The President listened attentively, and with the expression, half sad and half droll, with which he softened the asperities of official life, said, humorously: "I wish by such simple means as courts-martial we could find out more such soldiers as this; we need all of that sort we can get."

But though misfortune had taught him asperity upon certain subjects, it had not corrupted his manners, debauched his integrity, or narrowed his heart.

It is in the case of women wage earners that these laws bear the peculiar asperity.

The air soon came sighing heavily over the deep from the north-west, bringing with it the chilling asperity of the inhospitable regions of the Canadas.

I honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much censure his asperity.

Yet, though it was quite evident that there was nothing in the world else she cared so much to do, and though indeed it was equally evident that she was one of the best-natured little creatures in the world, she did not deny herself a certain more or less constant asperity of reference to occupations which kept her on her feet from morning till night, and made her the slave of the whole house, in spite of four big idle daughters.

No words can describe the confusion of this sea of icethe hopeless asperity of it, the weariness of its torn and tortured surface.

In every line of the Divine Comedy we discern the asperity which is produced by pride struggling with misery.

She had also interpreted some of her daughter's submissive replies to her admonitions on the subject as a promise that she would not ride, and she scolded her severely (no weaker word can express the asperity of her language) for neglect of her engagement, as well as for the risk of accidents which are incurred by those who follow the hounds, and some of which, as she heard, had befallen the dauphiness herself.

These words jarred the Wooster pride, inducing asperity.

Disappointment and misfortune are calculated to inspire asperity into the gentlest heart.

When he went back to his book again his sense of power had lost its asperity, and the spectacle of life seemed less like a witless dangling of limp dolls.

The grief of the King was sincere and excessive, as well as that of the nation, and his affliction softened his character and mitigated his asperity against Marlborough, Shortly after the death of his queen, William made Marlborough governor of the Duke of Gloucester, then (1698) a very promising prince, in the tenth year of his age.

The clergyman, by force of character, has at all events succeeded in moderating the personal asperity of the contending parties.

It is indeed natural for injury to provoke anger, and by continual repetition to produce an habitual asperity; yet I have hitherto struggled with so much vigilance against my pride and my resentment, that I have preserved my temper uncorrupted.

The Merle twin was regretting these asperities.

Father O'Grady asked; and then, remembering a certain asperity in Father Oliver's last letter, he thought it prudent to change the conversation.

A man, whose original principles had been so full of rectitude and honour, could not fail at some time to recollect the injustice of his conduct, and to remit his asperity.

The sensation was unpleasant, but I began to hope that no worse would befall me, and I knew that with a few dulcet words in private I could remove from Saccharissa's mind the asperity induced by my friend's caricature.

[20] Heriot says (page 320), "They have evinced a decided attachment to their ancient habits, and have gained less from the means that might have smoothed the asperities of their condition, than they have lost by copying the vices of those, who exhibited to their view the arts of civilization.

In other words, he began, as Signer Guasti pithily describes his method, 'to change halves of lines, whole verses, ideas: if he found a fragment, he completed it: if brevity involved the thought in obscurity, he amplified: if the obscurity seemed incurable, he amputated: for superabundant wealth of conception he substituted vacuity; smoothed asperities; softened salient lights.'

In his recent book, full of shallow asseverations and brilliant generalizations, M. LeBon says, "The discoveries due to the intelligence are the common patrimony of humanity; qualities or defects of character constitute the exclusive patrimony of each people: they are the firm rock which the waters must wash day by day for centuries, before they can wear away even its external asperities.

" "But if Chopin was with me devotion, kind attention, grace, obligingness, and deference in person, he had not for all that abjured the asperities of character towards those who were about me.

Recollect how serious every dispute becomes upon paper, when a man writes a thousand asperities merely to show or support his superior ability.

I believe they were necessary to allay asperities and animosities that were rapidly alienating one section of the country from another and destroying those fraternal sentiments which are the strongest supports of the Constitution.