"Middling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suppositions in respect to the termination of the war, of a middling character, or those lying between the two opposite extremes. In case, without any positive conquest or submission on either side, the general tenor of success throughout the war should be with the South, so that it finally behooved the North to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Who was gone to his place), and pass'd for much Admiring those (by dainty dames abhorr'd) Gigantic gentlemen, yet had a touch Of sentiment; and he she most adored Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was such A lover as had cost her many a tear, And yet but made a middling grenadier. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... "Middling, boss," the worthy fellow answered: "just keeping up, you know. And how's yourself? And the work? When shall you finish? I don't know if you know it, but these trains stopping regularly in my section give me an extra ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... a considerable number of middling tradesmen, who having lived decently in the former part of life, begin, as age approaches, to lose their business, and at ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... a hand at it along with the rest. Larry and she would then go their ways home, find the fire out, light a sod of turf in Tom's, and feeling their own place very cowld and naked, after the blazing comfortable fire they had left behind them, go to bed, both in very middling spirits entirely. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... also one part of the system, which is stated by all the witnesses (in the opinion of the committee very justly stated) to have had the best effects upon the people of Scotland, and particularly upon the middling and poorer classes of society, in producing and encouraging habits of frugality and industry. The practice referred to is that of CASH-CREDITS. Any person who applies to a bank for a cash-credit is called upon to produce two or more competent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances. There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery, and brilliantly illuminated with the Author's ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... Mr. Quarterpage. "Yes, a middling-sized man, and fair—very fair. Deary me, Mr. Spargo!—this is a revelation. And you really think, sir, that John Maitland and John Marbury are one ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... can't have you call Utica inferior. It isn't supreme—that's what's the matter with it, and I hate anything middling," said Pandora Day. She gave a light dry laugh, tossing back her head a little as she made this declaration. And looking at her askance in the dusk, as she trod the deck that vaguely swayed, he recognised something in her air and port that ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... kept on some short time in this way, let it be slackened a little, brought to the state or term of middling tightness which is used in bleeding, and it will be seen that the whole hand and arm will instantly become deeply suffused and distended, injected, gorged with blood, DRAWN, as it is said, by this middling ligature, without pain, or heat, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... called long years before the hard-riding world threw him, was a preacher back in the days of his youth, middling manhood and prosperity. He had ridden the country in the Campbellite faith, bringing hundreds into the fold, with a voice as big as a bull's, and a long beard, which he wore buttoned under his vest in winter. And now in his speechlessness, darkness, and silence, he still ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... other in volume that grew as the twilight deepened. Along with the troops, the motors flowed up, and soon there was an unbroken roar. Limousines glided through an enormous sea of lorries, little, middling, and big. All these cleared aside, wedged themselves in, subsided in their appointed places. A vast hum of voices and mingled noises arose from the ocean of men and vehicles that beat upon the approaches to the station and began ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... gifts, and chastisement, O king, with toleration as the fifth, were fully treated therein. Deliberation of all kinds, counsels for producing disunion, the errors of deliberation, the results of the success or failure of counsels, treaties of three kinds, viz., bad, middling, and good, made through fear, good offices, and gifts of wealth, were described in detail. The four kinds of time for making journeys, the details of the aggregate of three, the three kinds of victory, viz., that secured righteously, that won by wealth, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... "Middling down in the mouth, too, and plagued out of his life between the ruck of you," continued Pete; "but God forgive you ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Haney, I'm not displaying these to you as a salesman—not that I'm so very delicate about offering my things, but I try to wait till a second visit." He really did feel mean about it. "Don't take 'em—wait till to-morrow. They're pretty middling bad anyway. They're supposed to be mountain lions, but as a matter of fact I never saw a mountain lion outside ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... thin; the oats only middling; and the corn sold very badly on account of its smell. A curious circumstance was that La Butte, with the stones cleared away from it at last, yielded ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... arnica bloom glowing like sunrise on the back! Those new trousers, of "middling" sacks, "Brand No. 1" proudly distinct upon the ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... seated at the bottom of a mountain of moderate height, is of a middling size, and is inhabited by Javans, Chinese, and Dutch; and was of more considerable extent than now, when in the hands of the Portuguese. Before getting possession of Jacatra, now Batavia, the Dutch East-India ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... received me in but a middling inn: Heliodorus the rhetorician, most learned in the Greek language, was my fellow-traveller: thence we proceeded to Forum-Appi, stuffed with sailors and surly landlords. This stage, but one for better travellers than we, being laggard we divided into two; the Appian way is less tiresome ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... English, and the Mexicans whom we had known when we were here before. Toward noon we procured horses, and rode out to the Carmel Mission, which is about a league from the town, where we got something in the way of a dinner— beef, eggs, frjoles, tortillas, and some middling wine— from the mayor-domo, who, of course, refused to make any charge, as it was the Lord's gift, yet received our present, as a gratuity, with a low bow, a touch of the hat, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... of being connected, either personally or through their relatives, with those pursuits on which their country's greatness depends. The wealthier manufacturers and merchants already mix with those classes, and the larger and even the middling tradesmen are frequently found associating with the gentry of the land. It is good that this ambition should be cultivated, not by any rivalry in expense, but by a rivalry in knowledge and in liberal feelings; and few things would ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... Mission, got some similar appointment in a large manufacturing town. Of the state of things he spoke more sadly than ever. 'The rich cannot guess, sir, how high ill-feeling is rising in these days. It's not only those who are outwardly poorest who long for change; the middling people, sir, the small town shopkeepers especially, are nearly past all patience. One of the City Mission assured me that he has been watching them these several years past, and that nothing could beat their fortitude ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... man, who now had his salade thrown back from his face, to see if he gave any token of jeering or malice, but could see nought such: nay, his face was grave and serious, not ill-fashioned, though it were both long and broad like his body: his cheek-bones somewhat high, his eyes grey and middling great, and looking, as it were, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... pretty middling weak," commented Fielding. "Either that, or you're yarning tremendously about its being a bore: you can ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... middling, within doors; but I don't like the climate, Mr. John I don't the climate, Sir. There's no country like h'England, I believe, for my business. 'Ere's a fine rose, Sir if you'll step a bit this way quite a new kind I got it over last h'autumn the Palmerston it is. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... then remarked that the lower and middling classes of society never entertained the opinion that the highest classes exhibited models of piety and virtue, and were, indeed, disposed to believe them worse than they ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... you ask me, what has this to do with us? Has it not everything to do with us? Whether we are leading good lives, or middling lives, or utterly bad worthless lives, has it not everything to do with us? Who is there here who has not at times said to himself: "God so holy, and pure, and glorious; while I am so unjust, and unclean, and mean! And God so great and powerful; while I am ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... whose youths are catamites, and whose old men are obstinate as asses." "But I am from Yemen," said the boy. "If so," answered the tyrant, "thou belongest to a comfortless region, where the most honourable profession is robbery, where the middling ranks tan hides, and where a wretched poor spin wool and weave coarse mantles." "But I am from Mecca," said the boy." "Then," replied Hyjauje, "thou comest from a mine of perverseness, stupidity, ignorance, and slothfulness; ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... knowledge in art, and this arose from his inexperience; but he may be still deficient from a want of knowledge in nature. For it is possible that the man in question may stop here, and that the masterpiece of a great hand may please him no more than the middling performance of a vulgar artist; and this not for want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not observe with sufficient accuracy on the human figure to enable them to judge properly of an imitation ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... You are not afraid of opening your mouth, I see. Three thousand francs!—humph! Security, ten acres of middling land, uncultivated, and a tumble-down house; title, droit de guillotine. It is a risk, but I think I may venture. Pierre Nadaud,' he continued, addressing a black-browed, sly, sinister-eyed clerk, 'draw a bond, secured upon Les Pres, and the appurtenances, for three thousand francs, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... 15,000 of the 25,000 families did not attend church. Pawnbrokers were an incentive to theft, cunning and lack of honest industry, etc., etc. Thus their explanations ran. In referring to mechanics and paupers, the committee described them as "the middling and inferior classes." Is it any wonder that the working class justly views "charitable" societies, and the spirit behind them, with intense suspicion ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... isn't just me—though that's the burning, close question to my simple selfishness. But it's a lot of women—a lot. We're waking all over the world. We want to help, to be worth while; to help, to count. It won't do much longer to know French and Italian and play middling tennis and be on the Altar Society. You know what I mean. All that—yes—but beyond that the power which a real person carries into all that to make it big. The stronger you are the better your work is. I want to be strong, to be useful, to touch things with a personality which will ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... was in her chamber, and she was middling old, Her petticoat was satin and her stomacher was gold. Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass, Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass. The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass As comely or as kindly or as young ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... had been sent off to the whale, returned laden with fat and flesh, which afforded relief from the pressure of hunger, "and made," say the missionaries, "all our hearts leap for joy;" and on the succeeding day, the whole party set off for the whale. When they reached it they found it of the middling size, about sixty-four feet long, but covered with ice and snow almost a fathom deep. The Esquimaux, however, crept into the mouth and cut off what they wanted from the interior to supply themselves; but the wants of the brethren were only increased, they could make little use of such ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... bravery almost entirely to the activity and gallantry of the British officers who organized and led them. The veriest cowards in existence must have shown the same front under such discipline. I did not see enough of their gentry to enable me to form an opinion about them; but the middling and lower orders are extremely filthy both in their persons and in their houses, and they have all an intolerable itch for gambling. The soldiers, though fainting with fatigue on the line of march, invariably group themselves in card-parties whenever ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... homines, non Di, non concessere columnae.' 'But God and man, and letter'd post denies That poets ever are of middling size.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... to this place, thirty-six miles distant, lies partly across "barrens," that is, land of middling quality, thinly set with timber, or covered with long grass and shrubby underwood; generally level and dry, and gaudy with marigolds, sunflowers, martagon lilies, and many other beautiful flowers. On the whole, the country is tame, poorly ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... morning the Taro was considerably swollen. At seven o'clock the King sent for De Comines, who found him already armed and mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of this charger was Savoy. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling height; and to his great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life upon that day. The French army, ready for the march, now took to the gravelly bed of the Taro, passing the river at a distance of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... cleaning dishes,—in fine, performing their moderate share of the labors of life, without being harassed by its cares. The sable inmates of the mansion were not excluded from the domestic affections: in families of middling rank, they had their places at the board; and when the circle closed round the evening hearth, its blaze glowed on their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with their master's children. It must have ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... father had of finding his expectations disappointed was in the middling figure I made at the University; he had flattered himself that he should soon see me rising into the foremost rank in literary reputation, but was mortified to find me utterly unnoticed and unknown. His disappointment might have been partly ascribed to his having overrated ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... had ornamented la Cour des Fees, with a portion of that national taste, which she inherited from her father. The heavy magnificence that distinguished the reign of Louis XIV. had scarcely descended to one of the middling rank of Monsieur de Barberie, who had consequently brought with him to the place of his exile, merely those tasteful usages which appear almost exclusively the property of the people from whom he had sprung, without the encumbrance and cost of the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Indians, she has acquired the habit of peeping from under eye-brows as they do with the head inclined downwards. Formerly her hair was of a light chestnut brown—it is now quite grey, a little curled, of middling length and tied in a bunch behind. She informed me that she had never worn a ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... chart will show the fluctuations of the average prices of prime field hands (unskilled young men) in Virginia, at Charleston, in middle Georgia, and at New Orleans, aL well as the contemporary range of average prices for cotton of middling grade in the chief American market, that of New York. The range for prime slaves, it will be seen, rose from about $300 and $400 a head in the upper and lower South respectively in 1795 to a range of from $400 to $600 in 1803, in consequence of the ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... a large fish; its flesh is delicate, and of a fine flavour, the scales grey, and of a moderate size. The red fish is so called, from its red scales, of the size of a crown piece. The cod, fished for on this coast, is of the middling sort, and very delicate. The thornback is the same as in France. Before we quit this island, it will not, perhaps, be improper to ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... foot." Schiller's negligence and lack of alertness called for repeated reproof, and his final school thesis was unsatisfactory. Hegel was a poor scholar, and at the university it was stated "that he was of middling industry and knowledge but especially deficient in philosophy." John Hunter nearly became a cabinetmaker. Lyell had excessive aversion to work. George Combe wondered why he was so inferior to other boys in arithmetic. Heine agreed with the monks ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... 'there are people like me who make good managers! You see,' he went on, screwing his head on one side and sucking his pipe assiduously, 'looking at me, I dare say you think I'm not much... but you, see, I must confess, I've had a very middling education; I wasn't well off. I beg your pardon; I'm an open man, and if you ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... casting loose and middling breeching; takes off and places amidships sight-covers, selvagee straps, and toggles; handles quoin; provides thumbstalls, priming-wires, and boring-bit, and equips himself with the first two; clears lock-string and lays it in a loose coil round the lock, convenient ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... turn to charge them. "Are they guilty, or not? If the question was put to me I should say the Laird of MacLachlan, arrant Papist! should keep his men at home to Mass on the other side of the loch instead of loosing them on honest, or middling honest, Campbells, for the strict virtue of these Coillebhraid miners is what I am not going ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... your mind will at once accept. You do not belong to the school of any philosopher, because you agree with him that theft is, on the whole, objectionable, or that the sun is overhead at noon. It is by the hard sayings that discipleship is tested. We are all agreed about the middling and indifferent parts of knowledge and morality; even the most soaring spirits too often take them tamely upon trust. But the man, the philosopher or the moralist, does not stand upon these chance adhesions; and the purpose of any system looks ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... knife—not because it would be a drawback to me in the marriage line, for I had an antipathy to the very thought of marriage. Marriage to me appeared the most horribly tied-down and unfair-to-women existence going. It would be from fair to middling if there was love; but I laughed at the idea of love, and determined never, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... procession to the butchery shops—the magnificent blooded steed of the Rothschilds by the side of the old plug of the cabman. Fresh beef, mutton, pork are now out of the question. A little poultry yet remains at fabulous prices. In walking through the Rue St. Lazare I saw a middling-sized goose and chicken for sale in a shop-window, and I had the curiosity to step in and inquire the price (rash man that I was). The price of the goose was $25, and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Nile. The Jenan El Afia, and the Jenan Erdoua, contain oranges, citrons, 82 vines, figs, pomegranates, water and musk melons, all of exquisite flavour. The orange and fig trees are here as large as a middling sized English oak. Roses are so abundant at Marocco that they grow every where, and have a most powerful perfume, insomuch that one rose scents a large room; all other flowers are in abundance, and many ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... out,') which is worth repeating. A retired green-grocer, rejoicing in the euphonious name of TIBBS, living at Hackney, near London, sorely against his will, and after warm remonstrance, finally yielded to his wife's entreaty that he would go in character to a masquerade-ball, given to the 'middling interest' by one of his old neighbors. He went accoutred as a knight, wearing his visor down. What was his surprise on entering the room, to find first one and then another member of the motley company slapping him familiarly ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... she follows him to Land of Free. Finds him about to marry his sweetheart of childhood, a New York society girl worth uncounted millions but just middling looking. Prompt bust-up of childhood sweetheart's romance. Abandonment of social position, wealth, everything by Schuyler, who declares he will make the stranger his bride—accompanying subtitle, "What should ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... in a small, flabby substance instead of a true testicle; and on the left side we observed a testicle fixed to the extremity of one of the vessels, as usual, invested in its tunicle, which left testicle we do not find to be at all flabby, but of a middling size: upon the whole, we are of opinion that the said Le Page is capable of the conjugal act but in a feeble manner. Signed and dated March 5, 1684. By the sentence of M. Cheron, the official, the said De Loris's petition ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... what they call me—Silas Grant. Let me take your bag. My son John will be here in a minute, and will help you in with your trunk. Needn't worry, it's all right where it is. Folks are middling honest about here," he added, with a dry laugh, and his hand closed on his guest's—a cold limp, dead-fish sort ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... said of the universe, Heard it and heard it of several thousand years; It is middling well as far as it goes—but ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... things were in all probability but of a middling skill and splendour—it was the pre-trapeze age, and we were caught by mild marvels, even if a friendly good faith in them, something sweet and sympathetic, was after all a value, whether of their own humanity, their own special ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... "Middling—when all that can grow and flourish there?" Lasse pointed to where birch and aspen stood waving their shining foliage to and fro in the breeze. "No, but it'll be a damned rough bit of work to get it ready for ploughing; I'm sorry now that you ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... see, then rarely existed. Bad as it was, the system of slavery had given a house and a home to the great mass of the lowest orders. And the laws, which placed the middling classes under the protection, and at the same time under the control of the more powerful, prevented all such as really belonged to society, from experiencing any severe privations in those years when the people were not visited by any ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... was of a middling size, and the property of a peasant in Saxony. A little boy, the peasant's son, imagined that he perceived in the dog's voice an indistinct resemblance to certain words, and was, therefore, determined to teach him to speak distinctly. For this purpose he spared neither time nor ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... nature, and that the conclusion was not flattering. Miss Ingate was a Guardian of the Poor, and the Local Representative of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. She had studied intimately the needy and the rich and the middling. She was charitable without illusions; and, while adhering to every social convention, she did so with a toleration pleasantly contemptuous; in her heart she had no mercy for snobs of any kind, though, unfortunately, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... old man, and canon of the cathedral, but formerly deputy in the Spanish Cortes, and the most zealous supporter of the cause of independence. It is said that he owed the great influence which he had over men of a middling character, rather to his energetic, some say to his domineering disposition, than to genius; that he was clear-headed, active, dexterous, remarkable for discovering hidden springs and secret motives, and always ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... furniture, would probably have been one hundred pounds; furnished, it is one hundred and sixty pounds. Rock Park, as the locality is called, is private property, and is now nearly covered with residences for professional people, merchants, and others of the upper middling class; the houses being mostly built, I suppose, on speculation, and let to those who occupy them. It is the quietest place imaginable, there being a police station at the entrance, and the officer on duty ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... AND GENTLEMEN:—The gentleman on my right, with the unmistakably Puritan name of McKelway, in the issue of the "Eagle" to-night alluded to me as a Yankeeized Hollander. I am a middling good Yankee. I always felt that at these dinners of the New England Society, to which I come a trifle more readily than to any other like affairs, I and the president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, who is also invariably in attendance, represent, what ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... night-times only till we was fifty miles away from home, and then we could keep the road middling well, though I kept my bonnet tied across my face. And so we drew nigh to Gloucester town, and then the old Betsy told me that Jan was there with his ridgment, and that I must find he by myself. And she wished me good-bye, and then the poor soul fell a-crying, for she said that there ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... morning eastwards, and E. By S. having from 30 to 20 and 10 fathoms, and still no land to be seen. The greatest depth was on an oose bottom, the least a coarse yellow sand. About nine o'clock we espied land, bearing N.E. about 8 leagues distant, being a round hummock of middling height. By noon we were in latitude 7 deg. 56' N. having steered all day east, sometimes half a point north or south, as our water deepened or shoaled, for we would sometimes have ten fathoms or more one cast, and the next seven fathoms, the ground being full of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... observations, and are, on the whole, favorable to the natives. The English, while wooding and watering, were surprised by the visit of eight men and a boy. They were unarmed, except that one of them carried a stick, pointed at the end. They were of middling stature, slender, and naked. On different parts of their bodies were ridges, both straight and curved, raised in the skin: the hair of the head and beard was smeared with red ointment. They were indifferent to presents; they rejected bread, and ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... dark blue stripe, 2 ft. by 2 ft.; watches, stop; bolts, steel, screwed, bright, hexagonal-headed, 1 in. by 2 in.; sealing wax, foolscap, paper fasteners, and pencils; and paint, green, Brunswick, middling, whatever that may be. This is just a small selection of the articles he keeps and has to account for at stocktaking, and if you turned out his various storerooms you would find he had sufficient articles to set up a combined ironmongery, ship ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... I tell yo a' about it, when I never see'd one-tenth of it. It's as big as six Manchesters, they telled me. One-sixth may be made up o' grand palaces, and three-sixths o' middling kind, and th' rest o' holes o' iniquity and filth, such as Manchester knows nought ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... surely. But there's no harm in them ones. What the sergeant said to the gentleman Patsy the smith couldn't hear but it was maybe half an hour after when the sergeant went home again and he had a look on him like a man that was middling well satisfied. Patsy the smith saw him for he was in the ditch when he passed, terrible sick, retching the way he thought the whole of his liver would be out on the road before he'd done. Well, there was no more happened last night; but it wasn't ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... middling young fellow, only about a thousand years old or so, he went walking up and down the earth one night, ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... the feeling between the different denominations ran high, and the middling good folk who did not go to church counted those who did. In the Established Church there was a sparse gathering, who waited in vain for the minister. After a time it got abroad that a flag of distress was flying from the manse, ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... way of life has its compensations," he answered. "But Sydney Smith—wasn't it?—said that life was a middling affair, anyway. As for the classics, etc., I find that reading and study lose much of their stimulus unless they get an issue in action,—unless one can apply them directly toward his own work. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... white as a sheet, had formed a friendship for the rigid and sombre young widow. She showed her a sort of childlike affection mingled with a kind of respectful terror. Olivier complimented the aunt and niece, while Grivet hazarded a few spicy jokes that met with middling success. Altogether the company were delighted, enchanted, and declared that everything was for the best; in reality all they thought about was the ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... which Henry would make to himself for his severities against the nobility, and the motive of that extreme popularity of manners by which Elizabeth aimed at attaching to herself the affections of the middling and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... too, we have Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne writing to his daughters about the learned women of his century, and cautioning them, in conclusion, that the study of letters was unsuited to ladies of a middling station, and should be reserved for princesses.[63] And once more, if we desire to see the same principle carried to ludicrous extreme, we shall find that Reverend Father in God, the Abbot of Brantome, claiming, on the authority of some lord of his acquaintance, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but true to the Union. As far as I've seen, that is the case with the middling class throughout the South." "Well, it may be, but they generally go with us, and I reckon they will now, when it comes to the rub. Those in the towns—the traders and mechanics—will, certain; its ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... "Fair to middling. Just look in and see;" with which cheerful remark Gus tipped up his basket and displayed a few bits of green at ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... towards these phrases, so dazzling and revealing. He awoke from his long drowsiness. Before him shone a marvellous vision.... As this dialogue is lost, we can hardly to-day account for such enthusiasm, and we hold that the Roman orator was a very middling philosopher. We know, however, through Augustin himself, that the book contained an eloquent praise of wisdom. And then, words are naught without the soul of the reader; all this, falling into Augustin's soul, rendered a prolonged and magnificent sound. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... aspects of poetry," and his Horatian Ode on Cromwell's Return from Ireland. The town of Hull voted him a monument, which was, however, forbidden by the Court. His appearance is thus described, "He was of middling stature, pretty ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... quality—pretty good?' said I. 'Oh, you know,' says she; 'about the same that I bought last time. And put in the tape for strings, and a reel of white cotton, No. 30. And I don't mind if you put in a piece of that German ribbon, middling width,' she went on. 'It's nicer than tape for nightcaps, and them sort o' things.' And with that, sir, she was turning out again, when her eyes was caught by some lavender prints, as was a-hanging just in the doorway. Two shades of ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and body both found rest, as one athirst finds joy who drinks of heavenly dew. The elephant being thus converted, the people around were filled with joy; they all raised a cry of wonder at the miracle, and brought their offerings of every kind. The scarcely-good arrived at middle-virtue, the middling-good passed to a higher grade, the unbelieving now became believers, those who believed were strengthened in their faith. Agatasatru, mighty king, seeing how Buddha conquered the drunken elephant, was moved at heart by thoughts profound; then, filled with ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... horse, soon joined them, and from him she directly received the amends which were her due; for while he slightly and carelessly touched the hand of Isabella, on her he bestowed a whole scrape and half a short bow. He was a stout young man, of middling height, who, with a plain face and ungraceful form, seemed fearful of being too handsome unless he wore the dress of a groom, and too much like a gentleman unless he were easy where he ought to be civil, and impudent ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... ear-trumpet. She didn't say much, but she'd couple on the trumpet and turn to whichever one of us had hailed, heeling over to that side as if her ballast had shifted. She acted to me kind of uneasy, but everybody that come into that parlor—and they kept piling in all the time—looked more'n middling joyful. They kept pretty quiet, too, so that every yell we let out echoed, as you might say, all 'round. I begun to git shaky at the knees, as if I was preaching to a ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Since we came to France we have found M. Pictet's account very useful, for at every public library, and in every Ecole Centrale, the Journal Britannique is taken, and we have consequently received many civilities. It was Sunday, and when we arrived at Ghent, all the middling people of the town in their holiday clothes were assembled on the banks of the canal according to custom to see the barque arrive: they made the scene very cheerful. The old Baron de Triste, though he had not dined, and though he had, as he said of himself, "un faim de diable," stayed ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... l'Encuerado to guide us back to our bivouac. All of a sudden my friend enjoined silence; an opossum, followed by five young ones, was coming near us on our left. The animal indolently approached a tree of middling size, which it climbed, aided by its prehensile tail. Its progeny crowded busily round the foot of the tree, uttering plaintive cries. The opossum then came down again, and scarcely had it put foot to the ground before its disconsolate family rushed pell-mell into the maternal ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... friends, if you would only give me the wages of a middling mechanic, you would have pleasure in my undisturbed work, which should all ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... if not in catastrophes. I have been watchful, as I said I should be, but have little to tell as yet. You may laugh at me, and very likely think me foolishly fanciful to trouble myself about what is going on in a middling-class household like ours. Do as you like. But here is that terrible fact to begin with,—a beautiful young girl, with the blood and the nerve-fibre that belong to Nature's women, turned loose among ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... they gave us six hundred bushels, which they had actually on board, together with a parcel shipped upon freight. Also, they gave us thirty middling casks of very good arrack, but beef and pork they had none. However, they went on shore with our men, and bought eleven bullocks and fifty hogs, which were pickled up for our occasion; and upon the supplies of provision from shore, we dismissed ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... bespattered with mud and blood and snow, his belt and the strap of his revolver case keeping together the torn ruins of the blue coat of a Servian artillery officer. As far as the candlelight and his unwashed, unkempt condition make it possible to judge, he is a man of middling stature and undistinguished appearance, with strong neck and shoulders, a roundish, obstinate looking head covered with short crisp bronze curls, clear quick blue eyes and good brows and mouth, a hopelessly prosaic nose like that of a strong-minded baby, trim soldierlike carriage and energetic ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... curiously for a poor man's manners, it may not be amiss if we bear him company. He had pretty well recovered of his fit of discontent, for morning air and exercise can soon chase gloom away; so he cheerily tramped along, thinking as he went, how that, after all, it is a middling happy world, and how that the raindrops, now that it had cleared up, hung like diamonds on the laurels, when of a sudden, as he turned a corner near the house, there broke upon his ear, at that quiet hour, such a storm of boisterous sounds—voices so loud with oaths and altercation—such ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of this embouchure is a mile and a half, and the banks on both sides are high, steep, and little wooded. It is crossed by a shallow, not above two or three feet deep; but on its east side the channel will admit ships of a middling size fully laden. The current was so strong against us, that it was with much exertion our rowers accomplished crossing the shallow. We landed on the left bank in order to determine the geographical ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... them also in water. It is proper to have a separate bowl of water for each article. Cut all the flesh from the bottom shell, and lay it in water; then break the shell in two, put it in a pot after having washed it clean; pour on as much water as will cover it entirely, add one pound of middling, or flitch of bacon, with four onions chopped, and set it on the fire to boil. Open the guts, cleanse them perfectly; take off the inside skin, and put them in the pot with the shell; let them boil steadily for three hours, ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... Guards are not so much practised, with Sword in Hand, as the middling Guard, People being more careful of parrying with the Sword, and a Man is in much better Condition to parry from the middling Guard than ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... Ishmael on again to help me. And—as I heard how you'd been disabled along of the rheumatism, Miss Hannah, and wasn't able to do no weaving, and as I knowed young Ishmael would be out of work as long as I was, I just made so free, Miss Hannah, as to bring you this bag of flour and middling of bacon, which I hope you'll do me the honor of ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in America thirty millions per annum. If cotton can be sold in the Liverpool market at anything less than 4-3/4d. per lb., the slaveholders in America will cease to grow what, under altered circumstances, would be unprofitable. Cotton of middling quality (which is in the greatest demand) may be obtained in West and Eastern Africa at 4d. per lb.; and, already, cotton from Western Africa (Liberia) has been sent to Liverpool, there re-shipped, and sold at Boston, in the United States, ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... enfeebled invalid can travel far without fatigue. I had now got greatly stronger; and, if not quite up to my old thirty miles per day, nor altogether so bold a cragsman as I had been only a few years before, I was at least vigorous enough to enjoy a middling long walk, and to breast a tolerably steep hill. And so I resolved on at least glancing over, if not exploring, the fossiliferous deposits of the Orkneys, trusting that an eye somewhat practised in the formations ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... porch into the house. There was no hall; they walked straight into the sitting-room, where a table was spread with tea, and Miss Hilton, a rather faded-looking lady of middling age, was already ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... common interest to keep the taxes on land as low as possible; and common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy. But if we even could suppose a distinction of interest between the opulent landholder and the middling farmer, what reason is there to conclude, that the first would stand a better chance of being deputed to the national legislature than the last? If we take fact as our guide, and look into our own senate and assembly, we shall ...
— The Federalist Papers
... Madame Therese," he laughed, "I'll not rob you of your occupation. I'll put no bungling hand into your concerns. I know a sound piece of timber when I see it; but I should hardly be able to tell a sample of Sea Island cotton from the veriest low middling." ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... coming and going of the promenaders, who each formally paced back and forth upon the planking for a certain time, and then went quietly home, giving place to the new arrivals. They were nearly all French, and they were not generally, it seemed, of the first fashion, but rather of middling condition in life; the English being represented only by a few young fellows and now and then a redfaced old gentleman with an Indian scarf trailing from his hat. There were some fair American costumes and faces in the crowd, but it was essentially Quebecian. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "Middling," said Molly, taking the initiative as usual. "Robbed seventeen birds' nests, climbed twenty-four trees, and jumped over a ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... noted for her molasses sponge cake. If asked for the recipe, she would give it as follows: "I take some molasses and saleratus and flour and shortening, and some milk. How much? Oh, a middling good sized piece, and enough milk to make it the right thickness to bake good." Needless to say, she continued to be the only molasses ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... dark-blue uniform, without epaulets, booted to the knee, and with a cloth cap upon his head; and, at first sight, you might have taken him for a corporal of dragoons, of particularly neat and soldier-like aspect, and in the prime of his age and strength. He is only of middling stature, but his build is very compact and sturdy, with broad shoulders and a look of great physical vigor, which, in fact, he is said to possess,—he and Beauregard having been rivals in that particular, and both distinguished above other men. His complexion ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not know that there is anything particularly new or interesting. Not much is going on there. We have had a good crop of hay, the corn looks middling well; the rye is not much rusted. I think we shall not want for bread," ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... conquest; at least, if we may judge of the increase of money by the price of corn. The medium between the highest and lowest prices of wheat, assigned by the statute, is four shillings and threepence a quarter; that is, twelve shillings and ninepence of our present money. This is near half of the middling price in our time. Yet the middling price of cattle, so late as the reign of King Richard, we find to be above eight, near ten times lower than the present. Is not this the true inference, from comparing these facts, that, in all uncivilized ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... water, and a pone of corn bread. In this connection rather a comic story is told. Having invited a number of gentlemen to dine with him, Gen. Lee, in a fit of extravagance, ordered a sumptuous repast of cabbage and middling. The dinner was served: and, behold, a great pile of cabbage and a bit of middling about four inches long and two inches across! The guests, with commendable politeness, unanimously declined middling, and it remained in the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... sums by buying at inferior prices such as had flaws in them, and afterwards disposing of them at a profit of cent per cent. Madame du Hausset relates the following anecdote on this particular: "The king," says she, "ordered a middling-sized diamond, which had a flaw in it, to be brought to him. After having it weighed, his majesty said to the count, 'The value of this diamond as it is, and with the flaw in it, is six thousand livres; without the flaw, it would be worth at least ten thousand. Will you undertake to make ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... any in a medium remaining, but the one half rich, the other poor: and from the same principle it is that democracies are more firmly established and of longer continuance than oligarchies; but even in those when there is a want of a proper number of men of middling fortune, the poor extend their power too far, abuses arise, and the government ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... there shone (as it were) a bright live coale within it. He had two kinds of looks; when he laught, was witty, and in a merry humour, one could scarce see his eies; by and by, when he was serious and earnest, he opened his eies round his eie-lids: he had middling eies, not very big nor very little. He was six foote high and something better, and went indifferently erect, or rather, considering ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... taken no heed of these details," replied the captain. "I am but a middling sailor. Like all nervous people, I hate the sea; and yet I have an idea that with ships, France being a seaport with two hundred ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... and during the passage of that period March Marston's bosom became a theatre in which, unseen by the naked eye, were a legion of spirits, good, middling, and bad, among whom were hope, fear, despair, joy, fun, delight, interest, surprise, mischief, exasperation, and a military demon named General Jollity, who overbore and browbeat all the rest by turns. These ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... thought of mask," whimpered Tommy, "but that would mean the kirk was crammed, and I just meant it to be middling full." ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... seized Coonly by the collar of his coat with his left hand, held him out as though he had been a small boy, unbuckled his sword-belt, and took two revolvers from his pockets with his right. The captain was a middling-sized man, and he struggled in the gripe of the powerful Kentuckian; but he might as well have ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... be beginning to study home comforts, all the modern houses being built upon very commodious plans; still the middling classes, in the towns at least, are miserably lodged, in comparison with the same grades in England, families of apparently great respectability inhabiting places so desolate as ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... its possessors, will become the common enemy. I do not urge this argument as one in which your Lordships are peculiarly interested: it is not you alone, nor even other proprietors, who are interested in the protection of property; the whole people, middling classes as well as the lower orders, are interested in this subject. Look at the anxiety prevailing in every part of London, in respect to the great revolution to be made by this bill. My noble friend, the noble baron (Lord Wharncliffe) ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... qualifications for governing—except that they were loyal; and this was of no more use to them in this great work, than piety in the pulpit when the preacher cannot repeat the Lord's prayer without biting his tongue. The carpet-baggers ran all the way from "good to middling." Some went South with fair ability and good morals, where they lost the latter article and never found it; while many more went South to get all they could and keep all they got. The Negro could boast ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... invasion. The process of "putting away" thus begun extended itself indefinitely. The photographs in their various frames must be arranged and divided; nice relations and very dearest friends, to be taken to school, disagreeable or "middling" relations, and merely "dearest friends," to be laid aside in another drawer; fragile ornaments to be hidden, in case they were broken; silver and brass in case they tarnished; letters to be destroyed, to be tied up in packets, to be answered before leaving home; ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... came face to face with a beautiful woman reclining on a couch. On hearing the door open she had raised herself on her elbow. Now, seeing a stranger before her, she sprang up with a low cry, and stood gazing at me, her face expressing both astonishment and anger. She was of middling height, her features regular though somewhat childlike, her complexion singularly fair. A profusion of golden hair hung in disorder about her neck, and matched the deep blue of her eyes, wherein it seemed to me, there lurked more spirit and fire than the general cast of her ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman |
