"Smooth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down to the water's edge, and peeped over into the smooth glassy stream; and as she did so she saw a cat's face looking up at her. She stretched out her paw to give it a pat, and the other cat did the same. Then she drew away, and raised her back as high as she could. So did the other cat, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... each of the onlookers felt a thrill of unexpected emotion. It was like looking on at the turning point in a life, and the girl was so beautiful in her fresh young bloom that it was impossible to behold her unmoved. The coiled-up hair showed the graceful poise of her head, the shoulders were smooth and white as satin, the blue eyes had lost their hard self-confidence, and shone sweet and true. Yes! Rhoda was going to be a beautiful woman; she was one already, as her father realised, with a natural pang of regret mingling with his pride. ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the plants may have plenty of moisture to fill the pods, then let them dry and die. Gather the dry plants before the pods open much, and let them dry on a clean, smooth piece of ground or on the barn floor. When they are well dried, thresh with a flail, rake off the straw, sweep up the beans and clean by winnowing in the wind or with a ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... Jackanapes promised to guard against. He was to keep his clothes and his hands clean, to look over his catechism, not to put sticky things in his pockets, to keep that hair of his smooth ("It's the wind that blows it, aunty," said Jackanapes—"I'll send by the coach for some bear's-grease," said Miss Jessamine, tying a knot in her pocket-handkerchief), not to burst in at the parlor door, not ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... this a delightful situation and in every respect convenient. The ship was perfectly sheltered by the reefs in smooth water and close to a fine beach without the least surf. A small river with very good water runs into the sea about the middle of the harbour. I gave directions for the plants to be landed and the same party to be with ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... through gradual increase of warmth, from ice suddenly to liquid and from liquid suddenly to vapour. Our nineteenth century ideas of evolution tended to create in us the impression that humanity had made a smooth and even ascent. We artificially graded the ascending track of human history, leveled and macadamized it, and talked of inevitable progress. Such sentimental optimism has ceased even to be comforting, so utterly untenable has it ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... flush rose in her smooth cheeks, and Sabina, who was watching her, saw that her lip trembled a little, and that ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... first Greek theater was only a smooth open space near a hillside, with a tent, called a skene, or scene, in which the actors dressed. Later an amphitheater of stone seats was constructed on the hillside, and across the open end was placed the scene, which had been changed into a stone building. On its ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... Mowbray, "you turn every day more shy of human communication—we shall have you take the woods one day, and become as savage as the Princess Caraboo. But I will plague you about nothing if I can help it. If matters go not smooth on the great day, they must e'en blame the dull thick head that had no fair lady to help him in his need. But, Clara, I had something more material to say to you—something ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... which steered to Cambroon and Ceylon. "And now," thought Philip, "will the Phantom Ship make her appearance? It has only waited till we should be left without a consort to assist us in distress." But the Batavia sailed in a smooth sea and under a cloudless sky, and nothing was seen. In a few weeks she arrived off Java, and previous to entering the splendid roads of Batavia, hove-to for the night. This was the last night they would be under sail, and Philip stirred not from the deck, but walked ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... was frozen over. The boats had not been running for many days, and the happiest time of all the happy days for the young people of the river towns had come. The ponds and creeks were forgotten in the great event of skating on the river, and for miles the smooth surface was a speedway over which the skaters made merry excursions. In front of Skarrow the ice was firm, and with that buoyancy so dear to the lovers of this sport. In the afternoons the young people from the town of Skarrow and Vincent on the opposite side, all met on the ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... not deemed satisfactory by Austria-Hungary and relations with Serbia were immediately broken off. On the following day, July 26, 1914, "diplomatic conversations," the object of which was to smooth over the differences between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, took place in Berlin, St. Petersburg and Vienna between representatives of the three nations whose capitals ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... in territory dominated by the Boche, meant much time lost. So I came through the lines to-night. Fortune was kind in throwing me into your hands: I count upon your assistance. As an ex-agent of the Secret Service you are in a position to make smooth my path; as an Englishman, you will advance the interests of a prospective ally of England if you help me to the limit of your ability; for what I mean to do in America will serve that country, by exposing the conspiracies ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... a new school where there were examinations; but they kept the thoughts of that out of their heads as well as they could, and resolved to enjoy themselves. The house, I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the garden were all kinds of flowers; sweet, grassy banks for rest; and smooth lawns for play; and pleasant streams and woods; and rocky places for climbing. And the children were happy for a little while, but presently they separated themselves into parties; and then each party declared it would have a piece of the garden for its own, and that ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... aback during the rising, but now as we left them they brought it square again, and as there was a light wind from the north and east the bark began to draw slowly away from us. Our boat lay, rising and falling, upon the long, smooth rollers, and Evans and I, who were the most educated of the party, were sitting in the sheets working out our position and planning what coast we should make for. It was a nice question, for the Cape de Verdes were about five hundred miles to the north of us, ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... pretty smooth sea, and little wind; yet, at this extreme elevation, the ship's motion was very great; so that when the ship rolled one way, I felt something as a fly must feel, walking the ceiling; and when it rolled the other way, I felt ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... beloved, Honey-eater of the woodlands, Let not anger swell thy bosom; I have not the force to slay thee, Willingly thy life thou givest As a sacrifice to Northland. Thou hast from the tree descended, Glided from the aspen branches, Slippery the trunks in autumn, In the fog-days, smooth the branches. Golden friend of fen and forest, In thy fur-robes rich and beauteous, Pride of woodlands, famous Light-foot, Leave thy cold and cheerless dwelling, Leave thy home within the alders, Leave thy couch among the willows, Hasten in thy ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... of the biker is not always straight and smooth, as every boy who has ridden a wheel knows. The collision can always be avoided by good eyes and reasonable speed, but no eyes are keen enough to note, and no skill alert enough to avoid the broken glass, or the bits of scrap iron that beset the ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... stables to see how fared my horse after the day's work, and found him enjoying his feed after grooming. I looked him over, but I could see no mark to show where the man might have hurt him. But as I was running my hand along the smooth hock to feel for any bruise, my ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... the first steep slopes of the open hills. The air was damp with the on-coming of rain, for the storm had not yet burst, though the rising wind proclaimed its imminence. As far as he could see, there was no sign of Dede on the smooth, grassy hills. To the right, dipping down into a hollow and rising again, was a large, full-grown eucalyptus grove. Here all was noise and movement, the lofty, slender trunked trees swaying back and forth ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... says, of a stone that was reported to have fallen at Little Lever, England, that a sample had been sent to him. It was sandstone. Therefore it had not fallen, but had been on the ground in the first place. But, upon page 140, Science Gossip, 1887, is an account of "a large, smooth, water-worn, gritty sandstone pebble" that had been found in the wood of a full-grown beech tree. Looks to me as if it had fallen red-hot, and had penetrated the tree with high velocity. But I have never heard of anything falling ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... one thinking about? What does she think of her mother's eyes? What does she think of her mother's hair? What, of the cradle roof that flies Forward and backward through the air? What does she think of her mother's breast, Round and beautiful, smooth and white, Seeking it ever with fresh delight— Cup of her life, and couch of her rest? What does she think, when her quick embrace Presses her hand, and buries her face Deep, where the heart-throbs sink and swell ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... was a beautiful and calm evening when the troops who were to form the assaulting column moved out on to the broad and smooth beach left by ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... strong on the smooth turf of the chalk down bordering the copse which was being drawn. Phoebe looked out for acquaintance, but a few gentlemen coming up to greet her, she did not notice, as Mervyn did, that the girls with whom he had wished to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as quiet, as cool, and as dignified, As a smooth, silent iceberg that never is ignified, Save when by reflection 't is kindled o' nights With a semblance of flame by the chill ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... mountains. These are drained by broad, leisurely rivers, bordered by fertile farms and substantial towns. Transverse valleys, on the other hand, are generally narrow, with steep slopes rising almost from the river's edge and supporting only small villages and farms. A comparison of the spacious, smooth-floored valley of Andermatt with the wild Reuss gorge, of the fertile and populous Shenandoah Valley in the Southern Appalachians with the canon of the Kanawha in the Cumberland Plateau, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... for scrutiny. He was a striking personage, and a most picturesque one, in his Arctic dress of wool and fur. Standing six foot two or three, with proportionate breadth of shoulders and depth of chest, his smooth-shaven face nipped by the cold to a gleaming pink, his long lashes and eyebrows white with ice, and the ear and neck flaps of his great wolfskin cap loosely raised, he seemed, of a verity, the Frost King, just stepped in out ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... he said, stroking the animal's mane, "you're not to be a menial cart horse tonight. I am an Arabian genie and I hereby turn you into a light, smooth, beautifully built automobile for one passenger ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... little cottages may be sheltered behind those hillocks, Grace thought; and she began to examine how the grey rocks lay among the water, and whether she could possibly find dry footing across the stream. Presently she came upon a smooth row of stones, that were evidently used as a thoroughfare. She had already begun to cross them, keeping her eye cautiously fixed on the stepping-stones as she went along, when she was startled by a voice which sounded close beside her. On glancing round she saw on the ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... smoothness of the ice. A piece of polished plate glass is far smoother than a surface of ice after the latter is cut up by a day's skating. Nevertheless, on the scratched and torn ice-surface skating is still quite possible; on the smooth plate glass we know ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... efforts, its vanished hopes, its departed companions, is yet life, and most of them cling to it like a miser to his gold. But yet, like a man sucked into Niagara above the falls, they are borne on the irresistible, smooth flood, nearer and nearer to the edge of the rock, and they hear the mighty sound in their ears long before they reach the place where the plunge is to be taken from sunshine into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... itself to flicker by their radiant splendor. On the shoulders of the god were dewy wings of brilliant whiteness; and though the pinions were at rest, yet the tender down that fringed the feathers wantoned to and fro in tremulous, unceasing play. The rest of his body was smooth and beautiful, and such as Venus could not have repented of giving birth to. At the foot of his bed lay his bow, his quiver, and his arrows, the auspicious weapons of the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... which so many of his wearied comrades were sleeping the sleep of the tired soldier. Here he tore to fragments and scattered in the embers some notes and letters that were in his pockets. They blazed up brightly, and by the glare he stood one moment studying young Rollins's smooth and placid features; then he looked around on the unconscious circle of bronzed and bearded faces. There were many types of soldier there,—men who had led brigades through the great war and gone back to the humble bars of the line-officer at its close; men who had led fierce ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... the men at the bow of the canoe had some trouble in holding it steady, for their feet were on a stretch of smooth rock, and Menard called Danton back to help them. The boy worked his way along the rope, ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... near two or three leagues deep, and has, I doubt not, good places for anchoring, but the weather being so bad, did not think it safe to stand into it. From the Friars the land trenches away about N. by E. four leagues: We had smooth water, and kept in shore, having regular soundings from twenty to fifteen fathoms water. At half-past six we hauled round a high bluff point, the rocks whereof were like so many fluted pillars, and had ten fathoms water, fine sand, within half a mile of the shore. At seven, being abreast ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... plant the self-sown poppy rears itself; round the stem of a smooth tree the honeysuckle twines; to a trim ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is the time, when night and day, In equal scales contend for sway [35]— Lone, on her rocky steep, Lingers the girl with wistful eyes That watch the sun-steeds down the skies, Careering towards the deep. Lulled lay the smooth and silent sea, A mirror in translucent calm, The breeze, along that crystal realm, Unmurmuring, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... they are the best, Master. Wrinkles and smooth skin seem strange upon one pillow," she added, glancing at Noma, who came from the hut carrying a bowl of milk ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... peaceful cottage of old Calvert, where he pursued his studies, his mind was in a perfect state of chaos. Of the chapter which he had striven to compass the previous night, in which the rights of persons are discussed with the usual clearness of style, but the usual one-sidedness of judgment of that smooth old monarchist, William Hinkley scarcely remembered a solitary syllable. He had read only with his eyes. His mind had kept no pace with his proceedings, and though he strove as he went along to recall the heads of ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... at the heifer's head. His trembling fingers caressed the smooth, fawn-colored nose, as, with the other hand, he untied her. She crouched back at first and refused to pass that terrible flaming something on the way to safety outside. But Jot pulled her along, talking to her all ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... tale was jocularly told and was not supposed to have any importance. It could have had no importance to one who found it a single instance, as a governor would be likely to do. A governor sees smooth things. All sorts of people (except the working sort) frequent his receptions—the fashionable classes, who are far more loyal to England for the most part than the English themselves, their fringe, and then the wealthier of the tradespeople. It is proven every ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... revolver, and had so strong a belief I should every second be confronted by Curtin that I was strangely surprised when I saw no sign of the gentleman. In less time than it takes to tell it, I was down into an open hallway and then into a room. I and Nunn, who were smooth-faced, were given bushy whiskers and a cloak. In the mean time, I paid an agent in waiting $10,000 in French and Spanish notes, then we hurried out of the rear into a cab and were driven to the station, arriving just in time to catch ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... sudden disturbance of brain balance made them all giddy, but the surprise of seeing a man, not a steward, at the door, was so great that for a moment or two it acted as a tonic. Nothing dreadful happened to any one of the five until after the smooth black head had been ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... wand, and pushed away from the rocks which were encountered. The spray splashed through the opening, and this he caught in his basin when he wished to drink or to mix his kwip-do-si, and he was also provided with a plug to close the hole when he neared the roaring waters. He floated over smooth waters and swift-rushing torrents, plunged down cataracts, and for many days spun through wild whirlpools, where black rocks protruded their heads like ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... What was that sound of pattering feet? And that rise and fall, like the murmur of breakers on pebbles? He put out a languid hand to reach his watch from the chair whereon it was his habit to place it, and touched some smooth hard surface like glass. This was so unexpected that it startled him extremely. Quite suddenly he rolled over, stared for a moment, and struggled into a sitting position. The effort was unexpectedly difficult, and it left him giddy and ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... they want to say, and generally with a result of sufficiently good sense, but in some such disorganized mass as if they had thrown it up rather than spoken it. It seemed to me that this was almost as much by choice as necessity. An Englishman, ambitious of public favor, should not be too smooth. If an orator is glib, his countrymen distrust him. They dislike smartness. The stronger and heavier his thoughts, the better, provided there be an element of commonplace running through them; and any rough, yet never vulgar force of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... jumper and trousers and another of his shoes and shirt. The latter he tucked into his clews at the foot, and the other he used as a pillow. We thanked our lucky stars we did not have creased trousers, smooth coats, vests, white shirts, collars, and ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... Indians to the gathering of the Juvias, was filled in great part with that species of reeds (carices) of which the blow-tubes are made. These reeds were from fifteen to seventeen feet long, yet no trace of a knot for the insertion of leaves and branches was perceived. They were quite straight, smooth externally, and perfectly cylindrical. These carices come from the foot of the mountains of Yumariquin and Guanaja. They are much sought after, even beyond the Orinoco, by the name of reeds of Esmeralda. A hunter preserves the same blow-tube during his whole life, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... go up through the mowing field, The headless aftermath, Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew, Half closes the garden path. And when I come to the garden ground, The whir of sober birds Up from the tangle of withered weeds Is sadder than any words. A tree beside the wall stands bare, But a leaf that lingered brown, Disturbed, I ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... place, where he gave out he meant to pass the remainder of his days. He kept his word. Arnod had yet scarcely reached the prime of manhood; and though he must have encountered the rough, as well as the smooth of life, and have mingled with many a wild and reckless companion, yet his natural good disposition, and honest principle, had preserved him unscathed amid the scenes he had passed through. At all events, such were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... whom gambling was an absorbing passion could never be wholly objectionable to a man of his peculiar principles; but he came back from his third visit to their camp with his hands sunk to the bottoms of his pockets and a troubled look on his smooth countenance. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... guide, we might fairly count on the same luck which had brought us safe round Oakland. Night had fallen long before we came down on the South River, a mere mountain torrent, at ordinary seasons; but now, flowing along with the broad dignity of a swift, smooth river. My guide's mare wanted shoeing, and there chanced to be a rude forge close to the ford, which is the only crossing-place since the bridge was destroyed last autumn by the Confederates. It was important that the local pilot should be secured ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... in their dissipation, stared at her through clouds. Smooth-cheeked boys, some of them with faces of stone and mouths of sin, not nearly so pathetic as the grey heads, tried to find the girl's eyes in the smoke wreaths. Maggie considered she was not what they thought her. She confined her glances to ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... Dawson street, his tongue brushing his teeth smooth. Something green it would have to be: spinach, say. Then with those ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... shy when she came down (at half-past seven) the next morning, in her widow's cap. Her smooth, pale face, with its oval untouched by time, looked more young and childlike than ever, when contrasted with the head-gear usually associated with ideas of age. She blushed very deeply as Mr and Miss Benson showed the astonishment, which they could not ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... can show. Little by little the face of the country began to change as the carriages approached the remote and lonely district of the Broads. The wheat fields and turnip fields became perceptibly fewer, and the fat green grazing grounds on either side grew wider and wider in their smooth and sweeping range. Heaps of dry rushes and reeds, laid up for the basket-maker and the thatcher, began to appear at the road-side. The old gabled cottages of the early part of the drive dwindled and disappeared, and huts with mud walls rose in their place. With ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... boxes or an eight by ten pocket-handkerchief garden; where subways and street clatter can be forgotten; your black column will be far longer than the one in red. But if nothing feels so good to your foot as smooth unyielding pavements; if the multicolored electric sign of a moving picture palace is more entrancing than a vivid sunset; you are at heart a city bird, intended by temperament to nest behind walls of brick and steel. There is nothing ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... move about a little in the boat, which would be some relief from the monotony of their confined home. They got into the boat with a warning from Mr. Watts not to go far from the schooner, and not to approach any other vessel, which might have the yellow fever on board. Noddy sculled about on the smooth water for a time, till it was nearly dark, and Mollie thought it was time to return on board. As she spoke, she went forward and stood up in the bow of the boat, ready to step upon ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... favourite of the old Marquis, not that he loved her so well as his own daughter, but her habits and manners suited him better than Agatha's; she could better sympathize with the old man's wishes and fancies; she would smooth the plumage of his birds for him; arrange and re-arrange his shells; feed his cats, his dogs, his tame deer, and his white peacock—for the old Marquis had live pets as well as dead favourites. Then ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... sticks a hand in the armlet of his waistcoat; he brandishes in the other a thickish bit of smooth cherry-wood, sometimes dressing his hair withal; and again giving his head a slight scratch behind the ear, while he takes occasion at the same time for an oblique glance at a fat boy in the corner, who ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell," ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... fustian stamped over with a black pattern, an olive-green waistcoat, a blue tailcoat with lappets behind, and a pair of well-polished shoes, the soles of which in honour of Sunday were studded with small instead of large knobs of iron, set a tall beaver hat, which no brushing would make smooth, on the back of his head, stuffed a silk hankerchief, crimson and yellow, in his ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... little fellow, this Johnny Grantline. Short of temper sometimes, but always just, and a perfect leader of men. In stature he was almost as small as Snap. But he was thick-set, with a smooth-shaven, keen-eyed, square-jawed face; and a shock of brown tousled hair. A man of thirty-five, though the decision of his manner, the quiet dominance of his voice made him seem older. He stood up now, surveying ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... head, glanced at him quickly and instantly looked back at the smooth glass before her and at the green light on the shutters without. He was scarcely conscious that she had moved. In love, as in a storm at sea, matters grow very grave ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... do, don't you? It is a splendid vocation you have chosen—to smooth the way for the march of unappreciated truths, and new and courageous lines of thought. If it were nothing more than because you stand fearlessly in the open and take up the cause ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... to allow two chariots to drive abreast, were strengthened by two hundred and fifty towers, except on one side, where deep marshes extended to their base. Beyond these marshes lay the hunting-grounds, and the party, turning to the left, rode for a time over a smooth highway, between broad tracts of land sown with wheat, barley and sesame. Slender palm-trees covered with clusters of golden dates were seen in every direction, and the sunbeams shimmered on the canals and ditches which conducted water from the Euphrates ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... And bright was Abdon Burf, And warm between them slumbered The smooth green miles of turf; Until from grass and clover The upshot beam would fade, And England over Advanced the ...
— Last Poems • A. E. Housman
... reading, Lucien came to a determination which compelled him to smooth down Monsieur Camusot. When Coquart's drone ceased, the poet started like a man who has slept through a noise to which his ears are accustomed, and who is ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... mixture of slaked lime and white marble dust, or very fine sand which has been thoroughly sifted. If stained to resemble coloured or veined marbles, and immediately ironed till it is dry with hot smooth irons, the surface of the mass is hardened and polished to such a degree that it is almost impossible to distinguish it from real marble without breaking into it. Waxing gives it a still higher polish. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the seaward side of one of the islands that enclose the harbor, or the Matanzas River, as it is called. We landed on the inland side, and then walked over to the beach, which is very wide and smooth. Here we set to work to fish. Old Menendez baited our lines, and told us what to do. It ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... sense in our quarreling about the chap anyhow," he said with a gruff attempt to smooth away difficulties. "Of course, I sh'an't let on I followed you. Just spotted you in the distance and joined you by ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... it—the American visitors especially; because nowhere in England can one find the Middle Ages more compendiously summarised or more charmingly illustrated. Almost it might be a toy model of those times, with some of their quaintest customs kept going in smooth working order. But it is better. It is the real thing, genuinely surviving. No visitor ever finds disappointment in a pilgrimage to St. Hospital: the ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... station of Sir Goldsworth Gurney's steam omnibus, running between London and Bath. This carriage does not differ materially from other stage-coaches, nor has it had any serious mishap as yet. For my benefit it manoeuvred back and forth over the street pavement and later on the smooth macadam of the highway, without any apparent difficulties of guiding. The drivers of other stage-coaches are agreed that the thing is a success, and that before long it will do ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... love is like the sea, As changeful and as free; Sometimes she's angry, sometimes rough, Yet oft she's smooth and calm enough— Ay, much ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... obtained to consider the state of the Fury, the more apparent became the absolute, however unfortunate, necessity of heaving her down. Four pumps were required to be at work without intermission to keep her free, and this in perfectly smooth water, showing that she was, in fact, so materially injured as to be very far from seaworthy. One third of her working men were constantly employed, as before remarked, in this laborious operation, and some of their ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... followed the rout, and we remained face to face before Flora. There was a draught in that corner by the door; she had thrown her pelisse over her bare arms and neck, and the dark fur of the trimming set them off. She shone by contrast; the light played on her smooth skin to admiration, and the colour changed in her excited face. For the least fraction of a second she looked from one to the other of her pair of rival swains, and seemed to hesitate. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... watched over my safety with incessant tenderness; whose life and whose peace were involved in mine. I should have deemed myself brutish and obdurately wicked to have loaded her with fears and cares merely to smooth the brow of a froward old man, whose avarice called on me to sacrifice my ease and my health, and who shifted to other shoulders the province of sustaining me when sick, and of mourning for me ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... The Premier's patience was scarcely any longer a virtue in this case, when four months after the declaration of war he had been compelled to make a diplomatic visit to Toronto's war camp in order to smooth out the troubles created by his "Chief ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... watchfulness—to long for the morning and the laundress—to serve yourself your own medicine by your own watch—to have no other companion for long hours but your own sickening fancies and fevered thoughts: no kind hand to give you drink if you are thirsty, or to smooth the hot pillow that crumples under you—this indeed, is a fate so dismal and tragic, that we shall not enlarge upon its horrors; and shall only heartily pity those bachelors in the Temple who brave it ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when commanding his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless you had heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which at Paris is so common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were angelically sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming expression. On parade, or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare with him. Indeed, d'Orsay himself, the handsome d'Orsay, was eclipsed by our colonel on the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon before the ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... discussion. It appeared that certain members of the cabinet had been corresponding with him without the knowledge of Earl Grey, and that the object of their correspondence had been, not to insure more tranquillity in Ireland, but to smooth the way of ministers by making concessions to O'Connell and his adherents. On discovering this, Earl Grey, who dissented from such views, immediately wrote to the lord-lieutenant to reconsider the subject, taking nothing into account but what was fitting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of the Rush were not all bad. Newton, in 1587, said of the Rush—"It is a round smooth shoote without joints or knots, having within it a white substance or pith, which being drawn forth showeth like long white, soft, gentle, and round thread, and serveth for many purposes. Heerewith be made manie pretie imagined devises ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... put it on. And here is the razor, with which we shall shave off your beard; and when it is gone, and you have put on the new clothes, no one will scent the Barbone in the man with a foreign dress and a smooth chin. Come, now, ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... fix it for you," said Ned Lowe, who in the past had been a bit more friendly with the sneak than any of the others present. "Just give me a plate of ice-cream and a piece of cake, and I'll go and smooth it ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... ear, breathing joy and cheerfulness, content and love. Could love be the savage passion which lately subjugated his soul? He rose from his seat; he walked about the room; each minute his heart was lighter, his brow more smooth. A thousand thoughts, beautiful and quivering like the twilight, glanced o'er his mind in indistinct but exquisite tumult, and hope, like the voice of an angel in a storm, was heard above all. He lifted a chair gently ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... to their profuse and unscientific diet. Half-an-hour after sunrise Mr Gordon walks quietly into the vast building which contains the sheep and their shearers—called "the shed," par excellence. Everything is in perfect cleanliness and order—the floor swept and smooth, with its carefully planed boards of pale yellow aromatic pine. Small tramways, with baskets for the fleeces, run the wool up to the wool tables, superseding the more general plan of hand picking. At each side of the shed ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... afforded us of visiting Loch Lomond and the entrance to Loch Long. As almost my first thought when we reached the lake was, "How can people attempt to describe such places?" I shall not terminate my letter with "smooth expanses of sapphire-tinted waves," or "purple screens of heath-clad hills rising one above another into the cloudless sky." A volume might be written on the mere color of the water, and give no idea of it, though ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... quietly through the smooth waters of Hampton Roads and dropped anchor some distance off shore. At Jack's command the launch was made ready, and leaving Lieutenant Hetherton in command, Jack motioned Frank to follow him ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... the glossy dark hair from her smooth pale forehead, and displayed the long, hard scar, that was so carefully concealed by the ebon folds. "I always wear my hair combed ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... of worms and a heart full of joy, Up and down the old stream, a bare-footed boy, A truant from school, my footsteps would stray To the deep-shaded pool, or where ripples at play, As they flowed over beds of smooth-polished stones, Sang a lullaby sweet in soft undertones! From the dawn of the day to the set of the sun What pleasures we've had when we ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... with much pleasant talk we beguiled the way, till I saw, across a deep valley on our right, a line of noble heights, well timbered, but broken into open grassy glades, and smooth sheets of bright green lawn. Between us and these hills flowed a gleaming river, from which a broad avenue led up to the eye of the picture, a noble grey stone mansion, a mass of turrets, gables, and chimneys, which the afternoon sun ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Labour Party, and a short time later moved that the Society should leave the Labour Party altogether. Or perhaps it was the other way round. Logical consistency is usually incompatible with political success: compromise runs smooth, whilst principle jams. But the lesser sort of critic, on the look out for a grievance, can always apply a principle to a compromise, point out that it does not fit, and that difficulties may arise. In the case ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... stepped forward, holding out his hand, which Tom took in his own. Mr. Hilton was a man of about thirty, smooth-faced, with firm set jaws. Though evidently not a Spaniard, he had the complexion usual to that race. His dark eyes were keen and sharp, though they had a rather pleasant look in them. He was slender, perhaps ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... height of four feet or so, but the recess was bare. There were signs of hinges on one, and of a bolt on the other of the front edges: it had seemingly been once a closet, whose door continued the wainscot. There were no signs of shelves in it; the plaster was smooth. ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... was a blue-eyed young man of medium size and medium appearance every way, with a smooth shaven, clear-skinned face whereon sat good nature overlaid with self-esteem, spread himself in his chair, and made ready for content. Just then there was a knock at his door, and a negro boy servant shambled in ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... apparent magnificence met the eye, and seemed to smile in its landscape; the bright waters of its rivers meandered in twisted streams, and its hills were covered with the luxuriant verdure of their grassy growth, and the mountains with a glossy fleece of smooth pasture. By the time they had reached the stout gentleman's mansion, the young man's senses had been bewildered by the sweet cadence of the music which the birds poured forth from the groves, then there was gold there ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Ayishah[FN112] daughter of Talhah, and I should like thee to go herwards and spy out for me how she is made." So she went away and returning to Mus'ab, said, "I have seen her, and her face is fairer than health; she hath large and well-opened eyes and under them a nose straight and smooth as a cane; oval cheeks and a mouth like a cleft pomegranate, a neck as a silver ewer and below it a bosom with two breasts like twin- pomegranates and further down a slim waist and a slender stomach with a navel therein as it were a casket of ivory, and back parts like a hummock of sand; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... was here the other day,' said Mrs. Smirk to Mrs. Smooth, in the well-known 'great-deal-more-meant-than-said' style. 'Oh such a charming man! Such ease! such manners! such knowledge of high life!' Puff had been at his old tricks. He had resuscitated Lord Legbail, now Earl of Loosefish; imported Sir Harry Blueun from somewhere ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... strangling cord, the halter made ready by Fate, Before to my body draws nigh the man of my horror and hate. Nay, ere I will own him as lord, as handmaid to Hades I go! And oh, that aloft in the sky, where the dark clouds are frozen to snow, A refuge for me might be found, or a mountain-top smooth and too high ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... what could have been better fun than this dance on a smooth floor so large that it did not seem crowded, to the best of music, with a partner who was a perfect dancer, and—though Billie did not say this to herself—by a girl who was herself as light and graceful a dancer as was ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... disease has not been far advanced, it will be found that the butcher has carefully scraped the serous membrane off the inner surface of the ribs, as it would otherwise be impossible for him to give the pleura its healthy, smooth aspect, from the firm manner in which the abundant false membranes adhere to it. The diseased lungs sometimes attain inordinate weight. They have been known to weigh as ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... left the room and closed the door softly, so softly that the prisoner wondered whether he had turned the key. On examining the panels he saw, however, that they were smooth and not broken by any latch or keyhole. The spring was on the outside, and there was no means whatever of ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... may, perhaps, desire to know whether things were made altogether smooth with the Colonel. On this matter Messrs. Block and Curling, the family lawyers, encountered very much trouble indeed. The Colonel, when application was made to him, was as sweet as honey. He would do anything for the interests ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... polygonal or Cyclopean, so called from the tradition that they were built by the Cyclopes. These Cyclopean walls were composed of large, irregular polygonal blocks carefully fitted together and dressed to a fairly smooth face (Fig. 23). Both kinds were used contemporaneously, though in the course of time the regular coursed masonry ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... which is. True, experience in all kinds of poetical work shows that the less a man creates the better, that the more, in fact, he makes, the less is he of a maker; but experience also shows that the course of true nature, like that of true love, never does run smooth, and that occasional, judicious, slight departures from the actual facts, by one who knows the value of a lie too well to waste it, bring nature more vividly and admirably before us than any amount of adherence to the letter of strict accuracy. It is the old story, ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... this beauty be most eminent in the face, yet many times those other members yield a most pleasing grace, and are alone sufficient to enamour. A high brow like unto the bright heavens, coeli pulcherrima plaga, Frons ubi vivit honor, frons ubi ludit amor, white and smooth like the polished alabaster, a pair of cheeks of vermilion colour, in which love lodgeth; [4914]Amor qui mollibus genis puellae pernoctas: a coral lip, suaviorum delubrum, in which Basia mille patent, basia mille latent, "A thousand appear, as many are concealed;" gratiarum sedes gratissima; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Smooth roads or rough roads, warm or winter weather, On go the children, tow-head and brown, Brave boys and brave girls, rank and file together, Marching out of Morning-Land, over ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... if you could get a fine polish on its surface, but the finest surface on the densest paper is not as smooth as the polished surface of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... conceive the contrary, there would be no difference between the conception assented to and that which is rejected, were it not for some sentiment which distinguishes the one from the other. If I see a billiard-ball moving towards another, on a smooth table, I can easily conceive it to stop upon contact. This conception implies no contradiction; but still it feels very differently from that conception by which I represent to myself the impulse and the communication of motion from one ball ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... tiger; Sheetulla, goddess of the smallpox, without a head, riding on a horse without a head; Punchanon, with large ears; and Colloroy, riding on a horse. In another apartment was Seeb, which was only a smooth post of wood, with two or three mouldings in it, like the base of a Tuscan pillar. I therefore discoursed with them upon the vanity of idols, the folly and wickedness of idolatry, the nature and attributes of God, and the way ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... fellow was caught at Khanmulla. Barnes arrested him, but he gives the credit of the catch to Everard. The fellow will swing, of course. It will be a sensational trial, for rumour has it that the Rajah was pushing behind. He, of course, is smooth as oil. I saw him at the Club just now, hovering round Mrs. Ermsted as usual, and she encouraging him. That girl is positively infatuated. Shouldn't wonder if there's a rude awakening before her. I beg your pardon, sir. ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... clustered on the lower part of a smooth, club-shaped, slender spadix within a green and maroon or whitish-striped spathe that curves in a broad-pointed flap above it. Leaves: 3-foliate, usually overtopping the spathe, their slender petioles 9 to 30 in. high, or as tall as the scape that rises from an acrid ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... saw that the man must have been descending a steep rift, and as the light came into sight again, they found that they were standing on the very edge of this place, and that the light was away to their left, twenty feet or so lower, and gleaming upon the surface of a smooth far-spreading pool. ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... I leave her?— I might have seen her,—such was D'Ormond's plea— Each day. But who her evening hours could cheer? Her long and solitary evening hours?— Talk her, or haply sing her, to her sleep? Read to her? Smooth her pillow? Lastly make Morning seem morning with a daughter's welcome? For morning's light ne'er visited her eyes!— Well! I refused to quit her! D'Ormond grew Absent, reserved, nay splenetic and petulant! He left the ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... fairest fleece of all the Flock: If it be knowne afore, 'tis all worth nothing! Ile carve it on the trees, and in the turfe, On every greene sworth, and in every path, Just to the Margin of the cruell Trent; There will I knock the story in the ground, In smooth great peble, and mosse fill it round, Till the whole Countrey read how she was drown'd; And with the plenty of salt teares there shed, Quite alter the complexion of the Spring. Or I will get some old, old Grandam ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... a person whose head was entirely bald. Not a spear of hair was anywhere visible on the bare, pinky-white scalp, and the round head was smooth and shiny as ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... was a little nook where the eddy of the stream had washed away a mass of soil, and on the edge of it there grew a most beautiful old mimosa thorn. Beneath the thorn was a large smooth slab of granite fringed all round with maidenhair and other ferns, that sloped gently down to a pool of the clearest sparkling water, which lay in a bowl of granite about ten feet wide by five feet deep in the centre. Here to this slab we went every morning to ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... were inherent in him he moved forward again, but now his whole attitude bespoke a new urge. There was a definite and masterful purpose in every movement of those steel muscles rolling softly beneath the smooth brown hide. He moved now toward a certain goal that quite evidently filled him with far greater enthusiasm than had the possible event of ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... is pleasant to me. I should not like a world without storms any more than I should like that Frenchman's idea of the perfection of the earth, when all was to be smooth as a trim-shaven lawn, rocks and mountains banished, and the sea breaking on the shore only in wavelets of ginger-beer or lemonade, I forget which. But the older you grow, the more sides of a thing will present themselves to your contemplation. The storm may be grand and exciting ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... to keep it, confound you!" thought Graydon. "Ah, good-evening, Mr. Arnault. You are right; I have found rough roads preferable to smooth rails and a ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... election, I have done my best to assure that the transfer from one Administration to another shall be smooth and orderly. From General Eisenhower and his associates, I have had friendly and understanding collaboration in this endeavor. I have not sought to thrust upon him—nor has he sought to take—the responsibility which must be mine until twelve o'clock noon on January ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the schoolteacher in reply was as smooth as running water. "I think you'll bring me out of the ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... his excessive grace and easy rapidity. He gives you chiefly the impression of a dragon-fly blown in the wind of a brisk morning over cool stretches of water. You would expect him to land on a lily-pad any moment and smooth his wings ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... me," he stoutly asseverated. "Ye think mo' o' him 'n o' me, kase ye 'low he air rich, an' book-larned, an' smooth-fingered, an' fini-fied ez a gal, an' goin' ter buy the hotel. I say, hotel! Now I'll tell ye what he is—I'll tell ye! He's a criminal. He's runnin' from the law. He's hidin' in the old hotel that ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... actor himself is not accountable for the false poetry of his author; that, the hearer is to judge of; if it passes upon him, the actor can have no quarrel to it; who, if the periods given him are round, smooth, spirited, and high-sounding, even in a false passion, must throw out the same fire and grace, as may be required in one justly rising from nature; where those his excellencies will then be only more pleasing in proportion to the taste of his hearer. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... Laura might hear it, even in the shop. In less than a minute I was down again in the passage, and had opened the door into the street. He came round to meet me from the shop. There he was in deep mourning, with his smooth bow and his deadly smile, and some idle boys and women near him, staring at his great size, his fine black clothes, and his large cane with the gold knob to it. All the horrible time at Blackwater came back to me the moment I set ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... this house and its tenants; and the doings and character of its inmates struck our mind as something so extraordinary, and in some respects so beautiful, that we resolved, if possible, to pay it a visit. We did so a few days thereafter, under the conduct of a young friend, who kindly undertook to smooth away all difficulties in the way of our reception. We can, therefore, give some account of the dingy house, with a tolerable assurance that, strange as the matter may appear, it is no more ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various |
