"Tolerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for help to return. Although it could never be proved against him, he must acknowledge to himself that he, a British officer, was now in truth a willing deserter. But to be a deserter he found more tolerable than to return at the price of ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his number now and I don't know how it is he comes to be overlooked when we're cleaning out the gallery; but he's there all right, full face and side view, with his gallery number in big white figures on his chest. And, commissioner, he's a pretty tolerable tough-looking Ginney." The witness checked an inclination to grin. "I takes a slant at his picture, and I can't make up my own mind which way he'll look the worst enlarged into a crayon portrait—full face or side view. I can still hear her crying ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... upon which even an unskilful performer may make tolerable music, but the flute is not one of them—the man who murders that, is a malefactor entitled to no "benefit of clergy:" and our schoolmaster did murder it in the most inhuman manner! But, let it ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... where the wine had not been spared, and the guests had but just separated, in a state of tolerable elevation. It was a drear and stormy autumn night. On reaching the door of my abode, I first became aware that I had forgotten the key. As I could not imagine that any one would be awake at this late hour,—for it now drew near twelve—and, besides, as I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... the harpsichord, &c. are not, if habit has made them easy to the pupil, fit for our purpose. We may all perceive, that in such occupations, the powers of the mind are left unexercised. We can frequently read aloud with tolerable emphasis for a considerable time together, and at the same time think upon some subject foreign to the book we hold in ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... to go against the wind and the current. The engineers were ordered to put on as much pressure of steam as they dared, and the Fram was urged on at her top speed. Our surprise was not small when we saw that we were making way, and even at a tolerable rate. Soon we were out of the sound or "Knipa" (nipper) as we christened it, and could beat out to sea with steam and sail. Of course, we had, as usual, contrary wind and thick weather. There is ample space between every little bit ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... the parties in the cause; but there neither is nor can be any precise rule to discriminate the exact bounds between examination and cross-examination. So as to time there is necessarily some limit, but a limit hard to fix. The only one which can be fixed with any tolerable degree of precision is when the judge, after fully hearing all parties, is to consider of his verdict or his sentence. Whilst the cause continues under hearing in any shape, or in any stage of the process, it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the growing demand for Burton beer he started as a brewer himself. The principal market for Burton beer at that time was in St Petersburg, whither the beer could be sent by water direct from Burton via the Trent and Hull, and William Bass managed to secure a tolerable share of the large Russian orders. But in 1822 the Russian government placed a prohibitory duty on Burton ales, and the Burton brewers were forced into cultivating the home market. William Bass opened up a connexion with London, and established ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the protection of the large, ancient shield, which she placed against the lower part of the window, Rebecca, with tolerable security, could witness part of what was passing without the castle and report to Ivanhoe the preparations being made for the storming. From where she stood she had a full view of the outwork likely to be the first object of the assault. It was a fortification of no great height or strength, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... continued to exhibit till 1782, when, quitting the stage, they erected a superb meeting house in Cherry Street, at the expense of L1,200. This was opened, July 7, by John Wesley, the chief priest, whose extensive knowledge and unblemished manners give us a tolerable picture of apostolic purity, who believed as if he were to be saved by faith, and who laboured as if he were to be saved by works." The note made by Wesley, who was in his 80th year, respecting the opening of Cherry Street Chapel, has been preserved. He says:—"July 6th, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... concluded, for I need not tell you all of my pranks—of all the parts I have played in life. I have never been a murderer, or a burglar, or a highway robber, or what the law calls a thief. I can only say, as I said before, I have lived upon my wits, and they have been a tolerable capital on the whole. I have been an actor, a money-lender, a physician, a professor of animal magnetism (that was lucrative till it went out of fashion, perhaps it will come in again); I have been a lawyer, a house-agent, a dealer in curiosities and china; I ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would, mister. I'm er printer by trade, but it don't 'pear to 'gree with me, and I'm on my way to Central America for my health. I believe I'll make a tolerable good pilot, 'cause I ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... walking up Greenwich Street, in New York, I stepped into a store to buy a cigar. To show you there is no trick about it, here are cigars out of the same box from which I selected the one I that day lighted." (Here Mr. Sothern passed around a box of tolerable cigars.) ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... strictly accurate information as to their commercial value, and still less reliable in relation to their nutritive power. At the same time, they as clearly establish the feasibility of analyses being made whereby the money value of feeding-stuffs may be estimated with tolerable exactitude. Let the chemist determine the presence and relative amounts of the ingredients of food-substances, and—if it be possible so to do with a degree of exactness that would render the results ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... consequence of the letter that editor wrote him about his contribution, and his paying for it right off. It was a remarkably flattering letter. He says he believes in his future now; he has before him a vision of distinction, of influence, and of fortune, not great, perhaps, but sufficient to make life tolerable. He doesn't think life is very delightful, in the nature of things; but one of the best things a man can do with it is to get hold of some woman (of course, she must please him very much, to make it worth while) whom he ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... writes to his wife, "is mine till five—then dinner, the theatre, or society. My solitude in England is not painful to me. The English way of living suits mine exactly; and my little stock of English, in which I make tolerable progress, is of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... nothing—not even to put a chair straight, or order some bread to keep us from starving—without consulting me. Paul, taking advantage of a husband's prerogative, has gone off to flaner on the Piazza, while his women-folk make life tolerable at home; which is a very unfair and spiteful version of his proceedings, for he has really gone as much on my business as on his own. I sent him—feeling his look of misery, as he sat on a packing-case in the middle of this chaos, terribly on my mind—to ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said, 'as I fancy your motive in inquiring into the question must be mere curiosity, I think I may tell you my opinion with tolerable freedom. So, Mr.—Mr. Dyson, if you want to know my theory, it is this: I believe that Dr. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... gallantly one bears the misfortunes of one's friends. That a writer should be taken to task about his books, is fair, and he must abide the praise or the censure. But that a publisher should be criticised for his dinners, and for the conversation which did NOT take place there,—is this tolerable press practice, legitimate joking, or honorable warfare? I have not the honor to know my next-door neighbor, but I make no doubt that he receives his friends at dinner; I see his wife and children pass constantly; I ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... approximately steady, that in a way the thread of his destiny was knotted together with that of Beatrix. He loved her absolutely, and the only proof of his love for her must lie in his strange power to make more tolerable for her the galling yoke of her ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Fiji, back to the food and fresh water of his childhood, back into the daylight from the darkness of the Marshalls, where some of us could see him, where we could write to him and receive answers, where he might pass a tolerable old age. If you can help me to get this done, I am sure that you will never regret it. In its small way, this is another case of Toussaint L'Ouverture, not so monstrous if you like, not on so large a scale, but with circumstances of small perfidy that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all this may involve, there is at least this to be said in its favor; that the woman lives more in the present than the man, and that, if the present is at all tolerable, she enjoys it more eagerly. This is the source of that cheerfulness which is peculiar to women, fitting her to amuse man in his hours of recreation, and, in case of need, to console him when he is borne down by ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... I speak of books, and of learning to read. When 'big,' 'bag,' 'bog,' bug,' and 'box,'" reading from the paper in a steady voice, and a very tolerable pronunciation, "first came before me, I felt all the embarrassment of ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... discharged him; indeed, not for anything at all connected with Calne. He did seem to have gone about his business there in a very loose way, and to have paid less attention to our interests than to the gossip of the place; of which there was a tolerable amount just then, on account of Lord Hartledon's unfortunate death. Gorton was set upon another job or two when he returned; and one of those he contrived to mismanage so woefully, that I would give him no more to do. It struck me that he must drink, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... would make it tolerable to me. I could get a rise or two out of that Mrs. Morton. I did get her to be confidential and to tell me how much better the honours would have sat upon her dear husband. I believe she thinks that if he were alive he would have shared them like the Spartan kings. She wishes that "her brother, Lord ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... or a knave—probably a little of each. In any case he must be dealt with. So Public Sentiment accosted the farmer, and asked him if he were not aware that a mysterious tower was going up close to him, and that the public curiosity was sadly exercised about it? He replied that he was blessed with tolerable eyesight, and had seen the tower from the very first stone upward. Tell us, then, all about it! shrieked Public Sentiment. Ask the builder, if you want to know, said the farmer. But he won't tell us, and we want you to tell us, because we know that you ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... armies. Keenly alive to the necessity, under his circumstances, of vigor and despatch, after occupying Killala on the evening of the 22d August, (the day of his disembarkation,) where the small garrison of 50 men (yeomen and fencibles) had made a tolerable resistance, and after other trifling affairs, he had, on the 26th, marched against Castlebar with about 800 of his own men, and perhaps 1200 to 1500 of the rebels. Here was the advanced post of the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... people, in countries where the rate of interest is higher than in their own, are circumstances which no doubt demonstrate the redundancy of their stock, or that it has increased beyond what they can employ with tolerable profit in the proper business of their own country; but they do not demonstrate that that business has decreased. As the capital of a private man, though acquired by a particular trade, may increase beyond what he can employ in it, and yet that trade continue to increase too, so ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... hours spent in alien places seem dim and unreal. She could hardly believe that it was she who had been so long away from so many friends, still less that it was she who, a year ago, tired and weary, had gone southwards in search of that minimum of health and peace which makes existence tolerable. Yet that time abroad could never have become dim to her, since it was there, in the winter spent in Rome, that her old friendship with Victor Braithwaite had ripened into intimacy and burst into love. Rome would always be knit ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... opinions, so different from those which have usually distorted history, gives an interest even to his grossest errors. Mr. Buckle, if he had been able to distinguish a good book from a bad one, would have been a tolerable imitation of M. Laurent." Perhaps, however, the most characteristic of these forgotten judgments is the description of Lord Liverpool and the class which supported him. Not even Disraeli painting the leader of that party which he was destined ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... man who has been so often mentioned in this narrative. He passed the first part of his early youth under the charge of a doting mother, and in the society of negro slaves, whose study it was to gratify his every caprice. His father was a man of worth and sense; but as he alone retained tolerable health among the officers of the regiment he belonged to, he was much engaged with his duty. Besides, Mrs. Staunton was beautiful and wilful, and enjoyed but delicate health; so that it was difficult for a man of affection, humanity, and a quiet disposition, to struggle with her on the point ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... delicate and refined habits, who cannot afford to employ all the labour requisite to carry on the business of clearing on a tolerable large scale, and is unwilling or incapable of working himself, is not fitted for Canada, especially if his habits are expensive. Even the man of small income, unless he can condescend to take in hand the axe or the chopper, will find, even with prudent ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... undoubtedly well versed in the Literature of her native land. She could not only have given with tolerable accuracy the names and dates of the principal authors of each century, but a list of their best-known works, and an estimate of the rank assigned to them by modern criticism. She had even, impelled by an almost morbid conscientiousness, consulted the works themselves, ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... well-bred, so that, in spite of the patronising empire assumed over them by the vulgar and half-educated Miss Sprong— which Cyril especially was very much inclined to resent—the first day or two passed by with tolerable equanimity. ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... abolish unjust taxation when his exchequer is empty, and when his creditors are threatening him with the Gazette; and yet he delays calling together a national assembly. It is possible that, little by little, King Otho may be persuaded by circumstances to become a tolerable constitutional sovereign at last; but we fear our old friend Hadgi Ismael Bey—may his master never diminish the length of his shadow!—will say on this occasion, as we have heard him say on some others, "Machallah! Truly, the sense ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... hostilities. Among them, impressment was given the first place; but up to 1806, when Pinkney was sent as his associate, nothing had been effected, nor does urgency seem to have been felt. So long as in practice things ran smoothly, divergences of opinion were easily tolerable. Soon after the receipt of the instructions, in March, 1804,[155] the comparatively friendly administration of Addington gave way to that of Pitt; and upon this had followed Monroe's nine-months absence in Spain. Before ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... study of painting into three distinct periods, I shall address you as having passed through the first of them, which is confined to the rudiments, including a facility of drawing any object that presents itself, a tolerable readiness in the management of colours, and an acquaintance with the most simple and ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... rowed several times a couple of miles up and down the river in the course of the week, bringing home, after each excursion, a tolerable supply of cat-fish. This was an acceptable change in their diet, for, except when Uncle John killed some venison, which had as yet only happened once, or Tom shot squirrels enough to broil a dishfull, their usual dinner was ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... furnished miscellaneous matter to various Periodicals, which, if it were all collected together, would swell into many volumes. Among it, as must be the case under the circumstances in which it was written, there is some which I consider tolerable; but the major portion is but indifferent; and I should be very sorry indeed, if at any future time, when I may not have the power to prevent it, all these articles should be collected and printed as mine. If ever it were done, it certainly would not be by my ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... been, as many eminent persons in her profession are, a mere bundle of insensate egotisms complicated by a voice, she would have driven March to flat rebellion in a week, all his good resolutions notwithstanding. What made it tolerable was that she had a good musical intelligence of her own, and a real dramatic sense. He could recognize, what she wanted as an intelligible thing, consistent with itself. Only, it was not his thing-not the thing he saw. By reason ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... now only to proceed as fast as they could without tiring the poor Indian woman, whose head was bound up, and who was still weak from loss of blood, they made a tolerable day's journey, and halted as before. Thus they continued their route till the sixth day, when as they drew up for the night, the Indian stated that they were only three or four miles from the Indians' lodges, which they sought. Thereupon a council was held as to how they ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... a thief, think that a thief may have a good nose, good eyes, good ears. It is indispensable to his profession that he be possessed of sagacity, foresight, vigilance; it is more than probable, then, that he is endued with the bodily types or instruments of these qualities to some tolerable degree of perfectness. ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... great natural refinement. He took her home to the ancient family house in the city—the same in which he now occupied a garret, and under whose outer stair he now cobbled shoes. There, during his father's life, they lived in peace and tolerable comfort, though in a poor enough way. It was all, even then, that the wife could do to make both ends meet; nor would her relations, whom she had grievously offended by her marriage, afford her ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... do it," and David stretched out his right arm. "Light and power will come from there to transform city and country. Living will be made far more tolerable in both." ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... let us at least know to what we surrender. What letter is to usurp the vacant seat? What letter? retorts the purist—why, an e, to be sure. An e? And do you call that an e? Do you pronounce 'ten' as if it were written 'tun', or 'men' as if written 'mun'? The 'Der' in Derby, supposing it tolerable at all to alter its present legitimate sound, ought, then, to be pronounced as the 'Der' in the Irish name Derry, not as 'Dur'; and the 'Ber' in Berkeley not as 'Bur,' but as the 'Ber' in Beryl. But the whole conceit has its origin in pure ignorance ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... beasts, who dispute seek assistance of another, who, in with him his habitation and his prey, his turn, requires the same. Four or and attacking his person, seem resolved five united would be able to raise to render themselves rulers of a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a this globe, of which he thinks himself wilderness; but one man might to be the master. Man, in this labour out the common period of life, state, alone and abandoned to himself, ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... especially is it deemed the highest perfection of civilized life and manners, in the code of conventional politeness, to exemplify this latter divine injunction. Otherwise life would be much less comfortable—hardly tolerable.—A Voice from America ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... happiness in the old maid's salon for six months with tolerable patience, Birotteau deserted the house of an evening, carrying with him Mademoiselle Salomon. In spite of her utmost efforts the ambitious Gamard had recruited barely six visitors, whose faithful attendance ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... as I had nothing whatever to do with that matter; and that so far from my wishing to stir up the men into rebellion, my conduct had been uniformly influenced by the desire to conciliate them and represent their conditions as very tolerable, so as to repress any tendency to disaffection which they might foment ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... utters himself with greater animation and truer emphasis in speaking, than he does, or perhaps can do, in reading. Hence it happens that we can listen longer to a tolerable speaker, than to a good reader. There is an indescribable something in the natural tones of him who is expressing earnestly his present thoughts, altogether foreign from the drowsy uniformity of the man that reads. ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... Grisell, and halts in exceedingly uncomfortable hostels, where she could hardly obtain tolerable seclusion, brought her at last within reach of home. There was a tall church tower and some wretched hovels round it. The Lord of Whitburn halted, and blew his bugle with the peculiar note that signified his own return, ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his illness, for in past days his voice had rung stentorian above the blows of axes in the timber. "Yes, I've heard of you. You're the millionaire hobo. When a man's got plenty of money and chooses to live alone in a country that 'most everybody else is leavin', he's tolerable apt to ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... as to its essential features, might, a priori, be sketched with tolerable certainty. From the nature of the case, we could scarcely expect that the Jews should have adopted views altogether erroneous as to the subject of the prophecy in question; for the Messiah appears in it, not in His humiliation, but in His glory—rich in gifts and blessings, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... relieved Eyebright from the long-legged sensation which was growing over her. This, with a calico, some of Mrs. Bright's underclothing altered a little, and a sun-bonnet with a deep cape, made a tolerable summer outfit. Gloves, ruffles, ribbons, and such little niceties, she learned to do without; and when the sweet summer came again with long days and warm winds, when she could row, sit out-doors as much as she liked, and swing in the wild-grape hammocks which festooned the shore, she ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... Robert and Shargar went to school together, and learned their lessons together at Mrs. Falconer's table. Shargar soon learned to behave with tolerable propriety; was obedient, as far as eye-service went; looked as queer as ever; did what he pleased, which was nowise very wicked, the moment he was out of the old lady's sight; was well fed and well cared for; and when he was asked how he was, gave the invariable ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... owned he could not conceive by what means such a number of licentious people, amounting, with their dependants, to above five hundred, were restrained within the bounds of any tolerable discipline, or prevented from making their escape, which they might at any time accomplish, either by stealth or open violence; as it could not be supposed that one or two turnkeys, continually employed in opening and shutting the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... as was to be expected, has reappeared in England again; and England, as was to be expected, has taken no sufficient steps towards meeting it; so that if, as seems but too probable, the plague should spread next summer, we may count with tolerable certainty upon a loss of some ten ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... their prosperity; the base and lewdest sorts of men, to whom there is nothing more agreeable than change of estates, is a better monture to degrees than their merit, took present hold thereof. Hereby Paul Buys, Barneveld, and divers others, who were before mantled with a tolerable affection, though seasoned with a poisoned intention, caught the occasion, and made themselves the Beelzebubs of all these mischiefs, and, for want of better angels, spared not to let fly our golden-winged ones in the name ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of his overcoat. The others did the same, and within an incredibly short time all three were wearing dead men's clothes. The coats sat oddly on their long frames, but fortunately there was as yet very little light, and in the gray gloom they presented a tolerable resemblance to the late tenants of ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... of his mates to pilot me in: he answered that he had not a mate capable of it, but that he would sail in before me, and show me the way; and that if he went into the harbour in the night he would hang out a light for me. He said we had not far in, and might reach it before night with a tolerable gale; but that with so small an one as now we had we could not do it: so we jogged on till night and then he accordingly hung out his light, which we steered after, sounding as we went in. I kept all my men on deck ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... wealthy man. Many worthy persons indulge in this fond notion, that they are imposing upon the world; strive to fancy, for instance, that their bankers consider them men of property because they keep a tolerable balance, pay little tradesmen's bills with ostentatious punctuality, and so forth—but the world, let us be pretty sure, is as wise as need be, and guesses our real condition with a marvellous instinct, ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... carried the weight of all New York on her mind. Not the least of her anxieties was the condition of her brother-in-law, Esther's father. He was now a confirmed invalid, grateful for society and amusement, and almost every day he expected his sister-in-law to take him to drive, if the weather was tolerable. The tax was severe, but she bore it with heroism, and his gratitude sustained her. When she came for him the next morning, she found him reading as usual, and waiting for her. "I was just wondering," said he, "whether I could read five minutes longer without ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... work done in ancient times and that of the middle ages. Roman brickwork is quite as compact as solid sandstone, but mediaeval masonry was almost invariably built in a hurry by bad workmen, of all sorts of fragments embedded in poorly mingled cement, and it breaks up with tolerable ease under ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... peeping into this courtyard and that, and listening to the interminable tales of guide or custodian. If we study the Casa Nuova intelligently, lovingly and minutely, it will not be long before we obtain a tolerable grasp of Roman life and manners, which will prove of immense service and of genuine delight. What then is it, the question will be asked, that makes the House of the Vettii so valuable as an example of antique architecture and decoration, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... not certain of the men," he said, "to whom I speak, I could say many things that should arouse you, so that you should catch with fiery eagerness at aught that promised a more tolerable position. I could recount the luxuries of wealth which you once knew; the agonies of poverty beneath which, to no purpose, you lie groaning. I could point out your actual inability to live, however ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... of that detested house, and seek for some other habitation, which might be more propitious. But we found more difficulty in this undertaking than we were at all aware of; for though we could with tolerable ease go from room to room within the house, still, when we attempted to quit it, we found it every way surrounded with so thick a brick wall, that it was impossible for us to make our way through it: we therefore ran round and round it several times, searching for some little crevice through ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... news, though he couldn't have explained why, was a sensible shock, and his oppression a weight he felt he must somehow or other immediately get rid of. There were too many connexions missing to make it tolerable he should do anything else. He was prepared to suffer—before his own inner tribunal—for Chad; he was prepared to suffer even for Madame de Vionnet. But he wasn't prepared to suffer for the little girl So now having said the proper thing, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... purpose of stating and justifying the solutions of all these problems, a special treatise would not be too much.[239] Here we shall merely indicate the general principles on which a tolerable agreement seems to have ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... begun my consideration of rights and lefts with this one very clear historical datum, because it is interesting to be able to say with tolerable certainty that there really was a period in our life as a species when man in the lump was ambidextrous. Why and how did he become otherwise? This question is not only of importance in itself, as helping to explain the origin and source of man's supremacy in nature—his tool-using faculty—but ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... should be so when poetry is, and has been at all times, the universal solace of all peoples who have emerged out of barbarism, the one thing not supernatural and yet akin to the supernatural, that makes the world, in its hard and sordid conditions, tolerable to the race. For poetry is not merely the comfort of the refined and the delight of the educated; it is the alleviator of poverty, the pleasure-ground of the ignorant, the bright spot in the most dreary pilgrimage. We cannot conceive ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was free from the ice which is generally forced there by the east-wind; the sharp peaks, covered with snow, looked like a number of white waves. The house and lantern, built by James Ross, were still in a tolerable state of preservation; but the provisions appeared to have been eaten by foxes, and even by bears, of which fresh traces were to be seen; part of the devastation was probably due to the hand of man, for some ruins of Esquimaux ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... take it are tolerable marksmen. I think that it might prove more convenient to both of us if you were to have me shot as soon ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... effrontery of its pretensions; but their very extravagance soon began to render them comical. It claims to originate views which are to overturn 'long received doctrines, national prejudices, stereotyped delusions,' &c., while any tolerable scholar in this department is perfectly familiar with them all in the works of Virey, Courtet, Bory de St. Vincent, Edwards, La Marck, Quetelet, &c. It has not the slightest claim to originality, except for the ridiculous ingenuity, with which it carries out the more cautious follies of these ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the Old Man had occupied was stripped of its blankets; the few cheap ornaments and photographs were gone; the rude poverty of the bare boards and scant pallet looked up at them unrelieved by the bright face and gracious youth that had once made them tolerable. In the grim irony of that exposure, their own penury was doubly conscious. The little knapsack, the tea-cup and coffee-pot that had hung near his bed, were gone also. The most indignant protest, the most pathetic of the letters he had composed ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... breakfast, for which, strange to say, I had a very tolerable appetite, notwithstanding the disastrous turn which my affairs had taken, and the soldiers, producing what provisions they had, also set their teeth to work upon them with a will, laughing and chattering gaily together meanwhile, but without letting drop any information likely to help ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Seedis), to form an escort, and armed them with my sabres and muskets. They were all raw recruits, and unaccustomed to warfare. Still we could get no others. With a little practice they learned to shoot at a mark with tolerable accuracy. ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... not been proposed, when the army commenced its movement; but it became apparent to all that progress was only tolerable with it, and without it, impossible. On the day after the above conversation, the army commenced to retrace its steps. Some days, however, intervened before the smoke ascended from their old huts, and the men in lazy circles ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... avoid any confusion between the Belgian and the French revolutions, it must at the same time be admitted that both movements started from the same desire for change and from the same confused feeling that, under a new regime, life would become more tolerable. The social conditions caused by the "ancien regime" were not nearly so oppressive in the Belgian provinces as in France, and, under the enlightened rule of Maria Theresa and Joseph II, some amelioration was certainly to be expected. But the people suffered from the artificial conditions ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... force. An ignorant monk was certainly a rarity, an absolutely unlettered or uneducated one was an impossibility, and an abbot or prior who could not talk and write Latin with facility, who could not preach with tolerable fluency on occasion, and hold his own as a debater and man of business, would have found himself sooner or later in a very ridiculous and very uncomfortable position, from which he might be glad ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... must be for years, if not for generations, economically weaker than men. Does it appeal to any one's sense of fairness to give the stronger party in a struggle additional advantages and deny them to the weaker one? Would that be considered honorable—would it be considered tolerable—even among prize-fighters? What would be thought of a contest between a heavy-weight and a feather-weight in which the heavy-weight was allowed to hit below the belt and the feather-weight was confined ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Danton; "Did I not tell you this before?" Then, giving me a hearty squeeze of the hand, he departed, and thus terminated the millinery speculation, which, I have no doubt, cost Her Highness a tolerable sum. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... von Bissing had any personal feeling against Miss Cavell. Indeed his conduct would be the more tolerable if it had been actuated by the spirit of anger. He killed her in cold blood and to strengthen the German occupation in Belgium. News of the very recent successes of the Allies in Flanders and in the Champagne ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... to Melihovo. All good wishes.... Stop the printing of the plays. I shall never forget yesterday evening, but still I slept well, and am setting off in a very tolerable good humour. ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... could gain a week's leave of absence, I returned to the village, and was received with tolerable politeness by my uncle, and with a warmer feeling ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the colonists, with respect to the management and treatment of slaves is extremely defective. The hardships to which their bodies are exposed, would be much more tolerable and justifiable, were any provision made for civilizing and improving their minds. But how grievous their circumstances when we consider, that, together with their bodily toil and misery, they are also kept in heathen ignorance and darkness, destitute of the means of instruction, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... avoided. Sooner or later, as Grote says, "the lesson must be learnt, hard and painful though it be, that no imaginable reach of critical acumen will of itself enable us to discriminate fancy from reality, in the absence of a tolerable stock of evidence." We do not know who Homer was; we do not know where or when he lived; and in all probability we shall never know. The data for settling the question are not now accessible, and it is not likely that they will ever be discovered. Even ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... which contain no houses adapted to the accommodation of the middling ranks of society; the soil is richer, but the implements of agriculture, and the system of husbandry, are very little better than in Picardy: the cultivation, every where tolerable, is nowhere excellent; there are no new farm-houses or farm-steadings; no signs of recent agricultural improvements; and the chateaux, in general, still bear the aspect of desertion ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... find—because they were company—because they were the world—because they were Mrs. Lyddell's society—because she was superior? How or why? She disdained them all, without knowing it, and far less knowing why. She complied scrupulously with every rule of formal politeness, and had become a tolerable mistress, by rote, of such common-place small talk as served to fulfil her part, and make her not feel herself absurd, but this was all; she would not let herself be pleased or amused, she would not open her eyes to anything good or agreeable ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... human life than mine. Then I lay down for a quarter of an hour, and listened; there were only the noises of bird and squirrel, as before. At last I took up the book, the flat breadth of which suggested only sketches. There were, indeed, some tolerable studies of rocks and trees on the first pages; a few not very striking caricatures, which seemed to have been commenced as portraits, but recalled no faces I knew; then a number of fragmentary notes, written in pencil. I found no name, from first to last; ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... joke. Your eyes will grow dim, your appetite will wane, your complexion will suffer, that tolerable share of good looks which a casual Providence has bestowed ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... is a tolerable facsimile[36] of a little chalk sketch of Harding's; quite inimitable in the quantity of life and truth obtained by about a quarter of a minute's work; but beginning to show the faulty vagueness and carelessness ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... were the sources of much anonymous and corporate despotism. Even in England as well as in this country the value, and indeed the possibility, of representative institutions had been frankly challenged in the name of liberty. For the United States the problem of making legislative power livable and tolerable—a problem made the more acute by the multiplicity of legislative bodies—was partly solved by the establishment of judicial review. But this was only the first step: legislative power had still to be defined and confined. Marshall's audacity in invoking generally recognized moral ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... fumes of the sulphur will scarcely have abated. As you go in, place a wet handkerchief to your mouth, and make to the window and throw it open, closing the door behind you. Sit at the window till the air is tolerable, then wrap the blankets round him and carry him downstairs when you hear the bell. After he has gone tell the servant to have a brazier lighted, and to keep up the kitchen fire. As soon as he is gone, burn on the brazier at the foot of the stairs, tobacco and spices, as we did before; ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... truly observed by you, that Monsieur de Lionne doth you wrong in not treating you with 'Excellency,' but then it is truly observed, that that style is quite out of use in that Court, and so much, that Frenchmen of any tolerable quality do not use it to their own Ambassador here, or in ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... is a poor workman at the best, and his condition is greatly to be deplored. More pitiable still, however, is the case of working-class families in some of the manufacturing towns, where wages are still lower, and where an even tolerable standard of life cannot be maintained unless mother and children take their place in the factory side by side with the head of the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... considered by most people to belong to a very corrupt, and by many to a positively indecent school. Others thought them tremendously knowing, and paid enormous prices for them; and indeed, to be able to point to one of Gloriani's figures in a shady corner of your library was tolerable proof that you were not a fool. Corrupt things they certainly were; in the line of sculpture they were quite the latest fruit of time. It was the artist's opinion that there is no essential difference between beauty and ugliness; that they overlap and intermingle in a quite inextricable manner; ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... tolerable assurance, obtruded his company where he was far from being welcome; the master of the house, indeed, literally kicked him down stairs. Returning to some acquaintance whom he had told his intention of dining at the above house, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... flowers have been propagated by grafting. (11/17. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1847 page 207.) The Pompon variety often bears "four distinguishable kinds of flowers,—the pure white and the red-eyed, which appear promiscuously; the brindled pink and the rose-coloured, which may be kept separate with tolerable certainty by grafting from the branches that bear them." A branch, also, on an old tree of the rose-coloured variety has been seen to "revert to the pure white colour, an occurrence less common than the departure ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... no use with horses. At length, in the grey of a gurly dawn, the smack came alongside. They had had a rough passage, and the mare was considerably subdued by sickness, so that there was less difficulty in getting her ashore, and she paced for a little while in tolerable quietness. But with every step on dry land, the evil spirit in her awoke, and soon Malcolm had to dismount and lead her. The morning was little advanced, and few vehicles were about, otherwise he could hardly have got her home uninjured, notwithstanding the sugar with which he had filled ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... descriptions which are confined to the Buffalo, as it at present exists in Italy and the south of Europe, tolerable reliance may be placed, as their character and habits are there well known, being of every day observation; yet, even in this case, little or nothing is known of the anatomy of the animal, and its period of gestation has never been precisely stated. The following information ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... tolerable epigrams in other books, which nevertheless he excluded, for what is lacking in distinction is better not known at all than learned at the expense of better things, not to speak of its being a burden to ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... the doctor's wheels. Miss Ambient, who shared this apartment with us, gave me at such moments significant glances; she had gone upstairs before rejoining us to ask after the child His mother and his nurse gave a tolerable account of him; but Miss Ambient found his fever high and his symptoms very grave. The doctor came at ten o'clock, and I went to bed after hearing from Mark that he saw no present cause for alarm. He had ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... confess that I cannot fully sympathize with this worship, even when it is sung in the hymns of Rama Prasada, but it is clear that he makes it tolerable just because he throws aside all the magic and ritual of the Tantras and deals straight with what are for him elemental and emotional facts. He makes even sceptics feel that he has really seen God ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... however, that some have represented this fixing of the day to have been accomplished by St. Telesphorus, who was Bishop of Rome A.D. 127-139, but the authority for the assertion is very doubtful. There is good ground for maintaining that Easter and its accessory celebrations mark with tolerable accuracy the anniversaries of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, because we know that the events themselves took place at the period of the Jewish Passover; but no such precision of date can be adduced as ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... it is difficult to praise or blame without the risk of doing them more or less than justice. He has talents which the event has proved to be sufficient to make him the second (and, now that Napoleon is gone, the first general) of the age, but which could not make him a tolerable Minister. Confident, presumptuous, and dictatorial, but frank, open, and good-humoured, he contrived to rule in the Cabinet without mortifying his colleagues, and he has brought it to ruin without forfeiting their regard. Choosing with a very slender stock of knowledge ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... to have, and it scarcely ever remains beyond the age of cubhood. It is only very young bears that are met with of this colour; and the white ring disappears as they get older. It is true that hunters now and then meet with an odd ringed bear of tolerable size and age; but all agree that he is the brown bear, and not a distinct kind. The same remarks apply to the 'silver' bear; and hunters say that in a litter of three cubs they have found all three colours—the common brown, ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... survey, educated by the restorations of a Lanciani, enables us to piece together these encumbering ruins, until with tolerable clearness we can follow Horace in his walk along the Via Sacra towards Caesar's gardens, and can fairly reconstruct the objects which must have met his view. Everywhere is haunted ground: there is the bronze wolf of the Capitol, "thunder-stricken nurse of Rome," and the Tarpeian rock, from which ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... was eager, and persistent, and patient, and had never respected his brother one half as much as when he was stammering over the German pronunciation, which he could not well master. But he learned to read with a tolerable degree of fluency, and to speak a little, too, while he could understand nearly all Arthur ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... career in the hoop skirts and stomachers, and powdered toupes with which the eighteenth century was wont to conceive the heroines of ancient Greece and Rome. The bride of Charles Edward was herself a tolerable musician, and she had a taste for painting and sculpture which developed into a perfect passion in after life; so, with respect to art, there was ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... work. The picture has been removed from the wall, and is now in the Museum of the Louvre; it is damaged in several parts; the delicacy of colouring is lost, the background spoiled, and only the figures of the Saviour, the Virgin, and the head of St. John remain in tolerable condition. ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... the Christian revelation leaves unsolved are made tolerable by Hope." To adopt Bunyan's figurative language in the closing paragraph of his allegory, the day is certainly coming when the famous town of Mansoul shall be taken down and transported "every stick and stone" to Emmanuel's land, and there set up for the ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... I only were in the room; he had lain for some time in tolerable quiet, when I thought I distinguished the bustle attendant upon the arrival of some one at the castle, and went eagerly to the window, believing, or at least hoping, that the sounds might announce the approach ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... to the left, then to the right, and then to the left again. I know the number of blocks, too. Ain't no reason for getting rattled just because a joint is strange to us. New York may be tolerable big, but it's got men in it just like we are, and ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... dollars. Eight thousand dollars from an income that began at sixty and rose to a little under three times that amount! Eight thousand dollars, wrung from their lives at the price of every joy, every alleviation, everything that could make the world barely tolerable. ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... "We're tolerable, sir, I thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: "rather ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... of hoofs and hoarse shouting. Here was a sensation, real and harmless, dignified and customary! A woman flaunting round the corner looked up at him, and leered out: "Good-night!" Even that was customary, tolerable. Two policemen passed, supporting between them a man the worse for liquor, full of fight and expletives; the sight was soothing, an ordinary thing which brought passing annoyance, interest, disgust. It had begun to rain; he felt it on his face ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Slaughter-House, but whether more for the Stupidity of its Poets than its Actors, I do not pretend to determine; but certain it is, that Acting is the Life of all Dramatick-Performances. And tho' an indifferent Play may appear tolerable, with good Acting, it is impossible a bad one can afford any Entertainment, when perform'd by ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... my trousers. Thus at the end of the day, come to Saratoga after all shops were closed, I had to run the gauntlet of the porch and office crowd of visitors at the United States Hotel in a condition that only needed moccasins and a war bonnet to make me a tolerable ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... ducks and geese on the river's bank: thus as we walked towards Abdullah's village, about a mile and a half distant, we made a tolerable bag. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... I wus born May 15, 1858. In slavery time, I belonged to Jim Woods o' Orange County. De plantation wus between Durham and Hillsboro near de edge o' Granville County. My missus name wus Polly Woods. Dey treated us tolerable fair, tolerable fair to a fellow. Our food wus well cooked. We were fed from de kitchen o' the ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Annapolis, was the seat of government, and the only place of any strength in the colony. The fort, a sodded earthwork, lately put into tolerable repair by the joint labor of the soldiers and inhabitants, stood on the point of land between the mouth of the river Annapolis and that of the small stream now called Allen's River, whence it looked down the long basin, or land-locked bay, which, framed in hills and forests, had so won ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... a cow-herd affords limited opportunities for mental improvement. And the early servitude of the Ettrick Shepherd was spent in excessive toil, which his propensities to fun and frolic served just to render tolerable. When he reached the respectable and comparatively easy position of a shepherd, he began to think of teaching himself to read. From Mrs Laidlaw, the wife of the farmer at Willinslee, on which he served, he was privileged ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the vestments of the clergy, the private confession of sins, the use of wafers in the administration of the Lord's supper, the form of exorcism in the celebration of baptism, and other ceremonies of the like nature, as tolerable, and some of them useful. The Lutherans maintain, with regard to the divine decrees, that they respect the salvation or misery of men in consequence of a previous knowledge of their sentiments and characters, and not as founded on the ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... departure. He had risen with a frightful headache and a fever. He lay on the bed and thought of his situation, his past life, and his future chances, in bitter, heartrending, self-condemnatory sarcasm which made his condition even less tolerable than it would have ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... followed by a sneering, sardonic grin that seemed anticipating the enjoyment of using compulsion. On, therefore, I again forced myself, and with tolerable composure I said, "Je n'ai rien, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... in modern times was, no doubt, the doctrine of Kant. "This divorce of thing and thought," says Hegel, "is mainly the work of the critical philosophy and runs counter to the conviction of all previous ages." And the completeness of the divorce corresponds, with tolerable accuracy, to the degree in which the critical philosophy has been understood; for Kant's writings, like those of all great thinkers, are capable of many interpretations, varying in depth with the intelligence of ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... to establish some tolerable degree of justice in the government of this world; and he succeeded, tho he was murdered ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... obey her. We sat down and, such was the influence of her mesmeric eyes, we ate a tolerable breakfast. The obedient Amelia never spoke; Mrs. Matilda Pitman did not speak either, but she knitted furiously and chuckled. When we had finished Mrs. Matilda Pitman rolled up her knitting. "Now, you can go if you want to," she said, "but you don't have to go. You can stay here as long as you like, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Steamboats off Shoal Water," the blue lights are conspicuous by their total absence, and the mistiness of the atmospherical conditions renders it difficult to distinguish either the steamers or the shoals with even tolerable accuracy! ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... from the first. It was certain that any new work by the author of Don Juan would be subjected to the severest and most hostile scrutiny, and it was doubtful if a translation of part of an obscure and difficult poem, vaguely supposed to be coarse and irreligious, would meet with even a tolerable measure of success. At any rate, in spite of many inquiries and much vaunting of its excellence (see Letters, June 29, September 12, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 314, 362), the MS. remained for more than two ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... close in, two canoes came off containing several natives, who readily came on board; two of them had been in an English whaler, (which ships occasionally touched at the island for provisions, &c.) and addressed us in tolerable English. They were well formed, muscular men, with fine and expressive features, of the Asiatic race, in colour of a light copper; they wore the hair long, and stained of a light brown colour; they were tattooed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... collapse like this. I fear you have not taken his character sufficiently into consideration. If I were in your place I should be afraid that Everard would not allow my nature free scope, or take an interest in my mental development, and that the sacrifices which make domestic life tolerable might have to be all on my side. He is absolutely unworthy of you, and his nose is quite thick. I daresay you have not remarked it, but I did at once. And in my opinion he ought for his own good to have been made to realise it. Even Aunt Mary, though she says she entirely approves of ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... those two young creatures took up the heavy burden of their life, and carried it with tolerable patience and courage; and as in the case of our first parents, exiled by a woman's weakness from the fair gardens of Paradise, so, though they reaped thorns and thistles, and earned their bread by the sweat of their ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Bladder. The Secretion then totally stopt; he remained for upwards of five Weeks in the Hospital at Dorchester, and made no Water; at the End of which Time I first visited him along with Mr. Adair. He complained then of a slight Pain in his Kidneys, and told us he had a tolerable Appetite, sweated little, and voided every Day four or five Liquid Stools. He was ordered Boluses of Camphor, and sal. vol. c. cervi, and every Night a Dose of tinctura cantharidum; which he continued to take for a Fortnight without receiving the least Benefit. I then blooded ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... the German Army had been given a sharp lesson at Neuve Chapelle. Whether these two events had anything to do with the change, or whether it was merely a coincidence, I do not know; the fact remains that our German governors who had hitherto treated us with tolerable leniency chose about this time to initiate a regime of stringent regulation ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... chamber is done up in white, gold, and blue, and in very tolerable order. This middle room is characteristic. The floor is of hard wood and oiled, and rugs of every description are scattered about. Easels with and without pictures, studies, paintings in oil and water-colors, bric-a-brac of every shape and kind, from pretty to ugly, a cabinet, some book-shelves, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... of continuous absorption by the neighbouring German and Magyar elements, these races still multiply faster than the Germans and the Magyars. The Germans, living in more comfortable circumstances, and the few Magyars of the northern palatinate, are far less prolific, yet they multiply with tolerable rapidity. The Germans and Magyars of the plains, in possession of considerable wealth, are almost stationary, as are the already mentioned ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... the fact that the negroes, trained in irresponsibility, were inclined to idleness and theft. But it was nevertheless unjust. In some sections only the interposition of the military and of the Freedman's Bureau made life tolerable ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... indeed I do. Every one sees Imogen's clubs. I don't think them delightful. Women in crowds are always horrid. We are only tolerable in isolation." ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... at the Opera, Madam; and considering 'twas neither dark nor rainy, so that there was no great Hurry in getting Chairs and Coaches, made a tolerable Hand on't. ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... amiable desire that his face should be tolerable familiar to us,' said Mr Tapley, 'for he's a-staring pretty hard. He'd better not waste his beauty, for he ain't got ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth—tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... empower His ministers to preach in His name, but he commands their hearers to listen and obey. "Whosoever will not receive you, nor hear your words, going forth from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Amen, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for that city."(494) "He that heareth you heareth Me; and he that despiseth you despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me despiseth ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... illustration of this want of sympathy, in a small way, is the waiting-room of a well-known nerve-doctor. The room is in such a state of confusion, it is such a mixture of colors and forms, that it would be fatiguing even for a person in tolerable health to stay there for an hour. Yet the doctor keeps his sensitive, nervously excited patients sitting in this heterogeneous mass of discordant objects hour after hour. Surely it is no psychological subtlety of insight that gives a man of this type his name and fame: it ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... such a short period nothing should remain of this town but the heaps of rubbish, amongst which we could hardly find room enough for our tent. At last we decided to pitch it in the only building which remained in a tolerable state of preservation, in Yami-Masjid, the cathedral-mosque, on a granite platform about twenty-five steps higher than the square. The stairs, constructed of pure marble like the greater part of the town buildings, are broad and almost untouched by time, but the roof has entirely ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... this a better answer than she admitted; it was a tolerable description of her own manner of judging, but it would not have sounded well for her to say so. On the lips of a person less advanced in life and less enlightened by experience than Mrs. Touchett such a declaration would savour of immodesty, even of arrogance. She risked it nevertheless ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... of plunder, this expedition was a dismal failure, and the Desire returned and reached the coast of Ireland on June 11th, 1593. The crew had been reduced to sixteen, and of these only five were even in tolerable health. ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... honored me with some private letters. In the first of these he gives me a "piece of information," after which he cannot imagine that I, "as an honest mathematician," can possibly have the slightest hesitation in admitting his solution. There is a tolerable reservoir of modest assurance in a man who writes to a perfect stranger with what he takes for an argument, and gives an oblique threat of imputation of dishonesty in case the argument be not admitted without hesitation; not to ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... triumphant suitor of Susie Rolliffe. Her manner in parting had satisfied him that he had made go deep an impression that it would be folly not to follow it up. He trudged the remainder of the journey alone, and secured tolerable treatment by assuring the people that he was returning for recruits for the army. He reached home in the afternoon of Christmas; and although the day was almost completely ignored in the Puritan household, yet Mrs. Watkins ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... went to see what it was like, and I saw. It is a strange life, but a wholesome one, if you get a tolerable sufficiency to eat, and not too heavy a dose of marching. So severe a time as we had is terribly physical, and benumbs the brain somewhat. The campaign was short, but the utmost was crowded ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... knows where he is going," said my companion, laughing, "and is eager to arrive in time for some of the merriment and good cheer of the servants' hall. My father, you must know, is a bigoted devotee of the old school, and prides himself upon keeping up something of old English hospitality. He is a tolerable specimen of what you will rarely meet with now-a-days in its purity, the old English country gentleman; for our men of fortune spend so much of their time in town, and fashion is carried so much into the country, that the strong rich peculiarities of ancient rural ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... means of help seems yet to fail,—that of putting the families in the way of helping themselves by suitable employment. The families who live in the neighborhood of Minden, mostly on small parcels of land, have until now got on with a tolerable degree of comfort, by cultivating their land in summer and spinning yarn in winter; but now the depression is so great that if they could be put into the way of earning threepence a day, they would embrace it with thankfulness. I have been very diffident in ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... seized, would be the only support allowed to me for the short space that my life would be prolonged. Nay, even were you to be betrayed to the rebel Scots, as you call them, a captivity among the hills, sweetened by the hope of deliverance, and rendered tolerable by all the alleviations which the circumstances of your captors allowed them the means of supplying, were not, I think, a lot so very hard ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... her husband with tolerable regularity from Paris, Rome, and Venice, Emily had twice written to him afterwards—and had received no reply. Feeling uneasy, she had gone to the office in Golden Square, to inquire if he had been heard of there. The post of the morning had brought a letter to the secretary from ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... years, for the most part, I had spent in Baltimore, where—as the reader has already seen—I was treated with comparative tenderness. I was now about to sound profounder depths in slave life. The rigors of a field, less tolerable than the field of battle, awaited me. My new master was notorious for his fierce and savage disposition, and my only consolation in going to live{160} with him was, the certainty of finding him precisely as represented by common ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass |
