"Softness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... episcopal reminders of the blessings of war. "May it not be," wrote the Bishop of London soon after the outbreak of the war in 1914, "that this cup of hardship which we drink together will turn out to be the very draught which we need? Has there not crept a softness over the nation, a passion for amusement, a love of luxury among the rich, and of mere physical comfort among ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... pat and a kiss. "I guess I feel quite as much that way as you do, Miss Pat," she said with unusual softness. "I hadn't the wildest notion of bringing Mary Miller here. I'm going to take ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... chilled and repulsed. Look, now, at our own Kate Aubrey—nay, never fear to place her beside yon supercilious divinity—look at her, and your heart acknowledges her loveliness; your soul thrills at sight of her bewitching blue eyes—eyes now sparkling with excitement, then languishing with softness, in accordance with the varying emotions of a sensitive nature—a most susceptible heart. How her sunny curls harmonize with the delicacy and richness of her complexion! Her figure, observe, is, of the two, a trifle fuller than her rival's—stay, don't let your admiring eyes settle so intently ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... from ceiling to floor, before the deep bay-windows. Rosewood sofas and fauteuils, in costly coverings of the same soft color, rested on the brilliantly interwoven flowers of the Persian carpet, whose velvety softness echoed not the slightest tread. A fairy chandelier hung suspended from the lofty, corniced ceiling. Rare statuary decorated the mantel. Large mirrors and pictures in broad gilt frames adorned the walls. Marble stands, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... reasons for existence of those instruments of wires and jacks and quills which its metallic rumble has been supposed so entirely to have superseded. As for the clavichord, to have once touched it, feeling the softness with which one's fingers make their own music, like wind among the reeds, is to have lost something of one's relish even for the music of the violin, which is also a windy music, but the music of wind blowing sharply among the trees. ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... herself in fine linen, decketh herself with jewels, anointeth her hair and maketh her eyes lovely with kohl, and lo! when she would picture herself she setteth her shoulders awry and slighteth the grace of her joints and the softness of her flesh. O, that thy brave spirit had arisen long ago, ere the perversion had become a heritage, dear to the Egyptian sculptor as his bones! But now, artist though he be, his eye is so befilmed by ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... for an unforeseen misfortune. In passing a gigantic cypress his horse stumbled upon its projecting roots, and came head foremost to the ground—flinging his rider out of the saddle with such force that, but for the softness of the spot on which he fell, some of his bones would undoubtedly have ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... claws, which are the weapons of some animals, and toughness of hide and quantity of hair or feathers, which are the clothing of animals, are signs of an abundance of the earthly element; which does not agree with the equability and softness of the human temperament. Therefore such things do not suit the nature of man. Instead of these, he has reason and hands whereby he can make himself arms and clothes, and other necessaries of life, of infinite variety. Wherefore the hand is called by Aristotle (De Anima iii, 8), "the organ ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... dazzling. She had masses of golden hair wreathed round her dainty head in a bewilderment of waves and braids. She had great dark eyes of blue set off by long curling lashes, and delicately pencilled dark brows which gave the eyes a pansy softness and made you feel when she looked at you that she meant a great deal more by the look than you had at first suspected. They were wonderful, beautiful eyes, and the little company of idlers at the station were promptly bewitched ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... this as in everything else, she had set herself of late to soften down any girlish harshness or brusquerie, such as Lady Pynsent used sometimes to complain of in her, and to develop the gracious softness of manner which Sydney liked ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... that fact had at first made his doubt itself a little dubious. And she was probably from the South (they were different there). Hence her softness, her full tone, her richness and her glow. Hence her exotic strain that went so well with the false tropics of the scene. But whether she were a provincial or an urban, or, as she seemed, a cosmopolitan splendor, Thesiger was not cosmopolitan enough to tell. She might have been the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... to remedy these Inconveniences. The volatile Sulphur with which it abounds, is proper to supply the Place of that which the Blood loses every day through Age, it blunts and sheaths the Points of the Salts, and restores the usual Softness to the Blood, like as Spirit of Wine united with Spirit of Salt, makes a soft Liquor of a violent Corrosive. This same sulphurous Unctuosity at the same time spreads itself in the solid Parts, and gives them, in some sense, their natural Suppleness; ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... and fragrant also as the autumn lotus, equal in beauty unto her (Lakshmi) who delighteth in autumn lotuses, and unto Sree herself in symmetry and every grace she is such a woman as a man may desire for wife in respect of softness of heart, and wealth of beauty and of virtues. Possessed of every accomplishment and compassionate and sweet-speeched, she is such a woman as a man may desire for wife in respect of her fitness for the acquisition of virtue and pleasure and wealth. Retiring to bed last and waking up first, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the crouching figure sprang up and Ferdinand Ramero, his steel-blue eyes blazing, came forward with cat-like softness. But the sturdy little man before the priest stood, hat in hand, undisturbed by any ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... softness of tone that somehow dispelled all thought of his uncouthness. "No. She lived at Fort Norman, over on the Mackenzie—that is, she died there. Her home, I think, was in the Southland. My father used to tell me how she feared the North—-its snows and ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... herself and her eyes grew sweet with the memory of those stolen, reprehensible hours along the frontier. Something within her breast cried out for those shining, gone-by moments, something seemed to close down on her throat, something flooded her eyes with a softness that rolled up from her entire being. Their line! Their insurmountable barrier! An absurd yet ineffable longing to fall down and kiss that line came over her with ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Mrs Mildmay glanced at her anxiously, very anxiously. But there was no sign of irritation in the quiet old face—only of thought, deep thought. And there was a grave softness in the usually keen eyes, as if they were reviewing far distant ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Holofernes suffice thee, and drive not me also to death with the softness of thy voice. Art thou not aware that the soul of my soul burns for thee and will not wait—the more so since thou hast done a mighty deed and art proved a woman ...
— Judith • Arnold Bennett
... the outlines that wholly enclosed the figures, and those staring eyes, and the feet stretched on tip-toe, and the pointed hands, with the absence of shadow and the other monstrous qualities of those Greeks; and good grace was given to the heads, and softness to the colouring. And Giotto, in particular, gave better attitudes to his figures, and revealed the first effort to give a certain liveliness to the heads and folds to his draperies, which drew more towards nature than those of the men before him; ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... the singular uniformity of the valley. The slope was gentle on each side, without any abrupt declivities, and there was hardly any variation in its width. The dark-green color of the incline and bottom of the valley gave the whole scene a softness that would have charmed ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... too sure," said the beetle solidly. "You've a nice velvety softness about you, and then you have the best name of them all. What sick person wouldn't ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... said, with a terrible softness of voice. He restrained his choler for a time. "Where have you been, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... of fair green fields and meadows, of silent lakes bordered with rushes, out of which sprang wild-fowl slowly flapping their broad wings; of forests thick and dark, where on fallen trees the green moss had grown in velvet softness; of mountains lifting their purple tops into the fleecy clouds, and of long, shady country roads winding in and out and about the hills; of lanes bordered with blackberry-bushes and sumac, clematis and wild-rose; of dewy nooks full of ferns; of ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... insensibly, as he advances, into a succession of shady bowers that invite him to their depths; the scenery is monotonous, and yet ever various from the richness of its sylvan beauty, possessing all the softness of forest glades without their gloom. Towards Bologna, the landscape roughens into hills, which grow into Apennines, but Arcadia still breathes from slopes and lawns of tender green, which take their rise in the low stream-watered valleys, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... and cowslip wine he sups, Where to the warm and passing southern winds, Azaleas gently swing their yellow cups. Soon everywhere, with glory through and through, The fields will spread with every brilliant hue. But high o'er all the early floral train, Where softness all the arching sky resumes, The dogwood dancing to the winds' refrain, In stainless ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... in a state of rest exceeds the average standard in frequency, regularity, and softness, and a general feeling of uneasiness be present, together with reddened eyes, warm nose, and coated tongue, we know at once that there is an unnatural derangement of the vital functions, and that fever in some form is present. The next question to determine ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... her sharply. There was a softness in her tones that appealed to him, even if she had not expressed such agreeable sentiments. Just what the deacon might have said or done after the impulse had been set going must remain unknown, for at the crucial moment a sound of militant bells, bells of defiance, jangled ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... but George seemed to understand what he was about, and, for two hours, not a word was spoken, except, perhaps, now and then a growl of anger, as some one stumbled over a log or bush that lay in his way. Finally, the softness of the ground under their feet indicated that they were approaching a swamp. George now paused, ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... bales, bundles, and boxes. A reasoning eye would have estimated the load at once as ranch supplies, bound on the morrow for some outlying hacienda. But to the drowsy intelligence of Curly they represented only warmth and softness and protection against the cold humidity of the night. After several unlucky efforts, at last he conquered gravity so far as to climb over a wheel and pitch forward upon the best and warmest bed ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... from the children of our neighbours. Between one of these and my brother, there quickly grew the most affectionate intimacy. Her name was Catharine Pleyel. She was rich, beautiful, and contrived to blend the most bewitching softness with the most exuberant vivacity. The tie by which my brother and she were united, seemed to add force to the love which I bore her, and which was amply returned. Between her and myself there was every circumstance tending to produce and ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... saw that he was awake now, his eyes fixed on her with an expression of softness and tenderness that she had not seen for many a long day. The old ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... flight wing. Try, my girl, O try what bliss Young men render when they kiss! Youth is alway sturdy, straight; Old age totters in its gait. These delights of love we bring Have the suppleness of spring, Softness, sweetness, wantoning; Clasp, my Phyllis, in their ring Sweeter sweets than poets sing, ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... I could neither laugh with nor at the solemn utterances of men I esteemed ponderous asses; nor could I laugh, nor engage in my old-time lightsome persiflage, with the silly superficial chatterings of women, who, underneath all their silliness and softness, were as primitive, direct, and deadly in their pursuit of biological destiny as the monkeys women were before they shed their furry coats and replaced them with the furs ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... crib, went softly after a while into the other room, and saw that Lois at last slept, though she herself could not. Each time that she saw Girard he seemed more and more a stranger, so far removed was he from her dream of him. Through all his softness, his gentleness, she felt the streak of hardness, if nobody else did (though Mr. Cater, she remembered now, had spoken of it too), that the fires of adversity had molded. Perhaps no man could have worked ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... you may have to sail with me for a time," he said, quite softly, with a silken threat that belied the softness, as they moved slowly to comply, "and we might as well start with a friendly understanding. Lively now! Death Larsen makes you jump better than that, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... features which the struggles of the understanding to trace or govern the strong emotions of the heart, are wont to imprint on the yielding mass. Grief and care had mellowed, without obscuring, the bright tints of youth, and the thoughtfulness which resided on her brow did not take from the feminine softness of her features; nay, such was the sensibility which often mantled over it, that she frequently appeared, like a large proportion of her sex, only born to feel; and the activity of her well-proportioned, and even almost voluptuous figure, inspired the idea of strength of mind, rather ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... can Its last best work, but forms a softer man; Picks from each sex, to make the fav'rite blest, Your love of pleasure, or desire of rest: Blends, in exception to all general rules, Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools: Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied, Courage with softness, modesty with pride; Fixed principles, with fancy ever new; Shakes all together, and produces—You. Be this a woman's fame: with this unblest, Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest. This Phoebus promised (I forget the year) When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere; Ascendant Phoebus ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... silent again for a minute, resolute not to let even the thoughts of his good wife, who loved him through all his faults, change his hard manner to any unusual softness. ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... hospitable globe. We must make new energies and hardihoods continue the manliness to which the military mind so faithfully clings. Martial virtues must be the enduring cement; intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon which states are built—unless, indeed, we wish for dangerous reactions against commonwealths fit only for contempt, and liable to invite attack ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... who spent most of her time with an aristocratic aunt in the country, and the remainder under the repressive roof of a pompous politician in Palace Gardens. The aunt had, I believed, still a sneaking softness for me, but her illustrious brother had set his face against me from ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... noble a storm had celebrated their departure upon some storied river from some more romantic port than New York, they would have thought it an admirable thing. Even whilst they contented themselves, the storm passed, and left a veiled and humid sky overhead, that gave a charming softness to the scene on which their eyes fell when they came out of the saloon again, and took their places with a largely ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... also, that both, of the poets contrast the violet, in its softness, with the intense marking of the pansy. Milton makes ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... school my best clothes. I would wish to win their good-will by wearing no finery," said Ana, piously. She was a plump girl, with eyes like splinters of coal in her suave brown face; despite the extreme softness of her voice, these glittering splinters rested with no gentle ray ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... is curfew, now; but tomorrow, early, we will sally into the town, where we shall find a good choice of garments, for men of all conditions. You hold yourself well, and you have something of your mother's softness of speech; and will, I think, make a good impression on Sir ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... Grace-Dieu. From this account it appears that the liqueur was formerly called the Liqueur of the Grace-Dieu, but is now known as Trappistine. It is limpid and oily; possesses a fine aroma, a peculiar softness, a mild but brisk flavour, and so on. It was invented by an ecclesiastic who was once the Brother Marie-Joseph, and prior of the convent, but is now M. Stremler, having been released by the Pope from his vows of obedience and poverty, in order that he might teach Christianity ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... the baton of the leader, struck with some force upon the desk over my head. I was aware, at the same time, of a whispering all around my ears, and an incessant noise, like that of aspen leaves in a summer breeze, which, in spite of its softness and delicacy, overpowered the sound of the loud orchestra. When I was able to recover myself, I began to find that I had indeed placed myself in the centre of the house; not in the centre of sound, but, if I may so express myself, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... grazing-fields, each shut off from the other by its neat hedgerow and its sturdy gate. Beyond the fields the hills seem to flow away gently from us into the far blue distance, till they are lost in the bright softness of the sky. At one point, which we can see from our bedroom windows, they dip suddenly into the plain, and show, over the rich marshy flat, a strip of distant sea—a strip sometimes blue, sometimes gray; sometimes, when the sun sets, a streak of fire; ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... falling. A secret, wicked force seemed to be holding her feelers, her legs, her wings in invisible captivity. But she did not fall. Though she could no longer move her wings, she still hung in the air rocking, caught by a marvelously yielding softness and delicacy, raised a little, lowered a little, tossed here, tossed there, like a loose ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... "has no eyelids. It requires a broad glare and a beaten road. It prefers shadows which you can cut out with a knife. It doesn't know the beauty of this Virginia winter softness." ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... and endearing softness in the manner of Miss Evelyn most winning and most exquisitely attractive. It was evidenced even in her mode of handling my prick; without grasping it, her hand appeared to pass over it hardly touching it, but in so exciting a manner that after any number of encounters, she could raise it by ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... only succeeded in entirely getting rid of the vermin, but on my servant's scrubbing the chair with a hard brush and hot soap and water, I found that the caustic soda had formed a kind of soap, by chemically uniting with the oil contained in the old paint, thereby reducing it to such a state of softness, that by a few vigorous applications and soakings of the above-named solution, and subsequent scrubbings, my new favourite was also freed from its ugly time-worn jacket of dirty paint, discovering underneath a beautifully carved ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... beautiful woman in Alabama than Alice Westmore; and throughout that state, where the song birds seem to develop, naturally, along with the softness of the air, and the gleam of the sunshine, and the lullaby of the Gulf's soft breeze among the pine trees, there was no one, they say, who could sing ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. Her manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... shrift reconcile her subjects from their obedience, yea, and bind many of them to attempt against her majesty's sacred person; and that, by the poison which they spread, the humors of papists were altered, and that they were no more papists in conscience, and of softness, but papists in faction; then were there new laws made for the punishment of such as should submit themselves to such reconcilements, or renunciations of obedience. And because it was a treason carried in the clouds, and in wonderful secresy, and came seldom to light, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... keep him waiting long. First the quick flutter of her footsteps; then the door gently opened—and she flew to him, her sari blowing out in beautiful curves. Then he was in her arms, gathered into her silken softness and the faint scent of sandalwood; while her lips, light as butterfly wings, caressed the bruise ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... around them, singing the songs of France. Often it happened that in the luminous darkness of the night, thick set with stars, they had to rise and restore peace among their four-footed friends, who, in the balmy softness of the air, had set to biting and kicking one another, uprooting their pickets and neighing and snorting furiously. Then there was the delicious coffee, their greatest, indeed their only, luxury, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... and turned toward the dark cavern which was the mouth of Asti's last dwelling place. Once, more than a thousand years before when the walls of Memphir were young, Asti had lived among men below. But in the richness and softness which was trading Memphir, empire of empires, Asti found no place. So He and those who served Him had withdrawn to this mountain outcrop. And she, Varta, was the last, the very last to bow knee at Asti's shrine and raise her ...
— The Gifts of Asti • Andre Alice Norton
... with the knowledge that the crown hung poised above her head, there came upon Hilma a gentleness infinitely beautiful, infinitely pathetic; a sweetness that touched all who came near her with the softness of a caress. She moved surrounded by an invisible atmosphere of Love. Love was in her wide-opened brown eyes, Love—the dim reflection of that descending crown poised over her head—radiated in a faint lustre from her ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... convinces you!" says Florian. And about them, who were young in the world's recaptured youth, spring triumphed with an ageless rural pageant, and birds cried to their mates. He noted the red brevity of her lips and their probable softness. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... on his cheek, and a thrill shot through him; his beard had been shaved away, for he could feel the softness of the hand against his chin. He felt the hand passed over ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... surrounds the spacious basin now exhibits everywhere the signs of prosperity and civilisation. At the northeastern extremity has sprung up a great watering place, to which strangers are attracted from the most remote parts of our island by the Italian softness of the air; for in that climate the myrtle flourishes unsheltered; and even the winter is milder than the Northumbrian April. The inhabitants are about ten thousand in number. The newly built churches and chapels, the baths and libraries, the hotels ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... here as at home. There are, however, less temptations to vice, and less exposures to the American habit of hard drinking among young men; but, no doubt, the general influences here, in the way of developing a manly, energetic, and self-relying character, are less favorable than at home. There is a softness, a disposition to take life easy, and a want of moral earnestness in Italy, which are not favorable to youthful ambition and independence. On the other hand, the money-getting propensities and social rivalries of America ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... on slowly with a meditative air.. "I love her, ... yes!—as a man must always love the woman that baffles him, ... the woman whose moods are complex and fluctuating as the winds on the sea,—and whose humor sways between the softness of the dove and the fierceness of the tiger. Nothing is more fatally fascinating to the masculine sense than such a creature,—more especially if to this temperament is united rare physical grace, combined with keen intellectual power. 'Tis vain to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... musical richness and not poverty, as at first aspect it seems to do, the paucity of like-sounding syllables implying variety in its sounds. It has all the vocalic syllables and endings it needs for softness, and incloses them mostly in consonants for condensation, vigor, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... head over the crook of his arm, so that in her eager scrutiny of the map his lips for a moment or two touched the velvety softness of her hair. Again he felt the exquisite thrill of her touch, the throb of her body against him, the desire to take her in his arms and hold her there. And then she drew back a little, and her finger was once more tracing ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... has made us feel the softness, gentleness and beauty of the snow and caused us to forget that it is cold and damp, he speaks of himself. We can see him sitting by the window looking out upon the beautiful pearl-clad world. He brings us right into his own presence and we can almost see the flocks of startled brown ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... knife-blade, not as if scraped out by the friction of horse-hair upon catgut. When to this delicious quality of tone was added an exhibition of the most perfect technique, the triumph of the virtuoso was complete. The mysterious flowing softness and smoothness of tone was carried with unflagging facility through the most rapid and difficult chord and harmonic playing; and this, with other wonderful feats of bowing, added new and bewitching charms to the diablerie of violin ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... his two guardians, a Scotch noble—a Presbyterian and a Whig. This uncle was a widower with some children, but they were girls, and, though Lothair was attached to them, too young to be his companions. Their father was a keen, hard man, honorable and just but with no softness of heart or manner. He guarded with precise knowledge and with unceasing vigilance over Lothair's vast inheritance, which was in many counties and in more than one kingdom; but he educated him in a Highland home, and when he had reached boyhood thought fit to send him to the High ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... Ryves! not beautiful nor interesting in her person, but with a mind of fortitude, susceptible of all the delicacy of feminine softness, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... importunities, only regretted his want of power to aid her. In vain had she attempted, by the offer of some remaining jewels, to secure the co-operation of her guards, with whom her loveliness and the softness of her manners had already ingratiated her. She had not succeeded even in communicating with Alroy. But after the unsuccessful mission of Honain to the dungeon, the late Vizier visited the sister of the captive, and, breaking to her with delicate skill the intelligence ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... A mellow softness fills the air— No breeze on wanton wing steals by, To break the holy quiet there, Or make the waters fret and sigh. Or the golden alders shiver, That bend to kiss the placid river, Flowing on and on for ever; But the little waves seem ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... home, that Reine Allix day by day blessed the fate that had brought to her this fatherless and penniless child. Bernadou himself spoke little; words were not in his way; but his blue, frank eyes shone with an unclouded radiance that never changed, and his voice, when he did speak, had a mellow softness in it that made his slightest speech to the two women with ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... sometimes been aware of it,—there would come a glint of sunshine and settle on Anna-Rose's little cheek where the dimple was, or he would lift his eyes from the Culture book and suddenly see the dark softness of Anna-Felicitas's eyelashes as she slept in her chair. But now, dressed properly, and in their dryland condition of cheerful animation, he perceived that they were very pretty indeed, and that Anna-Felicitas was more than very pretty. He couldn't help thinking ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... all that had a mind to make an interest with the people, who were extravagantly fond of those kinds of shows. Not only the men, but the women, ran eagerly after them; who were, by the prevalence of custom, so far divested of that compassion and softness which is natural to the sex, that they took a pleasure in seeing them kill one another, and only desired that they should fall genteelly, and in an agreeable attitude. Such was the frequency of those shows, and so great the number of men that were killed on ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Frontier Boys," he is a familiar figure but he is well worth introducing to those who are meeting him for the first time. Captain William Broome, familiarly known as Bill, or the old man, was a remarkable person. There was a strange softness in Captain Broome's tread, like that of the padded panther, as he came forward along the main deck. He appeared like a man always ready to get a death hold upon a nearby enemy, both wary and using unceasing watchfulness. This ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... simplicity, that has no mixture of folly in it, but which is inexpressibly engaging, and the more touching, perhaps, because at the moment we were looking at them, those very hearts which lent the eyes such meek and friendly softness, were wrung by a base, cruel, and most oppressive act of ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... stand alone. I wish to see men and women capable of such relations as are depicted by Landor in his Pericles and Aspasia, where grace is the natural garb of strength, and the affections are calm, because deep. The softness is that of ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... suitably proportioning the speed of feed-rollers and the revolutions of the frame, which is easily accomplished by varying the wheels on the left hand of frame, bands of any degree of hardness or softness may be produced. The machine appears to be simple and not liable to get deranged. It may be after a little practice attended to by a laborer, and is claimed by its maker to be able to produce 400 yards of band per hour. The frame makes about 180 revolutions per minute, that is, this is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... it to be material and positive, and scoffed at mere mental or sentimental woes. "The sight of people who want food and raiment is so common in great cities, that a surly fellow like me has no compassion to spare for wounds given only to vanity or softness." He said it was enough to make a plain man sick to hear pity lavished on a family reduced by losses to exchange a fine house for a snug cottage; and when condolence was demanded for a lady of rank in mourning for ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Katherine once. There was no softness in her attitude as she knelt beside his chair. Neither, Bobby felt, was there the slightest uneasiness. With a facile grace she helped the doctor bathe and bandage the ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... ear of maize and the antlers of a buck. Stately she moved, as a wild swan on a calm lake, or a black cloud over the brow of a mountain; and the boldness of her demeanour, and the fierceness of her eyes, contrasted strongly with the softness and effeminacy of her that seemed her younger, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... terror I could read in them all the history, all the characteristics, of Lord Clarenceux. They were the eyes of one capable at once of the highest and of the lowest. Mingled with their hardness was a melting softness, with their cruelty a large benevolence, with their hate a pitying tenderness, with their spirituality a hellish turpitude. They were the eyes of two opposite men, and as I gazed into them they reconciled for ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... question whether the growth of wealth and luxury in the United States is not tending here, as it has tended in all other nations, toward physical softness and deterioration. It may be argued on the contrary that while a few Occidental children are luxury-weakened, a great body of Oriental children are drudgery-weakened. But is there not much more reason to fear that in our case there is really decay at both ends of our social system—with the ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... needles in and out and wound the yarn around any fashion, while she babbled softly or asked a question and forgot it as soon as asked. Rather spare in figure and much wrinkled in face, she still had a placid look and smiled with a meaningless softness as ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... worth two of that," said the lady. "Who's to make pa go when once we begin in that way? As I mean to end, so I'll begin. And as for you, George, there's no end to your softness. You're that green, that the very cows would eat you." Was it not well said by Mr. Robinson in his preface to these memoirs, that the poor old commercial Lear, whose name stood at the head of the firm, was cursed with a Goneril,—and with ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... bedded character and softness, are of no value as building stones, but are used in the manufacture of brick, tile, ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... 130.—"I was never permitted to sleep till I had passed through the cosmetick discipline, part of which was a regular lustration performed with bean-flower water and may-dews; my hair was perfumed with a variety of unguents, by some of which it was to be thickened, and by others to be curled. The softness of my hands was secured by medicated gloves, and my bosom rubbed with a pomade prepared by my mother, of virtue to discuss pimples, ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... sleeping beauty of the garden's unlost configuration ... keeping a winter's share of its feminine grace and softness" 186 ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... six-course dinners. Luxury is better than simplicity if it can be the luxury of all. If not, it means selfishness, callousness, and broken bonds of brotherhood. Moreover, it has personal dangers; it tends to breed softness and laziness, an inability to endure hardship, what Agnes Repplier calls "loss of nerve." It tends to choke the soul, to crush it by the weight of worldly things, as Tarpeia was crushed by the Sabine shields. "Hardly ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... pushed deeper and deeper into the softness of the acceleration cushions. He had been worried about not being able to keep his eyes open to see the dwindling Earth in the teleceiver over his head, but the tremendous force of the rockets pushing him against gravity to tear the two hundred ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... ye say then?—that Spring long departed Has brought forth no child to the softness and showers; —That we slept and we dreamed through the Summer of flowers; We dreamed of the Winter, and waking dead-hearted Found Winter upon us and waste ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... plunged her son in the waters of Styx to make him invulnerable. The truth of this allegory is apparent. The cruel mothers I speak of do otherwise; they plunge their children into softness, and they are preparing suffering for them, they open the way to every kind of ill, which their children will not fail to experience ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... have taken ... seemed to [me] best both for the warding off of calumny from myself (which should bring dishonor upon the memory of Sir Rowland my father, if a daughter of his could be thought to prefer doubtful ease before virtuous sufferance, softness before reputation), and for ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... distress, besought them that they would spare her life, which, as she said, could be of no benefit to them, and could only serve to increase the number of their sins; but they were too much flushed in cruelty and blood to give any attention to her entreaties, and so without respect either to the softness of her sex, or to her tender age, with a shower of blows from their clubs they laid her dead upon the floor. Being thus become master of the house, Perrier took the keys, and opening the several apartments, disclosed to them all ...
— 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
... personal being, and the two are never quite fused. Can you not recall a score of examples in history of men who have led this dual existence? You reviewed for me Bismarck's Love Letters and were yourself struck by this sharp contrast between the iron determination of the man in public affairs and the softness and sweetness of his domestic life. That is but one case in point of the eternal dualism in masculine nature which a woman can never comprehend, and which always, if it confronts her nakedly, she resents. For a woman is not so. There exists no ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... hard to conceive that anything could induce you to perpetrate an act so shocking, so impossible to reconcile to nature or reason. One should have thought your own sense, your education, and even the natural softness of your sex, might have secured you from an attempt so ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... the eyes, if the life has not been one of physical suffering, usually retain their power of moving appeal; the lines of the face, if changed, may be refined by a certain spirituality; the gray hair gives dignity and softness and the charm of contrast; the low sweet voice vibrates to the same note of femininity, and the graceful and gracious are graceful and gracious still. Even into the face and bearing of the plain woman whose mind has grown, whose thoughts ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sympathy, you could never wish it to be changed. Her nose and mouth were perfect. How many little noses there are on young women's faces which of themselves cannot be said to be things of beauty, or joys for ever, although they do very well in their places! There is the softness and colour of youth, and perhaps a dash of fun, and the eyes above are bright, and the lips below alluring. In the midst of such sweet charms, what does it matter that the nose be puggish,—or even a nose of putty, such as you think you might ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... sentiment accorded with her strain of romance, and they read poetry and had discussions as they sat over the fire, growing constantly into greater intimacy and confidence. Sophy waited on him, and watched him perpetually, and her assiduity was imparting a softness and warmth quite new to her, while the constant occupation kept affronts and vexations out of her sight, and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shallow, and appears to have been arranged for a number of performers standing in a line, like a company of soldiers. There stands the silent skeleton, however, as impressive by what it leaves you to guess and wonder about as by what it tells you. It has not the sweetness, the softness of melancholy, of the theater at Arles; but it is more extraordinary, and one can imagine only ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... to say what this condition is not than what it is. It is not manifested to the senses by weight or color, dryness or moisture, hardness or softness. In these particulars all brains are pretty nearly alike. When the cerebral action stops and the man dies, we may find lesions visible enough to the sense,—vessels preternaturally engorged with blood, effusions of lymph, thickening ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... presence for the so-called great house, what a grace for the so-called great positions! He might regret at once, while he was about it, that they weren't princes or billionaires. She had treated him on their Christmas to a softness that had struck him at the time as of the quality of fine velvet, meant to fold thick, but stretched a little thin; at present, however, she gave him the impression of a contact multitudinous as only the superficial can be. She had throughout never a word for what went on at home. She came ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... flowers, stretches away to a purple curtain of mountains, whose romantic outline rises constantly in a thousand new forms of beauty. The upland at the foot of these mountains is beautifully diversified with tufts of trees, and the contrast of the purple softness of the distant hills with the dazzling gold and emerald of the wide meadow-tracts they inclose is a striking feature in the landscape. Droves of silver-haired oxen, with their great, dreamy, dark eyes and polished black horns, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... shoulders with an edging of embroidery, below which appeared her pretty little arms, bare and rosy. She had small turquoise rings in her ears, a cross at her neck, a blue velvet ribbon in her well-brushed hair; and she displayed all her mother's plumpness and softness—the gracefulness, indeed, of ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... where bound, and of its robe bereft By needy man, that all-depending lord, How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies! What softness in his melancholy face, What ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... fondness and resentment with which this letter was dictated, marked so strongly the sufferings and disordered state of the writer, that all the softness of Cecilia returned when she perused it, and left her not a wish but to lessen his inquietude, by assurances of unalterable regard: yet she determined not to trust herself in his sight, certain they could only meet to grieve over each other, and conscious ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... shadowy as sleeping water. As some rich weed that the warm sea holds and swings, as some fair cloud lingers in radiant atmosphere, her hair floated, every parted tress an impalpable film of gold in the crude sunlight of the ray turned upon her; and when she danced towards the footlights, the bright softness of the threads clung almost amorously about her white wrists—faint cobwebs hanging from white flowers were not more faint, fair, and soft; wonderful was the hair of this dancing girl, suggesting all fabled enchantments, all visions ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... its close, Jupiter began to wear an aspect that must have excited the admiration of the most ignorant or the most indifferent observer. Its salient points were illumined with novel and radiant tints, and the solar rays, reflected from its disc, glowed with a mingled softness and intensity upon Gallia, so that Nerina had to pale ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... we are allowed to see Helena Landless, the restraint which she puts on her "tigerish blood" is admirable: she is very fresh and original. The villain is all that melodrama can desire, but what we do miss, I think, is the "atmosphere" of a small cathedral town. Here there is a lack of softness and delicacy of treatment: on the other hand, the opium den is studied ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... mutual grief over Rosalie's trouble, she and her mother had drawn nearer in spirit, and strange words of sorrow and sympathy, as though dragged from her very depths, had come faltering from the girl's lips. But the next day all trace of such unaccustomed softness had disappeared. She was her gay, resilient self once more, bright and hard as the stones she loved to wear, and more reserved and withdrawn from her family than ever. She avoided both her mother and sister as much as possible, spending most of her time in her own room or with her friend Kitty ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... "Tender softness, infant mild, Perfect, purest, brightest Child! Transient lustre, beauteous clay, Smiling wonder of a day! Ere the last convulsive start Rend thy unresisting heart, Ere the long-enduring swoon Weigh ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was with her, and her outlook was of the dreariest. If it were true, as the old man evidently believed, that his hour had come, she would again be friendless and solitary on the face of the earth. Abel Graham saw these signs of grief, and a curious softness visited his heart, though he could scarce believe one so fair and sweet could ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... the Rector to himself, as he again put down the letter; but even as he spoke the softness in his face passed into resolution. He sank once ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and in the interval I walked some miles into the interior. The plain as usual consisted of gravel, mingled with soil resembling chalk in appearance, but very different from it in nature. From the softness of these materials it was worn into many gulleys. There was not a tree, and, excepting the guanaco, which stood on the hilltop a watchful sentinel over its herd, scarcely an animal or a bird. All was stillness and desolation. Yet in passing ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... placed her rosy fingers on his forest of crisp hair. Wool when touched gives an impression of softness. Dea touched a lamb which she knew to be a lion. Her whole heart poured out an ineffable love. She felt out of danger—she had found her saviour. The public believed that they saw the contrary. To the spectators the being loved was Gwynplaine, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... of her Harry, from his first pony upward. And she had not gone far before a tiny hand slipped itself into hers and nestled there; moving and quivering occasionally, like a wild bird voluntarily tame. And when the drive ended, Victoria was quite sorry to lose its lithe softness. ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the small velvet hands in her own palm. The clear blue-white of their eyes, the softness of their hair, the very feel of their firm, strong bare legs gave her an actual pang of joy. But a half hour—an hour—with them, and she grew restless, irritable. She didn't ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... another cause why a sleeper requires more protection from below, than from above: it is that if the ground be at all wet, its damp will penetrate through very thick substances laid upon it. It will therefore be clearly understood that the object of a mattress is not alone to give softness to the bed, but also to give warmth; and that if a man lies in a hammock, with only the hammock below, and blankets above, he will be fully as much chilled as if the arrangement had been reversed, and he had lain upon ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Nor aught the judging maid might win Me to assoil from HER sweet sin. But nought were extreme punishment For that beyond-divine content, When my with-thee-first-giddied eyes Stooped ere their due on Paradise! O hour of consternating bliss When I heavened me in thy kiss; Thy softness (daring overmuch!) Profan-ed with my licensed touch; Worshipped, with tears, on happy knee, Her doubt, her trust, her ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... hope you will not refuse me." She took up the lute without more entreaties, and putting it presently in tune, played and sung with such an air, as charmed the very soul of the caliph. Afterwards she played upon the lute without singing, but with so much strength and softness, as to transport him into ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... companionship of the dancing darlings; she bridled to their bland flirtation and casually kissed them at the end of each dance. Babbitt hated her, for the moment. He saw her as middle-aged. He studied the wrinkles in the softness of her throat, the slack flesh beneath her chin. The taut muscles of her youth were loose and drooping. Between dances she sat in the largest chair, waving her cigarette, summoning her callow admirers to come and talk to her. ("She thinks she's a blooming queen!" growled Babbitt.) She chanted ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the rocks were fit to crack with the heat. I remembered having seen cottagers heat their ovens in this way in Somersetshire. I now raked out the fire and all the mortuary remains of insects, and then laid down a plaid thrice doubled for softness. Having done this, I seized upon my friend, weak and prostrate as he was, and shoved him into his oven like a batch of bread. I had previously given him a big dose of quinine (without which medicine I never travel in these parts), and now I set to work rubbing him, ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... every side was the fulfilment of its innumerable promises. The bluebird, with the softness of June in his notes, had told his love amid the snows and gales of March, and now, with unabated constancy, and with all a father's solicitude, he was caring for his third nestful of fledglings. Young orioles were essaying flight from their wind-rocked cradles on ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... could see that they had a sort of homespun linen garment underneath. The female part of the family were dressed in clothes, part of which were of the same homespun, and part of a fine skin, that of the fawn, dressed to the softness of a glove. Several hats were lying about; and we noticed that they were curiously fabricated from the leaves of ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... reading; and must have dozed over the book. Suddenly, I awoke and sat upright, with a start. For a moment, I looked 'round, with a puzzled sense of something unusual. There was a misty look about the room, giving a curious softness to each ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... explanation. The sounds of common conversation have but little resonance; those of strong feeling have much more. Under rising ill temper the voice acquires a metallic ring. In accordance with her constant mood, the ordinary speech of a virago has a piercing quality quite opposite to that softness indicative of placidity. A ringing laugh marks an especially joyous temperament. Grief unburdening itself uses tones approaching in timbre to those of chanting: and in his most pathetic passages an eloquent speaker similarly falls into tones more vibratory than those ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... own, And touch'd the Verse with Graces yet unknown. Each lawless branch thy level eye survey'd. And still corrected Nature as she stray'd: Warm'd Boileau's Sense with Britain's genuine Fire, And added Softness ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... explained to me how this caudle was made, and in fact concocted some for me to taste. It is a light mixture of broth, milk, wine (which is in the largest quantity), one or two yolks of eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and a few cloves. It is white; has a very strong taste, not unmixed with softness. I should not like to take it habitually, nevertheless it is not disagreeable. You put in it, if you like, crusts of bread, or, at times, toast, and then it becomes a species of soup; otherwise ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Rip down on the bunk and stripped off his tunic. The fine-drawn face of the sleeper looked wan against the foam rest, and he snuggled into the softness like a child as he turned over and curled up. But his skin was clear—it was real sleep and not the plague which ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... with exquisite ferns and mosses. Overhanging it are weeping palms with long straight leaves. Trees, with erect stems as tall as Nelson's Column, strain upward to the light. Butterflies in numbers flutter noiselessly about. The air is absolutely still and of a feel like satin. Clouds of intangible softness and clean and white as snow float around, appear, dissolve, and reappear. Through the parting in the overhanging trees the intense blue sky is seen in glimpses. The sun here and there pierces through the arching foliage, and the greens of the foliage glisten brighter ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... conscience in Adrian's eyes, there was little doubt. With sombre heart he failed not to mark every point of this all-human grace, but to him goddess-like beauty, the triumph and glory of youth. The coy, dainty poise of the adorable foot—pointed so—and treading the ground with the softness of a kitten at play; the maddening curve of her waist, which a sacque, depending from an exquisite nape, partly concealed, only to enhance its lithe suppleness; the divinely young throat and bust; and above all the dazzling black rays from ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... not, but from one or the other it came, most surely. No daughter of Eve she, but an angel or a fiend, perhaps—who knows?—something of both. The quarrelets of pearl flashed through her scarlet smile, and as her mouth moved the dimples sank and filled by turns in the blush-rose softness of her exquisite cheek. Over the even smoothness of her half-uncovered shoulders played a floating gloss as of agate, and a river of large pearls, not greatly different in hue from her neck, descended towards her breast. Now and then she raised her head with a peacock-like gesture, and sent a quiver ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... young love continued. Our cousin and Flora were only children still, and there was no engagement. The elders looked upon the intimacy as natural and mutually beneficial. It would help soften the boy and strengthen the girl; and they took for granted that softness and strength were precisely what were wanted. It is a great pity that men and women forget that they have been children. Parents are apt to be foreigners to their sons and daughters. Maturity is the gate of paradise, which shuts ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... like a dike, for centuries postponed the inevitable end, but which also, like every artificial barrier, gave way when the strong masculine impulse which first created it had degenerated into that worship of comfort, wealth, and general softness, which is the ideal of the peace prophets of to-day. The wave of the invaders broke in,—the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew, and beat upon the house, and it fell, because not founded upon the rock of virile reliance upon strong ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... tell me." No wonder he could not tell that soft-eyed, clinging warmth; that subtle mixture of fire and softness, spirit and gentleness—that spirit which in the years of trouble they had passed together had grown part of his very nature—that they must part! No wonder that the father, upon whom the child built his every idea of what was great and ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... not: sooth to say, the turmoil of hope and fear within his heart ate up somewhat the softness that might else have mastered him at this new sight of his fathers' house. He rode forth before the others, and lifted up his voice and loudly and clearly cried a blessing on the Dale and the dwellers therein, and then rode soberly down the bent, and the others followed ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... longer in the power of his will. I never saw any one who so completely gave me the idea of possession. Half an hour's conversation with him is enough to make a necessitarian of anybody. Accordingly, he is more complained of than blamed by his enemies. His moments of softness by his family, and when recurring to old college days, are hailed by all as a relief to the vehement working of the intellectual machine,—a relief equally to himself and others. These moments are as touching to the observer as tears on ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... in a voice of portentous softness: "Who the hell do you think you are? A little gorramighty? To make a mistake is natural; to fly into a temper when it is discovered is childish. What's the matter with you these past ten days, anyway? A man ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude of the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security. A man upon whom continuous sunshine falls is like the earth in August: he becomes parched and dry and hard and close-grained. Men have drawn from adversity the elements of greatness. If you have the blues, go and see the poorest and sickest families within your knowledge. ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... you find so much to admire in Miss Wallace's gloves?" asked the wilful girl, biting her lip, as I fancied, to suppress a smile, though her cheeks were still suffused, and her eyes continued to give forth that indescribable expression of bewitching softness. "It is a pair my father presented to her, and she wore them last evening ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... night. Robert stayed to dinner. Will chanced to be absent and there were only the three of us at table. There was a mellow sort of stillness. A softness of voice possessed us all, even when we asked for bread or salt. Our conversation was trivial, unimportant, but kind and gentle. Between Ruth and Robert there glowed adoration for each other, which words and ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty |
