"Harshness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Gospel from the great apostles. So Paul was impelled to write them a stern letter, dealing them severity such as he nowhere else employs. In fact, it seems almost as if it were going too far to so address Christians; the rebuke might easily have struck weak and tender consciences with intolerable harshness. But, as in the second epistle, seeing how his sternness has startled the Corinthians, he modifies it to some extent, and deals tenderly with ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... exclaimed, on a half-laughing note of peculiar harshness, "I suppose you don't know that I ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... it was terrible to grow old! Not since the death of her husband, Don Carlos, had she endured so bitter a pang. The fact that she had never had any children accounted perhaps for a certain harshness in her nature. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... cronies from boyhood sparred along in give-and-take repartee for some time, finally drifting back to boyhood days, while the harshness that pervaded their conversation ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... the people of America to the death. For twenty-one years after 1780 he lived, pursuing a checkered career. John Fiske said he often looked at the sword given him for his valor at Saratoga, and bemoaned the results of his treason. However that may be, his name is remembered with harshness and disgust, the result of ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe
... animated debate followed, in which Northern men took the lead. Mr. Robert C. Winthrop spoke of the administration with unwonted harshness, declaring that "it and its friends had thought fit, during the present session, to frame more than one of these important measures, so as to leave their opponents in a false position whichever way they voted." ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... at all likely. Defend himself when such extreme harshness as you are going to practice makes the man a very martyr! Nay, I am sure that if he has a million of francs left, which I very much doubt, he would be willing enough to give it in order to have such a termination as this. But what does that matter? ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... black man sit down at the same table with a white guest, unless the express permission of the latter had been first obtained. But apart from this social disparagement, the native does not suffer much actual wrong. Now and then, on a remote farm, the employer will chastise his servant with a harshness he would not venture to apply to a white boy. A shocking case of the kind occurred a few years ago in the eastern province. A white farmer—an Englishman, not a Boer—flogged his Kafir servant so severely ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... point of view, his one enjoyment probably being in the exercise of his art. The affection between mother and son was one of the few bright spots in a boyhood of toil and privation. The father's harshness served to accentuate the kindness of the mother, and he felt her death keenly. He gave a few lessons, most unwillingly, the money from which, together with his salary as assistant organist and a portion of the father's salary, kept the family together, affording them some ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... exercise of paternal authority, and bastardized them both, in order to clear the way to the throne for his son. Edward VI. died a bachelor, in his sixteenth year, so that we can say nothing of him as a parent; but he treated his sister Mary with much harshness, and exhibited on various occasions a disposition to have things his own way that would have delighted his father, provided it had been directed against anybody but that severe old gentleman himself. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... living well upon the manipulation of the weaknesses of their fellow beings—not in all New York was there an adroiter manipulator than Eugene Jennings. He was harsh to brutality when he saw fit to be so—or, rather, when he deemed it wise to be so. Yet never had he lost a paying pupil through his harshness. These were fashionable women—most delicate, sensitive ladies—at whom he swore. They wept, stayed on, advertised him as a "wonderful serious teacher who won't stand any nonsense and doesn't care a hang whether you stay or go—and he can teach absolutely anybody ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... which would again rouse into a fierce flame the glowing embers of pro-Southern sentiment among Englishmen, and restore Southerners to the position of angels of light, and Northerners to that of angels of darkness, in British imaginations. This contingency is harshness in the treatment and trial of ex-President Davis, and more especially his execution as a traitor. Southern sympathizers declare that such a proceeding would be an abominable crime: the steadiest, most thorough, and most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... might put his veto upon it. It seemed to purport, contrary to the Constitution, to attaint the property of rebels after their death, and Lincoln was unwilling that the Constitution should be stretched in the direction of revengeful harshness. The objectionable feature in the Bill was removed, and Lincoln accepted it. But the suspicion with which many Republicans were beginning to regard him was now reinforced by a certain jealousy of Congressmen ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... the harshness gone from his voice, "I don't enjoy fer ter hear yo' sigh thet erway, er ter see ther fur-off look in yo'r purty eyes, 'cause I fears thet hit means thar's some one else then me in ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... and your husband have been treated with some harshness; but our royal ear was deceived by one in whom we had confidence. Your husband and yourself were wrong in marrying without the consent and against the will of your father, and such marriages cannot be permitted; ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... Still the clear fountain retained a portion of its charmed influence, but it reflected only the somber gloom that fell from the impending heavens. That humid and congenial atmosphere which commonly adorned the view, veiling its harshness, and softening its asperities, had disappeared, the northern air poured across the waste of water so harsh and unmingled, that nothing was left to be conjectured by the eye, or fashioned by ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... the door into the yard, flung herself down on the grass. But still she could not get the relief of tears. After a while she sat up and listened. She heard faintly the voices of her uncle and his relatives. Presently her aunt came out to her. She hid her face in her arm and waited for the new harshness to strike. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... of his mouth was lost in the dark moustache, and in the beard combed from the center. The visible part of his face would have made a gambler's fortune; and, save for its warm color, it might have been carved out of ice. Without ever a hint of harshness or loudness, his voice was one to command attention; though it came out soft and velvety, it was with the half assurance that it could ring like steel if the occasion arose. The occasion never arose. The hands, whose fingers thrummed on the glass-topped ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... pretty. Her eyes were large and easily assumed a look of inquiry and innocence, such as one might expect to see in a young girl. By disposition she was retiring; she easily obliterated herself. She was not made for the harshness of the world, and yet she had known these harshnesses in her younger days. Magnus had married her when she was twenty-one years old, at a time when she was a graduate of some years' standing from the State Normal School and was teaching literature, music, and penmanship in a seminary ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... cattle were feeding in the open, scratching away the thin layer of snow and browsing on the tender grass underneath. An arctic world in appearance, it had an abounding life which made it friendly and generous—the harshness belonged to the surface. So, perhaps, it was with the old man who watched the sleigh in the distance coming nearer, but that in his nature on which any one could feed was not so easily reached as the fresh young ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... account of doctor, who insisted on forcing hot coffee down her throat, and for whom Mrs. Venter was desperately afraid; also on account of his violent conduct and harshness in the presence of Death. She could not even die ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... whole of this transaction the Turkish court appears far superior to the Russian in the refinements and graces of polished life. There seems to be something in a southern clime which ameliorates harshness of manners. The Grecian emperors, perhaps, in abandoning their palaces, left also to their conquerors that suavity which has transmitted even to our day the enviable title of ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... cases required more than one summons to appear at the office. No instance is known where a student complained of injustice or harshness, and the effect on his mind was that of greater respect and admiration ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... Dennison saw no need to mince matters. His clear young eyes had made out the one loose thread that sagged and knotted across and across the texture of Brenton's mind. He saw it and, lacking knowledge of its source in Brenton's erratic father, he condemned it with the cocksure harshness of exceeding youth. Without it, Brenton would have been all man. With it, Dolph believed, he was predestined to futility. Indeed, what hope was there for a man who would get himself all waxy over ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... but lacking the Aid he usually had in his Composition, he made a bad grammatical Blunder. I told him, he shou'd not try to pasquinade the Source of his Poesy. At another Time Bozzy (as we us'd to call him) complain'd of my Harshness toward new Writers in the Articles I prepar'd for The Monthly Review. He said, I push'd every Aspirant off the Slopes of Parnassus. "Sir," I reply'd, "you are mistaken. They who lose their Hold do so from their own Want of Strength; but desiring to conceal their Weakness, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... of no importance, and waited with slightly unusual curiosity for the girl's answer, which somewhat astonished her. The voice was nicely modulated, and the intonation free from Western harshness and unmistakably English. ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... liked to have followed her, and given her a good beating, as in the old days, had she dared. Her harshness, however, had much the same effect upon Beth that a beating used to have; it shut her up in herself, and deprived her of the power to take her mother into ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... not until you have seen her,—her I adore. Sit there!" he thundered; and then, with an apparent sense of his own harshness, he fell on his knees before me and kissed my fingers with feverish frenzy. "My queen! my ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... in London, that blessed season between the harshness of winter and the insincerities of summer; a trustful season when one buys bulbs and sees to the registration of one's vote, believing perpetually in spring and a change ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... can you forgive my harshness?"—"Can I!—Yes, indeed, Sir," pressing his hand to my lips; "and bid me Go, and Be gone, twenty times a-day, if I am to be thus kindly called back to you, thus nobly and condescendingly treated, in the same breath!-I see, dear Sir," continued I, "that I ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... her own room when Clara came in, pale and breathless, with news of her father's return. A cry broke from the woman, so thrilling in its exquisite joy, that it won Clara even from a remembrance of the harshness with which her lover had been received. In the birth of her own love, she found intense sympathy for the intense passion that seemed to consume her stepmother like ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... 11 And it came to pass that Laman and Lemuel did take me and bind me with cords, and they did treat me with much harshness; nevertheless, the Lord did suffer it that he might show forth his power, unto the fulfilling of his word which he had spoken concerning ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... of pure spite to Michael, however, when Satan learned who was his billet-master, he would no more receive him than he would receive the Wife of Beth; and instead of treating the unfortunate man with the harshness characteristic of him, he showed him considerable civilities. Introducing him to his "Ben Taigh," he directed her to show the stranger any curiosities he might wish to see, hinting very significantly that he had provided some accommodation for their mutual friend, Michael ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... dearer to me; a family, thank God! no member of which has ever been guilty of dishonour —in regard, further, to the will of your good father to whom you owe so much, and of your, uncle, I wish you to avoid extreme means; avoid harshness and violence: be reconciled with your relatives; do not act apart, but unite. You perceive what disasters our quarrels have brought upon this kingdom, and I anticipate still worse mischiefs; and in your goodness and wisdom, beware of involving ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the thin lips, were those of the Priest, but the voice was different. It had lost something of its harshness—something, too, of its decisiveness. ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Millar, bristling up in her daughter's defence, the assailant being that daughter. "You unkind or unfeeling when there was any call for kindness—whoever heard of such a thing? I should as soon suspect Dora of harshness or levity in the same circumstances. Don't you remember my bad eyes last winter, when I had to get that tincture dropped into them so often that your father could not always be at home to do it? You dropped the tincture as well as ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... which occasionally occur were in the original diary. The delicacy which prompted Patrick Breen to omit these names can not fail to be appreciated. What, if there was sometimes a shade of selfishness, or an act of harshness? What if some families had more than their destitute neighbors? The best provided had little. All were in reality strangely generous. All divided with their afflicted companions. The Reeds had almost nothing to eat when they arrived at the cabins, yet this family is the only one which reached ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... and mechanics; on the other, the most intellectual men of their time such as clergymen and schoolmasters, one of them being Increase Mather. We see in Langley, as in some of his brother New England inventors, the later flowering of the Puritan ideal stripped of its husk of superstition and harshness—a high sense of duty and of integrity, an intense conviction that the reason for a man's life here is that he may give service, a reserved deportment which did not mask from discerning eyes the man's gentle ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... possessed of so singular a mind must themselves be very strange,—and they are strange. It has generally been his object to write down some abuse with which he has been particularly struck,—the harshness, for instance, with which paupers or lunatics are treated, or the wickedness of certain classes,—and he always, I think, leaves upon his readers an idea of great earnestness of purpose. But he has always left at the same time on my mind so strong a conviction that he has ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... commander-in-chief. Nothing remains but individual particles, 26 millions of equal and disconnected atoms. Never was so much disintegrated matter, less capable of resistance, offered to hands undertaking to mold it. Harshness and violence will be sufficient to ensure success. These brutal hands are ready for the work, and the Assembly which has reduced the material to powder has likewise provided the mortar and pestle. As awkward in destruction as it is in construction, it invents for the restoration of order in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... service only in our coastwise monopoly or rotting at the docks, if not broken up. We have gone on steadily protecting ourselves to death, and protecting England and Germany, the chief of our rivals, to life at our own expense of vitality. England's justice to her shipowners, which at first seemed harshness to her shipbuilders, was eventually the means of their prosperity. It set them to "finding out knowledge of witty inventions," and now they have one hundredfold the capital invested and labor employed in iron steamship building, more than ever found occupation in their ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... scarcely any virtue but those of reckless bravery and uncalculating obedience to their leader, their situation still presents some aspects which affect or amuse us; and these the poet has seized with his accustomed skill. Much of the cruelty and repulsive harshness of these soldiers, we are taught to forget in contemplating their forlorn houseless wanderings, and the practical magnanimity, with which even they contrive to wring from Fortune a tolerable scantling of enjoyment. Their manner of existence Wallenstein has, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... is happening," said des Lupeaulx, harshly, for he still thought it best to make a show of harshness. "Read that." ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... her attempts to draw his attention to the song of birds; but it was simply not in him to understand how she loved and craved for music. She was a cloudy little creature, up and down in mood—rather like a brown lady spaniel that she had, now gay as a butterfly, now brooding as night. Any touch of harshness she took to heart fearfully. She was the strangest compound of pride and sell-disparagement; the qualities seemed mixed in her so deeply that neither she nor any one knew of which her cloudy fits were the result. Being so sensitive, she "fancied" things terribly. Things that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his tastes, pampered by his wife, well served by his two servants, cajoled by his daughter, called himself the happiest man in Arcis, and really was so. The feeling of Severine for this nullity of a man never went beyond the protecting pity of a mother for her child. She disguised the harshness of the words she was frequently obliged to say to him by a joking manner. No household was ever more tranquil; and the aversion Phileas felt for society, where he went to sleep, and where he could not play cards (being incapable of learning ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... inhospitable, and strangely metallic, met his gaze. The rays of the sun beating down upon it were thrown back with an uncomfortable intensity; the substance of the island was a lustrous, copperlike metal. No soil softened the harshness of the surface; indescribably rugged and pitted was the two hundred-foot expanse. It reminded Parkinson of a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... deepest abysses of sorrow. He played it with the feeling of a man who had himself known what it was to be very near the brink of despair. Never had Theresa seen a human countenance with an expression such as Mansana's then wore. Its ordinary stern composure was exaggerated to an almost repulsive harshness; but she could see tear after tear swiftly welling over his cheeks. All the energy of his resolute will seemed concentrated in the effort to retain his self-command, and yet it appeared that in spite of his desperate efforts ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... punish Mara for his harshness. On one occasion he gave him a public caning and on another he sent him to a field regiment, noted for the rigid severity of its discipline, to be enrolled as a drummer for three months, accompanying the order with the mot, "His propensity for beating shall have the fullest exercise on the drum." ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... head. "Don't jump overboard, Beatrice," he answered, some of the harshness gone from his tones. "It isn't my purpose to kill you—and to jump over into this stream only means to die—'for any one except the most powerful swimmer. You'd be carried down in ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... glass to him. She was happier and hoped for some little harshness and kindness mixed that she might carry away to travel with and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... really interested in my honour; but in my increasing impatience, I told him I wanted none of his cant; I simply asked him a favour, which he would grant or decline as he thought proper. This was a harshness of language I had never indulged in; but my mind was sore under the existing causes of my annoyance, and I could not bear to have my motives reflected on at a moment when my heart was torn with all the agonies attendant on the position in which I found ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... whip her, Faith, but I'll go up and lecture her good. I believe that will be more effective than harshness." ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the desk, her revolver held negligently, the speaker favoured Lanyard with a more leisurely inspection; the harshness of her stare was softened, and the anger which at first had darkened her countenance was gone by the time she chose to ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Officers and chief Ministers taking the Oath, Friedrich, to his Officers, "on whom he counts for the same zeal now which he had witnessed as their comrade," recommends mildness of demeanor from the higher to the lower, and that the common soldier be not treated with harshness when not deserved: and to his Ministers he is still more emphatic, in the like or a higher strain. Officially announcing to them, by Letter, that a new Reign has commenced, he uses these words, legible soon ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... guilty of gross unfairness, giving the English Government private information that the Emperor's complaints of ill-usage were utterly unfounded, and yet then and afterwards aiding and assisting the delusion in France as to the harshness of Sir Hudson Lowe's conduct towards his captive. Sir Walter, when using these remarkable documents, guessed that Gourgaud might be inclined to fix a personal quarrel on himself; and there now appeared in ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... springs of his being were dried up at their source. As a matter of fact, he was thoroughly out of health, as well as out of spirits; he had been over-working himself in London, and was scarcely out of the doctor's hands before he went to Scotland; then the shock of his brother's death and the harshness of his mother toward him had contributed their share to the utter disorganisation of his faculties. In short, Brian was not himself at all; it might even be said that he was out of his right mind. He had attacks of headache, generally terminating ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and I must not complain. Nay, if Heaven shuts my father's heart against me, it overpays my little merit in the tenderness of my mother—O that dear mother! yes, Bianca, 'tis there I feel the rugged temper of Manfred. I can support his harshness to me with patience; but it wounds my soul when I am witness to his causeless severity ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... little that she had with her brother's orphans, or that she would share it less willingly with her than with the others. The unwillingness was on her part. And the root of this unwillingness was pride, and an unforgiving remembrance of what she called her aunt's harshness to her. Aunt Elsie had been at times more or less hard with all her nieces. But she had been so to Christie in a way different from the rest; and the child was willing to believe that the cause lay less in her waywardness than in her aunt's unjust ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... things," he promptly replied, "require different natures." To which he simply added, as with the habit of authority, though not of harshness, "Go!" ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... is harder to bear than physical," quoth practical Miss Deborah, in no way convinced of her harshness by the gentle speech. "If one were to have one's choice, I reckon," with strong Yankeeism, "a headache would be chosen in preference to a heartache," and Aunt Debby nodded her ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... feet deeply moved. The harshness vanished from his face which was now alight with wonderment and love. Dressed in a muslin frock and straw hat, she looked simple and fresh, and yet carried the air and distinction which had always marked her in any company. But though she smiled into his eyes ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... harshness of the voices and the words sounded like a message from heaven. Their distress was that neither Allan's voice nor my own was distinguishable. Glad they were when we emerged from the trees and joined them round the fire that had been made to blaze as a guide to us. ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... elegant, and the shrill harshness of the girl's voice jarred upon Hawtrey, though he was getting accustomed to Sally's phraseology. He, however, recognised that she would not have his help, even if it would have been of much avail, which was doubtful, and he reluctantly moved back towards the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... Charleston was very rapid. I certainly was in no hurry to have it over, when I had so disagreeable a prospect before me as a trial, and not impossibly an execution. I was treated with less harshness than the rest of the prisoners—perhaps on account of my youth—perhaps because some believed me innocent. I fain ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... bachelorhood. But he rarely allowed himself to entertain the idea of her leaving, seriously. He was like a child, snuggly tucked in his warm bed who, listening to the howling of the wind outside, pictures himself exposed to its harshness in order to luxuriate the more in its ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... the personal appearance of Marius, I saw a stone statue[52] of him at Ravenna in Gaul, which was perfectly in accordance with what is said of the roughness and harshness of his character. He was naturally of a courageous and warlike turn, and had more of the discipline of the camp than of the state, and accordingly his temper was ungovernable when he was in the possession ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... I don't like the look of this at all. And I say it not out of harshness to him, poor fellow, but out of tenderness to you. For how could a woman, brought up delicately as you have been, bear the roughness of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... serious with us, Paula—at least with me: and there are times when this restraint is really unbearable. It is possible to put up with reserve when the reserved being is by one's side, for the eyes may reveal what the lips do not. But when she is absent, what was piquancy becomes harshness, tender railleries become cruel sarcasm, and tacit understandings misunderstandings. However that may be, you shall never be able to reproach me for touchiness. I still esteem you as a friend; I admire you and love you as a woman. ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... may make the piano or violin ring forth in happiness or moan in sadness. Even his whole room or house may be penetrated by his spirit of welcoming cordiality or his emotional setting of forbidding harshness. The feeling of the soul emanates into the surroundings and the impression which we get of our neighbor's emotional attitude may be derived from this external frame of the personality as much as from the gestures and ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... lived among those placid and humane people to be sensible that servitude, hopeless, endless servitude, could exist with so little servility and fear on the one side, and so little harshness or even sternness of authority on the other. In Europe, the footing on which service is placed in consequence of the corruptions of society, hardens the heart, destroys confidence, and embitters life. The deceit and venality of servants ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... grammar also belongeth, as an appendix, the consideration of the accidents of words; which are measure, sound, and elevation or accent, and the sweetness and harshness of them: whence hath issued some curious observations in rhetoric, but chiefly poesy, as we consider it, in respect of the verse and not of the argument. Wherein though men in learned tongues do tie ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... soft in its outline; the harshness died out of her bright eyes, leaving them lovely beyond expression. Gladys felt drawn to her once more, and, leaning forward, without a moment's hesitation she kissed her on the brow. It was a very simple act, no effort to the child who had learned from her ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... height, rather lean than otherwise, he had deep-set eyes, a mean appearance, his hair was coarse, black and thin, which, say the biographers of his time, made him take early to the skull-cap. A look of severity, or harshness even, a sort of stiffness, which, with inferiors, was pride, with superiors an affectation of superior virtue; a surly cast of countenance upon all occasions, even when looking at himself in a glass alone—such is the exterior ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... here's one in place I cannot pardon] After the pardon of two murderers, Lucio might be treated by the good duke with less harshness; but perhaps the poet intended to show, what is too often seen, that men easily forgive wrongs which are not ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... the first Lord Baltimore, with this same design had attempted to plant a colony in Newfoundland. But having failed on account of the severity of the climate, he visited Virginia. When he found that the Catholics were there treated with great harshness, he returned to England, took out a grant of land, and bestowed upon it, in honor of the queen, Henrietta Maria, the name Maryland. Ere the patent had received the great seal of the king, Lord Baltimore died. His ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... of the harshness with which English prisoners were treated; thus, when he found himself regarded rather as an honoured guest than as a prisoner of war, ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... was amazed and wept as they do in a theater, rightly complained to his friends that they had killed him, not cured him, when they roused him from his state of hallucination. There are some illusions so beautiful, so healthful, and so pleasant, that we would that no harshness of this world's ways, no bitter experience, no sad reality, could awaken us from them. It is these, we fancy, that the poet tells us to trust to; such are the illusions—so-called by the world—to which we are always to give our faith. It ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... I helped you to your present enterprise," said the priest, "on that very account. Life is harsh enough without adding to its harshness." ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... at this disloyalty in himself and harshness to his darling, yet disposed to persevere in it, a horribly cruel thought crossed his mind. He would not call for her, as he had promised, at the end of a quarter of an hour! Yes, it would be a punishment she well deserved. ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... him, and as nobody could have suborned him but Agrippina, he ordered her off to instant execution. And, unquestionably, if people will not be murdered quietly and in a civil way, they must expect that such forbearance is not to continue for ever; and obviously have themselves only to blame for any harshness or violence which ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... judgment of the prudent man that must define in each case the golden mean in relation to ourselves, which every moral virtue aims at. Thus, without prudence, fortitude passes into rashness, vindictive justice into harshness, clemency into ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... was sent at an early age, Luther was treated with harshness and even violence. So great was the poverty of his parents, that upon going from home to school in another town he was for a time obliged to obtain his food by singing from door to door, and he often suffered from hunger. The gloomy, superstitious ideas of religion then prevailing filled ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... retired for a time from all company; and it is said that to the end of her life she could never hear or pronounce his name without tears. Although she was not sufficiently mistress of herself in those fits of rage to which she was occasionally liable, to refrain from treating him with a harshness and contempt which sometimes moved the old man even to weeping, her behaviour towards him satisfactorily evinced on the whole her deep sense of his fidelity and various merits as a minister, and her affection for him as a man. He ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... their halting-place could boast. Here many visits were paid to him by the ministers and officers of the insurgent force. In his description of these interviews he displays a vein of satiric severity, admitting any kindness that was done to him with some qualifying souvenir of former harshness, and gloating over any injury, mistake, or folly, which it was his chance to suffer or to hear. He appears, notwithstanding all this, to have been on pretty good terms with his cruel "phanaticks," as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tenderness. She neglected him more; the man, his father, became her child, and the poor little fellow remained as mere testimony of their great passion of yore. As she saw him grow up, and no longer require so much care, she began to sacrifice him, without intentional harshness, but merely because she felt like that. At meal-times she only gave him the inferior bits; the cosiest nook near the stove was not for his little chair; if ever the fear of an accident made her tremble now and then, her first cry, her first protecting movement was not for ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... and be sure that all harshness and cruelty to your children, all terrifying of them, all over-working of them, body or mind, all making them unhappy by requiring of them more than the plain law of God requires; or by teaching them to dread, not to love, their Father in heaven—All these will stunt and hurt their ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... "the chapter under consideration may, perhaps, belong to the period of the real Isaiah, whose language equals that of the description of the Servant of God now [Pg 326] under consideration, in conciseness and harshness, and may have been originally a Psalm of consolation in sufferings, which was composed with a view to the hopeful progeny of some pious man or prophet innocently killed, and which was rewritten and interpreted ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... the play, there has been a noticeable ambiguity as to the person of Dionysus, the main figure of the piece; he is in part Dionysus, indeed; but in part, only his messenger, or minister preparing his way; a certain harshness of effect in the actual appearance of a god upon the stage being in this way relieved, or made easy, as by a gradual revelation in two steps. To Pentheus, in his invincible ignorance, his essence remains ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... in Italy during the 18th century. On these tragedies it is difficult to pronounce a judgment, as the taste and system of the author underwent considerable change and modification during the intervals which elapsed between the three periods of their publication. An excessive harshness of style, an asperity of sentiment and total want of Poetical ornament are the characteristics of his first four tragedies, Filippo, Polinice, Antigone and Virginia. These faults were in some measure corrected in the six tragedies which he gave to the world some years after, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to drift listlessly hither and thither in the current of memory. Everywhere they encountered wreckage, derelicts; defeated aspirations, broken hopes. Languidly he envisaged these. He was too tired to resent, to rebel. He even found a certain sluggish satisfaction in recognising with what unvarying harshness destiny had treated him, in ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... observe anything like system, either in his conduct or studies. Our teacher, though very firm, was mild and judicious in his government; and, thinking that possibly Ned's disposition had been injured by former harshness at school, resolved to avoid inflicting corporal punishment as long as possible; and try upon him the effect of kindness and mild persuasion. He had one very annoying habit, and that was he would very seldom give a satisfactory answer if suddenly asked a direct question, and often his ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... morosity hatred of what is bad. For their actions and motions and whole demeanour argue great littleness and meanness, not only when they are fierce with little boys, and peevish with women, and think it right to treat dogs and horses and mules with harshness, as Otesiphon the pancratiast thought fit to kick back a mule that had kicked him, but even in the butcheries that tyrants commit their littleness of soul is apparent in their savageness, and their suffering in their action, so that they are like the bites ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the effect of power. I do not mean to say that we must not play with all the force we have at times; we even have to pound and bang occasionally to produce the needed effects. This only proves again that a tone may be beautiful, though in itself harsh, if this harshness comes in the ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... the Major went at once to Rodman's room where he found the boy gazing from the window, with a hard, defiant, expression on his face. He was longing for a single loving word; for a mother's sympathetic ear into which he might pour his griefs; but his pride was prepared to withstand any harshness, as well as to resent the faintest ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... Marlborough by Mr. Walter Plummer, he was cited before the house, as for breach of privilege, and accused, I suppose very unjustly, of opening letters to detect them. He was treated with great harshness and severity, but declining their questions by pleading his oath of secrecy, was at last dismissed. And it must be recorded to his honour, that when he was ejected from his office, he did not think himself discharged from his trust, but continued to refuse to his nearest friends any ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... pray confine yourself to your own affairs, and leave me to settle mine. There shall be no harshness; nobody shall suffer more than they deserve. There, don't break down, go and rest, for there are painful scenes ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Mr. Millbank, interrupting him, though not with harshness; 'that is to say, there is no conceivable marriage which could be effected at greater sacrifices, and which would occasion ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... however, was not destined to drop here. Something had appeared in the young caballero's bearing, which made it painful to have addressed him with harshness, or for a moment to have entertained such a charge against such a person. He despatched his cousin, therefore, Don Antonio Calderon, to offer his apologies, and at the same time to request that the stranger, whose rank and quality he regretted not to have known, would do him ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... given you reasons for my late harshness, You'll pardon, and excuse me: for, believe me; Tho' now I part abruptly in my service, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... the beautiful wife were not confusing him now. He spoke to the helpless husband quietly and seriously, without his customary harshness, and with a grave compassion in his manner which presented him at his best. The sight of ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins |
