"Tough" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and slit the tough fabric into strips, five lengths each, then tied the ends together, tightening the knots as well as she could. She had little idea of how far the improvised rope would reach, but it seemed fairly long when it was done. She began to think it would mean everything to get outside the ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... are behind him; if he breaks the law up there in the North-west, he knows he's just got to be jailed for it, sure as he's alive. It may take a day, or it may take a year. It may cost the authorities a dollar, or it may cost 'em a million, and a life or two thrown in. But that tough is just going to be jailed, and he durned well knows it. That's what the R.N.W.M.P. means to the North-west; and you take it from me, it's a pretty big thing ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... men hang follies unnumbered—this is the unachievable thing, to find what shall be best hap for a man both presently and also at the last. Yea for the very founder[1] of this country once on a time struck with his staff of tough wild-olive-wood Alkmene's bastard brother Likymnios in Tiryns as he came forth from Midea's chamber, and slew him in the kindling of his wrath. So even the wise man's feet are turned astray by tumult ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... answer) she had flung them into the roadway; but at the instant when she understood him she made a dart at them, gathered them all together in her hands, and sped to the brookside. There she lay at length upon the turf, and washed the blooms in the flowing water. Then she gathered long tough grasses, and looped them together until she had made a cord, with which she bound the waxen posy. Paul followed and sat near, languidly propped on one ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... eight acres, very rough, tough, and stony. He informed his young companions of his mother's conditional promise, and several of them readily agreed to help him. For the next two weeks the field presented the spectacle of a continuous "bee" ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... cut up the captured game and to keep only the most nourishing part, the thorax. Whether the day be perfectly calm or whether the wind blow, whether she be in the shelter of a dense thicket or in the open, I see the Wasp proceed to separate the succulent from the tough; I see her reject the legs, the wings, the head and the abdomen, retaining only the breast as pap for her larvae. Then what value has this dissection as an argument in favour of the insect's reasoning-powers when the wind blows? It has no value at all, ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... lose. Mr. Brougham said, he consented to it as the price, the almost extravagant price, of the inestimable good which would result from emancipation; and it was described by Sir James Mackintosh as one of those tough morsels which he had scarcely been able to swallow. It was opposed by Mr. Huskisson and others as a measure uncalled for by any necessity, and not fitted to gain that object which alone was held out as justifying it. It was absurd, it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in San Francisco and widely read. Now and then some one had the temerity to answer them, but most of his victims maintained a discreet silence. In one of these letters he told of the Mexican oyster, a rather tough, unsatisfactory article of diet, which could not stand criticism, and presently disappeared from the market. It was a mistake, however, for him to attack an Alta journalist by the name of Evans. Evans was a poet, and once composed an elegy ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... most of the time. I'm tough and hardy, or I should have been dead afore this time. We've been half starved and half frozen in the camp; but I managed to live through it, hoping and expecting to get away from ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... him alone," said the Vice-Governor, laughing. "He is an innocent, honest fellow, with a tender conscience, and nothing so tough and hardened as you. Come, friend Kornel! tell me, what do you think of the rate at which the other things are estimated? For instance, your uncle's private room? The whole furniture is valued at twenty-three florins. ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... administer to the wearied soul. Be not misled by worldly-wisemen to take advice of the doctor's boy, but go direct to Jesus; he is ready—he is willing to cure and save to the uttermost. His medicine may be sharp, but merely so as to effect the cure 'where bad humours are tough and churlish.' 'It revives where life is, and gives life where it is not. Take man from this river, and nothing can make him live: let him have this water and nothing can make him die.' The river of water of life allegorically represents the Spirit and grace of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... confidence in my own strategy then, Deucalion. But the old Gods, in whom I trusted then, remained old, taught me no new thing. I drilled and exercised my army according to the forms you and I learnt together, old comrade, and in many a tough fight found to serve well; I armed them with the choicest weapons we knew of then, with sling and mace, with bow and spear, with axe and knife, with sword and the throwing fire; their bodies I covered with metal plates; even their bellies ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... she continued with increasing earnestness. "There's them as thinks if they've a book or paper stuck about handy, and them a-poppin' down to read a bit ivery now and then, it shows that cookin's beneath 'em. And then the meat burns or it sogs and gets tough, the potatoes don't get the water poured off of 'em in toime, and things biles over on the stove or don't bile at all, at all, and what does all that show, Moike? Not that they're above cookin', but that they're lackin' in ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... he, after the first salutations had passed, "you look like a man that had jist put a tough ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... as he has never been friendly with us, it does not matter. He is, I have heard, a very tough sort of man; and my father is not likely to survive him. But I do not think it would be fair to Geoffrey, when he comes into his peerage, that anyone should be able to say that he has a brother who is porter, in a mercantile house at ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... personnel began with the horses. These were very sorry-looking animals, but tough enough admirably to pull through the performance. Managing them with some difficulty stood the driver on the front platform, arrayed in a bottle-green livery, with a stiff military cap which gave him the combined ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... women servants and a man who never seemed to have any wages for their work lived with Marcella at the farm. The man and Aunt Janet planted things in the garden, but on the poor land, among the winds they never grew very well. Oats grew, thin and tough, in the fields, and were ground to make the daily porridge; sometimes one of the skinny fowls that picked and pecked its hungry way through life round about the cattle pen and the back door was killed for a meal; sometimes Marcella ran miles away up Ben ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... it. The insulated grey rocks have forced themselves through the starved soil, like projecting bones; the parched fields are more full of pebbles than corn; and the stunted evergreen oaks, with their diminutive tough leaves of a dingy grey, though well enough adapted to the inhospitable ground in which they grow, present an appearance quite repugnant to our English ideas of verdure and vegetation. The immediate ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... of the geographer, however, the first mouthful was greeted with a general grimace, and such exclamations as—"Tough!" "It is horrible." ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... his children. He beckoned to the walnut-faced driver of one of the carrioles which waited outside the station to take the passengers across the river, and tossed his bag into the bottom of the little sledge. He gave the name of a hotel in the Upper Town, and the driver whipped his tough, long-fetlocked pony over the space of ice which was kept clear of snow by diligent sweeping with fir-tree tops, and then up the steep incline of Mountain Hill. The streets were roadways from house-front to house-front, smooth, elastic levels of thickly-bedded, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... for a man dressed like a tough," said the city editor; "for as this fellow is to all appearances a gentleman, he will try to look as little ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... a non-heading member of the cabbage group, used as greens, both in spring and winter. It is improved by frost, but even then is a little tough and heavy. Its chief merit lies in the fact that it is easily had when greens of the better sorts are hard to get, as it may be left out and cut as needed during winter—even from under snow. The fall crop is given the same treatment as late cabbage. Siberian ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... raised in the different sections of the Union must be taken into consideration. Wheat may be divided into two classes, spring and winter, the latter generally being more starchy and easily pulverized, and at the same time having a very tough bran or husk, which does not readily crumble or cut to pieces in the process of grinding. It was with this wheat that the mills of the country had chiefly to do, and the defects of the old system of milling were not then so apparent. With the settlement of Minnesota, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... of vegetation—this little spongeous tract of water plants, and on either side of it all the growths are tough or brittle—heather, bracken, hurts, ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... Tooth-ache.—Tough diet tries the teeth so severely, that a man about to undergo it, should pay a visit to a dentist before he leaves England. An unskilled traveller is very likely to make a bad job of a first attempt at tooth-drawing. By constantly ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... growth - along with displacements caused by structural adjustments in preparation for the EC single market - has pushed an already high unemployment rate up to 19%. However, many people listed as unemployed work in the underground economy. If the government can stick to its tough economic policies and push further structural reforms, the economy will emerge stronger at the end of the 1990s. National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $514.9 billion (1992) National product real growth rate: 1% (1992) National product ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... weight of some stark, still form, I would at length gain the upper deck, when I would be met with the salutation: 'What! you alive yet? Well, you are a tough one!'" ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... the stable, whined and gnawed at the rope with which Corliss had tied him. The rope was hard-twisted and tough. Finally the last strand gave way. The dog leaped through the doorway and ran sniffing around the enclosure. He found Sundown's trail and followed it to the ranch-house. At the threshold the dog stopped. His neck bristled and he crooked one foreleg. Slowly he stalked to ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... said one of the foresters, "the tough meat of them will wear folks teeth out, and there is a trade for the man who can ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... get sick easy. Those Cove streeters are tough. Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... meantime, the fire of our siege guns was steadily doing its work, in spite of the heavy fire kept up on them. The stone facing of the bastion next to the gateway was soon knocked away, but the earth banks behind, which were very thick and constructed of a tough red clay, crumbled but slowly. Still, the breach was day by day becoming more practicable, and Tippoo, alarmed at the progress that had been made, moved his army down towards the east side of the fort, and seemed to meditate an attack upon our batteries. ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... circling the wary, grotesquely bobbing figure and swinging those terrible slashing hooks. The other was down, almost covered with white. Out of the picture, that one, but the remaining Llott was giving his friend a tough time of it. With the girl clinging to him, their arms hooked fast, he scuttled over the treacherous, ice-powdered copper. He had to get there quickly, ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... comparatively easy to make a strong flour, but it requires very careful milling to make a flour of good color from it. Probably the wheat which combines the most desirable qualities for flour-making purposes is the red Mediterranean, which has plenty of gluten and a tough bran, though claimed by some to have a little too much coloring matter, while the body of the berry is white. By poor milling a good wheat can be made into flour deficient both in strength and color, and by careful milling ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... and gone, and the memory is wan, That conjures up each old familiar face; And here by fortune hurled, I am dead to all the world, And I've learned to lose my pride and keep my place. My ways are hard and rough, and my arms are strong and tough, And I hew the dizzy pine till darkness falls; And sometimes I take a dive, just to keep my heart alive, Among the gay saloons and ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... window gardening—a modest phase of plant culture which has made much progress in recent years—is the simpleness of their requirements under cultivation. No plants give so much pleasure in return for so small an amount of attention as do these. Their peculiarly tough-skinned succulent stems enable them to go for an extraordinary length of time without water; indeed, it may be said that the treatment most suitable for many of them during the greater portion of the year is such as would be fatal to most other ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... clipped and pollarded like a Dutch shrubbery. The roots which connect them with mythic antiquity, and the fresh leaves and flowers of the growing present, have been generally cut off with care, and the middle part only has been allowed to be used—too often, of course, a sufficiently tough and dry stem. This method is no doubt easy, because it saves teachers the trouble of investigating antiquity, and saves them too the still more delicate task of judging contemporaneous authors—but like all half measures, it has bred less good than evil. If we could silence a free press, and ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... was over, and to George's intense relief he found himself upon the platform at Boisingham. He was a pretty tough subject, but he felt that a very little more of the company of the fair Edithia would be too much for him. As it happened, the station- master was a particular friend of his, and the astonishment of that worthy when he saw the respectable George in such company could ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... wisely. "Perhaps we will find the precedent hasn't really been set! But no matter—" His lifted hand stopped Miller's eager, wondering exclamation. "The point is, young man, we three are in a tough spot, and it's up to us to get out of it. And not only we, but heaven knows how many ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner
... answered the soft, musical voice of the strange being by me; "but your head is thick and your brain tough. I could have taught another ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... corner, Happy came upon a Tough, lounging in the walkway. The Tough was a compact, muscular youth, with bullet head, sullen eyes and hard mouth. He looked as though he lounged with hands in pockets, but, like Happy and all the others, he was naked, so that was ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... on the lower West Side," I heard Dillon say as I left. "Perhaps they did work for the gambling joint—sent drunks home, got rid of tough customers and all that. You know already that there are some pretty tough places down there. This is bully. I shouldn't be surprised if it gave us a line on the stealing of Warrington's car ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... of "Webster on Witchcraft" which Cotton Mather studied, I thought, "Well, that goblin is laid at last!"—and while I mused the tables were turning, and the chairs beating the devil's tattoo all over Christendom. I have a neighbor who dug down through tough strata of clay to a spring pointed out by a witch-hazel rod in the hands of a seventh son's seventh son, and the water is the sweeter to him for the wonder that is mixed with it. After all, it seems that our scientific ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... from the New Zealand poets, or that they must have acted unfairly by the English bard" (p. 362). The Maori legend describes the dragon as "in size large as a monstrous whale, in shape like a hideous lizard; for in its huge head, its limbs, its tail, its scales, its tough skin, its sharp spines, yes, in all these it resembled a lizard" ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... apprentices, the small tradespeople, and their like, whose social position was not clearly defined, could never be sure how far they could go and yet preserve their "respectability." When they wished to be "proper," they invariably overdid the thing. It was not as if they belonged to the "tough" element, who had no appearances to keep up. Polk Street rubbed elbows with the "avenue" one block above. There were certain limits which its dwellers could not overstep; but unfortunately for them, these limits were poorly defined. They ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... is beautiful and attractive. It grows as large as the oak, and has a rich and glossy foliage. The fruit is shaped something like a short, thick cucumber, and is as large as a large pear. It has a thick, tough skin, and a delicious, juicy pulp. When ripe it is a golden color. A tree often bears a hundred ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... her five per cent. of the lady's fortune, if she would find me a mark with unsettled money. Though she laughed it off, she was not a little scandalized by my levity. The Tough Old Stick has not outlived her memory of romance. Indeed, I think she holds to it all the tighter for her ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... into the distance. Next to him was the imperious Hera, Mother of the Gods. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, as if she were waiting for the end of the world to be announced. There was Mars, tough and hairy-chested, scratching his side with one hand and scowling horribly. His fierce, bearded face looked somehow out of place without the battle helmet that usually topped it. The horned and goat-legged Pan was there, and Vulcan, crippled and ugly with his squat body and giant arms, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... be in jeopardy, as if laughing and mocking at his misfortune. It is a harmless bird, and I seldom allowed them to be destroyed, as they were sure to rouse us with the earliest dawn. To this list of Fraser's spoils, a duck and a tough old cockatoo, must be added. The whole of these our friends threw on the fire without the delay of plucking, and snatched them from that consuming element ere they were well singed, and devoured them with ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... the fixed forms of life, their food must come to them. If there is no current there is not enough food carried past for them to live on. If the current is too strong the sponge has to make an extra tough skeleton to brace itself against the rush of water and then it becomes too coarse for commercial use. Some of the polyps live on tiny animals with a lot of flint in their shells and the skeleton gets like glass. They ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... idle and rough outcasts who feel at home there; the others refuse to enter an environment expressly set up for singles, orphans, unskilled persons, living in lodgings, foul-mouthed, lacking the sense of smell, with a gift of the gab, robust arms, tough hide, solid haunches, expert in hustling, and with whom blows replace arguments.[3368]—After the September massacres, and on the opening of the barriers, a number of proprietors and persons living on their incomes, not alone the suspected but those who thought they might become ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... [Hears the wild fowl's [2] cry] Hark, the passing fowl screamed twice or thrice!—Can it know there is no one so desolate as I? [Cries repeated] Perhaps worn out and weak, hungry and emaciated, they bewail at once the broad nets of the South and the tough bows of the North. [Cries repeated] The screams of those water-birds but ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... shot their arrows at him, but his sides were so tough, for he had bones like jointed armor upon them, that he was only slightly wounded. He was, however, made very angry by their attacks, and he picked up a magic stick and threw it at them. They would have fared badly if they had ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... help noticing that none of those at breakfast could get on satisfactorily with their food. It was not altogether that the chops were tough, but that the knives were all so blunt. Being a guest, he, of course, made no sign; but presently saw Joshua draw his thumb across the edge of his knife in an unconscious sort of way. At the action Mary turned pale and ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... weight of the animal is enormous, and you must remember that the horns are driven with the whole of the brute's bulk for lever and sledge-hammer. Such force as is exerted, would be almost sufficient to push a crowbar through a stone wall, and, tough though they are, the hardest of old bull buffaloes is not proof against the terrible pressure brought to bear. The bulls show wonderful activity and skill in these fencing matches. Each beast gives way the instant that it is warned by the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... and one of the strongest of the ties which bind a man to this earth broken. It would not be wonderful if, under these circumstances, the coldest and toughest of men should lie down and die. But Mr. Greeley was neither cold nor tough. He was keenly sensitive both to praise and blame. The applause of even paltry men gladdened him, and their censure stung him. Moreover, he had that intense longing for reputation as a man of action by which men of the closet are so often torn. In spite of all that his writing ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... number of Teutonic words previously employed in heathen services, just as the names of gods stood ineradicable in the days of the week; to such words old customs would still cling silent and unnoticed and take a new lease of life. The festivals of the people present a tough material: they are so closely bound up with its habits of life that they will put up with foreign additions if only to save a fragment of festivities long loved and tried. In this way Scandinavia, probably the Goths ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... Basil had cut down several of the largest and straightest birches, and Lucien employed himself in carefully removing the bark and cleansing it of nodules and other inequalities. The broad sheets were suspended by a smoke fire, so as completely to dry up the sap, and render it tough and elastic. Francois had his part to play, and that was to collect the resinous gum which was distilled in plenty from the trunks of ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... or eaten. Perhaps "cooked" is not exactly the right word for what happened to the can of peas and the can of baked beans. Ken did find wood—not in the woodshed, but strewing the orchard grass; hard old apple-wood, gray and tough. It burned merrily enough in the living-room fireplace, and the chimney responded with a hollow rushing as the hot air ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... sighted smoke,—the campfire of the three thieves. Two boats, one of them the stolen one, were tied up to the bank. It was an exciting moment, for they expected a fight. As it turned out, however, it was a tough job, but not a fighting one. The German was alone in camp, and they captured him without trouble. The other two were out hunting. When they came back an hour or two later, they were surprised by the order to hold up their hands. The half-breed obeyed at once, Finnigan hesitated until Roosevelt ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... be in yet, if that's any consolation. Always a tough meet—[softly] as the tiger said ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the houses are occupied there is almost certain to be an old granny with ragged grey hair, who folded her arms tight under her ragged old breasts, and bends her tough old body, and sticks her ragged grey old head out of the slit called a door, and squints up and down the road, but not in the interests of mischief-making—they are never here long enough—only out of mild, ragged, grey-headed curiosity regarding the health or ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... all of that," I said, wearily. "Your meanness surpasseth all things. I've met a good many tough characters in my day, but you are the first I have ever encountered without a redeeming feature. You take advantage of a mistake for which I am not at all responsible, and ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... fires, they searched the valley below with the keen glance of those whose eyes are never dimmed by printed page or city lights. Dressed in the rude garb of those to whom clothes are a necessity, not a means of display, tall and lean with hard muscles, tough sinews and cruel stony faces, they seemed a part of the wild life about them; and yet withal, there was a touch of the mountain grandeur in their manner, and in the unconscious air of freedom and self-reliance, as there always is about ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... a tall man, Norman, but you look sound, and whole, and tough for your inches, like a Highlandman's dirk. Now be off on your errand, and when it is done, look for me yonder at the sign of 'The Crane,'" pointing across the parvise to a tavern, "for I keep a word to tell in your lug that few wot of, and that it will joy you to hear. To- morrow, lad, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... among the lowest in the world. Because of these restrictive economic policies, Belarus has had trouble attracting foreign investment. Nevertheless, GDP growth has been strong in recent years, reaching nearly 7% in 2007, despite the roadblocks of a tough, centrally directed economy with a high, but decreasing, rate of inflation. Belarus receives heavily discounted oil and natural gas from Russia and much of Belarus' growth can be attributed to the re-export of Russian oil at market prices. Trade with Russia - by far its largest single ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and hidden somewhere till nightfall, he has got to be set free the same evening, and we have to embark early enough to be well out of sight before daylight; and maybe there will not be a breath of wind stirring. It is a tough job, Geoffrey, look at ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... straight spikes of bloom, Clean, wayward and tough; Sweet and tall and slender, True, enduring and tender, Buoyant and bold and bluff, Simplest, sanest of stuff;— Thus grows Lavender, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... feed in the Hall. Stanton cried that night, and Gray. I never saw them do it before." Then, more slowly, "It must be tough on a girl." ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... must be dense and low, and tough enough to stand a lot of rough usage. A combination of Rhode Island Bent and Creeping Bent is about the best thing for this purpose. To check up, just refer back to your schedule and see what it says regarding ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue
... luck, old man. Every inducement to come out top!" he remarked, only half in joke. "I've none, except my own credit. But you'll have a tough job if you ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... she admitted. "But it's very tough weather sometimes. I have seen the women waiting on the jetty, and on the cliffs, and looking out at the storm, with their faces white with fear and anxiety for the men—their fathers and husbands ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... beating the river's banks, and striking the poor beast they were about to hunt, and each man having a couple of hounds, well entered for the chase, in leash. Old Crouch was a thin, grey-bearded fellow, but possessed of a tough, muscular frame, which served him quite as well in the long run as the younger, and apparently more vigorous, limbs of his assistants. His cheek was hale, and his eye still bright and quick, and a certain fierceness ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... we learned later from Elaine and others, was that when the cross roads was reached, the three crooks in the limousine had stopped long enough to speak to an accomplice stationed there, according to their plan for a getaway. He was a tough looking individual who might have been hoboing it ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... officer, wiping the perspiration from his brow, 'and strong as a bear, but I've tackled as tough hands as him in my day, and so has poor Bill Maddox there. I hope the Earl will settle a good pension on his widow—it will be sad news for her and her four poor children:—stone dead. He took the famous highwayman, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... donned them on, not long their riches eyed, Nor did he aught with so great weight incline, His wonted sword upon his thigh he tied, The blade was old and tough, of temper fine. As when a comet far and wide descried, In scorn of Phoebus midst bright heaven doth shine, And tidings sad of death and mischief brings To mighty lords, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... old boughs overhead Took counsel together, and said,— And the buzz of their leafy lips like a murmur of prophecy passed,— "He is busily carving a name In the tough old wrinkles of fame; But, cut he as deep as he may, the lines will close over ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... have to stay in the water long, before he was quite well done, and as hard as a brick all the way through; so, untying the rag, he jumped out of the kettle as tough and as bright ...
— Denslow's Humpty Dumpty • William Wallace Denslow
... boiled sheepskin—and it was uncommon tough as well as tasteless; but it is wonderful what men will eat when ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... Two long brown cloaks with hoods, such as old women wear, a few hundred yards to walk from the Frari to the Tolentini, his gondola there, and out by Santa Chiara to the mainland and Padua—who shall catch us then? You are young and strong, and I am tough; we shall not die of the fatigue; and by the next morning we shall all three be out of Venetian territory. What ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... said Billy, "that 'the only good Indian is a dead Indian.' That's always sounded a little tough on poor Lo. But if the Huns keep on the way they are going, it won't be long before all the world will be saying that the only good German ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... once more at the body of the great owl, and then, fitting the arrow to the string, he bent the bow. An involuntary cry of admiration came from a people who valued physical strength and skill when they saw the ease and grace with which he bent the tough wood. Not in vain had nature given Big Fox a figure of power and muscles of steel! Not in vain had nature given him an eye the like of which was not to be found on all the border! Not in vain had he achieved surpassing skill with the bow in his ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a silent prayer that he had been preserved to them. Father deftly slid his hand into his left side trouser's pocket and, pulling forth a keen-bladed knife, cut a slender, but tough, sprout from the black-heart cherry tree. Tenderly taking the boy by the arm, he slowly led him to the cellar and introduced another innovation into the fast unfolding life of the ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... "That was what tough old Sir Even Dhu used to say to me when I was out with the metall'd lads in 1689. 'Craigengelt,' he used to say, 'you are as pretty a fellow as ever held steel in his grip, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... nailed together at the ends, we need not trouble ourselves so much about their shape or balance, and therefore the plan at f is a peculiarly wooden construction (the reader will doubtless recognise in it the profile of many a farm-house roof): and again, because beams are tough, and light, and long, as compared with stones, they are admirably adapted for the constructions at A and B, the plain lintel and gable, while that at C is, for the most part, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... for him?' said the doctor. 'No, Heathcliff's a tough young fellow: he looks blooming to-day. I've just seen him. He's rapidly regaining flesh since he lost his ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... their having the beneficial effect of assisting digestion. The fallacy of this conclusion is sufficiently apparent from the state in which cherries are found, after they have been steeped in brandy: instead of becoming more tender, they are rendered as tough as leather. Similar effects are produced on food in the stomach, as well as out of it. Strong liquors are plainly improper at meals, as by their heat and activity they hurry the food undigested into the habit, and so lay the foundation ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... "It's tough on you, girl—after gittin' such a good start. When I told you awhile back that there couldn't nothin' happen, ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... it off, as I told you once, if the Three Bar girl had turned out to be any except you. You've had a tough problem to work out, girl," he said. "I sold out my little Box L outfit for more than it was worth—and figured to stop the leak at the Three Bar and put the old ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... found that nothing served the wishes of lovers more than tough persistency, though he was stung with the shame of his double rebuff, nevertheless, effacing the form he had worn before, went to the king for the third time, professing the completest skill in soldiership. He was led to take this pains not only by pleasure but by the wish to wipe out ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... that only shows that your people here are different from the others—not that they're worse. You don't seem to realize: Octavius, so far as the Methodists are concerned, is twenty or thirty years behind the times. Now that has its advantages and its disadvantages. The church here is tough and coarse, and full of grit, like a grindstone; and it does ministers from other more niminy-piminy places all sorts of good to come here once in a while and rub themselves up against it. It scours the rust and mildew off from their piety, and they go back singing and shouting. But of course ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel: ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... help it, Bilbil," answered the King pleasantly. "You would make a remarkably tough morsel, and my teeth are not as good ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the surroundings in which he lives. Perpetually at strife with the Turk, the Pole has imbibed a taste for Oriental splendor; he often sacrifices what is needful for the sake of display. The men dress themselves out like women, yet the climate has given them the tough constitution ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Instead of the flaring neckerchief which the cowboys commonly favored, Macdonald wore a cravat, the ends of it tucked into the bosom of his shirt, and in place of the leather chaps of men who ride breakneck through brush and bramble, his legs were clad in tough brown corduroys, and fended by boots to his knees. There were revolvers in ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... duties, but no very popular favourite; honest according to his lights—lights turned rather low and dim, as was often the case in those days. A narrow-minded man also, without sympathy or imagination, capable of cruelty; a tough, stiff-necked stock of a man, fit to deal with Bobadilla perhaps, but hardly fit to deal with the colony. Spain in those days was not a nursery of administration. Of all the people who were sent out successively to govern Espanola and supersede one another, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... gorge and found that the Hebrews were but nominally idle. A rope-walk had been constructed and the men were twisting cables of tough fiber. The Egyptians lounged in the long shadows of the late afternoon and directed the work with no effort and little concern. The young sculptor overlooked the scene as long as it interested him and continued down ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... lady was tough, but"—he dashed off again, called a station, slammed the door, and was back in position in less time than it takes to tell it—"she was took sudden, while Mr. King's folks was in Europe, and now that child has turned a handsome old place down yonder"—he pointed with his thumb ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... an extra big sea came bursting across and washed them off the deck—every man but one of the pair beneath the poop—and he dropped his hold before the next wave; being stunned, I reckon. The others went out of sight at once, but the trumpeter—being, as I said, a powerful man as well as a tough swimmer—rose like a duck, rode out a couple of breakers, and came in on the crest of the third. The folks looked to see him broke like an egg at their very feet; but when the smother cleared, there he was, lying face downward ...
— The Roll-Call Of The Reef • A. T. Quiller-Couch (AKA "Q.")
... been dethroned by the original text, and though the main stream of English theology was by this time flowing in the channel of the mother tongue, the notion that all ministers should know Latin had still some centuries of tough life in it." (Eggleston, E., The ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... somewhat puffy features screwed whimsically awry, with several prominent warts dotting, without ornamenting, all that was visible of a face which was buried up to the ears in a furzy thicket of yellow-brown beard, the tough young stadholder of Friesland, in his iron corslet, and halting upon his maimed leg, had come forth with other notable personages to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and several large diamond faceplates they were able to work the tough material down to a thin sheet; then with a heavy press, they cut some very small fragments, and with these, ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... the Rotunda we all sorts of fun do, Hard hearts and pig-iron we melt in one flame; For if Love blows the bellows, our tough college fellows Will thaw into rapture at each lovely dame. There, too, sans apology, tea, tarts, tautology, Are given with zoology, to grave and gay; Thus fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry Send all to England home, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... the second sight, or DEUTERO-SCOPIA?" said the soldier; "I remember memorable Major Munro telling me how Murdoch Mackenzie, born in Assint, a private gentleman in a company, and a pretty soldier, foretold the death of Donald Tough, a Lochaber man, and certain other persons, as well as the hurt of the major himself at a sudden onfall at the ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... be tough," Hal agreed. "And, once there, I am afraid we would have to stay until after the war. I don't imagine there is much danger of anyone escaping from that ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... for the head"— Vicia Caroliniana— Vetch: Decoction drunk for dyspepsia and pains in the back, and rubbed on stomach for cramp; also rubbed on ball-players after scratching, to render their muscles tough, and used in the same way after scratching in the disease referred to under [n]nagei, in which one side becomes black in spots, with partial paralysis; also used in same manner in decoction with Ksduta for rheumatism; considered one of their most valuable medicinal ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... spoilt his game. No one would prosecute. He always had luck, had Goldenburg. He's been at the back of a score of big things, but we could never get legal proof against him. He was a cunning rascal—educated, plausible, reckless. Well, he's gone now, and he's given us as tough a nut to crack as ever he did while ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... men-one tough and strong, a man of thirty, whom toil had made forty, the other old, wrinkled, white-haired and with skin like leather, father and grandfather, doubtless, of the little brats beyond—were eating bread and cheese, and drinking, turn ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... had a club or something," he thought. "I'd have a tough time of it up here, if it came to ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... the breeze on the wolds in autumn, like the driest and oldest iced champagne. In the rough grass fields tough, wiry bents, thistles with purple flowers, and the remnants of oxeye daisies on brittle stalks rise almost to the height of your knees. Lovely blue bell-flowers grow in patches; golden ragwort, two sorts of field ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... stamped and spurned the furniture was a symbol of him; it was some such thing that prevented him and his heirs from sitting as quietly on their throne as the heirs of St. Louis. He thrust again and again at the tough intangibility of the priests' Utopianism like a man fighting a ghost; he answered transcendental defiances with baser material persecutions; and at last, on a dark and, I think, decisive day in English history, his word sent four feudal murderers ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... upon the edge of extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear prospect before us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the chance of this painted pasteboard, and playing the "joker" with vivid delight. Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough chess games. When dark came we decided to take the risk, and lit ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... broke up the party yet; We're rough, and tough, and hearty yet; Who talks of going pays what's owing, And there's a bill will smart ye yet! So bang the doors, and lock 'em tight! Secesh, you've got to make it right! We'll have a little dance to-night; You ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... instinct, flashes a glance to the top of the flagstaff in the centre of the fort. His brow contracts, he stamps his foot, and the soldiers and citizens who have followed his glance break out into a cry of rage that rings far out over the placid waters of the bay, and makes the tough old British veterans chuckle grimly over the success of their little joke upon the Yankees; for there, high above the heads of the wrathful crowd, flaunting its scarlet folds over the roofs of the liberated city, floats proudly the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... walls (cleverly drawn by Miss Marion Doolan), the floor was sawdust covered. Red ties, stockings and skirts were in demand. Mrs. Evan's brilliant scarf made one costume for the borrower, everyone looked unbelievably tough in the costumes appropriate for this Italian affair. Candles gave a dim light. There were samples of "Apache Dancing." Spaghetti and ravioli were enjoyed along with the red wine that flowed freely, while the orchestra played only Italian and ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... his talk that the Court had resumed the design of besieging Paris; and to be the more satisfied of it I told him that the Cardinal might easily be disappointed in his measures, and that he would find Paris to be a very tough morsel. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... round, in the course of which the Romans really did fall in with a serpent as monstrous as their imagination had depicted. It was said to be 120 feet long, and dwelt upon the banks of the River Bagrada, where it used to devour the Roman soldiers as they went to fetch water. It had such tough scales that they were obliged to attack it with their engines meant for battering city walls, and only succeeded with ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... through, Colonel, but it was a tough job, there is no question about that. There was not a friend to the measure in the House committee when I began, and not a friend in the Senate committee except old Dil himself, but they were all fixed for a majority report when I hauled off my forces. Everybody here ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... that Juliette spoke, she was watching the heap of paper being gradually reduced to ashes. She tried to fan the flames as best she could, but some of the correspondence was on tough paper, and was slow in being consumed. Petronelle, tearful but obedient, prepared to leave the room. She was overawed by her mistress' air of aloofness, the pale face rendered ethereally beautiful by the sufferings she had gone through. The eyes glowed large and magnetic, as if in presence of spiritual ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... but more commonly rent across, as if the paper had been wet and soft: or, to leave the book similitude, which is becoming inconvenient, the beds seem to have been in the consistence of a paste, more or less dry; in some places brittle, and breaking, like a cake, fairly across; in others moist and tough, and tearing like dough, or bending like hot iron; and, in others, crushed and shivering into dust, like unannealed glass. And in these various states they are either bent or broken, or shivered, as the case may be, into fragments of various shapes, which are usually tossed one on top ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... "French cooks declare that salt should never be mixed with eggs when they are prepared for omelette. It makes the omelette tough and leathery. A little salt, however, may be sprinkled upon it just before it is turned out ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... hand," he said to Joan, feelingly. "I'd never hev stood for thet scurvy trick. Now, miss, this's the toughest camp I ever seen. I mean tough as to wimmen! For it ain't begun to fan guns an' ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... Ivanhoe, Tho' Dymoke does—it makes him think of clattering In iron overalls before the king Secure from battering, to ladies flattering, Tuning, his challenge to the gauntlet's ring— Oh better far than all that anvil clang It was to hear thee touch the famous string Of Robin Hood's tough bow and make it twang, Rousing him up, all verdant, with his clan, Like ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... lines is a very tough job. It is a job which requires tremendous daring, tremendous resourcefulness, and, above all, tremendous production of planes and tanks and guns and also of the ships to carry them. And I speak again for the American people when I say that ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... Antinous, as the chief among the suitors, had the first offer; and he took the bow, and, fitting an arrow to the string, he strove to bend it, but not with all his might and main could he once draw together the ends of that tough bow; and when he found how vain a thing it was to endeavour to draw Ulysses's bow, he desisted, blushing for shame and for mere anger. Then Eurymachus adventured, but with no better success; but as it had torn the hands of Antinous, so did the bow tear and strain ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... shoulder, fastened beneath his right arm in such a manner as to leave the arm free and unobstructed, and then hung loosely behind him, almost touching the ground as he sat upon his horse. The animal was a rough looking little pony, that bore evidence of being both tough and fleet. ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens |
