"Smooth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hogshead filled with rainwater, where insects came daily to their death and floated pathetically in a film of gauzy wings. The child feared this innocent black pool, feared it too much to let it alone; and day by day he would hang upon the rim with trembling fingers, and search the black, smooth depths, with all Ophelia's pangs. And to this moment, no rushing river is half so ministrant to dread as is a still, dull hogshead, where insects ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... steam-engine I made was employed in grinding oil colours for my father's use in his paintings. When I set this engine to work for the first time I was annoyed by slight jerks which now and then disturbed the otherwise smooth and regular action of the machine. After careful examination I found that these jerks were caused by the small quantities of water that were occasionally carried along with the current of the steam, and deposited ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... gear is simply sprung with individual leaf springs for each axle; it is not connected by equalizing levers. To find an American locomotive not equipped with equalizers is surprising since they were almost a necessity to produce a reasonably smooth ride on the rough tracks of American railroads. Equalizers steadied the motion of the engine by distributing the shock received by any one wheel or axle to all the other wheels and axles so connected, thus minimizing the effects of an uneven roadbed. ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White
... ascent from Dargai to the top of the pass. The driver flogs the wretched, sore-backed ponies tirelessly. At length the summit is neared. The view is one worth stopping to look at. Behind and below, under the haze of the heat, is the wide expanse of open country—smooth, level, stretching away to the dim horizon. The tonga turns the corner and enters a new world. A cooler breeze is blowing. A single step has led from peace to war; from civilisation to savagery; from India to the mountains. On all sides the landscape is ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... of it, and what it stood for. She was surprised to hear he had got no further than Holland, and more surprised still that he had not even seen Rembrandt's masterpiece while he was there. Her voice was smooth and even, a little loud, perhaps, from her spending much time out of doors, not in the least given to those subtle changes of tone which express what is not said; but as she never wanted to express any such things, that ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... Wallie get breakfast. For the first time Keith was looking at her from a point of vantage; there was just so much distance between them, no more and no less, and the light was right. She was, to him, exquisite. The little puckery lines came into her smooth forehead when he apologized for his tardiness by explaining that he had not gone to bed until one o'clock. Her concern was delightful. She scolded him while Wallie brought in the breakfast, and inwardly he swelled with the irrepressible exultation ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... with the modesty of a true knight. Bitter it was to her to hear him announcing to the company, not for the first or second time, how he had slain the Cornish giant, whose height increased by a foot at least every time he was mentioned; and then to hear him answered by some smart, smooth-shaven youth, who, with as much mimicry of his manner as he dared to assume, boasted of having slain in Araby a giant with two heads, and taken out of his two mouths the two halves of the princess whom he ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... searsed; put into the whites of five Eggs; two or 3 spoonfuls of rose-water; keep it a beating all the time, that the Cake is a baking which will be two hours; Then draw your Cake out of the oven, and pick the dry Currants from the top of it, and so spread all that you have beaten over it, very smooth, and set it a little into the oven, that ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... themselves? He then asserts that he has no need of the aid of the gods to account for the making of the world. Everything that exists, he says, was made by Nature: not agreeing with that other philosopher who teaches, that the universe is a concrete mass of rough and smooth, and hooked and crooked bodies, with the addition of a vacuum: this he calls a dream of Democritus, and says that he is here not teaching, but wishing;—but he himself, examining each separate part of the world, teaches ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... affections of the brain. The former is most conveniently applied in a well-cleaned pig's bladder, which should be half filled with broken fragments of the ice. The bladder prevents moisture about the clothes, and, from its smooth and pliant nature, readily accommodates itself to every part of the child's head. If iced water is used, care must be taken that the cloths are sufficiently large to cover the whole of the head, and they should be doubled to prevent their getting rapidly warm. ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... a guest already staying at the Rest when the crowd of diggers arrived—a guest whose suave manner and smooth tongue had been used to ingratiate himself with the proprietor of the Rest, but which had only tended to induce a lurking suspicion against him. Men used to the blunt methods of unadulterated human nature are prone to ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... bar-keeper had one of Benton's mint-drops for a bosom-brooch! It made a very handsome one. I crossed the beach for home about sunset. The tide was so far down as just to give me a passage on the hard sand, between the sea and the loose gravel. The sea was calm and smooth, with only the surf-waves whitening along the beach. Several ladies and gentlemen on horseback were cantering and galloping ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... they walked; he heard the light click of her boots on the smooth bricks. Then—"I think I have waked it up a little," she replied, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... seemed so discontented. Then the first began to relate how he had been a child too, and how, as he grew up, it had always been his greatest delight to deceive people and play them tricks, to show his wit and cleverness. He had always, he said, poured such a stream of smooth words over people, and encompassed himself with such a shining mist, that men had been attracted by it to their own hurt. But once on a time there appeared a plain man, who only spoke two or three simple words, and suddenly the bright mist vanished, and left him naked and deformed, to the ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... large number of passengers, about one hundred and fifty, representing nearly every European nation, with a goodly number of Americans; the day was cloudy and cool; the wind light and propitious; the sea calm and smooth; so that I doubt if there was ever a more favorable passage. I was sick myself, a result of the night-air of the Campagna, bad lodging and inability to obtain a salt-water bath in the morning, by reason of the Passport nuisance, but for which I should ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... into a big cavern, swinging slowly to scan it. The walls and ceiling were rough and irregular; it was natural instead of excavated. Only the floor had been leveled smooth. There were a lot of things in it, machinery and vehicles, all battered and in poor condition, dusty and cobwebbed: the spaceport junkheap. A passage, still large enough for one of the gunboats, led deeper into the mountain toward ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... now can't you see All we have to do is idly sit indoors With smooth roses powdered on our cheeks, Our bodies burning naked through the folds Of shining Amorgos' silk, and meet the men With our dear Venus-plats plucked trim and neat. Their stirring love will rise up furiously, They'll beg our arms ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... tree, the size of which would determine the caliber of our box. Into one end we would place a flat piece of bark or puncheon, cut round to fit in the bark, which stood on end the same as when on the tree.... A much finer article was made of slippery-elm bark, shaved smooth, with the inside out, bent round and sewed together, where the end of the hoop or main bark lapped over.... This was the finest furniture in a lady's dressing room," and such a cabin and its appointments were splendor and luxury beside those of the very ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... more they waited—so slow was the last closing of the long-drawn-out life. There was no pain or struggle; merely the ebbing away of breath. The palsied hands, white and beautiful to the last, lay smooth on the counterpane; and when occasionally one or other of his daughters knelt down and kissed him, the old man feebly smiled. But whenever he opened his eyes, they travelled no farther than to the face of his eldest son—rested there, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... then stepped forward to meet the stranger. He saw a man apparently of early middle age, smooth-shaven, wearing long iron-gray hair that hung below his sombrero, the locks curling slightly at the bottom. The eyes that regarded Tom were keen and twinkling, full of good ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... minute and hard as nails, he catalogued the slender figure. The long smooth-lying muscles were those of an athlete. He could see them rippling at the open-throat and on the islander's wrist when he raised his arm. The features too were worthy of notice. Line by line he studied them. From ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... brute. But he was not that. In an extremity of bitterness, he fished up a drowned old thought, of all his torments being due to the impulsive half-brute he was. And between the good and the bad in him, the sole point of strength was a pride likely, as the smooth simplicity of her indifference showed him, soon to be going down prostrate beneath her feet. Wholly a brute—well? He had to say, that playing the perfect brute with any other woman he would have his mastery. The summoning ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and who, when his countenance was in repose, resembled an idiot. For hours he would sit in his chair, twisting his hair in little ringlets. Then I used to say, "Bill is studying up some new devilment." His clothes were always several sizes too large, and his face was as smooth as a woman's and never had a particle of hair on it. Canada was a slick one. He had a squeaking, boyish voice, and awkward, gawky manners, and a way of asking fool questions and putting on a good natured sort of a grin, that led everybody ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... pitch; his soles stick fast to it; it is no longer sand, it is bird-lime. The strand is perfectly dry, but at every step that he takes, as soon as the foot is raised, the print is filled with water. The eye, however, has perceived no change; the immense beach is smooth and tranquil, all the sand has the same aspect, nothing distinguishes the soil that is solid from that which is not solid; the joyous little cloud of sand-lice continues to leap tumultuously under the feet of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... empty. The narrow bed had a white coverlid and a great white pillow. It looked all ready for somebody, but it was years since the girl who once owned the room had slept there. The old housekeeper, who still loved the girl, came every day to dust and smooth and air and sweep. She kept all things in their places just as they used to be in the former time, but she could not give to the room the air of life which once it had, and, do what she would, it looked deserted ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... we leave him for a time earnestly at work. He was like a ship that had been driven hither and thither, tempest-tossed and in danger. At last, under a clear sky and in smooth water, it finds its true bearings, and ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... the sexes tends incalculably to smooth that course of true love once so proverbially rough, but now indeed in danger of being made too unexcitingly smooth. Yet if, as a result, certain old combinations of romance are becoming obsolete, new ones, no less picturesque, and ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... in the hall outside, however, dispelled her boredom almost before she had time to recognize it. She suddenly remembered Max's pal, and started up in haste to smooth her rumpled hair. Surely Max would not be so inconsiderate as to bring him straight in to her ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... him, but he seemed to see with his brain as though he had learnt the trick of forcing it to some new function that did not properly belong to it. The broad white forehead under the soft black clerical hat was smooth, unwrinkled, mild and calm.... He had trained ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... which was hard, level and practically deserted, the Maillard increased its speed. Eddies of dust curled in its wake; its hum resembled that of a gigantic top; its shining brass and smooth gloss made it look like a streak of light. But the motor cycle was of the best; its compact, powerful mechanism answered bravely to each call that was made upon it by the dark-faced man in the saddle; its explosions had merged ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... gravel in the way described seems to indicate that the ditch was built along the slope of a low hill forming the edge of the bottom land at that time, and that subsequently detritus was deposited above it and over the adjacent bottom land forming a smooth ground surface. Against this hypothesis it must be stated that no evidence whatever was found of more than a single deposit of sandy loam, although the exposures are good; but perhaps were an examination made by a competent geologist some ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... grow old-fashioned and out of date just like people. We have a genuine old-fashioned garden here, and all the neighbors laugh at it in comparison with their smooth lawns and choice plants. We have bachelor's-buttons, lady-slippers, tiger-lilies, flower-de-luce, hollyhocks, and pinks, besides bushes of lilac and matrimony; then we have old cedars clipped into shape, and ever so many little paths and garden-beds edged with ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... fantastic will sometimes sit hind-foremost, or dare the descent upon their belly or their back. A few steer with a pair of pointed sticks, but it is more classical to use the feet. If the weight be heavy and the track smooth, the toboggan takes the bit between its teeth; and to steer a couple of full-sized friends in safety requires not only judgment but desperate exertion. On a very steep track, with a keen evening frost, you may have moments almost too appalling to be called enjoyment; the head goes, the world ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... principle, backed by a strong and resolute band of followers. The speech of Putnam, however, attracted wide attention. Putnam was a young man then, less than thirty-three years old, passionately devoted to Daniel Webster, and a personal friend of Millard Fillmore. As a speaker he was polished, smooth, and refined, and even when impassioned kept his passion well within conventional bounds. On this occasion his mellow and far-reaching voice, keyed to the pitch of sustained rhetoric, dropped his well-balanced and finely moulded sentences into the convention amidst ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... feels like a wisp of straw floating down a wide smooth river; reading Meredith one is flicked and flapped and beaten, as if beneath ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... reached a point which enabled the lad to make out that the long line of breakers which had first attracted his attention inclosed a bay about a mile wide and nearly that depth, the water of which was quite smooth and unbroken inside the inner line of breakers. And whilst examining this bay, with the idea that a knowledge of it might be useful to his friends, Ned's eye was arrested by an object on the inner edge of the reef, and almost in smooth ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... compensation he was appointed commander of the new vessel then building at Portsmouth, a seventy-four, called the America, the only ship of the line owned by the States,—a "singular honor," as he expressed it. John Adams, who had at one time been unfriendly to Jones, looking upon him as "a smooth, plausible, and rather capable adventurer," wrote him, a propos ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... out my conception of what the translation ought to be, I have endeavoured to preserve the dignity of the subject, without sacrificing the freedom of dramatic force. It has, therefore, not been my aim to produce smooth monotonous numbers, but to harmonize the whole versification with the spirit and conditions ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season's youth, 90 And the sulphurous rifts[10] of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. What wonder if Sir Launfal[11] now Remembered the keeping of his ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... Ladysmith, Rietfontein[105] farmhouse lay by a branch of the Modder Spruit, south-west of a long, low ridge, which descended to the railway line in smooth and easy slopes dotted with ant-heaps, with on its forehead a sparse eyebrow of stones. Beyond the crest line, to the northward, the ground sank with a gentle sweep, broken only by two rough under-features jutting from the western extremity of the ridge, to rear itself ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... go to pieces and break up, and the straw in them does not hold together on account of the roughness of the material. They should rather be made of white and chalky or of red clay, or even of a coarse grained gravelly clay. These materials are smooth and therefore durable; they are not heavy to work with, and ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... more broken on the side where it joins on to the mountains; softly undulating in the central portions; and to the north, where it falls down to the banks of the Terek and to the level of the steppes, a plain almost as smooth as a sheet of water. Here, until the coming of the Russians, a people mainly pastoral had kept their flocks and herds for centuries. Simple in their modes of life, yet trained to arms, they were of the blood of the gallant race of the Adighs or Circassians of the western ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... good thing comes from out of Kaiserland," Says Phyllis; but beside the fire I note One Wilhehm, sleek in tawny gold of coat, Most satin-smooth ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... career. Next came into notice the more material qualities, among which was a profuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face, lending to his forehead the high-cornered outline of an early Gothic shield; and a neck which was smooth and round as a cylinder. The lower half of his figure was of light build. Altogether he was one in whom no man would have seen anything to admire, and in whom no woman would have seen anything ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... to smooth the enemies you make with your rough-and-tumble manners; one who'll win ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... low and smooth in accordance with the laws of antique beauty, was massed jet-black hair divided and plaited into a multitude of fine tresses which fell on either shoulder. Twenty golden pins stuck into the tresses, like flowers in a ball head-dress, studded with brilliant ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... the smooth and beaming churchman was left by his friends; and he soon retired to the cabin, where I saw him self-sacrificingly denying himself the views on deck, and consoling himself with a substantial lunch and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... was there. She had chosen the high-backed chair in the middle of the room with the Berlin wool-work parrot on it. She sat very upright, stiff and thin between the twisted rosewood pillars of the chair. She was dressed in a black gown made of a great many little bands of rough crape and a few smooth stretches of merino. Her crape veil, folded back over her hat, hung behind her head in a stiff square. A jet necklace lay flat and heavy on her small chest. When you had seen all these black things she showed you, suddenly, her white, ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... open rebellion; upon the surface all looked smooth. Captain Monk understood the folly to be at an end: that the two had come to their senses; and he took Tom Dancox back into favour. Mrs. Carradyne assumed the same. But Katherine had her father's unyielding will, and the Parson was bold ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... said from smooth-faced ingle train (Anointed bridegroom!) hardly fain Hast e'er refrained; now do refrain! O Hymen ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... card-party, which was also a battle—and what a battle!—where, at the end of the conflict, he left his all upon the green cloth. That is an attractive sketch of the amiable comedienne, who wishes for fair weather and a smooth sea for the soldier lover who is going so far away. It seems to me that I have actually known that pretty girl at some time or another! That chapter is full of the perfume of pearl powder and iris! It is only a story, of course, but it is a magnificent ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... encourage in them habits of integrity and to check the growth of vices by means of a benevolent but strict supervision. The offender is placed under the guidance of a respectable person, who tries in every way to smooth the path of reform by providing his charge with employment if he has none, or putting him in the way of learning some trade if he is unskilled, by isolating him from bad company, by rewarding any improvement, and reporting progress to the central office, ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... only to be learned there, correct those pertnesses. I do not doubt but that you are improved in your manners by the short visit which you have made at Dresden; and the other courts, which I intend that you shall be better acquainted with, will gradually smooth you up to the highest polish. In courts, a versatility of genius and softness of manners are absolutely necessary; which some people mistake for abject flattery, and having no opinion of one's own; whereas it is only the decent and genteel manner of maintaining your own opinion, and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... may prevent him very often when sickness does not, and you may grow very weary of staying always at home," he said, softly smoothing her hair, then bending to touch his lips to her smooth white forehead and smile into the large dark eyes lifted to his as she knelt at the ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... most critical moment of our whole adventure, when all arrangements seem to have come to a smooth and successful termination, must our plans be frustrated, and a ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... was an early disciple of Clinton. Though he broke with his political chief in 1813, he had remained long enough in the Clinton school to learn every trick; and he possessed such native talent for intrigue, so smooth a manner, and such a wonderful memory for names, that he soon found himself at the head of a much more perfect and far-reaching machine than Clinton had ever dreamed of. The Empire State has never produced the equal of Van Buren as a manipulator of legislatures. No modern politician would ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... at God's command, refuseth to let it go; yea, it chooseth that doctrine, and loveth it best, since it must have a doctrine, that has most of sin and baseness in it (Isa 65:12; 66:3). They 'say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits' (Isa 30:10). These are signs that the soul with liking hath entertained sin; and if there be at any time, as indeed there is, a warrant issued out from the mouth of God to apprehend, to condemn, and mortify ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... upon the slope toward the precipice the great beast plunged. Upon his very flanks was the fire and about him all the stinging danger from the half-crazed hunters. He lunged forward, slipped upon the smooth glacial floor beneath him, tried to turn again to meet his thronging foes and face the ring of flame, and then, wavering, floundering, moving wonderfully for a creature of his vast size, but uncertain as to foothold, he was driven to the very crest of the ledge, ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... visited the Dead Sea the water was as smooth as glass. The water is so salty that a human body will not sink in it at all. Should the body go under it will bob up again like a cork. I have never learned to swim; in deep water simply cannot keep my feet up, ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... narrows its bed between high banks, and for some three miles—from Hollywood cemetery down to "Rockett's" landing—the shallow current dashes over its rocky bed with the force and chafe of a mountain torrent; now swirling, churned into foamy rapids, again gliding swiftly smooth around larger patches of islands that dot its surface. On the right hand hills, behind us, rises the suburb village of Manchester, already of considerable importance as a milling town; and the whole coup d'oeil—from the shining heights ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... about like a bit of driftwood, who had by his own determination and intelligence carved his way to wealth and power in the teeth of every difficulty. Just now, in his embarrassment, he looked very boyish. His troubles had left no wrinkles on his smooth forehead, his bright black hair was untinged by a single thread of gray, and as he looked up, after the pause that followed when he mentioned the name of the woman he loved, there was a very really youthful look of mingled passion and distress in ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... while a pleasant calme doth smooth the Lake, The waves 'gainst one another breake, Mild Thetis selfe, with her own selfe finds sport, And waters doe the waters court: Through which a ship doth cut, with pleasant gales, Or nimble Barke with swelling sayles: ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... great pool, where a pair of swans are swimming lazily with one leg tucked under a wing, and where the open water-lilies lie calmly accepting the kisses of the fluttering light-sparkles; the lawn, with its smooth emerald greenness, sloping down to the rougher and browner herbage of the park, from which it is invisibly fenced by a little stream that winds away from the pool, and disappears under a wooden bridge in the distant pleasure-ground; and on this lawn our two ladies, whose part ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... it if you want smooth sailing," retorted Bob. "You will hardly——" but the sentence was never finished for a maid approached Mr. Crowninshield at the ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... shortest way that is the best; here, in any case, it was to be hoped that another and longer one would offer better conditions. The shortest way was awful — possibly not altogether impracticable, if no better was to be found. First we had to work our way across a hard, smooth slope, which formed an angle of 45 degrees, and ended in a huge, bottomless chasm. It was no great pleasure to cross over here on ski, but with heavily-laden sledges the enjoyment would be still less. The prospect of seeing sledge, driver, and dogs slide ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... not set to music, nor sung. The verification in the original is simple; and to such as understand the language, very smooth and beautiful; Rhyme is seldom used: but the cadence, and the length of the line varied, so as to suit the sense. The translation is extremely literal. Even the arrangement of the words in the original has been imitated; to which must be ...
— Fragments Of Ancient Poetry • James MacPherson
... than an actual thimbleful, though they need not hold a pint, and should bear some relation to the laws of gravitation in their poise upon the saucer. They should have a smooth rim. A fluted edge is a most uncomfortable finish for a drinking vessel. The wafer-basket may be silver, china or ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... the entrancing walk we took along the course of the Arlanson. I say course, because that is the right word to use of a river, but really there was no course in the Arlanzon. Between the fine, wide Embankments and under the noble bridges there were smooth expanses of water (naturally with women washing at them), which reflected like an afterglow of the evening sky the splendid masses of yarn hung red from the dyer's vats on the bank. The expanses of water were bordered by wider spaces of grass which had ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... Cornwall, Conn., "Have had quite a lot of winter injury on the south-west side of black walnut trunks grafted near the ground. Note that seedling walnuts have a ridged, corky bark on the trunk already the second year, whereas a grafted trunk maintains its smooth bark for 6 to 8 years. Am now grafting on seedling stock 5 to 6 feet above the ground and much of the winter injury is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... we had 4,000 m. of clear navigation to 280 deg. b.m. It seemed heavenly to us to be in smooth waters again, and my men flattered themselves that we had now come to the end of the rapids altogether. But we soon arrived at innumerable rocks in a confused mass right across the stream, between which the river flowed with great force in a contracted ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... and then, darting at her sister, she took her head in her hands and deposited a sudden kiss on the smooth bright gold-brown hair and whisked out of Phoebe's ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... tournament held near that ancient town. Gwenwyn considered these triumphs as so many additional recommendations to Eveline; her beauty was incontestable, and she was heiress of the fortress which he so much longed to possess, and which he began now to think might be acquired by means more smooth than those with which he was in the use ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... his active beliefs of disease all on the surface, so we gently soothe him into forgetfulness of his trouble, and quietly assure him there is no occasion for alarm of any kind. Thus, with the word of peace and assurance we smooth the rough, uneven soil, until it is pulverized and prepared for the new seeds which are to grow ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... Thrushes appear to vary their songs with the period of the year; they sing loudly now, but more plaintively and delicately in the autumn. Warblers and willow wrens sing out of sight among the trees; they are easily hidden by a leaf; ivy-leaves are so smooth, with an enamelled surface, that high up, as the wind moves them, they reflect the sunlight and scintillate. Greenfinches in the elms never cease love-making, and love-making needs much soft talking. There is a nightingale in a bush by ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... into what is evidently a large and well-kept estate: high and solid fences; fields without weeds, and with clean culture or smooth and rich grass; and if you ask the conductor, he will tell you that for some miles here the land is owned by the "Economites;" and that the town or village of Economy lies among these neatly kept fields, but out of sight of the railroad on the top ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... You should have heard poor Susanna and me fighting. We always ended by swearing we would never speak to one another again. Nothing duller than a smooth life. If you had given Marian something to complain of, she would have been too much taken up with it ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... magnifying-glass with which I had often scanned that photograph close before. Not a sign or a trace of them. I shut my eyes, and called up again the mental Picture of the murder. I looked hard at the phantom-hand in it, that floated like a vision, all distinct before my mind's eye. It was flat and smooth and white. Not a scar—not a sign on it. I turned round to Jane, ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... that's 'cause you've only bin used to the sea-shore. You haven't bin long enough on blue water, lass, to know that folks' opinions change a good deal wi' their feelin's. Wait till we git to the neighbour'ood o' the line, wi' smooth water an' blue skies an' sunshine, sharks, and flyin' fish. You'll have a different opinion ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... his cheeks were girlishly smooth and of a clear, pale, olive tint, which sun and weather apparently were powerless to darken; his eyes were large, bold, and brilliant; his nostrils thin and sensitive, like those of a blooded horse. He seemed almost immature until he spoke, then one realized with a curious shock that ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... daughters were sitting together one morning at needlework in the pretty morning-room looking out on an old walled garden, at Wavertree Hall. The distant ends of this old garden, draped with ivy and creepers, had been made into a tennis ground, a smooth trim green chamber lying behind the brilliant beds of flowers. Sitting near the window the figures of the girls looked charming ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... trick of her shoulders, remained to remind people that her point of view was still essentially foreign. Rainham, who had from his boyhood found England somewhat a prison-house, adored her for this trait. The quaint old woman, indeed, with her smooth, well-bred voice, her elaborate complexion, her little, dignified incongruities, had always been the greatest solace to him. She had the charm of all rococo things; she represented so much that had passed away, exhaling a sort of elegant wickedness to find a parallel to which one had to seek ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... a naval friend, having compassion on me, suggested that I might find matter of interest by a trip to Greenwich, and a visit to the Hospital. I jumped at the proposal. I can never forget the feelings with which I entered the wide, smooth space on which that beautiful collection of buildings stands, forming the Royal Hospital for Seamen, with its broad terrace facing, the river, and found myself surrounded by many hundreds of the gallant veterans who had maintained not only so ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... and were bright with flowers, and had many overhanging trees. The house itself, too, had every modern comfort. There were many bedrooms and several fine reception rooms, and there were tennis and croquet lawns in the grounds, all smooth as velvet and perfectly level. There were also kitchen-gardens, and some acres of land, as yet undevoted to any special purpose, at the back of the house. It was just the sort of place which a man ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... olden days. Certainly a more appropriate scene for such an encounter could not be conceived, than that which displayed itself, when we wheeled at last round the flank of the scorched ridge we had been approaching. A perfectly smooth grassy plain, about a league square, and shaped like a horse-shoe, opened before us, encompassed by bare cinder-like hills, that rose round—red, black, and yellow—in a hundred uncouth peaks of ash and slag. Not a vestige of vegetation relieved ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... glad to share with the good Dame Barbara—was long and narrow. There was a window at one end that gave upon the sea; and through the heavy barred grating, set strongly in the thick casement, I could look out upon the low sea-wall, and, beyond that, at the smooth bosom of the dreaming ocean, heaving softly in the quiet starlight, as though such a sorrow lay hidden in its deep heart as troubled even ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... with unstudied grace, Rests her white elbow on a column's base; Awhile reflecting takes her silent stand, Her fair cheek press'd upon her lily hand; Then, as awaking from ideal trance, On the smooth floor her pausing steps advance, Waves high her arm, upturns her lucid eyes, Marks the wide scenes of ocean, earth, and skies; 440 And leads, meandering as it rolls along Through Nature's walks, the shining stream ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... home. The lieutenant was informed of this by Mr. Bearsley's steward, a portly, genial, rather priestly gentleman in smooth black broadcloth, whose name was Souza—a name which, as I have said, has given rise to some misconceptions. Mr. Bearsley himself had lately left for England, there to wait until the disturbed state of Portugal should be happily repaired. He had been a considerable ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... take the rough with the smooth. One can't expect everything to go right. But don't let's meet trouble half-way. Just as likely as not we may go on for a month now and see no more of the enemy. I wonder whether this river leads up to ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... while there was not a smooth tree, That stood by stream or fountain with glad breath, Nor stone less hard than stones are apt to be, But they would find a knife to carve it with; And in a thousand places you might see, And on the walls about you and beneath, ANGELICA AND MEDORO, tied in one, As many ways as lovers' ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... little we know what's going to happen to us any minute of our lives. To-day we have the breeze fair in our favor, we are going seven knots, studding-sails set, smooth water, and plenty of sea-room; to-morrow the wind freshens to half a gale, the sea gets up, a rocky coast is seen from the lee bow, and may be—to add to all—we spring a leak forward; but then, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... surrounded the cabin of Mr. Keyes. The sanded floor remained unswept; the trellis was broken by the wind; the vines hung straggling; the smooth, spacious front of the door was cluttered; the mewing cat gave voice to the general gloom. Mrs. Keyes could not forget her grief. All day she worked listlessly; and as the shadows from the mountain crept towards the cottage, she would stand in the doorway, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... lighted through an opening in the roof. On mats some tens of naked pupils were seated holding wax tablets in their hands. One wall was of smooth alabaster; before it stood a teacher who wrote characters with chalks of ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... have their edges cut at all, and any modern books of value are better only slightly trimmed and gilt before sewing. But for books of reference that need good bindings, on account of the wear they have to withstand, cutting in boards is best, as the smooth edge so obtained makes the leaves easier to turn over. Gilt tops and rough edges give a book a look ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... doe erre in what you hold, Chast batchelers that neuer meane to match, Who for the siugle life smooth tales haue told, And yet the fleshly knaues will haue a snatch: Ile ne're trust those that of themselues doe boast, The great'st presisians ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... mechanical piano, and sprightly conversation, carried on from table to table, gave the place that tone that Monsieur Montiverte considered to be its most valuable asset. Monsieur himself was a dried-up little rat of a man, grizzled, and as brown as a walnut. Madame was large and superb and young, smooth faced, brown haired, regal in manner. It was said that Madame had had a predecessor, a lady now living in France, whose claim upon Jules Montiverte was still valid. However that might be, it did not seem to worry Jules, nor his calm and lovely companion, nor their two daughters, black-eyed baby ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... keel track like as in a calm, so quiet and still was the water; yet on each side of them the waves were lashing up so high that they hid the sight of the mountains. And so the one ship followed the other in the smooth sea track; and they proceeded this way the whole day and night, until they reached Godey. Now when they came to Raud's house his great ship, the dragon, was afloat close to the land. King Olaf went up to the house immediately with his people; made an attack ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... tempers of mind among men, some more smooth and pliable, others more refractory and froward. Some may be persuaded by love, who cannot be constrained by fear. With some a request will more prevail than a command. Others again are of a harsher disposition. Love and condescension doth rather embolden them, and therefore ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... left him, following with his gaze her tall and slender yet well-proportioned figure as it moved along the moonlit deck, swaying gracefully to the long, smooth, almost imperceptible motion ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... following our guide, went to look. Spaced very neatly at intervals apart of perhaps a hundred and fifty yards a series of craters broke the surface of the earth. Considering the tools which dug them they were rather symmetrical craters, not jagged and gouged, but with smooth walls and each in shape a perfect funnel. We measured roughly a typical specimen. Across the top it was between fifty and sixty feet in diameter, and it sloped down evenly for a depth of eighteen feet in the chalky soil to a pointed bottom, where two men would have difficulty standing ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... painful sensations. How was I to see the LIBRARY?—where could I obtain a glimpse of the TAPESTRY?—and now, that Pierre Aime Lair was to be no more seen, (for he told me he should quit the place on that same evening) who was to stand my friend, and smooth my access to the more curious and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... well-being. Oh, it was delicious! As thirsting men on the desert dream of splashing fountains and flowing wells, so dreamed I of easement from the constriction of the jacket, of cleanliness in the place of filth, of smooth velvety skin of health in place of my poor parchment-crinkled hide. But I dreamed with a difference, as you ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... a cleft in the rocks, and, on the left of the little bench, where Xanthe sat, formed a clear, transparent pool, whose edges were inclosed by exquisitely-polished, white-marble blocks. Every reddish pebble, every smooth bit of snowy quartz, every point and furrow and stripe on the pretty shells on its sandy bottom, was as distinctly visible as if held before the eyes on the palm of the hand, and yet the water was so deep that the gold circlet sparkling ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... all things the knowledge should be to you as though you had it not. Great love is hardly capable of such secrecy as this. In the fulness of her love Patience had allowed her father to learn the secret of poor Clary's heart; and in the fulness of her love she had endeavoured to make things smooth at Newton. She had not told the young clergyman that Clarissa had given to his brother that which she could not give to him; but, meaning to do a morsel of service to both of them, if that might be possible, she had said a word or two, with what effect the reader will have seen ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... Cheapside: Both Miss Carpenter's(135) man and Miss Banks's(136) I've tried." "Don't tell me of those girls!-all I know, to my cost, Is, the looking-glass art must be certainly lost! One used to have mirrors so smooth and so bright, They did one's eyes justice, they heighten'd one's white, And fresh roses diffused o'er ones bloom—but, alas! In the glasses made now, one detests one's own face; They pucker one's cheeks up and furrow one's brow, And one's ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... they could see no farther into it at first. However, as they advanced cautiously, clinging to the outjutting cliff, which seemed maliciously striving to push them out into space, by degrees crag and trail turned westward and more of the pass came into view—a wide, smooth cleft in the mountain, curving away toward ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... circular surface of the water. The water must have stood at a moderate, height below the mouth of the well, far enough below the mouth to be sheltered from the action of the wind, that its surface might be perfectly smooth and motionless; and not so low, but that the whole of its circular surface might be distinctly seen by the observer on the brink. A well formed in this manner would afford, as I apprehend, the most certain ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... eye commands a view alone limited by the power of vision: verdant savannas, mottled with copses of acacia and groves of palm, with here and there single trees of the latter standing solitary, their smooth stems and gracefully-curving fronds cut clear as cameos against the azure sky. Nor is it a dead level plain, as pampas and prairies are erroneously supposed always to be. Instead, its surface is varied with undulations; not abrupt as the ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... even prettier than at a distance. Her smooth olive skin glistened like satin. Her lips showed roses even more brilliant than those that bloomed in her cheeks. A frown between her eyebrows gave her face almost a sullen look. But to offset this, her white teeth turned her smile into ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... up from his cigar to behold a handsome young woman standing at the side of his table. Her round, smooth cheeks were flushed, and on the lower lids of her splendid dark eyes tears of shame trembled and threatened to fall. Behind her stood a waiter, of impassive countenance, who was adding up the figures on a check, his movement full ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... The congregation of smooth-faced tribal gentlemen were on watch at Seltzer's. As Mr. Dougherty and his reorganized Delia passed they stared, momentarily petrified, and then removed their hats—a performance as unusual to them as was the astonishing innovation ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... line of some of its segments. As soon as it was exposed, it began slowly shimmying away. Before it had gone two feet, it was crossed by a moving shadow. Guiding the shadow was a black wasp with an orange ring around the abdomen. It closed the gap between itself and the worm with a swift, smooth movement ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... has sunk to the bottom, if the water be smooth, the exact position where the body lies may be known by the air bubbles, which will occasionally rise to the surface, allowance being, of course, made for the motion of the water, if in a tide ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... that I was walking on smooth flags in place of cobble-stones, and I was sure we were in the bailey yard of the castle. Soon I was stopped again, a door opened, squeaking on its rusty hinges, and we began the descent of a narrow stairway. Twenty or thirty paces from the foot of ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major |
