The scene is transfigured before their eyes: it is as if the heavens had opened, and inundated all its features with a celestial Subtilizing aura.
"Essays Æsthetical"
George Calvert
In the time of St. Augustine and St. Jerome, there existed among Christians an extraordinary tendency to embrace all possible philosophical doctrines, even when directly opposed to the first principles of revealed religion; and, within the Church, the danger of Subtilizing on every question connected with well- known dogmas was much greater than many imagine.
"Irish Race in the Past and the Present"
Aug. J. Thebaud
It was inevitable that in their time the English romanticists should treat, as Senor Valdes says, "the barbarous customs of the Middle Ages, softening and distorting them, as Walter Scott and his kind did;" that they should "devote themselves to falsifying nature, refining and Subtilizing sentiment, and modifying psychology after their own fancy," like Bulwer and Dickens, as well as like Rousseau and Madame de Stael, not to mention Balzac, the worst of all that sort at his worst.
"Literature and Life"
William Dean Howells