"Pachydermatous" Quotes from Famous Books
... tight-rope walkers, and the social lion-tamers, and snake-charmers, and the political acrobats whose falls were unsoftened by any kind of network. There were heat and dust and discomfort, and weary, wretched animals looking out of cages at other weary, tortured animals, that were sometimes scarcely less pachydermatous than themselves. I know the program we had mapped out, the triumphal entry, the daring leaps, the cheers,—but was it worth while? After all, does one care to be the champion bareback rider in life's hippodrome? Nature swept away my sawdust ... — The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... sentimentalist might possibly have introduced it in such a way as to impress us at least with his own sincerity. But how is such doctrine to be uttered by lips which are, at the same time, pouring out the shrewdest of sarcasms against politicians who, if more pachydermatous, were at least more manly? In a newfangled church, amidst incense and genuflexions and ecclesiastical millinery, one may listen patiently to a ritualist sermon; but no mortal skill could make ritualism ... — Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... don't know that I can hope to convey any right conception of Wilde's truly remarkable character. He is, to begin with, the best of men. Picture, if you can, a nature with a soul completely beautiful and selfless, and a nervous surface quite as pachydermatous and indiscriminating as that of an ox. Wilde accepts everybody's estimate of himself. Not only the quality of his mercy, but also of his admiration, is quite unstrained. So that he sees the friend of his youth not at all as I or any ... — The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... to her coachman as ladies who have carriages generally are, and would not have dreamed of ordering the horses out so soon again for herself; but she forgot everything else when a friend was in need of help, and became perfectly pachydermatous to the offended looks or indignant hints ... — David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... Darwinii, a closely related genus of little inferior size. Fifthly, another gigantic edental quadruped. Sixthly, a large animal, with an osseous coat in compartments, very like that of an armadillo. Seventhly, an extinct kind of horse, to which I shall have again to refer. Eighthly, a tooth of a Pachydermatous animal, probably the same with the Macrauchenia, a huge beast with a long neck like a camel, which I shall also refer to again. Lastly, the Toxodon, perhaps one of the strangest animals ever discovered: in size it equalled an elephant or megatherium, but the structure of its teeth, as Mr. ... — A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... came the armoured train, a pachydermatous monster which moved cumbrously in front of the column, and was saluted by the smoking wrath of big guns as soon as it appeared. It retired cautiously, and disgorged its gallant crew of marines to help in handling the naval guns. Lord Methuen deployed the cavalry on the flanks, while the ... — South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... four on the third, etc., in the celebrated progression style, until the whole were accomplished? Or were it better to have the whole at once, and so be done with it? In either case, or in present case, what a blessing to be made pachydermatous! (a learned word lately acquired by ladies, though doubtless long familiar ... — Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... could be guilty of such a suspicion. The preacher knows that one squeezing does not take all the juice out of an orange; and how much jucier a fruit is a good sermon! Moreover, the pews are so pachydermatous, so rhinoceros-skinned, that nothing but an incessant pelting upon the same ... — The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... street, and nearsightedness is a blessing, and (as a last resort) buttons may be sacrificed (you remember Lamb's story of Coleridge), and left in the clutch of the fatal fingers. But one of your own kindred, and very respectable, adding the claim of misfortune to his other claims upon you,—pachydermatous to slights, smilingly persuasive, gently persistent,—as imperturbable as a ship's wooden figurehead through all the ups and downs of the voyage of life, and as insensible to cold water;—in short, an uncle like my uncle, ... — Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various |