"Passable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... government, and they paid no wages to their peons. These Spaniards, with the priests, however, are to be credited with whatever progress civilization made in the early days of California. They built the first passable roads, they completed rough surveys and they first discovered the wonderful fertility of the California soils. The towns they built were built solidly, with an eye to the future ravages of earthquakes and ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... precedes the journey itself was intended to be Tristram-like, but openly stigmatizes his own failure as "ill conceived, incoherent and not very well told!" After mentioning some few incidents and passages in this first section which he regards as passable, he boldly condemns the rest as "almost beneath all criticism," and the same words are used with reference to much that follows, in which he confesses to imitation, bad taste and intolerable indelicacy. He calls ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... are open and passable—passable at any rate for men on horseback—are called bush. When the undergrowth becomes, thick and matted, so as to be impregnable without an axe, it ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... have grieved over the capture of his almost son-in-law was never known, for events gave him no opportunity. Spring was now come, and with it the breaking up of winter quarters. The moment the roads were passable, the garrison of Brunswick, under the command of Cornwallis, marched up the Raritan to Middle Brook, driving back into the Jersey hills a detachment of the Continental army. In turn Washington's whole force was moved to the support of his advance, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... more than passable," replied he. "We have had many offers, but not such as come up to my expectations. Baronets are cheap now-a-days, and Irish lords are nothings; I hope to settle them comfortably. We shall see. Try this claret; you will find it excellent, not ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... how lovely they say she is. Sometimes I have thought her very passable; then again—" She broke off with a defiant little laugh. "Don't you know, sir, that you mustn't ask one lady to ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... Huts' and consisted of a cluster of wooden huts erected just off a narrow muddy road. At one time I am told, the mud was thigh deep; but now duck boards had been laid down, and though decidedly muddy the camp was quite passable. When we arrived it was quite late, and we found the camp in total darkness and every one asleep. But some of the batmen (or officers' servants) were roused, and they not only showed us a place to sleep in, but got us ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... the heights above Samunoz to cover the passage of the rivulet, which was so swollen with the heavy rains, as only to be passable at particular fords. While we waited there for the passage of the rest of the army, the enemy, under cover of the forest, was, at the same time, assembling in force close around us; and the moment that we began to descend the hill, towards ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... 1779, I had entered the sea service of the Honourable East India Company; and with passable good fortune had risen in it pretty fast. Enough to say, that by the spring of 1796 I was looking forward to the command of a ship. Just then my fortune deserted me. In a sudden fear of French invasion, our Government bought the four new ships which the Company had building ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... to restore water in a dry well, but we will try, if my brother Merlin fails. Brother Merlin is a very passable artist, but only in the parlor-magic line, and he may not succeed; in fact, is not likely to succeed. But that should be nothing to his discredit; the man that can do this kind of miracle knows enough to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was decided that a cage of white leghorn fowls, colored with aniline dyes, could be shown even in these barren times as "Royal South American Witherlicks"; that Joachim could be converted into a passable zebra, and "Plug" Avery still had in his van the celluloid lemon peel as well as the glass cube that created the illusion of ice in the pink lemonade. The village painter was set at work on the new gilding of the chariots in ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... of a lake or marsh dwelling, proving that Canterbury has been there from all time; and that the apparently defenceless Valley City was once chosen as an impregnable site, when the water-meadows of the Stour were impassable as marsh, or with difficulty passable as a shallow lagoon. And it is delightful to stand on the earthwork a few miles west and to say to oneself (as one can say with a fair certitude), "Here was the British camp defending the south-east; here the tenth ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... has developed into quite a passable-looking fellow, although he is rather shabby. But I suppose he ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... purified for a while the fetid inner darkness with divine light. She had entered the room, with her own base interests to serve. In her small sordid way she, like her employer, was persecuted by debts—miserable debts to sellers of expensive washes, which might render her ugly complexion more passable in Ovid's eyes; to makers of costly gloves, which might show Ovid the shape of her hands, and hide their colour; to skilled workmen in fine leather, who could tempt Ovid to look at her high instep, and her fine ankle—the only ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... bridge crosses the North River just above the junction, carrying the Harrisonburg road into Port Republic; but the South River, which cuts off Port Republic from the Luray Valley, is passable ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Warsaw. From the capital to the village of Wilanow there are three roads which are sandy in dry weather, and wet in spring and autumn. During the rains the whole tracks, and not only the ruts, are under water. They are only passable and worthy of the name of road in winter, when the sleighs have pressed down a hard ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... out, why clink the cannikin?' The story of Julia and her Romeo, like all other stories, had found its end, and merged a little later into the history of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Reddy. The family feud was buried, and Samson and Abel made very passable grandfathers and dwelt in peace one with another. Dick never told a living soul, not even Julia herself, of the stratagem by which Mrs. Jenny had succeeded in uniting them, and Mrs. Jenny, by complete reticence on the subject, disproved the time-worn calumny ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... war this particular stretch of road on which I was travelling had been shelled persistently, as was shown by the splintered tree-stumps which lined the road and the shell-craters which pitted the fields on either side. To keep this road passable under such wear and tear as it had been subjected to for many months would have been a remarkable accomplishment under any circumstances; to keep it open under heavy shell-fire is a performance for which the labor ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... home, and that's all there is to it. But how about me? I've got a hundred things to attend to every day. I've got to make my own clothes, or take a long chance on a mail-order house. That's why, when I do get anything that looks passable, I like it to ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... could not bear. It wanted but two days to Christmas and the gaiety of the season, forced or genuine, rang out everywhere. Christmas shopping, with its anxious solicitude or self-centred absorption, overspread the West End and made the pavements scarcely passable at certain favoured points. Proud parents, parcel-laden and surrounded by escorts of their young people, compared notes with one another on the looks and qualities of their offspring and exchanged loud hurried confidences on the difficulty ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... noggurs belonging to him and his partner. Binder's vakeel insisted upon giving a bullock to my people. This bullock I resisted for some time, until I saw that the man was affronted. It is impossible to procure from the natives any cattle by purchase. The country is now a swamp, but it will be passable during the dry season. Took equal altitudes of sun producing latitude 7 degrees 5' 46". The misery of these unfortunate blacks is beyond description; they will not kill their cattle, neither do they taste meat unless an animal dies of sickness; they will not work, ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... by telling you that for a woman of twenty-seven, with a face still passable, but with a form a little too much like that of the Emperor Nicholas for the humble part I play, I am happy! Let me tell you why: Adolphe, rejoicing in the deceptions which have fallen upon me like a hail-storm, smoothes over the wounds in my ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... last. "You don't know how I've worried about you; how I've blamed myself all these slow months for leaving you as I did. Of course you understood the company decided to send me in to the Iditarod suddenly, with only a few hours' notice, and to reach the interior while the summer trails were passable I had to take the steamer sailing that day. I tried to find you, but you were out of town; ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... bed betimes, and as I felt in passable good case, I went up to the castle to see whether I might peradventure get to my daughter. But I could not find either constable, albeit I had brought a few groats with me to give them as beer-money; neither would the folks that I met tell me where they were; item, the impudent constable ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... "It's passable!" said Pelle obstinately. He repented of having betrayed himself to Karna that evening, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and replied—"The thumb-print on square one is evidently a forgery, as is also number two, though it is a passable imitation. Three and four are genuine; five is an obvious forgery. Six is a genuine thumb-print; seven is a forgery, though a good one; eight is genuine; nine is, I think, a forgery, though it is a remarkably good imitation. Ten and eleven are genuine thumb-marks; twelve and thirteen are forgeries; ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... much one of years, but they gave Mrs. Samstag, in spite of the only slightly plump and really passable figure, the look of one out of health. Women of her kind of sallowness can be found daily in fashionable physicians' ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... mother's room. Colonel Brice's cocked hat and sword and spurs lay on the bed, and presently Hester brought in the blue coat and buff waistcoat from the kitchen, where she had been pressing them. Stephen must needs yield to his mother's persuasions and try them on—they were more than a passable fit. But there were the breeches and cavalry boots to be thought of, and the ruffled shirt and the powdered wig. So before tea he hurried down to the costumer's again, not quite sure that he was not making a fool of himself, and yet at last sufficiently entered into the spirit ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that we shall soon be over a dish of beefsteaks,' groaned Reuben. 'I am well-nigh famished. So fair a village must needs have a passable inn, though I have not seen one yet upon my travels which would compare with ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and elegance; the dancing master teach us the steps of ease and dignity; the musician instruct us in our throats and fingers; and the preceptor may inform our minds; and yet, with all these accomplishments, can we even be PASSABLE, if the highest accomplishment of all be neglected? and the HEAD be left to its own "disorder worse confounded," exhibiting a "paltry crown of mud and straw," placed upon an "edifice of ivory ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... to loaf along a passable road mounted on a light-footed horse, and Hazel enjoyed it if for no more than the striking contrast to that terrible journey in and out of the Klappan. Here were no heartbreaking mountains to scale. The ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... to the Rio Platte, and G—G assured them that within a week they would see its muddy waters and be relieved. Thus encouraged they held the lead, but several times vaqueros dropped back to make inquiries of drives and the water. The route was passable, with a short dry drive from the head of Stinking Water across to the Platte River, of which they were fully advised. Keeping them in sight, we trailed along leisurely, and as we went down the northern slope of the ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... Bronson was quite willing. He realized that he was busy most of the time, writing. He was not much of a companion except at the table. So Dorothy wrote to her friend, who was in Los Angeles and had already planned to drive East when the roads became passable. ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... Dick Chetwynd; he knows the town thoroughly, and is more up here than he is down in the country; he will recommend me to some lodging in a street that, without being the height of fashion, is at least passable. I have not the least wish to become a regular man about town, but I should like to go into good society. One cannot be at ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... Harry Colquhoun, his chief, had given them six weeks to go to Switzerland and be happy in, all in celebration of Charles Knollys's majority and marriage to his young wife. So they had both forgotten heaven for the nonce, having a passable substitute; but the powers divine overlooked them pleasantly and forgave it. And even the phlegmatic driver of their Einspaenner looked back from the corner of his eye at the schoene Englaenderin, and compared her mentally with the far-famed beauty of the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... off again at 1 a.m. "The surface was much better than it has been for the last few days, and this is the principal thing that matters. The route, however, lay over very hummocky floes, and required much work with pick and shovel to make it passable for the boat-sledges. These are handled in relays by eighteen men under Worsley. It is killing ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... effort to give us assistance. He saw the wrecks, as also the sand bank, on the morning after our disaster, and must have known that the reef was not all connected, since it is spoken of by him as lying in patches; but he did not seek to ascertain whether any of the openings were passable for the Bridgewater, and might enable him to take those on board who had escaped drowning. He bore away round all; and whilst the two hapless vessels were still visible from the mast head, passed the leeward extremity of the reef, and hove to for the night. ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... verses from Metastasio in support of my assertion. Metastasio was both a better critic and a better poet, although of the second order in each quality; his tyrants are less philosophical, and his chambermaids less dogmatic. Voltaire was, however, a man of abilities, and author of many passable epigrams, beside those which are contained in his tragedies and heroics; yet it must be confessed that, like your Parisian lackeys, they are usually the smartest when ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... could have evaded the watchman. The towers guarded the fords and the bridge and were themselves almost impregnable, except when a hard winter made the Thames, the Cherwell, and the many deep and treacherous streams passable, as happened when Matilda was beleaguered in Oxford. This natural strength of the site is demonstrated by the vast mound within the castle walls, which tradition calls the Jews' Mound, but which is probably earlier than the Norman buildings. Some other race had chosen ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... were to be, for a time at least, brought to an abrupt close. Fortunately it was found that a pony could be procured at that village, and, as they had entered the borders of the mountainous regions, and the roads were more open and passable than heretofore, it was resolved that the professor should ride ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... give firm foothold to the ranks of infantry charging across the death-trap of the neutral ground, where clogging, wet, slippery mud adds to the minutes under the hail of fire and every minute there in the open means hundreds of lives lost. The hard, dry road underfoot means merely that roads are passable for heavy guns and transport. The thick green foliage of the trees is so much cover for guns and the moving of troops and transport under concealment from air observation; the clear, blue sky promises the continuance ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... peoples of these Western nations are at present in a sufficiently tolerant frame of mind, or can in the calculable future come in for such a tolerantly neutral attitude in point of national pride, as to submit in any passable fashion to any alien ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... have then nothing to add, as is probable, you must content yourself with my good intentions, as you, I hope, will with this speculative campaign. Pray, for the future, remain at home and build bridges: I wish you were here to expedite ours to Richmond, which they tell me Will not be passable these two years. I have ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... lofty rock is so strongly grounded, bounded, and founded, that by force of man it can never be confounded; the foundation and walls are unpenetrable, the rampiers impregnable, the bulwarks invincible, no way but one it is or can be possible to be made passable. In a word, I have seen many straits and fortresses, in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and England, but they must all give place to this unconquered Castle, both for strength ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... rather an indifferent person in every way. His wealth, combined with his situation in the fashionable world, placed him in a fictitious light; but he had little intelligence, no originality, and only a passable personal appearance. I was constantly drawing the comparison between him and Harry Morton. Harry was so handsome, so brilliant in conversation—and this thought rendered poor Mr. Langley, with all his fastidious, elegant ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... better than any of the party had ever eaten in their lives, although most of them had travelled over the length and breadth of the North American wilderness. The ducks were perfect. Even the ptarmigan were declared passable; and the venison, with an inch of fat on the haunches—words were not found sufficiently expressive to describe it. Those who are philosophically inclined may suspect that some of this super-excellence lay in the keen appetites of the ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... The road was passable only from Avignon to l'Isle. They covered the nine miles between the two places in an hour. During this hour Roland, as he resolved to shorten the time for his travelling companion, was witty and animated, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... pushing up {101} the North and South Saskatchewan, up the Red Deer, up the Bow, up the Athabaska, up the Smoky, up the Pembina, and to press over the mountains wherever any river led oceanwards through the passes. This duty of finding new passable ways to the sea was especially incumbent on the company's surveyor and astronomer, David Thompson. He was formerly of the Hudson's Bay Company, but had come over to the Nor'westers, and in their service had surveyed from the Assiniboine ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... the advance-guard informed Andelot that the ford was passable, and that the Prince expected us to keep off the foe until the ladies, with a small escort, had ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... cape Verde in Gynny being parte of Africa, vnto cape Saint Augustine in Brasill beeing parte of America, it wanteth but little of 500 leagues the neerest distance betweene Africa and America. Likewise from the sayd North Cape to Noua Zemla by the course of East and West neerest, there is passable sayling, and the North partes of Tartaria are well knowne to be banded with the Scithian Seas to the promontory Tabin so that truely it is apparant that America is farre remooued and by a great sea diuided from any parte of Africa or Europa. And for the Southerne partes of the firste reueiled ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... back near the extensive ruins of the destroyed city: they soon found tolerably passable roads, the few unobstructed tracks of the former principal streets of the large royal city; but they were often obliged to scramble over the rubbish of overthrown buildings, across pillars, and the remains ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... for timber, fruit and vineyard culture; the separate areas to be devoted to these three classes were carefully calculated, described and marked on the plat. The number of roads required to connect the various fields and subdivisions with the village, were laid out and made passable by ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... during the noon hour, the former having found, by swimming, a passable ford near the mouth of Monday Creek, while the latter reported the ferry in "apple-pie order." No sooner, then, was dinner over than the wagon set out for the ferry under Forrest as pilot, though we were to ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... had heard it was a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand banquet. He invited nine of us, and we ate an excellent dinner at the principal hotel. In the midst of the jollity produced by good cigars, good wine, and passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. He took another look to assure himself that his senses had not deceived him and then read the items aloud, in a faltering voice, while the roses in his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... campaign in this "strange eventful history." We often find that the public discover virtues and good qualities in a man after his death, which they had previously given him no credit for; let this be as it may, 1828 may be deemed a very "passable" year. To use a simile, a sick man when recovering from a fever, makes slow progress at first; and we should fairly hope that the gallant ship is at last weathering the hurricane of the "commercial crisis," and that the trade-winds of prosperity will again visit us and extend their balmy influence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... extreamly delighted with the extraordinary things I saw in those Countries, you cannot but imagine I was exceedingly mov'd, when I heard of a Lunar World; and that the way was passable from these Parts. ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... night (not being able to sleep) I composed a couplet, as my first essay in poetry. It was passable; better, or at least composed with more taste than it would have been the preceding night, the subject being tenderness, to which my heart was now entirely disposed. In the morning I showed my performance ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... rear, to guard the baggage. Before daybreak, a large party of pioneers, or road-cutters, with a small guard of regulars, numbering in all about three hundred, had gone on before to open a passage for the army through the woods, and make the fords more passable ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... houses two stories high in them, and paved streets, the City having let leases for seven years, which he do conclude will be very much to the hindering the building of the City; but it was considered that the streets cannot be passable in London till a whole street be built; and several that had got ground of the City for charity, to build sheds on, had got the trick presently to sell that for L60, which did not cost them L20 to put up; and so the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... till he saw the old gentleman walk away, and get into his carriage which was waiting on the other side of the moat, it not being particularly convenient, on account of the total deficiency of anything like a bridge or passable road? to bring a carriage larger than a wheel-barrow up ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... horssemen of the Romans at the first encounter were put to the worsse, and Labienus the tribune slaine. In the second conflict he vanquished the Britains, not without great danger of his people. After this, he marched to the riuer of Thames, which as then was passable by foord onelie in one place and not else, as the report goeth. On the further banke of that riuer, Cassibellane was incamped with an huge multitude of enimies, and had pitcht and set the banke, and almost all the [Sidenote: The stakes ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (3 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed
... additional light upon the paths of life, but disperses the clouds with which it had overspread them before; it advances not the traveller one step in his journey, but conducts him back again to the spot from whence he wandered. Thus the land of Philosophy consists partly of an open champaign country, passable by every common understanding, and partly of a range of woods, traversable only by the speculative, and where they too frequently delight to amuse themselves. Since then we shall be obliged to make incursions ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... Jem Bottles, his clothes were well enough, and indeed he was passable in most ways unless it was his habit, when hearing a sudden noise, to take a swift dark look to the right and to the left. Then, further, people might shrewdly note his way of always sitting with ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... upon the method I took to make my life passable and easy with the most incorrigible temper in the world; but it is too long, and the articles too trifling. I shall mention some of them as the circumstances I am to relate shall necessarily ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... and railed, or pretended to rail, against their indecent conduct with great vigour. Thus at last we succeeded, though not without some difficulty, in making the corridor outside my door once more passable. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... be built up from a metal disc about 3/4 inch diameter and two slightly larger discs soldered concentrically to the sides. The width of the middle disc should be the same as that of the eccentric rod. A careful filer could make a passable eccentric by sinking a square or semicircular groove in the edge of a wide disc. The centre of the eccentric must be found carefully, and a point marked at a distance from it equal to half the travel of ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... he has his peculiarities. Belden is your real enemy. He is blue with malignity—so are most of the cowmen I met up there. I wish I could do something for the Service. I'm a thoroughly up-to-date analytical chemist and a passable mining engineer, and my doctor says that for a year at least I must work in the open air. Is there anything in this Forest Service ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... have been landed all round the beach; and the pandemonium at the gangway, the crush and jostle in the trade room, and the steady hoisting out of fresh merchandise from the main hold, made a very passable South Sea imitation of a New York department store. At any rate, there was the same loss of temper, the same harassed expression on the faces of the purchasers, and the same difficulty in getting change. As like as not you had to take it—the change—in the form of Jews' harps, screw ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... a passable fish of the pleuronect genus. Also, a slight fitful breeze or transient ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... "The march out of the prisoners began on the same day at 2.30 p.m. and lasted over six hours. They were conducted to trains and despatched to Germany. Some of the infantry made a good impression, while the pioneers and artillery can only be classed as passable. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... your self with a Man, you take no Care for poor me— Prithee tell me, what dost thou see about me that is unfit for Love— have not I a world of Youth? a Humour gay? a Beauty passable? a Vigour desirable? well shap'd? clean limb'd? sweet breath'd? and Sense enough to know how all these ought to be employ'd to the best Advantage: yes, I do and will. Therefore lay aside your Hopes of my Fortune, by my being a Devotee, and tell me how you came acquainted with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... nightmare, lunch was rather worse, and as for dinner, it was quite unspeakable. Miss Beezley seemed to gather force during the day. It was not the actual presence of the lady that revolted the Babe, for that was passable enough. It was her conversation that killed. She refused to let the Babe alone. She was intensely learned herself, and seemed to take a morbid delight in dissecting his ignorance, and showing everybody the pieces. Also, she persisted in calling him Mr MacArthur in a way that seemed somehow to point ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... tricked—cheated, and we must get back at full speed as soon as day begins to break. I have been uncomfortable for hours now, as I felt that our poor friends could never have come through such a forest as this. It is only passable ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... but with a much larger and shorter stem. This stem is hollow, and is filled with fine birch shavings. After smoking for some months these shavings impregnated with the oil of tobacco, are taken out through an opening in the lower part of the stem and smoked over. The Hudson Baymen make passable pipe-stems by taking a straight-grained piece of willow or spruce without knots, and cutting through the outer layers of bark and wood. This stick is heated in the ashes and by twisting the end in contrary directions the heart-wood may be gradually ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... of little chippes from a stick. Pilme, the dust which riseth: Brusse, that which lyeth: which termes, as they expresse our meaning more directly, so they want but another Spencer, to make them passable. ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... a passable Darby and Joan, no doubt. Still, it always vexes me to see people, who pretend to any ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... only point out the field for study and research; it belongs to each one's own genius and industry to deduce the results. However ugly you may be, rest assured that there is some style of habiliment which will make you passable. ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... to conduct the business of the department in my absence. Let us, as you say, scud forth. We will go to a Mecca. Why so-called I do not know, nor, indeed, do I ever hope to know. There we may obtain, at a price, a passable cup of coffee, and you shall tell me your ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... the full excise as when goods remain in the Prussian territory, or return back until we came again into the Zoll-strasse. It took some time to consider which was best to be done. To be sent about we knew not whither, and on roads scarcely passable, would prove a serious inconvenience; and on the other hand it was exceedingly mortifying to pay for such a trifle so enormous an excise. The officer was very civil, but told us it was not in his power to do otherwise. We concluded ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... were of sandstone. As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, 'it made,' as he said, coiling himself up with an air of snugness and comfort which contrasted strangely with his situation, 'unless when the wind was due north, a very passable gite for an old soldier.' Neither, as he observed, was he without sentries for the purpose of reconnoitring. Davie and his mother were constantly on the watch to discover and avert danger; and it was singular what instances of address seemed dictated by the instinctive attachment of the poor ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Caroline was middling, Eugene played very well, Lauriston was rather heavy, Didelot passable, and I may venture to assert, without vanity, that I was not quite the worst of the company. If we were not good actors it was not for want of good instruction and good advice. Talma and Michot came to direct us, and made us rehearse before them, sometimes altogether ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... which were passable at all seasons, brought a new era in correspondence and business. Lines of stages and wagons, as well known at that time as are the great railways of today, plied the new thoroughfares, provided some of the comforts of travel, and assured the safer and more rapid delivery of goods. This ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... like the maids of old, but passable, As girls go now: nor am I much amaz'd That Clinia dotes upon her. But he has, Alas, poor lad! a miserable, close, Dry, covetous, curmudgeon to his father: Our neighbor here; d'ye know him?—Yet, as if He did not roll in riches, his poor son Was forc'd to run away for very ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... is not probable that other books will under present conditions repeat the history of these books. There is now no wide region of fertile country rapidly filling with settlers and separated from their former sources of supply by great distance and by mountain ranges unprovided with passable roads. Even the more newly settled regions of the country are reached by railroads and the parts early settled are covered by a network of railroads, of telegraph and telephone wires which bring the consumer and ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... sent from camp to replace them, while many more were all but ruined. Spiltdorph and I walked out to the place the next day and found it an almost perpendicular rock, though two hundred men and a company of miners had been at work for near a week trying to make it passable. We could see the detachment slowly cutting its way through the valley below, and I reflected gloomily that, at so slow a rate, the summer would be well-nigh gone before the army could reach its destination. Indeed, I believe it would have gone to pieces on this first ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... the enormous stem of the sequoia supported quite a forest. The capricious network of its upper boughs presented the aspect of a wood crowded with trees, which no gap rendered passable. ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... being used for winter sports. They furnish excellent conditions for snow-shoe trips, skiing and sledding. The people who have camps on government land use their places for week-end excursions during the snow season when the roads are passable. The White Mountain National Forest is used more for winter sports than any other government woodland. At many of the towns of New Hampshire and Maine, huge carnivals are held each winter. Championship contests ...
— The School Book of Forestry • Charles Lathrop Pack
... undoubted, for, so long as we kept to the valley in which the river ran, we could not be wrong, but the task was to keep along it by a way that was passable to people carrying loads. ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... returns Phil, shaking his head. "No, I shouldn't. I was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and swallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... amount of travel of late weeks, the snow in the street had been trodden to a passable condition. But blinded by the darkness every now and then, with a gasp and a flounder, she would step out of the path into the deep snow on either side, and once hearing a sleigh coming along, she had to plunge into a drift nearly as high as her waist, and stand ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... was little enough, and that he must now leave Oxford and work to support the household. He knew some Latin and Greek; but without a degree he had little chance of teaching what he knew. He was a fair carpenter, and a more than passable smith. . . . He revolved many schemes, but chiefly found himself wondering what it would cost to ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in the hope of hearing the block stop directly, as proof of its being only a few feet down, and passable if he lowered himself and then climbed the opposite edge; but a full minute elapsed before he heard a dull, echoing roar, which continued for some time, and, after a pause, was continued again and again, giving terrible ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... length provided. The supports of the burned wagon-bridge were still standing at a level with the surface of the water. They were timbered and planked over, and the railroad bridge was also covered with planking, thus giving us two passable bridges. The trains had all been crossed over, and a part of the artillery. Orders had been issued for the troops to begin crossing at dark, when Hood disclosed his purpose to attack. The artillery was ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... the economic section, expressed his belief that the simple item of food-waste alone would justify the above-mentioned estimate. One potent cause of waste to-day is that very many of the women do not know how to buy economically, and are neither passable cooks nor good housekeepers. Edward Atkinson estimated that in the United States the waste from bad cooking alone is over a ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... 1851 he accomplished there, with help of the country carpenter, "a very elegant little theatre," of which he constituted himself manager, and had among his actors a brother of the lady referred to in his letter, "a very good comic actor, but loose in words;" poor Augustus Stafford "more than passable;" and "a son of Vernon Smith's, really a capital low comedian." It will be one more added to the many examples I have given of his untiring energy both in work and play, if I mention the fact that this theatre was opened at Rockingham for their first representation on ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... staying there, who'd run away from Sydney from an old maid who wanted to marry him. He'd cleared from the church door, I believe. He was scarcely more'n a boy—about nineteen—and a soft kind of a fellow, something like you, only good-looking—that is, he was passable. Well, as soon as the woman found out where he'd gone, she came after him. She turned up at the boarding-house one Saturday morning when Bobbie was at work; and the first thing she did was to rent a double room from the landlady ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... years, it should be added, Stevenson's health was very passable. It often, indeed, threatened to give way after any prolonged residence in Edinburgh, but was generally soon restored by open-air excursions (during which he was capable of fairly vigorous and sustained daily exercise), or by a spell of life among ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... father's house lay before me. The island, too, I took for the grove that surrounded our house. On reaching its border, I literally dismounted, and shouted out for Charon Tommy. There was a stream running through our plantation, which, for nine months out of the twelve, was only passable by means of a ferry, and the old negro who officiated as ferryman was indebted to me for the above classical cognomen. I believe I called twice, nay, three times, but no Charon Tommy answered; and I awoke as from a pleasant dream, somewhat ashamed of the length to which my excited imagination ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... not yield for a moment to regrets. She accepted that stretch of dreary future with a defiant acquiescence. She bowed pleasantly to the acquaintances whom she met. They were not many that morning, for the road was hardly passable in places, being overcurved here and there with blue, diamond-crested, snowlike cascades, and now presenting ridges like graves. Half-way to the school-house, Maria saw the village snow-plough, drawn by a struggling horse and guided by a red-faced man. ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... one more glance from the window; for there is a mighty jingling and rattling, the children are all running to see something, and the carriage is approaching. "The carriage": it is said advisedly; for there is but one street on the island passable to such an equipage, and but one such equipage to enjoy its privileges,—only one, that is, drawn by horses, and presentable in Broadway. There are three other vehicles, each the object of envy and admiration, but each drawn by oxen only. There is the Baroness, the only lady of title, who ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... a cigar? I don't smoke myself; my throat won't stand it; but I understand these are passable. Grant left them here. He's a chimney, that man Grant. ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... off as soon as he had finished the treaty. He took wagons with him, but was obliged to halt and leave them in Powell's Valley, for beyond that even so skilful a pathfinder and road-maker as Boon had not been able to find or make a way passable for wheels.[8] Accordingly, their goods and implements were placed on pack-horses, and the company started again.[9] Most fortunately a full account of their journey has been kept; for among Henderson's followers at this time was a man named William Calk, who jotted down in ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... bay. On this the sun shone apparently on what appeared to be open water. For one moment a look of alarm flitted over the wizard's face, as he glanced quickly shoreward to see whether the ground-ice was passable; but it was only for a moment, for immediately he perceived that the light had dazzled and deceived him. It was not water, but new ice—smooth and refulgent as a mirror. The fringe of old ice on shore was disrupted and impassable. There ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... were all good to him. From Carr's Indian woman—who could, he now learned, speak passable English—down to the sloe-eyed youngest Carr of mixed blood, they accepted him as one of themselves. However, it happened to be Sophie who waited on him most, who impishly took the greatest liberties with him, ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... flies, but Buck was no aviator. He was forced to take a most tortuous, roundabout route, and when he finally emerged on the first passable track heading approximately in the right direction, the sun was low and there seemed little chance of his accomplishing his purpose in the few hours ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... absurd. Hear me. In the theatre properties is a fine dress for Lady Modish and two more for Peggy and Susan Careless. Not perhaps what such ladies might expect, but passable. And—I know men. There's not a man will look at their gowns for looking at their faces, though the suits are well enough when all's said. I vow, Madam, you have so long lived beside the two that you forget what beauties they are. I wager my next benefit to a China orange ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... sheep, and that surrounded as they were by a population of upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand souls, cut off by countless leagues from the outside world, defended on three sides by virgin forests and by marshes hardly passable to European troops. One word from the Provincial would have set the missions in a blaze. A word would have brought clouds of horsemen — badly armed, 'tis true, but knowing every foot of marsh and forest, all the deep-beaten tracks which wind ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... length of fibre and peculiar cloying sweet, as types of daily living. The adage seemed droll enough to me then, and it is odd even now that I have become familiar with it in the talk of old-fashioned people. Interpreting it as they do, I dispute it stoutly. Parsnips may be only passable to most palates even when buttered. They would be intolerable with vinegar. Furthermore,—before we drop the figure,—if anything can butter them, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... the fields the keen-eyed pigeons coo; They fill their crops, and then away they fly. Pigeons are sometimes passable in stew, And always ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... In fact I didn't care in the least whether I saw the thing again or not. All I cared about was reaching the Khan and putting down my bag. We found tracks where some scrubby plants were growing, where the surface was passable, but as we neared the entrance to the Khan, where carts and horsemen had made a veritable quagmire, we stuck, all three, without apparently any prospect of getting on at all unless we abandoned our baggage. However, some Arabs came to our assistance and relieved us of our ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... is seemly, and thy velvets and brocades are passable, but the heavy articles are not fit to offer to a Mohawk Sachem. There must be a reduction of prices, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... at the case of my unfortunate friend Ponto, a good-natured, kindly English gentleman—not over-wise, but quite passable—fond of port-wine, of his family, of country sports and agriculture, hospitably minded, with as pretty a little patrimonial country-house as heart can desire, and a thousand pounds a year. It is not much; but, ENTRE NOUS, people can live ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... comparatively easy, there was no defile as on the Khurd-Kabul side, and the kotal, 8,000 feet above the sea, was reached by a gradual ascent from Butkhak. However, I found the Khurd-Kabul much less difficult than I had imagined it to be; it might have been made passable for carts, but there was no object in using it, as the Lataband route possessed the additional advantage of being some miles shorter; accordingly I decided upon adopting the latter as the line of communication ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... hide proved a passable supper, and Rolf curled up to sleep. The night would have been pleasant and uneventful, but that it turned chilly, and when the fire burnt low, the cold awakened him, so he had a succession of naps ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the edge for a considerable distance, he came to a spot where it was passable, and made his way down to the river bank. Here he indulged in a long drink of fresh water, and then began to examine the caves which perforated the rocks. These caves Cuthbert knew had formerly been the abode of ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... paucity of wagon-roads in the Archangel district, and those that are passable in the summer are many miles apart, with infrequent cross-roads. Roads which are good for "narrow-gauge" Russian sleds in the winter when frozen and packed with several feet of snow, are often impassable ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... less passable seemed the gulf between the great heiress, lady of the manor, and the groom or page who, barring his shirt, had nothing, not even his coat, but what belonged to his master, the stronger became love's temptation to overleap ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... limestone. Salapunco is the natural gateway to the ancient province, but it was closed for centuries by the combined efforts of nature and man. The Urubamba River, in cutting its way through the granite range, forms rapids too dangerous to be passable and precipices which can be scaled only with great effort and considerable peril. At one time a footpath probably ran near the river, where the Indians, by crawling along the face of the cliff and sometimes swinging from one ledge to another on hanging vines, were able to make their way to any ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... shoulders, nor are there beasts of burden here which could be used for this purpose: nor are the roads and passes sufficiently prepared, although I have commenced to get them in readiness so as to be passable: and also it was very inconvenient to leave the sick here in an open place, in huts, with the provisions and supplies which are on land: for although these Indians may have shown themselves to the discoverers and ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... stopped, and I saw Mr Hay. I durst not speak, but he instantly said, "He is alive. I sent my servant to Waterloo this morning; he is just returned, and Sir William is better than they expected. I have horses standing harnessed, and you will soon be there if the road is passable, though it was not yesterday, ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... road, a safe and unobstructed passageway or road shall be kept open by such person, firm or corporation for public use, and as soon as practicable such road shall be fully restored to its original safe and passable condition. When such crossing is made by excavation at a depth of more than thirty feet below the surface of such road, the person, firm or corporation making same shall be liable to the county commissioners ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous
... then finished off with a sculptor's care. An easier-going peasantry might often forego renewal. Indeed, I cannot but think the farmers take a natural delight in this exalted form of mud pies; they work away on already passable specimens with such a will. But who does quite outgrow his childish delights? And to make of the play of childhood the work of middle life, must be to foil the primal curse to the very letter. What more enchanting pastime than to wade all day in viscous mud, ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... first twilight (morning). He that giveth a hundred kine with horns mounted with gold to a Brahmana well-posted up in the Vedas and all branches of learning, and he that daily listeneth to the sacred narrations of the Bharata, acquireth equal merit. As the wide ocean is easily passable by men having ships, so is this extensive history of great excellence and deep import with the help of this chapter ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... steaming clods at his side. Bronzed by frost and sun, with his brick-red neck and arch of chest revealed by the coarse blue shirt that, belted at the waist, enhanced his slenderness, the repentant prodigal was at least a passable specimen of the animal man, but it was the strength and patience in his face that struck the girl, as he turned towards her, bareheaded, with a little smile in his eyes. She also noticed the difference ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... as they were called, are notoriously poor eating, but in the hands of the Confederate soldier were made to do good duty. When on the march and pressed for time, a piece of solid fat pork and a dry cracker was passable or luscious, as the time was long or short since the last meal. When there was leisure to do it, hardtack was soaked well and then fried in bacon grease. Prepared thus, it was a dish which no Confederate had the weakness ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... did not make the swamp passable except by the roadway because warm springs here and there prevented the ice from freezing sufficiently strong to bear the troops. The German gunners noted too that their shots fell practically without effect, plunging quietly into the mud to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... pastures produces edible, nut-flavored tubers, called by the Indians taboose. The common reed of the ultramontane marshes (here Phragmites vulgaris), a very stately, whispering reed, light and strong for shafts or arrows, affords sweet sap and pith which makes a passable sugar. ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... daybreak) he was joined by 200 rank and file of the 60th Rifles under Capt. Travers, and 140 of the 16th Regiment under command of Capt. Hogge, which troops had bivouacked at New Germany overnight. On the report of Lieut.-Col. John Hillyard Cameron that the Erie and Niagara Railway was passable to a point near Fort Erie, Col. Lowry moved his column by rail as far as Frenchman's Creek (Gen. O'Neil's old camp ground). Here he detrained his troops, and throwing out an advanced guard and flanking lines of skirmishers, moved promptly ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... said Spiridion, getting up at once, "that my little griefs should make me forget your serious claims upon my hospitality. Come, sir, here are bread and olives, here is a flask of a very passable wine—all at your service. Afterwards ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... were not always quite honest in their church contributions, and had to be publicly warned, as the records show, that they must deposit "wampum without break or deforming spots," or "passable peage without breaches." The New Haven church was particularly tormented by canny Puritans who thus managed to dispose of their broken and worthless currency with apparent Christian generosity. In 1650 the New Haven "deacons informed the Court that the wampum which is putt into the Church ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... crew was in unchallenged possession—and would remain in possession until the river went down and fords were once more passable. That a reign of terror would prevail so long as they tarried in town, in no wise dampened their ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... this off and cleaning it. It would not come as fresh as she desired, and there were some parts of it frayed and rubbed so that the velvet was nearly lost, but other portions were quite good, and by cutting out the worn parts and neatly joining the good pieces she at last evolved a quite passable sash. Having the sash ready she dressed herself to see how it looked, and was delighted. Then becoming dissatisfied with the severe method of doing her hair she manipulated it gently for a few minutes until a curl depended by both ears and two or three very tiny ones ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... "fell," and the bridge became again passable to Miles and his waddling horse. The operators disconnected their wires, put their apparatus in order, locked the wooden cases over their instruments, and rode in triumph (Mr. Loudon had come in the ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... to furbish up any intellectual entertainment for readers from the excessively dry bones of my subsequent blockading, especially off the mouth of the Sabine. Only a French cook could produce a passable dish out of such woful material; and even he would require concomitant ingredients, in remembered incidents, wherein, if there were any, my memory fails me. Day after day, day after day, we lay inactive—roll, roll; ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan |
