"Tolerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there are very good reasons for it. Greece is a centre of life, and the only possible centre for the Archipelago, and its immediate neighbourhood. But it is vain to think of it as a centre from which light and warmth can proceed, until it has attained to a tolerable organisation, political and economical. I believe in the capacity of the people ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... the carrion crows, but looks up first to see where they may be gathering. It is a sufficient occupation for a windy morning, on the lineless, level mesa, to watch the pair of them eying each other furtively, with a tolerable assumption of unconcern, but no doubt with a certain amount of good understanding about it. Once at Red Rock, in a year of green pasture, which is a bad time for the scavengers, we saw two buzzards, five ravens, and a coyote feeding on the same carrion, and only ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... her, and Mr. Schwirtz and Sanford Hunt and Sam Weintraub and Todd faded. She treasured her mother's happiness at their Christmas dinner with the Sessionses. She encouraged the Sessionses to come up to the flat as often as they could, and she lulled her mother to a tolerable calm boredom. Before it was convenient to think of men ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... Miss Buff impetuously. "I should like to know who they will appoint next to pry into our private affairs? As long as old Dobbs collected all the rates and taxes they were just tolerable, but since they have begun to appoint new men every year my patience is exhausted. Talk of giving us votes at elections: I would rather vote at twenty elections than have Tom, Dick, and Harry licensed to inquire into my ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... on the Fichtean Egoismus may, perhaps, be amusing to the few who have studied the system, and to those who are unacquainted with it, may convey as tolerable a likeness of Fichte's idealism as can be expected from an avowed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... he received a note in a handwriting which he did not know: it was that of Mr. Bows, indeed, saying, that Mr. Arthur Pendennis had had a tolerable night; and that as Dr. Goodenough had stated that the major desired to be informed of his nephew's health, he, R. B., had sent him the ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which modern are superior to ancient languages is freedom from tautology. No English style is thought tolerable in which, except for the sake of emphasis, the same words are repeated at short intervals. Of course the length of the interval must depend on the character of the word. Striking words and expressions cannot be allowed to reappear, if at all, except at the distance of a page or more. Pronouns, ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... faster. But she had seriously thought, as she came down in the train today and planned her fresh activities at home of trying to master them, so that she could get through their intricacies with tolerable accuracy. Until then, she would assuredly stop at the end of the first movement in these moonlit seances, and say that the other two were more like morning and afternoon. Then with a sigh she would softly shut the piano lid, and perhaps ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... of which there is a tolerable stock, as well as the vegetable productions, are almost entirely peculiar to the place. And though it be difficult to follow them, on account of the quantity of underwood, and the climbing plants, that render travelling, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... "unrestrained remarks on contemporary matters"—aeroplanes, CHESTERTON and BELLOC, libraries, labour unrest, the Great State, and the like—by Mr. H. G. WELLS, is to be delighted or infuriated according to your natural habit of mind. If established in tolerable comfort in a world which you judge, for all its blemishes, to be on the whole rather well run, you will resent exceedingly this pert young man (for Mr. WELLS is still astonishingly young) with his preposterous eagerness, his insane passion for questioning and tinkering and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... during my lifetime the reins of all the Governments, my own included, were seized by the people, I should move over and trust my destinies to the proletariat of France. Their lively minds and quick sympathies would make their rule tolerable at least. As I have said before, the ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... but failed, for the creeks were full of water, and our approach to it or to the nearer flats was entirely cut off. So intersected indeed was this neighbourhood, that we got to a point at which five creeks joined. The scene was a very pretty one, since they formed a sheet of water of tolerable size shaded by large trees. The native name of this place was "Chouraknarup," a name by no means so harmonious as the names of their places generally are. We had not commenced any collection at this time, there being nothing new ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... and to wait there the event of the negotiations, hanging upon the rear of Naples and Tuscany, but without any other present object, and then to be determined by circumstances as to the future destination of his fleet, for Portugal, Great Britain, Ireland, or the West Indies. If we have tolerable luck, Nelson will disappoint all ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... had not the initial impulse to depart from ancient usage that my father had in his habitual scepticism. He had always been a nonconformist in his heart; she bore lovingly the yoke of prescribed conduct. Individual freedom, to him, was the only tolerable condition of life; to her it was confusion. My mother, therefore, gradually divested herself, at my father's bidding, of the mantle of orthodox observance; but the process cost her many a pang, because the fabric of that venerable garment was interwoven with the fabric ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... the dangers and all the discomforts Gay had celebrated nearly two generations earlier. And these dangers and discomforts were not confined to London. The world beyond London was a world of growing provincial towns and increasing seaports connected by tolerable and sometimes admirable highways, and of smaller towns and villages reduced for the most part to an almost complete isolation by roads that were always nearly and often quite impassable. To travel much in England ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... meal on her wedding-day. As for me, I am a poor, miserable, unhealthy creature, not amenable to ordinary dietetic rules, and much given to taking any excitement, above a certain amount in lieu of rational food; so I sustained myself on a cup of coffee, and saw Frank also make tolerable play of knife and fork, though he did take some blanc-mange with his cold chicken, and profusely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... for the Review established on an entirely new principle; and I occasionally tried my best to translate into German portions of the publisher's philosophy. In this last task I experienced more than one difficulty. I was a tolerable German scholar, it is true, and I had long been able to translate from German into English with considerable facility; but to translate from a foreign language into your own is a widely different thing from translating ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... not meant by any means to assert that Spain has put forth an energy adequate to the service—or in any tolerable proportion to her own strength. Far from it! But upon whom does the blame rest? Not surely upon the people—who, as long as they continued to have confidence in their rulers, could not be expected (after the early fervours of their revolution had subsided) much to overstep the measure ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... at being a little nearer to his journey's end, though some cajoled themselves past the immediate engagement by promise of indulgence beyond—steak and kidney pudding, drink or a game of dominoes in the smoky corner of a city restaurant. Oh yes, human life is very tolerable on the top of an omnibus in Holborn, when the policeman holds up his arm and the sun beats on your back, and if there is such a thing as a shell secreted by man to fit man himself here we find it, on the banks of the Thames, where ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... Hence it is, that when a person goes from daylight into a darkened room, he can at first see nothing; by degrees however he begins to have an imperfect perception of the different objects, and if he remain long enough, he will see them with tolerable distinctness, though the quantity of light be the same as when he entered the room, when ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... go home until I am forced to it. My father has been all his lifetime occupied by the interests of the public. His own fortune has suffered. His children must provide for themselves. I am determined to get my own living, and to be dependent upon no one. With a tolerable share of common sense, I hope, in America, to be independent and free. Rather than live otherwise, I would wish to die before ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... and wine. Many things of disagreeable taste at first cease to be disagreeable by frequent repetition, as tobacco; grief and pain gradually diminish, and at length cease altogether, and hence life itself becomes tolerable. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... promptitude the directions of Ivanhoe, and availing herself of the protection of the large ancient shield, which she placed against the lower part of the window, Rebecca, with tolerable security to herself, could witness part of what was passing without the castle, and report to Ivanhoe the preparations which the assailants were making for the storm. Indeed the situation which she thus obtained was peculiarly favourable for this purpose, because, being placed ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... by the Gauls, who, in this contest of two very powerful states, by a doubtful neutrality, were evidently looking forward to the favour of the conqueror. The Romans submitted to this conduct of the Gauls with tolerable satisfaction, provided they did not take any active part at all; but the Carthaginian bore it with great discontent, giving out that he had come invited by the Gauls to set them at liberty. On account of that resentment, and in order that he might at the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... descent to Shakespeare is a trifle unfair; to compare him to Moliere is to misapprehend the differences between pure literature and literature that is also drama. Congreve, as I have said, has disappeared from the boards, and is only tolerable or even intelligible to the true reader; while Shakespeare worked on so imperfect a convention that, though he keeps the stage and is known indeed for the poet of the most popular play ever written—(for that, I take it, Hamlet is)—he ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... strong an argument as their sex is able to produce, though conveyed, in a greasy light.... To stoop to regard for the strutting things is not enough; to humor them more than we could children with any tolerable decency is too little; they must be served, forsooth!" It is grievous injustice to Sophia, but one almost fancies one hears Madame George Sand. She allows that to please man ought to be part of the sex's business if it were likely to succeed; "but such is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... the truth, I never yet knew a tolerable woman to be fond of her own sex." The statement, if taken with too wide a meaning, might have been refuted by the sight, under his eyes, of the cordial and life-long affection of Miss Johnson and Lady Gifford, the sister of Sir William Temple. He ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... exhales, however his body may dwindle. It rather rarefies, and grows more inflammable, as the earthly particles diminish; and I have seen valor enough in a little fiery-hearted French dwarf, to have furnished out a tolerable giant. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... of days do; and through the open door of the adjoining apartment I watched Mr. Summers, and endeavored to follow all his proceedings. When he rang his bell, I rang mine; and, by dint of looking as wise and sober as I possibly could, I contrived to begin with a tolerable degree of success. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... exasperating, but I could not complain of unfairness, for every command in the army was suffering to the same extent as mine, and yet it did seem that a little forethought and exertion on the part of some of the other superior officers, whose transportation was in tolerable condition, might have ameliorated the situation considerably. I sent the train back at once for more clothing, and on its return, just before reaching Knoxville, the quartermaster in charge, Captain Philip Smith, filled the open spaces in the wagons between the bows ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... so prepared for pain that it recollects that the very greatest are terminated by death, and that slight pains have many intervals of rest, and that we can master moderate ones, so as to bear them if they are tolerable, and if not, we can depart with equanimity out of life, just as out of a theatre, when it no longer pleases us. By all which considerations it is understood that cowardice and idleness are not blamed, and that courage and patience ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... various stitches in crochet, that our limited space will allow; and we hope that the directions are so plain that no one will be at a loss to comprehend their meaning. But we cannot promise any votary of this delightful employment, even tolerable success, unless she will assiduously apply her own mind to the various directions. "No one can become an expert needlewoman, who does not ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... a dissertation upon new college puddings,{40} rather a choice dish, an elegant dessert and ices was introduced from Jubbers.{41} The glass now circulated freely, and the open-hearted mirth of my companions gave me a tolerable idea of many of the leading eccentricities of a collegian's life. The Oxford toast, the college divinity, was, I found, a Miss W-, whose father is a wealthy horse-dealer, and whom all agreed was a very amiable and beautiful girl. I ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... render'd the Surrender of it much more considerable. For the French being sensible of the great Strength of this Place, had there deposited all their Cannon and Ammunition, taken from their other Conquests in Holland, which they never were able to remove or carry off, with tolerable Prospect of Safety, after that Prince's ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... found they had been fortunate enough to secure a good large mountain sheep, a species of animal that run wild in California, and at certain seasons of the year are in prime condition. This was found only tolerable, but he was fully appreciated by our friends. Tim O'Rooney had managed to conceal a second knife about his person when bargaining with the Indian—one made on the liberal ideas that was displayed in the construction of his watch, and far more useful than the ornamental ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... the morning after he had dined and supped in Hans Place. Putting one thing and the other together, he began to have a tolerable inkling of how matters stood. He was looking forward to spending rather a pleasant day at this party of Beauchamp's, and he now saw the possibility of adding still greater zest to his enjoyment by pulling the strings of one of those small social dramas so constantly ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... patriotism. In the lower provinces of Eastern Canada and Nova Scotia there was a considerable military force, varying in the aggregate from four to five thousand men. The fortifications of Quebec were in a tolerable state of repair, but the citadel which dominates Halifax was in a dilapidated condition. The latter port was, however, the rendezvous of the English fleet, which always afforded adequate protection to British interests on the Atlantic coasts of British North ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... statesmen! They saw their way clear, they understood their game; it was to lighten in no degree the pressure which they maintained upon the lives of the Irish people, to do nothing that could tend to render existence tolerable to them in Ireland, or check the rush of emigration. Acting in conformity with this shallow and false estimate of the situation, they allowed to drift away unused the time which wise statesmen would have employed in the effectuation of conciliatory ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... Wilson made no answer for a few moments. Though a just man, he was a kind one. He could read human nature with tolerable accuracy. It was despair, not want of feeling, which put those hard tones into that young voice. He would not, he could not, take advantage of ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... vengeance; but the certainty of perishing in fearful pain if he did so deterred him, and when he was brought back, he delivered them to the sheikh, wrapped in the oilskin in which he had carried them about him until he had a fixed residence where he could deposit them in tolerable security. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... our (side) came from Detroit with a flag of truce and brought news that our army had arrived their safe and that the men were in tolerable health and spirits but we could not see them without a British being present. We sent some papers to Detroit after having them examined (by) an officer (of) the Part we would expect ...
— Journal of an American Prisoner at Fort Malden and Quebec in the War of 1812 • James Reynolds
... with politics," said Tom, getting up rather sulkily. Whether it was the force of habit, or the smell of the dinner, that made him do it, has not been ascertained; but it is certain that he walked into the house, ate plenty of pork and greens, and then took a tolerable share in demolishing ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... were successively brought to light, their heads rolled into the basket at the foot of the official guillotine. The swindlers, however, succeeded in bribing fresh victims, and for a time cunning and duplicity managed with tolerable success to maintain a foothold against the power of ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... sketch of the country, because I have not yet passed over a sufficient surface to give a connected view of the whole watershed of this region, and I regret that I cannot recommend any of the published maps I have seen as giving even a tolerable idea of the country. One bold constructor of maps has tacked on 200 miles to the north-west end of Lake Nyassa, a feat which no traveller has ever ventured to imitate. Another has placed a river in the same quarter running 3000 or 4000 feet ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... man who rides through the kingdom, where little is to be found among the tenants but beggary and desolation; the cabins of the Scotch themselves, in Ulster, being as dirty and miserable as those of the wildest Irish. Whereas good firm penal clauses for improvement, with a tolerable easy rent, and a reasonable period of time, would, in twenty years, have increased the rents of Ireland at least a third part in the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... thoroughly good, and very like Turner; the rest of the picture, as the one opposite to it, utterly virtueless. I have not seen any other instance of Salvator's painting water with any care, it is usually as conventional as the rest of his work, yet conventionalism is perhaps more tolerable in water-painting than elsewhere; and if his trees and rocks had been good, the rivers might have been generally accepted ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... is in a position to purchase substantially her former supplies from that source, the loss is limited to the effect on her balance of trade, and is without the more serious repercussions on her economic life which are contemplated in the text. Here is an opportunity for the Allies to render more tolerable the actual operation of the settlement. The Germans, it should be added, have pointed out that the same economic argument which adds the Saar fields to France allots Upper Silesia to Germany. For whereas the Silesian ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... this, though I hope it. It would be enough if he were brought back to Fiji, back to the food and fresh water of his childhood, back into the daylight from the darkness of the Marshalls, where some of us could see him, where we could write to him and receive answers, where he might pass a tolerable old age. If you can help me to get this done, I am sure that you will never regret it. In its small way, this is another case of Toussaint L'Ouverture, not so monstrous if you like, not on so large a scale, but with circumstances ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all verse that is to be plain and unaffected in style and thought requires the most studious composition. Byron seems scarcely to have understood that blank verse has any rules of scansion, and his signal failure in this metre has become less tolerable and more conspicuous, since Keats in his day, and Tennyson after him, have carefully studied the construction of blank verse, and have left us admirable examples of its capacity for romantic expression. It is indeed strange that Byron should have fancied ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the kind with which providence endows millions of foolish people, apparently by way of preventing them from realising their insignificance, or, at the worst, making their smallness tolerable. It arose from knowledge of the great and inexhaustible treasure of love which was hers to bestow; so convinced was she of the value of this wealth, that she guarded it jealously, not permitting it to suffer taint or deterioration from ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... escape the guard was augmented, and about this time a new prison keeper was appointed, our situation became more tolerable. ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... became less and less, and he saw clearly that Serpentina still loved him, and that it was she alone, who had rendered his confinement in the crystal tolerable. He disturbed himself no more about his frivolous companions in misfortune, but directed all his thoughts and meditations on the gentle Serpentina. Suddenly, however, there arose on the other side a dull, croaking, repulsive murmur. Ere long he could observe that it ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... occupants of their dreadful station. The former stood in a kind of stupid despair, a witness of the scene we have related; but as his curdled blood began again to flow more warmly through his heart, he crept close to the side of Tom, with that sort of selfish feeling that makes even hopeless misery more tolerable, when endured in ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... remembered with a pang that Bessie did not play at all, except simple accompaniments to songs, and found himself wondering in a vague kind of way what people would say to a Mrs. Neil McPherson who had no accomplishments except a sweet voice for ballad singing and a tolerable knowledge of French and German, which she had picked up when a child leading a Bohemian life on the Continent. Bessie was neither learned, nor accomplished, nor fashionable; but she was good and pure and beautiful, and Neil loved her with all the intensity of his selfish ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... regarding the stout and comfortable Flemming, suspect what regrets and what philosophies were disputing possession of his interior. For my external arrangements, I flatter myself that I have shaped them in tolerable taste. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... devoutly to be desired; identical education of the two sexes is a crime before God and humanity, that physiology protests against, and that experience weeps over. Because the education of boys has met with tolerable success, hitherto,—but only tolerable it must be confessed,—in developing them into men, there are those who would make girls grow into women by the same process. Because a gardener has nursed an acorn till it grew into an oak, they would have him cradle a grape in the same soil and way, ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... still subsist and operate infallibly, and which the legislator must take into consideration if he wants to turn them to account.—This individual, a civilized European and a modern Frenchman, constituted as he is by several centuries of tolerable police discipline, of respected rights and hereditary property, must have a private domain, an enclosed area, large or small, which belongs and is reserved to him personally, to which the public power interdicts access and before which ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... "she was not. She had pretty feet, fine eyes, and very lovely hair. 'Twas rich brown on the top of her head, and descending downward it grew into jet black. For the rest, she was but tolerable. In truth, her teeth wronged her by sticking too far out of her mouth; but for that she would have been lovelier ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... found current and traditionary in their country. Sometimes they laid the foundation of their tale in real fact. Even after all their borrowing from so many funds, they are still far from opulent. How few stories has Boccace which are tolerable, and how much fewer are there which you would desire to read twice! But this general difficulty is greatly increased, when we come to the drama. Here a fable is essential,—a fable which is to be conducted with rapidity, clearness, consistency, and surprise, without ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... chastised the protectionist champion, showing how unscrupulously he played the part of a plagiarist even in the sophisms he employed. Mr. Duncombe had the bad taste to move an amendment, which he knew there was no hope of carrying, or of finding a tolerable minority to support, thus impeding the public ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of Antonini's detail of the curiosities in Paris: he was a connoisseur in ordinaries, from twelve to five-and-thirty livres, knew all the rates of fiacre and remise, could dispute with a tailleur or a traiteur upon the articles of his bill, and scold the servants in tolerable French. But the laws, customs, and genius of the people, the characters of individuals, and scenes of polished life, were subjects which he had neither opportunities to observe, inclination to consider, nor discernment ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... believe I do bear a Part with a tolerable Grace— But I vow I bear no malice against the People I abuse, when I say an ill-natured thing, 'tis out of pure Good Humour—and I take it for granted they deal exactly in the same manner with me, but Sir Peter you know you promised to come ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... patient, and always doing, though never in a bustle. She was not one of those who acquire a character for vast industry by doing every thing in a mighty flurry, though they contrive to find time for a tolerable deal of gossip under the plea of resting a bit, and which "resting a bit" they always terminate by an exclamation that "they must be off, though, for they have a world of work to do." Betty Dunster, on the contrary, was looked on as rather "a slow coach." If you remarked that she ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... her pockets, and them keys was not there. So she started explaining in tanglefoot English to her lady how her lady must have took them from her before leavin' the cyar. But the lady seemed to relish hustlin' herself into a rage. She got tolerable conspicuous, too. And after a heap o' words, 'You are discharged,' she says; and off she struts. Soon her husband came out to Willomene, still standin' like statuary, and he pays her a good sum of cash, and he goes away, and she keeps a standing yet for a spell. Then all of ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... prophesied, I made such advance that I was after a while able to walk with tolerable ease without my crutches, by the aid of a walking-stick; and as time went on, the tonic effect of Margate air, aiding the remedies prescribed by the surgeon, worked such a change in me that I was pronounced well, and ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the Gischalan?" was the returned inquiry. The Maccabee assented calmly. The young man indicated a broad street moving with people which led with tolerable directness ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... easily, noting the decidedly negative poise of the other's head. "I've got a tolerable sweet tooth, I have. Recollect the taffy I made over on Preacher Creek that time? I declare! how time does fly! That was all of six years ago if it's a day. More'n that, surely. Seven, by the Jimcracky! But ez I was sayin', I'd ruther do without my plug of 'Star' ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... the most elementary and fundamental rights either of her own people or of the citizens of other countries resident within her territory can long be successfully safeguarded, and which threatens, if long continued, to imperil the interests of peace, order, and tolerable life in the lands immediately to the south of us. Even if the usurper had succeeded in his purposes, in despite of the constitution of the Republic and the rights of its people, he would have set up nothing but a precarious and hateful power, which could have lasted but a little while, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... all liked her up to a certain point, and found it agreeably useful to have any one in the house who was so well acquainted with their ways and habits; so ready to talk, when a little trickle of conversation was required; so willing to listen, and to listen with tolerable intelligence, if the subjects spoken about did not refer to serious solid literature, or science, or politics, or social economy. About novels and poetry, travels and gossip, personal details, or anecdotes of any kind, she always ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... suspicions regarding the young man's love for Agnes, but she knew in her heart that she had only done so by telling a pack of miserable lies. Now, as she walked back to The Manor, she reflected that by using her secret information dexterously, she might improve such falsehood into tolerable truth. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... our decent respect for the dead, which leads us to postpone interment as long as possible, is a tolerable security against being buried alive. The coffin is seldom closed upon the remains, before decomposition has already commenced. That is death's certain seal; nor, in the present state of our knowledge, special cases of course excepted, is it right to consider life surely extinct, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... liquors, jealous competition in useless expenditure, husband-hunting, flirting, dancing, theatres, and concerts. The last three, which Agatha liked, helped to make the contrast between Alton and London tolerable to her, but they had their drawbacks, for good partners at the dances, and good performances at the spiritless opera and concerts, were disappointingly scarce. Flirting she could not endure; she drove men away when they became tender, seeing ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... when she grew worse? Would she not, probably, have overcome this disagreeable accident, and recovered, in spite of it? This cow's hair did not look well, as did that of those in which the cyst was air-tight; but still she was beginning to eat well again, and appeared in a tolerable ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... increased the vogue of Greek architecture and the number of Greek artists in Rome. The temples of the last two centuries B.C., and some of earlier date, though still Etruscan in plan, were in many cases strongly Greek in the character of their details. Afew have remained to our time in tolerable preservation. The temple of Fortuna Virilis (really of Fors Fortuna), of the second century (?) B.C., is a tetrastyle prostyle pseudoperipteral temple with a high podium or base, atypical Etruscan cella, and a deep porch, now walled up, but thoroughly Greek in the elegant details of its ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... of the Hampshire Yeomanry, a great friend of Williams, turned up, and had supper with us. We had no fatted calf to kill; but fortunately could show a tolerable menu, including ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... administration of Prussia, including the financial department; that of Hardenberg to conduct the ministry of foreign affairs; and that of Scharnhorst to reorganize the military power. The two former were nobles; the latter sprung from the people,—a peasant's son; but they worked together in tolerable harmony, considering the rival jealousies that at one time existed among all the high officials, with their ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... me, my director could not avoid giving himself the pleasurable relief of saying, "Sulky little brute!" A trunk being sent for, and my wardrobe placed in it, we then drove to three or four other shops, not forgetting a hatter's, and in a very short space of time I had a very tolerable fit-out. During all this time, not a word did my ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... could there have been a more delightful play-room than this. It was so large that two great fires which burned at either end were not at all too much to emit even tolerable warmth. The room was bright with three or four lamps which were suspended from the ceiling, the floor was covered with matting, and the walls were divided into curious partitions, which gave the room a peculiar but very cosy effect. ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... distinguished from epilepsy, as the patient does not intirely lose all perception during the paroxysm. Which only shews, that a less exhaustion of sensorial power renders tolerable the pains which cause convulsion, than those which cause epilepsy. The hysteric convulsions are distinguished from those, owing to other causes, by the presence of the expectation of death, which precedes and succeeds them, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... distance and the badness of the roads, he had travelled a hundred and fifty tedious miles at the last stage he prudently dismissed the post-boy. It was not yet daylight, and therefore, for fear of the rocks and precipices mentioned in her letter, he proceeded with tolerable discretion, considering he was ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... chair, and looked with wide-open but unseeing eyes across the table, through the wall beyond. He saw his future damned by that one unpardonable accusation. He saw himself sent out into the world penniless, an outcast from all the things in life which made existence tolerable. He knew very well that Andrew would never forgive. There was no mercy to be hoped for from him. There was nothing to be looked for anywhere save disaster, absolute and entire. He looked across at Forrest, and something in his companion's face sent a cold ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... agreement, he had inspected the whole house. He found it large, conveniently arranged, and in very tolerable repair. ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... a tolerable one myself," said George. "A single hair of those boys' heads is worth the lives of all the Indians that ever saw the Staked Plains, and if it becomes necessary to shoot in their defence, I am ready. There is a high sandhill, and if you will stop ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... falling off in his little circle that met for social prayer, and took occasion, the first time he collected a tolerable audience, to tell concerning "the conference meeting that the disciples attended" ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... reach in desperation beyond the fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the universe are ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human face. London is religion's opportunity—not the decorous religion of theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the continuous flow would be tolerable if a man of our own sort—not anyone pompous or tearful—were caring for us ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... a good outside, like hypocrites, white in plumes, and soft, their flesh is hard, black, unwholesome, dangerous, melancholy meat; Gravant et putrefaciant stomachum, saith Isaac, part. 5. de vol., their young ones are more tolerable, but young pigeons he ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... quite envious. This is a curious life for a regular shore-going person such as myself; the worst part of it is its extreme length. There is certainly a great deal of high enjoyment, and on the contrary a tolerable share of vexation of spirit. Everything, however, shall bend to the pleasure of grubbing up old bones, and captivating new animals. By the way, you rank my Natural History labours far too high. I am nothing more than a lions' provider: I do not feel at all sure that they will ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... whose help she had relied, held out no assistance; Annie was stubborn and would obviously, wherever she was, do her best to make of herself a barrier against the world, the world that Blanche must know if life were to be tolerable here. The climax, to Blanche's mind, had been a ball just given by a local magnate and his wife who lived on the outskirts of Penzance. Ishmael had been invited and she with him, under the chaperonage ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... eating, like turnip greens cooked in a kettle with hog skins and crackling grease, and skinned corn, and rabbit or possum stew. I liked big fish tolerable well too, but I was afraid of the ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... off life because to do so is a very sinful act, and lest, indeed, I fall into a more miserable order of existence! This order of existence, viz., that of a jackal, to which I now belong is rather tolerable. Miserable as it is, there are many orders of existence below it that are more miserable still. By birth certain classes of creatures become happier than others who become subject to great woe. But I never ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... upon the surface as under, so I turned to and ploughed crossways, which gave it a little better appearance. Then I allowed it a week to rest, taking my spade in the meantime and breaking the lumps and digging in the straying "vraic." At length I had my land in tolerable order, although the seaweed refused to rot as quickly as I desired. I reckoned, however, that it would rot in time, and thus nourish the seed I put in, and so ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... a class of men who are prejudicial to the state, yet are necessary to and we can only hope to reduce their power within tolerable limits. At present, their excesses and irregularities are intolerable; and it is impossible that they should further increase their wealth and their power without ruining the state, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... arrangement, the land breeze, disagreeably known as "the Undertaker," drops down from the Liguanea Mountains on to the sweltering town about 11 p.m., and continues all through the night. It is this double breeze, from sea by day, from land by night, that renders life in Kingston tolerable. Owing to the sea breeze invariably blowing from the same direction, Jamaicans have the puzzling habit of using "Windward" and "Leeward" as synonyms for East and West. To be told that such-and-such a place is "two ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... provoke a quarrel, the slightest cause of offence was magnified into an affair of honour, and the lives of several of the most distinguished men of the century were imperilled in this way. 'A gentleman,' Lord Chesterfield writes, 'is every man who, with a tolerable suit of clothes, a sword by his side, and a watch and snuffbox in his pockets, asserts himself to be a gentleman, swears with energy that he will be treated as such, and that he will cut the throat of any man who presumes to say ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... began to applaud their prosperity; the base and lewdest sorts of men, to whom there is nothing more agreeable than change of estates, is a better monture to degrees than their merit, took present hold thereof. Hereby Paul Buys, Barneveld, and divers others, who were before mantled with a tolerable affection, though seasoned with a poisoned intention, caught the occasion, and made themselves the Beelzebubs of all these mischiefs, and, for want of better angels, spared not to let fly our golden-winged ones in the name of guilders, to prepare the hearts and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a little more tolerable; for it had by that time become apparent that, unless favoured by some unforeseen accident, the chase could not possibly escape us. At Jean Rabel the land begins to trend to the southward and westward, extending in that direction a distance of some four ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... indefatigable appetite for work of all kinds, he reminds us of no modern politician so much as of Sir George Cornewall Lewis; yet he would not have altogether agreed with him in thinking that life would be very tolerable if it were not for its amusements. He was, as we have seen, of a naturally social disposition. "I like a dinner-party", he says in a letter to one of his friends; "where I can say just what comes uppermost, and turn my sighs and sorrows into a hearty laugh. I doubt whether you are much better ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... well-ascertained privileges, whose language, manners, and radical prejudices render not only redress, but all complaint on their part, a matter of extreme difficulty,—such an administration, it is evident, never can be made subservient to the interests of Great Britain, or even tolerable to the natives, but by the strictest rigor in exacting obedience to the commands of the authority lawfully set ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... many young fellows of artistic calibre, had a general affection for the muses but no very marked vocation for anything, had been pitchforked into engineering, and was making quite tolerable progress, and would possibly support himself later on, but always with the feeling that life was commonplace and unromantic, and that a splendid vision had been somewhere just round the corner, only ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... immoralist," he means that he is the true moralist; that he is going to substitute for a decayed, outworn, conventional, and stupid morality, a morality based upon a rational human principle—a morality that will make society better and more tolerable. In this particular essay he asks us to get rid of the idea that the family, as at present constituted, is the highest form of human co-partnership. "The people who talk and write as if the highest attainable state is that of a family stewing in ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... as I have had with your exquisite studies, and how I have been beaten! I failed entirely in the golden-rod, and do not get the brilliant yellow of the mullein flower; one could not easily fail on the saggitarius, and the clover was tolerable. I think I will take no more lessons at present, as I have much to do in getting another boy fitted for college. After I get settled at Dorset I want to make a desperate effort to paint from nature, and if I have any ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... and Logan indicate Samarlanga, but I should look for it nearer Pasei. As pointed out by Mr. Braddell in the J. Ind. Arch., Malay tradition represents the site of Pasei as selected on a hunting expedition from Samudra, which seems to imply tolerable proximity. And at the marriage of the Princess of Parlak to Malik Al-Salih, we are told that the latter went to receive her on landing at Jambu Ayer (near Diamond Point), and thence conducted her to the city of Samudra. I should seek Samudra near the head of the estuary-like ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... "constantly" by Mr. Pollock on the ground that the classical meaning of the word does not suit the context. I venture to think, however, that a tolerable sense may be obtained without doing ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... set on the board. He produced at the same time his punch-bowl, made of Inverary marble; and, mixing it with water and sugar, filled their glasses and invited them to drink. The travellers were in haste, and, besides, the flavour of the whiskey to their southern palates was scarcely tolerable; but the generous poet offered them his best, and his ardent hospitality they found impossible to resist. Burns was in his happiest mood, and the charm of his conversation was altogether fascinating. He ranged over a variety of topics, illuminating ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... exaggerated his regard for himself. This admiration was perhaps the most pleasing feature to be noted on a brief acquaintance with his lordship. He was obviously intended neither for a strong man of action nor a great man of thought. A tolerable appearance and considerable amiability he might no doubt claim; but unfortunately the effort to retain his eye-glass had apparently the effect of forcing his mouth chronically open, which somewhat marred his appearance; while his ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... stated to the writer, by an intelligent traveller, who had visited Mexico, that it was rare to meet an individual with even a tolerable set of teeth; and that almost every grown person, he met in the street, had merely remnants of teeth. On inquiry into the customs of the Country, it was found, that it was the universal practice to take their usual beverage at almost the boiling point; and this, doubtless, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... The clouds come and go, there are always glimpses of sunshine. Violet was grateful for the kindness that greeted her everywhere among her old friends, and perhaps a little glad of the evident admiration accorded to her beauty in all circles. Life was just tolerable, after all. She thought of Roderick Vawdrey as of something belonging to the past; something which had no part, never would have any part, in her future life. He too was dead and passed away, like her father. Lady Mabel's ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... hopelessness of expecting Henry to submit to such humiliation as this. "If the King be cited to appear in person or by proxy and his prerogative be interfered with, none of his subjects will tolerate the insult. To cite the King to Rome, to threaten him with excommunication, is no more tolerable than to deprive him of his royal dignity. If he were to appear in Italy it would be at the head of a formidable army." But Clement had been deaf to the warning, and the case had been avoked out of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... than their leathern companions, endured more than forty years of actual service through all the ramifications of our extensive family. In this time they had suffered many dilapidations; but by the care and ingenuity of the family cobbler, they were always kept in tolerable order, and performed their duty with great credit to themselves, until an unlucky accident deprived me of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... the leading managers, who alone possess the power of conferring on the Shakespearean drama theatrical interpretation. In the most influential circles of the theatrical profession it has become a commonplace to assert that Shakespearean drama cannot be successfully produced, cannot be rendered tolerable to any substantial section of the playgoing public, without a plethora of scenic spectacle and gorgeous costume, much of which the student regards as superfluous and inappropriate. An accepted tradition of ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... his shake of the hand; and bidding Henrietta and the guide follow me, went into the cabin, where Henrietta had some excellent coffee and myself and the guide a bottle of tolerable ale; very much refreshed we set out on ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... floated into the Quarter. Brass bands were so common that although in the winter a couple of strolling musicians had been sufficient to lose temporarily every child in the Quarter, it now required a full band and a grenadier regiment, to boot, to draw a tolerable representation. ...
— "A Soldier Of The Empire" - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... caused usurpers, or SUPPLANTERS of kings, to start up; and, in consequence, some were called kings by right, or legitimate kings, and others TYRANTS. But we must not let these names deceive us. There have been execrable kings, and very tolerable tyrants. Royalty may always be good, when it is the only possible form of government; legitimate it is never. Neither heredity, nor election, nor universal suffrage, nor the excellence of the sovereign, nor the consecration ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... mutilated by ignorant men, became nonsensical and trivial; and the words so corrupted that it has hitherto been found impossible to recover many of them at all. Candidates were made to degrade themselves, and to submit to insults not tolerable to a man ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... poem you speak slightingly; surely the longer stanzas were pretty tolerable; at least there was one ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... had taken another step into favor, and it was soon proved by a lightening of his labors and an increase in his share of the general amusements. Life was continually growing more tolerable. The black periods were becoming shorter and the bright periods were growing longer. The evenings had now grown so cold that the young Sioux spent them mostly in the lodges, Will devoting a large part of his time to learning the language ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... done it, your Majesty; but their haste would not have tended to speed!]—We searched the Provinces (ON FOUILLA, sifted), where good heads were found as rare as in the Capital: at length five Chief Ministers were pitched upon,"—who prove to be tolerable, and even good. Three of them were, the VONS Blumenthal, Massow, Hagen, unknown to readers here: fourth and fifth were, the Von Wedell as War-Minister, once Dictator at Zullichan; and a Von der Horst, who had what we might partially ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... leaving his Corps, was made aware of many of the facts of this camp-life. But its more intimate details, those making the existence tolerable or intolerable, were to be discovered only by experience; and, moreover, depended largely upon the name and the reputation of the individual, and the standing of ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... "No." He tells you that Candide Found life most tolerable after meals. Byron, Don Juan, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... always roasted. See that your fire is clear and hot, and broad enough to brown both ends. Cover the fat of the kidney and the back with paper to prevent it from scorching. A large loin of veal will require at least four hours and a half to roast it sufficiently. At first set the roaster at a tolerable distance from the fire that the meat may heat gradually in the beginning; afterwards place it nearer. Put a little salt and water into the dripping-pan and baste the meat with it till the gravy begins to drop. ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... counter-evidence of still greater weight. Even the Swedes themselves, if they still retain the convictions of their forefathers, have grown tolerant of opposite convictions; and Geijer has not scrupled to intimate, with tolerable plainness, that he considers the charge against the Duke ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... galloping by, with the shining metal, rattle of hoofs and hoarse shouting. Here was a sensation, real and harmless, dignified and customary! A woman flaunting round the corner looked up at him, and leered out: "Good-night!" Even that was customary, tolerable. Two policemen passed, supporting between them a man the worse for liquor, full of fight and expletives; the sight was soothing, an ordinary thing which brought passing annoyance, interest, disgust. It had begun to rain; he felt it on his face with pleasure—an actual thing, not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... be supposed, however, that, even without civil or religious rights, the fate of the people of Ireland was tolerable; that a certain measure of happiness and well-being was theirs, if not by law, at least by grace. The answer to this we shall presently see. The Volunteer Movement, as we saw, included certain elements of ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... the poor gentleman a room to himself, and when, in the course of a few hours, the town was alive, I wandered out into the streets and bought a pair of scissors. Any old campaigner may be a tolerable barber, and I was a pretty good one. I trimmed the late prisoner into decency, and with my own hands carried up a pail of water, a piece of soap, and towels. I had taken good stock of him, and carried his bodily measurements in my mind when I went out again to an outfitter's, ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... her pure complexion, her beaming, blissful smile, her winsome charm of manner that none could ever quite describe,—none could ever imitate! Her dress? Must I tell of that? True, madam, I bow in all meekness. No wedding description could be even tolerable, as you say, that ignored the bridal toilet. Why! therein, too, Marion shone forth in one of her quaintest, most original guises. Such a struggle as she had had with Madam Finnegan,—that autocrat of metropolitan modistes! "I will be no conventional bride," she declared; orange flowers ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... exceptions, is little better for the most part than dry rubbish or disgusting refuse; unless a plea may haply be put in for the pretty commonplaces of the lines on a "sweet rose, fair flower," and so forth; for the couple of thin and pallid if tender and tolerable copies of verse on "Beauty" and "Good Night," or the passably light and lively stray of song on "crabbed age and youth." I need not say that those three exceptions are the stolen and garbled work ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the music of the horn, the beating of tin pans, the rattling of bits of iron and pieces of wood, the jingling of bells, and the clapping of hands. Into the house, and up-stairs to the very doors of the sleeping-rooms, they all marched with their horrid din. It was received with tolerable good-humor by all but Nanny, who, deprived of her morning nap by the tumult, raved at the juvenile disturbers of the peace, and finally threw her shoes at them as they stood on the stairway. These were directly seized upon ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... imitation of everything that struck me, not by its beauty but by its strangeness, and not wishing to confess myself an imitator I resorted to exaggeration in order to appear original. According to my idea nothing was good or even tolerable; nothing was worth the trouble of turning the head, and yet when I had become warmed up in a discussion it seemed as if there was no expression in the French language violent enough to sustain my cause; but my warmth would subside ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... with Captain McDougal at the Presbyterian Church. The edifice is very fine. The audience was small; the sermon tolerable. Troubles, the preacher said, were sent to discipline us. The army was of God; they should, therefore, submit to it, not as slaves, but as Christians, just as they submitted to other ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... which we of the profane have no right to investigate — A man must not presume to use his reason, unless he has studied the categories, and can chop logic by mode and figure — Between friends, I think every man of tolerable parts ought, at my time of day, to be both physician and lawyer, as far as his own constitution and property are concerned. For my own part, I have had an hospital these fourteen years within myself, and studied my own case with the most painful attention; ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... represented this fixing of the day to have been accomplished by St. Telesphorus, who was Bishop of Rome A.D. 127-139, but the authority for the assertion is very doubtful. There is good ground for maintaining that Easter and its accessory celebrations mark with tolerable accuracy the anniversaries of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, because we know that the events themselves took place at the period of the Jewish Passover; but no such precision of date can be adduced as ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... passengers, but the lower decks were jammed with both humanity and live stock all in the most unsanitary conditions. The craft, built for three hundred passengers, was carrying triple her capacity; men and women were stowed away like cattle. Order and a half-tolerable condition were maintained only by the efforts of the passengers themselves, who held to the thought that imprisonment and inconvenience would last but a few days longer. They had been aboard three weeks and every heart was aflame with the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... All business at Tette was now suspended. Carriers could not be found to take the goods into the interior, and the merchants could barely obtain food for their own families. At Mazaro more rain had fallen, and a tolerable crop followed. The people of Shupanga were collecting and drying different wild fruits, nearly all of which are far from palatable to a European taste. The root of a small creeper called "bise" is dug up and eaten. In appearance ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... physiognomies before considering ourselves fit to take the minister and his deacons. After years of practice there is always something to learn, but every one is surprised to find how little time is required for the acquisition of skill enough to make a passable negative and print a tolerable picture. We could not help learning, with the aid that was afforded us by Mr. Black and his assistants, who were all so very courteous and pleasant, that, as a token of gratitude, we offered to take photographs of any of them who would sit to us for that purpose. Every stage of the process, from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... The boys were tolerable skittish, the ladies powerful neat, That old bass viol's music just got there with both feet. That wailin' frisky fiddle, I never shall forget; And Windy kept a singin'—I think I hear him yet— "O Xes, chase your squirrels, an' cut 'em to one side, Spur Treadwell to the ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... For anything that he knew, Mrs Winterfield might leave everything she possessed to her niece. The old lady had not been open and candid to him whom she meant to favour in her will, as she had been to her to whom no such favour was to be shown. But Captain Aylmer did know, with tolerable accuracy, what was the state of affairs at Belton, and was aware that Miss Amedroz had no prospect of maintenance on which to depend, unless she could depend on her aunt. She was now pleading that she was not dependent on that lady, and Captain Aylmer ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... to be false; and as they tell us, that, let the Devil change himself into what Shape he will he can never conceal his Cloven Foot; so neither can the Enthusiast make himself pass for Inspired, with any Person of tolerable discerning; but there will appear some very considerable Flaw, which shall manifestly prove him a Deceiver, or at least a Person deceiv'd. This is the Fate of them, and our Author could not avoid it. He has indeed carried his Philosopher ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... passed on, however, Dora, who was a close observer, began to see things in their true light, and her life was far from being happy. By her cousin Alice she was treated with a tolerable degree of kindness, while Eugenia, without any really evil intention, perhaps, seemed to take delight in annoying her sensitive cousin, constantly taunting her with her dependence upon them, and asking her sometimes how she expected to repay the ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... of two poles spliced together, a yard was made of a third, a blanket borrowed from our coverings made a tolerable sail. There was no want of cordage for the rigging, and everything ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... had my country-seat, and I had now a tolerable plantation there also; for, first, I had my little bower as I called it, which I kept in repair—that is to say, I kept the hedge which encircled it in constantly fitted up to its usual height, the ladder standing always in the inside. I kept the trees, which at first were no more than ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... features were admirable—his expression and manner had actually no other fault than that of being too still and languid. Maurice had brown hair, now a little tossed and disordered (for he had been busy all morning on board the boat), a pair of brown eyes of singular beauty, clear and true, and a tolerable set of features, which, like his manner, varied considerably, according to the humour he happened to be in. Percy was a man of the world, understood and respected "les convenances," and never shocked anybody. Maurice knew nothing about the world, and having no more refined rule of conduct than ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... Nothing will give me so much sincere satisfaction as to hear this, and to hear it from your own pen. My earnest and ardent desire is, that you would pursue any plan that is most likely to produce content and a tolerable degree of tranquility; and it must add greatly to my uneasy feelings to hear that you are dissatisfied or complaining at what I ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... into the river;' and he then proceeded to alarm a lady at whose house he was to sup[1380], by the following manifesto of his skill: 'I, Madam, who live at a variety of good tables, am a much better judge of cookery, than any person who has a very tolerable cook, but lives much at home; for his palate is gradually adapted to the taste of his cook; whereas, Madam, in trying by a wider range, I can more exquisitely judge[1381].' When invited to dine, even with an intimate friend, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... various kinds which they required, and on the completion of the list he hurried away with it to Johnson, who at once wrote at its foot an order to the storekeeper for the issue of the articles named. These were soon conveyed to the hut, and by sunset they had the place in very tolerable order. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... Mrs. Harold Smith that it was possible that she might marry, the only condition then expressed being this, that the man elected should be one who was quite indifferent as to money. Mrs. Harold Smith, who, by her friends, was presumed to know the world with tolerable accuracy, had replied that such a man Miss Dunstable would never find in this world. All this had passed in that half-comic vein of banter which Miss Dunstable so commonly used when conversing with such friends as Mrs. Harold ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... most part swallowed up and made as though it had not been. The child who leaves school at the age of fourteen will have attended some 2,000 or 3,000 reading lessons in the course of his school life. From these, in far too many cases, he will have carried nothing away but the ability to stumble with tolerable correctness through printed matter of moderate difficulty. He will not have carried away from them either the power or the desire ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... a wager between him and Mr. Whaley of 150 guineas, the Hon. Arthur Wesley walked from the five-mile stone on Donnybrook Road to the corner of the circular road in Leeson Street, in fifty-five minutes, and that a number of gentlemen rode with the walker, whose horses he kept in a tolerable smart trot. When it is recollected that those were Irish miles, even deducting the distance from Leeson Street to the Castle, whence the original measurements were made, this walk must be computed at nearly six ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... the premise that these peoples who have so enthusiastically lent themselves to the current warlike enterprise are fundamentally of the same racial complexion and endowed with the same human nature as their peaceable neighbours, who would be only too glad to keep the peace on any terms of tolerable security from aggression. If only a fair opportunity is offered for the interested peoples to come to an understanding, it is held, a good understanding will readily be reached; at least so far as to result in a reasonable willingness to submit questions in dispute to an intelligent ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... as soon as spring came round. His news was received with delight. "The North-West Passage is a matter nothing doubtful," he affirmed, "but at any time almost to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air tolerable, and the ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... entered the family of the Birches. Necessity is a hard master, and, for the want of a better companion, the father and son were induced to accept her services; but still Katy was not wanting in some qualities which made her a very tolerable housekeeper. On the one hand, she was neat, industrious, honest, and a good manager. On the other, she was talkative, selfish, superstitious, and inquisitive. By dint of using the latter quality with consummate industry, she had not lived in the family five years when she triumphantly ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... apainful sameness and extreme ugliness, are the three dominant features of the angels of the Printers' Mark. The subject offers but little scope for an artist's ingenuity it is true, and it is only in a very few exceptions that a tolerable example presents itself. Their most frequent occurrence is in supporting a shield with the national emblem of France, and in at least one instance—that of Andr Bocard, Paris,—with the emblems of the city and the University of Paris. This idea, without the two latter ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... sitting-room, thinking that the Major would prefer it to the coffee-room; but, as it turned out, he was in no state to appear. They left him asleep, and the ship's doctor sat in the seat that had been prepared for his patient, and made the meal as tolerable to us both as it could be. He was an odd, old-fashioned fellow, but as true a gentleman ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall |
