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Tempering   Listen
noun
Tempering  n.  (Metal.) The process of giving the requisite degree of hardness or softness to a substance, as iron and steel; especially, the process of giving to steel the degree of hardness required for various purposes, consisting usually in first plunging the article, when heated to redness, in cold water or other liquid, to give an excess of hardness, and then reheating it gradually until the hardness is reduced or drawn down to the degree required, as indicated by the color produced on a polished portion, or by the burning of oil.
Tempering color, the shade of color that indicates the degree of temper in tempering steel, as pale straw yellow for lancets, razors, and tools for metal; dark straw yellow for penknives, screw taps, etc.; brown yellow for axes, chisels, and plane irons; yellow tinged with purple for table knives and shears; purple for swords and watch springs; blue for springs and saws; and very pale blue tinged with green, too soft for steel instruments.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tempering" Quotes from Famous Books



... drained while yet warm, placed on loops and charged into the furnace for the third or tempering heat. The temperature of the furnace was brought to 1,100 deg.F. in 1 hr., and the rods soaked at this degree of heat for 1 hr. They were then removed from the furnace the same as for quenching, but were dumped onto steel platforms instead ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin

... lady with the lovely boy: her own pledge (was it a pledge not to marry him?)—the new disbelief in the worth of men and things for which that scene of disclosure had become a symbol. That unalterable experience made a vision at which in the first agitated moment, before tempering reflections could suggest themselves, her ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... to the bunk in invitation. "Can you tell me what is known?" He was still somewhat at a loss, his old secret awe of Ashe tempering his outward show of eagerness. Ross still feared one of those snubs the other so well knew how to deliver to the bumptious. But Ashe did come in and sit down, none of his old ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... childhood, and the great nervous excitability of my temperament, it is a wonder that my mind did not reel, if not succumb— but I now began to combat the approaches of one sort of insanity with the actual presence of another—I wrote verses. That was "tempering the wind to the shorn lamb," as Sterne would have expressed it, after the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... silent for a long time. The light wood-fire on the hearth crackled and burned to ashes, but it had done its office in tempering the chill of the autumn evening, and through the half-open door stole the 'sweet decaying smell' of the fallen leaves, while the hush of an Indian-summer night seemed to calm our very hearts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... The tempering of tools is a very important factor in their efficiency. It is only of too common occurrence to find many of the tools manufactured of late years unfit for use on account of their softness of metal. There is nothing more vexatious ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack

... was 64 ft. long and was provided with a slow motion electric hoist, by which the cars containing the concrete were elevated to the top of the traveler and thence transferred to any desired position. The concrete was dumped from these cars into boxes where any remixing or tempering that was required was done, after which the concrete was shoveled directly into the forms. The entire operation of handling the materials of the concrete, it will be seen, utilized gravity ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... becomes reminiscent of our childhood's "teeter." Conceiving a long space from foreground to distance, occupied with varied degrees of interest, it is apparent how easily one end may become too heavy for the other. The tempering of such a chain of items until the equipoise is attained must be coordinate with the effort toward ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... the crown and crowned him with it; and he sat upon the throne calmly, serenely, like a Sultan of the great race accustomed to sovereignty, tempering the awfulness of his brows with benignant glances. So, while he sat the damsels hid their faces and started some paces from him, as unable to bear the splendour of his presence, and in a moment, lo! the door closed between him and them, and he was in darkness. Then he heard a voice of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... that to work all by day or all by night is to miss something of the powers of a complex mind. One might imagine the rhythmic experience of a poet, subject, like a child, to the time, and tempering the extremities of either state by messages of ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... for a comparatively short time only, while trees continue such functions, with unabated vigor, for many months in succession. Upon the whole, it seems quite certain, that no cultivated ground is as efficient in tempering climatic extremes, or in conservation of geographical surface and outline, as is the soil ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... any more hodmen to be carrying up the weight of themselves in their hod, as well as their bricks; I would much prefer seeing the poor human machines tempering the mortar or wheeling the barrow, while the donkey engine, the hydraulic lift, or the old gray ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... meadow, beyond the old garden where the robins and bluebirds were house-hunting. Friend Barton's trouble stirred with the life-blood of the year, and pressed upon him sorely; but as yet he gave it no words. He plodded about, among his lean kine, tempering the winds of March to his untimely lambs, and reconciling unnatural ewes to their ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... for us to draw any screen between our happy eyes and the Face in which we 'behold the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father.' All the tempering that the divine lustre needed has been done by Him who veils His glory with the veil of Christ's flesh, and therein does away the need for any ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... tree!" he added. "Is it not a beauty? Does it not express the poetry of the southern winter, tepid and quiet? It is like a word of sweetness, of happy innocence, tempering the severity of ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various

... darkened music room, and the soft-stepping, liveried butler had just set the tea table before them, At one end of the long room a cheery fire snapped and crackled in the huge fireplace, tempering the sharpness of the early spring day and casting a ruddy glow upon the tapestried walls and polished floor in front, where dozed the Beaubien's two "babies," Japanese and Pekingese spaniels of registered pedigree and fabulous value. Among the heavy beams of the lofty ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... filled his heart, his mind, and his spirit. If, by its influence over any one human being, regarded as an unqualified, unmodified style of piety, demanding entire allegiance, and not yielding to any mitigation through the tempering qualities of an individual,—if, of itself and by itself, Puritanism could be made lovely to us, John Winthrop might well be charged with that exacting representative office. We repeat, that we have no abatement to make of our exalted regard for him through force of a single ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... high Honour's thoughts; And on the pendant, fixed on his lance, A hand is catching at the sunny beams: Et gloriam Phoebi, and the sun's bright coach Honour would guide, if he might have his will. His page is Action, tempering still with state. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... wind hath come up from ye west, tempering ye heate and broil of ye towne, and whisperynge to me of cool forest glades and greene paths bye a rushynge river. Straightwaie closynge mine eyen to gette a cleare vision of ye same, I am minded of deare friendes whose feete have kept time with mine along ye ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... gentle, of affections mild; In wit, a muse; simplicity, a child: With native humour tempering virtuous rage, Formed to delight at once and lash the age: Above temptation, in a low estate, And uncorrupted, ev'n among the Great: A safe companion and an easy friend, Unbiased through life, lamented in thy end, These are ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... still deeper interest in the transaction, whom do we see mingling brilliantly in the conflict, partaking of the triumph, and benevolently tempering and guiding its results? Lafayette, our own Lafayette, the brave, the good, the friend of man. Well may we call him our own: for he gave to us the flower of his youth! freely sacrificed the splendors of a court, all the pleasures and enjoyments natural to his age, nay his fortune ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt

... crystalline, and so is not ductile or malleable; it is hard and brittle, and cannot be welded. On account of its low melting-point it is generally employed for castings. Steel is crystalline in structure, and when suddenly cooled from red heat by plunging into cold water, becomes hard and brittle. The tempering can be varied by afterwards heating to any required degree, indicated by the color of the oxide formed on the exterior. The higher ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams

... this simple sketch, and with what promptness they presented themselves to confer at nine o'clock in the morning with their client's adversary! In short, at half-past twelve the duel was arranged in its slightest detail. The energy employed by Montfanon had only ended in somewhat tempering the conditions—four balls to be exchanged at twenty-five paces at the word of command. The duel was fixed for the following morning, in the inclosure which Cibo owned, with an inn adjoining, not very far distant from the classical tomb of Cecilia ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... some experiments on hardening and tempering steel in which we can help you. I hope when you do come to town you will let us have the pleasure of doing so. Our apparatus, such as it is, shall be entirely at your service. I made, a long while ago, a few such experiments on steel wire, but could eliminate ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... definition—her living consciousness, stand in the captain's cabin of the ocean-bound tramp, making Darcy Faircloth turn smiling in his sleep, he having vision and glad sense of her—which stayed by him, tempering his humour to a peculiar serenity throughout the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... Engine, she brings into the field, to remove her enemy; or her handmaid, either for evacuating the impurities of the blood, or for reducing it into a New State: Secondly, that the true and genuine cure of this sickness consists in such a tempering of the Commotion of the Blood, that it may neither exceed, nor be too languide: This, I say, being premised by the Author, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... dun and faint ethereal gloom Tempering the light. Upon the chariot beam A Janus-visaged ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... Miss March, a slight reserve tempering her frank manner; but it soon vanished, and she began talking to me in her usual friendly way, asking me many questions about the Brithwoods and about Norton Bury. I answered them freely—my only reservation being, that I took care not to give ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... contact with it until the required color appears. This for tools to be used in turning steel, iron, and brass may be a straw color. For turning wood it may be softer. The main point to be observed in tempering a tool is to have it as hard as possible without danger of its being broken while in use. By a little experiment the amateur will be able to suit the temper of his tools to the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various

... corporate economic organization; and we have been inquiring into the implications of this decision. Those implications include, according to the results of the foregoing discussion, not only a repeal of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, but the tempering of the recognition with certain statutory regulations. It by no means follows that such regulation satisfies all the objects of a constructive national economic policy. In fact it does not satisfy the needs of a national economic policy at all, just ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... As already indicated, I was conscious of no mean alloy of the Demosthenic gold tempering the baser metal of my general composition. My voice was deep ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... January a dispatch arrived from 12 Belgica, in which Pompeius Propinquus,[32] the imperial agent, announced that the legions of Upper Germany had broken their oath of allegiance and were clamouring for a new emperor, but that by way of tempering their treason they referred the final choice to the Senate and People of Rome. Galba had already been deliberating and seeking advice as to the adoption of a successor, and this occurrence hastened ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... let her think so, if she would: it was a far better alternative than my own sad thoughts about the business: and, however painful was the process, it was something consolatory to observe, that this voluntary humiliation mellowed and chastened her own character, subduing tropical fires, and tempering the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... It was as though Fleda's fingers were laid upon his own; as though she whispered in his ear and her breath swept his cheek; as though she was there in the room beside him, making the darkness light, tempering the wind of chastisement to his naked soul. In the overstrain of his nervous system the illusion was powerful. He thought he heard her voice. The pistol slipped from his fingers, and he fell back on the pillow with a sigh. The will beyond his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... been aspirants for the imperial throne of Germany and Francis had suffered defeat, the latter had assiduously devoted himself to the retributory task of gaining the ascendancy over his successful rival. And now, although the tempering years had assuaged their erstwhile passions and each had professed to eschew war and its violence, might not this temptation prove too great for Francis to resist a last blow at the emperor's prestige? How easy to affect disbelief of a fool, to overthrow the fabric of friendship between ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... by nature of the order of shorn lambs, and Providence, tempering the inclemency of the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... pink lamp shade, the white cloth with its silver and glass table furniture—for in those days even philosophical writers had many little luxuries—the crimson-purple wine in my glass, are photographically distinct. At the end of it I sat, tempering nuts with a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy's rashness, and denouncing the shortsighted ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... depends on what we have been accustomed to, and on how widely the new differs from the old, but in no case can we fuse and assimilate more than a very little new at a time without exhausting our tempering power—and hence ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... smith, e'en Ilmarinen, Pondered over what was needed, Mixed a small supply of ashes, And some lye he added to it, 210 To the blue steel's smelting mixture, For the tempering ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... opinion to conduct Tempering considerations Not to be pressed too far Our action in realising our opinions depends on our social theory Legitimate and illegitimate compromise in view of that The distinction equally sound on the ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... this Parthian shot. Zachariah, being a true philosopher, rested his case without further argument. He appeared to have given himself up to reflection. Presently Hattie, tempering her voice ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use, our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities ...
— Inaugural Presidential Address - Contributed Transcripts • Barack Hussein Obama

... trusty, &c.] The capital city of New Castile, Spain, with an archbishopric and primacy. It was very famous, amongst other things, for tempering the best metal for swords, as Damascus was and perhaps may ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... of opposing theories stood Richard Caswell, a man of excellent discretion and great practical common sense, who, happily tempering the fierce democracy of Jones with the more cautious conservatism of Johnston, possessed, in a rare degree, the confidence of the people of North Carolina of every faction. A Marylander by birth, he came to North Carolina when quite a youth, without fortune or friends, ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... for governing, soothing, and tempering the passions of men is conspicuous in the conduct of Columbus on the occasion of the mutiny of his crew. The dignity and affability of his manners, his surprising knowledge and experience in naval affairs, his unwearied and minute attention to the duties ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... Hath sought to bruise the brain, the sensitive will, The conscience of the world, For this, England, art risen, and shalt fight Purely through long profoundest night, Making their quarrel thine who are grieved like thee; And (if to thee the stars yield victory) Tempering their hate of the great foe that hurled Vainly her strength against the conscience of ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman

... projecting, the nose aquiline, his hair inclined to auburn. Withal his countenance was attractive, and had a certain manly beauty. To judge from his portraits, his face expressed the features of his mind: it is mildness tempering strength; fiery ardour shining through clouds of suffering and disappointment; it is at once meek, tender, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... there is glorious sunshine, while below are showers and gloom, so with the conduct of man—behind the gloom of anxiety is a bright fountain of high and noble feeling. Think of this in those moments when clouds seem to lower upon your domestic peace, and, by tempering your conduct accordingly, the gloom will soon pass away, and warmth and brightness take ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... to be withstood. Australia suffered herself to be shorn, in view of the future tempering ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan

... the men of the Bearnais, mostly from towns of size and circumstance—educated men, of self-command, tempering the southern warmth which burns in their eyes by the calm intelligence born of experience in life and also by a natural languor like that of their ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin

... in general. Particularly was he interested in everything pertaining to the prehistoric mining of copper by a people, presumably Aztecs or their close kin, who possessed the art, long since lost, of tempering that metal. ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... on the cliffs, lay the Army of England: [Footnote: The Army of England was Napoleon's name for the Army of Invasion.] such a sword, now two years a-tempering, as even he, the Great ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... to wondering what Sharp would have done had all his time been his to do as he would with. Such wonderment is, of course, idle, idle as that as to what Keats would have done had he lived, for a man's art is judged by what it is, with no tempering of the appraisement by what the man's life has been. Fortunately there is inspiring work in plenty in Sharp, in this, as in other phases of his work, to make readers turn to him when interest in him as a phenomenon of current literature has passed away. It is hard to think of the time ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... square; in Horology or Time-keeping, from the sun-dial and the water-clock to the watch, and to the chronometer, by which the mariner is assisted in measuring his longitude, and in saving property and life; in the extraction, forging, and tempering of Iron and other ores having malleability to be wrought into all forms and used for all purposes, and supplying, instead of the stone hatchet or the fish-shell of the savage, an almost infinite variety ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... glorious day, with a fresh breeze tempering the heat of the sun, and we rode along gaily. My comrade had already learned habits of caution, but there was really no danger, and late in the afternoon we reached Noyers, where, after a short delay, I ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx

... so frozen but dissolves with tempering, And yields at last to every light impression? Things out of hope are compass'd oft with venturing, Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission: 568 Affection faints not like a pale-fac'd coward, But then woos best when most ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... around the sparkling board, And welcome warmed the cup that luxury poured; When the bright future Star of England's throne, With magic smile, hath o'er the banquet shone, Winning respect, nor claiming what he won, But tempering greatness, like an evening sun Whose light the eye can tranquilly admire, Radiant, but mild, all softness, yet all fire;— Whatever hue my recollections take, Even the regret, the very pain they wake ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... Benedictine system met these conditions by a unique combination and application of well-known monastic principles; by a judicious subordination of minor matters to essential discipline; by bringing into greater prominence the doctrine of labor; by tempering the austerities of the cell to meet the necessities of a severe climate; and lastly, by devising a scheme of life equally adaptable to the monk of sunny Italy and the rude Goth ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... Behind these arcades one can pass from street to street with brief egress into the awful downpour of the sun, and they give to both towns an effect of architectural beauty. At that time palms and cocoanuts grew in profusion along the streets of Frederikstadt and in the gardens, tempering the glare of ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... in the hinder end not aboue eight inches. Now for the Plough-Irons which doe belong vnto this plough, the Coulture is to be made circular, in such proportion as the coulture for the gray, or white clay, and in the placing, or tempering vpon the Plough it is to be set an inch at least lower then the share, that it may both make way before the share, and also cut deeper into the land, to make the furrow ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham

... which might have been heard far out on the loch. They were still clawing and cuffing each other in blind rage, when a hand, heavy and remorseless, was laid upon each. Sholto found himself being dabbled in the great tempering cauldron which stood by his father's forge. Laurence heard his own teeth rattle as he was shaken sideways till his joints waggled like those of a puppet at Keltonhill Fair. Then it was his turn to be doused in the water. Next their heads were soundly knocked ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... tempering the warmth of the sun and bringing brine and the odour of seaweed to mingle with the perfume ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae

... opposition or a merely partisan support. Of their journal it may be said, that there has, in all our times, shone no such continual light on public affairs, there has stood no such sure defence of whatever was needful to be upheld. Tempering the heats of both sides,—re-nationalizing all spirit of section,—combating our propensity to lawlessness at home and aggression abroad,—spreading constantly on each question of the day a mass of sound information,—the venerable editors have been, all the while, a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... that some of their porphyry carvings will turn the edge of the best-tempered knife, we are forced to conclude that they possessed that singular process, known to the Mexicans and Peruvians of tempering copper to ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... destitute of trees. It was now the height of summer, and these naked plains would be intolerable to the traveller were it not for the breezes which swept over them during the fervor of the day, bringing with them tempering airs from the distant mountains. To the prevalence of these breezes, and to the want of all leafy covert, may we also attribute the freedom from those flies and other insects so tormenting to man and beast during the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... two illustrious members of the Royal Society should have distinguished themselves on Angling. Nearly 200 years ago, Prince Rupert studied the art of tempering fish-hooks; and the other day Sir Humphry Davy published ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various

... respite was something in the nature of an inversion of the tempering of the wind. Perhaps a strange Providence was giving her a few moments in which to strengthen herself for the blow that was to follow so quickly. It is of small consequence, however. These things pass in a lifetime ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... are you, Ellen?" she said, with that indescribable gentleness tempering her fierceness of nature which gave her caresses the fascination of some little, untamed animal. Ellen pressed her round young arm tenderly against ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... hydraulic power in its rapid streams. At the beginning of the reign of Charles V, a great number of forges and blast furnaces heated with wood were installed in Namurois. According to Guicciardini "there was a constant hammering, forging, smelting and tempering in so many furnaces, among so many flames, sparks and so much smoke, that it seemed as if one were in the glowing forges of Vulcan." Such a description must not be taken too literally, and the beginnings of the metal industry in the Southern provinces were very modest indeed, ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... God prepares and tempers us, to our lot, and shows us how to be happy and content, if we are willing, in whatever land He places us, and with whatever He provides for us. And thus He was tempering Bobby and ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... carnation: with Roses white, redde, Damaske, Muske, and yealow cast vppon the same. And presently new wayters brought in (apparrelled in the same colours) sixe pieces of bread cut for euery one, tossed and dressed with refined marrow, sprinckled ouer with Rose water, Saffron, and the iuice of Orenges, tempering the taste and gilded ouer, and with them sixe pieces of pure manchet were set downe. And next vnto them a confection, of the iuice of Lymons tempered with fine Sugar, the seedes of Pines, Rose water, Muske, Saffron, and ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna

... her eyes seaward, and when she spoke her voice was impersonal, almost dead, so that he thought, with a deep misery, she was trying to make it merciful in tempering ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... its glassy bosom in the direction of the rays of the rising Sun; the overpowering lustre of which is diminished by a soft and precious Claude-like haze that hangs like a gauze of gossamer on the borders of their way, a bridal veil just being lifted by the Sun; tempering while it enriches the gilding of the shores, the waters, the far-off spire, the contented farmer's house and barns, the unfrequent trees, the cattle gazing at the approaching object, the sail you are overtaking or meeting, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... is never exposed to an absolute defeat; for as he never soars, his fall must be inconsiderable. But the Orator, whom we regard as the prince of his profession,—the nervous,—the fierce,—the flaming Orator, if he is born for this alone, and only practices and applies himself to this, without tempering his copiousness with the two inferior characters of Eloquence, is of all others the most contemptible. For the plain and simple Orator, as speaking acutely and expertly, has an appearance of wisdom and good-sense; and the middle kind of Orator is sufficiently ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... that constituted her, quivered and grew tremulous. The thought fluttered in her mind like a flame-attracted moth. She went so far as to imagine Martin proposing, herself putting the words into his mouth; and she rehearsed her refusal, tempering it with kindness and exhorting him to true and noble manhood. And especially he must stop smoking cigarettes. She would make a point of that. But no, she must not let him speak at all. She could stop him, and she had told her mother that she would. All flushed and burning, she regretfully ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... of itself an excellent one for the improvement of the teacher during that interim between youth and maturity when the mind needs testing, tempering, and to review and rearrange the knowledge it has acquired. The natural method of doing this for one's self, is to attempt teaching others; those years also are the best of the practical teacher. The teacher should be near the pupil, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... being willing to act with generosity towards this noble writer, and to believe that his religion was not overcome by deception, we should perhaps be able to admit that we were indebted to John of Bruges for the practice of tempering colours with both nut and linseed oils, and to Antonello for having used and made common, through all Italy, a method which, in beauty, greatly exceeds distemper-painting, which, until his time, had always been preferred." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... teased Lincoln into a wrestling match, and when his victory in the good-natured encounter provoked Jack to unfair play, Abe shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then he made peace with him, drew out the better quality in him; and the two reigned "like friendly Caesars" over the village crowd, Abe tempering Jack's playfulness when it got too rough, and winning ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... hidden more than half an hour[*]. Ancient Athens was surely not more cloudy. Nevertheless, despite this constant sunshine and a southern latitude, Athens was stricken relatively seldom with semitropical heat. The sea was a good friend, bringing tempering breezes. In the short winter there might be a little frost, a little snow, and a fair supply of rain. For the rest of the year, one golden day was wont to succeed another, with the sun and the sea ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... only really happy thing in her life? The snobs and prigs all scold her and preach sermons at her—they did it in her lifetime: they do it now——" "Oh come, I'm neither a snob nor a prig," put in Celia, looking up in her turn, and tempering with a smile the energy of her tone—"I don't blame her for her Bothwell; I don't criticize her. I never was even able to mind about her killing Darnley. You see I take an extremely liberal view. One might almost call it broad. But if I had been one of her ladies—her bosom ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... harmony. A brief recitative by baritone ("But when the Son of Man") intervenes, immediately followed by another instrumental number, entitled "Judex" ("The Judge"),—one of the most effective pieces of orchestration in the oratorio, based upon the motive which indicates the tempering of justice with mercy, given out by the strings in unison. It preludes a short chorus ("Sitting upon the Throne"), the previous melody still continuing in the orchestra. The "Judgment of the Elect" follows, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... liberated has vitally interwoven itself with every art and science, bearing fruit not to be imagined even by men of the stature of Watt, Lavoisier, or Humboldt. Compare this rapid march of conquest with the slow adaptation, through age after age, of fire to cooking, smelting, tempering. Yet it was partly, perhaps mainly, because the use of fire had drawn out man's intelligence and cultivated his skill that he was ready in the fulness of time so quickly to seize ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... best beauty to be nearest such a kind of murrey as a sodden quince is of," as the Greek women colored their faces and the ancient Britain women dyed themselves with red; "howbeit [Strachey slyly adds] he or she that hath obtained the perfected art in the tempering of this collour with any better kind of earth, yearb or root preserves it not yet so secrett and precious unto herself as doe our great ladyes their oyle of talchum, or other painting white and red, but they frindly communicate the secret and teach ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... their apparel, and frugal in their furniture. They were temperate in their eating and drinking. They relinquished all the diversions of the times, in which they saw any tendency to evil. They were chaste in their conversation, tempering mirth with gravity. They were modest and chaste in their deportment and manners. They were punctual to their words and engagements. They were such lovers of the truth, that, on being asked, if they were Christians, they never denied it, though death was the consequence of such ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... from her, and herself bore it out into the yard. The cloud of temper was dispelled when she came back; the flash in her eye was melted; the shade on her forehead vanished. She resumed her usual cheerful and cordial manner to those about her, tempering her revived spirits with a little of the softness of shame at her ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... the rising tide of her anger. She was her father's daughter, yet always had been slow to wrath. That was her mother's softness and gentleness tempering the hard spirit of her father. But now her blood ran hot, beating and bursting about her throat and temples. And there was a leap ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... noon. Instead, he wandered about the great smoky shops, sweeping his glance over the blast-furnaces, the gutters into which the molten ore was poured, the giant trip-hammers, the ponderous rolling-machines, the gas-furnaces for tempering fine steel. The men moved aside. Only here and there a man, grown old in the shops, touched his grimy cap. ... To tear it down! It would be like rending a limb, for he loved every brick and stone and girder, as his father before him had loved them. He squared his shoulders, and his jaws ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... often for a trifle. During our stay in the country I purchased for a comparatively limited sum a fine collection of such weapons. Even those who cannot appreciate the artistic forging of the blade, the steel-setting, and tempering, must admire the exceedingly tasteful casting and embossing of the ornamentation, especially of the guard-plates of the sword. They are often veritable works of art, unsurpassed ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... fifth, first tune it perfectly, so that no waves are perceptible; then flat it so that there are very slow waves; less than one per second. Some authorities say there should be three beats in five seconds; but the tuner must learn to determine this by his own judgment. The tempering of the fifth will be treated exhaustively in ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... between the Rhodes and Barnato groups. Kimberley alternated between boom and bankruptcy. The genius of diamond mining lies in tempering output to demand. Rhodes realized that indiscriminate production would ruin the market, so he framed up the deal that made him the diamond dictator. He made Barnato an offer which was refused. With the aid of the Rothschilds ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... Abravanel said, tempering the sharpness of his words with a smile. "To put it in the simplest language, they hate our guts. They wish I had never formulated Societics, and at the same time they are very glad I did. They are in the position ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)

... around to the 100 ton hammer, under which it is worked down to the required shape. A seventy-five ton ingot requires about eight reheatings before being reduced to shape. Having been reduced to shape, the plate is carefully annealed, then raised to a high tempering heat, and the face tempered in oil. It is reannealed to take out the internal strains, care being taken not to reduce the face hardness more than necessary. The Schneider process of tempering is based upon the utilization of the absorption of heat caused by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... of the gentlest breed, Yet strong, like every goodly thing; The discipline of arms refines, And the wave gives tempering. The damasked blade its beam can fling; It lends the last grave grace: The hawk, the hound, and sworded nobleman In Titian's picture for a king, Are ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... constitution of a Second Chamber is that which embodies the greatest number of elements exempt from the class interests and prejudices of the majority, but having in themselves nothing offensive to democratic feeling. I repeat, however, that the main reliance for tempering the ascendancy of the majority can be placed in a Second Chamber of any kind. The character of a representative government is fixed by the constitution of the popular House. Compared with this, all other questions relating to the ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... town. The children grinned at him cheerfully; the old women cackled good-natured little teasing jests to him as he passed; the pretty, dusky half-breed girls dropped their eyelashes fascinatingly across their cheeks, tempering their coyness with a smile; the men painfully demanded information as to artistic achievement which was evidently as well meant as it was foreign to any real thirst for knowledge they might possess; even the lumber-jacks addressed ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?" Wisdom xv. 7: "For the potter, tempering soft earth, fashioneth every vessel with much labor for our service; yea, of the same clay he maketh both the vessels that serve for clean uses, and likewise also such as serve to the contrary: but what is the use of either sort, the potter ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... without doubt many a mother's love into heroic sublimity; as plague, as famine, as fire, as flood, as every curse and every scourge that is wielded by an angry Providence for the chastisement of man, is an appointed instrument for tempering human souls in the seven-times heated furnace of affliction, up to the standard of angelic and archangelic virtue. War, indeed, has the property of exciting much generous and noble feeling on a large ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... something again, unseen, Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door, Thou, laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing Me, old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat; Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, companion better than talk, book, art, (Thou hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... give us much of your company, Mrs. Huntingdon,' observed he, after a brief pause, during which I went on coolly mixing and tempering my colours; 'and I cannot wonder at it, for you must be heartily sick of us all. I myself am so thoroughly ashamed of my companions, and so weary of their irrational conversation and pursuits—now that there is no one to humanize them and keep them in ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... guarantees; but they could never manage it, and they have taken refuge in unmitigated centralism under Napoleon III., who, however well disposed, finds no means in the constitution of the French nation of tempering it. The English system, called the constitutional, and sometimes the parliamentary system, will not work in France, and indeed works really ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... the Government in these difficult circumstances is wise not to be in too great a hurry. I have no apology to make for introducing executive action into what would normally be a judicial process. Neither, on the other hand, have I any apology to make for tempering executive action with judicial elements; and I am very glad to say that an evening newspaper last night, which is not of the politics to which I belong, entirely approves of that. It says: "You must show that ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... that age and misfortune and illness had a tempering influence on Mark Twain's nature. Instead of becoming harsh and severe and bitter, he had become more gentle, more kindly. He wrote often to Hall, always considerately, even tenderly. Once, when something in Hall's ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... and vices of the Roman church, in the xth century, are strongly painted in the history and legation of Liutprand, (see p. 440, 450, 471-476, 479, &c.;) and it is whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the invectives of Baronius against the popes. But these popes had been chosen, not by the cardinals, but ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... alone rejoicing in its word That soul beatified, and I was tasting My own, the bitter tempering with the sweet, And the Lady who to God was leading me Said: 'Change thy thought; consider that I am Near unto Him who every wrong disburdens.' Unto the loving accents of my comfort I turned me round, and then what love I saw Within those holy eyes I here ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... indication of discomfort displayed by the pair was that the lady's hand worked somewhat fretfully to keep her dress from ballooning and puffing out of all proportion round about her person, while the vicar, who stood without his hat, employed a spongy handkerchief from time to time in tempering the ardours of a vertical sun. If you will consent to imagine a bald blackbird, his neck being shrunk in apprehensively, as you may see him in the first rolling of the thunder, you will gather an image of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... hard lot from the first. As she grew better in her health, she kept up her reading and writing quite cleverly with my husband and me; and all her nice natural cheerful ways come back to her just the same as ever. I've read or heard somewhere, sir, about God's goodness in tempering the wind to the shorn lamb. I don't know who said that first; but it might well have been spoken on account of my own darling little Mary, in those days. Instead of us being the first to comfort her, it was she that was first to comfort us. And ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... blade. The accident, in such a case, is not to be attributed to any censurable carelessness, but to want of instruction in respect to the strength of such a material as steel, and the nature and effects of the degree of tempering given to knife-blades. The boy had seen his father bore holes with a gimlet, and the knife-blade was larger—in one direction at least, that is, in breadth—than the gimlet, and it was very natural for him to suppose that it was stronger. What a boy needs in such a case, therefore, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... stifling day, and even now, though a soft air was abroad tempering the humid heat, when this light wind languished there was over all things a brooding stillness, foreboding storm. But Ravenslee strode on, unheeding dust and heat, hastening on to that which awaited him, full of strength and life and the zest ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... razors, &c. &c., produced in a few minutes from the raw material. I saw dinner knives made from the steel bar and all the process of hammering it into form, welding the tang of the handle to the steel of the blade, hardening the metal by cooling it in water and tempering it by de-carbonizing it in the fire with a rapidity and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various

... Ile through Gloucestershire, and there will I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire: I haue him alreadie tempering betweene my finger and my thombe, and shortly will I seale with ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... A process of tempering metals by electrically produced heat. The article is made part of an electric circuit. The current passing through it heats it, thereby tempering it. For wire the process can be made continuous. The wire is fed from one roll to another, and if required one roll may be immersed ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... inventions of later date may be reckoned the use of electricity in heating; especially for industrial operations as electric forging, welding, brazing, tempering, etc. ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... notwithstanding occasional appearances to the contrary, he had never ceased to love and admire in his great relative;—the same ardor for Right and impatience of Wrong—the same mixture of wisdom and simplicity, so tempering each other, as to make the simplicity refined and the wisdom unaffected—the same gentle magnanimity of spirit, intolerant only of tyranny and injustice—and, in addition to all this, a range and vivacity ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... courage and compassion joined, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete. The Campaign. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... works, with 15 Bessemer converters; four steelworks, with Siemens-Martin open hearth furnaces; iron, steel and brass foundries; puddling, melting, reheating and annealing furnaces; draw benches; a hardening and tempering department; file manufactory; rolling mills for plates, rails and tires; railway spring and wheel manufactory; steam hammers, forges, axle turning shop, boiler shop, engineering and repair shop. Besides the above and many other departments, at Essen, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... inclination to follow. He had a pleasure boat on the lake, which he steered with amazing dexterity; but as he always indulged himself in the utmost possible latitude of sail, he was occasionally upset by a sudden gust, and was indebted to his skill in the art of swimming for the opportunity of tempering with a copious libation of wine the unnatural frigidity introduced into his stomach by the extraordinary intrusion of water, an element which he had religiously determined should never pass his lips, but of which, on these occasions, he was ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... with less pictorial skill and dramatic effect, but with an earnestness and simplicity that are very touching. Colourists always liked to introduce the sweeping lines of her white robes into their compositions. Fra Bartolommeo, who showed consummate art by tempering the masses of white drapery with mellow tones of brown or amber, painted one splendid picture of the marriage of S. Catherine, and another in which he represents her prostrate in adoration before the mystery of the Trinity. His gentle and devout soul sympathised with the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... rough filings or chips of Iron. So that, it seems, Iron does contain a very combustible sulphureous Body, which is, in all likelihood, one of the causes of this Phaenomenon, and which may be perhaps very much concerned in the business of its hardening and tempering: of which somewhat it said in ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... that trees of these two varieties farthest from the Posey, do not bear as well. Until now, I have attributed this to the fact that the soil was less fertile and the trees are smaller and less vigorous. Also the trees are farther from the frost-tempering river. I am not sure yet that this is not ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... solid blocks of wood, and often of very tasteful design, As a figurehead, or pinnacle, there is often a human figure, with a head of cassowary feathers to imitate the Papuan "mop." The floats of their fishing-lines, the wooden beaters used in tempering the clay for their pottery, their tobacco-boxes, and other household articles, are covered with carving of tasteful and often elegant design. Did we not already know that such taste and skill are compatible with utter barbarism, we could ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... with it, and showed it, with a good deal of exultation, to his five companions; every man of whom came the next day to the shop and wanted one just like it. They did not understand all the blacksmith's notions about tempering and mixing the metals, but they saw at a glance that the head and the handle were so united that there never was likely to be ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... you must expect, good in the future as in the past, for you, Macumazahn, who are brave in your own fashion, without being a fool like Umslopogaas, and, although you know it not, like some master-smith, forge my assegais out of the red ore I give you, tempering them in the blood of men, and yet keep your mind innocent and your hands clean. Friends like you are useful to such as I, Macumazahn, and must be well paid in those ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... of danger and death; it is not a passion, it is not an impulse, it is not a sentiment; it is a cool, steady, deliberate principle, always present, always equable; having no connection with anger; tempering honour with prudence; incited, invigorated, and sustained, by a generous love of fame; informed, moderated, and directed by an enlarged knowledge of its own great public ends; flowing in one blended stream from ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... operation of the first (the confiscation and paper currency) merely as a cement, I cannot deny that these, the one depending on the other, may for some time compose some sort of cement, if their madness and folly in the management, and in the tempering of the parts together, does not produce a repulsion in the very outset. But allowing to the scheme some coherence and some duration, it appears to me, that, if, after a while, the confiscation should ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke



Words linked to "Tempering" :   moderating, temper, annealing



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