"Soft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no cause to be ashamed of my grandmother, for every one who knew her said, and I am sure of it, that she was as worthy a woman in her line of life as ever lived. She gave good measure and charged honest prices, whether she was dealing in soft tack, fruit, vegetables, cheese, herrings, or any of the other miscellaneous articles with which she supplied the seamen of His Majesty's ships; and her daughter Polly, who assisted her, was acknowledged by all to be as good and kind-hearted as she was pretty. No wonder, then, that she ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... well when amongst us, Mr. Monday," said the captain; "there are too many soft crabs, hard clams, and canvas-backs; too much old Madeira, and generous Sherry, for a man of your well-known taste to resist them. Sit less time at table, and go oftener to church this trip, and let us hear your report of the consequences ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... wise innocence that will be strength. It is too late to remand American women into a Turkish or Jewish tutelage: they have emerged too far not to come farther. In a certain sense, no doubt, the butterfly is safest in the chrysalis. When the soft thing begins to emerge, the world certainly seems a dangerous place; and it is hard to say what will be the result of the emancipation. But when she is once half out, there is no safety for the pretty creature but to come the rest of the way, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... carrier pigeons that the detachment had brought with them, beautiful, soft-eyed creatures that had been thoroughly trained. It seemed a pity that things so gentle should have to serve the harsh purposes of war. But human lives were at stake, and one of the birds was quickly selected, ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... as she opened the door, some of the young soft lines of her early youth seemed to have left it; her beautiful brown eyes looked in a heavy sort of fashion out at the world from their dark surroundings. She came up to her father, and put her hand on his shoulder. He was bending ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... is a large percentage of beautiful weather, when mud and dust alike are absent and when one can canter noiselessly along the soft, yielding roads, which are then in much the same condition for riding as is ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... Thomas consists of a red and yellow marl, or clay, of great fertility, which is kept soft and mellow by the heavy dews which fall nightly, contributing greatly to vegetation, and preventing it from being dried up by the great heats; and so great is the luxuriant fertility of the soil, that trees immediately spring up on any spots left uncultivated, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the Texans should escape. "I told them what to expect," he is reported to have said, and then, when five men were brought before him, and his own officer, General Castrillon, interceded for the Texans, he gave Castrillon a lecture for his soft-heartedness, and the prisoners were speedily put to the bayonet. Such was Santa Anna, now high in power, but who was destined in time to be shorn of all rank and to die in bitter obscurity. His last act of atrocity at the Alamo was to have ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... Munt! is that you?" he said, and he took into his large moist palm the dry little hand of his friend, while they both broke out into the incoherencies of people meeting after a long time. Mr. Mavering spoke in it voice soft yet firm, and with a certain thickness of tongue; which gave a boyish charm to his slow, utterance, and Mr. Munt used the sort of bronchial snuffle sometimes cultivated among us as a chest tone. But they were cut short in their intersecting ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of the room two figures knelt and moved before the white altar, the soft light of flickering candles playing fitfully upon them and glinting from the altar ornaments, while before a rough coffin, which rested upon two pedestals, stood a third, whose rich, sonorous Latin filled the chapel with ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... quite near us in the shallow water, stood a great pale bird, motionless, on one long, slim leg, his oval body, long neck, head and bill clearly outlined against the bright water beyond. The mirror of the water reflected perfectly the soft outline, making a double creature, one above and one below, with that slim ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... just falls back from her face like Jennie Munn's after she has had it braided for a long time. And it trails out behind her like a—a cloud. Her dress is white stuff, and she never has it starched; it's just soft and shiny and swishy, and seems to b'long just to her. Oh, she is the prettiest ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... and, at the same sitting, a model billet-doux to Mrs. Rosemary. Other business was combined with this epistolary industry, for, even before the stamp of the writer's seal was lifted from the soft, red wafer on the widow's letter, a backwoods settler came, by appointment, to close a bargain by which the flatboat "Salome" ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... succeeded anywhere, as we have had no account of its being practised; but Mr. Ford, of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, from iron-ore and coal, both got in the same dale, makes iron brittle or tough as he pleases, there being cannon thus cast so soft as to bear turning like wrought-iron." Most probably, however, it was not until the time of Richard Reynolds, who succeeded Abraham Darby the second in the management of the works in 1757, that pit-coal came into large and regular use in the blasting-furnaces ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... were speaking of Vesey Street. It looks down to the water, and the soft music of steamship whistles comes tuning on a cold, gusty air. Thoroughly mundane little street, yet not unmindful of matters spiritual, bounded as it is by divine Providence at one end (St. Paul's) and by Providence, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... something about "The soft breezes of California restoring the bloom to Phyllis' cheeks"—to think that T. Ts got fogged in the matter is consoling to such lesser lights as you and I. You can take it from me, "the soft breezes of California" are blowing into her room in a nearby ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... were there in a small rock-walled clearing. One was old Emil Crawford, sprawled unconscious on his side, the soft glow of a small white globe in a strange head-piece atop his gray hair shining eerily in the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... fifty, we stood waiting, looking from each other's faces to the mummy, and from the mummy to the hole, and all the time the shuffling sound, soft and stealthy, came gradually nearer. The tension, for me at least, was very near the breaking point when at last the cause of the disturbance reached the edge. It was hidden for a moment just behind the broken rim of soil. A jet of sand, shaken by the close vibration, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... after the two young men had departed from Winthrop, and had made their way up the road that led along the steep hillside, the exhilaration of the bracing air and the superb view had made Will keenly alive to the beauties of the surrounding region. A soft halo covered the summits of the lofty hills, and the quiet of the valley was almost as impressive as the framework of the mountains. Mott too had been exceedingly pleasant in all that he had said, and Will was almost beginning to feel that he had misjudged ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... the spring. They had the drawing-room to themselves—to no one, the order had gone forth, was her ladyship at home—that drawing-room of Lady Auriol which Lackaday regarded as the most exquisite room in the world. It had comfort of soft chairs and bright fire and the smell of tea and cigarettes; but it also had the style, to him so precious, with which his fancy invested her. The note of the room was red lacquer partly inherited, partly collected, the hangings of ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... of a really good steel is a matter of great comfort in rough travel, for, as I have just said, common iron is incompetent to afford a useful spark, and hardened iron or soft steel is barely sufficient to do so. Any blacksmith will make a good steel out of an old file, if he has nothing more appropriate at hand. A substitute for a steel can be made, even by an ordinary ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... set in motion by some eager leaders that remember enough of what lies ahead to make them oblivious to what they pass. They press ahead. The flock draws on. The momentum of travel grows. The bells clang soft and hurriedly; the sheep forget to feed; they neglect the tender pastures; they will not stay to drink. Under an unwise or indolent herder the sheep going on an unaccustomed trail will overtravel and underfeed, until in the midst of good pasture they starve upon their feet. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... two men arrived, each carrying his gripsack. Lawler was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-contained, clad in an old black frock coat, which with his soft felt hat and ragged, grizzled beard gave him a general resemblance to an itinerant preacher. His companion Andrews was little more than a boy, frank-faced and cheerful, with the breezy manner of one who is out for a holiday and means to enjoy every minute of it. Both men were total ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the wool in a very large bundle, which almost filled up the bottom of the sleigh. Jonas himself sat upon the seat, with his feet under the bundle; but Oliver sat upon the bundle. He said it made a very soft seat. ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... appearance. As yet he had hardly looked at her, but he felt that she had become old and worn, angular and hard-visaged. All this had no effect upon his feelings towards her, but filled him with ineffable regret. When he had first known her she had been a woman with a noble presence—not soft and feminine as had been Violet Effingham, but handsome and lustrous, with a healthy youth. In regard to age he and she were of the same standing. That he knew well. She had passed her thirty-second birthday, but that was all. He felt himself to be still a young man, but he could not ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... probably put the tailor over, and he also had two yellow gloves and a little trick cane. He walks over to where me and the Kid was standin' and takes off his hat. It was one of them dashin', devilish soft things that has names like Pullman cars—you know, "The Bryn Mawr, $2.50. All Harvard Wears One." Then he points at ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... out in the open and take athletics say at a certain time every-day; These fellows are in good health and allert in their lessons, while those who take no exercise are logy and soft. Organized athletics in a school bring the former, while if a school has no athletics every-thing goes more or less slipshod, and the fellows are more liable to get into trouble, because they are nervious from having ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... objects in the first casino was a group by Bernini,—Pluto, an outrageously masculine and strenuous figure, heavily bearded, ravishing away a little, tender Proserpine, whom he holds aloft, while his forcible gripe impresses itself into her soft virgin flesh. It is very disagreeable, but it makes one feel that Bernini was a man of great ability. There are some works in literature that bear an analogy to his works in sculpture, when great power is lavished a little outside of nature, and therefore proves to be only ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was pure joy. It was a delicious spring, bright and yet soft, and the beech-forests of the Chilterns were ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... hair was between brown and gold, but the transcendent lustre of her great blue eyes, and the brilliant roses of her cheeks, were sad harbingers of early death. She spoke little, and never with animation, in a low, soft voice. Shakespeare's words, "My gracious silence," applied to her no less than ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... his ruthlessness, but no one can say that he was not effective. He bore on hard but with the belief that only such action could bring the war to a close. No one could come in contact with him without feeling that he was a soft-hearted man. It was one of the most interesting evenings of my life when, as a guest of N.O. Nelson, the philanthropic captain of industry in St. Louis, I was one of a company of a dozen to hear Sherman tell John Fiske his story of the war. We sat at table from seven o'clock ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... resources in some areas; the policies of former Communist regimes promoted rapid urbanization and industrial growth that had negative effects on the environment; the burning of soft coal in power plants and the lack of enforcement of environmental laws severely polluted the air in Ulaanbaatar; deforestation, overgrazing, and the converting of virgin land to agricultural production increased soil erosion from wind and rain; desertification and mining activities had ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... have the use of the Goldsboro road, as also to keep up the feint on Raleigh as long as possible. Slocum therefore advanced on his position, only difficult by reason of the nature of the ground, which was so soft that horses and men would sink everywhere and could scarcely make their way at all. The 20th Corps led the advance of Slocum's column, the 14th Corps following with Kilpatrick's cavalry ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... She had no hat on, but held rather carelessly over her small, dark head a red parasol. It was evident that she was not afraid even of the midday sun. That new look in her face, soft womanhood at the windows gazing at a world more fully, if more sadly, understood, fascinated him, sent the blood up to his head. There was a great change in her. To-day she knew what ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... not only with secrecy or mystery, but with magic, and were supposed to possess power for good or evil. People thought that "runes could raise the dead from their graves; they could preserve life or take it, they could heal the sick or bring on lingering disease; they could call forth the soft rain or the violent hailstorm; they could break chains and shackles, or bind more closely than bonds or fetters; they could make the warrior invincible and cause his sword to inflict none but mortal wounds; ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... now fancied that that distinction involved deadly warfare, for he had read from beginning to end those two damnable tracts which the tinker had presented to him. But in the midst of all the angry disturbance of his mind, he felt the soft touch of the infant's hand, the soothing influence of her conciliating words, and he was half ashamed that he had spoken so roughly ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pear-shaped, parti-colored, and very thick. They range in color from a light green to grey or brown, and are all of them profusely spotted, or blotted, I might say spattered, with clots of black or brown. Some are beautiful, with soft tints blended in a delicate lace-like pattern. Some are very ugly, and look unclean. All are a trifle stale, with a meat of coarse texture and gamy flavor. But the Italians and the Coolies are fond of them, and doubtless many a gross finds its way into ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... garden, and for that I am indebted to Archie the garrulous. It is nearly midnight now. The roar of London has died away to a fretful murmur, and somehow across this baking town a breeze has found its way. It whispers over the green grass, in the ivy that climbs my wall, in the soft murky folds ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... the memory of that day has never been wholly clear. Sodden with weariness, dazzled and muddled by the savage sun-glare, he followed, with eyes fixed, the rhythmically, monotonously moving feet of his leader, through an interminable desert of soft, clogging sand; a desert which dropped away into parched arroyos, and rose to scorched mesas whereon fierce cacti thrust at him with thorns and spikes; a desert dead and mummified in the dreadful heat; a lifeless Inferno ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... bringing death and destruction to man and the work of his hands. But usually they are mild and beneficent in their action, not agents of destruction and lords of elemental misrule. The air, without whose presence we could not survive a minute, is usually a pleasant companion, now resting about us in soft calm, now passing by in mild breezes. The alternation of summer and winter is to us generally an agreeable relief from the monotony of a uniform climate. The variation from sunlight to cloud, from dry weather to rainfall, is equally viewed as a pleasant escape from the weariness of too ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... pears, hazel-nuts, cherries, red and green currants, and certain little radishes of the size of a small nut, resembling truffles in taste, which are very good when roasted or boiled. All this soil is black, without any rocks, excepting that there a large quantity of slate. The soil is very soft, and, if well cultivated, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... which his conscience told him he had doubtful right or none. "It's mine. I've been cheated out of it. I'll get it. Besides—" His mind suddenly cleared of the shadow of shame—"I owe it to mother and Del to make the fight. They've been cheated, too. Because they're too soft-hearted and too reverent of father's memory, is that any reason, any excuse, for my shirking my duty by them? If father were here to speak, I know he'd approve." Before him rose the frightful look in his father's eyes in the ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... a fragment of one night, Out on the porch, beginning, 'Praise me not,'" I whispered: and her sweet and plaintive tone Rose, low and tender, as if she had caught From some sad passing breeze, and made her own, The echo of the wind-harp's sighing strain, Or the soft ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... wicked, suspicious girl. Here are two miserable males, all pale and trembling for love of you—you've only got to smile to make them rich—and you set your small pink heel upon their devotion. I admit it's a soft heel—one of the ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... your inclinations, Buckhurst," said his father in a soft tone; "I only show you that it is impossible I should maintain you in the army, and, therefore, beg you to put the army out of your head. And I don't well see what else you could do. You have not application enough for the bar, nor have I any friends among the attorneys except ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... that a wild Indian could not have equalled, till he suddenly found himself in the path of which he was in quest, within a few rods of the small opening where stood the suspected log-tenement of Asa Rose. His first act now was to stoop down and examine the soft ground in the road, to ascertain whether Peters and his pursuer had passed the place. A moment's inspection, however, confirming him in the negative, he rose and bent a listening ear in the direction of their expected appearance; but no sounds reached ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... stole a breath of sound. Faint and far, it seemed at first only a note of the summer breeze, taking a deeper tone than its usual soft murmur. It deepened still; took form, rhythm; made itself a body of sound, sweet, piercing, thrilling on the ear. And at the sound of it, Vesta Dale fell away again into helpless weeping, like a frightened child; for it was the ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... sensation conceivable, floating thus loosely in space, at first indeed horribly strange, and when the horror passed, not disagreeable at all, exceeding restful; indeed, the nearest thing in earthly experience to it that I know is lying on a very thick, soft feather bed. But the quality of utter detachment and independence! I had not reckoned on things like this. I had expected a violent jerk at starting, a giddy sense of speed. Instead I felt—as if I were disembodied. It was not like the beginning of a journey; it was like the beginning ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... vineyards. It still led along the wall. Having walked it twice by daylight, Casanova had no difficulty in the dark. Half way up the hill came a second angle in the wall. Here he had again to turn to the right, across soft meadow-land, and in the pitchy night had to feel along the wall until he found the garden door. At length his fingers recognized the change from smooth stone to rough wood, and he could easily make out the framework of the narrow door. He unlocked ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... aroma, grew radiant at its flavor, and long before we reached the pudding he expressed his delight with New York cookery. The melodious voice of the waitress was "like oil on troubled waters" and when she said, "you certainly must be from the South for your voice is so soft and musical," his countenance had the appearance of one of the elect. One member of the party here learned that large pork chops are in most cases inferior to smaller fry, and that, like Niagara, it may be very large, yet too strong to admit of an ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... dollars, but we spent fourteen dollars in feasting those who had assisted us. We had now seven feet of ground each, the table could be placed in the centre, and the folding chair offered to a visitor. Mr. Rassam had tried, with success, to whitewash the interior of his hut with a kind of soft white yellowish sandstone, that could be obtained in the vicinity of the Amba; we, therefore, also put our servants to work, but first had the mud walls several times besmeared with cow-dung, in order ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... the maturity of his thin face suggested that he was at least nineteen or twenty years old. His dark eyes gleamed out of hollow sockets, and his black hair, curling thickly, was rough with neglect. But he had snatched off his ragged soft hat even before he was inside the door, and for all the stiffness of his chilled limbs his attitude, as he stood before his hosts, had the ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... many of those fierce prelates who, bearing a mace lest they should be guilty of effusion of blood, led their troops into battle, ever remembering that it was one of their own cloth and dignity who, crosier in hand, had turned the long-drawn bloody day of Hastings. The soft accent of the churchman was gone and it was the hard voice of ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... much too short, his collar belonged to a departed generation, and his tie was ready made. In a small Scotch town he might have passed muster readily enough as the clergyman or lawyer of the place. As a diner at Luigi's, ushered up the room to the soft strains of "La Mattchiche," and followed by such a companion, he was almost ridiculously out of place. If anything, she was the more noticeable of the two to the casual observer. Her hair was dazzlingly yellow, and arranged with all the stiffness of the coiffeur's ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... don't weave any absurd romances about me. I am an ordinary and very commonplace man, not accustomed to soft words from pretty women. Take my advice and go home to your parents; forget about me as quickly as you can. I have no intention of ever marrying, and I don't pretend to be a lady's man. Now, go inside, like a good girl, ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... thou to the world! And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret That I am not what I have been to thee: Like a girl one has silently loved long In her first loneliness in some retreat, When, late emerged, all gaze and glow to view Her fresh eyes and soft hair and lips which bloom Like a mountain berry: doubtless it is sweet To see her thus adored, but there have been Moments when all the world was in our praise, Sweeter than any pride of after hours. Yet, sun-treader, all hail! From ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... frankness that has characterized our friendship from the first, just how he came to enter newspaper work. Where he was concerned I was always "wanting to know" and he seemed ever willing to tell—me. The letter was as usual written in lead pencil on soft, spongy, ruled copy paper and that portion having reference to the ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... a little—his ears laid back along the neck—his whole body settled gradually and continually down as his stride lengthened. Whistling Dan was leaning forward so that his body would break less wind. He laughed low and soft as the air whirred into his face, and now and then he spoke to his horse, no yell of encouragement, but a sound hardly louder than a whisper. There was no longer a horse and rider—the two had become one creature—a centaur—the body ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... his watch began, the twinkling stars had gone to rest, putting out their tiny lanterns, as they had arisen, one be one; and now, the violet blue of the firmament paled gradually into sea-green and grey, soft neutral tints mixed on the great palette of Nature to receive the roseate hue that presently illumined the whole eastern sky, heralding the approach of the glorious orb of day. Next, streaks of light salmon-coloured clouds shot across ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... replied the father, and for the next five minutes Barry had no reason to complain of soft work, for his father went after him with all the fight that was in him, so that in spite of a vigorous defence the son was forced to take ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... Before us was the ocean, just discernible. There were two or three lights, belonging to vessels that were anchored near the shore. We could see the waves and hear their murmur, as they broke gently upon the shore. A soft breeze was blowing from the west, and the sea was almost as ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... not be sheltered, and having neither grain nor grass, the poor beasts were in no condition to stand the chilling blasts. Still, by cutting down cottonwood-trees, and letting the animals browse on the small soft branches, we managed to keep them up till, finally even this wretched food beginning to grow scarce, I had all except a few of the strongest sent to Fort Arbuckle, near which place we had been able, fortunately, to purchase some fields of corn ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... well-made jar or vase, with globular body, 6 inches in width and 4-1/2 in height. The surface of the vessel is completely covered with an irregular, bead-like ornamentation, made by pinching the soft clay between the thumb and fingers. Fig. ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes
... he said, pressing Banneker's hand with his soft palm. "We're glad to have you with us. Won't you call me up and lunch ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... fear, be much with Christ upon the cross in thy meditations; for that is an excellent remedy against hardness of heart: a right sight of him, as he hanged there for thy sins, will dissolve thy heart into tears, and make it soft and tender. "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced,—and mourn" (Zech 12:10). Now a soft, a tender, and a broken heart, is a fit place for the grace of fear to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the quarter of the squires. We started across it, but in the center of the floor I stopped. In all the other rooms of the castle dust had lain thick, but there was none here. Elsewhere the windows had been closed and the air heavy and musty, but here the soft night breeze was drifting in. On a table, in odd conjunction, stood the remains of a meal, a roll of bandages, and a half-burned candle; and finally, against the wall lay a bed of a sort, a mattress ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... to speak with her on a subject more interesting to him even than his Home. Answering her question, in this frame of mind, his thoughts wandered; he drew lines absently with his walking-stick on the soft earth under the trees. ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... their boyish flowers) as they crossed his path afterwards at three intervals. Listening for the night-hawk, pushing aside the hedge-row to catch the evening breath of the honeysuckle, they had sauntered on, scarcely looking in advance, along the causeway. Soft sounds came out of the distance, but footsteps on the hard road they had not heard, when three others fronted them face to face—Jasmin, Amadee, and Camille—their very selves, visible in the light of the lantern carried by Camille: they might have felt the breath upon their cheeks: real, close, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... rate, there I was at eight o'clock of a Wednesday evening in a restaurant full of the usual lights and buzz and glitter, among women in soft-hued gowns, and men in their hideous substitute for the same. Across the table sat my one-time guardian, dear old Peter Dunstan,—Dunny to me since the night when I first came to him, a very tearful, lonesome, small boy ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... half so difficult." So he prepared his fire, and put his gridiron upon it, and lays the salmon fairly and softly upon the gridiron, and then he roasts it, turning it from one side to the other just in the nick of time, before the soft satin skin could be blistered. However, on turning it over the eleventh time—and twelve would have settled the business—he found he had delayed a little bit of time too long in turning it over, and there was a small, tiny blister ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... can I, in the circumstances I am in, write any more about these soft souls, and silly? Come to me by day-dawn, and leave me not till—I don't know when. Come, and take my part, my dear: I shall hate this man: he does nothing but hop, skip, and dance about me, grin and make mouths; and every body upholds ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... Chancellor of Ireland. Methuen was Envoy and Ambassador to Portugal from 1697 to 1708, and was M.P. for Devizes from 1708 to 1710, and a Lord of the Admiralty. Under George I. he was Ambassador to Spain, and held other offices. Gay speaks of "Methuen of sincerest mind, as Arthur grave, as soft as womankind," and Steele dedicated to him the seventh volume of the Spectator. In his Notes on Macky's Characters, Swift calls him "a profligate rogue... without abilities ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... "Fo'c's'le Yarns," old salt, old friend, old rip. The other type is that of the Manx parish patriarch. This good soul it would be hard to beat among all the peoples of earth. He unites the best qualities of both sexes; he is as soft and gentle as a dear old woman, and as firm of purpose as a strong man. Garrulous, full of platitudes, easily moved to tears by a story of sorrow and as easily taken in, but beloved and trusted and reverenced by all the little world about ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... pike. Stuart's Lake yields a small fish termed by the Canadians "poisson inconnu;" it seems as if it were partly white fish and partly carp, the head resembling the former; it is full of small bones, and the flesh soft and unsavoury. The sturgeon has been already mentioned, but they are unfortunately too rare; seldom more than five or six are captured in a season; they weigh from one hundred to five hundred pounds. A beautiful small fish of the ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... and held it with one paw while she licked it all over, though I am not sure that she liked the taste of the soft down that covered the little stranger. She kept the chicken all that night and every night afterwards until it considered itself big ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... words, he began to talk hurriedly of an important order. Sidonie had disappeared after exchanging a few unmeaning words with the impassive Frantz. Madame Dobson continued her tremolos on the soft pedal, like those which accompany critical situations at ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... appeared as if it would be horribly hard to fall upon; but a doubt arose in his mind as to what would be the consequences if he slipped—would he fall with a crash upon the deck, or slip part of the way down the shrouds, and be shot off into that extremely soft ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... arrow, for I did not perceive they had fire with them, which, however, it seems they had. The arrow, besides the fire it carried with it, had a head, or a peg, as we call it, of bone; and some of sharp flint stone; and some few of a metal, too soft in itself for metal, but hard enough to cause it to enter, if it were a plank, so as to stick where ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... Othello had given her. A prophetess, two hundred years old, had made this handkerchief from the silk of sacred silkworms, dyed it in a liquid prepared from the hearts of maidens, and embroidered it with strawberries. Gentle Desdemona thought of it simply as a cool, soft thing for a throbbing brow; she knew of no spell upon it that would work destruction for her who lost it. "Let me tie it round your head," she said to Othello; "you will be well in an hour." But Othello pettishly ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... libraries, a day to look at pictures, a day to get acquainted with your wife and children, a day for poetry and art, a day on which to read old letters and to meet friends, a day to cultivate the amenities of life, a day for those who live in tenements to feel the soft grass beneath their feet. In short, Sunday should be a day of joy. The church endeavors to fill it with gloom and sadness, with stupid sermons and ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the game we were in quest of, and were thinking of abandoning the chase, when at a distance of about seven miles from the camp, one of our most experienced hunters discovered the print of a small and delicate boot upon some soft ground leading to a marsh. Following this trail, it at last led us to a man sunk up to his waist in the swamp, and so covered with mud and filth, as to be quite unrecognizable. We drew him from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... with Keith as "a remarkable scene." He says: "His (Napoleon's) manner was perfectly calm and collected, his voice equal and firm, his tones very pleasing, the action of the head was dignified, and the countenance remarkably soft and placid, without any marks of severity." That is a good testimony from the author of the "Waverley Novels," who was anything but an impartial biographer. Not even the novelist's most ardent admirers (and the writer is one of them) can give him credit for excessive partiality ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... this way, Bill,' ses Joe, soft-like. 'As soon as the mate sees you there'll be trouble ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... the fence, while he himself with his fly-flapper set out for the garden, and by trampling, whistling, and clapping his hands greatly terrified the poor beast. The huntsmen, each holding his hound by the collar, pointed their fingers to the spot from which the hare was to appear, and made a soft smacking sound with their lips; the hounds pricked up their ears, snuffed the wind with their muzzles and trembled impatiently, like two arrows set on one string. All at once the Seneschal shouted, "At him," and the hare darted from behind the fence into ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... conspicuous public men of his time. He stands only just beneath Marlborough and Bolingbroke and Walpole. Steele, in his sixty-sixth Tatler, pays a high tribute to Atterbury: "He has so much regard to his congregation that he commits to memory what he has to say to them, and has so soft and graceful a behavior that it must attract your attention. His person, it is to be confessed, is no slight recommendation; but he is to be highly commended for not losing that advantage, and adding to a propriety ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Charles, you have a soft spot in your heart for this COX AND CO., never failing in courtesy and attention and ever heaped with abuse? So, to be frank, have I. Let us turn round and blackguard the other fellow. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... a harp's soft strings—an echo on the air, The hidden page may be full of sweet things, of things that once were fair. There's a turned down page in each life, and mine—a story might unfold, But the end was sad of the dream divine. It ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... house he went along the ridge till he arrived at the verge of Chillington Wood, and in the same desultory manner roamed under the trees, not pausing till he had come to Three- Walks-End, and the hollow elm hard by. He peeped in at the rift. In the soft dry layer of touch-wood that floored the hollow Margery's tracks were still visible, as she had made them there when dressing ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... a cultivated variety of the cardoon which was known to the Romans, yet the peculiar character superinduced by cultivation appears of more recent origin. The almond, again, or "Greek nut," the peach, or "Persian nut," and also the "soft nut" (-nux mollusca-), although originally foreign to Italy, are met with there at least 150 years before Christ. The date-palm, introduced into Italy from Greece as into Greece from the East, and forming a living attestation of the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... hardships, they pursued their journey cheerily along the course of the soft flowing Connecticut, whose gentle waves, says the song, roll through many a fertile vale and sunny plain; now reflecting the lofty spires of the bustling city, and now the rural beauties of the humble hamlet; now echoing ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Miss Campion's invitation. I was rather apprehensive of the effect these country stations would have on my fastidious curate; and I narrowly watched him, as we left our car on the hills, and strode through soft yellow mud and dripping heather to some mountain cabin. And I think there was a little kindly malice in my thoughts when I allowed him enter first, and plunge into the night of smoke that generally filled these huts. Then the saying of Mass on a deal table, with a horse ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... think, you should have known I was not a thief," said Pen, with a soft tone in her voice, "but Larry said that only showed what a good actress I am. I told Larry all about it this morning, and he said no self-respecting man would ask a thief to marry him, not if he knew she was a thief before he ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... "Pat's strong on soft jobs," said another; and Berea joined the laugh which followed this pointless joke. She appeared to be one of them, and it troubled Norcross a little. She had so little the sex feeling and demanded ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... humours. The trees, likewise, which afford gummi elemi, grow here in great abundance; as doth radix Chinae, or China root: yet this is not so good as that of other parts of the western world. It is very white and soft, and serves for pleasant food to the wild boars, when they can find nothing else. This island, also, is not deficient in aloes, nor an infinite number of the other medicinal herbs, which may please the curiosity of such as ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... heavenly hue of Azure skies, Where the white clouds lie soft as seraphs' wings, Mine the sweet, shadowed light in innocent eyes, Whose lovely looks light only on ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... and then she knows what you have been to all those who trusted you. She knows that you are good and true. I want you to try and carry it farther for her sake and yours.' He looked up and would have spoken, but she put her soft hand over his mouth. 'Wait one moment. Those about her are not people to make her happy—at any time if things went wrong—if she broke down—she would be at their mercy. Then her position—you know what difficulties it has—it makes my heart ache sometimes to think of it. She won ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... evening fall these minarets are far more beautiful than by day, as they are softened by the wiping out of the lines about the stones. Under the strong light of the noonday sun the marble that covers the dome shows various shades ranging from light gray to pearly white, but by the soft evening light all these colors are merged and the dome looks like a huge soap bubble resting light as foam on the ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... having chased the seller from the temple, the just man closed his door, and approaching the mysterious green curtain, said in a tone that sounded soft amidst ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... suggested a soft-voiced little lady. "I talked with his mother quite a bit while she was on. Want to find your mamma, little boy, and go to Grandma's and play with all ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... when she was a very little girl—she was his first baby girl—and how keenly he had felt about her all these years. She had been a beautiful child—her red-gold hair had been pillowed on his breast many a time, and his hard, rough fingers had stroked her soft cheeks, lo, these thousands of times. Aileen, his lovely, dashing daughter of twenty-three! He was lost in dark, strange, unhappy speculations, without any present ability to think or say or do the right ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... reopen the spring for public use, but as it was nobody's business nobody did it. There was (sixty years ago) a spring a little below Saturday Bridge opposite Charlotte Street, which always give forth a constant stream of beautifully clear soft water. Another in Coventry Road, where 25 years or so ago an old man stooping to quench his thirst fell head foremost, and not being able to recover his equilibrium, was drowned, leading to the spring being covered up. Several mineralised springs existed in Gooch Street, and ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... starting the parade arrived, the water over the flats about them was so deep and the mud so soft that it was decided to abandon ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the catacomb. You can see for yourself that it is difficult, but every one of these passages divides and subdivides a dozen times before you go a hundred yards." They had descended some twenty feet from the level of the byre, and they were standing now in a square chamber cut out of the soft tufa. The lantern cast a flickering light, bright below and dim above, over the cracked brown walls. In every direction were the black openings of passages which radiated ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had not dreamed that any place could be as beautiful as this. Her feet sank in the soft, thick carpet. She followed Miss Debby's footsteps as silent ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... grim plots and deals innumerable had been put through, lawmakers corrupted past counting, and the destinies of nations bent beneath his corded, lean and nervous hand. And now, as the Billionaire sat there thinking, smiling a smile that boded no good to the world, the soft spring air that had inspired his great plan ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... round: "It's Geordie Sinclair killed wi' a fa'." And hope has died, and dreams have fled, and the world will never again look bonnie and fresh and sweet and full of happiness, nor the blood dance so joyously, nor the eyes ever again sparkle with the same soft loving glance. ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... over from Hong-Kong when needed for works of any importance, such as the new Government House in Manila City, in course of construction when the Spaniards evacuated the Islands. For ordinary building operations there is a material—a kind of marl-stone called Adobe—so soft when quarried that it can be cut out in small blocks with a hand-saw, but it hardens considerably ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the boy walked over to the edge of the road and stared into the hole. He tentatively stamped on the earth around it. "This ground isn't soft," he said. "It's hard as a rock." He turned and looked at ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss
... fun while we was sick. Cele used to tell stories and we made flyboxes and then when mother was out of the room we wood turn sumersets, and bimeby when we got so that we cood eat apples we used to have one apeace every day and we had to scrape them with a nife and eat the soft part, and when we were geting beter we were auful cross. i gess most every one wood be cross to lose thanksgiving and crismas two, and my berthday, and all the skating and snowbaling. ennyway i havent got to go to ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... would not divulge the secret of Joe Hawkridge's presence nor reveal the fact that he had remained behind. They were eager to promise anything. Several of them stole over to tell him furtive farewells. They displayed no great emotion. The trade they followed was not apt to make them turn soft over such ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Church on earth breathed soft and sweet in their loftiness, and Friedel, though lying motionless, and with closed eyes, never failed in the murmured response, whether fully conscious or not, while his brother only attended by fits ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... good o' the cause, An' think they 're kind o' fulfillin' the prophecies, Wen they 're on'y jest changin' the holders of offices; Ware A sot afore, B is comf'tably seated, One humbug 's victor'ous, an' t'other defeated. Each honnable doughface gits jest wut he axes, An' the people—their annooal soft sodder an' taxes. ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... of them, they might have been a month there, and no better off—for, you must know that I had taken out the armature, and if you take out an armature and don't slip a bit of soft iron in after it, your magnets are done for, and will never be worth anything again until they are re-magnetised. This baffled the pair of them, and they were there until after eleven o'clock, drinking enough beer to float a ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... him to be a very direct descendant of Boucher. His female nudes are altogether in eighteenth century taste and he uses the same technique as Boucher: fat and sleek paint of soft brilliancy, laid on with the palette knife, with precise strokes round the principal values; pink and ivory tints relieved by strong blues similar to those of enamels; the light distributed everywhere and almost excluding the opposition of the shadows; ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... pain in his shoulders was becoming unbearable. Taking one great gulp of air, he released his hold on the wall and thrust his body out into space. The little light in his cap went out. Odin fell through darkness. He fell into soft sand, doubling up as his feet touched it. Odin rolled over and over, losing both flashlight and gun as he tumbled. Then he came up against hard rock, with most of the wind knocked out of him, and lay there gasping, feeling about him with frantic hands for ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... empty. As I plunged my hand deeper, it rested upon something soft and smooth—a rat. The animal sprang suddenly aside as it felt my touch, and I drew back my hand with a like rapid movement. Mechanically I felt in another place, only to touch another rat, and then ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... bright, And when I waken'd I was griev'd To own 'twas but a dream of night, And sigh'd to find my hopes deceivd. But then o'er my fancy crept, Those who hail'd me while I slept. There were those; of olden time, Milton, wond'rous, wild, sublime— Chaucer, of the many tales; Spenser, soft as summer gales, With a mild and gracious mien Leading on his "Faery Queene." Shakspeare, child of fancy, stood Smiling in a mirthful mood, As tho' he that moment spied The fairy folk by Bottom's side, Or beheld by Herne's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... his despair of obtaining water, this unhappy gentleman had attempted to drink his own urine, but found it intolerably bitter; whereas the moisture that flowed from the pores of his body, was soft, pleasant, and refreshing. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... our will the bigness and the peace of the open spaces were bound to soak in. Despite the isolation, the hardships and the awful crudeness, we could not but respond to air that was like old wine—as sparkling in the early morning, as mellow in the soft nights. Never were moon and stars so gloriously bright. It was the thinness of the atmosphere that made them appear so near the earth, ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... leaning lightly on a cane and whose soft dark hat and clothes indicated his military calling, showed similar concern, ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... congregating zenith-ward, Reached the far confines of the utmost sphere, The home of Truth, the dwelling-place of Love, Striking celestial symphonies divine From the resounding sea of melody, That heaved in swells of soft, mellifluous sound, To the blest crowds at whose triumphal tread Its soul of sweetness waked in thrills sublime, The sun stood poised upon the western verge; The moon paused, waiting for the march of earth, That stayed to watch the ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... We didn't eat much the day before we went to see her; and we didn't eat much the day after, either. She used to feed us—I wish I could eat like that now! I can see her brown eyes following us about, full of fire, but soft and kind, too. She had a great temper, they said, but everybody liked her, and some loved her. She'd had one girl, but she died of consumption, got camping out in bad weather. Aunt Cynthy—that was what we called her, her name being Cynthia—never got over her girl's death. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fancy how simple a lad from this region would appear as he might pass your city streets, with his long arms and loping gait; reading signs and staring at all the city wonders. You may fancy the backwoods maiden would look verdant and soft in her rustic frock and clumsy calf-skin shoes, leaning well to her way as she walked, and seeming to devour all city sights and sounds. But think you, they have not drank great spirit and beautiful sense ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... quantity of great coats, wrappers, and rugs which a modern schoolboy takes with him, though he is going to travel first class, with foot-warmers. Then, in our houses, what stoves and hot- water pipes and baths do we not require! How many soaps and powders, rough towels and soft towels! Sir Charles Napier, I think, said that all an officer wanted to take with him on a campaign was a towel, a tooth- brush, and a piece of yellow soap. The great excuse for the bath is that if ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... far as they count on you they count, my dear Van, on a blank." Holding him a minute as with the soft low voice of his fate, she sadly but firmly shook her head. "You won't ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... my hair was on end about. I was almost grateful to her for the way she put it, and meekly retired to the cloak room, where—I confess it—with a long-tailed girl's comb, and a soft brush, and a big looking-glass, I contrived to restore my truant locks to ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... the difference," she whispered, leaning to him, glowing, soft, eager, terrible, with her woman's charm. "Something tells me—gives me strength.... What MIGHT be!... Only barely possible—if in my awful plight—you turned out to be a man, good instead of bad!... And—if ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... with a young moon, and the stars set deep in blue so dark that the sky gave an impression of solidity. The air was full of scents and of a soft balminess, with the faint nip of an early May in the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... accompanied him again, and with sledges and dogs on board they made their way up the western coast of Greenland. Arrived at Melville Bay, Peary built a little hut; here a little daughter was born who was soon "bundled in soft warm Arctic furs and wrapped in the Stars and Stripes." No European child had ever been born so far north as this; the Eskimos travelled from long distances to satisfy themselves she was not made of snow, and for the first six months of her life ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... he was saying, but in the pauses of his speechifying the hoarse murmur of approval grew louder and louder. The cart-tail orator pointed to the headlines; there was a sudden deep silence, so deep that the soft scurrying of a mass of fallen elm leaves in the gutter seemed for a moment to fill all the air. Then the man began to read. They saw the Colonel on the outside of the crowd; saw him suddenly turn and make with all haste for the post-office; saw him reappear ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... he did so, very slowly: Aranyani, thou art in very truth, for thy timidity and thy eyes, own sister to the deer: and yet, somehow, I would not have it otherwise, for thy timidity is not less beautiful than those great eyes which it fills with apprehension and distrust: and wert thou brave, thy soft body would not quiver, to fill me with emotion, nor should I now be tasting, as I kiss thee, the salt beauty of those pearls, thy tears. Stand still, then, a little while, O pretty little coward, and if thou wilt, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... they ever tasted a plantain they would never leave the garden until they had cleared it out. He then took us to see the nearest falls of the Nile—extremely beautiful, but very confined. The water ran deep between its banks, which were covered with fine grass, soft cloudy acacias, and festoons of lilac convolvuli; whilst here and there, where the land had slipped above the rapids, bared places of red earth could be seen, like that of Devonshire; there, too, the waters, impeded ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke |
