"Passable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... transit duty could not be received; we must either pay the full excise as when goods remain in the Prussian territory, or return back until we came again into the Zoll-strasse. It took some time to consider which was best to be done. To be sent about we knew not whither, and on roads scarcely passable, would prove a serious inconvenience; and on the other hand it was exceedingly mortifying to pay for such a trifle so enormous an excise. The officer was very civil, but told us it was not in his power to do otherwise. We ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... grain and flour trade were thus centralized, what would be the effect of a succession of large crops, or even of a single one? Would not the roads be covered with wagons whenever they were passable, and even at times when, they were almost impassable? Would not every one be anxious to anticipate the apprehended fall of prices by being early in the market? Would not freights be high? Would not the farmer, on his arrival in Rochester, find that ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... him! His body's a passable carcass, if he be not hurt; it is a throughfare for steel, if it be ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... throughout these ruins, how admirably the columns and buildings are disposed for producing effect in combination. Of two bridges, a good deal of the one to the east remains, and the arches reach across the river, though it is not passable, owing to the destruction of the upper part. There is a paved road between the colonnades leading from ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... ford on the river and the pass which nature here constructed between the mountains. The town extends along the west bank of the river some three miles, and back from it about one mile. The Rio Grande water is passable for drinking purposes, and good for general use, though it is somewhat ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... beautiful gulches of great size run, with heavy cascades, finer than Foyers at its best, and a native village is picturesquely situated between the two. The great white rollers, whiter by contrast with the dark deep water, come into the gulch just where we forded the river, and from the ford a passable road made for hauling sugar ascends to the house. The air is something absolutely delicious; and the murmur of the rollers and the deep boom of the cascades are very soothing. There is little rise or fall in the cadence of the surf anywhere on the windward coast, but one even sound, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... was shut out above by the dew-wet foliage,—twisted vines, trees and bushes all matted together. The party traveled by means of old elephant trails, which alone made the jungle passable to man. Hour after hour they walked through the tangle of vegetation, striking into fresh paths, twisting and turning until the boys ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... 28 degrees there is a communication with the inlet at the south side of Moreton Bay, insulating the land whose north extremity is Point Lookout. The entrance of this inlet is shoal and only passable for boats. ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... are in occupation of the bad bit, as I suspected—posted on both sides of the track. But—and here comes in the possibility of strategy—there's another path besides that one, and I told my scouts to investigate its practicability. They report that it's passable for hotties, which is what I was inclined to doubt, but they don't think we shall ever get the guns up there. Here's your problem, then, my budding Wellington. Do we fight our way through by the ordinary track—in view of the condition of our guns I omit the alternative ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... the base of Cannon or Profile Mountain and Mount Lafayette. From its shore can be seen that inspiring curiosity known the world over as the "Old Man of the Mountain," about which much good prose and passable poetry has been written. The profile is produced by the peculiar combination of the surfaces and angles of five huge granite blocks, and when viewed from one spot the resemblance is perfect. Colossal ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... toward him from the south. He was eager to meet this force, and was preparing to press forward at once by the nearest way. He found, however, that this would lead him across the lower part of the valley of the Arno, which was here very broad, and, though usually passable, was now overflowed in consequence of the swelling of the waters of the river by the melting of the snows upon the mountains. The whole country was now, in fact, a vast expanse of marshes ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the view of the cathedral? I must write mama about it. We don't have such coffee in Hohen-Cremmen. On the whole, Geert, I am just beginning to realize what a distinguished husband I married. In our home everything was just barely passable." ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... mansion.' I was invited to the house-warming. Mrs. Jones's set is very exclusive, and I was greatly complimented, of course. I went. Jones has taste. I noticed the plaster walls. Jones had them colored to marble. The wainscoting of the library was pine, but the pine lied itself into a passable walnut. The folding doors of the parlor were pine, too, when I came near. They pretended to be solid oak while I stood at the other end of the room. Jones had succumbed to the demands of his time, and had made his dwelling among lies. His 'elegant mansion' was a big, ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... sides to my bed. I secured them side by side to give a flat surface 6 feet long by 5 feet wide. Over the upper surface I stretched and tacked down a sheet to form the cloth. I bought a broomstick and with the assistance of the camp carpenter shaved it down to form a passable cue, tipping the end with a small piece of leather cut from my boot. The table was rigged up in the open air, boxes and barrels serving as the legs, while it was levelled as far as practicable. There was only ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... as they were called, are notoriously poor eating, but in the hands of the Confederate soldier were made to do good duty. When on the march and pressed for time, a piece of solid fat pork and a dry cracker was passable or luscious, as the time was long or short since the last meal. When there was leisure to do it, hardtack was soaked well and then fried in bacon grease. Prepared thus, it was a dish which no Confederate had the weakness or ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... months up here, not having been allowed to go to the Virginia springs, on account of the difficulty of carrying my children there; but I am promised that we shall all go there next summer, when there is to be something like a passable road, by which the health-giving ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Essex is called the Roodings, I suppose, because there are no less than ten towns almost together, called by the name of Roding, and is famous for good land, good malt, and dirty roads; the latter indeed in the winter are scarce passable for horse or man. In the midst of this we see Chipping Onger, Hatfield Broad Oak, Epping, and many forest towns, famed as I have said for husbandry and good malt, but of no other note. On the south side of the county is Waltham Abbey; the ruins of the abbey remain, and ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... I hated those grammatical studies, and nothing but the love of literature, and the hope of getting at it, could ever have made me go through them. Naturally, I never got any scholarly use of the languages I was worrying at, and though I could once write a passable literary German, it has all gone from me now, except for the purposes of reading. It cost me so much trouble, however, to dig the sense out of the grammar and lexicon, as I went on with the authors I was impatient to read, that I remember the words very well in all their forms and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... disadvantage. The distance by it to Fort Edward is only twenty-six miles. By a good road, in easy marches, an army should be there in two days; in an exigency, in one. It was mostly a wilderness country, and, though generally level, much of it was a bog, which could only be made passable by laying down a corduroy road. There were miles of such road to be repaired or built before wagons or artillery could be dragged over it. Indeed, a worse country to march through can hardly be imagined. On the other hand, of this twenty-six ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... filled on the new tack; but they were not much better off than before, the sea breaking over them with such violence that the deck, from amidships forward, was only passable with the greatest difficulty and danger. The crew began to think the captain must have taken leave of his senses; and, in fact, Salve was not himself that night. He was sailing in this reckless way in a mere fit of temper intensified by the consciousness of his own unreasonableness. ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... be made to connote. Such are the inconveniences of a language which "is not made, but grows." Like the governments which are in a similar case, it may be compared to a road which is not made but has made itself: it requires continual mending in order to be passable. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... water, by drinking of which I got the bloody flux, which continued with me all the way to Boorhanpoor. The 29th 10 c. to Taulneere, or Talnere, a thievish road, but a fair town with a castle and river, which is not passable in the rains without a boat.[235] The 30th 15 c. to Chupra, or Choprah, a great town. I rested here two days on account of the rains; in which time came the governor of Nundabar with 400 horse, without whose company ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... 3D snaps of Grandson, I modeled a passable reptile head over my own features. It was a little short in the jaw, me not having one of their toothy mandibles, but that was all right. I didn't have to look exactly like them, just something close, to ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... was Master Matyas, whose distance marches during this campaign were something phenomenal. Matyas found Count Vavel with his troop already at Eszterhaza, and apprized him at once of De Fervlans's arrival at the bridge-inn. The Volons had not yet rested, but they had traveled over passable roads, and were not so exhausted. Their leader at once gave ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... we find new charms in after making her mother's acquaintance. You know how some young people would be passable enough if it were not for a lurid light thrown upon their identity by other members of their family. You know the sister you thought was a beauty and dear, until you met her sister, who was gristly ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... three days was the limit. To get to Washington—only about sixty miles away—I had to start from camp before daylight in the morning, ride three miles to the railroad in a heavy, springless army wagon, across fields and over rutted roadways that were barely passable, the jolting of which was almost enough to shake one's bones loose; then ride twenty miles in a freight car, perched on whatever truck one could get a seat on, thence by boat to Washington. The morning was exceptionally cold and I had to leave without breakfast; the result was I caught a severe cold, ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... came. As soon as there was a passable road, Isak set out for the village, full of concealment and mystery as ever, when Inger asked his errand. And sure enough, he came back this time with a new and unthinkable surprise. A ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... corn, and in the construction of their boats. The forests are so impenetrable that the land is nowhere cultivated except near the coast and on the adjoining islets. Even where paths exist, they are scarcely passable from the soft and swampy state of the soil. The inhabitants, like those of Tierra del Fuego, move about chiefly on the beach or in boats. Although with plenty to eat, the people are very poor: there is no demand for labour, and consequently the lower orders ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... closely associated with bizarre and radical vagaries of thought. It is in nine cases out of ten a mere refuge of the obtuse, hurried, indolent, ignorant, or negligent bard who cannot or will not take the time and pains to compose genuine poetry or even passable verse. It has absolutely no justification for existence, and should be shunned by every real aspirant to literary excellence, no matter how many glittering inducements it seems to hold out. True, a person of very little knowledge or ability can make himself appear ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... back, Mr. O'Connor, and request the colonel of the leading regiment to send on the pioneers and a company of men at the double to clear the road and make it passable for ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... authorities and the hacendados, rancheros, and landowners generally, are full of colour and interest for the traveller. Our belongings are securely packed upon a couple of well-appointed mules; we are astride passable Mexican horses, seated on comfortable saddles, with our servant and the arriero in attendance, and we have left the last of the city streets; with our face to the open country the true charm of travel comes upon us—the touch of Nature, solitude, and the far horizon which ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... grounded, bounded, and founded, that by force of man it can never be confounded; the foundation and walls are unpenetrable, the rampiers impregnable, the bulwarks invincible, no way but one it is or can be possible to be made passable. In a word, I have seen many straits and fortresses, in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and England, but they must all give place to this unconquered Castle, both for ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... for some clean straw, and began to stuff himself out again to what he called a passable size. "Did not I tell you, young man, I carried that under my waistcoat which would make a fool stare? The lace that's on the floor, to say nothing of the cambric, is worth full twice the sum for which you shall have it, Cleghorn. Good night. I'll call again to-morrow, to ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... that go with the job. Yes, Webster defines a job as being an undertaking. Neurasthenia is certainly an "undertaking," therefore it must be a job—a big one at that. It interferes with the holding of any more remunerative job and consumes most of one's time in trying to keep his health in a passable condition. I have had positions of some importance handed to me, which I discharged with eminent satisfaction to all concerned until I got ready to go off at some new tangent. If I did not imagine myself in the actual embrace ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... interesting details may be learned from a letter written about that time by a German officer in charge of a heavy munition train: "From Czestochowa we advanced in forced marches. During the first two days roads were passable, but after that they became terrible, as it rained every day. In some places there were no roads left, nothing but mud and swamps. Once it took us a full hour to move one wagon, loaded with munitions and drawn by fifteen horses, a distance of only fifteen ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... King himself never once in his reign entered a theatre. The piety of Queen Mary rendered her a rare attendant at the play-house. Plays were therefore no longer wanted. A playwright could not amuse. Congreve was a dramatist who had never exhibited even passable talent for other forms of poetical composition. But Tate's limited gifts, displayed to Dorset's satisfaction in various encomiastic verses addressed to himself, were fully equal to the exigencies of the office under ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... compelled to grasp the opportunity when it offered or forego the pleasure altogether. Nor is it necessary, of course, to walk; the roads, whilst generally speaking not classed as good going for automobiles, are at least passable. I was surprised at the number of high grade machines in evidence, in all the towns of importance mentioned in this narrative. There remains also the alternative of a good saddle horse, or, better still, a light wagon with camping outfit, ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... advertisement," said Carroll again. "I have to make some change in my business, and"—he essayed a laugh—"I have to think, as we have agreed is the thing to do, of some salable wares in my possession. It did occur to me that I might make a passable floor-walker. I have even thought of a drum-major, but there seems no vacancy in that line. ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... forest, broken only by the rivers, covers the whole territory, and is the home of wild races untouched by civilization.[97] There is not a road in the whole province. A footpath, open only in the dry season, and barely passable then, connects Quito and the Rio Napo. Congress lately promised to put Canelos in communication with the capital; but the largest villages in this vast and fertile region—Archidona, Canelos, and Macas—still remain isolated from the ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... at last, and that day, about noon, we reached a ford of the Tugela which luckily was quite passable. Here Kambula bade me farewell, saying that his mission was finished. Also he delivered to me a message that I was to give from Dingaan to the English in Natal. It was to this effect: That he, Dingaan, had killed the Boers who came to visit him because he found out that they ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... localities. I omit many of the points that are used as arguments. For our tradition does not rank this god amongst those that were born, and then made immortal, as Hercules and Bacchus, whom their virtue raised above a mortal and passable condition; but Apollo is one of the eternal unbegotten deities, if we may collect any certainty concerning these things, from the statements of the oldest and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... subject. Edmee thereupon had to give him an account of the Crusades. This was not the most difficult part of her task. Thanks to the stores of information derived from the abbe and to his prodigious memory for facts, Patience had a passable knowledge of the outlines of universal history. But what he had great trouble in grasping was the connection and difference between epic poetry and history. At first he was indignant at the inventions of the poets, and declared that such impostures ought never to have been allowed. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... below the cataracts and drank of the Nile. Above the cataracts they pushed their arms into Ethiopia, and left there the monuments of their dominion. To the west they were at once defended and confined by a desert impassable to armies, but which the oasis rendered passable to the caravan. On the north was an almost harborless sea. On the east was another desert, through which roads led to the ports of the Red Sea and the mines of Sinai. On the north-east the Arabian desert formed an imperfect barrier. It was traversed by the hosts of Sesostris and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... country carpenter, "a very elegant little theatre," of which he constituted himself manager, and had among his actors a brother of the lady referred to in his letter, "a very good comic actor, but loose in words;" poor Augustus Stafford "more than passable;" and "a son of Vernon Smith's, really a capital low comedian." It will be one more added to the many examples I have given of his untiring energy both in work and play, if I mention the fact that this theatre was opened at Rockingham for their first representation on Wednesday ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... hard pitch about, and one or two reckoned the marine glue in the deck-seams might be a passable substitute. They were diggin' some out with their penknives when Doctor ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... useless for the day. It was, indeed, a crushing calamity. Sam spent an hour trying to dig up a substitute. The only possible substitutes were Hepworth and Biggs, neither of them first class men but passable, and Fatty Rose. The two former, however, had gone for the day to Calgary, and Fatty Rose was hopelessly slow. Sam discussed the distressing situation with such members of the team as could be hastily ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... little restaurant, where they cooked well, while the Tischwein was really most passable. We stopped there for a couple of hours, and dried ourselves and fed ourselves, and talked about the view; and just before we left an incident occurred that shows how much more stirring in this world are the influences of evil compared ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... sinking back. "Dorita, I want you to run ahead and see what the trail's like," he said. "See if the ledge is passable. And find a place, not too far ahead, where we can block the trail by exploding that demolition-bomb. It has to be close enough for a couple of you to carry or drag me and get me there in ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... the tepid reluctance of other praise. The reason of all this is twofold; partly in the book, and partly in the reader. The backbone dislikes the raising of any question which it deems to have been decided: a peculiarity which at once puts it in opposition to all fine work, and to nearly all passable second-rate work. It also dislikes being confronted with anything that it considers "unpleasant," that is to say, interesting. It has a genuine horror of the truth neat. It quite honestly asks "to be taken out of itself," unaware that to be taken out of itself is the very last thing it really desires. ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... my bed betimes, and as I felt in passable good case, I went up to the castle to see whether I might peradventure get to my daughter. But I could not find either constable, albeit I had brought a few groats with me to give them as beer-money; neither would the folks ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... fine speech he had prepared was of no use, and he was upon the instant to contrive another; which finding himself unable to do, Cardinal du Bellay was constrained to perform that office. The pleader's part is, doubtless, much harder than that of the preacher; and yet, in my opinion, we see more passable lawyers than preachers, at all events in France. It should seem that the nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden, and that of judgment to have it more deliberate and more slow. But he who remains totally silent, for want of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... that he wanted to give a feast—said he had heard it was a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand banquet. He invited nine of us, and we ate an excellent dinner at the principal hotel. In the midst of the jollity produced by good cigars, good wine, and passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. He took another look to assure himself that his senses had not deceived him and then read the items aloud, in a faltering voice, while ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Company (Captain D.D. Ogilvie) started off to report to the gunners near Ain Yebrud and make the track passable for the artillery as far as Selwad on the far side of Tel Asur. The track was a dry river bed between two very thick walls most of the way, and where it was impassable a track had to be made across country, which meant cutting ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... other books will under present conditions repeat the history of these books. There is now no wide region of fertile country rapidly filling with settlers and separated from their former sources of supply by great distance and by mountain ranges unprovided with passable roads. Even the more newly settled regions of the country are reached by railroads and the parts early settled are covered by a network of railroads, of telegraph and telephone wires which bring the consumer and the ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... arrived; that is, without any broken bones; though my arms, knees, and head are finely pummelled by the jolting of the carriage. Well might Ducrocq say that the roads were bad! In several places, they are not passable without danger—Indeed, the government is so fully aware of this, that an inspector has been dispatched to direct immediate repairs to be made against the arrival of the English ambassador; and, in some communes, the people are at work by torch-light. With this exception, my journey was ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... guarded by the Agueda, a river only passable by two or three bridges and fords in wet weather, but fordable in many places in the dry season. At the commencement of June the Agueda fell, and the French crossed in strength at various places. Craufurd, however, still maintained ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... They know how I like things to be done. They are fully competent to conduct the business of the department in my absence. Let us, as you say, scud forth. We will go to a Mecca. Why so-called I do not know, nor, indeed, do I ever hope to know. There we may obtain, at a price, a passable cup of coffee, and you shall ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... (what in effect he did say), 'I did it ignorantly.' When a man has a glimpse of Jesus exalted to heaven, and is summoned by Him to give a reason for his life of alienation, that life looks very different from what it did, when seen by dimmer light. Clothes are passable by candle-light that look very shabby in sunshine. When Jesus comes to us, His first work is to set us to judge our past, and no man can muster up respectable answers to His question, 'Why?' for all sin is unreasonable, and nothing but obedience to Him can vindicate itself ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... narrated to him with passable fidelity what had occurred upstairs, while he was sitting alone in the dining-room. That she in her anger had at one moment spurned Harry Clavering, and that in the next she had knelt to him, imploring him to come back to Florence—those two little incidents she did not tell ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... at Boulge Hall, Woodbridge; for I think that the snows will be passable, and my sisters arrived there, before you write. There's an insinuation for you. Make my remembrances to Mrs. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... warlike Nation; who ventured next after Hercules, (to whom the like Attempt gave a Reputation of extraordinary Valour, and a Title to Immortality) to cross those almost inaccessible Rocks of the Alps, and Places scarce passable by Reason of the Cold: Where after having totally subdued the Pannonians they waged War with the bordering Provinces for many Years.—And afterwards—being encouraged by their Success, subdivided their Parties; when some took their Way to Graecia some to Macedonia, destroying all before them ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... may be built up from a metal disc about 3/4 inch diameter and two slightly larger discs soldered concentrically to the sides. The width of the middle disc should be the same as that of the eccentric rod. A careful filer could make a passable eccentric by sinking a square or semicircular groove in the edge of a wide disc. The centre of the eccentric must be found carefully, and a point marked at a distance from it equal to half the travel of the valve. To ascertain this, pull the valve forward until the steam port is fully ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... much doubt about that, I think," remarked Frank Brandon. "You ought to see some of the sets I come across! They look to be regular nightmares, but they get passable results, anyway. Radio is certainly getting to be a country-wide craze. Only the other day I was at one of the big broadcasting stations, and the manager told me that they were actually having trouble to get performers, there is such a demand for them. They seem to be especially hard ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... (morning). He that giveth a hundred kine with horns mounted with gold to a Brahmana well-posted up in the Vedas and all branches of learning, and he that daily listeneth to the sacred narrations of the Bharata, acquireth equal merit. As the wide ocean is easily passable by men having ships, so is this extensive history of great excellence and deep import with the help of this chapter ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... past eleven when Tinker came riding over the hills at the head of his merry, but imaginary men. Horribly hungry, but warmed by the sun to a quite passable malignity, the money-lender watched his coming from the top of the tower, pondering how to catch him and thrash him within an inch of his life. He did not know that far more active men than he had cherished ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... of our camp, the road from Ladak through Zanskar joins the valley, and we half regretted not having risked the chances of that road; however, it was uncertain whether it was passable, and, as time was valuable, we had but little ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... of their food during more than six months, the returning flights continued to be as numerous as before; and there was scarcely a burrow less, except in the spaces actually covered by the tents. These birds are about the size of a pigeon, and when skinned and dried in smoke we thought them passable food. Any quantity could be procured, by sending people on shore in the evening. The sole process was to thrust in the arm up to the shoulder, and seize them briskly; but there was some danger of grasping a snake at the bottom of the burrow, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... here, and kept from means of death. I've heard a spirit's force is wonderful; At whose approach, when starting from his dungeon, The earth does shake, and the old ocean groans, Rocks are removed, and towers are thundered down; And walls of brass, and gates of adamant Are passable as ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... section of this river being forty feet deep, and the banks in general steep, the work necessary to render it passable to our heavy drays could not be accomplished yesterday afternoon. This day, however, our camp was established on the right bank of the Culgoa. Thermometer at sunrise, 35 deg.; at noon, 80 deg..; at 4 P.M., 77 deg.; at 9, 49 deg.; and with wet ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... will add three or four inches to the average height of such a soldier, give him consummate courage, coolness, readiness of resource in extremities, together with intuitive knowledge of the enemy's wiles, supplemented with a passable knowledge of French and Indian speech, you will have a tolerable portrait of Captain Robert Rogers at the beginning of our ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... recognized, we can but throw up our hands out of sheer astonishment. To illustrate Haeckel's "love of truth" let it suffice to observe that in the second chapter he asserts that man is not only a true vertebrate, a true mammal, etc.—which indeed is passable—but even a true ape (having "all the anatomical characteristics of true apes"). With a wonderful elasticity he passes over the differences. What, indeed, is to be said, when he states as a "fact" that "physiologically compared (!), the sound-speech ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... it on one hand, and walked through Sant Antonio towards Boa Vista. When we came to the wooden bridge, 350 paces long, connecting it with Sant Antonio, we found that it had been cut through the middle, and is only now passable by means of two planks easily withdrawn, in case the besiegers should get possession of Boa Vista. Nothing can be prettier of its kind than the fresh green landscape, with its broad river winding through it, which is seen on each hand from the bridge, and the white ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... to those junks of sugar-cane, some two feet long, which Cuffy and Cuffy's ladies delight to gnaw, walking, sitting, and standing; increasing thereby the size of their lips, and breaking out, often enough, their upper front teeth. We had seen, and eaten too, the sweet sop {25a}—a passable fruit, or rather congeries of fruits, looking like a green and purple strawberry, of the bigness of an orange. It is the cousin of the prickly sour-sop; {25b} of the really delicious, but to me unknown, Chirimoya; {25c} and of the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... superior race, and when the eightsome-reel of the heptarchy became the pas-seul of the kingdom of England, we doubt not that Watling Street was kept in passable condition, and that Alfred, amidst his other noble institutions, invented a highway rate. The fortresses and vassal towns of the barons, after the Conquest, must have covered the country with tolerable cross-roads; and even the petty wars of those steel-clad marauders must have had a good ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... roses, approached the Yates house. It was late in the afternoon. There had been a warm day, and the trees were clouds of green and more bushes had blossomed. Eudora had put on a green silk dress of her youth. The revolving fashions had made it very passable, and the fabric was as ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... lack of those others who have lately lifted Germany back among the greatest nations artistically: von Uhde, Liebermann, von Gebhardt, Klinger, Erler, and von Hofmann. In the same way the young and virile English group is not represented, though in this room is a passable portrait by the great John Lavery. On wall D are two Spanish works of Lopez-Mezquita, that are worthy of attention but nothing ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... Not that the workhouse itself was really cold. Its sanitary arrangements were as far as possible perfect; its heating arrangements were also fairly good. Notwithstanding the other old women's groans, the food was passable and even nourishing, and beyond the fact that there was an absence of hope over everything, there were no real hardships in the great Beverley workhouse. There were a good many old women in this workhouse—in fact, two large wards full—and these ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... are joking then," said I, "this is a very passable SKULL,—indeed, I may say that it is a very EXCELLENT skull, according to the vulgar notions about such specimens of physiology—and your scarabaeus must be the queerest scarabaeus in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may get up a very thrilling ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... and sent home, and that's all there is to it. But how about me? I've got a hundred things to attend to every day. I've got to make my own clothes, or take a long chance on a mail-order house. That's why, when I do get anything that looks passable, I ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... divert part of this ordnance to Buffalo because of the excessively bad roads, which were passable for heavy traffic only by means of sleds during the snows of winter. This obstacle spoiled the hope of putting a fighting force afloat on Lake Erie during the latter part of 1812. Chauncey consequently established his main base at Sackett's Harbor and lost no time in building and ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... clad in purple; these passed, they at last approached sunny regions which produced the herbs the woman had brought away. Going further, they came on a swift and tumbling river of leaden waters, whirling down on its rapid current divers sorts of missiles, and likewise made passable by a bridge. When they had crossed this, they beheld two armies encountering one another with might and main. And when Hadding inquired of the woman about their estate: "These," she said, "are they who, having ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... to the south of Warsaw. From the capital to the village of Wilanow there are three roads which are sandy in dry weather, and wet in spring and autumn. During the rains the whole tracks, and not only the ruts, are under water. They are only passable and worthy of the name of road in winter, when the sleighs have pressed down a hard ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... passed. Mrs. Friend at ten o'clock in the morning had just been having a heart to heart talk with the landlady of the inn on the subject of a decent luncheon for three persons, and a passable dinner for four. Food at the inn was neither good nor well-cooked, and as criticism, even the mildest, generally led to tears, Mrs. Friend's morning lot, when any guest was expected, was not a ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... parents' income. He assumed that it was little enough, and that he must now leave Oxford and work to support the household. He knew some Latin and Greek; but without a degree he had little chance of teaching what he knew. He was a fair carpenter, and a more than passable smith. . . . He revolved many schemes, but chiefly found himself wondering what it would cost to ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was rushed forward; and March found the sunken garden in bloom, stone-edged pools full of lotus and lilies, orange trees blossoming in a magnificent sweep around the balustrade of the terrace, and, beyond, the graceful stone bridge, passable but not quite completed. Neither were the great systems of pools, fountains, tanks, and lakes completed by any means, but here and there foaming jets trembled and glittered in the sunlight, and here and there placid reaches, crystal ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... scout held back the company leaders and rode into the stream alone, step by step, scanning the bottom. He found it firm. He saw wheel marks on the first island. His horse, ears ahead, saw them also, and staggeringly felt out the way. Belly-deep and passable—yes. ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... arms of it—the picture of discontent. The gaslight showed her the possessor of bright brown eyes, under fine brows slenderly but clearly marked, of a pink and white skin slightly freckled, of a small nose quite passable, but no ways remarkable, of a dainty little chin, and a thin-lipped mouth, slightly raised at one corner, and opening readily over some irregular but very white teeth. Except for the eyes and eyebrows the features could claim nothing ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... when snow lies from October to May. So early did I arrive at this establishment that the more civilized of its inhabitants were still asleep; by waiting, I might have learnt something of the management of the estate, but gross material preoccupations—the prospect of a passable luncheon at San Giovanni after the "Hotel Vittoria" fare—tempted me to press forwards. A boorish and unreliable-looking individual volunteered three pieces of information—that the house was built thirty years ago, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... Book, 1848-235) in Persia fell a substance that the people said they had never seen before. As to what it was, they had not a notion, but they saw that the sheep ate it. They ground it into flour and made bread, said to have been passable enough, though insipid. ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... the one it replaced, it contains a number of cosy offices and ante-rooms. There is also attached a lunch-room for the use of members, much frequented in term-time, when at the mid-day hour one may meet many of the great practitioners at the English bar. Passable portraits of William and Mary, Queen Anne, Lord Chief-Justice Coke, and Sir Thomas Littleton look upon the visitor, and the arms of the successive treasurers of the Inn are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... Gore, and the inlet, which we entered just before dark, Disaster Inlet, from a circumstance of what may be called a tragical nature which happened in it. Like all the other inlets, as we afterwards found, it had a bar scarcely passable at low-water for boats; but within there was a depth of two and three fathoms. It appears that the streams passing out of these openings groove out a channel in the great flat fronting the shores for from one to three ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... Tristram-like, but openly stigmatizes his own failure as "ill conceived, incoherent and not very well told!" After mentioning some few incidents and passages in this first section which he regards as passable, he boldly condemns the rest as "almost beneath all criticism," and the same words are used with reference to much that follows, in which he confesses to imitation, bad taste and intolerable indelicacy. He calls his pathetic attempts at whimsical mannerisms (Heideldum, ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... its hide proved a passable supper, and Rolf curled up to sleep. The night would have been pleasant and uneventful, but that it turned chilly, and when the fire burnt low, the cold awakened him, so he had a ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... winter of 1911-12 shut down, David Drennen had found a nugget which he had concealed, saying nothing about it. The snows came and he went back to MacLeod's Settlement to wait for the coming of springtime and passable trails. The first man to pack out of the Settlement prospecting, he had come to the spot which last year he had marked under the cliffs known locally as Hell's Lace. The trail had been rotten underfoot and he had slipped and fallen into one of the black pools. Clambering ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... everywhere exist in civilised societies. Most of them are passable; many of them are execrable; a few of them are admirable; and here and there, one of them consists of that happy blending of individual characteristics which we all immediately recognise as genius—at least after somebody else has ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... old maps Finsbury fields lie on the north-east side of Moorfields. Now Finsbury Circus and Square correspond to the site of a part of Moorfields. Formerly Moorfields extended up to Hoxton, "but being one continued marsh, they were in 1511 made passable by proper bridges and causeways. Since that time the ground has been ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... been a torture that she could not bear. It wanted but two days to Christmas and the gaiety of the season, forced or genuine, rang out everywhere. Christmas shopping, with its anxious solicitude or self-centred absorption, overspread the West End and made the pavements scarcely passable at certain favoured points. Proud parents, parcel-laden and surrounded by escorts of their young people, compared notes with one another on the looks and qualities of their offspring and exchanged loud hurried confidences on the difficulty or success which each ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... and the bridge became again passable to Miles and his waddling horse. The operators disconnected their wires, put their apparatus in order, locked the wooden cases over their instruments, and rode in triumph (Mr. Loudon had come in the ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... will those that I love. I have many a waking dream, while tramping the hills, about the comrades that have added to the joys of my former existence. Let me hear from you occasionally, because a letter from you seems to revive some of the old feeling that formerly made life passable.' ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... all, save what are artificially irrigated, fail.[18] If they fail in one district or province, the people have few equivalents to offer for a supply of land produce from any other. Their roads are scarcely anywhere passable for wheeled carriages at any season, and nowhere at all seasons—they have nowhere a navigable canal, and only in one line ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... officers were deceived. With pictures it was their usual method to coat the genuine picture with a certain varnish, over which one of the organization, an old artist living in Chelsea, would paint a modern and quite passable picture and add a ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... a passable Darby and Joan, no doubt. Still, it always vexes me to see people, who pretend to any sense, acting in ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... comparatively easy, there was no defile as on the Khurd-Kabul side, and the kotal, 8,000 feet above the sea, was reached by a gradual ascent from Butkhak. However, I found the Khurd-Kabul much less difficult than I had imagined it to be; it might have been made passable for carts, but there was no object in using it, as the Lataband route possessed the additional advantage of being some miles shorter; accordingly I decided upon adopting the latter as the line ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... Franco's circus, which came to Keighley, led me into the belief that with a little practice I should make a passable trapezist, or tight-rope walker. So when I got home the first thing I did was to procure some rope &c. With this apparatus I constructed a kind of trapeze and tight-rope in my bed chamber. I used to practice nightly just before jumping ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... kunulo. Partridge perdriko. Party partio. Parvenu elsaltulo. Pass (intrans.) pasi. Pass (trans.) pasigi. Pass, to let preterlasi. Pass by preteriri. Pass on preterpasi. Pass over, across transpasi. Pass through trapasi. Pass (passport) pasporto. Passable nebona. Passage (a way) aleo. Passage trairejo. Passage (voyage) vojiro, vojagxo. Passenger vojagxanto. Passer-by pasanto. Passion manio, pasio. Passion kolera, kolerega, pasio. Passionate pasia, kolerema. Passive pasiva. Passport pasporto. Password signaldiro. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... much "comfort" in contemplating the car's condition. In fact I didn't care in the least whether I saw the thing again or not. All I cared about was reaching the Khan and putting down my bag. We found tracks where some scrubby plants were growing, where the surface was passable, but as we neared the entrance to the Khan, where carts and horsemen had made a veritable quagmire, we stuck, all three, without apparently any prospect of getting on at all unless we abandoned our baggage. However, some Arabs came to our assistance and relieved us of our burdens, ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... of the midnight mass, all the ejected brethren flock to the abbey. Some have toiled through miry and scarce passable roads. Others have come down from the hills, and forded deep streams at the hazard of life, rather than go round by the far-off bridge, and arrive too late. Others, who conceive themselves in peril from the share ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... gilded. They bore the name, address, and calling of the issuer, the nominal value of the piece, and some reference to his trade. They were readily redeemed, on presentation, at their face value. They were passable in the immediate neighborhood, seldom reaching farther than the next street. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... of winter, which sometimes occurs in the first week of October, was therefore to be dreaded. From this time the country becomes unfit for traveling of any description until the streams are bound with solid ice and a crust formed on the snow of sufficient firmness to make it passable on snowshoes. The only road is that along the St. John River, and it would be almost impossible for a party distant more than 10 or 12 miles from that stream to extricate itself after ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... the capital, and carrying away its stuffs in return. The Venetians of every class amused themselves in visiting this free mart, and the gentler and more delicate sex pressed eagerly forward to traverse with their feet a space hitherto passable only in gondolas. [Footnote: Origine delle Feste Veneziane, di Giustina Renier-Michiel] The lagoon remained frozen, and these pleasures lasted eighteen days, a period of cold unequaled till last winter. A popular song now declares that the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... bed lay remote from the few beaten paths of the thinly populated country, it would involve considerable hard work and time to get passable roads cut through, so as to be able to ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... from which the slope up to the plaza on the summit of the hill is gradual. The point formed by this branch and the bay is covered with a thick growth of limes and other trees, through which winds a scrambling sort of path, passable by mules, and but very seldom used. After winding through the trees and bushes, and up a steep hill, that farther to the left, or westward, becomes an abrupt precipice of two hundred feet in height; it emerges ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... his bar and asked for a drink of English ale, a passable quality of which was served in the original imported bottles ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... hearty. Vandermere, an ordinarily intelligent but unimaginative Englishman, of the normally healthy type, a sportsman, a good fellow, and a man of breeding—and Saton, this strange product of strange circumstances, externally passable enough, but with something about him which seemed, even in that clear November sunshine, ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... out to the founder's, and after a walk of some distance came to the river, which we had intended to cross by a floating bridge of boats; but here the LORD shut up our path. The bridge had been carried away during the preceding night, and the river was only passable by means of a ferry, the fare for which was two cash each person. As we only possessed one cash, our course clearly was to return and await GOD'S own ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... of the world; he told us he began it three years ago with a force of but nine men; that it would be extended to San Cristobal and San Bartolome; that he was no engineer, but that he could tell quite well when a road was passable for a cart. We found him greatly interested in a congress which he had called of persons interested in labor questions. Among the questions which he hoped to see considered was the abolition of the system of peonage, which still exists in ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... has been staying in from his work, these mornings, helping me about the house. He is clumsy and slow, and has broken two or three of the dishes. But I hate to say anything; his eyes get so tragic. He declares that as soon as the trails are passable he's going to have a woman to help me, that this sort of thing can't go on any longer. He imagines it's merely the monotony of housework that is ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... organizations might nominate a certain proportion of their staffs, and organized trade-unions with any claim to skill, a certain proportion of their men, their "decent" men, and every artist or writer who could submit a passable diploma work; it would be, in fact, a mark set upon every man or woman who was qualified to do something or who had done something, as distinguished from the man who had done nothing in the world, the mere common unenterprising esurient man. It might carry many ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... have to do that," returned my Fellow Worm, alive though trodden under foot. "I have never spent a night in Ste. Enemie, but I've lunched here, and the food is passable. I should think the rooms would ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Max formed the word: "Stolen?" but Carrie declined to answer. As there was no help for it, Max dressed his friend in such of the clothes as were a passable fit for him, while Carrie went out to watch for the expected carriage. When she returned to the kitchen, Dudley was ready for the journey. He was lying back in a chair, looking very white and haggard and exhausted, ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... passion that reminded him of his pursuit. The deer trail led down through a break in the wall. Only a few rods of it could be seen. This trail was passable, even though choked with snow. But the depth beyond this wall seemed to fascinate Slone and hold him back, used as he was to desert trails. Then the clean mark of Wildfire's hoof brought back the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... deity can e'er undo. A spot Near Janus' temple, cool with flowing streams, Ausonia's Naiaeds own'd; and aid from these She sought. Nor could the nymphs deny a boon So just; and instant all their rills and floods Burst forth. But still to Janus' open gate The way was passable, nor could the waves Oppose their way. They to the fruitful springs Apply blue sulphur, and the hollow caves Fire with bitumen; to the lowest depth They forceful penetrate, both this, and that. And ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Katy's chance for being Mrs. Cameron was growing constantly less and less as he saw more and more how vast was the difference between the Barlows and himself. Helen, he acknowledged, was passable, though she was not one whom he could ever introduce into New York society; and he was wondering how Katy came to be so unlike the rest, when Uncle Ephraim came up from the meadow, and announced himself as ready now to visit, apologizing for his apparent neglect, and seeming so absolutely ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... emphatically prescribed; and now that a monthly stipend far exceeding his wants was at his disposal, and that it became him to do all possible honour to the earl's patronage, he resolved that the diamond should be no longer absent from the operations it was to influence. He obtained one of passable size and sparkle, exposed it the due number of nights to the new moon, and had already prepared its place in the Eureka, and was contemplating it with solemn ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to the great king of celestial, sublime, and transcendent things, the lacqueys and footboys of the court, upon the upper steps of stairs between two doors, jumbled, one after another, as often as they listed, his wife, who is passable fair, and a pretty snug hussy. Thus he who seemed very clearly to see all heavenly and terrestrial things without spectacles, who discoursed boldly of adventures past, with great confidence opened up present cases and accidents, and stoutly professed the presaging of all future events and contingencies, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... importance. We can only point out the field for study and research; it belongs to each one's own genius and industry to deduce the results. However ugly you may be, rest assured that there is some style of habiliment which will make you passable. ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... township the bread cost nearly three-halfpence a pound, while in another, some twelve miles off, it was to be had for a penny. It follows that the carriage of goods along twelve miles of road cost a farthing a pound. At Sonnino bad wine was sold for sevenpence the litre, while the same quantity of passable wine might be had at Pagliano, thirty miles off, for twopence halfpenny; so the cost of carrying an article weighing some two pounds for thirty miles was fourpence halfpenny. Wherever governments make roads, prices naturally find ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... frozen hard and was very slippery. The snow hid many holes in the ice or dangerous rocks, while landslips had carried away large portions of the path. No wonder that men and beasts unused to such ground staggered and fell and rolled down the sides of the precipice. At length the path, barely passable before, grew narrower still; the army halted, and an active, light-armed soldier offered to go forward, and discover if the track became wider, and whether it was possible for even the men to go on. But the further he went the worse matters seemed. For some distance ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... typewritten, were copied and objectionable matter omitted, and his signature reproduced by the photo-engraving process, separately each time. But before long, several letters came back to him rubber-stamped: "Not passable. Please revise." It took Benda two days to cool down and rewrite the first letter. But outwardly no one would have ever known that there was anything ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... water. No rain seems to have fallen here for a long time back; the grass is quite dry and withered. At 8.15 proceeded down the river, and, to avoid the hills, I went about a mile to the west, and found a very passable road; for about two miles we had sandy soil and spinifex mixed with grass, also a few stony rises of lime and sandstone. The country after that again became excellently grassed, the soil light and a little ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... failed to materialize, and it was not long before the expected began to happen. Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy's business appeared outwardly passable, but curiously enough it almost always seemed—after the loss—that the risk was one on which the company should never have been committed. And there were two unpleasant incidents where the Guardian was "caught on a binder"—where the loss occurred before the ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... value of the golden furniture of a single temple in Babylon. In fact, in the suburbs of Babylon or Nineveh, Washington or Cincinnati would have been insignificant villages; and the stone-fronted brick palaces of Broadway and the Fifth Avenue would make passable stables and haylofts for the mansions of Thebes ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... given them six weeks to go to Switzerland and be happy in, all in celebration of Charles Knollys's majority and marriage to his young wife. So they had both forgotten heaven for the nonce, having a passable substitute; but the powers divine overlooked them pleasantly and forgave it. And even the phlegmatic driver of their Einspaenner looked back from the corner of his eye at the schoene Englaenderin, and compared her mentally with the far-famed beauty of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... actual scold when my poor father expired; she has shewn a hardness of heart upon this occasion that would appear incredible to any body not capable of it themselves. The addition to her jointure is, one way or other, L2000 per annum; so her good Grace remains a passable rich widow, and is already presented by the town with a variety of young husbands; but I believe her constitution is not good enough to let her amorous inclinations get the ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... the North River just above the junction, carrying the Harrisonburg road into Port Republic; but the South River, which cuts off Port Republic from the Luray Valley, is passable ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... and, concentrating their fire upon the bridge, across which reinforcements continued to press to the support of the assailants, they succeeded in sinking so many of the boats that it was no longer passable. ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... you, when you are a guest, shall show neither annoyance nor disappointment—no matter what happens. Before you can hope to become even a passable guest, let alone a perfect one, you must learn as it were not to notice if hot soup is poured down your back. If you neither understand nor care for dogs or children, and both insist on climbing all over you, you must seemingly like it; just as you must be amiable and polite to ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... been drawn agreeably to these his declared resolutions. But the Irish counsellors persuaded him that the season was too early for the enterprise, and that as the morasses, in which the northern Irish usually sheltered themselves, would not as yet be passable to the English forces, it would be better to employ the present time in an expedition into Munster. Their secret reason for this advice was, that many of them possessed estates in that province, and were desirous to have the enemy dislodged from their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... tool that would complete the work by the time the roads to the mountains should be passable, and the diggings clear of snow. Their expectations might have been realized sooner, if a bluff old launch captain, with an eye to business for himself and San Francisco, had not appeared on the scene, shouting, "Ahoy" ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... or could not, conceive of an industry either so vast or so depersonalized as at present. He was rather writing of a system which, like the politics of the eighteenth century, had reached an equilibrium of passable comfort. His natural order was, at bottom, the beatification of that to which this equilibrium tended. Its benefits might be improved by free trade and free workmanship; but, upon the whole, he saw no reason to call ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... you that for a woman of twenty-seven, with a face still passable, but with a form a little too much like that of the Emperor Nicholas for the humble part I play, I am happy! Let me tell you why: Adolphe, rejoicing in the deceptions which have fallen upon me like a hail-storm, smoothes over the wounds in my ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Moreover, close at hand was a little rill that bubbled among mossy rocks, mighty pleasant to be heard. And hereabouts grew all manner of vines, sweet-smelling shrubs and fern; of these I gathered goodly quantity and strowing them within the cave therewith made a very passable bed; which done, I went back where she lay a-drying her wet garments in the warm sun as ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... as a girl, she was on her feet, and we executed quite a passable tango up and down the veranda, to the accompaniment of her husband's—"Luccia! Luccia! what a wild ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... "Bugle" was, in fact, execrable; but Mrs. Cat, who served it to the two soldiers, made it so agreeable to them, that they found it a passable, even a pleasant task, to swallow the contents of a second bottle. The miracle had been wrought instantaneously on her appearance: for whereas at that very moment the Count was employed in cursing the wine, ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... across the river and in getting away with about 1000 officers and men, principally belonging to Floyd's old brigade. Some cavalry and small detachments and individual officers with Colonel Forrest escaped in the night by the river road, which was only passable, on account of ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... round with snow, except a small hole which he leaves for the convenience of breathing. In this manner he lies, with his dogs around him, who assist in keeping him warm, sometimes for several days, till the storm is past, and the roads again become passable, so that he may be able to pursue his ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... pupils a body fit and apt for war (and we have seen that to be a citizen usually implies being a hoplite), and to develop a body beautiful to the eye and efficient for civil life. The naturally beautiful youth can be made more beautiful; the naturally homely youth can be made at least passable under the care of a skilful ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... you are ill after we are separated, this will cure you." Next day, sure enough, a go-between did come, and Ma at once asked what the proposed bride was like; to which the former replied that she was very passable-looking. Four or five ounces of silver was fixed as the marriage present, Ma making no difficulty on that score, but declaring he must have a peep at the young lady. [41] The go-between said she was a respectable girl, and would never allow herself to be seen; ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... form an harmonious quartette? We have nerve; has it not been tested throughout the somewhat arduous journey of the preceding weeks? We have presence of mind; we are passable gymnastes. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... felt she was beginning to grasp her lesson thoroughly. She proved, too, wonderfully quick at detecting mistakes, and Barry, who had petitioned the heads of the office they had selected not to send him any Council School product, was pleased to find that her spelling was admirable, her grammar passable, and her ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... of your name Is not here passable!' 'A thousand knees Six thousand years together, naked, fasting, Upon a barren mountain, and still winter In storm perpetual, could not move the gods To ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... would be delighted with the simplicity and elegant taste of these untaught females.' The same young girl, he says, accompanied them to the boat, carrying on her shoulders, as a present, a large basket of yams, 'over such roads and down such precipices, as were scarcely passable by any creatures except goats, and over which we could scarcely scramble with the help of our hands. Yet with this load on her shoulders, she skipped from rock to rock like ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... (not being able to sleep) I composed a couplet, as my first essay in poetry. It was passable; better, or at least composed with more taste than it would have been the preceding night, the subject being tenderness, to which my heart was now entirely disposed. In the morning I showed my performance to Venture, who, being pleased with the couplet, put it in his pocket, without ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Strabo's is this [Geog. B. XIV. p. 666]: "Now about Phaselis is that narrow passage, by the sea-side, through which his army. There is a mountain called Climax, adjoins to the Sea of Pamphylia, leaving a narrow passage on the shore, which, in calm weather, is bare, so as to be passable by travelers, but when the sea overflows, it is covered to a great degree by the waves. Now then, the ascent by the mountains being round about and steep, in still weather they make use of the road along the coast. But Alexander fell into the winter season, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... or whether its source was beneath the rock. If the former, there was possibly a way out by means of the stream, provided the distance intervening was not too great. Mickey thought that if this distance were passable, there would be some glimmer of light to indicate it. But, when left alone in the darkness, he found that there was not the slightest approach to anything of the kind, and he was compelled to acknowledge that all escape by that direction was utterly ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... of Maubeuge, wrote:[166] "The march out of the prisoners began on the same day at 2.30 p.m. and lasted over six hours. They were conducted to trains and despatched to Germany. Some of the infantry made a good impression, while the pioneers and artillery can only be classed as passable. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith |
