"Tough" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way to learn about cuts of meat is to go often to market and talk to the butcher whenever he has a minute to spare. Some cuts of meat are tough with coarse fibers and much connective tissue. They should be ground if, like Hamburg steak, they are to be cooked by a short process, such as broiling. If not ground, the tougher meats are usually cooked ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... get us when we go ashore; but, bad luck to thim, they'll find it tough if they come ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... you manage things properly. It needn't be Verena. I expect Verena, for all she is so soft and fair, is a tough nut to crack; but you can bring Briar and Patty. My father will be quite satisfied if three of you are present. The fact is, he is awfully hurt at the thought of your all thinking yourselves too ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... Macready, as I expected, a tough, sagacious, long-headed Scotchman, and a collector of news both from choice and profession. He was able to give me a distinct account of what had passed in the House of Commons and House of Lords on the affair of Morris, which, it appears, had been made ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... rights," said Pritchard, "but we should have been tried for murder if Boy Niven 'adn't been unusually tough. He told us he had an uncle 'oo'd give us land to farm. 'E said he was born at the back o' Vancouver Island, and all the time the beggar was a balmy ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... words previously employed in heathen services, just as the names of gods stood ineradicable in the days of the week; to such words old customs would still cling silent and unnoticed and take a new lease of life. The festivals of the people present a tough material: they are so closely bound up with its habits of life that they will put up with foreign additions if only to save a fragment of festivities long loved and tried. In this way Scandinavia, probably the ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... Bow, Two and Three, have skull-caps of lemon yellow and dull gold thread, and blue dungaree jackets faded and threadbare. They are young lusty fellows, and Stroke, who is a tough-looking, middle-aged man, with a wiry beard, has a skull-cap between rose and brown, and round it a salmon-coloured wisp of a turban—over them there is the arch of the frogged foot of the lateen sail. All but Bow are in full sunlight, sweating at their oars, he ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... who may be in jeopardy, as if laughing and mocking at his misfortune. It is a harmless bird, and I seldom allowed them to be destroyed, as they were sure to rouse us with the earliest dawn. To this list of Fraser's spoils, a duck and a tough old cockatoo, must be added. The whole of these our friends threw on the fire without the delay of plucking, and snatched them from that consuming element ere they were well singed, and devoured them with ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... crystallization to scholars, and you can never get them away till the poor fellows effloresce into dust. Do not be deceived. The tutor breakfasts on coffee made of beans, edulcorated with milk watered to the verge of transparency; his mutton is tough and elastic, up to the moment when it becomes tired out and tasteless; his coal is a sullen, sulphurous anthracite, which rusts into ashes, rather than burns, in the shallow grate; his flimsy broadcloth is too thin for winter and too thick for ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... a grand sight, for the species grows to a great height, and the trunk may be fifty or more feet without a branch; near the top the branches cluster together, displaying tough and ribbed leaves. Many of these leaves are ten or twelve inches long. The tree bears fruits of moderate size, each containing one or two nuts, which are said to have the flavour of strawberries and cream. From the bark of the tree, soaked in water, a bread has been made, which ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... in him. Not only was he increasing in size and weight, but he was storing up strength and strenuousness for the work that lay before him. It would take much muscle to force those long yellow teeth of his through the hard, tough flesh of the maple or the birch or the poplar. It would take vigor and push and enterprise to roll the heavy billets of wood over the grass-tufts to the edge of the water. And, most of all, it would take strength and nerve and determination to tear himself ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... my childish heart that I had committed no serious offense and, as can readily be imagined, my indignation was boundless. It was the first act of injustice I had ever experienced. Feeling that the punishment was undeserved, and smarting under it, with abundance of leisure upon my hands, I bit the tough tow apron into many pieces. When Miss Forbes after a few hours, which seemed to me an eternity, came to relieve me from my irksome position and noticed the condition of the apron, she regaled me with a homily upon the evils ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... required in cooking quenelles, as if they are overdone they become tough; ten minutes is enough for those the size of a small egg. Before moulding the whole, poach a small one, break it open, and ascertain if it is smooth, light, yet firm. They should melt in the mouth. If they are at all tough, add a little more cream ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... to and fro. The focal point of their destination was the figure at the center of the disturbance. Most of the blows found other marks. Four or five men could have demolished Clay. Fifteen or twenty found it a tough job because they interfered with each other at every turn. They were packed too close for hard hitting. Clay was not fighting but wrestling. He used his arms to push with rather than to strike blows ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... part possessors of obstinate hens that would not lay eggs. Eggs were firm at twenty-five shillings a dozen, and the hen that remained so contemptuous of mammon, so unredeemed by cupidity, so unmoved by the "golden" opportunity, most certainly deserved death. Therefore it was that an odd tough member of the feathered tribe was now and then discussed in secret. There was little conviviality about these gatherings assembled in back rooms where the light could burn with impunity. The unsuspecting ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... next instant, for the shark darted away with a speed that made the tough string cut deep ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... new litter That came to Flip or Fan Grew finer and grew fitter With tea-leaves in the bran; We learned which stalks were milky And which were merely tough, What grass was good for Silky And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... that precise moment, his tough life starved and hammered out of his hardy body, the exhausted Fish was breathing his last—still in the traces; and Jan, in whom the fires of life, though better laid than those of ninety-nine dogs in a hundred, were burning ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... Fredericks breathed. "I'll find it myself." The man was too easy to find, he thought savagely. It ought to be tough to ...
— Sight Gag • Laurence Mark Janifer
... a hard life to which he left his young wife and the four lit-tle ones; but she was a brave good wo-man; she had to work hard of course, and so did the boys; but the moth-er taught them from books as well; and lit-tle James was but four years old when he went to his first school. He was a tough, strong boy, and soon did a large part of the farm work; in the long sum-mers he had the most work to do, and then in the win-ters he could go to school; he was a brave boy, for the school was miles from home, and his road lay through the deep woods, in which wild beasts roamed ...
— Lives of the Presidents Told in Words of One Syllable • Jean S. Remy
... obstacle to greater productivity and growth. Portugal has been increasingly overshadowed by lower-cost producers in Central Europe and Asia as a target for foreign direct investment. The coalition government faces tough choices in its attempts to boost Portugal's economic competitiveness and to keep the budget deficit within the 3% ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... weapons— ever ready, in the hand of an Indian, either to cut his way through the forest, to fell the timbers for his wigwam or his canoe, to slay the game that his arrows have brought to the ground, or to cleave the skull of his enemy—did old Masasoyt and his devoted followers divide the large tough climbing plants that obstructed their passage. Sometimes, also, when the sun was totally obscured and the necessary windings in their course would hive rendered them uncertain whether they were following the right ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Scotch fashion, to extend hospitality to any wayfarer who needed it. In this way Dr Burton has described himself as the guest of Mrs Gordon at Abergeldie, who, as he said, made a request that when he came to visit her he would if possible arrive before midnight. Invercauld, Glenkindie, Tough, and many other country-houses, were visited ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... down," says I to him, "But nobody's holding you there, my friend. Life is a stream where men sink or swim, And the drifters come to a sorry end; But there's two of you living and breathing still— The fellow you are, and he's tough to see, And another chap, if you've got the will, The man that you still have ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... ignorant, the mysteries of the human mind were a sealed book to me as yet, and I stupidly looked upon myself as a tough and unforgivable criminal. I wrote to Dr. Holmes and told him the whole disgraceful affair, implored him in impassioned language to believe that I had never intended to commit this crime, and was unaware that I had committed it until I was confronted ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... he said; "we'll pull him through. Tod is a tough little chap with plenty of fight in him yet. I've seen them much worse. It will ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... pin, my feet clear of the perpendicular deck, and my ears tortured by the sound of men overboard crying for help—men who had not lashed themselves. Among them I knew was the skipper, a mild-mannered little fellow, and the second mate, an incompetent tough from Portsmouth, who had caused me lots of trouble by his abuse of the men and his depending upon me to stand ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... back in my own room again. Already it seems to me that to get here again is like coming home. I have been going about for the last few days amongst the mountaineers and trying to make their acquaintance. It is a tough job; and I can see that there will be nothing but to stick to it. They are in reality the most primitive people I ever met—the most fixed to their own ideas, which belong to centuries back. I can ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... Tooth-ache.—Tough diet tries the teeth so severely, that a man about to undergo it, should pay a visit to a dentist before he leaves England. An unskilled traveller is very likely to make a bad job of a first attempt at tooth-drawing. By constantly pushing and pulling an aching tooth, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... looked at her. He saw for a moment with her eyes— saw that the tenseness of her girlhood had vanished, and he was astonished. But he knew he was strong and hale, well set-up and a good man to be friends with, and as he gripped his knees, he felt the tough muscle under his fingers, and ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... is very unhealthy. The principal diseases are continued, remittent, and intermittent fevers, diarrhoea, and dysentery. The Takruries are a tough race, and resist well the noxious influences of the climate; but not so the Abyssinian, or the white man: the first is almost certain to die should he attempt to spend the dreaded months in the malarious low country, the second most probably ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... all the time," said Russ. "If we can catch him within four or five billion miles of the star, he won't be too tough to handle. Be getting plenty of radiations even then, but not quite as much as ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... some pretty hot work. Of course the Serpent cannot get up that creek, though she can place herself at the entrance and prevent their getting away; but there still remains the work of capturing or driving them down the creek, and that is likely to be a very tough job." ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... is a tough hardness, not a brittle hardness, like that of glass or flint, which will splinter violently at a blow in the most unexpected directions; but a grave hardness, which will bear many blows before it yields, and when it is ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... peacock at the high board, goodly to look upon, bitter to eat; two swans (oh, how tough); vultures, puffins, herons, cranes, curlews, pheasants, partridges (out of season or in season didn't matter); and scores of domestic fowls—hens, geese, pigeons, ducks, et ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... consequence, and I should look upon myself as her murderer; nay, as her murderer by the cruellest of all methods, by breaking her heart." "Break her heart, indeed! no, no, Jack," cries the uncle, "the hearts of women are not so soon broke; they are tough, boy, they are tough." "But, sir," answered Nightingale, "my own affections are engaged, and I never could be happy with any other woman. How often have I heard you say, that children should be always suffered to chuse for themselves, and that you would let my cousin ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... that I have said, thou dost not gather, worthy reader, that Peter Stuyvesant was a tough, sturdy, valiant, weather-beaten, mettlesome, obstinate, leather-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited old governor, either I have written to but little purpose, or thou art very dull ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... no more thought of burned bridges, no heartache and empty longing, only an eagerness of anticipation. He had come a long way, in a double sense. He had learned something of the essential satisfaction of striving. A tough trail had served to toughen the mental and moral as well as the physical fiber of him. He did not know what lay ahead, but whatever did so lie would never dismay him again as things had done in the past, in that too-recent ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... will tough it out together through the winter," said she; "and, like as not, those of us who are spared will have to make all their plans all over again. It will be all ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... embark'd—the ship got under way, The wind was fair, the water passing rough: A devil of a sea rolls in that bay, As I, who 've cross'd it oft, know well enough; And, standing upon deck, the dashing spray Flies in one's face, and makes it weather-tough: And there he stood to take, and take again, His ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... gayly and wondered at Belton's dullness. Belton, poor fellow, was having a tough wrestle with poverty and was trying to coin something out of nothing. Now and then, at some humorous remark, he would smile a faint, sickly smile. Thus it went on until they arrived at the station. Belton by this time decided upon ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... to read. On the whole, a small book should be printed on paper which is as thin as may be without being transparent. The paper used for printing the small highly ornamented French service-books about the beginning of the sixteenth century is a model in this respect, being thin, tough, and opaque. However, the fact must not be blinked that machine-made paper cannot in the nature of things be made of so good a texture ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... to be pretty tough, sir, to tell you—some of this," stammered Herrick, frowning at the carpet. "Penelope got awfully angry and said she was going to leave. I apologized and tried to square myself, but she wouldn't have it. She said I had insulted her and she refused to stay in my place another ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... lickin's wasted on Abe. Father was proudest of him, but he couldn't break him. Hi! but I've crawled under the woodshed to hear him yell, and father would tan him with a raw-hide, but he couldn't break him; couldn't get a sound out of him. Big, and hard, and tough—Chrissy thought she knew a man; she thought she took the ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... o'clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the neighbouring gutter—the other, without doubt, had been carried away by the murderer. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do and dare: If a host had withstood him there, He had braved a host with little care In his lusty youth and his pride, Tough to grapple though weak to snare. He comes, ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... said, saying: 'He has come for the lobsters. When he dives in he is for one of us. Not like the old man we ate yesterday, tough to dryness with age, nor like the young men whose members were too hard-muscled, but tender, so tender that he will melt in our gullets ere our bellies receive him. When he dives in, we will all rush for him, and the lucky one of us will get ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... comparatively easy to make a strong flour, but it requires very careful milling to make a flour of good color from it. Probably the wheat which combines the most desirable qualities for flour-making purposes is the red Mediterranean, which has plenty of gluten and a tough bran, though claimed by some to have a little too much coloring matter, while the body of the berry is white. By poor milling a good wheat can be made into flour deficient both in strength and color, and by careful milling a wheat naturally deficient in strength may be made into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... up to be quite a man, son," he said in a fatherly tone. "Those freckles mean a tough skin. A weak sort of skin tans quick an' the toughest just sunburns. You're halfway between. That's all right for freckles; but it don't go in life. It's best to be on one side or the other, an' the right side's ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... were baked eggs, lard scones made of rye, pieces of black bread, and something else.... We had a drink from a little crooked glass that wouldn't stand, and then we fell upon the food.... Coarse grey salt, dirty, greasy cakes, eggs tough as india-rubber, but how nice it ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... flashed into my mind that these tough fellows might have dogged us up here, to play some of their tricks on us when in camp; and that holding Bumpus was meant to draw the rest off, so they could run away with our haversacks, which they ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... in sight o' them. A ole boar wuz in charge o' them, an' he wuz a hard-lookin' citizen, I want ter tell yer. He hed tushes five inches long an' both o' 'em ez sharp ez razors. I took a shot at him, but his hide wuz so tough thet ther ball just glanced off him, an' he made a break fer me. I turned an' fled. Ther river wuz not fur erway, an' I knowed thet if I beat them hawgs ter ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... went on Bastin, "is that I have work to my hand here. Also, the locum tenens at Fulcombe no doubt runs the parish as well as I could. Indeed I consider him a better man for the place than I am. That old Oro is a tough proposition, but I do not despair of him yet, and besides him there is the Glittering Lady, a most open-minded person, whom I have not yet had any real opportunity of approaching in a spiritual sense. Then there are all these natives who cannot learn without a ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... affairs,—Jansoulet, on leaving the Chamber one Thursday, ordered his coachman to drive him to the hotel de Mora. He had not been there since the fracas on Rue Royale, and the idea of appearing before the duke caused something of the same panicky sensation beneath his tough epidermis that a schoolboy feels on being summoned before the master after a scuffle in the class-room. However, it was necessary to submit to the embarrassment of that first interview. It was currently reported in the committee rooms that Le ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... canst thou part sadnesse and melancholy my tender Iuuenall? Boy. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough signeur ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... thick the hedge proved. Only a magic sword could have done this work and remained sharp, and only a fairy arm could have proved strong enough to hew through the tough wood. But the magic sword and fairy arm were at work, ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... these vital lines is a very tough job. It is a job which requires tremendous daring, tremendous resourcefulness, and, above all, tremendous production of planes and tanks and guns and also of the ships to carry them. And I speak again for the American ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... I have heard, they are pretty tough customers. I heard that one man, in an encounter with four of the animals, had one of his eyes scratched out and was otherwise badly clawed before he could shoot them. Half starved, ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... hear all the news about them from you,' said Miss La Creevy. 'How is the old rough and tough monster of Golden Square? Well, of course; such people always are. I don't mean how is he in health, but how is he going on: how is he ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... earth he tore the fibres, Tore the tough roots of the Larch-tree, Closely sewed the bark together, Bound it ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... details of this pirate treasure tale of his is liable to grab a dirt shovel and rush right off down there to begin diggin' Florida up by the roots. He loses sleep worryin' as to whether someone else won't get there first. It would be tough if Auntie should take you along, though. I'd ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... five of which were Thurian, four Syracusans, one from Anaia, one Milesian, and one Leon's own. Accordingly the Chians marched out in mass and took up a strong position, while thirty-six of their ships put out and engaged thirty-two of the Athenians; and after a tough fight, in which the Chians and their allies had rather the best of it, as it was now late, retired to ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... slowly, wretchedly, shot for shot, Danton himself dragging up a bale of ammunition and serving it to the men. The maid, unaided, had overturned the canoe where it lay, and with quickened breath was pressing her needle through the tough bark. Danton lost the flint from his musket, and crept down the bank to set a new one. Suddenly he exclaimed, "There ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... rag which he had used as a shaving towel, and wiped away a repentant tear. His soul was subdued within him. He went to meeting, but declined officiating in any capacity, pleading a pain in his stomach as an excuse. At dinner he found it impossible to finish the remaining quarter of a very tough old rooster Phillis had stuffed and roasted for him. At sundown he ate a small-sized hoe-cake and a tin pan of bonnyclabber; then observing "That he believed he was put into dis world for nothing but to have trouble," he took ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... enough Never please thee? I will seize thee, Hold thee fast, And thy nimble wood so tough With my ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... massive walls surrounding it are liberally loop-holed, and it can be entered from one side only. We entered a large courtyard with buildings on all sides. At the back a great mountain ascends obliquely, and in front an inaccessible precipice descends to the river. It was doubtless a tough morsel for the Turks in the olden days, though modern artillery would make very short ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... the old miner. "It's jest th' same as it was. There it is," and he spread a crinkled sheet of tough parchment in front of Tom. It was covered with a rude drawing, and with names of places scrawled ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... their large forms close to the boat. It is said that they resort to the lake to feed on a favourite grass that grows on its bottom in shallow water, and which they dive for. Their flesh is not eaten, except that of the young ones, for it is tough and tasteless. The milk is nutritious, and of a character between that ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... protect another fundamental civil right: freedom from crime and the fear that stalks our cities. The Attorney General will soon convene a crime summit of the nation's law-enforcement officials. And to help us support them we need a tough crime control legislation, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George H.W. Bush • George H.W. Bush
... my natural rest, I hope may bring me round after the persecutions I have undergone from the dustman with his head tied up, which I just now mentioned. The tough job being ended and the Mounds laid low, the hour is come for Boffin to stump up. Would ten to-morrow morning suit you, partner, for finally bringing Boffin's ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... vicinity of tuberculous joints are of common occurrence, and play a considerable part in the production of what is clinically known as white swelling. New connective tissue forms in the peri-articular fat and between muscles and tendons. It may be tough and fibrous, or soft, vascular, and oedematous, and the peri-articular fat becomes swollen and gelatinous, constituting a layer of considerable thickness. The fat disappears and is replaced by a mucoid effusion between the fibrous bundles of connective tissue. This is what was ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Moro replied. "It grows in swamps, often near the sea. It looks like a gigantic fern. Its wide leaves we lap one over another, and tie them to the bamboo frame by withes of tough cogon grass." ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... "A pretty tough looking character, that! But I suppose you see a great many just such specimens in this quaint ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... "Remember, as usual, the birth rate has been at least tripled. An increased metabolism means increased food consumption, and no shark on Terra was ever full. This brute runs forty feet when allowed, in size, that is. A giant carnivorous fish, very tough." ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... influence of the organ of destructiveness, since the carcase is never applied to any useful purpose, but left to decompose and to defile the air of the forest. The flesh is occasionally tasted as a matter of curiosity: as a steak it is coarse and tough; but the tongue is as delicate as that of an ox; and the foot is said to make palatable soup. The Caffres attached to the pioneer corps in the Kandyan province are in the habit of securing the heart of any elephant shot in their vicinity, and say it is their custom to eat it in Africa. The ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... and at last he wanted a life of more quietude, more quietude was what he craved. The life of a retail butcher is a most exciting and wearying one. Nobody satisfied with their meat; as if it mattered in a world of change! Everybody complaining of too much bone or too little fat; nobody wishing tough chops or cutlets, but always seeking after fine joints, when it's against reason and nature that all joints should be juicy and all cutlets tender; always complaining if livers are not sent with every ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... request is interpreted and one of the natives runs to fetch his. Truly it is a formidable instrument. The wooden handle is only a few inches in length, but the lash is more than thirty feet. It is made of many thongs of stout, tough sealskin sown together, and tapering till a single thong goes off almost to a point. The owner gives us a specimen of its powers by cracking it, but I am glad he does not practice on anything living. Stepping backwards from ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... Dr. Teackle, who explained that there was nothing seriously the matter with Mr. Temple, except an attack of foolhardiness in coming up the bay when he should have stayed in bed—but even that should cause his friends no uneasiness, as he was still as tough as a lightwood knot, and bubbling over with good humor; all he needed was rest, and that he must have—so please everybody ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... swept out of existence by the defenders behind the barricades; and every back door and window of every house accessible from the veld was strongly protected by heavy timber and loopholed for rifle fire: thus when Henderson's scheme of defence was complete the town presented a very tough nut to crack for an enemy without artillery or firearms. The greatest difficulty, it appeared, was the shortness of ammunition, consequently my arrival with a wagon-load of the commodity was regarded as scarcely ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... of the crocodile, when the creature either saw them, or obtained their wind; in an instant it rushed to the water; at the same moment, the two harpoons were launched with great rapidity by the hunters. One glanced obliquely from the scales; the other stuck fairly in the tough hide, and the iron, detached from the bamboo, held fast, while the ambatch float, running on the surface of the water, marked the course of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... well as a strong heat would meat otherwise prepared. We have some meats also and bread, and drinks, which taken by men, enable them to fast long after; and some other, that used make the very flesh of men's bodies sensibly more hard and tough, and their strength far greater ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... him. It was a moment of perfect stillness: the island slept in sunshine, and even the waves had ceased to break over the opposing rocks. A thousand strange and singular thoughts rushed into his mind, but his first purpose was ever uppermost; and at length, unfolding his girdle of skin, he tied the tough cincture round the chest, and, exerting all his powers, dragged his mysterious waif into ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... the sky, and the army encamped for the night; but the whole Saracen host had also marched and encamped in a wood not far from the Franks. Meanwhile, as Charlemagne slept he had dreams of evil omen. Ganelon, in his dreams, seized the imperial spear of tough ash-wood, and broke it, so that the splinters flew far and wide. In another dream he saw himself at Aix attacked by a leopard and a bear, which tore off his right arm; a greyhound came to his aid but he knew not the end of the ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... his reins over his arm, and following Mr. Merrill within the stockade, "I had a tough time getting away from ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... bite. It is seen from the size of a pin's head to that of a pea, and is common in all the native huts in this country. It sucks the blood until quite full, and is then of a dark blue color, and its skin so tough and yielding that it is impossible to burst it by any amount of squeezing with the fingers. I had felt the effects of its bite in former years, and eschewed all native huts ever after; but as I was here again assailed in a European house, I shall detail the effects ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... it was made of stone which, being brittle, was liable to crack; the picture characters which delineate the object in the latter dynasties shew that metal took the place of the stone axe-head, and being tough the new substance needed no support. The mightiest man in the prehistoric days was he who had the best weapon, and knew how to wield it with the greatest effect; when the prehistoric hero of many fights and victories passed ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... tradespeople, and their like, whose social position was not clearly defined, could never be sure how far they could go and yet preserve their "respectability." When they wished to be "proper," they invariably overdid the thing. It was not as if they belonged to the "tough" element, who had no appearances to keep up. Polk Street rubbed elbows with the "avenue" one block above. There were certain limits which its dwellers could not overstep; but unfortunately for them, these limits were poorly defined. They could never be sure of themselves. At an ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... than four miles an hour. Behind this deliberate animal he seated himself, and giving the driver his address, he charged him gravely not to go too fast, and settled back against the cushions to comfortable meditations. "There is no better way to think out a tough problem," he used to insist, "than to take a very long drive ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... O sides, you are too tough! Will you yet hold? How came my man i'th' Stockes? Corn. I set him there, Sir: but his owne Disorders Deseru'd ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... laughed below, while old Theon, having brought out the very best old wine, and actually proposed in person, by way of mending matters, the health of the Emperor of Africa, locked himself into the library, and comforted his troubled soul with a tough problem of astronomy, which had been haunting him the whole day, even in the theatre itself. But Hypatia sat still in her chamber, her face buried in her hands, her heart full of many thoughts; her eyes of tears. She had smiled away her father's fears; she could not smile ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... a well-fattened, milk-fed chicken that no other chicken has. Every interstice of his flesh is juicy and oily. No part of him is tough, stringy muscle, as is the case if he is "farm-fattened" while being allowed to range where ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... but grows upon a brere; Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough; Sweet is the eglantine, but sticketh here; Sweet is the firbloome, but its braunches rough; Sweet is the cypress, but its rynd is tough; Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill; Sweet is the broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough; And sweet is moly, but his root is ill. Amoretti, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... out now every day getting stone for the walls of the new house. They worked their utmost together each in his own way: the one young, and with his young body firmly set, quick to see his way, to mark out the stones that would suit; the other ageing—tough, with long arms, and a mighty weight to bear down on a crowbar. When they had managed some specially difficult feat, they would hold a breathing-space, and talk together in a curious, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... They won't be in yet, if that's any consolation. Always a tough meet—[softly] as the tiger said ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... within us; and that prolonged occupation of the jaws goes a length to persuade us we are filling. All the better when the substance is indigestible. Tramps of the philosophical order, who are the practically sagacious, prefer tough grain for the teeth. Woodseer's munching of his nuts awakened to fond imagination the picture of his father's dinner, seen one day and little envied: a small slice of cold boiled mutton-flesh in a crescent of white fat, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Nick a cool bow when she was ready to go, and left him plunged in gloom, but stubbornly unrepentant. "It's a tough proposition I'm up against," he thought, "but a man's as good as his nerve. And I'll fight till the next spring rains sooner than let her slip away ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... The tough and elastic wood Can be fitted with the silken string [3]. The mild and respectful man Possesses the foundation of virtue. There is a wise man;—I tell him good words, And he yields to them the practice of docile virtue. There is a stupid man;—He says on the contrary ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... tough but really he is quite easy. You've only got to get hold of his hair," said Pollyooly quickly. "But of course the prince has very short hair, only he isn't tough at all," she added in the grave tones of one weighing ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... great audience sat dark, silent and impassive, and it could only have been the tough hide of the Old War-horse that made him immune to their cold contempt. I said to myself, "What a terrible audience it is! Who is fit to stand before it?" These men had seen, known and suffered the terrible, nameless ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... Japanese always have an abundant supply of paper within the left bosom of their loose robes, in a capacious pocket. This is used for various purposes; one species, as soft as our cotton cloth, and withal exceedingly tough, is used for a handkerchief; another furnishes the material for taking notes, or for wrapping up what is left after a feast. On the present occasion, when the dinner was over, all the Japanese guests simultaneously spread out their long folds of paper, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... four years past, it hez been tough To say which side a feller went for; Guideposts all gone, roads muddy 'n' rough, An' nothin' duin' wut 't wuz meant for; Pickets afirin' left an' right, Both sides a lettin' rip et sight,— Life war n't wuth hardly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... through the bunches of tough twigs; the massive boulders closed the view on every side; and Seraphina followed me with her hands on my shoulders. This was the best way in which I could help her descent till the declivity became less steep; and then I went ahead, forcing a path for her. Often we had to walk into ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... rounds of his camp at sunset, carefully picking up and scrutinizing the feet of his horses and sending the farrier to tack on here and there a starting shoe. Gaunt and sunburned were his short-coupled California chargers, as were their tough-looking riders; fetlocks and beards were uniformly ragged; shoes of leather and shoes of iron showed equal wear. A bronze-faced sergeant, silently following his young chief, watched him with inquiring eyes and waited for the decision that was to condemn ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... abstinence that is most becoming, and to moderate one's desires and partake of the good things of earth sparingly is the best way to garner their benefit. No doubt, too, Addison's modesty and tendency to shyness saved him from many a danger. "Bashfulness is the tough husk in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... feasting, not the second, the third, nor even the seventh. David was the eighth son of Jesse the Bethlehemite. Jesse would seem to have been a landholder, as his fathers had been before him, a man of substance, with fields and flocks and herds. We first meet David, a ruddy, fair-haired lad, tough of sinew and keen of eye and aim, keeping the sheep among ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... need; for I stoopt sudden to the grass that did grow oft and plenty in this place and that, and was so tall as my thigh, and to my head in the middle of the dumpings where it did sprout. And lo! it was wondrous tough. ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... "Belike I could have done better, an he had given me time to pull a young tree up by the roots. But I hated to spoil the Queen's blade upon his tough stick or no less tough hide. He had a warrant for my arrest which ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... all somnambulists moving about in this dream-world we call practical life. Behind this tough matter that takes so many shapes and colors, what strange secrets are hidden, just beginning to reach our dull senses—X-rays, radium emanations, ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... that he was hospitably inclined, he placed before me a dish of rice mixed with sugar and honey, which I thought very nice; as also some mangoes, and several other fruits, of which I was not sorry to partake, as the not over-well cooked repasts of tough birds and buffalo flesh, on which I had subsisted for the last two days, had made me wish ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Tough luck!" Polly laid her hand unconsciously on his arm. "Don't give up, though. You may make good if you work awfully ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... Henry left the room; and before another word could be said, Sir Nigel was there, having only retired on the King's entrance. The news was of course all over the house, and with an old attendant's freedom he exclaimed, 'So, Sir, the English have found tough cummers at last!' ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is not merely a prophecy of rugged paths; it is also a promise of shoeing for the road, whatever it may be. One who is preparing to climb a mountain, craggy and precipitous, would not put on silk slippers; he would get strong, tough shoes, with heavy nails in the soles. When God sends us on a journey over steep and flinty paths he will not fail to provide us ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... "A tough hide and some facility of expression"—to quote the author's modest estimate of his qualifications—have enabled Rear-Admiral Sir DOUGLAS BROWNRIGG to make his Indiscretions of the Naval Censor (CASSELL) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... As we were starting to enjoy our first nap, Guzman, with hospitable intent, sent us two bowls of steaming soup, which at first glance seemed to contain various sizes of white macaroni—a dish of which one of us was particularly fond. The white hollow cylinders proved to be extraordinarily tough, not the usual kind of macaroni. As a matter of fact, we learned that the evening meal which Guzman's wife had prepared for her guests was made ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... him now," exulted Omega. "He can never leave the lake alive, much less reach the cottage. Despite his tough armor of scales this high potential will ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... ornamented with silver buckles. A broad-brimmed hat, beneath which the hair falls down sometimes to below the shoulders, finishes a toilet which on weekdays or work-days has to give place to white bragou-bras of tough material, something more sombre in waistcoats, and the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... for a moment," responded Nick. "But I suppose you can do as you're told at a pinch. This filthy thing has got jammed. It's too tough a job for a single-handed pigmy like me." He glanced quizzically up at Muriel with the last remark, but she quickly averted her eyes, bending to speak to ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... all my friends, as it happened to be my own wedding, and at our own place, we couldn't take part with either of them; but we endeavored all in our power to red (* Pacify or separate) them, and a tough task we had of it, until we saw a pair of whips going hard and fast among them, belonging to Father Corrigan and Father James, his curate. Well, its wonderful how soon a priest can clear up a quarrel! In five minutes there wasn't a hand up—instead of that they were ready ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... and one of the strongest of the ties which bind a man to this earth broken. It would not be wonderful if, under these circumstances, the coldest and toughest of men should lie down and die. But Mr. Greeley was neither cold nor tough. He was keenly sensitive both to praise and blame. The applause of even paltry men gladdened him, and their censure stung him. Moreover, he had that intense longing for reputation as a man of action by which men of the closet are so often torn. In spite of all that his writing ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... was very proud of my steed. My misgivings were fully realised, for Traveller would not walk a step. He took a short, high trot—a buck- trot, as compared with a buck-jump—and kept it up to Fredericksburg, some thirty miles. Though young, strong, and tough, I was glad when the journey ended. This was my first introduction to the cavalry service. I think I am safe in saying that I could have walked the distance with much less discomfort and fatigue. My father having thus given me ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... and oak. The acorns are a favorite food of the pigs, and the pigs are a favorite food of the Chinese—and of foreigners, too, for that matter. No domestic pork that I have ever tasted can excel a young acorn-fed wild pig! Even a full-grown sow is delicious, but beware of an old boar; not only is he tough beyond description, but his flesh is so "strong" that it annoys me even to see it cooked. I tried to eat some boar meat, once upon a time—that is why I feel so ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... finally desisted. The same thought was in both minds: Were they doomed to die in this strange world, fated never to see Earth again? Well, a soldier of fortune must expect to meet with reverses. Still, it was a tough break. After a long silence Ward said, "How were we to know that the heads lived on the ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg
... were hissing and crackling in the frying-pan over it, and a strip of deer's flesh, with the ramrod run through it, was frizzling. It was pronounced excellent. There was a slight aromatic bitterness that gave a zest and flavour to it, and the flesh inside was by no means so tough as Godfrey had expected to find it. When all three of the voyagers had satisfied their hunger, the brands were as usual extinguished, the embers thrown overboard; then returning to the canoe, they lay down, and were in a very few minutes fast asleep. They slept for ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... ropes near first base a tough-looking crowd of Wellsburgans greeted the professionals with ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... talk with him. That day the daisy had an eye indeed— Colloquized with the cowslip on such themes! We find them extant yet in Jacob's prose. But by the time youth slips a stage or two While reading prose in that tough book he wrote 30 (Collating and emendating the same And settling on the sense most to our mind) We shut the clasps and find life's summer past. Then, who helps more, pray, to repair our loss— Another Boehme with a tougher book And subtler meanings of what roses ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... has been thrust upon me, I have no other alternative than to see it through. You ought to be man enough, you ought to be fair enough to see it in that light. If conditions were reversed, Mr. Landover, and you were in my place, I would be the last to oppose you, because I have learned in a very tough school that it pays to live up to the regulations. Everywhere else in the world it is a question of capital and labour. Here it is a question of labour alone. There is no such thing as capital. Socialism is forced upon us, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... was slowly perishing as a conscientious governess in the brownstone region of New York. He rescued me from that and we bought a farm with our combined savings. We became real farmers, up with the sun and to bed with the same. Andrew wore overalls and a soft shirt and grew brown and tough. My hands got red and blue with soapsuds and frost; I never saw a Redfern advertisement from one year's end to another, and my kitchen was a battlefield where I set my teeth and learned to love hard work. Our literature was government agriculture ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... a fiddle-peg; the regulating pin of the spinning-wheel. Tent, heed. Tent, to tend; to heed; to observe. Tentie, watchful, careful, heedful. Tentier, more watchful. Tentless, careless. Tester, an old silver coin about sixpence in value. Teugh, tough. Teuk, took. Thack, thatch; thack and rape the covering of a house, and so, home necessities. Thae, those. Thairm, small guts; catgut (a fiddle-string). Theckit, thatched. Thegither, together. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... was hot there, I can tell you! No one wished to approach it. Then my little captain—my Bonaparte of Brienne—dashed at the gun. He loaded it; he was not killed. Oh, what a pleasure-party that was! There he met two other tough ones like himself,—Duroc and Junot. Ah, that Junot! He became my general later. He was a cool joker. Napoleon wished some one to write for him. He asked for a corporal or a sergeant who could write and stand fire at the same time. Sergeant Junot came to him. 'Write!' said Napoleon. And as Junot ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... ursine perception to confound a man with his clothes. When the napping skirt of Foster's duster seemed to be within reach, the over-eager bear made a grab for it, and released his grasp of the tree. The backward spring of the tough sapling nearly dislodged the clinging man, but it also gave him an idea, and when the grizzly began a repetition of the manoeuvre, he shifted his position a little higher and to ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... Fertilizers.—The soil best adapted to the beet is a deep, light, well-enriched, sandy loam. When grown on thin, gravelly soil, the roots are generally tough and fibrous; and when cultivated in cold, wet, clayey localities, they are often coarse, watery, and insipid, worthless for the table, and comparatively of ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... marsh-side plaiting something with his fingers. Round him, the ground was strewn with rushes, some loose, and some in bundles, but for every one the workman chose he threw away a hundred, because it was not tough and strong. And as he plaited, and twisted, and knotted, and tested, there was fire in the shepherd's eye, and thunder ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... equal ardour. No one but the brave Outalissa was permitted to whisper tales of love by the side of her nocturnal couch in the hour of darkness(1). The rock-moss he gathered was always the sweetest; and the produce of his hunt, however old and tough, was, in her opinion, the youngest and tenderest. They had loved from childhood, and with the deepest affection. But it was not permitted them to become inhabitants of one lodge, the occupants of one conch. Death came to the flower of the Chepewyans, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... wilderness, where water could be easily found, and a rude box-cabin built. Then a gang-plow was procured, and a dozen mustang ponies, worth ten or fifteen dollars apiece, and with these hundreds of acres were stirred as easily as if the land had been under cultivation for years, tough, perennial roots being almost wholly absent. Thus a ranch was established, and from these bare wooden huts, as centers of desolation, the wild flora vanished in ever-widening circles. But the arch destroyers ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... about that," said the other, with a whistle, and an uplifting of his eyebrows. "If we go poking around Thunder Mountain, and Peg is there, with a couple of the tough cowboys he has trailing after him most of the time, Spanish Joe and Nick Jennings, perhaps we'll run up against a peck ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... up in a quantity of green leaves, and in this state expose it to the fire till it is well steamed; after which the leaves are taken off, and it is next hung up to dry in the smoke, which causes the flesh to become tough and hard. Both the hair and teeth are preserved, and the tattooing on the face remains as plain as when the person was alive. The head, when thus cured, will keep for ever, if it ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik |
