend to mollify him a little, "physics was all snug, secure, safe, definite. A fact was a fact, and that's all there was to it. But there's been some changes made. There's the cooerdinate systems of Einstein, where the relationships of facts can change from framework to framework. There's ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton

... need not deal with it as if it were characteristic. It indicates no more than the habit of wariness. You should proceed confidently with your selling process, undeterred by the bearing of your prospect. Do not attempt to mollify his assumed harshness. It will take but a few moments for you to sell him the idea that you have brought him something he really needs. When he first glimpses your service purpose, his icy pose will begin to melt and his rough tones will ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... all the Aunt could do to mollify Tilly, who was enraged to the point of tears. "I've never worn a bustle in my life! Uncle's a perfect FOOL! I've never met such a fool ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... master, mistress, and maid-servant to the scene of action; but the two latter, at the first sight of Edward's wild demeanor and gleaming eyes, retreated with all imaginable expedition. Hugh chose a position behind the door, from whence, protruding his head, he endeavored to mollify his inebriated guest. His interference, however, had nearly been productive of most unfortunate consequences; for a massive andiron, with round brazen head, whizzed past him, within a ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... not at all prepared to admit that, but his being spoken of as a man did much to mollify his ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... what a change there will be in his life for some time to come, and at least until his present wealth is spent! The boys who bully him will mollify toward him and accept his pie and sweetmeats. They will have feasts in the bedroom; and that wine will taste more deliciously to them than the best out of the Doctor's cellar. The cronies will be invited. Young Master Wagg will tell his most dreadful story and sing his best ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... ride through the Faubourg St. Germain served to mollify Paul somewhat; and when he walked up to the brilliantly lighted entrance, where a resplendent flunky opened the massive doors for him, he was more himself again. He was soon greeting his host and hostess, whose genuine pleasure at seeing him once more was so evident that ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... we said) required in water, to which 'tis of so near alliance, and whose office it is, not only to humectate, mollify, and prepare both the seeds, and roots of vegetables, to receive the nutrition, pabulum, and food, of which this of water as well as air, are the proper vehicles, insinuating what they carry into the numerous pores, and through the tubes, canales, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... and Macherus, as he put Alexandrium into his hands afterwards; all which Gabinius demolished, at the persuasion of Alexander's mother, that they might not be receptacles of men in a second war. She was now there in order to mollify Gabinius, out of her concern for her relations that were captives at Rome, which were her husband and her other children. After this Gabinius brought Hyrcanus to Jerusalem, and committed the care of the temple to him; but ordained the other political government to be by an aristocracy. ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... make matters for tragedies, yet could not resist the sweet violence of a tragedy. And if it wrought no farther good in him, it was that he, in despite of himself, withdrew himself from hearkening to that which might mollify his hardened heart. But it is not the tragedy they do dislike, for it were too absurd to cast out so excellent a representation of whatsoever is ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... hidden near them, and witnessed their mystic dances, they were filled with great wrath, and all, as one, rushed up to the spot where he had concealed himself. He, knowing no fear, stood up boldly amongst them, and suffered them to scrutinize his person, rightly judging that nothing would so soon mollify their anger as to look upon his handsome and finely proportioned form. When they had gazed as much as they liked, she, the tallest, the one whom all obeyed, spoke in a stern voice, and asked, why he had dared to steal upon them while they were dancing the Sacred Dance ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... defense seemed to mollify the boy; his air of mockery and resentment fell away and he gave her a grateful glance. Then his attention became absorbed in keeping the skiff a safe ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... only of beans [frijoles], and at most a little rice, which they obtained but seldom. Then they gave some rest and repose to their weakened and fatigued bodies. That rest was, however, broken by three cruel disciplines, which all took every two hours, in order to soften and mollify the diamond hearts of those barbarians with their blood. With that efficacious medicine and their tireless care, they continued gradually to soften those rocks—although from the wretched life that they were ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... will be a lesson to the young prodigal for the future. But, I say, what a change there will be in his life for some time to come, and at least until his present wealth is spent! The boys who bully him will mollify towards him, and accept his pie and sweetmeats. They will have feasts in the bedroom; and that wine will taste more delicious to them than the best out of the Doctor's cellar. The cronies will be invited. Young ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... regimen than the greatest empire in the hands of a republic. This is Jacobinism sublimed and exalted into most pure and perfect essence. It is a doctrine, I admit, made to allure and captivate, if anything in the world can, the Jacobin Directory, to mollify the ferocity of Regicide, and to persuade those patriotic hangmen, after their reiterated oaths for our extirpation, to admit this well-humbled nation to the fraternal embrace. I do not wonder that this tub of October has been racked off into a French cask. It must make its fortune ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the boulevard, but he did not lie. Hear the Arabian historian: "Timour-Beg, Sahib-Keran (master of the world and of the age, master of the planetary conjunctions), was born at Kesch, in 1336; he slaughtered a hundred thousand captives; as he was besieging Siwas, the inhabitants, to mollify him, sent him a thousand little children, bearing each a Koran on its head, and crying, 'Allah! Allah!' He caused the sacred books to be removed with respect, and the children to be crushed beneath the hoofs of wild horses. He used seventy thousand human heads, with cement, stone, and brick, in building ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... reasonableness, scorning the limitations of human capacity; his palate brooked no meat when his brain was headlong in the chase; even the mild narcotics which were now his food and drink seemed to lose something of their power to mollify, to curb him. Often rising from slumber in what I took to be the dead of night—though of day or night there could be small certainty in that dim dwelling—I would peep into the domed chamber, and see him there under the livid-green light of ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel

... features became relaxed into a more amiable expression. "Did anybody tell you," he said slowly, and with solemn emphasis, "to ask me that question?" I could truthfully say that nobody had done so. My answer seemed to mollify Venables at once. "Then, if nobody put you up to asking me that question, I don't mind answering it. It was I who broke Thackeray's nose. We were only little boys at the time, and quarrelled over something, and had the usual fight. It wasn't my fault that he was ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... adduced to prove the Deluge of Noah and mollify the transmutation system of Darwin, etc. ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... to smooth it down," she continued, interrupting her guest's efforts to mollify her by a few deprecating words. "You can't unsay it, now it's said; and saying it's no worse than thinking it. I don't envy you your thoughts, though. I've always stood up for Sally, and I always shall, and anybody that is stupid enough to suppose, because I stand up for her, I justify what ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... in the problem he had to work out. The natural way to work it out was by marrying Catherine; but in mathematics there are many short cuts, and Morris was not without a hope that he should yet discover one. When Catherine took him at his word and consented to renounce the attempt to mollify her father, he drew back skilfully enough, as I have said, and kept the wedding-day still an open question. Her faith in his sincerity was so complete that she was incapable of suspecting that he was playing with her; her trouble just now was of another kind. The poor girl had an admirable ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... quip was more like me than thee, and I'll have none of it. 'T is for thee to carry the honey-bag to mollify the stings my naughty tongue must aye inflict. I would I were not so ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... railroad are provided with kus-kus tatties to mollify the intense heat. They are fixed into the windows so that the passengers may turn them round from time to time to raise the water from the lower half to the top, whence it trickles back again and cools the heated ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... been thinking of you, most of the time, and wishing you could be with me," she answered, so artlessly as to mollify him instantly. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... preface the action with "I beg pardon," or "May I trouble you to allow me to pass;"—and should acknowledge the obligation by saying "Thank you." This may not lessen the inconvenience to other people, but it may mollify the feeling of irritability that ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... to my poor wretched digestion. Oh, the pleasure of eating alone! Eating my dinner alone,—let me think of it! But in they come, and make it absolutely necessary that I should open a bottle of orange; for my meat turns into stone when any one dines with me, if I have not wine. Wine can mollify stones; then that wine turns into acidity, acerbity, misanthropy, a hatred of my interrupters (God bless 'em! I love some of 'em dearly); and with the hatred, a still greater aversion to their going away. Bad is the dead sea they bring upon me, choking and deadening; ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... commonly said of them, that their flesh is very sweet, and their wool breeds lice. My relative Patroclias seemed to be pretty happy in his reasoning upon the first part, saying, that the beast by biting it did mollify the flesh; for wolves' spirits are so hot and fiery, that they soften and digest the hardest bones and for the same reason things bitten by wolves rot sooner than others. But concerning the wool we could not agree, being not fully resolved whether it breeds ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... the States of the Province, he found them reluctant to comply with. He therefore immediately quitted that city, and with the whole of his forces made a further retreat into Holland. Thus left wholly unprotected, the States of Utrecht conceived that the only resource which remained to them was to mollify the conqueror by a speedy submission; and accordingly, while Louis was yet at Doesburg, they sent deputies to tender to him the keys of the city and the submission of the whole province. The King shortly after entered ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... how) he had wrought her up to such a pitch of displeasure with him, that it was impossible for her to recover herself at the instant. Nevertheless he re-urged his question, as expecting a definitive answer, without waiting for the return of her temper, or endeavouring to mollify her; so that she was under a necessity of persisting in her denial: yet gave him reason to think she did not dislike his address, only the manner of it; his court being rather made to her mother than to herself, as if he was sure of her consent ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... treatment of O'Iwa San, who has wrought distress and ruin to the ward. For Goemon there is neither food nor clothing? Wait! Time shall bring his vengeance on Iemon and his House." Iemon would have detained him; sought in some way to mollify him, at least get a hint as to how he purposed injury. Goemon shook him off as one would a reptile. With a wild laugh he went out naked as he was ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... that time Thalassius was the present prefect[3] of the palace, a man of an arrogant temper; and he, perceiving that the hasty fury of Gallus gradually increased to the danger of many of the citizens, did not mollify it by either delay or wise counsels, as men in high office have very often pacified the anger of their princes; but by untimely opposition and reproof, did often excite him the more to frenzy; often also informing Augustus of his actions, and ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... takes his food, and leaves and is shy and fierce with all others; and if the dog is afar off, he always has his heart and his eye upon his master; even if his master whip him and throw stones at him, the dog follows, wagging his tail and lying down before his master, seeks to mollify him, and through rivers, through woods, through thieves and through battles follows him.... Wherefore for a better and stronger reason women, to whom God has given natural sense and who are reasonable, ought to have ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... this, of course, would be opposed by the steward, and a long argument would ensue, over a stile, or on a rising piece of ground, until the Squire, who has a high opinion of the other's ability and integrity, would be fain to give up the point. This concession, I observed, would immediately mollify the old man; and, after walking over a field or two in silence, with his hands behind his back, chewing the cud of reflection, he would suddenly turn to the Squire, and observe, that "he had been turning the matter over in his mind, and, upon the whole, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... expressed their dissatisfaction, and when Pompeius requested them to advance, they abused Sulla, and they said they would not let Pompeius be exposed to danger without them, and they advised him not to trust the tyrant. At first Pompeius endeavoured to mollify and quiet them, but finding that he could not prevail, he descended from the tribunal and went to his tent weeping. But the soldiers laid hold of him and again placed him on the tribunal, and a great part of the day was spent in the soldiers urging him to stay and be their leader, and in Pompeius ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... dear Anasuya, I have done my best; but what living being could succeed in pacifying such a cross-grained, ill-tempered old fellow? However, I managed to mollify him a little. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... passes over, a wind dies away, we replace the broken mass, we check the leak, we extinguish the fire; but what is to be done with this enormous bronze beast? How can it be subdued? You can reason with a mastiff, take a bull by surprise, fascinate a snake, frighten a tiger, mollify a lion; but there is no resource with the monster known as a loosened gun. You cannot kill it,—it is already dead; and yet it lives. It breathes a sinister life bestowed on it by the Infinite. The plank beneath sways ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... to me," said Edith, with a smile calculated to mollify this vehemence, "that you are a standing refutation ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... been dinner—to which she came a full half-hour late, but of so ravishing and angelic an appearance that the sight of her was sufficient to mollify Sir Terence's impatience and stifle the withering sarcasms he had been laboriously preparing. After dinner—which was taken at six o'clock—there was still an hour to spare before the carriage would come to take ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... be in passion, Lucy:—I'll provide a fitter husband for her. Come, here's earnest of my good intentions for thee too; let this mollify. [Gives her money.] Look you, Heartwell is my friend; and though he be blind, I must not see him fall into the snare, and unwittingly ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... Saint-Just sends the captain to the guillotine.—The sovereign having once given an order it cannot be countermanded; to take back his words would be weakening himself;[32152] in the service of omnipotence, pride is insatiable, and, to mollify it, no barbaric act is too great.—The same appetite is visible in Collot d'Herbois, who, no longer on the stage, plays before the town the melo-dramatic tyrant with all becoming ostentation. One morning, at Lyons, he directs the revolutionary Tribunal to arrest, examine and sentence ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of an eye wasn't calculated to hold that kind of a dog, and you'd conclude to run for a plum tree in order to have a chance to collect your thoughts, and to try to reflect what sort of an eye would be best calculated to mollify that sort of a dog. You ketch my ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... the edges round and smooth, and care should be taken to keep it sweet and clean. At this period a moderate looseness, and a copious flow of saliva, are favourable symptoms. With a view to promote the latter, the child should be suffered to gnaw such substances as tend to mollify the gums, and by their pressure to facilitate the appearance of the teeth. A piece of liquorice or marshmallow root will be serviceable, or the gums may be softened and relaxed by rubbing them with honey or ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... said the Seigneur, quietly but firmly. "Are you not aware how great is the penalty that you have incurred by this disgraceful scandal? Think it fortunate if you shall be able in any way to compound for it with the lady's guardian. Seraphine, mollify your indignation towards one who has not meant to thwart you. Return to the hall with your brother, whilst I conduct this injured lady to the parsonage, to remain there until I can escort her home, and (as ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... hear again. With Voltaire, Friedrich himself had no farther Correspondence, or as good as none, for four years and more. What Voltaire writes to him (with Gifts of Books and the like, in the tenderest regretful pathetically COOING tone, enough to mollify rocks), Friedrich usually answers by De Prades, if at all,—in a quite discouraging manner. In the end of 1757, on what hint we shall see, the Correspondence recommenced, and did not cease again so ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... to fear that all I can say to you will hardly suffice to mollify that hard heart of yours; and, therefore, my last refuge shall be to set others on, though I call them out ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... word "resigned" in describing Pogson. To-day that word notably covered him. Our friend appeared depressed; yet bland in his depression, anxious to mollify and placate rather than reproach. His attitude touched me. I hardly deserved it after my neglect—to which, by the way, he made no smallest reference. But as I unfolded my plans, he increasingly threw off his depression ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... of all that you will not help to mollify Count Albert in these matters, but let him go on as he has begun.... Encourage him to go on briskly, to leave things in the hands of God, and obey His divine command to wield the sword as long as he ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... re-entering the room to announce that dinner was ready, Helene severely scolded her. The little maid's head drooped; she stammered out that it was all very true, for she ought to have looked better after mademoiselle. Then, hoping to mollify her mistress, she busied herself in helping her to change her clothes. "Good gracious! madame was in a fine state!" she remarked, as she assisted in removing each mud-stained garment, at which Jeanne glared suspiciously, still ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... tended to mollify the disposition of such a man as Smith to find that Morse, in reply to these covert sneers and open insinuations, never once lost his self-control, nor permitted himself to depart from the dignified tone of rejoinder which becomes a gentleman in his dealings with one who, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... and Poyser is such a good tenant that Donnithorne is likely to think twice, and digest his spleen rather than turn them out. But if he should give them notice at Lady Day, Arthur and I must move heaven and earth to mollify him. Such old parishioners as they are ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... great mission surely that is to be called wherein all the safety and hope of many poor people is comprehended—their sole hope lying in the chance that they shall be able, by all their loyalty, obedience, and most humble prayers, to mollify and appease the minds of your Royal Highnesses, now irritated against them. In behalf of these poor people, whose cause pity itself may seem to make its own, the Most Serene Protector of England also comes as an intercessor, and most earnestly requests ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... you can do, Dora, is to mollify Mr. Ormsby. Don't anger him. Don't urge him on to blacken Dick's memory, as he is sure to do if you don't look more kindly upon his suit. He expects to marry you. He told me so when I met him at dinner at the Bents'. Your father wishes it, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... the exasperated Basset, whom Tom's manner of treating the subject was not calculated to mollify. "Let him slip, you say. I'll see him, I'll see him"—but in vain he sought words to express the direful purpose; language broke down under ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... persistent cultivation and good treatment would greatly mollify the sharp temper of the thorn, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... again—that upflashing passion. What Jasper saw fit to reply would mollify the outlaw or it would not. There was ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... flattery seemed to mollify the Dictator's wrath, or it had by this otherwise expended itself, as evinced by his rejoinder in a more tranquil tone. Indeed, his manner became ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... in a temple. In a hall he was the decoration. Whereever his body was, there, too, was his spirit, ready for the demands of the hour. He was singularly joyous and nicely tempered in speech with so much personal magnetism that he could mollify any enemy if he could only meet him face to face. His dress was always rich and appropriate. He was skilful in horsemanship, in archery, and in tennis, but his chief amusement was the chase. He liked to linger at the table and demanded good serving but was really moderate in his tastes, as often ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... this respite. Antonius sent the Virgins away with all respect, and wrote in answer to Vitellius that the murder of Sabinus and the burning of the Capitol had broken off all negotiations. However, he summoned the legions to a meeting and 82 endeavoured to mollify them, proposing that they should pitch their camp near the Mulvian Bridge and enter the city on the following day. His motive for delay was a fear that the troops, when once their blood was up after ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... negotiating, and withdraw his troups; and as he had neither any of his own, nor money to assist him, he sent the articles demanded of him by the king of Sweden, signed with his own hand, and set out to Alranstadt, hoping, by his presence and persuasions, to mollify his indignation, and be permitted to enjoy his own Saxony ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... Bobadilla ordered him to hand over the remainder of the rebels for trial, together with evidence against them. Diego replied that the prisoners were held by order of the viceroy, and that the viceroy's authority was higher than the comendador's. Such an answer was not likely to mollify the royal commissioner. ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... will I lose more time about her? Plague on't, I have thrown away already such Songs and Sonnets, such Madrigals and Posies, such Night-walks, Sighs, and direful Lovers looks, as wou'd have mollify'd any Woman of Conscience and Religion; and now to be popt i'th' mouth with Quality! Well, if ever you catch me lying with any but honest well-meaning Damsels hereafter, hang me:—farewel, old Secret, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... thirsty now when I think of it. In our camp at Moxie we made a large birch-bark box to keep the butter in; and the butter in this box, covered with some leafy boughs, I think improved in flavor day by day. Maine butter needs something to mollify and sweeten it a little, and I think birch bark will do it. In camp Uncle Nathan often drank his tea and coffee from a bark cup; the china closet in the birch-tree was always handy, and our vulgar tin ware was generally a good deal mixed, and the kitchen-maid ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... his duty herein, and yet lest such a measure as is requisite for this purpose might prove too dangerous and fatal, I was advised with for an antidote, who prescribed this infallible receipt of taking a wife, a creature so harmless and silly, and yet so useful and convenient, as might mollify and make pliable the stiffness and morose humour of man. Now that which made Plato doubt under what genus to rank woman, whether among brutes or rational creatures, was only meant to denote the extreme stupidness and Folly of that sex, a sex so unalterably simple, that for any of them to ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... a long time past been very unhappy. She had tried by amiability and obedience to show her goodwill and to mollify the new wife, and to break down that wall of prejudice and misunderstanding that she knew generally stood between step-parents and their step-children. But she soon found that her efforts were in vain. The step-mother never trusted her, and seemed to misinterpret all her actions, and ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... relief that was marred by the thought of the same thing happening two weeks later. It was the only feature of his schooling that left behind an actual sense of grievance which the passing years could not mollify. ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... against the approbation of his family, and had revolted from the Catholic communion. The elder brother, however mortified by this great deed, which passion had prompted, and not conscience, had exerted his best offices to mollify their exasperated father, and to reconcile the sire to the son. But he had exerted them ineffectually; and, as is not unusual, found, after much harrowing anxiety and deep suffering, that he was not even recompensed for his exertions and his sympathy by the gratitude ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... its after sustenance and means of growth and in conflict with danger the source of new strength; like piles, which the blows of the rammer serve to fix into the ground. Wherefore Numa, judging it no slight undertaking to mollify and bend to peace the presumptuous and stubborn spirits of this people, began to operate upon them with the sanctions of religion. He sacrificed often, and used processions and religious dances, in which most commonly he officiated in ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... the condescensions of rank do not in themselves confer any power on talent, they have the effect of producing that complacency of mind in those who are the objects of them, which is at once the reward and the solace of intellectual exertion, at the same time that they tend to mollify the spirit of contemporary invidiousness. The day after, the fleet sailed; and when they had passed the rock, the captains of the two men of war [Footnote: The two frigates, the Shannon, Captain Meadow, since Lord Manvers, whose ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... expired they thought themselves at liberty, and some of them quitted the corps. The Duke ordered them to be tried as deserters, and not having received a legal discharge, they were condemned. Nothing could mollify him; two were executed.' Memoirs of the Reign of George ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... her in a most horrible way, by endeavoring to compel her to go to school. She asked my advice; resistance was the answer. At the same time I essayed to mollify Mr. Westbrook, in vain! I advised her to resist. She wrote to say that resistance was useless, but that she would fly with me and throw ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... him; declared, in solemn Diet, the Pope's ban to be mere spent shot, of no avail in Imperial Politics. Ludwig went, vigorously to Italy; tried setting up a Pope of his own; but that did not answer; nor of course tend to mollify the Holiness ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... Katie Fullarton "flashed" her one half-franc with great courage and confidence, but the display of all that small capitalist's worldly wealth did not mollify Jean Duchesne. He had been lashing himself up all along into such a state of brutal ferocity, that he would have been disappointed if his extortion had been immediately satisfied; so he broke in savagely on the chaplain's confused excuses and promises to ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... can we do? Will the Daily News qualify As an instructor in matters like these? How can we quickest successfully mollify Those whom our errors ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various

... -moderate &c. adj.; keep within bounds, keep within compass; sober down, settle down; keep the peace, remit, relent, take in sail. moderate, soften, mitigate, temper, accoy|; attemper[obs3], contemper[obs3]; mollify, lenify[obs3], dulcify[obs3], dull, take off the edge, blunt, obtund[obs3], sheathe, subdue, chasten; sober down, tone down, smooth down; weaken &c. 160; lessen &c. (decrease) 36; check palliate. tranquilize, pacify, assuage, appease, swag, lull, soothe, compose, still, calm, calm down, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... of mutual ill-will. England and America cannot afford to fight. Our late Civil War demonstrated this,—when, with all the ill-feeling between the two nations, war was averted. The interests of trade may mollify and soften international jealousies, but only forbearance and the cultivation of mutual and common interests can eradicate the sentiments ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... I saw he was white with rage. The idea of going round the country talking about me was more than he could bear; so I said, trying to mollify him: ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... over his external foes. Sigismund, unable to conquer him by force of arms, now sought to mollify him by offers of peace, and entered into negotiations with the stern old warrior. But Ziska was not to be placated. He could not trust the man who had broken his plighted word and burned John Huss, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... God himself to undo what had been done; that what could be effected to save his honour, and give him satisfaction for the irregularity of the arrest, should have place. My brother, therefore, she observed, ought to strive to mollify the King by addressing him with expressions of regard to his person and attachment to his service; and, in the meantime, use his influence over Bussi to reconcile him to Quelus, and to end all disputes betwixt them. She then declared that the principal motive ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... others that he had been borne out, as if dead, in the chariot. Here and there were heard voices of sympathy for the Christians: "If they had not burned Rome, why so much blood, torture, and injustice? Will not the gods avenge the innocent, and what piacula can mollify them now?" The words innoxia corpora were repeated oftener and oftener. Women expressed aloud their pity for children thrown in such numbers to wild beasts, nailed to crosses or burned in those cursed gardens! And finally pity was turned into ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... ran round the room. This did not serve to mollify the anger of the irascible Nicot, whose hand went ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... That's a command Which grips us with an iron hand; And "he who prigs what isn't his'n, When he is cotched shall go to prison!" So runs the Cockney doggerel, clear If ungrammatical, austere, With not a saving clause to qualify Its rigid Spartan rule, or mollify Theft's Nemesis. Thou shalt not steal! At least,—ahem!—well, all must feel That property in thoughts and phrases, The verbal filagree that raises Flat fustian into "oratory," And makes the pulpit place of glory, Such property ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various

... note, whenas dawn is nigh, * Tells the lover from strains of strings to fly: Complaineth for passion Uns al-Wujud, * For pine that would being to him deny. How many a strain do we hear, whose sound * Softens stones and the rock can mollify: And the breeze of morning that sweetly speaks * Of meadows in flowered greenery. And scents and sounds in the morning-tide * Of birds and zephyrs in fragrance vie; But I think of one, of an absent friend, * And tears rail like rain from a showery sky; And ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... much to soothe and mollify his guest; but the colonel was sensitive to impressions other than the purely gastronomic, for throughout the course of the dinner, his eyes wandered to the photographs on the wall, and in fancy he was once more in the presence ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... advice to mollify the coachman by another tip, he put on his cap and stood in the middle of the room. The friends kissed once, then again, and after a pause, a third time. The man in the fur-lined coat approached the table ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... well be imagined that the humiliating defeats inflicted by Michael upon the Turkish armies would not tend to mollify the severity of their subsequent rule, and that the chief aim of the Porte would be to extort as large a revenue as possible from the conquered provinces, without regard to the sufferings of any class, This was effected by taking advantage of the jealousies ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... the marriage, in the nonarrival of the money; and after five weeks in Edinburgh, where Hogg had joined the Shelleys, followed by a little over a week in York, the need became so pressing that Shelley felt obliged to take a hurried journey to his uncle's at Cuckfield, in order to try and mollify his father; in this he did not succeed. Though absent little over a week, he prepared the way by his absence, and by leaving Harriet under the care of Hogg, for a series of complications and misunderstandings which never ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... of them a kindly interest even in creatures who have so much wronged them as the unborn have done; and though a man generally hates the unwelcome little stranger for the first twelve months, he is apt to mollify (according to his lights) as time goes on, and sometimes he will become inordinately attached to the beings whom he is ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... that these leaves are for medicine (47:12), that is, they are for healing, saith John; the which may most fitly be applied to the blessed promise of grace. For as a leaf for medicine, when applied to a sore in the body, doth supple, mollify, and heal the wound; so the word of promise, when rightly applied to the soul, it doth supple, mollify, and heal the wounded conscience. 'He sent his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... was being made, Mr Benden sat down to supper, a pork pie standing before him, a dish of toasted cheese to follow, and a frothed tankard of ale at his elbow. Partly owing to her mistress's exhortations, Mary had changed her tactics, and now sought to mollify her master by giving him as good a supper as she knew how to serve. But Mr Benden was hard to please this evening. "The pork is as tough as leather," he declared; "the cheese is no better than sawdust, and the ale ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... a mission for you, lad. That blackguard Romata is in the dumps, and nothing will mollify him but a gift; so do you go up to his house and give him these whale's teeth, with my compliments. Take with you one of the men who ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... authority is superseded, his commission suspended, and the very scullion who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more importance than he. He has nothing for it but to abdicate for a time, and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... be subdued by any human power. Nor was it by gentleness and mildness that Fulvia gained such power over her husband. She was of a very stern and masculine character, and she seems to have mastered Antony by surpassing him in the use of his own weapons. In fact, instead of attempting to soothe and mollify him, she reduced him, it seems, to the necessity of resorting to various contrivances to soften and propitiate her. Once, for example, on his return from a campaign in which he had been exposed to great dangers, he disguised himself and came ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott

... they would have kept me prisoner with their illusive music. I dared not move, scarce wink; for much as immortality may mollify hairiness, I had no wish ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... delay of asking any questions, he proceeded to devour. In a very short space of time he had cleared away the best part of it, and was beginning to relax in his exertions, as the good effects of a hearty meal began to mollify his craving stomach, in fact he was just beginning to attack the last relic of a fat capon, which formed the main battle of the dishes set out before him, when a heavy footstep was heard on the stairs, and in another instant the gaunt figure of the priest ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... only by the most complete apology that The Duke could mollify the old doctor sufficiently to get ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor

... again, I realized the full extent of the risk I had taken. All at once it struck me that no amount of explanation from either Kennedy or myself would serve to mollify Werner if he were innocent and learned of my visit. I doubted, in this moment of afterthought, that I would escape censure from Kennedy, who surely would not want his case jeopardized by precipitate actions upon my part. I began to run, to get away ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... said you needed it. I didn't say you would be left here. You are the last person I expected would go back on me." This with intent to mollify. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... insomuch that each day on bended knees he bathed the chapped and soiled feet of thirteen beggars. Why thirteen beggars should come around every morning to the archbishop's study to have their feet manicured, or how that could possibly mollify an outraged God, the historian does not claim to state, and, in fact, is not able to throw any light upon it at the price ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye



Words linked to "Mollify" :   pacify, temper, gentle, calm, lenify, season, soften, mollification, placate, lull, appease, still, weaken, quieten



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