"Thoroughbred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the path within two hundred yards of the castle, behold an unmistakable enemy barred his way!—an ugly, hoggish, obese man, with bare legs most grotesquely like pillars of granite, and a protuberant paunch; but the devil must have been in his legs to carry him more swiftly than thoroughbred limbs had borne Count Victor. He stood sneering in the path, turning up the right sleeve of a soiled and ragged saffron shirt with his left hand, the right being engaged most ominously with a sword of a fashion that might well convince ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... fortunate that the hand-writing compensated for the hands; and as she attached great importance to blood and race, that she did not live to read Byron's "thoroughbred and tapering fingers," or to be shocked by his theory that "the hand is almost the only sign of blood which aristocracy can generate." Her Bath friend appeals to a miniature (engraved for this work) by Roche, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... |magnate, and a band of volunteer fire | |fighters—many of them | |millionaires—fought a blaze which | |started in the garage of young Ryan's | |country estate near Suffern, N. Y., early| |in the morning, three valuable | |automobiles, seven thoroughbred horses | |and several outbuildings were totally ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... mischievous devil. She liked surprises, which is extremely woman-like. Anne was a pattern—just sketched roughly—of the universal Eve. To that sketch had fallen that chance, the throne. She drank. Her husband was a Dane, thoroughbred. A Tory, she governed by the Whigs—like a woman, like a mad woman. She had fits of rage. She was violent, a brawler. Nobody more awkward than Anne in directing affairs of state. She allowed events to fall about as they might chance. Her whole policy was cracked. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... a sort of snort. "Didn't I tell you, Lucy, that Simmons has given me a cheque for three hundred and fifty pounds for the two. Of course, the creatures are thoroughbred, and may turn out worth a great deal more; still, in these days no one gives a fair price for anything, and three-fifty is not to be sneezed at when your rents are always behindhand and your balance at the bank ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... let's finish up and go' he said impatiently. 'Don't take him' said the other boy, 'Dont you see he is drunk?' So I put my arms about his shoulders and tried to tell him he had better sleep a while before we started. The poor boy was a breed. His mother was almost white and his father was a thoroughbred Indian and the son had a most aggravating temper. He made me no answer but running his hand into his pocket, he drew out his knife and with one thrust, cut a deep gash in my neck. A terrible fight followed. I remember being knocked over and my head stricking something. I reached out my hand ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... servants labored, and from their coastwise and overseas trade. Their battles with forest and red man were long past. They had leisure for diversions such as the chase, the breeding and racing of thoroughbred horses, the dance, high play with dice and card, cockfighting, the gallantry of love, and the skill of the rapier. Law and politics drew ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... silence and then agreed unconditionally. "As you say, Mr. Dwyer," he returned. "I've heard of you for a thoroughbred sport. I know you'll do what you say you'll do; and as for me I'll do what you say and just as you say, and it's a very pretty piece of ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... had his failures; there are geniuses on both sides of the law; and the pariah-dog is always just a bit quicker mentally than the thoroughbred hound who hunts him; indeed, to save his hide he ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... daily lot of another habitue of the streets of this busy capital - large, pugnacious-looking rams, that occupy pretty much the same position in Turkish sporting circles that thoroughbred bull-dogs do in England, being kept by young Turks solely on account of their combative propensities and the facilities thereby afforded for gambling on the prowess of their favorite animals. At all hours of the day and evening the Constantinople ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... exclaimed Hardinge with enthusiasm. "The animal must be an Arabian or some other thoroughbred. Whose can he be? There is no such horse in these parts or I should have known it. And yet it is hardly possible that he should have come along ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... you to take care of your wife. You'll do that to a fault. But don't make any mistake about Mrs. Asher Aydelot. She went through Rebel and Union lines once to save your life. Don't doubt her strength to hold her own here as soon as the first fight is over. She is like that Kentucky thoroughbred of hers; she's got endurance as well as ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... dream," said Pud. "If that old Major-General Norris had not been such a thoroughbred, he might have given us ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... remark on this; for that matter, he reflected with pride, there was not a woman in the room who was smarter. She had a poise and grace of movement that were a delight to the eye, and she was soignee to the finger-tips. A thoroughbred, he summed her up, and ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... run from Al Hammond? Gene, your skull is as thick as an old cow's. Al will never know anything about what you did to his sister unless you tell him. And if you do that he'll shoot you. She won't give you away. She's a thoroughbred. Why, she was so white last night I thought she'd drop at my feet, but she never blinked an eyelash. I'm a woman, Gene Stewart and if I couldn't feel like Miss Hammond I know how awful an ordeal she must have had. Why, she's one of the most beautiful, the most sought after, the most exclusive women ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... pretty Norman girl, rather stout, with fair hair of a golden tint, an animated face lighted by intelligent eyes, and distinguished by a finely curved thoroughbred nose, with a maidenly air in spite of a certain swaying Spanish manner of carrying herself, possessed all the points that a young girl born just above the level of the masses is likely to acquire from ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... looking"—he surveyed her, standing in the full light by the canary's cage, her little glossy head thrown back, her pink lips pouted teasingly at the charmed and agitated bird, her fine clear features profiled in the gold of the sunshine—"and you're a thoroughbred, egad, which most of ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... hanged!" replied the incorrigible Strachan. "Bailie Beerie is a brick, and I won't hear a word against him. But, O Fred! if you only knew what you missed last night! Such a splendid woman—by Jove, sir, a thoroughbred angel. A bust like one of Titian's beauties, and the voice ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... Sam. 'These here ones as is below, though, ain't reg'lar thoroughbred sawbones; they're only in trainin'.' 'In other words they're medical students, I suppose?' ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... become greatly interested in the youth and had made him a frequent companion, giving him the inestimable advantage of familiar intercourse with a thoroughbred gentleman of varied accomplishments, in 1748 sent this sixteen-year-old lad to survey his vast estates in the unexplored lands at the base of the Alleghany Mountains. During this rough expedition young Washington was exposed to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... in his pocket. The girl, thoroughbred, looked him straight in the face, pale, meeting what she felt to be the great moment ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... about him was the air of thoroughbred ease with which he adapted himself to his surroundings. He was in swell society on the occasion of our first meeting, being bestridden by the colonel of the regiment. He was dressed and caparisoned in the height ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... end to the paw he'd paw and Alf trying to keep him from tumbling off the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and intelligent dog: give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few bits of old biscuit out of the bottom of a Jacobs' tin he told Terry to bring. Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging out of him a yard long ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... poker hand. I've done set an' see him give away his hand in a jack-pot for two hundred dollars to some gent 'cross the table who's organizin' to go ag'in him an' can't afford to lose. An' you can onderscore it; a winnin' poker hand, an' him holdin' it, is the last thing a thoroughbred kyard-sharp'll give away. But as I says, I sees this Cherokee do it when the opp'sition is settin' in hard luck an' couldn't ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... now collected the belongings of Little-Boy that lay scattered about, stuffed them into the portfolio, picked up their caps, whipped the dust from them, and turned home ward. On the way they passed the windows of our wine-room. I could now plainly see the brave little fellow; he was a thoroughbred, every inch of him. Long-Shanks was again approaching from behind and bawling after them through the length of the square. Little-Boy shrugged his shoulders with fine contempt. "You great, cowardly bully," said he, and stopping suddenly, turned right about and faced ...
— Good Blood • Ernst Von Wildenbruch
... out of it, Madge," Dicky interrupted. "Forget that scientific foolishness you absorbed when you were school ma'aming. Besides, this cat is a thoroughbred, never been outside the home where she was born till now. Do you happen to know what this gift you are tossing aside so nonchalantly would have cost if it hadn't been given me by a dear friend? A cool two hundred, that's all. It seems to me you might try to get ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... not thrill at the mention of that heroic achievement! That wonderful, wonderful ride—that amazing, glorious tour de force which caused her name to be revered and hallowed in every sleepy hamlet and hovel of Old England—her ride to Norwich on Piebald Polly, her thoroughbred mare! On, on through the night—a fitful moon scrambling aslant the cloud-blown heavens, the wind whistling past her ears, and the tune of "God Save the King" ringing in her brain, the rhythm set by the convulsive movements of Piebald Polly. On, on, through towns and villages, ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... reputable pursuits. He was, in fact, a man so delicate in manner, when among people of fair class, and so judicious in his choice of victims, that in the strictly masculine part of the town's life he had come to be explicitly trusted and admired. People called him a thoroughbred. The fear and contempt with which his craft was regarded was undoubtedly the reason that his quiet dignity shone conspicuous above the quiet dignity of men who might be merely hatters, billiard markers, or grocery-clerks. Beyond an occasional unwary traveller, who came by rail, ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... the barbarous muzzle will fret a thoroughbred almost to insanity, unless, indeed, he has brains to free himself, as did a brilliant Irish setter which we once knew. This wise dog would run far ahead of his human guardian, and with the help of his forepaws slip the strap over his slender head, then hide the offending muzzle in the gutter, ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... seeds and medicinal herbs, and preparing medicinal extracts. They also make a syrup of sarsaparilla, and one or two other patent medicines: they have a saw and a grist mill; the women make small fancy articles and baskets. But their most profitable business is the growth of fine stock—thoroughbred Durham cattle chiefly. They have, of course, shops in which they make and mend what they need for themselves—tailor's, shoemaker's, blacksmith's, wagon-maker's, etc. Formerly they manufactured more than at present—having made at one time, for the general ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... had little claim to a thoroughbred's points, the roan was as much a veteran of the forces as his groom, with all a veteran's ability to accept and enjoy small favors of the immediate present without speculating too much concerning the future. He blew gustily in pleasure under the attention and ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... pitch, and Michael cursed his horse roundly as the willing animal, jumping under the spur, grazed the great gate as he sprang through it. Soon they were all out on the main road, where the thoroughbred that carried a double burden settled down into a long swinging stride that fairly devoured ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... quickest thing on legs in that part of the country—out of a mighty spry little Pinto mare by our thoroughbred Kentucky horse—and I knew if I could get to the open them Injuns wouldn't have much of a chance to take out my stopper and examine my works—not much. A half-mile start, and I could show the whole Sioux nation ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... me beg you not to call a TROTTING MATCH a RACE, and not to speak of a "thoroughbred" as a "BLOODED" horse, unless he has been recently phlebotomized. I consent to your saying "blood horse," if you like. Also, if, next year, we send out Posterior and Posterioress, the winners of the great national four-mile race in 7 18.5, and they ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Tommy said, laughing. "So don't talk about it—I don't believe it exists." She stood watching him for a moment as he tried to mount; his big young thoroughbred resented the idea of anyone on his back, and Jim had to hop beside him, with one foot in the stirrup, while he danced round in a circle, trying to get away. Jim seized an opportunity, and was in the ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... and the oldest of the three chums, was almost as tall as the six-foot Bob, but of more slender build than that gridiron warrior. He had the build of a thoroughbred, long legs, flat hips, trim waist, deep chest and broad shoulders and a flat back. Both at dashes and distance running Jack easily was supreme at Harrington Hall Military Academy, which all three boys attended. ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... he was a beautiful creature, sir, the finest dog I ever set eyes on. Like a setter in the make of him, but no setter that ever I saw could match him for size or looks. His coat was jet-black, as glossy as the skin of a thoroughbred, with just one streak of white showing down the breast, and his eyes—well, they were the very humanest, sir, that ever I see looking out ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... precautions he could. The pick of his saddle horses, a dozen of them, were grazed during the day in the fields near the house and at night were brought in and stabled. A number of the finest cattle, including a thoroughbred Hereford bull and forty beautiful Hereford cows, recently purchased, were driven each evening into the nearest fields where from dark to daylight they were herded by ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... the pomp and circumstance attendant upon funerals and testamentary dispositions. 'Only once in his life' (he observed) 'does your thoroughbred Roman say what he means; and then,' meaning, in his will, 'it comes too late for him to enjoy the credit of it.' I could not help laughing when he told me how they thought it necessary to carry their follies with them to the grave, and to leave the record of their inanity behind them in black ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... assuming that the upright look down upon the climbers, and the climbers in turn upon the creepers; for who of us does not felicitate himself upon his independence, such as it is, or such as he imagines it to be? But if independence is indeed a boon,—and I, for one, am too thoroughbred a New Englander ever to doubt it,—it is not the only good, nor even the highest. The nettle, standing straight and prim, asking no favors of anybody, may rail at the grape-vine, which must lay hold of something, small matter what, by which to steady ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... the old man, with a certain solemnity of tone. "I done heard old Mahstah Jean Larue swear that if folks are reckoned as horses are, Retta'd be counted a thoroughbred, 'cause far back as they can count theah wan't no ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... whelps at a birth. They rushed clamorously into the presence of the Lioness and demanded of her the settlement of the dispute. "And you," they said, "how many sons have you at a birth?" The Lioness laughed at them, and said: "Why! I have only one; but that one is altogether a thoroughbred Lion." ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... the thoroughbred he was. But even his iron muscles could not stand the strain for long. The ponies behind were fresh, and the snow-white charger was tremendously handicapped with the added weight which had been placed ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... its cavalcade rode a lady in a dark green habit, mounted on a thoroughbred English horse, which she managed with so easy a grace that Maltravers halted in involuntary admiration. He himself was a consummate horseman, and he had the quick eye of sympathy for those who shared the accomplishment. He thought, as he gazed, that he ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bone and long from hock to stifle as a greyhound; with a breadth of chest and a depth of barrel beneath the withers that indicated most unusual lung capacity, behind the throat-latch Sol showed, in extraordinary perfection, all the best points of a thoroughbred hunter that make for speed, ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... supplied with a mane, while in color he could easily have taken any premium put up for homeliness, being an ashen roan, mottled with flecks and patches of divers hues; but his legs were flat and corded like a racer's, his neck long and thin as a thoroughbred's, his nostrils large, his ears sharply pointed and lively, while the white rings around his eyes hinted at a cross, somewhere in his pedigree, with Arabian blood. A huge, bony, homely-looking horse he was, who drew the deacon and Miranda into the village on market days and Sundays, ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... might have the pleasure of beholding Mr. Newcome in Rotten Row, riding side by side with other dandies who had mustachios blonde or jet, who wore flowers in their buttons (themselves being flowers of spring), who rode magnificent thoroughbred horses, scarcely touching their stirrups with the tips of their varnished boots, and who kissed the most beautiful primrose-coloured kid gloves to lovely ladies passing them in the Ride. Clive drew portraits of half the officers ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that ere the dawning each one of them might be claiming the hospitality of six feet of English sod, their hearts were light. To them a message that the fray was up was like the sound of the huntsman's horn in the ears of a thoroughbred hunter. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... "Isn't he a thoroughbred, isn't he a gem!" Chrystie chanted. "I'd like to go to Mrs. Kirkham's tomorrow, climb up her front stairs on my knees and knock my forehead on the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... declared, "there's one thing jolly certain, and that is she's thoroughbred. She has the most marvellous nerve I ever knew. We got in a tight corner this morning. I took her down to Guildford in a trailer, and I had to jump the pavement to avoid a runaway. She never flinched for a moment. Half ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that as it may, I was once the owner of a pedigree thoroughbred called Dreadnought, which was presented to me when a colt. Dreadnought's dam Collingwood was by Muley Moloch out of Barbelle. Dreadnought was good for nothing as a racer, and had broken down in training. As a castaway ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... as the sources of the Euphrates; on reaching these he purified his arms in the virgin spring, and offered a sacrifice to the gods. On his return to the frontier, the chief of Dayaini "embraced his feet," and presented him with some thoroughbred horses. In 844 B.C. he crossed the Lower Zab and plunged into the heart of Namri; this country had long been under Babylonian influence, and its princes bore Semitic names. Mardukmudammiq, who was then its ruler, betook himself to the mountains to preserve his life; but ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the Dean. "That's what every one seems to have forgotten. He's a thoroughbred Doggie. There's the old French proverb: Bon chien ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... she had one of the prettiest figures in Paris. Imagine a pair of great dark eyes, a magnificently moulded hand, a shapely foot. There was a fiery energy in her movements; the Marquis de Ronquerolles had called her "a thoroughbred," "a pure pedigree," these figures of speech have replaced the "heavenly angel" and Ossianic nomenclature; the old mythology of love is extinct, doomed to perish by modern dandyism. But for Rastignac, Mme. Anastasie de Restaud was the woman for whom he had sighed. He ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... was the most beautiful human being he had ever seen. He had a frank, open face, and laughing eyes, and golden hair like a girl's. He wore outing costume, a silk shirt and light flannels—things which Samuel had learned to associate with the possession of wealth and ease. Also, his horse was a thoroughbred; and with a rubber-tired runabout and a silver-mounted harness, the expensiveness of the rig was evident. Samuel was glad of this, because it meant that he had rescued some one of consequence— some one of the successful and ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... in his own doorway, with the defence thus strangely secured in his hand; and, looking up the moon-lighted road, sees Mr. BUMSTEAD, in the sun-bonnet, leaping high, at short intervals, over the numerous adders and cobras on his homeward way, like a thoroughbred hurdle-racer. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... Officer, which is to distraction. He will take the solemn English terrier up on his knee and give me a lecture thereon. This same pup, I learn, is "low"—look at his nose! He is in bad health—just feel his back teeth! Saucy? Yes, certainly, but not a thoroughbred hair on him. He has worms, too, I understand, somewhere inside, and on several occasions during the voyage his bowels needed attention. I, in my utter ignorance of dog-lore, begin to marvel that the ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... are a thoroughbred Devonshire dumpling, we know," said Dan soothingly, "and not so bad considering, and you can make a pasty like a native, though you aren't one, and never will be. It is a pity too, ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... over to Marse Robert's relatives. After a few months stay in this place I was sold to Mrs. Ridley's brother, Enoch Womble. On the day that I was sold three doctors examined me and I heard one of them say: "This is a thoroughbred boy. His teeth are good and he has good muscles and eyes. He'll live a long time." Then Mr. Womble said: "He looks intelligent too. I think I'll take him and make a blacksmith out of him." And so to close the deal he paid his sister ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... hammer-and-tongs utilitarian. All he asks is to be permitted to idle away his pleasant life unmolested. Lastly, he is extremely ornamental. We all like to see pretty things; and I am sure that Charley Burnham, in his fresh white duck suit, with his fine, thoroughbred face—gentle as a girl's—shaded by a snowy Panama, his blonde moustache carefully pointed, his golden hair clustering in the most picturesque possible waves, his little red neck-ribbon—the only bit of color in his dress—tied in a studiously careless knot, and his pure, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... "When thoroughbred horses want to leap a barrier, they go up to reconnoitre it, and smell it over. Calyste is a ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... course, there were our three mud turtles which must have been entered by someone who thought that the Kentucky Derby was a claiming race and who hoped that the LePage's Glue people would make a bid for the three mounds of thoroughbred horseflesh that dropped ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... had his chariot and four, with black postilions in livery, for the use of Mrs. Washington and her lady visitors. As for himself, he always appeared on horseback. His stable was well filled and admirably regulated. His stud was thoroughbred and in excellent order. His household books contain registers of the names, ages, and marks of his various horses; such as Ajax, Blueskin, Valiant, Magnolia (an Arab), &c. Also his dogs, chiefly fox-hounds, Vulcan, Singer, Ringwood, Sweetlips, Forrester, Music, Rockwood, Truelove, &c. [Footnote: ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... "What a thoroughbred Parisian you are, my dear Frederic! I believe if the tramp of the last angel were sounding, the Parisians would be divided into two sets: one would be singing the Marseillaise, and parading the red ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... page, was at last effected. And his hatred was likely to be deadly. A man with a shrewd, vivid face, cleanly cut features and a restless eye; wearing a close-fitting skull cap, which gave him something the lock of a monk, but with the thoroughbred and facile demeanour of one familiar with the world; stealthy, smooth, and cruel, a man coldly intellectual, who feared no one, loved but few, and never forgot or forgave; Francis d'Aerssens, devoured by ambition and burning with revenge, was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Romance (Fig. 4) was one of the nicest of the many Australian horses I rode, during my sojourns in India, between the years 1885 and 1891. He was thoroughbred and was the winner of several races on the flat and across country. In those days, the idiotic custom of docking horses had ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... black dog, typical in nearly every respect, except colour, of the black Newfoundland. There is no appearance of cross-breeding in Landseer's dog; on the contrary, he reveals all the characteristics of a thoroughbred. Seventy years ago, therefore, the white and black variety may be fairly considered to have been established, and it is worthy of mention here that "Idstone" quoted an article written in 1819 stating that back in the eighteenth century ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... Chariot of Proserpine—but I am wandering from the Diligence, which deserves some description. It resembled a little Theatre more than a coach, with front boxes, pit, &c., lined with common velvet. We had a curious collection of passengers. Opposite to me sat a prize thoroughbred Dutch woman as clean and tidy as she was ugly and phlegmatic, with a close-plaited cap, unruffled white shawl, and golden cross suspended from her neck. I took a sketch while she stared me in the face unconscious ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... cut cleanly up and stopped just short of scraping on the stones at the edge, obeying the paddles like a thoroughbred the bit, the chief trader of De Seviere stepped forward and ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... this reminds me how in the days of my boyhood I sometimes saw a queer character known as "Billy Button." He was a sight to behold, for he was decorated with buttons, mostly brass, from top to toe, and presented a sight that was enough to make a thoroughbred quaker swoon. ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... So you had best make up your mind to go away with the damned Scotchmen when they come, though I hope that you will think kindly of us when you get to your own country. Yes, yes, you shall go, and what is more, you may take my best horse to ride away on, the thoroughbred schimmel, and my new black felt hat that I bought in the dorp. There, that is done with, praise be to God, and I am going out, for this place is so thick with smoke that I can't see my own hand," and he rose to go, adding that if the two Scotchmen did ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... a thoroughbred. I promised to let you have your way, and you shall. Even if we lose the patient it will be a ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... beauty I want," said Wild Bill, pointing to a black horse, full sixteen hands high, and evidently a thoroughbred. "Name your price, ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... up, and find it is not over; a small thoroughbred, white bull-terrier, is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard at it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... To a thoroughbred American, with two and more centuries of the traditions of independence behind him, this question of the divine right of kings is a commonplace. He is a king himself, he holds his own rights to be ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... me!" said Chunk, broadening his grin; "well, it was this way. I sat down at the supper table last night at Riddle's, and I looked at Rosy, and I says to myself, 'Chunk, if you get the girl get her on the square—don't try any hocus-pocus with a thoroughbred like her.' And I keeps the paper you give me in my pocket. And then my lamps fall on another party present, who, I says to myself, is failin' in a proper affection toward his comin' son-in-law, so I watches my chance and dumps that powder in old ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... know any number of fellows who are doing the same thing. We can't all be officers; a few of us must take orders. Out in the hunting field, we say it is the thoroughbred dog who ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... "Course! You're thoroughbred—I saw that right away. And you're my guest! Could I, as a gentleman, let you ride off alone on a lonely road at night? Hurray! You're A ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... Catalina law has become a farce. It is violated often in broad daylight, and probably all night long. One Austrian round-haul netter took seven tons of white sea-bass in one haul. Seven tons! Did you ever look at a white sea-bass? He is the most beautiful of bass—slender, graceful, thoroughbred, exquisitely colored like a paling opal, and a fighter if there ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... well, for he was fighting for his all, and he knew it. He could have whipped with ease, and he did whip, but the spirit of the thoroughbred was not in Captain Mayhall Wells. He had Sturgill down, but Hence sank his teeth into Mayhall's thigh while Mayhall's hands grasped his opponent's throat. The captain had only to squeeze, as every rough-and-tumble fighter knew, and endure his pain until Hence would have ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... can prove his age as certainly as my own. He is the son of an Arab mare and an English thoroughbred.—Come here, Memnon!" ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... any breed of Delamere forest ponies? I have found out little about ponies in these respects. Sir P. Egerton has, I believe, some quite thoroughbred chestnut horses; have any of them the spinal stripe? Mouse- coloured ponies, or rather small horses, often have spinal and leg bars. So have dun horses (by dun I mean real colour of cream mixed with brown, bay, or chestnut). So have sometimes chestnuts, but I have not yet ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... depression which the strong Quaker element among the people exercised upon all sports and recreations. The breed of hounds, not being restricted to close communion, had considerably degenerated, and few, even of the richer farmers, could afford to keep thoroughbred hunters for this exclusive object. Consequently all the features of the pastime had become rude and imperfect, and, although very respectable gentlemen still gave it their countenance, there was a growing suspicion that it was a questionable, if not demoralizing diversion. ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... cared for anything. No shot to speak of. He can sit on a horse all right. Had to, in South America and Morocco and all those places. But he never really cared about it, I don't believe. Why, he'd rather look at a picture than a thoroughbred any day!" ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street doors. There were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle, so it would have ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... never yet met a thoroughbred worker," said Mr. Crowder, "who was satisfied to stop his work before he had finished it, no matter how old he might happen to be. But my last meeting with Joshua taught me a lesson which in those days had not been sufficiently impressed upon my mind. I became convinced ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... and looked at her a trifle wistfully. "You can't understand just what Ed's death meant to me, Miss Walton. You see, he was about the only real friend I ever had, the only fellow I ever got real close to. And he was such a thoroughbred, and—and was so darn—so mighty good to me! I tell you, it sort of ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... me, upon your honour, if you know what that word means—upon your conscience, if you ever heard of any such thing—don't you think yourself a most pitiful dog, to persist in coming here to be made game of for twopence? 'Tis wonderful how much your thoroughbred Jew will do and suffer for gain. We poor good Christians could never do as much now—could we any soul of us, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the messenger, who quickly unburdened himself of his information, and as quickly turned and scampered back toward the village. When running these beast-men often go upon all fours. Thus they leap over obstacles that would slow up a human being, and upon the level attain a speed that would make a thoroughbred look to his laurels. The result in this instance was that before I had more than assimilated the gist of the word which had been brought to the fields, I was alone, watching ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... jump out the window, Roger, remembering to shut the airlock after you?" the Golden Glacier said in tones not unkind. "When are your high-strung, thoroughbred nerves going to accept the fact that I would never consider marriage with a business inferior? You have about as much chance as a starving Ukrainian kulak now that Moscow's clapped ...
— Bread Overhead • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... from beginning to end, he piqued himself on being a man of business; and did—with one sad and memorable exception—whatever the ordinary course of things threw in his way, in exactly the businesslike fashion which might have been expected from the son of a thoroughbred old Clerk to the Signet, who had never deserted ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... for them head first, and the wife isn't very far behind and gets a dig in too. There are doves and pigeons galore, and just before we came to Dharwar across a clear space there cantered a whole family circle of large monkeys! What a lovely action they have, between a thoroughbred's and a man's. They wore yellowish beards and black faces and black ends to their tails, which they carry high with a ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Besides, I was anxious to put my young masters to the test. I have a grand piano of good age, with a sounding-board like a fine-tempered fiddle. The instrument, an American one, I handle like a delicate thoroughbred horse, and, as my playing is accomplished by the use of my fingers and not my heels, the piano does not really ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... complexion (on the same undeniable authority) was as warm as the sun itself, with this great advantage over the sun, that it was always in nice order to look at. Add to the foregoing that she carried her head as upright as a dart, in a dashing, spirited, thoroughbred way—that she had a clear voice, with a ring of the right metal in it, and a smile that began very prettily in her eyes before it got to her lips—and there behold the portrait of her, to the best of my ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... William the III knew that it could not be used to protect so vast a domain and that Germany would be penned into narrow borders and be in danger of extermination by aerial bombardment. In those days he went for rest and consolation to his estates, for he took great pleasure in his thoroughbred swine. Some traitorous spy reported his move to the enemy and a bombing squadron attacked the estates. The Emperor took refuge in his fortified piggery. And so the great vision came ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... shouted, "is a rushing beast of a horse;" but, before he could explain his errand, the hunter, who was nearly quite thoroughbred and a magnificent animal, dashed on, evidently determined to gain, without delay, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... thoroughbred Northerner, having first opened his eyes in Illinois. He came to New Mexico just prior to the acquisition of the territory by the United States prior to the granting of the ranch then known as the Beaubien Grant. He was in the employ as hunter and trapper for ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and entered the house to pay their respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divested themselves of their mud-boots, exchanged their hacks for their hunters, and ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... mares he could find; and, in case you have Frederick Remington's pictures of starved winter-range animals in mind, let me tell you a good mustang is a very handsome animal indeed. These he bred to a thoroughbred. The resulting half-breeds grew to the proper age. Then he started to have them broken to the saddle. A start was as far as he ever got, for nobody could ride them. They combined the intelligence and vice of the mustang with the endurance and nervous instability ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... for Leonie Hetth that Jan Cuxson was straight and thoroughbred, and that his love was pure, else might it have gone badly with her, bringing her perchance to the door of the madhouse; for there is but a hair's breadth between those who are wakened roughly from the sleep ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... sir!" answered the youth, in the tones of a thoroughbred seaman. Not that Willie had ever been at sea, but he was so fond of seamen, and had mingled with them so much at the docks, as well as those of them who had become firemen, that he tried to ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... population of the fields and cities might not answer in camps. To fling people by scores out of a boat, and, when they catch hold of it, to chop off their fingers with a hatchet, is undoubtedly a very agreeable pastime for a thoroughbred Jacobin, when the sufferers are, as at Nantes, old confessors, young girls, or women with child. But such sport might prove a little dangerous if tried upon grim ranks of grenadiers, marked with the scars of Hondschoote, and singed by the smoke ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and a sheepskin cap from which the rain ran down was riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his horse, which turned its head and laid its ears back, he shrank from the driving rain and gazed anxiously before him. His thin face with its short, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... said, "a clean shot, a thoroughbred. I ask no better comrade than you. I never again shall ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... and I are up, and find it is not over: a small thoroughbred, white Bull Terrier, is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard at it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a great courage. ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... don't like him; well, maybe — we all have our fancies, of course: Brumby to look at you reckon? Well, no: he's a thoroughbred horse; Sired by a son of old Panic — look at his ears and his head — Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he? — well, that's how the Panics are bred. Gluttonous, ugly and lazy, rough as a tip-cart to ride, Yet if you offered a sovereign apiece for the hairs on his hide That ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... equal strength, whose souls are noble and their brains well balanced, he was the defender of his wife before the tribunal of his own judgment; he told himself that nature doomed her to a disappointed life through his fault; HIS; she was like a thoroughbred English horse, a racer harnessed to a cart full of stones; she it was who suffered; and he blamed himself. His wife, by dint of constant repetition, had inoculated him with her own belief in herself. Ideas are contagious in a household; the ninth thermidor, like so many other portentous ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... girl I ever saw," he declared, "and she's a thoroughbred too!" he added, "or she wouldn't have stuck it out in this country when she had a clean yacht to fall back on. She's been riding around on a mule, so they tell me, along with her father and the engineering experts, and just as though ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... the whisky. Fearing it, Jones had thrown the bottle away. The men cursed. The patient horses drooped sadly, and shivered in the lee of the improvised tent. Jones kicked the inch-thick casing of ice from his saddle. Kentuck, his racer, had been spared on the whole trip for this day's work. The thoroughbred was cold, but as Jones threw the saddle over him, he showed that he knew the chase ahead, and was eager to be off. At last, after repeated efforts with his benumbed fingers, Jones got the girths tight. He tied a bunch of soft cords to ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... might have been expected. Perhaps he was used to the sang-froid, perhaps he rather liked it, believing it, in his ignorance, a distinctive mark of class, not knowing—how should he?—that, once excited, these thoroughbred ones are, of all racers, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... was known generally in the brigade as "Beauty," and the appellative, gained at Eton, was in no way undeserved. His face, with as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman's, was at once handsome, thoroughbred, languid, nonchalant with a certain latent recklessness, under the impassive ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... first-rate cattlemen, their enterprise bade fair for success, hampered only by the lack of capital, occasioned by Sandy's preference for modern methods as evidenced by thoroughbred bulls, high-grading of his steers, the steadily growing patches of alfalfa and the spreading network ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... apparently had no objection to catching up the party every now and then, but only to relapse into his funeral walk, after contact had been re-established. But then Cootes took the lead that afternoon, and as his thoroughbred had had two days' rest, and breasted all the rises with apparent joyousness, nobody was able to keep up, until Mr. Worcester took the head with his black, a powerful but reasonable animal. However, everybody gets into camp sooner or later, and so did we all at a resting-point called Nozo, ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... an old woman who lived at first in the kitchen of "the other house" and afterward on the home farm. Tall and thin, with big, thoroughbred eyes, and long, straight hair, like a witch, turning gray, she was rather terrifying, but more than anything ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... believe the clouds were our fairy castles, and each said what she would do when she got there? Rita was going to organise a Sunset Dance, with ten thousand fairies in crimson and gold, and you were going to be met by a hundred thoroughbred horses, all white as snow, and were going to drive them abreast in a golden chariot; don't you remember all that? Tell them about ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... chooses, and the most difficult to get hold of, is the thoroughbred colonial. Being able to read and write does not, however, keep him from being as brutal as Coupeau, and, except from a muscular point of view, he is often by no means a promising specimen of colonization. It is from this section of the community that the 'larrikins,' as they are called, are recruited, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... which she stepped was a very pretty one. It was very nearly round, with many high windows looking out upon the pleasant grounds and blue sparkling sea. Upon the walls were pictures of fine thoroughbred horses, some of them with their little foals beside them, others with a surly-looking old dog or a tiny kitten, their favourite stable companion and friend. Bunny loved these pictures and had given the horses pet names of her own, by which she insisted on calling them, although their own ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... country school, had had visions of the girl riding a thoroughbred in Central Park, with a groom in attendance; whereas the reality was the old man who served both as coachman and butler, in carefully kept livery, guiding two horses apt to stumble from extreme age through the shopping district, and the pretty face of ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... night of Edith's ordeal. Even Trix was a little nervous—only a little—is not perfect self-possession the normal state of American young ladydom? Lady Helena was quite pale in her anxiety. The girl was handsome beyond dispute, thoroughbred as a young countess, despite her birth and bringing up in a New England town and Yankee boarding-house, with pride enough for a princess of forty quarterings, but how would she come forth from the fiery furnace of all those pitiless eyes, sharpened to ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... a special case of nerves," Celia pursued, with gentle imperturbability. "I think I can make my meaning clear to you—though the parallel isn't precisely an elegant one. The finest thoroughbred dog in the world, if it is beaten viciously and cowed in its youth, will always have a latent taint of nervousness, apprehension, timidity—call it what you like. Well, it seems to me there's something like that in your case, Edith. They hurt you too cruelly, poor girl. I won't say it broke ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... breeds are eagerly sought for. The better class of natives have learned to appreciate the higher instincts of the European dog. Many Chinese dogs with long, straight hair, pointed nose, small eyes, and black tongues are brought over from Hong-Kong. All thoroughbred Philippine cats have a twist in their tails, and are not nearly so ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Grimes Golden, and other standard varieties of apples may be secured for a few additional cents? Why feed and care for a "scrub" pig, calf, or colt when it will bring at maturity only half or two thirds the price of a thoroughbred? ... It is not thrift to invest ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... oxen, two mules and a bronco pulling it; a prospector in his red flannel undershirt, driving a laden donkey; a hurdy-gurdy troupe on its way to the barbecue; a stage-coach drawn by six half-broken wild horses; an old Spanish settler on a beautiful, black thoroughbred; a late arrival from Oregon, mounted upon a sturdy mule with his young wife upon a pillion behind him, and a whole drove of China-men being taken out to work a white man's claim up on ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... fine head from side to side, then bucks with a whinny of rage, and the "liver brigade" scatters. A mounted policeman, on the alert to render assistance and prevent accidents, brings along his well-trained steed at a hand-gallop, recognises the rider of the bucking thoroughbred, and reins up with a ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... had pulled up and turned to speak to his comrade. His flashing eye and excited manner, his thoroughbred steed, chafing on the bit and pawing the ground, were in striking contrast with the unruffled Bradshawe on his sleek cob, whose temper was ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... had seemed just lately, however, as if Charlotte was growing a little weary of the gorgeous spectacle—the ever-changing, ever-splendid diorama of West End life. She no longer exclaimed at the sight of each exceptional toilette; she no longer smiled admiringly on the thoroughbred horses champing their bits in the immediate neighbourhood of her bonnet; she no longer gave a little cry of delight when the big drags came slowly along the crowded ranks, the steel bars shining as they swung loosely ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... appearance from those others which we had passed. Those past were cattle ranches, with stock on the open range, and with little ground fit for cultivation, owing to the elevation. Here we found great, broad acres, fenced and cultivated, with thoroughbred ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... thoroughbred in the "Row" after driving a donkey across Hampstead Heath. Not that I or any of my readers would think of indulging in any such distressingly vulgar exercise as the last named. It may serve, however, to conjure up in the mind a sufficiently ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... whose practical experience and long observation entitle his opinions to much weight—M. Gayot—goes so far as to say that the American trotters really form a distinct race. "The Northern States of the Union," he writes, "have accomplished for the trotter what England has done for the thoroughbred: by selecting the best—that is to say, the swiftest and the most enduring—and by breeding from these, there has been fixed in the very nature of their progeny that wonderful aptitude for speed which," in direct contradiction ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... suppose I'd know the step of any horse for ours? And though Nimrod is yours now I know him like—like a brother. Don't I, dear fellow?" and from Ninian's clasp she ran to embrace the down-bent head of the thoroughbred. ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... I was fully conscious of the nice distinction between white and white about which the people of my country are so jealously exacting; and my dark origin always formed a barrier between me and my thoroughbred sisters. Whenever Don Benigno, or his family, addressed me as 'Mulatica,' 'Chinita,' or 'Negrita,' I sometimes thought of the literal ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... the door—the little magpie horse, and a thoroughbred bay mare, weeded from Dromore's racing stable. Nell, too, was standing ready, her cheeks very pink, and her eyes very bright. She did not wait for him to mount her, but took the aid of the confidential man. What was it that made her look ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... no thoroughbred neither!" cries the Master. "He's 'Unknown,' ain't he? Kid can't help it, of course, but his ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast, He was something like a racehorse undersized, With a touch of Timor pony — three parts thoroughbred at least — And such as are by mountain horsemen prized. He was hard and tough and wiry — just the sort that won't say die — There was courage in his quick impatient tread; And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye, And the ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... feature consisted in the rivers, which, facing the rising sun, glittered like silver threads, till lost in the immensity of the distance. At mid-day we descended the valley, and reached a hovel, where an officer and three soldiers were posted to examine passports. One of these men was a thoroughbred Pampas Indian: he was kept much for the same purpose as a bloodhound, to track out any person who might pass by secretly, either on foot or horseback. Some years ago a passenger endeavoured to escape ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... during the first two weeks—all of them on account of ancient grudges. I burned a dwelling that interrupted my view. I swindled a widow and some orphans out of their last cow, which is a very good one, though not thoroughbred, I believe. I have also committed scores of crimes, of various kinds, and have enjoyed my work exceedingly, whereas it would formerly have broken my heart and turned my hair ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and to himself: "She's ce'tainly a thoroughbred. Does everything well she tackles. I never saw anything like it. I'm a Chink if she doesn't run this ranch like she had been at it forty years. Same thing with her gasoline bronc. That pinto, too. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... modern Lisbon. This tradition about the mares of the region is repeated by Virgil (Geo. III, 272) by Columella (VI, 27) and by Pliny (VIII, 67). Professor Ridgeway in The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse describes it as "an aetiological myth to explain the swiftness of horses" for the fleetest horses came out of the West; thus Pegasus was born at the springs of the ocean, and there is the passage in Homer (Iliad, XVI, 149) about the horses "that flew as swift as the winds, ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... no," he answered. "I'll come. There is no use in being sentimental about the place going out of our family, and these Morristons are quite the right sort of people to have it. A splendidly thoroughbred type of girl, ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... putting aside the fact of his father's death. It would be a thousand pities if such a promising young fellow should have to waste the next three years of his life, cramming up classics and mathematics. It would be like putting a young thoroughbred ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... was born at Prague, May 30, 1794, his parents being well-to-do people of Hebrew stock. His father, a cloth merchant, was passionately fond of music, and was accustomed to say, "One of my children must become a thoroughbred musician." Ignaz was soon selected as the one on whom the experiment should be made, and the rapid progress he made justified the accident of choice, for all of the family possessed some musical talent. ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... thoroughbred hoss," says he; "sech nostrils, and sech a gray eye with the devil in it fer go—yellow ha'r, and ez tall ez Mr. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... unexpected and welcome surprise! For weeks I had hunted in vain for a thoroughbred. I had never hoped to be given one from the kennels ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... the lust for blood, and that fouler lust of Religious revenge, the pursuing host sped southwards. The wondrous new motor-trains, that would career over hillocks easier than a thoroughbred hunter gallops over a turfy down, carried the expedition. There were a hundred trains of thirty cars each, besides a thousand or more single Motor-Cars, carrying from twelve to twenty persons. Worked on the then latest principle,—ether-driven—the cars and ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... 'I don't know that I do, quite,' he answered languidly. 'I confess I attach more importance than you do to the mere question of race and family. A thoroughbred differs from a cart-horse, and a greyhound from a vulgar mongrel, in mind and character as well as in body. Oswald seems to me in all essentials a bourgeois at ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... joy and pride in that dapple-gray gelding. Undoubtedly there was Arabian blood in his veins. He had a thoroughbred look. He listened to every word I spoke to him. He followed me as cheerfully and as readily as a dog. He let me feel his ears (which a locoed horse will not do) and at a touch of my hand made room for me in his stall. In all ways he seemed exactly the horse I had been looking for, ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... much dignity, for perhaps ten minutes or so, before I heard any signs of life from the after suite. Then I heard the door pushed back, and saw a head come out, a head with dark tendrils of hair at the white neck's nape, and two curls at the temple, and as clean and thoroughbred a sweep of jaw and chin as the bows of the Belle Helene herself. She did not look at me, but studiously gazed across the river, pretended to yawn, idly looked back to see if she were followed; as she knew ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... old codger himself for he brought Will—his adopted daughter up splendidly," Winnie observed with enthusiasm. "There isn't a girl in our set that can come anywhere near her, and I think it is a dashed shame that she's thrown out on her own. She took the whole business like a thoroughbred, walking calmly out like that and leaving them ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... himself of these emblems of authority. But little did these dauntless officials care for the exuberant frolics of Meg's temper, which were to them only "pretty Fanny's way"—the dulces Amaryllidis irae. And Meg, on her part, though she often called them "drunken ne'er-do-weels, and thoroughbred High-street blackguards," allowed no other person to speak ill of them in her hearing. "They were daft callants," she said, "and that was all—when the drink was in, the wit was out—ye could not ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... intrigue because you hold the threads of all within your fingers; to see through all partitions; to penetrate all secrets, search all hearts, all consciences,—these are the things you fear! And yet you were not afraid to go and wallow in a Thuillier bog; you, a thoroughbred, allowed yourself to be harnessed to a hackney-coach, to the ignoble business ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... tormentor. The words that burn or rankle or corrode are not the words to stimulate. No doubt Socrates said that he was the gadfly of the State and stung that noble animal into action, but what may be good for a sluggish old coach-horse is not necessarily good for a thoroughbred ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... a thoroughbred clinker, There's never a judge that would; Each leg be'ind 'as a splint, you'll find, And the fore are none too good. She roars a bit, and she don't look fit, She's moulted 'alf 'er 'air; But—' He ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... saw in her "devil take me!" the finest thoroughbred in Norway. Again there were those who would "by all the powers!" have given their hope of salvation for—I dare not say for what. But there were also those who thought of the times of chivalry and saw ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... silkiest young queen I ever had a real close view of,—the slimmest feet and ankles, reg'lar cameo-cut face all tinted up natural like a bunch of sweet peas, and a lot of straw-colored hair as fine as cobwebs. She was a thoroughbred stunner, this Miss Vee was, and ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... mounted upon a fiery animal every whit as high-bred as himself; which fact they manifested in many and divers ways, as—in rearing and plunging, in tossing of heads, in lashing of heels, in quivering, and snorting, and stamping—and all for no apparent reason, yet which is the prerogative of your thoroughbred all the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... he said. "But say, let's get it right. How'd a woman feel if she'd an elegant baby child, thoroughbred from the crown of his dandy bald head to the pretty pink soles of his feet? Just a small bit of her, of her own creation. Then along comes some big, swell woman, who's only been able to raise a no account, ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... who has a plantation,—the fact being that he scarcely knows any one who has not one. Finally, he will try,—call again, and he will let you know. You call again,—"Next week," he says. You call after that interval,—"Next week," again, is all you get. Now, if you are a thoroughbred man, you can afford to quarrel with your banker; so you say, "Next week,—why not next year?"—make a very decided snatch at your hat, and wish him a very long "good-morning." But if you are a snob, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... Mar sneered at him. "The matter with you is you're thoroughbred. Well, my boy, it just happens I know your kind and I reckon I can make you get busy and work for me just as much as you did for that other guy. Now ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... men in these boats prosecute the fishing as vigorously and successfully as those in the Shetland boats, who are paid on a different principle?-They prosecute it with great rigour. Generally they are thoroughbred fishermen. They have all been apprenticed to the fishing when they were boys of 8 or 10 years ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... mounted on a half-broken, roughly- groomed western colt (for that's what the "steed" really was), with few fine points and no pedigree to speak of—what must the glorious exercise have been to that great little Queen, re-enthroned on thoroughbred, "highly-groomed," magnificent ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... was correct; he was only not aware that at the same time the girl had broken her own heart. He found that out afterward. And Bewsher eliminated himself more thoroughly than necessary. I suppose the shame of the thing was to him like a blow to a thoroughbred, instead of an incentive, as it would have been to a man of coarser fibre. He went from bad to worse, resigned from his regiment, finally disappeared. Personally, I had hoped that he had begun again somewhere on the outskirts of the world. But he isn't that sort. There's not much ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... moment's alarm had subsided, And the oath with which nothing can find unprovided A thoroughbred Englishman, safely exploded, Lord Alfred unbent (as Apollo his bow did Now and then) his erectness; and looking, not ruder Than such inroad would warrant, survey'd the intruder, Whose arrival ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... held out his hand to the girl as she came down the steps, and eyed her keenly to see if her flushed cheeks would betray any sign of fear. But Helen's emotions were surging too strongly for such thoughts, and she had, besides, a little of the thoroughbred nature herself. She laughed gaily as she gave her hand to her companion and sprang into the wagon; he followed her, and as he took the reins the groom sprang aside and the two horses bounded away down the broad avenue. ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... Rose-Marie saw with her first swift glance that the red upon the girl's cheeks was too high to be quite natural—that the scarlet of her lips was over-vivid. And yet, despite the patently artificial colouring, she realized that the girl was beautiful with a high strung, almost thoroughbred beauty. She wondered how this beauty had been born of the dim woman who seemed so colourless and the sodden brute who ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster |
