"Softness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... smallness of the fingers? Can sight adequately perceive them? and is no difference made by the circumstance that one of the fingers is in the middle and another at the extremity? And in like manner does the touch adequately perceive the qualities of thickness or thinness, of softness or hardness? And so of the other senses; do they give perfect intimations of such matters? Is not their mode of operation on this wise—the sense which is concerned with the quality of hardness is necessarily concerned also with the quality of softness, and only intimates to the ...
— The Republic • Plato
... withstands danger either because to do so is honourable, or because not to do so is base. But dying to escape from poverty, or the pangs of love, or anything that is simply painful, is the act not of a Brave man but of a coward; because it is mere softness to fly from what is toilsome, and the suicide braves the terrors of death not because it is honourable but to get out of ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... large blue eyes. Although her eyes were blue, her hair was almost chestnut black, except in certain lights, when it gave out gleams as of dark gold. Her features were full, her figure large, but not too large. She wore a dark red tailored gown; and sumptuous sable furs shaded with dusky softness and shot, in the sun, with prismatic gleams, set off her handsome, not exactly smiling, but serenely beaming face. Two great black ostrich plumes and one red one curled down toward the soft spikes of the fur. Between, the two great blue eyes, the soft oval of the cheeks, and the ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... for the German, the eloquence of loveliness for all! She was looking her best—the slightest possible tinge of rouge gave a glow to her transparent complexion, and lighted up those large dark sparkling eyes (with a latent softness beneath the sparkle) seldom seen but in the French—and widely distinct from the unintellectual languish of the Spaniard, or the full and majestic fierceness of the Italian gaze. Her dress of black velvet, and graceful hat with its princely plume, contrasted the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... such a race since 1829, When WORDSWORTH, SELWYN, MERIVALE began the mighty line, First of the stalwart heroes who matched their straining thews, And on great Thames's tide have fought the battle of the Blues? Who writes of pampered softness? Confusion on his pen: Still is there pluck in England, and still her sons are Men. And still the lads go gaily forth in snow, or wind, or rain, With hearts elate to row the race, and spurt, and spurt again. A health to you, brave AMPTHILL; the cheering echoes far; For FLEICHER ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 28, 1891 • Various
... does every man good to be softened. If you ever really felt what you describe, you greatly over-estimated me. What can you lose by a little more softness? I often think that men—particularly good men—make their way through the world too much as if it were a solid mass of iron through which they must cut—as if they dared not relax their hardest edge and finest temper for a moment. Surely, that is ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... was Zuleika! such around her shone The nameless charms unmarked by her alone; The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonized the whole, And oh! that eye was in itself a Soul. Bride of ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... shadow of tragedy gleamed in the child's white face. Her face was strained, her eyes had lost the deep softness of their colouring, and there lurked once more in their depths the terror of nameless things. To me the sight of her like this was so piteous that I wasted not a moment in endeavouring to ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... however, the gray gelding had behind him such a load as he had never carried before. The two people in the buggy on that evening were not foolish, meandering sweethearts, thinking only of love, and allowing themselves to be influenced in their mood by the beauty of the night, the softness of the black shadows in the road, and the gentle night winds that crept down over the crests of hills. They were solid business men, mentors of the new age, the kind of men who, in the future of America ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... by fraud or force; cunning or strength are the weapons put by nature into our hands. To some she gives one; to others the latter: nature is most impartial. To the lion she gives claws and teeth; to the horse his hoofs and fleetness. To a woman, beauty and softness; to a man, strength and courage. She intends all these attributes to be employed. So, friend Bannech, you live by fraud, and I by ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... whole crew, especially as we saw both the species on our excursions. Our seamen lived several days on young shags and penguins, of which they found the former extremely palateable, comparing them to young pullets. They likewise roasted several little cubs of seals, but there was a degree of softness in the meat which made it disgustful. The flesh of young, but full-grown sea-bears, was greatly preferable, and tasted like coarse and bad beef; but that of the old sea-lions and bears was so rank and offensive, that we could not ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... cold granite at the ocean's rim These folk had chained her fast and gone their way; Fresh in the softness of each delicate limb The pity of their bruising violence lay. Over her beauty, from the eye of day To hide its pleading charms, no veil was thrown. Only the fragments of the salt sea-spray Rose from the churning of the waves, wind-blown, To dash ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... she coaxed, with a softness in her voice which any man but unpractised Swithin would have felt to be exquisite. 'I feel that I have been so foolish as to put in your hands an instrument to effect my own annihilation. Not a word have you spoken for the ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... bound and gagged on the snow. That she had made no effort to free him did not at first strike him as significant. He still felt the sweet, warm touch of her lips, the pressure of her arms, the smothering softness of her hair. It was not until he again heard approaching sounds that he returned once more to a full consciousness of the mysterious thing that had happened. He heard first of all the creaking of a toboggan on the hard crust, then the pattering of dogs' feet, ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... life-work of Thomas Stevenson remains; what we have lost, what we now rather try to recall, is the friend and companion. He was a man of a somewhat antique strain: with a blended sternness and softness that was wholly Scottish and at first somewhat bewildering; with a profound essential melancholy of disposition and (what often accompanies it) the most humorous geniality in company; shrewd and childish; passionately attached, passionately prejudiced; a man of many extremes, many faults ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and there wasn't an instant to lose—but the Adventurer now was calmly gathering up, to the last one, and pocketing them, the banknotes with which Danglar had baited his trap. And as he crammed the money into his pockets, he spoke to her, with a curious softness, a great, ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... chief was roused into a last exertion by the agony of the moment is favourable to the object of a painter. He might obtain the full advantage of contrasting the form of the rugged old man, in the extremity of furious despair, with the softness and beauty of the female form. The fatal field might be thrown into perspective, so as to give full effect to these two principal figures, and with the single explanation that the piece represented a soldier beholding his son slain, and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... duties of life with great correctness, because her heart is naturally good; and she is, perhaps, from her temperament exposed to fewer temptations than the generality of her sex. She is deficient in passion and in softness (which constitute the greatest charm in women), so that she excites more of admiration than of interest; in conversation she is lively and pleasant, without being very remarkable, for she has neither wit, nor imagination, nor humour; her understanding is active rather ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... appetites under the dominion of reason? His life was spent in the pomp of the palace, in the society of his wives and concubines; and even the clemency which he showed, and the peace which he strove to preserve, must be imputed to the softness and indolence of his character. Did he subdue his prejudices, and those of his subjects? His mind was tinged with the most puerile superstition; the influence of the clergy, and the errors of the people, were consecrated by his laws; and the oracles of Leo, which reveal, in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... man and dog took strength to themselves; and what of the strength they became big and unafraid. And the man spoke loud words and laughed at the old men and young men, and looked boldly upon the maidens. And the dog fought with our dogs, and for all of his short hair and softness slew three ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... intelligence.... What imaginable link is there between certain movements of certain molecules in my brain, on the one hand, and on the other hand primitive, undefinable, undeniable facts such as: I have the sensation of softness, I smell the odour of a rose, I hear the sound of an organ, I ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... very little attention to the unhappy tale; but Berenice's feelings overcame the softness of her character, and she took the paper out of the officer's hand, and would not let him finish reading it; saying it was very unbecoming in the king to treat the matter so lightly, as if he thought no more of the loss of a life than the loss ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... force of this impression that his works did not completely come up to the expectations which we had been led to form. They are but eight in number, and do not comprehend the finest of his compositions. Their general character is that of tenderness and delicacy: there is a softness in his shading of the human form which is quite unrivalled, and a harmony in the general tone of his colouring, which is in perfect unison with the characteristic expression which it was his object to produce. You feel a want of unity, however, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... of a Jansenist book would make him unhappy by the prominence into which it brought the displeasing idea of hell, and he used now and then to pass a miserable day in wondering whether this cruel destiny should be his. Madame de Warens, whose softness of heart inspired her with a theology that ought to have satisfied a seraphic doctor, had abolished hell, but she could not dispense with purgatory because she did not know what to do with the souls of the wicked, being unable either to damn ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... laboriously, not luckily": always elegant, often elevated, never sublime, he accomplished by patient and careful industry what Shakespeare and Fletcher produced by the spontaneous exuberance of native genius. He seems to have acquired early in life, and to have retained to the last a softness of versification peculiar to himself. Without the majestic march of verse which distinguishes the poetry of Massinger, and with none of that playful gaiety which characterises the dialogue of Fletcher, he is still easy and harmonious. There is, however, a monotony in his poetry, which ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... gentleness, and even softness, in his character. He was affected when he rode over the fields of battle, which his ambition had strewed with the dead and the dying, and seemed not only desirous to relieve the victims,—issuing for that purpose directions, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... Accordingly, a few months after your departure for Ingolstadt, Justine was called home by her repentant mother. Poor girl! She wept when she quitted our house; she was much altered since the death of my aunt; grief had given softness and a winning mildness to her manners, which had before been remarkable for vivacity. Nor was her residence at her mother's house of a nature to restore her gaiety. The poor woman was very vacillating in her repentance. She sometimes begged Justine to forgive her ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... had saved her from this unwitting act, and he meant to save her from the consequent wasting of blood, from fever and weakness. Starvation he had to fight for her and for himself. Where he had been sick at the letting of blood, now he remembered it in grim, cold calm. And as he lost that softness of nature, so he lost his fear of men. He would watch for Oldring, biding his time, and he would kill this great black-bearded rustler who had held a girl in bondage, who had used her ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... golden opinions from all sorts of men, and women too. Only there was one significant circumstance about her popularity—she could not win the love of children. No, not with all her beauty and grace of person, and sweetness and softness of tone and manner, she could not win the children. Their sensitive spirits shrank from the evil within her which the duller souls of adults could not even perceive. And many an innocent child was sent in disgrace from the parlor because ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... faint from the pain of having her arm set. She lay in the deep sofa, covered with red damask, amid a bewildering softness of cushions and rugs, and wondered what Lady Anne was saying to Mamie. Mamie was Mrs. Gray. From the first Mary had not called her Mother. Her name was Matilda, and Mamie was a sort ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... ever did of the Spanish coast on the approach to Gibraltar,—the spruce woods answering in hue to olive-groves, the other to the green of vines. Meanwhile, the palpitating sheen on the land, the star-sprinkled blueness of the sea, together with the softness of the delicious day, brought vividly to mind those days in the Aegean when not even the disabilities of an invalid could prevent his leaping over and swimming along by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... prepared, contribute in an especial manner to preserve the softness and elasticity of the skin, their effect being of an emollient and congenial nature; and, moreover, they can be applied on retiring to rest, when their effects are not liable to be disturbed by the action of the atmosphere, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... of the channel are liable to be dried up in that direction, although the bed extending to Jeneen if not to Gilboa contains springs from the ground at intervals, but the level character of the country and the softness of the ground are unfavourable to the existence of a free river course. There was but little water at Hharatheeyeh when we crossed in the month of May. The 'Ain Sa'adeh, however, which I did not then visit, never fails, and in full season, the Kishon near the sea becomes ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... wasn't a great deal too that wouldn't be in the note—a great deal for which a more comfortable place was Maisie's light little brain, where it hummed away hour after hour and caused the first outlook at Folkestone to swim in a softness of colour and sound. It became clear in this medium that her stepfather had really now only to take into account his entanglement with Mrs. Beale. Wasn't he at last disentangled from every one and every ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... too small, her nose not Grecian enough for some people's tastes. But the general effect of these features, the shape of her head and face, and especially her habitual expression, reminded all beholders at once, and irresistibly, of that image of softness, purity, and feminine gentleness, which has been engraven on all civilized memories by the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... ear whose tones I might have made happier if I would. Withheld sympathy rises up before me deploring its wasted treasure. How can any one be happy in looking back? The only pleasure in looking forward is in hope. Yet now both grief and joy are tempered with a softness which ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... favored, as they are delicious fruit. As a raw fruit, raspberries have their most satisfactory use, but they may be made into several excellent desserts and they are also much used for canning and preserving. They are a perishable fruit and so do not keep well. Because of their softness, they have to be washed very carefully to prevent them from breaking ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... moment, then he bent over, with an expression of almost motherly softness in his big, rugged face. He got Eileen's hand in his left hand and Phil's ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... be," wrote the Bishop of London soon after the outbreak of the war in 1914, "that this cup of hardship which we drink together will turn out to be the very draught which we need? Has there not crept a softness over the nation, a passion for amusement, a love of luxury among the rich, and of mere physical ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... she would never be twenty-three again. Still she was a most desirable woman, and a woman infinitely beyond his deserts.) Her air of general capability impressed him. And with that there was mingled a strange softness, a marvellous hint of a concealed wish to surrender.... Well, she made him feel big and masculine—in brief, ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... light had held their majestic distances, seemed with the falling of night to draw in and huddle close in crowding herds of black masses. The distant tinkling of a cow-bell came drifting down the breeze with a weird and fanciful softness. ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... close enough to her now, and for time enough as well, to be sure that there was nothing artificial about this girl. She was as natural as a flower—and just as sweet! There was a softness to her cheek and to the curve of her neck like rich velvet. Her eyes were mild yet sparkling when she became at all animated. And that demure ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... vehicle with a narrow seat, and they were compelled to sit so close together that he felt the softness and warmth of her body. He was compelled, too, to confess that Mrs. Markham was as attractive by daylight as by lamplight. A fur jacket and a dark dress, both close-fitting, did not conceal the curves of her trim figure. Her cheeks were glowing red with the rapid motion ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... modesty, and sweetness of temper. She was always unstudied and unaffected, and in her person and appearance were combined ease and elegance, with the irresistible charm of the most engaging feminine softness. Her understanding was excellent, and well cultivated, her manners correct, and her heart the seat of virtue and purity. Perfectly free from any meanness of temper, she felt no envy at the beauty of Amaranthe, but was, on the contrary, an unfeigned ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... looking him straight in the eye without sign of coquetry or softness, "you know very well you could never be to me what your father is to your mother; and one of the biggest reasons is that I am not to you what your mother is to your father and never could be. You are not in ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... the sea-walls, the public washing-troughs, the ramparts on which the weary soldiers rest themselves when returned to Troy, are fair and smooth; all the fine qualities, in colour and texture, of woven stuff are carefully noted—the fineness, closeness, softness, pliancy, gloss, the whiteness or nectar-like tints in which the weaver delights to work; to weave the sea-purple threads is the appropriate function of queens and noble women. All the Homeric shields are more or ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... which case a pillar of ore must be left to support the shaft; or, instead, it may be sunk a short distance in the footwall, and where necessary the excavation above can be supported by filling. Following the ore has the advantage of prospecting in sinking, and in many cases the softness of the ground in the region of the vein warrants this procedure. It has, however, the disadvantage that a pillar of ore is locked up until the shaft is ready for abandonment. Moreover, as veins or lodes ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... dared to them, and set out for the scene of desolation at the lake. I am now camped within twenty-five miles of the place, which I hope to reach by traveling to-night and tomorrow. We had to camp early this evening, on account of the softness of the snow, the men sinking in to their waists, The party who passed us to-day were overjoyed when we told them there was plenty of provision at camp. I made a cache, to-day, after we had traveled about twelve miles, and encamped three miles further ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... pencil. Doubtless the tale is not true. Aretino says nothing about it; Always speaks, in fact, with the highest respect of Robusti. True or not, 'tis well found." Then looking around on the frescos: "Good, very good indeed! Your breadth and richness and softness No man living surpasses; those heads are truly majestic. Yes, Buonarotti was right, when he said that to look at your Curtius Richly repaid him the trouble and cost of a journey from Florence. Surely the world shall know you the first of painters ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... less famous critic when showing him the score of his Feldlager in Schlesien, I decided to attach no great importance to the instructions he might have received, but rather to help myself by a careful handling of this difficult score, and by introducing some softness into it through modulating the variations in tone as much as possible. I had the gratification later of receiving an exceedingly warm appreciation of my rendering from Herr Eduard Devrient, a great Gluck connoisseur. After hearing this opera as presented by us, and comparing it with ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... ring before they've learned its rottenness an' how to double-cross an' lay down to the bettin' odds an' the fight-fans. Yep; it is brave. Say, Saxon, you see things, don't you?" His pause was almost wistful, and he looked at her and studied her with a caressing softness that ran through her in resurgent thrills. "D'ye know, I'd just like you to see me fight some time—a real fight, with something doin' every moment. I'd be proud to death to do it for you. An' I'd sure fight some with you lookin' on an' understandin'. That'd be a fight what is, take ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... hard of me to try Thy faithful heart with such a fearful test, Yet now thou canst be happy, sweet, as I Am wondrous happy in thy truth confessed. To haggard death indeed thou needst not fly To find the softness of thy lady's breast; For such a gift was never death's to give, But thou shalt have me ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... sentimental." Three years later the "Letters to a Young Lady," by the Reverend John Bennett, were republished in Philadelphia, after going through several London editions. He placed the qualities to be cultivated in this order: "A genteel person, a simple nature, sensibility, cheerfulness, delicacy, softness, affability, good manners, regular habits, skill in fancy work, and a fund of hidden genteel learning." Through the first half of the nineteenth century these ideals struggled along parallel with the new ideas that were everywhere springing up from the ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... the hardness and softness are secondary qualities of tenues medi, of surd and sonant letters, the true physiological difference between p and b, tand d, kand g, is that in the former the glottis is wide open, in the latter narrowed, so as to produce either whispered or ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... I cherish two memories of those beautiful eyes. One is of their fear and loathing—of me; the other is of their sweet softness when they watched the departure of my guest. Listen! Do ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... not understand. Besides, to me these things were not the raw scene they were to her. It has been a very sad time for her. You see, there is not much natural softness in her, and she was driven into roughness and impatience when he worried her over racing details and other things. And then she was hurt at his preferring to have me with him. It has been very good and generous in her not to have ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with its green and flowery crown. A warm, balmy breeze that had passed over the orange trees of Sorrento and Amalfi felt deliciously refreshing to the inhabitants of the capital, who had succumbed to torpor in the enervating softness of the day. The whole town was waking from a long siesta, breathing freely after a sleepy interval; the Molo was covered with a crowd of eager people dressed out in the brightest colours; the many cries of a festival, joyous songs, love ditties sounded from all ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... peculiar softness in Henry's voice when he replied: "I hope some time to catch him interfering with ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... richly figured, And the train Makes a pink and silver stain On the gravel, and the thrift Of the borders. Just a plate of current fashion, Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes. Not a softness anywhere about me, Only whalebone and brocade. And I sink on a seat in the shade Of a lime tree. For my passion Wars against the stiff brocade. The daffodils and squills Flutter in the breeze As they please. And I weep; For the lime tree is in blossom And one small ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... always won its way with this girl. He moved towards her again with something subtly seductive in his manner, and his arms closed about her unresisting form in a caress she was powerless to deny. Passive yet palpitating she lay pressed in his arms, all her woman's softness, all her subtle perfume, maddening ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... to bear upon his task the power of sublime and graceful verse, and it has been said that but for him "we could never have formed an adequate idea of the strength of the Latin language. We might have dwelt with pleasure upon the softness, flexibility, richness, and musical tone of that vehicle of thought which could represent with full effect the melancholy tenderness of Tibullus, [Footnote: Albius Tibullus was a poet of singular gentleness and amiability, who wrote verses of exquisite finish, gracefully telling the story of ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... determined to forward them with all her care and attention. By dint of Perseverance and Application, she had at length so thoroughly disguised her natural disposition under the mask of Innocence, and Softness, as to impose upon every one who had not by a long and constant intimacy with her discovered her real Character. Such was Louisa when the hapless Lesley first beheld her at Drummond-house. His heart which (to use your favourite comparison) was as delicate as sweet and as tender as a Whipt-syllabub, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... more and spring was come in earnest. It was in the softness of the air, the tenderness of cloud and sky, and the warmth of the sunlight. The grass was greener and the trees quivered happily. Hens scratched and cocks crowed more lustily. Insect life was busier. A stallion nickered in the barn, and from the fields came the mooing of cattle. Field-hands ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... the other hand, he asked himself, why should she not show agitation? She was a consummate actress. She could show on her beautiful face the softness and the tenderness of an angel of light while a demon reigned in her malignant heart. Why should she not choose this way of keeping up appearances? She had betrayed her friends, and sought her husband's death; but would she wish to have ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... the prince could dare to own.) And, with the fair one's blood, the vengeful sire Resolves to quench his Pedro's faithful fire. Oh, thou dread sword, oft stain'd with heroes' gore, Thou awful terror of the prostrate Moor, What rage could aim thee at a female breast, Unarm'd, by softness ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... suffice thee, and drive not me also to death with the softness of thy voice. Art thou not aware that the soul of my soul burns for thee and will not wait—the more so since thou hast done a mighty deed and art proved a ...
— Judith • Arnold Bennett
... her as she lay in state in Tom's lap, was drawn towards her to stand and wonder at her vaguely. There developed a tendency to form small and rather silent groups about her. Infancy was no novelty in this region of numerous progenies, but the fine softness of raiment and delicate sumptuousness of infancy were. More than one man, having looked at her and wandered away, was unable to resist the temptation to wander back again and finally to settle in some seat ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... afternoon—one of those mellow days for which this latitude is so remarkable—possessing the softness and genial temperature of summer, without its ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... of sympathy and admiration for her, but he did not say anything about the long day's ride. Lucy never in her life before appreciated rest nor the softness of grass nor the relief at the end of a ride. She lay still with a throbbing, burning ache in all her body. Creech, after he had turned the horses loose, brought her a drink of cold water from the brook she heard somewhere ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... silence. Again and again it had been on her lips to ask, "How are you getting on with that charming new friend of yours?" but for very shame she had held her peace. And now that the thing she had wished had come to her—that the man she had secretly pined to see was in her presence—all that softness she had lamented, or had pretended to herself to lament, was gone in one moment. For her first thought was that his coming at that moment had been prearranged, that Fan had planned to bring about the reconciliation ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... happened as he had dreamed. He helped her into the brougham with her bags, and had afterward the vague recollection of having properly reassured her about her grandmother and given her a summary of the Beaufort situation (he was struck by the softness of her: "Poor Regina!"). Meanwhile the carriage had worked its way out of the coil about the station, and they were crawling down the slippery incline to the wharf, menaced by swaying coal-carts, bewildered horses, dishevelled express-wagons, ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... too bad, that marriage," Martha murmured, all softness of sympathy. "You were so young. Uncle Robert should ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... man who dares, like you, in fields appear, And meet my sword, shall be my mistress here. If I am proud, 'tis only to my foes; Rough but to such who virtue would oppose. If I some fierceness from a father drew, A mother's milk gives me some softness too. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... sharks work their several ends upon such as they can make a prey of, by decoying them into traps and snares beyond recovery: but that which is the effect of folly is of a much different nature; it proceeds from a softness of spirit, and a flexibleness of good humour, and comes far nearer to virtue than that other extreme of friendship, namely, a stiff, sour, dogged moroseness: it refreshes our minds when tired, enlivens them when melancholy, reinforces them when languishing, invigorates ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... true, if, now at once, by some magic I could shake myself free from this voluptuous softness, this timid bloom of beauty shrinking from the rude and healthy touch of the world, and fling it from my body like borrowed clothes, would you be able to bear it? If I stand up straight and strong with the strength ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... disturb them; at lambing and shearing times the proprietors hire their native tenants to do the necessary work; and these people at other times fish, raise water-melons and other fruits, and make mats which are famous for their fine texture and softness, and sell at handsome ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... in the road, her head still covered with that white, filmy something which had commended itself to Mr Pickering's eyes. She was looking at him in a way that seemed somehow to strike a note of appeal. She conveyed an atmosphere of softness and repentance, a general suggestion of ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... time immemorial that wherever there is contest as between artistic and moral beauty, unless the moral side prevail, all is lost. Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing combination of tender curves and spheric softness that ever stood for woman; yet if the lip have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be insincere, if in the minutest particular the physical beauty suggest a moral ugliness, that sculptor — unless ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... as easy of access as that of the stenographer in the hotel lobby. As a result, the girl had encased herself in a defensive armor of hardness and distrust, a protection which was rendered futile by the loveliness of her face, by the softness of her voice, by the deep, brooding eyes, and the fine forehead on which, like a crown, rested the black ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... fragrance. Look again, and some added beauty appears. Observe more closely, handle it, and you are made a little thoughtful, because, all unconsciously to yourself, it may be, the flower is doing something to your mind and heart and soul. Perhaps its velvety softness and its lowliness speak to you of humility and gentleness; or perhaps its fragrance breathes sweetness into your life and feeling,—only a little, to be sure, but that little means something. The spirit of the flower speaks to your spirit; and you wonder what relation it bears ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... the manly brain." Yet tenderness is not exclusively a womanly excellence; indeed, since tenderness can really coexist only with strength, it is in its highest manifestation quite as truly a manly as a womanly quality. Jesus was inimitably tender. Tenderness in him was never softness or weakness. It was more like true motherliness than almost any other human affection; it was infolding, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... content of his people, and, spited at the indignity done him by his father, and the usurpation of his brother in consequence thereof, prepared a great fleet and army to invade England; nor did there want an occasion to promote his interest, if the slowness, the softness, and credulity of his nature, could have suffered him to make a right ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... praise. Still hand in hand her words and actions go, And the heart feels more than the features show; For, through the regions of that beauteous face We no variety of passions trace; Dead to the soft emotions of the heart, No kindred softness can those eyes impart: The brow, still fix'd in sorrow's sullen frame, Void of distinction, marks all parts the same. 740 What's a fine person, or a beauteous face, Unless deportment gives them decent grace? Bless'd with all other requisites ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... sweetens social life in the blending of hearts and sympathy of souls. But he commanded that esteem which results from respect and appreciation of the great and commanding attributes of his nature, which elevated him so far above the men of his age. He wanted the softness and yielding of the heart that so wins upon the affections of associates and those who are in close and constant intercommunication. Are not these incompatible with the stern and towering traits essential to such a character as was Washington's? Like a shaft of polished granite towering ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... horizontally for a few inches, making a hole perfectly round and smooth and adapted to his size; then turns downward, gradually enlarging the hole, as he proceeds, to the depth of ten, fifteen, twenty inches, according to the softness of the tree and the urgency of the mother bird to deposit her eggs. While excavating, male and female work alternately. After one has been engaged fifteen or twenty minutes, drilling, and carrying out chips, it ascends to an upper limb, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... touched a chord of young pain in the hearts of both those delicate quadroons. Both were so nearly white that the slight corruption increased their beauty, rounded their graceful limbs, plumpened their willowy figures, gave a softness like mild night to their expressive eyes, and blackened the silken tassels of their elegant long hair. No tutor had taught them how to walk,—they who moved on health like skylarks on the air. Faithful, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... tears of affection, of softness, almost of joy. They flowed noiselessly and gently, and they relieved me, for my heart was very full; and, when I was relieved, I bathed my face, and arranged my hair, and descended the staircase almost merrily to join the ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... acts of a sick and almost heart-broken man," interposed Randall, with a smooth, deceitful softness of tone, that instantly reawakened La Salle's antipathies. "I beg you, however," he continued, "to excuse me, and to make yourself at home in your old quarters. I should like to talk with you about your strange cruise, but at St. John's we may have a better ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... single goal the material ease and comfort of its own citizens-thus repudiating its own spiritual and material stake in a peaceful and prosperous society of nations. But the enmities it will incur, the isolation into which it will descend, and the internal moral and physical softness that will be engendered, will, in the long term, bring it ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... countries. The factory at Axminster, on the southern coast, was also afterwards transferred to Wilton. These carpets are all hand-made, and the higher class, which are an inch or more in thickness and of the softness of down when trod upon, are also of the most gorgeous design and brilliancy ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... into a dog trot. Now the gait of the red roan mare was a dream of softness, and her flexible ankles gave a play of whole inches to break the jar of every step, the sure sign of the good saddle-horse; but the horse has never been saddled whose trot is really a smooth pace. The hat of ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... poets far greater than either—such as Shelley and Coleridge. It is remarkable that Dryden, while he praised, did not copy our poet's manner, but gave himself freer scope. Pope, on the other hand, pushed his love of uniform tinkle and unmitigated softness to excess, and transferred this kind of luscious verse from small poems, where it is often a merit, to large ones, where it is a mistake. In his "Iliad," for instance, the fierce ire of Achilles, the dignified resentment of Agamemnon, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... me is that of sovereign grace and beauty. When I am near thee, nothing can harm me. Thou art an angel of light, shadowing me with thy softness. But when I let go thy hand, I stagger on a precipice: out of thy sight the world is dark to me and comfortless. There is no breathing out of this house: the air of Italy will stifle me. Go with me and lighten it. I can know ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... for certes, if there had been no sin in clothing, Christ would not so soon have noted and spoken of the clothing of that rich man in the gospel. And Saint Gregory saith, that precious clothing is culpable for the dearth [dearness] of it, and for its softness, and for its strangeness and disguising, and for the superfluity or for the inordinate scantness of it; alas! may not a man see in our days the sinful costly array of clothing, and namely [specially] in too much superfluity, or else in too disordinate scantness? As to the first sin, in superfluity ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... genuine image is what our discerning private critic Mr. Moe would call a "rubber-stamp" phrase. Mr. Crowley requires a rigorous course of reading among the classic poets of our language, and a careful study of their art as a guide to the development of his taste. At present his work has about it a softness bordering on effeminacy, which leads us to believe that his conception of the poet's art is rather imperfect. It is only in caricature that we discover the poet as a sighing, long-haired scribbler of gushing flights of infantile awe or immature adoration. Earnestness, dignity, and at times, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... common form of needlework taught by the Sisters. Flower embroidery was the usual form of practice, and it was of a quality which made each one a wonder of execution and skill. The materials were satin of a superb quality for the background, or Eastern silk of softness and strength, and the silks used in the stitchery were generally "slack twisted" silk threads of very pure quality, and in certain cases, where they would not be likely to fray, lustrous flosses of Eastern ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... him. He had read the very inside of her heart, and knew that her only delight was in his love. He understood perfectly the weakness and faith and beauty of her feminine nature, and her trusting, leaning softness was to his harder spirit as water to a thirsting man in the desert. When she clung to him, promising to obey him in everything, the touch of her hands, and the sound of her voice, and the beseeching glance of her loving eyes, were food and drink to him. He knew that ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... plastered conewise one over the other covered her temples, and a basket of braided hair rose on the top of her head. This old-fashioned head-dress, which was trussed up from the nape of her neck, disclosed all the softness of her fresh young throat, on which the dimple of her chin was reduplicated ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... into the frozen litter of the yard, a man came out of the shade and spoke low to Hussin. Peter and I lifted Blenkiron into the cart, and scrambled in beside him, and I never felt anything more blessed than the warmth and softness of that place after the frosty roofs. I had forgotten all about my hunger, and only yearned for sleep. Presently the wagon moved out of the courtyard ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... that night. Robert stayed to dinner. Will chanced to be absent and there were only the three of us at table. There was a mellow sort of stillness. A softness of voice possessed us all, even when we asked for bread or salt. Our conversation was trivial, unimportant, but kind and gentle. Between Ruth and Robert there glowed adoration for each other, which words and ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... vividly conscious of the presence of the woman he loved the best in the world—May Webster. She was dressed in black, and sank upon her knees by Sally's side. The intense sympathy of her expression made her look more beautiful than ever, giving the touch of softness that her features sometimes lacked. Throughout the service the rector's brave, strong voice never faltered, and it rose and fell with the others in Psalm and hymn. He seemed, for the time being, borne aloft upon the wings of faith and love; but ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... choice extremes, But yet it grows as joyfully And floods my chamber with its beams, So that some tropic land it seems Where oranges with ruddy gleams, And aloes, whose weird flowers the creams Of long rich centuries one deems, Wave through the softness of the gloom,— And these may blush a deeper bloom Because ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... say then?—that Spring long departed Has brought forth no child to the softness and showers; —That we slept and we dreamed through the Summer of flowers; We dreamed of the Winter, and waking dead-hearted Found Winter upon us and waste ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... smooth the rugged path of life; the advancement of one endearing sentiment is the prized object of thy existence, and its successful termination thy reward. Debarred by nature and education from the glittering pursuits of ambition; incapable by the delicacy of thy frame, and the softness of thy nature, of following the rude pastimes, and participating in the laborious and dangerous avocations of man, thy whole being is wrapt in the charm of that one feeling—love! A feeling the most congenial to thy nature—blissful in the possession, and often but too fatal in its ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... cry of delight as her hands sank into the depths of its softness. She might well admire it, for no king in the world could have had a finer skin. "Ah, it is beautiful, monsieur," she cried; "and what creature is it? and where ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it from being attacked by insects. Tawed leather, used for gloves, is made by impregnating the skin with a liquor containing alum and salt, and afterwards washed in a mixture of yolks of eggs and water; the saline and animal matters combine, and give it that peculiar softness, and such leather is afterwards coloured as may be required; having been rolled over wooden rollers, in which are grooves, it is called Morocco leather. These are the principal varieties of leather employed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... pour forth her lofty ideals for women, unconsciously testifying that the secret spring of her actions was her love for her own sex. Though the words were always spoken with gentle calmness, and in a tone of womanly softness, something in her passionate sincerity would, like the effect of a magnet, attract every listener, and a spell of silence would fall upon us. In all that she said we ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... conqueror's manner of address had done it with a form less agreeable.—O Louisa, pursued she with a sigh, if you have never seen or heard the charming Henricus, you can have no notion of what is excellent in man; such flowing wit;—such softness in his voice and air;—but there is no describing what he is. He seemed all transport at meeting me there; among a number of ladies I alone engrossed him: he scarce spoke to any other; and being so fortunate ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... bound together as friends and partners. Altotas, in the course of a long life devoted to alchymy, had stumbled upon some valuable discoveries in chemistry, one of which was an ingredient for improving the manufacture of flax, and imparting to goods of that material a gloss and softness almost equal to silk. Balsamo gave him the good advice to leave the philosopher's stone for the present undiscovered, and make gold out of their flax. The advice was taken, and they proceeded together to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... alighted, and the conjugal contract has been sealed, than, as if his breast were about to be rent with delight, he again pours forth his notes with more softness and richness than before. He now soars higher, glancing around with a vigilant eye, to assure himself that none has witnessed his bliss. When these love scenes are over, he dances through the air, full of animation and delight, and, as if to convince ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... creature, standing fully five feet five in her dainty little black silk stockings. Her eyes are dark and almond-shaped like her brother's, and there is a little droop at the far corners of the lids that adds singularly to their beauty; it gives them softness. Perhaps this softness had not been altogether meant, for Mother Nature had certainly not added gentleness to the many gifts she had given Miss Hescott at her birth. Not that the girl is of a nature to be ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... dinner-table, which was to-day uninvaded by guests, the Heths' talk was animated. The imminent separation brought a certain softness into the family atmosphere; papa basked in it. He had spent his Sunday morning playing sixteen holes of golf at the Country Club, and would have easily made the full round but for slicing three new balls into the pond on the annoying seventeenth ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... her a pat and a kiss. "I guess I feel quite as much that way as you do, Miss Pat," she said with unusual softness. "I hadn't the wildest notion of bringing Mary Miller here. I'm going to take her to Rockham ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... in tones so modulated to extreme softness as to show that her feelings had been deeply touched both by the matter and the manner of my inquiry, "you must banish all such thoughts from your mind. For His own wise purposes, God has placed you in a position in which you have a mission of some kind to fulfil. That position is an honorable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... keep him waiting long. First the quick flutter of her footsteps; then the door gently opened—and she flew to him, her sari blowing out in beautiful curves. Then he was in her arms, gathered into her silken softness and the faint scent of sandalwood; while her lips, light as butterfly wings, caressed ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... thing—a Blossom, say—and a fairy came to you and said, 'Wish a wish, my dear; what would you rather have in all the world?' what would you answer, Jemmy? Remember, if you were a little mite of a Blossom with a—with a—little broken stem." Judith's voice sank to a tender softness. She didn't know she ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... up and went to the things, turning them over, and touching them with a softness, almost expressing a caress. The names of the makers stamped on bands and collars, the names of the streets in which their shops stood, moved her. She heard again the once familiar rattle of wheels, and the rush and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is the best the temperate climate has to offer, gives the Native Son his high powered strenuosity. That developing softness—lush—(every Native Son will admit the lush) which is the best the semi-tropical element has to contribute, gives him his size and comeliness. The weather of San Francisco keeps the Native Son out of doors ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... study, reading; and must have dozed over the book. Suddenly, I awoke and sat upright, with a start. For a moment, I looked 'round, with a puzzled sense of something unusual. There was a misty look about the room, giving a curious softness to each table and ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... sixteenth year, she was quite a woman—not one of your thread-paper bulrushes, which shoot upwards merely into unfleshed gentility; but a round, firm, well-spread, and formed woman—a bonny lass, invested with all the delicacy and softness of a complete lady. Her bodily accomplishments, however, were not her only recommendation; her mind was unusually acute, and her memory was stored with much and varied information. She knew, for example, that the age in which she lived was one of cruelty ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... dining-hall pealed forth the hour of ten. Horton came with a lighted candle, and Shawn followed him to the south room overlooking the river. A cozy fire burned in the grate, the moon swinging above the stream touched the hills and valley to silvery softness. He stood near the window and gazed long upon the water, the stream running through every association of his life. On the table was a daguerrotype; it was Lallite's face, and the eyes seemed smiling just ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... of the Deemster were like the inside and outside of a bowl, and that bowl was the Deemster himself. If Thomas Wilson the elder had his father's inside fire and softness, Peter, the younger, had his father's outside ice and iron. Peter was little and almost misshapen, with a pair of shoulders that seemed to be trying to meet over a hollow chest and limbs that splayed away into vacancy. And if Nature had been grudging ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... persuasive, but to an ear attuned to shades, there was a note of menace underlying its softness—"you know there was somebody else here ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... the Swedish people. I admired them exceedingly. They are tall, fair, good-looking. They are among the most civil and obliging people that I have ever met. I never encountered a rude word or a rude look from them. In their homes they are simple and natural. I liked the pleasing softness of their voices, so sweet and musical— "a most excellent thing in woman." There was a natural gentleness in their deportment. All classes, even the poorest, partook of it. Their domestic habits are excellent. They are fond of their homes; and, above all ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Be not angry, but hear me. Where is the softness, the womanly tenderness and grace that first enchanted me, forming as it did so bewitching a contrast with the dazzling splendor of your beauty? I did not know then that daggers were sheathed in your brilliant eyes, or that scorn ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... neighbourhood of the line. The inhabitants follow the natural bent of their complexion; their whole business is perfumes, feasts, and music; to say nothing of carnal pleasures, to which they set no bound. Even the language which they speak participates of the softness of the country: It is called the Malaya tongue, and, of all the orient, it is the most ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... stiff, straight lines is afforded by the use of the curved line in decoration, which offers soft, rich and lovely effects. In general, curved lines make for grace, flexibility and softness. ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown
... single animal could furnish but two of them. The Codex Vaticanus is greatly admired for the beauty of the vellum; and the whiteness of the Codex Alexandrinus can be seen by all who visit the British Museum, although the exquisite thinness, softness, and delicacy of the texture can only be appreciated by touching it. The beautiful fabric of the Codex Clarmontanus ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... Give me that wild love-ditty thou knowest so well. I did use to bid thee be silent when thou wouldest have worried mine ears with it. But in sooth the morning looks so languishing and tender that it constrains the bosom, I verily think, to its own softness." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... eagerly grasped at all the gifts he offered, he could not but call to mind "that Agnes's declining hand was always closed, and her looks forbidding, every time he proffered such disrespectful tokens of his love." He recollected the softness which beamed from her eyes, the blush on her face at his approach, while he could never discern one glance of tenderness from the niece of Lord Bendham: and the artificial bloom on her cheeks was nearly as disgusting as the ill-conducted artifice ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... which had now the peculiar, almost supernatural softness and limpidity of light falling at evening from a declining sun in a hot country, came full upon him, and brightened his hair. Domini saw that it was brown with some chestnut in it, thick, and cut extremely short, as if his head had recently been shaved. She felt convinced that he was ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... were shed softer than leaves from the pine, And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, That mingle their softness and quiet in one With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; And the voice that was softer than silence said:— Lo, it is I, be not afraid! In many climes, without avail, Thou hast spent thy life ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... whar the keys air," urged the latter, with caressing softness and fright in his voice. He didn't want his ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... appear on the brow of the hill, and with a quick, joyous bound his heart leaped up to meet her. As she came toward him her white dress swept the tall grass from her feet, and her shadow flew like a winged creature straight before her. There was a vivid softness in her face—a look at once bright and wistful—which moved him with ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... facts, with accomplishments, with dates and places and the names of great men. I write—what little I do write—of men and high adventures, so that in this time of softness and easy living some few who may read my scribblings may live with me those days when the worlds of the universe were strange to each other, and there were many new things to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... made the north-west glorious at sunset. When she sat with her parents in the evening, she rarely spoke. If she was not gazing in the fire, with hard bright eyes and lips, in which there was only the softness of youth, but no tender tremor of girlhood's dreams, she was reading her papers or her novels with rapt attention. Her mother was proud of her beauty and her supposed learning, and loved, when she looked up from her work, to let her eyes ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... Altogether bewilderment, softness, and indifference on the part of the men; vanity, cruelty, and foolery on the part of the officers. Those are the virtues which they offered us on first acquaintance. Just compare them ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... 30 Small shining horns on his curled forehead stand, As turned and polished by the workman's hand; His eye-balls rolled, not formidably bright, But gazed and languished with a gentle light. His every look was peaceful, and expressed The softness of the lover in the beast. Agenor's royal daughter, as she played Among the fields, the milk-white bull surveyed, And viewed his spotless body with delight, And at a distance kept him in her sight. 40 At length she plucked the rising flowers, and fed The gentle beast, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... seized by a prophetical terror, a fear which was tragic, lest her own habit of submission should still overwhelm all the personal impulse, and sweep away her very life. The girl's face, moved out of all its gentle softness into the gravity almost stern which this consciousness brought, was ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant |
