"Toughness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... individuality. No wonder that such little political unities held together as if their component parts had been welded, and that they continued to do so till they came into collision, and, from their hardness and toughness, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... owed at first to no skill of my own; until I came to know better; for up to twenty or thirty fights, I struck as nature guided me, no wiser than a father-long-legs in the heat of a lanthorn; but I had conquered, partly through my native strength, and the Exmoor toughness in me, and still more that I could not see when I had gotten my bellyful. But now I was like to have that and more; for my heart was down, to begin with; and then Robert Snell was a bigger boy than I had ever encountered, and as thick in the skull and hard ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... author's grandfather, settled in that dullest of county villages as a carpenter. In 1745 he saw the rebel Highlanders on their southward march: he was notable for his study of Anson's Voyages and of the Arabian Nights: "a fiery man, his stroke as ready as his word; of the toughness and springiness of steel; an honest but not an industrious man;" subsequently tenant of a small farm, in which capacity he does not seem to have managed his affairs with much effect; the family were subjected to severe privations, the mother having, on occasion, to heat the meal into ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... great beasts' awful sides. In several places they sat themselves complacently astride of the trench, and swept it in both directions and all the ground beyond with their machine guns. Against strong points they were invaluable, because they could thrust themselves, secure in the toughness of their hide, in close quarters where unprotected infantry could never get. In woods they trampled their way through the undergrowth and climbed over or broke down barricades, contemptuous of the machine ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... all was not unmitigated darkness; for they ground the coffee while the water was boiling, and the consequent decoction was admirable. Moreover, the bread had a skin of such thickness and impervious toughness, that ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... that beset its site, rugged and bush-covered, were troublesome to clear and settle, the winter climate is bleaker than that of northern or central New Zealand, and a good deal of Scottish endurance and toughness was needed before the colonists won their way through to the more fertile and open territory which lay waiting for them, both on their right hand and on their left, in the broad province of Otago. Like ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... is a well-known law, which in the case of the female criminal seems almost exaggerated, so remarkable is her longevity and the toughness with which she endures the hardships, even the prolonged hardships, of prison life.... I know some denizens of female prisons who have reached the age of 90, having lived within those walls since they were 29 without any grave injury ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... kept out of these desirable possessions, for the present baronet was his grandfather, and had long passed the ordinary limits of old age. The old man had outlived his own immediate natural heir, Ferdinand's father, and now, in spite of an extraordinary toughness of constitution, was showing signs of frailty which increased almost day by day. And apart from his own personal advantages, and the future baronetcy and the estates thereto appertaining, the young man felt that, as the chosen candidate of the constitutional ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... drink a decoction of the roots for a feeling of weakness and languor, from which it might be supposed that they understood the tonic properties of the plant had not the same decoction been used by the women as a hair wash, and by the ball players to bathe their limbs, under the impression that the toughness of the roots would thus be communicated to the hair or muscles. From this fact and from the name of the plant, which means at once hard, tough, or strong, it is quite probable that its roots are believed to give strength to the patient solely ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... Oppenheimer and Morrell, who rotted with me through the years of darkness, I was considered the most dangerous prisoner in San Quentin. On the other hand I was considered the toughest—tougher even than Oppenheimer and Morrell. Of course by toughness I mean enduringness. Terrible as were the attempts to break them in body and in spirit, more terrible were the attempts to break me. And I endured. Dynamite or curtains had been Warden Atherton's ultimatum. And in ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... has been obtained by sifting. The term does not necessarily mean that the grinding mills have steel burrs. In fact, most firms employ burrs made of cast-iron or of a composition metal known as "burr metal", because of its combined hardness and toughness. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... let us say, been in the service of the Empress for, perhaps, four years. He will leave in another two years. He has no inherited morals, and four years are not sufficient to drive toughness into his fibre, or to teach him how holy a thing is his Regiment. He wants to drink, he wants to enjoy himself—in India he wants to save money—and he does not in the least like getting hurt. He has received just sufficient education to make him ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... object of spoliation to the would-be invaders from Spain in 1588. At this date, wire, drawn by strength of hand, is said to have been made at Sowdley. For such kind of manufacture the Forest iron, from its toughness and ductility, was admirably fitted, without requiring any essential change in the mode of reducing the ore, although improved methods of doing so were being adopted in other parts of the kingdom, particularly in Sussex. That the old way of working lingered long in the northern ...
— Iron Making in the Olden Times - as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean • H. G. Nicholls
... Those echoes of a thoughtless crowd, Not foreign or domestic treachery, Gould warp thy soul to their unjust decree. So much thy foes thy manly mind mistook, Who judged it by the mildness of thy look: Like a well-temper'd sword it bent at will; But kept the native toughness of the steel. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... sought their brides Among the highest born, but always so, Taking them to themselves, their wealth, their lands, But never their titles. Stern perhaps, but strong, The Framptons fed their blood from richest streams, Scorning the common throng. Gazing upon these men, she understands The toughness of the web wrought from such strands And pride of Everard ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... an hour elapsing between the first and the last. Up to receiving the last wound he had declined to leave the firing-line, but by that time he had lost so much blood that he had to be sent to the rear. The man's wiry toughness was as notable as ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... transportation, and take them back to Tennessee in good order. He accomplished this, putting sick men on his own three horses, and himself marching on foot with the men, who, enthusiastic over his elastic toughness, dubbed him "Old Hickory,"—a title of affection that is familiar to this day. The government afterwards reimbursed him for his outlay in this matter, but his generosity, self-denial, energy, and masterly force ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... additions and improvements to the place. This manual work interested me, and, I dare say, bettered my health, though I was ashamed to note the poor staying power I had as compared with Isaiah Fetch, who, whilst fully ten years my senior, was greatly my superior in toughness ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... grow older it comes to fill a larger and larger part of the horizon, to seem perhaps the only reality. I don't mean just the love of a man for a woman, but the great throbbing bond of human affection and sympathy; and of all the kinds of affection, there is none that has the strength and toughness that belong to the love of husband and wife. I wish you to marry, Winifred,—I have always wished it,—only let it be to a true man, my dear,—let it be to a ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... are sown on sod land for the purpose of renewing pastures, disking them will prepare them for receiving the seed. The extent of the disking will depend on such conditions as the toughness of the sod and the nature of the soil. Usually disking once when the frost is out a little way from the surface, and then disking across at an angle will suffice, and in some instances disking one way only will be sufficient. On newly cleared ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... Bertha; 'of course, one never thinks of such things with grown-up people, especially one whom one has always thought of as a stick, and to whom perhaps ascribed some of its toughness,' she added, smiling; 'but he did come home looking very white and worn-out, and complained of horrible smells. No, dear man, he was far too punctilious to use the word, he only said that he should like to send the Sanitary ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... oftenest fastened; and as they wave up and down in the water with the dark mass around them, they must be almost indistinguishable from the wrack itself by the keenest-sighted of their enemies. This protective resemblance, coupled with the toughness and slipperiness of their leathery envelope or egg-shell, renders them almost perfectly secure from all evil-minded intruders. As a consequence, the dog-fish lay but very few eggs each season, and those few, large and well provided with nutriment for their spotted offspring. It is these purses, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... restlessly from place to place, roamed at all times of the day and night through the city and its suburbs, trying vainly to exhaust his physical strength; gradually, as his lethargy deepened into a numb, helpless despair, it seemed somehow to impart a certain toughness to his otherwise delicate frame. Olson, who was now a junior partner in the firm of Remsen, Van Kirk and Co., stood by him faithfully in these days of sorrow. He was never effusive in his sympathy, but was patiently forbearing with his friend's whims ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... The toughness of the sheets made them preferable to the softer and more yielding blankets, and the youth decided to use them exclusively. Each, of course, had been put together by deft hands and spinning-wheel, and was of firm, ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... fourpence halfpenny it was solemnly affirmed became of a remarkably black color after having been some time worn, and that his own brother had been subjected to this extraordinary treatment; but I must add that my schoolmate drew a bow of remarkable length, strength, and toughness for his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that kind. A man, as Mr. Hare has said, "able to argue with four or five at once;" could do the parrying all round, in a succession swift as light, and plant his hits wherever a chance offered. In Parliament, such a soul put into a body of the due toughness might have carried it far. If ours is to be called, as I hear some call it, the Talking Era, Sterling of all men had the ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... so as regards most of them, the main lines being laid down as emphatically and intelligibly as the dramatic motives in a Shakespearean play. As to the coyer subtleties of the score, their discovery provides fresh interest for repeated hearings, giving The Ring a Beethovenian inexhaustibility and toughness ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... can be washed with a hydraulic pipe depends upon various circumstances—such as the supply of water, the height of its fall, the toughness of the dirt, and the amount of moisture in it. More can be washed in winter than in summer, because the dirt is then moister, and requires less water to loosen and dissolve it. The quantity of water used in a hydraulic claim is from forty to two hundred ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... contain considerable protein in the form of gluten. This is the substance that produces elasticity in the dough mixture, a condition that is absolutely essential in the making of raised bread. In fact, the toughness and elasticity of bread dough are what make it possible for the dough to catch and hold air and gas and thus produce a light, ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... seriously. It is true that we prosper in the world at present, we keep order, we make money, we spread a bourgeois sort of civilisation, but it is not a particularly fine or fruitful civilisation, because it deals so exclusively with material things. I do not wish to decry the race, because it has force, toughness, and fine working qualities; but we do not know what to do with our prosperity when we have got it; we can make very little use of leisure; and our idea of success is to have a well-appointed house, expensive amusements, and to distribute a dull and costly hospitality, which ministers more to ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Jurgen heroically, and with some admiration of himself, but still a little dashed by the uncalled-for toughness of the parchments. ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... toughness of Sir Pertinax consistently to the end, Macklin remained true to the tradition of critical, satiric comedy that he had been bred in but that by this time had almost disappeared. Protesting against the refusal ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... all sorry; for although he had now been accustomed for several months to be on his feet all day long, day after day, and up to that moment had regarded himself as in the very pink of condition as to toughness and wiriness, the past day's journey had been a revelation to him in the matter of endurance. He had never before in his life experienced anything like the intense fatigue which now racked every ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... cross-bows, when they go to sleep the 'na-kung' is hung over their heads, and when they die it is hung over their graves. The largest cross-bows have a span of fully five feet, and require a pull of thirty-five pounds to string them. The bow is made of a species of wild mulberry, of great toughness and flexibility. The stock, some four feet long in the war-bows, is usually of wild plum wood, the string is of plaited hemp, and the trigger of bone. The arrow, of sixteen to eighteen inches, is of split bamboo, about four times ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... sighed, and then grumbled to herself, over the increasing toughness of the potato-cakes she had made for ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... through an apparently interminable night around an inadequate fire. None of us were experienced bushmen, and we had neglected to gather sufficient fuel. The wind was cold, and I had not then acquired that toughness of fiber and insensibility to extremes of heat and cold which long wanderings and many ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... speak of the sitting upon an easy-chair as a moral set-back. The strained and posed life which such savants lead is not to be regarded as a rough one; for there is constant luxury in the thought of their own toughness, and infinite comfort in the sense of superiority which they permit themselves to feel. It is not roughing it to feed from a bare board when a tablecloth adds insignificantly to the impedimenta of the camp: it is pretending ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... commonplace remarks, expressed with frigid formality: but this might be more my fault than hers, for I really could NOT converse. In fact, my attention was almost wholly absorbed in my dinner: not from ravenous appetite, but from distress at the toughness of the beefsteaks, and the numbness of my hands, almost palsied by their five-hours' exposure to the bitter wind. I would gladly have eaten the potatoes and let the meat alone, but having got a large piece of the latter on to my plate, I could not ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Come, be a man: drown thyself! drown cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor,—put money in thy purse,—nor he his to her: it was a violent ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... sealed into their pexilod cases, guaranteed to stop all the attackers that Terran explorers had so far met on and off worlds, a coil of rope hardly thicker than a strand of knitting yarn but of inconceivable toughness and flexibility, an aid kit with endurance drugs and pep pills which could keep a man on his feet and going long after food and water failed. He had put them all ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... many months, and Rhoda's growing fretfulness sprang the conviction in her mind that something closer than letters must soon be coming. She ran downstairs, and along the gravel-path. He was a little man, square-built, and looking as if he had worn to toughness; with an evident Sunday suit on: black, and black gloves, though the day ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... misfortune—that sort of hypocrisy is the homage that strength pays to weakness. He talks foolishly and yet very finely about his own city that has never deserted him. He wears a flaming and fantastic flower, like a decadent minor poet. As for his bluffness and toughness and appeals to common sense, all that is, of course, simply the first trick of rhetoric. He fronts his audiences with the venerable affectation ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... cord-like branches bend round compliantly, offering but slight holds for winds, however violent. The other alpine conifers—the Needle Pine, Mountain Pine, Two-leaved Pine, and Hemlock Spruce—are never thinned out by this agent to any destructive extent, on account of their admirable toughness and the closeness of their growth. In general the same is true of the giants of the lower zones. The kingly Sugar Pine, towering aloft to a height of more than two hundred feet, offers a fine mark to storm-winds; but it is ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... movement. The shield, in fact, became a fine coat of mail. The Trilobite is an early and imperfect experiment of the class, and the larva of the modern king-crab bears witness that it has not perished without leaving descendants. How later Crustacea increase the toughness of the coat by deposits of lime, and lead on to the crab and lobster, and how one early branch invades the land, develops air-breathing apparatus, and culminates in the spiders and insects, will be considered later. We shall see that there is most remarkable evidence ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... 1856. Its terms satisfied the diplomatists both of France and England; they would probably have been less complacent could they have foreseen the day when this hard-won treaty would be torn up by the Power they seemed to be binding hand and foot with sworn obligations of perdurable toughness; least of all would that foresight have been agreeable to Lord Palmerston, Premier of England when the peace was signed, and quite at one with the mass of the people of England in their deep dislike and distrust of Russia and ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... player do a man's job and whip his opponent. No man can play a tackle job properly if he does not realize the kind of a proposition he is up against twelve months in the year and act accordingly. He has got to do his own thinking, and see to it himself that he has the necessary strength and toughness, to play the game, as one ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... the toughness of the handle, at any rate!" cried Peterkin; "my arms are nearly pulled out of the sockets. But see here, our luck is great. There is iron on the blade." He pointed to a piece of hoop-iron as he spoke, which had been nailed round the blade of the oar to prevent ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Mr. Tubbs. With a righteous joy, I saw the fabric of Aunt Jane's illusions shaken by the rude blast of reality. Would it be riven quite in twain? I was dubious, for Aunt Jane's illusions have a toughness in striking contrast to the uncertain nature of her ideas in general. Darker and darker disclosures of Mr. Tubbs's perfidy would be required. But judging from his present recklessness, they would be forthcoming. For where was the Tubbs of yesterday—the honey-tongued, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... desirable a substance it was, for work of that kind. In oil painting, its unctuous quality is to be delighted in; in fresco, its chalky quality; in glass, its transparency; in wood, its grain; in marble, its softness; in porphyry, its hardness; in iron, its toughness. In a flint country, one should feel the delightfulness of having flints to pick up, and fasten together into rugged walls. In a marble country, one should be always more and more astonished at the exquisite color and structure ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... not necessarily toughness. I believe in doing one job at a time—and my contract reads veterinary service, not personal problems. The job comes first and there's work ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... which is often combined chromium, increases the strength, springiness and toughness and ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... is. At the front you never see anything, except an occasional tousle-headed young man smoking a pipe; but at the back, where the cooks come out to parley with the tradesmen, there is at certain hours of the day quite a respectable activity. Pointed dialogues about yesterday's eggs and the toughness of Saturday's meat are conducted fortissimo between cheerful youths in the road and satirical young women in print dresses, who come out of their kitchen doors on to little balconies. The whole thing has a pleasing Romeo and Juliet touch. Romeo rattles up in his cart. ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... by means of which one may distinguish the various gems from each other is hardness. By hardness is meant the ability to resist scratching. The term "hardness" should not be taken to include toughness, yet it is frequently so understood by the public. Most hard stones are more or less brittle and would shatter if struck a sharp blow. Other hard stones have a pronounced cleavage and split easily in certain directions. True hardness, then, implies ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... are found to have much of the negro toughness and docility, and, as has been seen, when away from their homes they are easily amenable, and generally pleasant in manner, and intelligent. Often too they have a spirit of enterprise, which makes them willing to leave home, or some feud with a neighbour renders ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... type of fast chosen to resolve a chronic illness depends largely on available time, finances, availability of support people, work responsibilities, and mental toughness. If you are one of those fortunate people 'rich' enough to give their health first priority, long water fasting is ideal. If on the other hand you can't afford to stop working, have no one to take care of you ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... bust a trace," Barnard said. They bunked together in one of the old cabins and Tom enjoyed the isolation and the pioneer character of their task. Relieved of the tremendous strain of lifting the logs alone, his shoulder regained some of its former strength and toughness, and the confidence of success in time cheered him no less than did the amusing and ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... of alcohol, he was never positively drunk during the whole voyage. The evil spirits seemed to make no impression upon the iron fibres of his stubborn brain and heart. He judged his morality by the toughness of his constitution, and congratulated himself on being a sober man, while he complained of his second mate, and stigmatised him as a drunken, worthless fellow, because one glass of punch made him intoxicated. This is ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... and indisposed, as eternally leans and presses upon her; and often in my reading perceive that our masters, in their writings, make examples pass for magnanimity and fortitude of mind, which really are rather toughness of skin and hardness of bones; for I have seen men, women, and children, naturally born of so hard and insensible a constitution of body, that a sound cudgelling has been less to them than a flirt with a finger would have been to me, and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... in leading Jews a spirit of universal alienism (euphemistically called cosmopolitanism), even where the West has given them a full share in civil and political rights. A people with oriental sunlight in their blood, yet capable of being everywhere acclimatised, they have a force and toughness which enables them to carry off the best prizes; and their wealth is likely to put half the seats in ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... She has a masculine spirit, And wherefore should I pule, and, like a girl, Put finger in the eye? Let's be all toughness Without distinction ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... attitude apparently relaxed. His face was still white. It could not acquire color in that close cell, but he had never felt stronger. A powerful heart pumped vigorous blood through every artery and vein. His muscles had regained their toughness and flexibility, and above all, the intense desire for freedom had keyed him to ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... became the principal artillery afloat and ashore, yet cast bronze was superior in withstanding the stresses of firing. Because of its toughness, less metal was needed in a bronze gun than in a cast-iron one, so in spite of the fact that bronze is about 20 percent heavier than iron, the bronze piece was usually the lighter of the two. For "position" ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... goodness," said a friend of mine whose consciousness was of this sort, "and nothing can console me for their transiency. I am appalled and disconcerted at its being possible." And so with most of us: a little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians. The pride of life and glory of the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... money left in your keeping and swore and swore it wasn't; item, repeatedly exhausted by your toughness eight strong lictors equipped with pliant elm rods. (pause) Have I celebrated my colleague highly enough to pay him ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... jug. "You mean, kill off the men, take over their families?" This was a cold-bloodedness he found sickening. Although he had always prided himself on his toughness, several times during his training at the project he had been confronted by things which shook his belief in his own ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... obviously from the hides of animals these strange people caught on the lower slopes somewhere. But though they strained and twisted, they could not stretch them, the leather evidently having been cured to a marvelous toughness ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... the refreshing sounds of the running waters, cascades, and fountains; and that the effect on the mind of these beautiful harmonies may not be disturbed, the wheels of our chariots as well as the horses' hoofs are bound with a peculiar hide which, besides possessing great toughness and durability, has the property of deadening sound. Thus none but the most agreeable sounds reach the ear, whilst the senses are charmed with aromatic odours and the eye is pleased ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... If so, the opportunity was good, as they stopped within a few feet of his chair. One of them was elderly, as old as, if not older than, the man watching him; but he was of that famous Scotch stock whose members are tough and hale at eighty. This toughness he showed not only in his figure, which was both upright and graceful, but in the glance of his calm, cold eye, which fell upon everybody and everything unmoved, while that of his young, but equally stalwart companion seemed to shrink with ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... thoroughly. I am not ungrateful nor unfaithful to Harbury; in your turn you will go there, you will have to live your life in this British world of ours and you must learn its language and manners, acquire its reserves and develop the approved toughness and patterning of cuticle. Afterwards if you please you may quarrel with it. But don't when the time comes quarrel with the present conditions of human association and think it is only with Harbury you ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... property belonged, as it still does, to the Ashburnham family, who are said to have derived great wealth from the manufacture of guns at their works, which were among the last carried on in Sussex. The Ashburnham iron was distinguished for its toughness, and was said to be equal to the best ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... which formed the backbone of an otherwise somewhat weak, shadowy, and uninspiring character. And now, in the rapid fall of his fortunes, the greatest adventurer of the nineteenth century showed to the full those qualities of toughness and dignified reserve which for twenty years had puzzled and imposed on that lively emotional people. By the side of the downcast braggarts of the Court and the unstrung screamers of the Parisian Press, his mien had something of the heroic. Tout peut se retablir—"All may yet be set ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... This toughness of the buffalo is by no means uncommon, but different animals vary much in their tenacity of life. Some fall at once to the first well-directed shot; others die hard. The animal the hunters were now in pursuit of, or rather which was in pursuit ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... from Heyst, Wang hammered at the brass tap on the wharf, then stood behind Number One, crowbar in hand, motionless as before. Ricardo was perhaps not so certain of Pedro's toughness as he affirmed; for he stooped, peering under the wharf, then moved forward out of sight. The gush of water ceasing suddenly, made a silence which became complete when the after-trickle stopped. Afar, the sun was reduced to a red spark, glowing very ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... purpose of a barb, being supplied by a small piece lashed horizontally across the top of the end of the curve. These peculiar wooden hooks are grown; the roots of a tree called ngiia, whose wood is of great toughness, are watched when they protrude from a bank, and trained into the desired shape; specimens of these hooks may be seen in almost any ethnographical museum. To sink the line, coral stones of three ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... defense of yours, you have wiped the Free-Traders' Brotherhood out of existence, as well as saved a lot of exceptionally fine furs (so I'm told) for the Company. I don't think the bullets made much headway against that toughness. I'm awfully sorry so many men lost their lives, and, of course, we'll look out for their families, if ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... my good fellow," said the doctor, with his great coarse laugh. "I rather suspect that you have already got beyond the age when the great medicine could do you good; that speech indicates a great toughness and hardness and bitterness about the heart that does not accumulate in our ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... therefore omitted. All are deciduous trees, and every one is thoroughly deserving of cultivation. The origin of the English name is quaintly explained by Gerard in his "Herbal" as follows: "The wood," he says, "in time, waxeth so hard, that the toughness and hardness of it may be rather compared to horn than unto wood, and therefore it was called horne-beam ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... branching into double points. Knowing the value of motionlessness as a concealment the animal never moved; and only an eye trained to the jungle would have detected it. Dermot noted it, but let it remain unscathed; for he knew well the exceeding toughness of its flesh. What he sought was a kakur, or barking deer, a much smaller but ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... stubborn metal instantly flared blinding white and exploded outward in puffs of incandescent gas under the awful power of that Titanic thrust. Through four successive skins of inoson, the theoretical ultimate of possible strength, toughness, and resistance, that frightful beam drove before the automatically-reacting detector closed the slit and the impregnable defensive screens, driven by their mighty uranium bars, flared into incandescent defense. ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... my toughness and wrastling powers show themselves. I just wrastled and wrastled, and I frowed ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... should lose ground and be in danger again. It seemed to her at that time that Taquisara was learning to be another friend to her, less in most ways than Gianluca had been, but having much that Gianluca had not—the strength, the decision, the toughness. She did not miss those things in Gianluca. She would not have had him otherwise than he was, but she saw them all, and felt their influence, and admired ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... although she was a semi-invalid, and sat all day long in a high-backed rocking-chair. She was not young either; she had been old when she married and her children were born, but there was a strange element of toughness in her—a fibre either of body or spirit that kept her in being, like the ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... conceivable. There seems to be no reason why ordinary paper should not be better made, even allowing the necessity for a very low price; but any improvement must be based on showing openly that the cheap article is cheap, e. g., the cheap paper should not sacrifice toughness and durability to a smooth and white surface, which should be indications of a delicacy of material and manufacture which would of necessity increase its cost. One fruitful source of badness in paper is the habit that publishers ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... ill-health, involving constant travelling about in search of better conditions than London affords, and long periods of prostration, have driven me quite out of touch with science. And indeed except for a certain toughness of constitution I should have been driven out of touch ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... civilization, but I presume it has been used by the Indians of Ecuador, where it grows, for scores of years in the making of rafts, for which it is particularly well adapted. The tree looks much like our southern cottonwood, and the wood apparently has no grain. It has a surprising toughness and strength, and is a trifle over half the weight of cork, weighing only 7.8 pounds per cubic foot, while the same sized piece of cork ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... chronic headache, had a deal of whipcord fiber in his make-up. He stood the test and grubbed at his books every night until the clock tolled twelve. He was born at a peculiar time, being a child of the Reformation married to the Renaissance. The toughness and grimness of Calvin were united in him with the tenderness of Erasmus. From out of the Universal Energy, of which we are particles, he had called into his being qualities so diverse that they seemed never to have been before or ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... man to worry himself over uncertainties. He had an enormous faith in the natural toughness of an Englishman, and while he crawled breathlessly in the track of the forest monsters he hardly gave a thought to Jack Meredith. Meredith, he argued to himself, had always risen to the occasion: why should he ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... The toughness of the good northern breed is of a quality untearable, made to endure in all climates, under all conditions. Ordered to carry revolvers, they stuffed them unloaded into side-pockets, or left them in the hands of syces to ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... lower portion of the Merced Canon I found a lonely miner seeking his fortune in a quartz vein on a wild mountain-side planted with this singular tree. He told me that he called it the Hickory Pine, because of the whiteness and toughness of the wood. It is so little known, however, that it can hardly be said to have a common name. Most mountaineers refer to it as "that queer little pine-tree covered all over with burs." In my studies of this species I found a very interesting and significant group of facts, whose relations will ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... for the toughness of the handle at any rate," cried Peterkin; "my arms are nearly pulled out of the sockets. But see here, our luck is great. There is iron on the blade." He pointed to a piece of hoop iron, as he spoke, which had been nailed round the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... time to be ripe and tender. The most consummate skill in culinary matters, will not compensate the want of attention to this particular. Though animal food should be hung up in the open air, till its fibres have lost some degree of their toughness; yet if kept till it loses its natural sweetness, it is as detrimental to health as it is disagreeable to the taste and smell. As soon therefore as you can detect the slightest trace of putrescence, it has reached its highest degree of tenderness, and should be dressed ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... it Bois de Plomb, or Leaden-wood because the wood itself is as soft and as tough as lead. The bark of this shrub was made use of for ropes, baskets, etc., by the Indians, whilst they lived among the Swedes. And it is really very fit for that purpose, on account of its remarkable strength, and toughness, which is equal to that of the Lime-tree bark. The English and the Dutch in many parts of North America, and the French in Canada, employ this bark in all cases where we make use of Lime-tree bark in Europe. The tree itself is very tough, and you cannot easily separate ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... established tree is more valuable on this account. In some places hickories are quite subject to disease or to the attacks of borers. Like the walnuts, hickories which produce edible nuts are subject to the attacks of boys, but, on account of the toughness of the wood and the roughness of the bark, they are usually quite able to withstand these attacks. Hickories are suitable for use in all landscape work so far as their appearance is concerned. The fact that they are not so ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... up one of the papers when there came a shuffling of feet in the passage outside, followed by a knock upon the door. The next moment there appeared in the doorway a short, stout young man. There was an indescribable air of toughness about him, partly due to the fact that he wore his hair in a well-oiled fringe almost down to his eyebrows, which gave him the appearance of having no forehead at all. His eyes were small and set close together. His mouth was wide, his jaw prominent. Not, in short, the sort of man you would have ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... tin, from its toughness when in the leaf, is perhaps the most suitable. Americans are superior to British in filling." ("Plain Advice on Care of the Teeth," Dr. A. ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... toughness in our grain, The eye to rightly see us is Not just the one that lights the brain Of drawing-room Tyrtaeuses: They talk about their Pilgrim blood, Their birthright high and holy! A mountain-stream that ends ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... new use for gold by inventing a process by which it could be hardened and tempered, assuming a wonderful toughness and elasticity without losing its non-corrosive property, and in this form it rapidly ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... cakes were done brown, the same fryer and a little water would serve to take the toughness out of some strips of dried venison before she broiled them, and the great chief would be the best-fed man in camp until the hunters should return from the ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... them a party of five men. Their canoes, we are told, were of birch bark and cedar splints, the ribs being shaped from spruce roots. Covered with the pitch of yellow pine, and light enough to be carried on the shoulders of four men across portages, these canoes yet had toughness equal to any river voyage. They were provisioned with smoked meat and Indian corn. Shoved clear of the beach, they shot out on the blue water to the dip of paddles. Marquette waved his adieu. His Indians, remembering the dangers of that southern country, scarcely hoped to see him again. Marquette, ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... There have been resistance to wrong by way of remonstrance and petition, sometimes even by force; laudable efforts toward self-education; benevolent and philanthropic movements; reform organizations, and commendable business enterprise both in individuals and associations. These show a toughness of fibre and steadiness of purpose sufficient to make the ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... a starling, as I consider this bird the very best for the amateur's purpose, not only on account of the toughness of the skin, but also because, being a medium-sized bird, it presents no difficult points in skinning, and with this bird before me I shall minutely instruct my pupil, pointing out each step that has to be taken and each difficulty that is likely ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne |
