"Tether" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... settled, I shall reach The 'Sixthly' in my solemn tether, And show that what is true of each, Is also true of ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... the grey goat of old Hawk and Buckle, And what of pretty Nanny this hot summer weather? She stays not contented with little or with muckle, Straining for daisies at the end of her tether. ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... reached a point where the sloping rocks rose high above surf and spray, they dismounted, leaving the Indian servants to tether the horses. They climbed down the big smooth rocks and sat about in groups, although never beyond the range of older eyes, the cypresses lowering above them, the ocean tearing through the outer rocks to swirl and grumble in the pools. The moon was so ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... from the Minor's tether, Free to mortgage or to sell, Wild as wind, and light as feather, Bid the sons ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... half-an-hour. Domiloff at last lost patience and knocked at the door. Brand, who had just finished a shorthand copy of the treaty, and had tucked it within the inner sole of his boot, realized the fact that he had reached the end of his tether. ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... of Bart, all was well in the camp at daybreak when he looked round; the horses were grazing contentedly at the end of their tether ropes, and the Indians were just stirring, and raking together the fire that had been smouldering ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... other accident which would have confined him to the house, he would have taken very readily to reading. In his case his physical powers demanded more exercise than his mental, whereas in the case of his brother Jasper his mental activity preponderated over his mere animal spirits. Jack required a tether to keep him within bounds, Jasper a spur to make him move fast enough to keep up with the times. Yet in most respects the elder was superior to the younger brother—cast in a finer mould, with keener sensibilities, ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... swings halfway around; the field then becomes negative in front of the particle again, and again attracts it. As the particle moves faster and faster it spirals outward in an ever increasing circle, something like a tether ball unwinding from a pole. The energies achieved would have seemed fantastic to earlier scientists. The Bevatron, a modern offspring of the first cyclotron, accelerates protons to 99.13% the speed of light, thereby giving them 6.2 ...
— A Brief History of Element Discovery, Synthesis, and Analysis • Glen W. Watson
... completed his equipment. Beside him, fed among the graves a pony, the companion of his journey, whose extreme whiteness, as well as its projecting bones and hollow eyes, indicated its antiquity. It was harnessed in the most simple manner, with a pair of branks, a hair tether, or halter, and a sunk, or cushion of straw, instead of bridle and saddle. A canvass pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for the purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else he might have occasion to carry ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... reflections upon the Government that dooms you to personal servitude, while your colleague is allowed purchaseable service. Sleep over the same, and repeat the foregoing regime on the second day; and, filled with the happy influences so much cause for gratitude must inspire, give reflection her full tether, and sleep over her again. On the third morning, let your heart and brain dictate a despatch upon the subject of your reflections to all public servants in slave-holding communities, and, while repudiating slavery, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... of the plight to perish there miserably of cold, thinking of home and of the loved ones peacefully asleep so near, while the way to them and safety lay only a few fathoms distant—torturing him by its very nearness. For every now and then driving hard to the end of her tether she would rush forward on a sea and appear to be coming within his reach, only to mock him by drifting away once more, like some relentless lady-love playing with his very heartstrings. The rope under the sunken ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... undertake such long journeys are subject to disappointment and fatigue by the way; if ever they do come to the end of their journey it is probably in a temper of fretfulness and exasperation. A sudden knock at the door may drive an artist into hysterics. He is always working at the end of his tether. There is nothing more tantalising than an eternal quest after the ideal; like the horizon, it recedes from the traveller; like the mirage, it vanishes before the claims of hunger and thirst. On the other hand, it has ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... longing to hear about Phoebe! If you had only come, I could have contrived her going to the Zauberflote with us last night, but I didn't know the length of her tether.' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... resident tells me that crowds of men were always about the meeting house before and after meeting, and even during meeting, and that in later years the resident of Site No. 32, who owned valuable horses, used to exhibit a blooded stallion on a tether, leading him up and down to the admiration of the horse-owners present, and to ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together, And we sang the old, old Earth-Song, for our youth was very sweet; When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether, Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... the new trail the animals were forced to make by the pit. He selected a sedgy clump near some smooth, grassy ground, and first firmly sunk the post, then dug a hole large enough to hide in, and spread his blanket in it. He shortened up the little mare's tether, till she could scarcely move; then on the ground between he spread his open lasso, tying the long end to the post, then covered the rope with dust and grass, and went into ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... one solution—that estimable father. By the time he came back to the house on Tether-down, Harry was resolved to enlist under the ambiguous ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... slaves must be liberated, or the Union would be exterminated. Lincoln reached a final conclusion and called the cabinet together on July 21, the day preceding the close of that session of Congress.[38] Since he was at the end of his tether, he determined to take a more definite and decisive step. Accordingly, he prepared several orders which, gave authority to commanders in the field to subsist their troops in hostile territory and to employ Negroes as paid laborers, and further provided for the colonization of Negroes ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... in on the mailing by your feus down at the Well," said Meiklewham, "and raxed ower the tether maybe a wee bit farther than ye had ony right ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... enough. The bull was tethered, and it only remained for me to get out beyond the length of his tether, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... hear you say that," said Wheeler, becoming grave rather suddenly. "A woman is a woman, and I tell you plainly I have gone pretty well to the end of my tether with you." ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... "O thou who wanderest amid shadows and over tombs, and dost tether even the strong sea! O whimsical sister of the blighting sun, and fickle mistress of old death! O Gorgo, Mormo, lady of a thousand forms and qualities! now view with ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... told me with his last breath that he was waiting until Penreath was safely hanged before disappearing with the money. When he opened the door to us to-night, he knew that he was at the end of his tether, and he decided to try to bolt. He realised that Benson would tell the truth when he was questioned and, although the innkeeper's story did not implicate him directly, he did our common intelligence the justice to believe that, through his dupe's confession, ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... waked to life, lay on in bed. She heard the summons, was strong to answer it; but was held back as by a high surrounding wall. She was like a tied bird, unfolding wings with the heart to soar, and continually brought down by the shortness of her tether. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Haven't the ghost of an idea, either of 'em, how to mix people, you know. And what with their horrible charades, and their nonsensical round games, and their everlasting bridge, I'm pretty well at the end of my tether. Never was among such a beef-witted set of addlepates since I was born. The only man among 'em who isn't a hopeless booby's a Socialist, and he's been twice in gaol for inciting honest folks not to pay their taxes. Oh, they're a precious lot, I promise you. I don't know ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... decidedly. "The rascals will reach the end of their tether some time, and we can't prove who ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... we came to a horse tethered among the trees by the road-side; of course, on hearing and seeing the automobile and while we were yet some distance away, it broke its tether and was off on a run up the road, which meant that unless some one intervened it would fly on ahead for miles. Happily, in this instance some men caught the animal after it had gone a mile or two, we, meanwhile, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... faces, Furrowed with the lines of lack, But with stern and stubborn paces Still they drove the spoiler back. Round them drew the iron tether Tighter, but they kept their troth, All for England's sake ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... water. About the same time Sergeant Niblett, in charge of the bullocks, came to inform me that these animals were looking very ill, and could not drink the mud remaining in the pond. At the same time intelligence was brought me that four of the horses had broken their tether ropes during the night, and that William Baldock had been absent in search of them on foot, from an early hour in the morning. I immediately sent back the whole of the bullocks to Nyingan, with a dray containing the empty harness casks, also the horses, and a cart ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... when we land, and we study countenances and actions to guess the time-limit of our tether. For twenty-four hours we have wondered if there were trout in Lake Athabasca and if they would rise to the fly. With a borrowed rod we take a canoe and off the shadow of a cottonwood point try a cast at random. The gut carries three flies—a brown hackle, a coachman, with a Jock Scott ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... content with the little piece of country we found recently, we have since been up the Hurunui to its source, and seen the water flowing down the Teramakaw (or the "Tether-my-cow," as the Europeans call it). We did no good, and turned back, partly owing to bad weather, and partly from the impossibility of proceeding farther with horses. Indeed, our pack-horse had rolled over more than once, frightening us much, ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... floods of tears, lying awake at night and biting the bedclothes to choke his sobs. Yet, brave philosopher that he was, Le Petit Chose never lost heart. The dream of his life was to retrieve the family fortunes, a dream which one day was to be fully realized. At last, however, at the end of his tether, he wrote to Ernest telling him all his troubles, and great was his joy when he received a letter back, asking him to come ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... furnish food for me. Come, let us speed our way Where the troops of spectres play. To charnel-houses, churchyards drear, Where Death sits with a horrible leer, A lasting grin, on a throne of bones, And skim along the blue tombstones. Come, let us speed away, Lay our snares, and spread our tether! I will smooth the way for thee, Thou shalt furnish food for me; And the grass shall wave O'er many a grave, Where youth ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... the colouring of Baudelairian cruelty and blood-lust) than The Heart of Darkness, or what more pathetic—a pathos which recalls Balzac's Pere Goriot and Turgenieff's A Lear of the Steppe, withal still more pity-breeding—than The End of the Tether? This volume alone should place Conrad ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... relate are not far removed from the Chinese-like tale—given, if my memory is correct, in Herodotus—of the Athenian soldier, who went into action with a small grapnel or anchor attached by a chain to his waist, that he might tether himself out to resist the shock of the charging foe. A flagrant example is the story which describes how the white man sees an Indian very far off making insulting gestures; how he forthwith loads his rifle with two bullets—which the narrator evidently ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... growled the old woman. "You're only matched by the women, who be worse. Did I not tell you, Humphrey Dexter, my Lady Cantire would be no friend to my sweet mistress? 'Twas in vain the silly child tried to wheedle her over. Wheedle the Tether Stake! My lady bade her be civil to the Captain, if she would please her step-dame. And when the maiden put down her little foot at that, she was clapped within walls like a rogue, and fed on bread and water. Little harm that would have done, had not the ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... because I had been a couple of years at Latin, and was designed for a priest. It was useless to undeceive men who would not be convinced, so I accordingly gave them, as they say, "the length of their tether;" nay, to such, purpose did I ply them with proofs of it, that my conversation soon became as fine a specimen of pedantic bombast as ever was uttered. Not a word under six feet could come out of my lips, even of English; but as the best English, after all, is ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... free, or tether him to a pine; in either case he will not wander far," said the girl. "I fear my fellows have gone off to lay in provisions. We have taken a day or two more on the way than we had counted on, so that to-night's feast makes ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... donkeys up the slope," replied Dr. Cairn, "where those blocks of granite are, and tether ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... you like. She's got a still tongue in her head." Peter senior gasped out his words with the desperate air of a man at the end of his tether. "Only go now—go, and let my head rest. You and I can discuss all these things later. That'll ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... he announced, "that we have come to the end of our tether with that young man. It's a pity, too, for he isn't a bad sort, and it will do the club no good if it gets about. But he hasn't settled up for a fortnight, and the matter came before the committee this afternoon. He owes one man over ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... come again:—how sweet To sit upon my Orchard-seat! And Birds and Flowers once more to greet, My last year's Friends together: My thoughts they all by turns employ; A whispering Leaf is now my joy, And then a Bird will be the toy That doth my fancy tether. ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... was common enough in the week when those most gallant volunteers entitled the "Yorkshire Invincibles" came down for their annual practice of skilled gunnery against the French. Their habit was to bring down a red cock, and tether him against a chalky cliff, and then vie with one another in shooting at him. The same cock had tested their skill for three summers, but failed hitherto to attest it, preferring to return in a hamper to his hens, with a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... kind-hearted giant, was as ready and glad to undertake the rescue of the Sisters as if each one was his own mother. It would be a real treat to the youngsters to have a hand in such a job,—and he was right, for when they were taken into confidence one flourished his hatchet with enthusiasm, and the tether struck his horny fist against his left palm as gleefully as though he were ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... own life. I remember, also, that there was immense shouting and cheering, and that a band of musicians who had been playing at the 'launch,' when they saw Mr. Ellerthorpe bearing me ashore, began playing, "See the Conquering Hero comes."—Robert Tether, July 24th, 1867.' ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... that perhaps you will be able to condone my offence. At any rate, I have risked it." She laughed again, more gayly, and recovered herself in a cheerfuller and easier mood. "Well, the long and the short of it is that I have come to the end of my tether. I have tried, as truly as I believe any woman ever did, to do my share, with money and with work, to help make life better for those whose life is bad; and though one mustn't boast of good works, I may say that ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... they are in any degree proportionate; and where they fail us: I suppose it may be of use, to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things which, upon examination, are proved to be beyond the reach of our capacities." "The candle that is set up in us, shines bright enough for all our purposes. The discoveries we can make with this ought to satisfy us. And we ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... it all," said Peter; "there's nothing to smile about, Arnold, I've pretty well got to the end of my tether." ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... destined to reveal the inner natures. One would then suppose that it would find itself most at home in the domain of its own intellectual realities. But it is precisely there that it finds itself at the end of its tether. We know the inner movements of our spirit only perceptually. We feel them live in us, but can give no distinct account of their elements, nor definitely predict their future; while things that lie along the world of space, things of the sort that we ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... go, Mark. I need not ask Boldero, for he told me that he should look in again at ten o'clock this evening, for he thought that another night's play would probably bring Cotter to the end of his tether." ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... not alone in this planning for a summer exodus. The other students had indeed all cut their tether-strings and disappeared long before his own freedom came. Jack Bedford had gone to the coast to live with a fisherman and paint the surf, and Fred was with his people away up near the lakes. As for the lithographers, sign-painters, and beginners, they were spending ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... did come to Lafayette. In despair the American Congress sent a special messenger express to Paris to bear one more urgent appeal for help. Washington wrote, "We are at the end of our tether; ... now or ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... the street alone, Outside a house, on the pavement-stone, I sang to her, as we'd sung together On former eves ere I felt her tether. - Above the door of green by me Was she, her casement seen by me; But she would not heed What I melodied In my soul's sore need - She ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... Smith said that she was the death of twa meires, and Elizabeth Johnstone, his wife, reported that she saw her sitting on their black meire's tether, and that she ran over the dyke in the ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... when poor bullied, baited, nervous Muggins had reached his limit and come to the end of his tether—or thought he had. Bumped, banged, bucketed, thrown, sore from head to foot, raw-kneed, laughed at, lashed by the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major's cruel tongue, blind and sick with dust and pain and rage, he had at last ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... baker's bills. But when it comes to the hours that follow toil, and to the cash that remains after the principal accounts have been paid, the legislator finds himself in difficulties. He has come to the end of his tether. He cannot direct the people as to how to spend their spare cash. And, as we have seen, it is just this spare time and spare cash that determine everything. It is the dominating and deciding factor in the whole situation. It is manifest, therefore, that, important as are the functions ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... landings for wood. This proved impracticable. I wandered many days and nights, rather ill mounted, in search of some kind—any kind—of exit, when one afternoon, quite worn out, I sat by a log heap in a comfortable farmhouse. It seemed that I was at the end of my tether; I did not ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... of our enemy. It is not our present intention to debate upon this subject; but this much can be said with confidence, that he has been the most fortunate of leaders. On every occasion in which he has been hard pressed, when to all intents and purposes he has found himself at the end of his tether, the pendulum of fortune has favoured him in its swing. Often enough he has saved his skin through the culpable stupidity of his pursuers. But even when he has almost been cornered by the very best of leaders and men that the British Empire ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... days I unexpectedly became possessed of about 10. But I was at the end of my tether in the matter of mining. I made up my mind to leave the goldfields; to return to the old Cape Colony, via Natal, as ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... that night, right enough." Then, turning her eyes on my face, she added: "That's what a girl will 'ave, you know, once in a while, and like as not it'll du for her. Only thirty-five now, I am, an' pretty nigh the end o' my tether. What can you expect?—I'm a gay woman. Did for me right enough. Her ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... perfect order and alignment. Work had made it so, and work kept it so, for every day after his smoke Old Dalton would fuss about at his "chores" (which, partly to please him, were designedly left for him to do)—the changing of the bull's tether-picket, watering the old horse, splitting the evening's wood, keeping the fence about the house in repair, and driving the cows o' ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Tom a note—colonial for a sovereign—that the engines would blow up, and the latter laid on the chance that the rebel craft would spend herself kicking at the bank. After churning up the mud, plunging at the bank, and straining at her tether for an hour or so, the Lily quieted down, all her steam having worked off. So the Pirate won and pocketed the engineer's note; and then the party adjourned on board again, to resume their ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... tongue that sang triumphant while tormented Sang as loud the sevenfold storm that roared erewhile Round the towers of Thebes till wrath might rest contented: Sang the flight from smooth soft-sanded banks of Nile, When like mateless doves that fly from snare or tether Came the suppliants landwards trembling as they trod, And the prayer took wing from all their tongues together— King of kings, most holy of holies, blessed God. But what mouth may chant again, what heart may know it, All the ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... changed into a live lamb attached to the top of the plant. Mr. Lee says: "The stem or stalk on which the lamb was suspended above the ground, was sufficiently flexible to allow the animal to bend downward, and browse on the herbage within its reach. When all the grass within the length of its tether had been consumed, the stem withered and the plant died. This plant lamb was reported to have bones, blood, and delicate flesh, and to be a favourite food of wolves, though no other carnivorous ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... that it is a happy thing to have been born near some noble mountain or attractive river or lake, which should be a landmark through all the journey of life, and to which we could tether our memory. I have always been thankful that the place of my nativity was the beautiful village of Aurora, on the shores of the Cayuga Lake in Western New York. My great-grandfather, General Benjamin ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... times together, For monny years we've stretched our tether, An as aw dunnot care a feather For fowk 'at grummel, We'll have another try. Aye! whether We stand ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... have mentioned, whist-players not only stop very far short of excellence in the game, but very soon reach their tether. I cannot say of any man that he has gone on improving for years; his mark is fixed, and he knows it—though he is exceptionally sagacious if he knows where it is drawn as respects others—and there he ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... the more conservative appears to be even the most vigorous reaction of the old political power. The reaction of princedom, instead of proving that it makes the old society, rather proves that it is at the end of its tether so soon as the material conditions of the old society are obsolete. Its reaction is at the same time the reaction of the old society, which is still the ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... the fear into the silly brutes," said Harris, speaking calmly, although his own flesh was creeping just a little. "I suppose they've ripped their tether ropes to pieces. Well, we'll tie them down here, where they'll have company." And he led them back a short distance into ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... tether time or tide; The hour approaches Tam maun ride: That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane, That dreary hour he mounts his beast in: And sic a night he tak's the road in, As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. The wind blew as 'twad blawn ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... it was singularly painful to the onlooker. The strain had told on him, and there was in his haggard eyes, in the deliberate firmness of his mouth, a tension which suggested that he was almost at the end of his tether. He was sterner than before and more silent. Julia could see how deeply he had suffered, and his suffering had been greater because of his determination to conquer it at all costs. She longed to go to him ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... bade me bring her, and the duck with the golden neck, and the salmon with the silver sides, to his cottage; if I shall catch them, I know not. But carry you the roe to the back of the cottage, and tether her ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... as it is a making; You must not take for fire. For this time Daughter, Be somewhat scanter of your Maiden presence; Set your entreatments at a higher rate, Then a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet, Beleeue so much in him, that he is young, And with a larger tether may he walke, Then may be giuen you. In few, Ophelia, Doe not beleeue his vowes; for they are Broakers, Not of the eye, which their Inuestments show: But meere implorators of vnholy Sutes, Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds, The better to beguile. This is for ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... little I know, or wish to know, about this disastrous concern. On my return home, I heard that Dr. Watson had seen my father, and requested that Dr. Wilson might be sent for. They fear inflammation of the lungs; he has gone to the very limit of his tether, for had he continued fagging a night or two longer the effects might have been fatal. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the reports of rifles fired almost simultaneously, succeeded by a chorus of the most fearful yells and whoops I had ever heard, proceeding from the throats it seemed of a whole legion of savages. The horses and terrified cattle tugged at their tether ropes, two or three breaking loose and rushing up to the side I was on for protection, being the furthest from the dreaded sounds. Others stood trembling, too paralysed with fear to move. Had it not been for the breastwork, I suspect ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... from the minor's tether, Free to mortgage or to sell, Wild as wind, and light as feather, Bid the sons of ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... stroked his head, put his cheek close to his mouth and whispered softly to him, after which he fastened him to a tree and rubbed him down slightly with a bunch of grass. Having done this, he left him to graze as far as his tether would permit; and, after supping with Crusoe, lay down to-rest, not a little elated with his success in this first attempt at ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Symbol well-nigh superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters and rags of superannuated worn-out symbols (in this Ragfair of a World) dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you; nay, if you shake them not aside, threatening to ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... never again would he be called upon to jabber with the apes, to grasp their loathly paws, to join in their solemnly absurd posturings, never would he be tempted from the peace and seclusion of his book-lined study. The habits of fifteen years tugged him back like ropes of which he had exhausted the tether. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... his lofty halls, but when he had girt on his gorgeous armour, all of varied bronze, then he rushed thro' the city, glorying in his airy feet. And as when a stall-kept horse, that is barley-fed at the manger, breaketh his tether, and dasheth thro' the plain, spurning it, being wont to bathe himself in the fair-running river, rioting, and reareth his head, and his mane flieth back on either shoulder, and he glorieth in his ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... the knot was tied, and Loveless had to jump into the branches through the thorns to escape. He charged again, rather feebly this time, trying to get free, but the rope held well and tripped him up. After that he stood quietly at the end of his tether, watching the camera in a sullen way while Kearton took his picture with the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... my boy," said the doctor quietly. "Yes, we have come to the end of our tether. Let's get back to the ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... it me stay here all night? No, your honor: I tether the boat at siven o'hlyock, and lave Brimstone Billy—God forgimme!—to take care of ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... of great length. Alfy was fond of kite flying, and by adding together long pieces of string he had acquired a tether of considerable extent. To lengthen it still more, however, the girls had managed to find some more string, and so it came about that communication was established between the inhabitants of the house and the watchers ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... limitations of their doctrine. All the advances made in science served them only as new grounds of proof against the existence of the Creator, and indeed it was far beyond their trade to develop the theory any further. Idealism was at the end of its tether and was smitten with death by the Revolution of 1848. Yet it had the satisfaction that materialism sank still lower. Feuerbach was decidedly right when he refused to take the responsibility of this materialism, only he had no business to confound the ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... to slip off the tether Of hot-house wants, and dare to be A child of Nature, strong and simple, Out in ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... lantern jaws and leathern, You might swear they both are brethren: Dick Fitzbaker,[15] Dick the player,[15] Old acquaintance, are you there? Dear companions, hug and kiss, Toast Old Glorious in your piss; Tie them, keeper, in a tether, Let them starve and stink together; Both are apt to be unruly, Lash them daily, lash them duly; Though 'tis hopeless to reclaim them, Scorpion's rods, perhaps, may tame them. Keeper, yon old dotard smoke, Sweetly snoring in his cloak: Who is he? 'Tis humdrum Wynne,[16] Half encompass'd ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... perfect confidence on the part of his master of finding him, again, at the expiration of a few hours. The old man strongly remonstrated against this arrangement, and more than once hinted that the knife was much more certain than the tether, but the petitions of Obed, aided perhaps by the secret reluctance of the trapper to destroy the beast, were the means of saving its life. When Asinus was thus secured, and as his master believed ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... he even resorted to crude methods like the throwing of paper balls and the dropping of books. And when your really scientific ragger sinks to this, he is nearing the end of his tether. O'Hara hated to be rude, but there seemed no help ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... the Ukraine after the union. Everything was cleanly smeared with coloured clay. On the walls hung sabres, hunting-whips, nets for birds, fishing-nets, guns, elaborately carved powder-horns, gilded bits for horses, and tether-ropes with silver plates. The small window had round dull panes, through which it was impossible to see except by opening the one moveable one. Around the windows and doors red bands were painted. On shelves in ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... that fellow," I said to myself at last, "I should think it was about time to disappear. I should feel sure I'd come to the end of my tether, and that somehow or other Harvey Farnham, as represented by me, had got to be unostentatiously ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... love, stronger than life our tether, But we do not fall on the neck, nor kiss when we come together. ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... or even self-consciousness of her appearance, she tossed the end of the reata to me with the curtest explanation as she passed by. Some prowling bear or catamount had frightened the mule. I had better tether it before the cabin away from ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and you own a fine fortune and a haughty, handsome wife, and G. W. Parmalee's no more than the mud under your feet. Very well—we'll see! 'Every dog has his day,' and 'the longest lane has its turning,' and you're near about the end of your tether, and George Parmalee has you and your fine lady under his thumb—under his thumb—and he'll crush you, sir—yes, by Heaven, he'll crush you, and strike you back blow ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... d'Honneur, too, who was the gayest of the gay, specially distinguished himself for his vaulting powers in a sport which he entitled in his broken English manner "ze leap of ze frog;" and, as for grave Doctor Batson, whom we all thought so formal and dignified in his professional tether, why, the way in which he "stuck in his twopenny," as the boys said, and "gave a 'back,'" was a caution ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... noontide the robbers, returning by that way, saw from afar some mules standing beside the entrance and much they marvelled at what had brought the beasts to that place; for, inasmuch as Kasim by mischance had failed to tether or hobble them, they had strayed about the jungle and were browsing hither and thither. However, the thieves paid scant regard to the estrays nor cared they to secure them, but only wondered by what means they had wandered so far from the town. Then, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... that I should have much to regret if I were. I have had a lot of enjoyment out of life, however, but at present I am coming to the end of my tether. I am afraid I'll have to sell the few acres that are left to me, and if that gets to the Baron's ears, good-by to my chance of his bequeathing me the fortune he has managed to scrape together between windfalls and lucky investments. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... their carving? Is there any pleasure in walking by miles of grey paling, and endless palisades of firs? Oh, you fool, what do you hope to see behind that curtain? Absurd fugitive, whither would you run? Can you burst the tether of fate: and is not poor dear little Rosey Mackenzie sitting yonder waiting for you by the stake? Go home, sir; and don't catch cold. So Mr. Clive returns to the King's Arms, and goes up to his bedroom, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... two would be out together; the one going as far as tether would allow; the other doing what was yet another of his joys in life, and that caused such fun and merriment to lookers-on—the hunting of birds. Of that he never tired on the longest or the hottest day. Blackbirds gave the finest sport of all, as they ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... body below the armpits, and attached, in like manner, to our stalwart alcalde. Long before we reached the middle of the stream, notwithstanding I carried a large stone under each arm by way of ballast, I was swept from my feet out to the length of my tether, and thus towed over by our guide. When all were snugly across, the laughter was loud and long over the ridiculous figure which everybody had cut in everybody's eyes, except his own. H. immortalized the transit in what the French call un croquis, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... their foe, and left him unmolested to retreat in any direction that he pleased. The reason of this probably was, not merely that they did not fortify their camps; but that, depending wholly on their horses, and being forced to hobble or tether them at night, they could not readily get into fighting order on a sudden during darkness. Once or twice in the course of their history, we find them departing from their policy of extreme precaution, and recommencing the pursuit of a flying foe before dawn; but it is noted ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... Chinese journal cautiously hinted the need for some kinds of reform. Within this lustrum mirabile the daily press has taken the Empire by storm. Some twenty or more journals have sprung up under the shadow of the throne, and they are not gagged. They go to the length of their tether in discussing affairs of state—notwithstanding cautionary hints. Refraining from open attack, they indulge in covert criticism of the ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... fore-weaponed. I was kept pure, as it is termed—or in other words, kept ignorant of myself and of the world I was destined to live in, until one fine day I was cut loose from the apron-strings of my lady mother, and the tether of my abbe tutor, and launched head-foremost into that vortex of temptation and iniquity, the world of Paris, like a ship without a chart or a compass. A precious race I ran in consequence, for a time; and if I had not been so fortunate as to meet you, Marie, whose bright eyes brought ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... head, some valour, and great genius to take fifty or maybe a hundred head of bestial hot-hoof over hill and moor. I would never blame a man for lifting a mart of black cattle any more than for killing a deer: are not both the natural animals of these mountains, prey lawful to the first lad who can tether or ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... said, smiling back at him. "We will break our journey here. You can tether 'Modestina' to that stump. I must do a rough sketch of this, and put in notes for colouring, while you sit beside me and smoke, and talk. When it's complete, I'll present it to you as a memento of to-day. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... were clear, coloured, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery vapour stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the void of space, from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... should be introduced into poetry at all, it is certain that no more characteristic expression could have been found for him. But should he be dealt with? We limit our poetry nowadays, to the length of our own tether; if we are unable to bring beauty out of every living thing, merely because it is alive, and because nature is beautiful in every movement, is it our own fault or nature's? Shakespeare and his age trusted nature, and were justified; in our own age only Browning ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... and their lips drawn back, revealing their fangs, in a sort of snarling grin. Leo was the only animal who did not seem very greatly perturbed, but even he was awake, and lay crouching at the extreme end of his tether, his eyes lambently aglow, and his tail softly beating the earth now ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... flight and get away. This was a thought under which he could not lie still. In his pocket he always carried a bunch of stout salmon-twine and a bit of copper rabbit-wire, apt to be needed in a hundred forest emergencies. He resolved to catch the young eagle and tether it securely ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... reform produce, In Ignorance and Pride obtuse. Then know, ye rain and foolish Pair! Your doom is fix'd a yoke to bear Like beasts on Earth; and, thus in tether, Five Centuries to paint together. If, thus by mutual labours join'd, Your jarring souls should be combin'd, The faults of each the other mending, The powers of both harmonious blending; Great Jove, perhaps, in gracious vein, May send your souls on Earth again; Yet there ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... breakfast, my Gouverneur Faulkner gave to me the information that we must tether the good horses and make the remainder of the journey by walking, which we did for hardly a ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... that which follows on my connection with Blackwood's Magazine. I had just finished writing "The End of the Tether" and was casting about for some subject which could be developed in a shorter form than the tales in the volume of "Youth" when the instance of a steamship full of returning coolies from Singapore to some port in northern China occurred to my recollection. Years before ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... Miss Galbraith, when I've set you free; for I see your dress is caught in the window. When it's once out, I'll shut the window, and you can call the porter to raise it." He leans forward over her chair, and while she shrinks back the length of her tether, he tugs at the window-fastening. "I can't get at it. Would you be so good as to stand up,—all you can?" Miss Galbraith stands up, droopingly, and Mr. Richards makes a movement towards her, and then falls back. "No, that won't do. Please sit down again." He ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... fishing tackle thrown in. I took full advantage of this, and most mornings and afternoons were spent on the water. We used to pull over to the obsolete battleships that lay in the stretch of water between us and the mainland. Here we would tether up and turn the gangway into a diving platform. Happy indeed were these days spent with companions who were in every sense of the ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... days, during which he was perpetually on the verge of destruction, and the cumulative effect of such an experience is bound to leave its mark on the strongest man. When he got back to Zeebrugge he must have been at the end of his tether, and whether by chance or design it was when Karl was, as he would have said, "at a low mental ebb" that Zoe made her last and successful attack upon his resolution not to see her again unless she consented ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... of criticism is advanced.' But I have a second safeguard, more to be trusted: that here in Cambridge, with all her traditions of austere scholarship, anyone who indulges in loose distinct talk will be quickly recalled to his tether. Though at the time Athene be not kind enough to descend from heaven and pluck him backward by the hair, yet the very genius loci will walk home with him from the lecture room, whispering monitions, cruel to ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... not the forts the builder piles That chain the earth together; The wedded crowns, the sister isles, Would laugh at such a tether; The kindling thought, the throbbing words, That set the pulses beating, Are stronger than the myriad swords Of ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... will find this same concern with the inextricable movement of phenomena and noumena between event and event, this same curiosity as to first causes and ultimate effects. Sometimes, as in "The Point of Honor" and "The End of the Tether," he attempts to work out the obscure genesis, in some chance emotion or experience, of an extraordinary series of transactions. At other times, as in "Typhoon," "Youth," "Falk" and "The Shadow Line," his endeavour is to determine ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... thank God,' answered this doughty partizan, 'I wasna bred at sae short a tether, I was brought up to hack and manger. I was bred a horse-couper, sir; and if I might live to see you at Whitson-tryst, or at Stagshawbank, or the winter fair at Hawick, and ye wanted a spanker that would lead the field, I'se be ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the wife of the skipper lost at sea Said, "God has touched him! why should we?" Said an old wife mourning her only son, "Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!" So with soft relentings and rude excuse, Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, And gave him a cloak to hide him in, And left him alone with his shame and sin. Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... "But ends thy tether! for Janina makes A grave for thee where every turret quakes, And thou shalt drop below To where the spirits, to a tree enchained, Will clutch thee, there to be 'mid them retained For ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... balloon now happily following the wheel at the end of its tether, the still-undamaged power-off fail-safe went into operation. The mirror surface behind each ruby rod rotated into its shielding position, dispersing the energy that the huge mirror directed towards the ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... contributions to the "London Magazine,"—"In the next number I shall figure as a theologian, and have attacked my late brethren, the Unitarians. What Jack-Pudding tricks I shall play next I know not; I am almost at the end of my tether." Talfourd, of course, does not publish the article, or even give its title, which is, "Unitarian Protests." Those who would see how well or how ill Elia figures ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... with bells Swings from a hook by clasp and tether, With rude embroidery that spells "Diana" worked upon the leather. A flute too, when the woodsman died, The men who dug his grave forgot here; The dog, his only friend, they shot here And laid her by her ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... while day lasts, but wake At night-time and their life renew, Suspended just to pleasure you Who brought against their will together These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether That dumb they look: your harp, believe, With all the sensitive tight strings Which dare not speak, now to itself 170 Breathes slumberously, as if some elf Went in and out the chords, his wings Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze, As an angel may, between the maze Of midnight palace-pillars, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... compulsion and we use it. One of the most frequently exercised of my magisterial functions is to certify conscientious objections to the Vaccination Act. I do it against the grain. A doctor told me the other day that he believed smallpox had reached the end of its tether, and was on the ebb. I am sure I hope so, lest there should be one day a bad outbreak among these liberty men. I must have signed away the chances of hundreds of children, who, by the way, are not of an age to consent. I never fail to point ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... Edward the third: As it hath bin sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London," was published in 1596, and ran through two or three anonymous editions before the date of the generation was out which first produced it. Having thus run to the end of its natural tether, it fell as naturally into the oblivion which has devoured, and has not again disgorged, so many a more precious production of its period. In 1760 it was reprinted in the "Prolusions" of Edward Capell, whose text is now before ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... appears, no probable chance of his recovery. Sir Omicron Pie is, I believe, at present with him. At any rate the medical men here have declared that one or two days more must limit the tether of his mortal coil. I sincerely trust that his soul may wing its flight to that haven where it may forever be at rest and forever ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... doubt, formed the heads of creeks; as we invariably came on decided watercourses whenever we followed hollows of this character down to the northward. After sunset, we came to a dry creek, and were compelled to encamp without water. We took care, however, to watch our bullocks, and hobble and tether our horses, which enabled us to start early in the morning of the 17th, when we followed the creek about seven miles north-east, and there found some very fine water-holes within its bed, in latitude ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... garret to read them in. For to snuggle close beneath the slates is as dear to the boy as the bard, if somewhat diverse their reasons for seclusion. Your garret is the true kingdom of the poet, neighbouring the stars; side-windows tether him to earth, but a skylight looks to the heavens. (That is why so many poets live in garrets, no doubt.) But it is the secrecy of a garret for him and his books that a boy loves; there he is lord of ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... grabbed the nearest rifle (it happened to be Fred's)—snapped open the breach—discovered it was loaded—and took aim. Coutlass did not even blink. He was either sure Fred and Will would interfere, or else at the end of his tether and indifferent to death. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... as it is. I've come to the end of a very long tether. I only want you to know that by this time to-morrow night I may have taken Kipling's Strange Ride with Morrowby Jukes to the Land of the Living Dead. If I do, I sha'n't come back—accept bail, or that sort of thing. I can't imagine anything more ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... is so near the end of his tether that the Major has barely time to say, "Honour bright, Colonel," when the bronchial storm bursts. It may be that the last new anodyne, which is warranted to have all the virtues and none of the ill-effects of opium, had also come to the end of its tether. Mrs. Fenwick ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... hillock Garry lay In sunshine fast asleep: his head was bare, And the wind rippling through his golden hair Laid out the seven locks that were his pride, Which one by one the maids securely tied To tether-pins, while Garry, breathing deep, Moaned low, and moved about in troubled sleep Then to a thicket all the maidens crept, And raised the Call of Warning ... Garry leapt From dreams that boded ill, with sudden fear That a fierce band of foemen had come near— The seven fetters of his golden hair He ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... such reflections Hugh's attention, which at all times had a long tether, strayed far afield. He did not hear Denis O'Meara inquire of him twice whether Ody Rafferty had got his fine price for the old pony; not yet Peter Ryan rejoin after an interval that he supposed ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... cannot make a life, but love. Nor art thou so close-handed, but canst spend, (Counsel concurring with the end), As well as spare; still conning o'er this theme, To shun the first and last extreme; Ordaining that thy small stock find no breach, Or to exceed thy tether's reach; But to live round, and close, and wisely true To thine own self, and known to few. Thus let thy rural sanctuary be Elysium to thy wife and thee; There to disport your selves with golden measure; For seldom use commends the pleasure. Live, and live blest; thrice happy pair; let breath, ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... come back. He was ashamed of what he had done; he felt that he had behaved like a little cad. And he was at the end of his tether; she made fun of him too impudently! He was afraid lest Minna should complain to her mother, and he should be forever banished from Frau von Kerich's thoughts. He knew not what to do; for if he was sorry for his brutality, no power ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... mind', said Gudbrand, 'at the worst, I can only go back home again with my cow. I've both stable and tether for her, I should think, and the road is no farther out than in'; and with that he began to toddle home ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... Who paid so dear to be a knight) Forsakes his lady for the hills, And aims at birds he never kills. Too late in life he shouldered gun, Breathless he toils beneath the sun, Sips whisky every other minute, Until his flask has nothing in it; Then, at the end of strength and tether, Falls tipsy in the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... mentioning, answered Jon. Nothing but the general hard times and hay shortage. Every farmer at the end of his tether, or almost there, no one with as much as a wisp of hay to spare, and only a few likely to make ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various |
