"Soft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... million to Arab League funds for the Palestinians, and pledged $500 million in assistance over the next three years at the Donors Conference in Dec 2007; pledged $230 million to development in Afghanistan; pledged $1 billion in export guarantees and soft loans to Iraq; pledged $133 million in direct grant aid, $187 million in concessional loans, and $153 million in export credits for Pakistan earthquake relief; pledged a total of $1.59 billion to Lebanon in assistance and deposits to the Central Bank of Lebanon in 2006 and pledged an additional ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... voices rose and fell together, now soft, now triumphant, harmonizing as if they sung together for years. Dare's second was low, pathetic, and it blended at once with Ruth's clear young contralto. Charles wondered that the others should applaud when the duet was finished. Ruth's ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... is air, though it be stagnant. Down-stairs is an allegorical subject, The New Testament, which is not very convincing as a composition, but warm in tint. The Diana and Her Companions must have inspired Diaz and many other painters. But the real Vermeer, the Vermeer of the enamelled surfaces and soft pervasive ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... thought," I said, getting up to switch on the hi-fi. It gave out soft music—lover's music, I guess it was meant to be. "But I'm a surgeon, you know that, don't you? And I can teach you something about hearts. The question in my mind is whether you can learn to ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... nearly had a fit at seeing so many "we'els go wound." But we went to Normandy, and saw Lisieux, Mantes, Bayeux. Long afterwards, when I was feeling as hard as sandpaper on the stage, I had only to recall some of the divine music I had heard in those great churches abroad to become soft, melted, able to act. I remember in some cathedral we left little Edy sitting down below while we climbed up into the clerestory to look at some beautiful piece of architecture. The choir were practicing, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... hills and the windy savannas where the Insurrectos dwelt there was health. Poorly armed, ragged, gaunt, these Insurrectos were kept moving by hunger, always moving like cattle on a barren range. But they were healthy, for disease, which is soft-footed and tender-bellied, could not ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... stamped on it with delight. It was just as nice to have solid things very solid, as it was to have floaty things like clouds very floaty. What was horrid was to have a thing that looked solid, and yet was all soft, like gelatine pudding when you ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... but important one, as every preparation had to be made for getting across on the assumption that all the bridges would be destroyed. Accordingly the 137th Brigade were equipped with a number of collapsible boats and rafts, also mats for getting across any soft mud they might encounter, whilst almost at the last moment, numbers of lifebelts were sent up for their use, taken ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... shrink and crouch before one that should dart his eyes upon him with the spirit of natural equality, becomes capricious and tyrannical when he sees himself approached with a downcast look, and hears the soft address of awe and servility. To those who are willing to purchase favour by cringes and compliance, is to be imputed the haughtiness that leaves nothing to be hoped by firmness ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... finish to leather known as "patent" leather was first patented in this year. Another notable invention of the time was the process of engraving on soft steel. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... her eyes on the morning of Thursday, the twelfth of October, it was to rejoice at one of those soft and beautiful days of autumn which make of every house a dungeon to be escaped at the first possible moment. Even as early as nine o'clock, a perceptible tide had set in toward the Bois de Boulogne, or, ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... that he stepped behind the curtain, pushing the doors of the window a little further open with his hands, strode over the iron railing of the balcony, and let himself down until only a drop of a few feet separated him from the soft turf of ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... might perhaps have been had she been spared to him. He was thinking of her now, and as he thought visions of a sweet, pale face, shadowed with curls of golden hair, came up before his mind, and he saw again the look of bewildered surprise and pain which shone in the soft, blue eyes and illumined every feature when in an unguarded moment he gave vent to the half infidel principles he had learned from his uncle. Her creed was different from his, and she explained it to him so earnestly, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... had begun with the morning still poured on steadily in the afternoon. After one look out of the window, Regina decided on passing the rest of the day luxuriously, in the company of a novel, by her own fireside. With her feet on the tender, and her head on the soft cushion of her favourite easy-chair, she opened the book. Having read the first chapter and part of the second, she was just lazily turning over the leaves in search of a love scene, when her languid interest in the novel was suddenly diverted to an incident ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... was placed in the quotient; a few more rapid dashes, and, with a grand flourish after the "seventeen remainder," Tip threw down the chalk, pushed back the hair from his hot temples, and walked to his seat. The boys could not keep quiet any longer: a very soft tapping was heard at first, then, finding they were not silenced, it rose to a loud, decided stamping of many feet. But Mr. Holbrook was on his feet again, and they were quiet directly, for the report ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... still continued as serene and beautiful as ever, but no refreshing showers fell—no soft and healthful breezes blew—and it was now found to be true, what had been prognosticated—viz, that with the heats of summer the plague would fearfully increase. The grocer was not incommoded in the same degree as his neighbours. By excluding the ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... all, be careful to vary the quality and quantity of your folds in compositions of many figures; so that, if some have large folds, produced by thick woollen cloth, others being dressed in thinner stuff, may have them narrower; some sharp and straight, others soft ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... blown through the soft night by the puffing locomotives in the valley below, by the pall of smoke that hung night and day over this quarter of the city, the dull glow of the coke-ovens on the distant hills. To the man this was enough—this and his home; business ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... the imprint much more clearly, as you can see. For instance, if you place your dry thumb on a piece of white paper you leave no visible impression. If grey powder is sprinkled over the spot and then brushed off a distinct impression is seen. If the impression of the fingers is left on something soft, like wax, it is often best to use printers' ink to bring out the ridges and patterns of the finger-marks. And so on for various materials. Quite a science has ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... mistress, in her father's princely balcony, the first sweet intimation that his passionate glances had not struck against a heart of marble. What more appropriate mode of suggesting her tender secret could a maiden find than by the soft hit of a rosebud ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the soft and gentle woman, who spoke with such passionate vehemence and boldly braved his anger? How could he have so misunderstood her? He forgot all his anger in his admiration. She seemed to him to have undergone a complete ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... dollie was all soft and squeezy," explained Cherry obligingly, "and it hadn't got no clothes on to pin it to, so it had to go into the soft ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Bordeaux. The latter is a very honest fellow and deserves to be a bishop; make him one if you can.... Why will you triumph and talk of platte couture? You have friends on both sides. Smith agrees with me in thinking that you are turned soft by the delices of the French Court, and that you don't write in that nervous manner you was remarkable for in the more northern climates. Besides, what is still worse, you take your politics from your ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... wish to collect any kind of air in a bladder, for example the phlogisticated acid of nitre (Sec. 13), I take a soft bladder smeared inside with a few drops of oil, and place in it some filings of a metal, as iron, zinc, or tin; I then press the air as completely as possible out of the bladder and tie it very tightly over a small bottle into which some aqua fortis has been ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele
... activity reigns inside; processes are going on within that chrysalis-case which are the amazement and the puzzle of all naturalists. In course of time the worm is changed into the beautiful winged butterfly, which breaks its case and emerges soft and wet; but it quickly dries and spreads its wings to commence its life in the air and sunshine. The chrysalis is represented in the figure on the left. The butterfly, it will be recognized, is one of the common insects so familiar to all, with strongly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... has a pretty little fable as follows: A young man fell desperately in love with a cat, and prayed to Jupiter to change her to a woman for his sake. Jupiter was so obliging as to grant his prayer; and, behold, a soft, satin-skinned, purring, graceful woman was given into ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the dunes; the night was continuously lighted up by flashes from the big guns, both French and German. We were pulled up with a jerk, which sent me flying over the left wheel, doing a somersault, and finally landing head first into a lovely soft sandbank. Spluttering and staggering to my feet, I looked round for the cause of my sudden exit from the car, and there in the glare of the headlight were two French officers. Both were laughing heartily and appreciating ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... am I for? Uf! How tired I am. Let me rest for five minutes (he sits down). Good gracious! how soft the furniture is here. We must donate some money for some public ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... population. Manufacturing features a number of agroprocessing factories. Mining has declined in importance in recent years; high-grade iron ore deposits were depleted by 1978, and health concerns have cut world demand for asbestos. Exports of soft drink concentrate, sugar and wood pulp are the main earners of hard currency. Surrounded by South Africa, except for a short border with Mozambique, Swaziland is heavily dependent on South Africa ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... sometimes, Aw've been a trifle soft, Aw happen should a' dun't misen? Aw've lang'd ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... sixty miles, from a red sandstone to a limestone region; the scenery at every mile becoming more and more monotonous, and less marked by bold outline, cliff, or mountain: as far as the bay, of which Snow-blind Point formed one extreme, a long range of hills, soft and rounded in contour, faced the sea, and sloped to it with a gradual inclination, some three miles in length; ravines became more and more scarce; and after passing the bay, in 100 deg. long. W., none of any size were to be seen. Drearily monotonous ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... for the time all her fine clearness turned to him; but she might on this have been taken as giving him up with a movement of obedience and a strange soft sigh. The smothered sound might even have represented to a listener at all initiated a consenting retreat before an effort greater than her reckoning—a retreat that was in so far the snap of a sharp tension. The next minute, none the less, she evidently found a fresh provocation in the ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... herself lifted from the floor, and placed in the friendly rocking-chair; Mr. Van Brunt remarking, at the same time, that "it might be well enough to let well folks lie on the floor and sleep on cheers, but cushions warn't a bit too soft for sick ones." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... followed by the black, was advancing along the bank at a place destitute of timber and where the ground was smooth and soft. He was going slowly, his body bent slightly forwards, and his eyes turned upon the earth as if in search of some object, or tracking an animal. Suddenly he came to ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... TOMMY. Soft Tommy, or white Tommy; bread is so called by sailors, to distinguish it from biscuit. Brown Tommy: ammunition bread for soldiers; or brown bread given to convicts at ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... tops now marking the line of her diameter; then in a few minutes she was free from their obstruction and hung above the earth a great, shining ball, sending upon river, forest, plain, and plantation a light so full and soft that one standing in it would become ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... said Mrs. Mills, coming back after repairing one of these outrages. The shop had a soft, pleasing scent of tobacco from the brown jars, marked in gilded letters "Bird's Eye" and "Shag" and "Cavendish," together with the acrid perfume of printer's ink. "Still, I suppose we were all young once. Gertie," raising her voice, "isn't it about time you popped upstairs to make yourself ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... challenging glance at her admittedly aristocratic sister-in-law, but Alexina had lifted the lower white of her eyes just above their soft black fringe and looked more innocent than any new born lamb. As she did not ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... not sit down?" she said plaintively, but with soft merriment in her eyes. "I am not quite strong yet. My heart—you do not know what pain I have in my heart sometimes. It makes me weep of nights and when none are by, indeed ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Loangwa and Chambeze, covered, like them, with lichens, orchids, euphorbias, and upland vegetation, hard-leaved acacias, rhododendrons, masukos. The gum-copal tree, when perforated by a grub, exudes from branches no thicker than one's arm, masses of soft, gluey-looking gum, brownish yellow, and light grey, as much as would fill a soup-plate. It seems to yield this gum only in the rainy season, and now all the trees are full of ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... interests count for more than their feelings, and a great noble, who has it in his power to grant favours and dispense honours, will find adherents though he has waded through blood. Burgundy, too, as I hear, has winning manners and a soft tongue, and can, when it pleases him, play the part of a frank and honest man. At least it must be owned that the title of 'Fearless' does not misbecome him, for, had it been otherwise, he would have denied all ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... for it. The women who gratify these gentlemen by smilingly deprecating any such responsibilities, are those who have dwelt since they were born in well-feathered nests, and have never needed to do anything but open their soft beaks for the choicest little grubs to be dropped into them. It is utterly absurd (and I am afraid the members of parliament in question are quite aware they are talking nonsense) to argue from the contented squawks of a brood of these callow ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... strike the stern: "Excuse me; just so; the sea's rising fast, isn't it?—Oh, dear, yes; of course they are; they're all heathen and cannibals. You couldn't imagine to yourself the horrible bloodthirsty rites that may this very minute be taking place upon that idyllic-looking island, under the soft waving branches of those whispering palm-trees. Why, I knew a man in the Marquesas myself—a hideous old native, as ugly as you can fancy him—who was supposed to be a god, an incarnate god, and was worshipped accordingly ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... pressed together, and while they were rolled over and over, they were minutely examined in a strong light, and with the aid of a magnet held in the right hand, the defective balls were picked out and thrown into especial boxes. Four kinds of defects were looked for-dented, soft, scratched, and fire-cracked—and they were mostly so minute as to be invisible to an eye not especially trained to this work. It required the closest attention and concentration, so that the nervous tension of the inspectors was considerable, in spite of the fact that they were ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... wood; nor was there any treacherous bramble to crackle beneath his feet. For upon this chill, grey carpet no flood of sunshine ever came to coax tiny sprays out of the ground; and the layers of fine needles, or tufts of dank, sunless moss were soft and noiseless as down under his tread. The stately trees grew far enough apart to allow him to move with considerable speed, and after he had satisfied himself that he was beyond the sight of his pursuers, he changed his course and proceeded ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... a young girl had come out of the house. She was a slim little thing, with a slender throat that carried the small head like the stem of a rose. Dark, long-lashed eyes, eager and bubbling with laughter, were fixed on Wadley. She had slipped out on tiptoe to surprise him. Her soft ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... they are required to go two abreast and keep step with each other. No loud talking was allowable in the court-yards at any time. No talking or whispering when passing through the tasteful courts to their work, their school, their meetings, or their meals; a still, soft walk on tiptoe, and an indistinct closing of doors in the house; a gentle, yet a more brisk movement in the shops; a free and jovial conversation when by themselves in the fields; but not a word, unless when spoken to, when other brethren than their ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the other day the story of a princess who was travelling over the world, and asked hospitality, one evening, at the door of a palace. Was she a real princess or an adventuress? The queen who received her judged it well to ascertain. For this purpose she prepared for her, with her own hands, a soft bed, composed of two mattresses, on which she piled five feather-beds; between the two mattresses she slipped three peas. The next day the traveller was asked how she had slept. 'Very badly,' she replied. 'I do not know what was in my bed, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... nearly all technical phrases, an induction coil may be briefly described as a step-up transformer of small capacity. It comprises a core consisting of a cylindrical bundle of soft-iron wires cut to proper length. By means of two or more layers of No. 14 or No. 16 magnet wire, wound evenly about this core, the bundle becomes magnetized when the wire terminals are connected to a source ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... "Out the soft pedal, old chap," smiled Dick cheerily, as their hands met. "I'm not a badly hurt man. The worst of this is that it keeps me from recitations for a few days. If it weren't for that, I'd enjoy lying here at my ease, with no need to ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... can hardly have expected to hear from me again, (unless by invitation to the field of honor,) after those cruel and terrible notes upon my harmless article in the July Number. How could you find it in your heart (a soft one, as I have hitherto supposed) to treat an old friend and liege contributor in that unheard-of way? Not that I should care a fig for any amount of vituperation, if you had only let my article come before the public as I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... shed, divided into narrow slips, like the stalls used for cattle. Boards fixed upon stakes driven into the ground, without mat or covering, were our only beds. On Sundays, after we had washed the salt bags, and done other work required of us, we went into the bush and cut the long soft grass, of which we made trusses for our legs and feet to rest upon, for they were so full of the salt boils that we could get no rest ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... C—— C—— had thrown herself dressed on the bed, but I told her that the god of love disapproved of unnecessary veils, and in less than a minute I made of her a new Eve, beautiful in her nakedness as if she had just come out of the hands of the Supreme Artist. Her skin, as soft as satin, was dazzlingly white, and seemed still more so beside her splendid black hair which I had spread over her alabaster shoulders. Her slender figure, her prominent hips, her beautifully-modelled bosom, her large eyes, from which flashed the sparkle of amorous ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... there isn't. I don't pretend to be able to extricate a soft sort of John Halifax, Gentleman, out of the machine I'm mixed up in, and keep him to gladden the connubial hearth. I'm angry, and I'm angry right through, and I'm not going to play bo-peep with myself, pretending not ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; Fear he answers blow to blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but Love, that sun against whose melting beams the Winter cannot stand, that soft-subduing slumber which wrestles down the giant, there is not one human creature in a million—not a thousand men in all earth's huge quintillion, whose clay-heart is hardened ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... 'what Grecian arts of soft persuasion!'" Franklin quoted. "I hope that she, too, will follow the great star ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... fingers toyed daintily with the lustrous pendant at the throat, and her voice was exceeding low and soft; only a tapping on the floor with her silken sandal admonished him to have ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Youth, thy blood is warm and crimson—thy heart is soft and tender—such natures are alive to human kindness—this warmth of feeling melts my obdurate wisdom. If the frost of age or sorrow's leaden pressure had chilled the springtide vigor of thy spirits —if black congealed blood had closed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... what the Lord God shall say within me.(1) Blessed is the soul which heareth the Lord speaking within it, and receiveth the word of consolation from His mouth. Blessed are the ears which receive the echoes of the soft whisper of God, and turn not aside to the whisperings of this world. Blessed truly are the ears which listen not to the voice that soundeth without, but to that which teacheth truth inwardly. Blessed are the eyes which are closed to things without, but are fixed ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... smiled good-naturedly and said that he was trying an experiment. When he had made a long hall which went down so deep that he was quite sure that Jack Frost could not get down there, he made a bedroom and put in it a bed of soft grass. When it was finished, he was so pleased with it that he retired to it every night as soon as the sun went down and didn't come out again ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... comfortable? Judged by the American standard, certainly not. My bed was soft enough, and my breakfast was brought to me at whatever hour I rang for it. But, as was the case all over Paris, the central heat had ceased abruptly on its specified date and I nearly froze. During the late afternoon and evenings all through May and the greater part of June ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... short legs did fly and his stout little claws dug into the soft earth! His little forepaws flew so fast that if you had been there you could hardly have seen them at all. And with his strong hind legs he kicked the sand right back into the face of ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... this feature might be illustrated. And it often imparts a very peculiar charm to his poetry;—a charm the more winning, and the more wholesome too, for being, I will not say unobtrusive, but hardly perceptible; acting like a soft undertone accompaniment of music, which we are kept from noticing by the delicate concert of thought and feeling it insensibly kindles and feeds within us. Thus the Poet touches and rallies all our most hidden springs of delight to his purpose, and makes them ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... here!" she exclaimed, as she pushed back the short red-gold hair that curled in little, soft rings ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... much sediment. Then the current became more rapid and cut its way back into the land, and, in doing this, did not necessarily choose the lowest place, but rather the place where the formation of the land was soft and easily cut away by the action of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... vibrating, living creature has but one idea, the idea that ensouls it—help is wanted, food is wanted; and it ranges the subtle world, seeking. A charitable man desires to give help to the needy, is seeking opportunity to give. As the magnet to soft iron, so is such a person to the desire-form, and it is attracted to him. It rouses in his brain vibrations identical with its own—George Mueller, his orphanage, its needs—and he sees the outlet for his charitable impulse, draws a cheque, and sends it. ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... we will quit the "Research," and take a peep into Mr. Wilton's drawing-room. There is a bright, blazing fire; the crimson curtains are closely drawn; pussy is curled up in a circle on the soft rug; and Grandy, with her perpetual knitting, is still ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... her jewels, the soft brilliance of her eyes as she leaned towards him. His voice sounded, even to himself, ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... things the soft lips of Althora refused to say. Again she tried vainly to raise her hands, then turned her white, stricken face that a loved one might not see the tears that were mingling with the blood-stains on her cheeks, nor read in her eyes the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... Barclay and General Ward met on the bridge by the mill. It was one of those warm midwinter days, when nature seems to be listening for the coming of spring. A red bird was calling in the woods near by, and the soft south wind had spring in it as it blew across the veil of waters that hid the dam. John Barclay's head was full of music, and he was lounging across the bridge from the mill on his way home to try his new pipe organ. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... that it was dangerous to sleep under an elder bush. We had a big one that was in full bloom. I robbed it of all its flowers, and then I put them in the big box where the oats were kept and lay down in them. Did you ever notice the smoothness of oats? Soft to the touch as the skin of the human body! However, I pulled down the lid and closed my eyes—fell asleep and was waked up a very sick boy. But I didn't die, as you can see. What I wanted—that's more than I can tell. Of course, there was not the ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... and earth with a soft, departing radiance when he stopped again in front of the saloon. Old Doc was still gesticulating wildly, and the sheet of fly-paper still clung to the back of his coat. The crowd had thinned somewhat and displayed less interest; otherwise the situation had not ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... and whistled through the branches of the plane-trees along the winding descent, and furiously tore the withering leaves. They struck Ercole's weather-beaten face as he sat beside the coachman with bent head, with his soft hat pulled down over his eyes, and the rain dripped from his coarse moustache. Kalmon and Marcello leaned as far back as they could, under the deep hood and behind the ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... suddenly." She was speaking very slowly, her eyes warm and fluttery and melting, a soft flush on her cheeks that did not go away. "I never knew until just now when—you put your arms around me. And I never expected to marry you, Martin, not until just now. How did you make ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... was at first much admired. He was a fine man, with faultless manners, and a commander in every inch of his tall figure. He had hands as soft as a woman's, a kindly eye, and a gentle voice. But he could be stern, and was stern and unyielding, too, when occasion required. He dressed in better taste than anyone who had ever lived in the province, and his horses ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... to provide for the security of his present conquest; and, without bestowing a thought on the government of his new dominions, resigned himself to the licentious and effeminate pleasures so congenial with the soft voluptuousness of the climate, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... conversations on the principles of aesthetic culture. A vein of refined and pure sentiment pervades the volume; the style is often of exquisite beauty; but the discussion usually terminates in a dim, purple haze, lulling the mind to repose in a soft, twilight enchantment, without imparting any clear conceptions, or enlarging the boundaries ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... in his wife's drawing-room, "been by my brother's side, he would not have unnecessarily alarmed or awakened those whom it should have been his policy to keep in a soft slumber, until his blows had laid them down to rise no more; but his soldier-like frankness frequently injures his political views." This I myself heard Louis say to Abbe Sieyes, though several foreign Ambassadors ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... are there which you need only to enter and call your own. And when you are hungry you have only to speak, and immediately all that you desire to eat will appear on the tables. And when you are tired, soft beds will rise up to receive you. And clothes will be spread before you—not stiff and uncomfortable robes like those you carry in your pack, but soft garments suited to ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... brilliant-tinted sky that blazed above the fire-girt peaks. Soon dusk would slip down over the land and tone the hues to a softer harmony. A purple sea would flow over the hills, to be in turn displaced by a deep, soft violet. Then night, that night of mystery and romance which transforms the desert to ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... went abroad with my gun and my dog, and killed a wild cat; her skin pretty soft, but her flesh good for nothing; every creature that I killed I took of the skins and preserved them. Coming back by the sea-shore, I saw many sorts of sea-fowls, which I did not understand; but was surprised, and almost ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... insects, and surrounded by a crowd of wondering spectators, I showed one of them how to look at a small insect with a hand-lens, which caused such evident wonder that all the rest wanted to see it too. I therefore fixed the glass firmly to a piece of soft wood at the proper focus, and put under it a little spiny beetle of the genus Hispa, and then passed it round for examination. The excitement was immense. Some declared it was a yard long; others were frightened, and instantly dropped it, and all were as much astonished, and made as ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... you have yet touched upon. A young gentleman who sat next me (for I had the curiosity of seeing this entertainment), in a tufted gown, red stockings, and long wig (which I pronounce to be tantamount to red heels and a dangling cane[441]) was enraged when Punchinello disturbed a soft love-scene with his ribaldry. You would oblige us mightily by laying down some rules for adjusting the extravagant behaviour of this Almanzor[442] of the play, and by writing a treatise on this sort of dramatic poetry, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... that he was there, as I stared in from the darkness at the scene before me. They—I say they, for the whispering had taught me that there was more than one—had got the stone up while we had been away. It had been pushed aside on to the sawdust, and a soft yellow light shone up now out of the hole, showing me my young master, looking so strange and staring-eyed and ghastly, that I could hardly believe it was he. But it was, sure enough, though dressed in rough workman's clothes, and stained ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... man suddenly found her "spoken for," as the villagers termed it, by the mate of a vessel. She died of consumption, unmarried. Uncle Josh never referred to this passage in his life, but his mother knew his mind, and why his words grew fewer than ever. The little Molly reproduced the soft hazel eyes and the trim air he so well ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... great joy of the small birds who hopped on the lawn where the water hung like diamonds on every blade of grass. The sparrows chirruped with satisfaction as they pecked about for their midday meal, and the stout thrushes tugged at succulent worms which had poked their misguided heads through the soft damp earth regardless of ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... years previous, just before closing my eyes for that long sleep. I stood for some time silently looking about me. I saw that my companion was furtively regarding me with an expression of awed and sympathetic curiosity. I put out my hand to her and she placed hers in it, the soft fingers responding with a reassuring pressure to my clasp. Finally she whispered, "Had we not better go out now? You must not try yourself too far. Oh, how strange it must ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... "But to these soft memories are joined others of terrible import. Do you forget the fatal termination of your love? The conduct of the prince's father toward you? Your obstinate silence when Rudolph, after your marriage with Earl M'Gregor, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... power; And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices. It adds a precious seeing to the eye, A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound, When the suspicious tread of theft is stopp'd: Love's feeling is more soft and sensible, Than are the tender horns of cockled snails; Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste; For valour, is not love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical, As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... wishing to be all in all in everything; counting himself alone as everything, and whatever was not connected with him as nothing; and regarding it as the height of madness to think or act otherwise. With all this he was soft, cringing, supple, a flatterer, and false admirer, taking all shapes with the greatest facility, and playing the most opposite parts in order to arrive at the different ends he proposed to himself; and nevertheless was but little capable of seducing. His judgment acted by fits and starts, was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... wagon, and it was coming from the direction of Denton. Despard stopped it, explained his situation, and offered to pay any thing if the farmer would turn back and convey his friend and his prisoner to Denton. It did not take long to strike a bargain; the farmer turned his horses, some soft shrubs and ferns were strewn on the bottom of the wagon, and on these Langhetti was deposited carefully. Clark, who by this time had come to himself, was put at one end, where he sat grimly and sulkily; the three horses were led behind, and Despard, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it, The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him for ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of the land there ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... for a moment whispering, "What shall I play?" Then she exclaimed, "I know, Arthur; I will play something that he loves very much—and that you used to love, too—something that is very soft and low ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... that night, I lay on one of the lockers of the main cabin, in a wakeful mood. Nicholas lay on the other locker, in that profound slumber which is so characteristic of healthy youth. His regular breathing was the only sound I heard, except the soft footfall of our skipper, as he slowly paced ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... deep clay or mud unexpectedly appear. But even with these deceptions, a column is lucky which has only to deal in its march with open water and firm banks; for the whole place is sown with what were formerly the beds of smaller meres, and are now bogs hardened in places, in others still soft—the two ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... melioration: on what ground I cannot conceive, except on the long practice of every crime, and by its complete success. He is an Origenist, and believes in the conversion of the Devil. All that runs in the place of blood in his veins is nothing but the milk of human kindness. He is as soft as a curd,—though, as a politician, he might be supposed to be made of sterner stuff. He supposes (to use his own expression) "that the salutary truths which he inculcates are making their way into their bosoms." ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... variety of causes. They are not so soon sent from under the paternal eye into the bustle of the world, and so early exposed to the contagion of bad example: their hearts are naturally more flexible, soft, and liable to any kind of impression the forming hand may stamp on them; and, lastly, as they do not receive the same classical education with boys, their feeble minds are not obliged at once to receive and separate the precepts of Christianity, and the ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... and the track of his Sno car dug into the soft surface, then caught and the vehicle moved forward and into the trees. Troy fell into line behind the other vehicle as they drove down the gentle slope towards the snow-covered access trail another mile below them on ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... turning from one to the other of the two soldiers, his quick eye took in this glimpse of the buildings, and it became riveted there as by the charm of fascination. Gradually the ferocity left his countenance, which grew human and soft. ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... planted, and when necessary to be laid out, new burial-ground spots have been selected remarkable for attractiveness and susceptibility of improvement. The brook has been led in and conducted in tortuous paths, as if to lull with a soft hymn the tired sleepers, and then expanded into a fairy lake, around which the weeping willow lets fall its graceful pendants. The white pine, the various species of firs, the rhododendron, mixed with the maple, the elm, and the tulip tree, have found their way into the sacred enclosure. The ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... station I put my small personal possessions, consisting of a trunk, mattress, two blankets, and a pillow into one of the heavily loaded wagons and proceeded to join it, sitting on the boxes or bags of coffee and sugar, as I might choose. The movement of the train was very slow, as the soil was soft on the newly made and sandy roads. We progressed but a few miles on our first day's journey, and in the evening parked our train at a point where there was no wood, a scant supply of water—and that of bad quality—but an abundance of grass. There ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... matching his discoloured hair so well, were discovered then to be capable of expressing a sort of underhand hate. He was at first defiant, then insolent, then broke down and burst into tears; but it might have been from rage. Then he calmed down, returned to his soft manner of speech and to that unassuming quiet bearing which had been usual with him even in his greatest days. But it seemed as though in this moment of change he had at last perceived what a power he had been; for he remarked to one ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... may eat with his knife and still be an authority on bridge-building; he may tuck his napkin under his chin preparatory to, and as an armor against, the well-known vagaries of liquids, before he takes his soup or his soft-boiled eggs, and still be an authority on soap-making; he may wear a knitted waistcoat with a frock-coat to luncheon, and be deeply versed in Russian history. He may have no inkling of the traditions ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... bit rueful at his own plight. Things had gone wrong for him from the commencement of the evening. And this—well, the gage of battle had been flung in his face and he was no man to refuse the challenge. But his muscles were taut until the soft voice of Naomi broke in ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... 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 ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... Nothing but hard bread was served out to them this day. In the evening, several hundred of the prisoners entered the market square, and demanded their soft bread; but it was refused. The officers persuaded them to retire, but they would not, before they received their usual soft bread. The military officers, finding that it was in vain to appease them, as they had but about three hundred militia to guard five or six thousand, complied with their request, and all was ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... you singing of, soft and mild, Green leaves, waving your gentle hands? Is it a song for a little child, Or a ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... strain, was throbbing so that he let go the handle-bar from time to time in the hope of relief. It was the pain of acute tiredness, for which there could be no relief but rest. Just to throw himself down and rest! Oh, if he could only lay that weary, aching arm across some soft pillow and leave it there—just leave it there. Let it hang, bend it, hold it above him, lay it on Uncle Sam's staunch, unfeeling arm of steel, he could not, could ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... whimper or whining The task of the combing was done, And each lock was as smooth and as shining As long iris leaves in the sun— Soft ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... indefinable disdain that had not been there before. It would become Athor well. Kenkenes understood the look but he did not flinch. Instead he let his head drop slowly until he looked at her from under his brows. Then he summoned into his eyes all the wounded feeling, pathos, soft reproach and appeal, of which his graceless young heart was capable, and gazed ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Richard,' replied Mr Squeers, in a soft voice. 'Put your handkerchief in your pocket, you little scoundrel, or I'll murder you ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... at weeds and slender sprouts, as he rolled down the almost perpendicular bluff, Stacy yelled lustily for help. From the soft, sandy soil the weeds came away in his hands, without in the slightest degree ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... a jumble of uncouth words be more manly than a manner of expression which is well joined and properly placed? If some authors weaken the subjects of which they treat, by straining them into certain soft and lascivious measures, we must not on that account judge that this is the fault of composition. As the current of rivers is swifter and more impetuous in a free and open channel than amidst an obstruction of rocks breaking ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... was a soft creature, without this apology for extravagance, and what right had she to letters addressed to "Miss Fleming?" The farmer prepared to ask a question, and was further instigated to it by seeing Mrs. Sumfit's eyes roll sympathetic under a burden of overpowering ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a real and ever rapidly growing need in man; Puritanism cannot satisfy it, Catholicism and the Church of England can." He dwelt with delighted interest on Eugenie de Guerin's devotional practices, her happy Christmas in the soft air of Languedoc, her midnight Mass, her beloved Confession. On the Mass itself no one has written more sympathetically, although he disavowed the fundamental doctrine on which the Mass is founded. "Once admit the miracle of the 'atoning sacrifice,' once move in this order of ideas, and what can ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... dost make with thy laborious hand) Thy noble innocent delight: And in thy virtuous Wife, where thou again dost meet Both Pleasures more refin'd and sweet: The fairest Garden in her Looks, And in her Mind the wisest Books. Oh! who would change these soft, yet solid Joys, For empty Shows and senseless Noise; And all which rank Ambition breeds, Which seem such beauteous Flowers, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... (Soft music.) (Here Artemus Ward's pianist [following instructions] sometimes played the dead march from "Saul." At other times, the Welsh air of "Poor Mary Anne;" or anything else replete with sadness which might chance to strike his fancy. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... of its origin, we will recur back to an event which happened some days previous. Captain Shortland was at the time, absent at Plymouth; but before going, he ordered the contractor, or his clerk, to serve out one pound of indifferent, hard bread, instead of one pound and a half of soft bread, their usual allowance. This the prisoners refused to receive. They waited all day in expectation of their usual allowance being served out; but at sun-set, finding this would not be the case, burst open the lower gates, and went up to the store, demanding ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... extraordinary performance? 'I think,' replied he, coldly, 'that it would gain him great credit among a nation of monkeys.' Another time he was present at the exhibitions of a celebrated musician, who was reputed to possess unrivalled skill in playing soft and melting tunes upon the lyre. All the audience seemed to feel the influence of his art, by their inarticulate murmurs of admiration, and the languishing postures of their bodies. When the exhibition was finished, the musician advanced, amid the united plaudits of ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... the pages and glance over the naïve records, each one beginning, "Last night I dreamed," the past comes very vividly back to me. I see that bowery orchard, shining in memory with a soft glow of beauty—"the light that never was on land or sea,"—where we sat on those September evenings and wrote down our dreams, when the cares of the day were over and there was nothing to interfere with the pleasing ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... soft and smooth, like a night-moth or the black bat that haunts ruins, Lebeau, the confidential valet, watched him and silently encouraged him; for they had arrived at the decisive moment that the gang had for months expected, with alternate ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips—those he told himself ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... well believe that the writer of these Recollections did not find himself carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease while this was going on, nor did he find himself reposing on a couch soft as ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... causes the ready adhesion of the verdigris, &c. The second solution is then to be rubbed over by means of a brush, until they have acquired the deep red colour of copper; they are then to be left an hour to dry, after which they are to be polished with a very soft brush and rouge, or the red oxide of iron in fine powder. The polish is to be completed by the brush alone, the medals being passed now and then over the palm ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... woman, beginning to think she had made a mistake after all, "I will say your voice is not like his. It was low and soft, while yours, if you'll excuse me mentioning it, is hard, and not at all what I'd ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... fine growing tendrils that climbed so gracefully from a tiny brick wall, just edging the breakfast room. The "wall" was composed of white tile bricks, and the soft green vines, tumbling over the edges, and capering up on the window ledges, made an effect at once free ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... were within, all laid evenly with the small ends together, as is the tidy fashion of the Sandpiper family. No wonder I did not see them; for they were pale green like the lichen, with brown spots the color of the leaves and twigs, and they seemed a part of the ground, with its confusion of soft neutral tints. I couldn't admire them enough, but, to relieve my little friend's anxiety, I came very soon away; and as I came, I marvelled much that so very small a head should contain ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... found the pitch too soft for him and had been expensive, gave place to Grant. Grant bowled what were supposed to be slow leg-breaks, but which did not always break. The ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... governor of the gaol said something, the purport of which did not reach Paul, but still something which seemed to change the atmosphere and made the grey dawn bright with the light of day. Another moment, and his heart thrilled. He felt soft arms around his neck, a warm face close to his, while on his lips were ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... my form was sucking it in like a sponge. The scientist and his helper were tense and taut with excitement. And suddenly my comfortable feeling left me. Until then it had seemed so smooth and velvety and peaceful drifting around over their heads, as though lying on a soft, fleecy cloud. But now I felt a sudden squeezing of my spirit body. Then I was in an agony. Before I knew what I was doing my spirit was clinging to the outside of that twisting glass bell, clawing to get into the body that was coming ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... and thin lips, his face indicated weakness. His dark-gray eyes had in them either a great deal of worry or undisguised fear. As he took the chair pointed out to him, he was being catalogued by Bristow as showing too much uncertainty, even a womanish timidity. Bristow noticed also that his thick, soft blond hair was carefully parted and brushed, and that his fingers ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... cases on just such whims, so it is well to be careful. When the patient is well enough for you to come to the family table at meal time, be sure to have on a spotless apron, and let no sickroom odors announce your presence. It is worth more to a nurse to have soft, dry, warm, sympathetic hands, than to have the prettiest face ever seen under a cap, so be careful of them; after using any antiseptics always have at hand glycerin and rose water, cold cream, or something soothing to use. Never put a cold or clammy hand on a patient. If ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... He gave a soft groan of comfort as he settled in his chair and began pulling at his short black pipe, and she let her eyes dwell on him in a rapture that curiously interested me. People in love are rarely interesting—that is, flesh-and-blood people. Of course I know that lovers are the life of fiction, ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... who had first spoken remained, at the risk of pneumonia, with her arm prettily lifted against the open sash, for a moment peering out, and then reported, in dashing it down with a shiver, "It seems to be a very soft snow." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Overslept a little; very tired after yesterday. Sun shining brightly and no wind. It seemed strange last night, no flapping of tent in one's ears. About 8.30 came on to drift again. Under way 9.20, both sails set. Sledge going hard, especially in soft places. If Hayward had not broken down we should not feel the weight so much. Lunch 12.45. Under way at 3. Wind and drift very heavy. A good job it is blowing some, or else we should have to relay. All land obscured. Distance about ten or eleven ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... falling.... And the woman wore a clinging, shining yellow gown, and a blaze of jewels in her hair. What was said he hardly knew. It was enough to feel that a suddenly-born, passionate joy was making his pulses leap and his head reel; to know that heaven had come to him in this soft, ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... her loss, was yet overwhelmed with sorrow. On their way back, the clergyman asked to be left at his own dwelling; and this was done. Claire was then alone with the child, who shrank close to him in the carriage. He did not speak to her; nor did she do more than lift, now and then, her large, soft, tear-suffused eyes to ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... The soft sand yielded no echo to the tread. Every one appeared thoughtful and abstracted. This place has terrors even for the Arabs; they tell a thousand stories of the Pass of Sidi-Mohammed-el-Aoori: it was there, in times remote, that great armies were overpowered ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... there were solitary walks of miles to be had along the coast; fruit and milk, butter and eggs in abundance, and these were Browning's diet. "I feel out of the very earth sometimes," he wrote, "as I sit here at the window.... Such a soft sea, and such a mournful wind!" But the lulling charm of the place which, though so different, brought back the old Siena mood, did not convert him into an idler. The mornings, which began betimes, were given to work; in his way of desperate ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden |
