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More "Mettle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Children.—The words of the text-book, however, like the words of the teacher, are often open to misinterpretation, especially in the case of young pupils. This may be illustrated by the case of the student, who upon reading in her history of the mettle of the defenders of Lacolle Mill, interpreted it as the possession on their part of superior arms. An amusing illustration of the same tendency to misinterpret printed language, in spite of the time and opportunity for studying ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... king's blood, maintained, in private, a father's familiarity with the princes of York, though on state occasions, and when in the hearing of others, he sedulously marked his deference for their rank—"no, George, calm and steady thy hot mettle, for thy brother's and England's sake. I grieve as much as thou to hear that the queen does not spare even thee in her froward and unwomanly peevishness. But there is a glamour in this, believe me, that ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stopped with me on his way to Oued Tolga, for the well-making. If he has recommended me, I shall be on my mettle, Monsieur." ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the physical scale and executive efficiency of preparation, supply, equipment and despatch that I would dwell upon, but the mettle and quality of the officers and men we sent over and of the sailors who kept the seas, and the spirit of the nation that stood behind them. No soldiers or sailors ever proved themselves more quickly ready for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... off at full speed; the horse of the unknown equalled in strength and mettle those of Don Augustin's envoys. The journey was rapidly accomplished; and at dawn of the third day, they could trace in the distance the clock-tower of the Hacienda del Venado, and an hour afterwards they dismounted in the court-yard. Although it was at that early hour when the sun sheds its most ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... a lad of sense and mettle,' said the old man; 'and on the first night that ye bring them hame, the plumpest and the fattest o' them shall be slaughtered for the marriage-feast of you ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... footsteps. There was no verdure here except the martial figures of the great cacti, those soldiers of the waste, that guard the eternal solitudes. There was no wind. Only a breathless sense of brooding in the remote wonder of the sky. The desert is a hard country; a country to try out the mettle of a man and leave it all dross or ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... days' time for Plymouth, there to form part of the escort of a large fleet of merchantmen and transports bound to the West Indies under convoy. But now it was that our new second and third lieutenants showed their mettle, for on the very night of my arrival on board they organised two formidable pressgangs, which they led ashore, one party landing at Portsmouth and the other at Gosport; and between them they managed to make a clean sweep of pretty nearly all the crimps' houses ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... the better," cried the jovial chief. "Little John's mettle will be the more up: on with you, sir; he who breaks ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fool that heads him?' Hold hard, and let him pass! He's out among the oziers He's clear upon the grass. You grip his flanks and settle, For the horse is stretched and straining, Here's a game to test your mettle, And a sport to try your training, When the Chiddingfolds ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is certainly one of the most extraordinary examples on record of the successful pursuit of knowledge under difficulties; but there have been many striking examples among slaves of lads showing this mettle. My ex-slave friend, to whom reference has been made, is certainly to be reckoned as one of these. It is probable that his mother may have passed as a woman of education, seeing that she knew the English alphabet and was able to count a hundred. Be this as it may, however, like a genuine ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... so open;—to you, he might have been content to tell his story of a ghost—that of a buccaneer with his pistols as he lived—whom he had once encountered in a seaside cave near Buckie; and that would have been enough, for that would have shown you the mettle of the man. Here was a piece of experience solidly and livingly built up in words, here was a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Numerous wonderful escapes were heard of. What with the vibrations of the demoralising water-melons and their hap-hazard propensities in the choice of victims, it is difficult even vaguely to convey an idea of the test to which the mettle ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... wrote. "Why not accompany him so far in his return to France? I have something very particular for Mr. Stewart's ear; and, at any rate, I would be pleased to meet in with an old fellow-soldier and one so mettle as himself. As for you, my dear sir, my daughter and I would be proud to receive our benefactor, whom we regard as a brother and a son. The French nobleman has proved a person of the most filthy avarice of character, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into Parliament when Repeal was a Whig buggaboo to frighten the Tories, were not to be hallooed from their seats because Repeal had suddenly grown into a national demand. These men, we said, may become your allies, if you do not put them upon their mettle by your rudeness and impatience. If they join you, they will be faster and more useful friends than men who compensate for every defect by pledge-bolting ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... magnet-South! O glistening, perfumed South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... at such things, yet the conclusion is unavoidable." [Pa. House Journal, 1842, Vol. ii, Appendix, 172-531.] were often outwitted by this class of adventurers, and were only too glad to treat with them as associates, on the recognized commercial principle that success was the test of men's mettle, and that the qualities productive of such success must be ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... little chill in the garden!) have been against me. I tried to get Macbeth deferred but it could not be—and I think my only hope of enduring a long drive, and appearing as Lady Macbeth on Saturday evening with any approach to "undaunted mettle"—is to shut myself up in absolute silence and rest for several hours before we start. This, alas! means that it would be better for your young ladies (what is left of them, after brain fag and fish dinners!) to return to you by an earlier ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... Durer's wonderful pictures were quite different from Titian's, inasmuch as his work was fuller of detail and careful finishing, but Titian was as great in another way. His effects were broader, but quite as satisfying. However, the German criticism put him on his mettle, and he answered that if he had thought the greatest value of a painting lay in its fiddling little details of finishing, he too would have painted them. To show that he could paint after Durer's fashion, as well as his own, he undertook the "Tribute Money," and ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... and Don John, going on board of a light frigate, passed rapidly through that part of the armada lying on his right, while he commanded Requesens to do the same with the vessels on his left. His object was to feel the temper of his men, and rouse their mettle by a few words of encouragement. The Venetians he reminded of their recent injuries. The hour for vengeance, he told them, had arrived. To the Spaniards, and other confederates, he said, "You have come to fight the battle of the Cross,—to conquer or die. But whether you die or conquer, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... systems,' returned the soldier. 'This lady is of a reticent, independent, complicated disposition, and any sudden proceeding would put her on her mettle. You don't dream what my impatience is, my boy. It is a thing transcending your utmost conceptions! But I proceed slowly; I know better than to do otherwise. Thank God there is plenty of time. As long as there is no risk of Somerset's return my ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... by the heel and hand admonish'd, She ventured forward on the light; And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight! Warlocks and witches in a dance; Nae cotillon brent-new frae France, But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, Put life and mettle i' their heels: At winnock-bunker, i' the east, There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast; A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, To gie them music was his charge; He screw'd the pipes, and gart them skirl, Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. Coffins stood round, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... grand-uncle was not accustomed to, and being incensed beyond all measure at the liberties taken by Bogandoran, he resolved again to try his mettle, whether life or death should be the consequence. Having no other weapon wherewith to defend himself but his biodag, which, considering the nature of his opponent's constitution, he suspected much would be of little avail to him—I say, in the absence of any other weapon, he sheathed the biodag ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court still makes good for the Sol and keeps the court upon its mettle. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be made him out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... don't think we shall miss you—in that way. Oddly enough—I suppose Matilda was on her mettle—the house seemed quieter when I came home. The children were in bed. I smelt something good from the kitchen. Don't imagine that we shall not be able to do without ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... gently touch a nettle, It will sting thee for thy pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, Soft and harmless ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sair astonished, Till, by the heel and hand admonished She ventured forward on the light; And wow! Tam saw an unco sight! Warlocks and witches in a dance; Nae cotillion brent new frae France, But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels Put life and mettle in their heels. At winnock-bunker[74] in the east, There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;— A towzie tyke,[75] black, grim, and large; To gi'e them music was his charge: He screwed the pipes and gart them skirl,[76] Till roof ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... was capable of carrying M. Wilkie beyond himself. His emotion was now spent and his mind had regained its usual indifference. He flattered himself that he was a man of mettle—and he remained as cold as ice beneath his mother's kisses. Indeed, he barely tolerated them; and if he did allow her to embrace him, it was only because he did not know how to refuse. "Will she never have done?" he thought. "This is a pretty state of ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... my Lord Let there be some more test, made of my mettle, Before so noble, and so great a ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... inclined, and that the polished boy will be the polished man. Polish, it is to be understood, is not inconsistent with strength, but rather adds to it. The strongest machinery is of the finest polish, and the Damascus blade is of the surest mettle. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... forgotten him. And all the time her eyes were absent, and the straight line in her cheek held the dimple a prisoner. Blair, who had begun with a sort of good-natured, rather condescending amusement at his old playmate, found himself, to his surprise, on his mettle. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... said to Sir Sagramore: "Yonder is certes a knight of terrible strength; now let us go and see of what mettle he be." ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... danced itself pale and departed; dusk stalked into the town from the east; and still the watcher upon the steps and the warden of the gate (he of the lilac-bushes and the Bible) held their places and waited—waited, alas! in vain.... Ah! Joe, is THIS the mettle of your daring? Did you not say you would "try"? Was your courage so frail a vessel that it could not carry you even to the gate yonder? Surely you knew that if you had striven so far, there you would have been met! Perhaps you foresaw that not one, but two, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... present author would have known instantly that it was rot that about cleaving chines, but the man who wanted to let the Disenchanteried House and the man who wanted to have it let to him were of other mettle. ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... that the sea-coast had known for very many years. For days the seas rose against the rocks in a cursing fury—the battle of rock and wave gave pretty spectacle to the surrounding country and suddenly the warriors, having proved the mettle of their hardihood, turned once again to good fellowship. But the wind and the rain had done their work. In the week before Easter, with the first broadening sweep of the sun across the rich brown earth and down into the depths of ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... the right from the silent smithy, and steeply uphill to Whiddycross Common, she took it gamely though with fast failing breath. She had been foaled in Troy parish, and marvellously she was proving, after thirty years (her age was no less), the mettle of her ancient pasture. While he owned her, Gunner Sobey—who in extra-military hours traded as a carrier and haulier between Troy and the market-towns to the westward—had worked her late and fed her lean; but the most of us behold our receding youth through a mist ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Drusilla described the sinking of her own heart as these bits of information were given her, though she had not failed to reprimand Collins for the repetition of foolish gossip. This, it seemed, had put Collins on her mettle in defense of her own order, and she had replied that, if it came to that, m'm, the contents of the waste-paper baskets at Tory Hill, though slightly damaged, had borne ample testimony to the truth of the tale as Miss Maggie Murphy told it. If Mrs. Fane ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... stopped, laid down his own bow and sword, and made another step in advance, smiling still, and making all Indian signs of amity: but the arrow was still pointed straight at his breast, and he knew the mettle and strength of the forest nymphs well enough to stand still and call for the Indian boy; too proud to retreat, but in the uncomfortable expectation of feeling every moment the shaft quivering between ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Colonel prefers trusting to cooler heads and more experienced arms," good-humouredly observed Captain Erskine. "Blessington is our senior, and his men are all old stagers. My lads, too, have had their mettle up already this morning, and there is nothing like that to prepare men for a dash of enterprise. It is with them as with blood horses, the more you put them on their speed the less anxious are they to quit the course. Well, Johnstone, my brave Scot, ready for another skirmish?" ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... other was under the image of a journey or voyage. Spenser chose the former, as Dante and Bunyan chose the latter. Spenser looks on the scene of the world as a continual battle-field. It was such in fact to his experience in Ireland, testing the mettle of character, its loyalty, its sincerity, its endurance. His picture of character is by no means painted with sentimental tenderness. He portrays it in the rough work of the struggle and the toil, always hardly tested by trial, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... Both on one settle— Halldor and I, Men of no mettle. Youth ails thee, But thou'lt win through it; Age ails me, And ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... drew his sword rapidly and came on, but I was ready to receive him. He began to fence to try my mettle, but I lunged right at his chest, and gave him three inches of cold steel. I should have killed him on the spot if he had not lowered his sword, saying he would take his revenge at another time. With this he went off, holding ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... then, we cannot be circling inward to be swallowed up in the whirlpool of national destruction. If our borders are invaded, it is only as the spur that is driven into the courser's flank to rouse his slumbering mettle. If our property is taxed, it is only to teach us that liberty is worth paying for as well as fighting for. We are pouring out the most generous blood of our youth and manhood; alas! this is always the price that must be paid for ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a strangely explanatory mood, that was, to say the least, suspicious. Either she had come out purposely to torment me, or she was afraid of what she knew was in my mind, and wanted to make me forget it. But my mettle was up for good. I had no notion of ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... said he. "I always had heard that you were a man of mettle, and I wanted to see what stuff you were made of; so I bade my retainers put your courage to the test. That was a masterly throw of yours. Well, you must excuse this churlish reception: come and ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... her,' Mr. Thomasson answered doggedly. 'Mr. Dunborough is a gentleman of mettle, and he ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... soft-hearted, that's where it is, boy. You want your mettle dipping in cold water, to temper it. ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... camp she found it in a bustle. Batouch, resigned to the inevitable, had put the cook upon his mettle. Ouardi was already to be seen with a bottle of Pommery in each hand, and was only prevented from instantly uncorking them by the representations of his mistress and an elaborate exposition of the peculiar and evanescent virtues of champagne. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... mettle was roused, and he dashed into the wood, while, with every pulse throbbing with excitement, we boys followed the direction taken, finding that the poachers were evidently retreating, from the sounds ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... for never had an Englishman such a chance of showing English mettle, and winning renown for the English name. Uncle, you must do something for me and my ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... was on his mettle now. Surely no cardinal could sing fuller, clearer, sweeter notes! He began at the very first, and rollicked through a story of adventure, colouring it with every wild, dashing, catchy note he could improvise. He followed that with a rippling ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of a year had saved one dollar and a half. His pay being increased to one hundred dollars for the next year, he ventured upon the luxury of a pair of boots. In September, 1815, having proven his mettle as an active, capable and honest young man, he was translated to a large jobbing house, on Cornhill, Boston, the salary being board and clothing. Having been born at Jeffrey, New Hampshire, June 5, 1797, at the end of three years apprenticeship in the Boston establishment, he arrived ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... sustaining the spirit of cattle while at work. This song, which was probably sacred in its origin, and to which mysterious influences must once have been attributed, is still thought to possess the virtue of putting animals on their mettle, allaying their irritation, and of beguiling the weariness of their long, hard toil. It is not enough to guide them skilfully, to trace a perfectly straight furrow, and to lighten their labor by raising the plowshare or driving it into the earth; no man can be a consummate husbandman ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... doubt—it had a most salutary effect. It held up the mirror to weaknesses and deficiencies which, if Tennyson did not care to acknowledge to others, he must certainly have acknowledged to himself. It roused him and put him on his mettle. It was a wholesome antidote to the enervating flattery of coteries and "apostles" who were certainly talking a great deal of nonsense about him, as Arthur Hallam's essay in the 'Englishman' shows. During the next nine years he published nothing, with the exception of two unimportant contributions ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... assume that no appreciable section of it cherishes that taste for the literary drama which keeps the national or municipal theatre alive in France and Germany. At any rate, judgment should be held in suspense until the British playgoers' mettle has been more thoroughly tested ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... astonished him. The books needed for her instruction were procured by Vose Adams in Sacramento, and she valued such presents more than anything else. The teacher declared many a time, with a certain pride, that she put him upon his mettle to make clear the abstruse problems with which he wrestled when ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... could follow. Silvermane's blood was heated; the desert was an old story to him; it had only tired him and parched his throat; this canyon of downward steps and falls, with ever-deepening drops, was new to him, and roused his mettle; and from his long training in the wilds he ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... Hartmann, very coolly knocking the ashes from his pipe into the spitting-box by his side, now listen; I have livet seventy-five years on ter Mohawk, and in ter woots. You had better mettle as mit ter deyvel, as mit ter hunters, Tey live mit ter gun, and a rifle is ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... this time. The road was too rough. He stumbled and fell badly. Badly? Still no worse than many others. When he got up he was still facing the same way. You can always tell a man's mettle by the way he faces as he gets ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... her with unconcealed admiration. "That girl is one in ten thousand," he said to himself. "She will keep us all on our mettle, I can see, but there is plenty of heart underneath ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... underhand workings of Mr. Mertzheimer, was on her mettle. She'd just show that man she could teach! Two years' experience in handling rural school classes came to her support. With precision, yet unhurried, she conducted classes in geography, grammar, reading, arithmetic, some ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... Mrs. Hsueeh, "you do have the happy knack of putting her on her mettle; but though she has often got things ready for you, you've, after all, not eaten very ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... said McGinnis, "and then lick you with one hand—" He stopped as Peavey Jo bored in, fighting hard and straight and showing his mettle. There was no doubt of it, the Frenchman was the stronger and the better man. Twice McGinnis tried to dodge and duck, but Peavey Jo, for all his size, was lithe when roused and knew every trick of the trade, and a sigh went up when with a sweeping ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and sexless a beast as this seeming in the popular mind inadequate to a man of Cesare's mettle, it presently improved upon and converted it into a bull—so much more appropriate, too, as being the ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... then encourage the saints to hope, and to rejoice in hope of the glory of God, notwithstanding present tribulations. This is our seed-time, our winter; afflictions are to try us of what mettle we are made; yea, and to shake off worm-eaten fruit, and such as are rotten at core. Troubles for Christ's sake are but like the prick of an awl in the tip of the ear, in order to hang a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the proferred hand, and was led to the sledge, catching, as she passed to it through the throng, more than one sour look from the men and more than one exclamation of surprise, real or affected, on the lips of the ladies of her acquaintance. These manifestations, however, put her upon her mettle. So determining that at least she would not look sullen or ridiculous, she began to enter into the spirit of the adventure, and smiled graciously while the Captain Montalvo wrapped a magnificent apron of wolf skins ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... admirals grow) I saw you fall on a mimic foe With tackle and shove and thrust. There by the jolly trim canteen, Where the figure-head flaunts her golden sheen, You fought, or cheered, for your Term fifteen, As a fellow of mettle must ... Yet now those deeds seem mighty small You dared in the chase for a leather ball— Now that you trip On His Majesty's Ship Playing the finest ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... and not to please them.' If some youth replies, 'This is a laborious, troublesome, hopeless occupation, in which there is not reward enough to make it worth my while,' I tell him but 'Attack it: rejoice to see something so near to challenge your mettle, and if you meet the battle boldly so, and ennoble yourself, you will immediately understand how to think of the ennoblement of your people and your country as glorious.' 'Altius tendimus! We move towards a higher!'—The country reads our motto, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... engineer when the "01" was made up for the after-midnight run from Saint's Rest to the MacMorrogh headquarters. But it was a chance which was duly gratifying to Leckhard. The little Irishman was Ford's most loyal liegeman, and a word was all that was needed to put him on his mettle. The word was spoken while he was oiling around for ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... a portrait," replied Burns, promptly. "Your best indoor work—Brant and the Misses Kendall put on their mettle to rival it." ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... governments, to denote which the novel term of Liberalism was borrowed from France. Liberty was ever on the tongues—of the most devoted servants of the state. The ancient church and the nobility were attacked with incredible mettle—in order to suit the purposes of ministerial caprice. Prussia and Austria were loudly blamed for not keeping pace with the times—with the intent of favorably contrasting the ancient policy of the Rhenish confederation. None, at that period, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the acme of polish and metrical dexterity—a perfect instrument for wit and satire.[51] Thus in the mock-heroic Rape of the Lock these well-modeled couplets prove their mettle, but in the translation of Homer their ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... proof that any will be made," the major remarked, and in fact Graham had underrated his acquaintance with the game. He was quite equal to his aunt in proficiency, and with Miss St. John for his partner he was on his mettle. He found her skilful indeed, quick, penetrating, and possessed of an excellent memory. They held their own so well that the major's spirits rose hourly. He forgot his wound in the complete absorption of ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... and times; but, fortunately for himself, his was a nature so large, tolerant, and self-sufficing that his martyrdom sat very lightly upon him. His unpopularity was rather a tonic to him than otherwise. It was of a kind that tries a man's mettle, and brings out his heroic traits if he has any. One almost envies him his unpopularity. It was of the kind that only the greatest ones have experienced, and that attests something extraordinary in the recipient of it. He ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... curious coincidence than actual design; but it occurred so often, that at length it excited remark. Arthur himself laughed it off, suggesting that the Italian had perhaps some grudge against England, and wished to prove the mettle of her sons. The Italian deigned no explanation, merely saying that he supposed the Spanish jousts were governed by the same laws as others, and he was therefore at liberty to choose his own opponent. But Arthur was ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... seems feeble. Phips had set out too late. This fleet was in good time, for it sailed on the 30th of July. Vetch, always competent, was in command of the colonial military forces, but never had any chance to show his mettle, for during the voyage the seamen were in control. The Admiral had left England with secret instructions. He had not been informed of the task before him and for it he was hardly prepared. There were no competent pilots to correct his ignorance. Now that he knew where he was going he was ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... is sometimes apt to move a trifle slowly, and ere it had moved far enough to bring about the satisfaction of the Consul's demands it was stated that Rius had died suddenly in prison. This put General Fitzhugh Lee upon his mettle: he very strongly suspected that there was more in this man's death than met the eye, and he insisted upon having the body medically examined, with the result that Rius was found to have been killed by a blow on the back of ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... and is in danger of losing him anyhow, by making him a cipher. Such are the two obstacles in Ithaca which Telemachus is shown surmounting and asserting therein his freedom and manhood. The whole is a flash of his father's mettle, he is already the unconscious Ulysses; no wonder that he inquires after his parent in Pylos and Sparta. The poet will now carry him forward to the point where he will actually meet and know Ulysses himself; the son is to advance to direct communion ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... person insulted is thenceforth a disgraced wretch, a dog, and universally despised. Do-ran-to forthwith demanded satisfaction of the young Sioux, who, by the way, was only too anxious to give it, being full of game and mettle, as well as sanguine as to the victory he would gain over the hated young Pawnee. They agreed to settle their difficulty by single combat, and the weapons to be used were war-clubs and short knives. A suitable place was selected. The whole village of the Tetons emptied itself to witness ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... his sporting friends to dine with him the very day of my return; they made me tell some of my adventures, and laughed heartily at them. One old fellow, with an outrageously red nose, took to me hugely. I heard him whisper to my father that I was a lad of mettle, and might make something clever; to which my father replied that "I had good points, but was an ill-broken whelp, and required a great deal of the whip." Perhaps this very conversation raised me a little in his esteem, for I found the red-nosed old gentleman was a veteran fox-hunter of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... for ordinary cases. The world could not go on, if men were to kill themselves upon every slight disappointment. But neither are they likely so to do. It is the hard cases, where men are apt to lay violent hands on themselves, that put the moralist on his mettle to restrain them by reasons. Why should not the solitary invalid destroy himself, he whose life has become a hopeless torture, and whose death none would mourn? Why should not a voluntary death be sought as an escape from temptation and from imminent ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... this unexpected fall, was just beginning to show his mettle. The sententious graybeard was never quite so happy, never looked quite so wise, never shook his head with such an air of good-humored consequence, never winked with such profundity of facetiousness, as when "the laal limber Frenchman" was giving a "merry touch." Wouldn't Monsey sing ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... of Hesse was left as governor; and it was not long before his mettle was tried for, in October, the Spanish army, with six battalions of Frenchmen, opened trenches against the town. Admiral Sir John Leake threw in reinforcements, and six months' provisions. At the end of the month, a forlorn hope of five hundred Spanish volunteers managed to climb ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... debt never existed legally—only morally. And it has been outlawed long ago—for there's a moral statute of limitations, too. The best thing that ever happened to us was our not getting that money. It put us on our mettle. It might have crushed us. It happened to be just the thing that was ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... Will Clerk to stand my friend if necessary. He has mettle in him, and thinks of my honour ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... interest they arouse is needed than the impatience felt by the reader at John's mistaken act of chivalry, which causes the bitterest sorrow to him and Mrs. Falconer. Allen's later works, The Reign of Law (1900), The Mettle of the Pasture (1903), The Bride of the Mistletoe (1909), lose in charm and grace what they gain as studies of moral problems. The hardness and incompleteness of outline of the character portrayals and the grimness of spirit in the telling of the tales make ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... the thing also; that Emlyn had cursed the Abbot, and that her curse had been fulfilled. That Thomas Bolle had shaken off his superstitious fears and risen up against him and at last been given the commission of the King, and, as his Grace's officer, shown himself no fool but a man of mettle who had taken the Abbey by storm and rescued Sir Christopher Harflete from its dungeons. Emlyn also, like her mistress, had been bound to the stake as a witch, and saved from burning by this same Thomas, ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... inspection all of the officers of the contingent were agreeing that the whirlwind visitation was just what had been needed to arouse the mettle and spirit in an organisation comprised of over fifty per cent. raw recruits. Many of the officers themselves had been included in the pointed criticisms which the commander directed against the persons and things that ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... square, broad brow of the portraits of the Marechal de Saxe; nor yet the small hard circle of Voltaire, compact to overfulness; it was graciously rounded and finely moulded, the temples were ivory tinted and soft; and mettle and spirit, unquenched by age, flashed from the brilliant eyes. The Marquis had the Conde nose and the lovable Bourbon mouth, from which, as they used to say of the Comte d'Artois, only witty and urbane words ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... fellows, little as they expected to win, were meaning to make a hot fight of it. They were on their mettle quite as much as their rivals. Ever since Wyndham had left, the schoolhouse had been sneered at as having no pretensions left to any athletic distinction. They meant to put themselves right in this particular—if not in victory, at any rate ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... were very nearly equally matched in strength and endurance and courage. Finally, however, the half-clad, disowned nephew of Charlemagne stood triumphant. The quarrel was indeed settled; for Oliver, being a lad of mettle, and loving and admiring valor wherever he found it, arose from his honorable defeat the sworn friend and admirer ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... of these gentlemen—who were now content to oppose a comprehensive vocabulary of English and French oaths to the brand-new weapons of my Lord Protector's police—were cowards in any sense of the word. Less than a decade ago they had proved their mettle not only sword in hand, but in the face of the many privations, sorrows and humiliations consequent on the failure of their cause and the defeat, and martyrdom of their king. There was, therefore, nothing mean or pusillanimous in their attitude when having exhausted their vocabulary of oaths ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... my hand," the stranger reply'd. "I'll serve you with all my whole heart; My name is John Little, a man of good mettle; Ne'er doubt it, for ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... elephant-divisions, Yudhishthira marched slowly. And he was followed by Sauchitti, who steadily adhered to truth and was invincible in battle, and Srenimat, and Vasudeva and Vibhu, the son of the ruler of Kasi, with twenty thousand cars, and hundred million steeds of high mettle, each bearing scores of bells on its limbs, and twenty thousand smiting elephants with tusks as long as plough-shares, all of good breed and divided temples and all resembling moving masses of clouds. Indeed, these usually walked behind those ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the undaunted mettle of the Elizabethans, who, though acquainted with dirty inns and cheating landlords, kept their spirits soaring above the material difficulties of travel. We miss, in eighteenth century accounts, the gaiety of Roger Ascham's Report of Germany and of the fair barge with ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... first see the result of your confession to M. de la Marche. If, as I make no doubt, he is a man of mettle, he will take you under his protection, and then procure the removal of this Bernard, whether by persuasion ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... said Raffles, leading me upstairs by the arm. "You see how you put me on my mettle, Bunny, ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... as driven cattle That would the conflict shun. They have to test our mettle As Volunteers of Battle, All ready ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... replied, "that a man who can paint a thousand dollar picture has not grit enough to keep his end up in the stock market? No, sir; this Mason (of whom you speak) or our own American Bierstadt—if you were to put them down in a wheat pit to-morrow, they would show their mettle. Come, Loudon, my dear; heaven knows I have no thought but your own good, and I will offer you a bargain. I start you again next term with ten thousand dollars; show yourself a man, and double it, and then (if you still wish to go to Paris, which I know you won't) I'll let you go. But ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... obstinate &c 606; steady &c (persevering) 604.1. earnest, serious; set upon, bent upon, intent upon. steel against, proof against; in utrumque paratus [Lat.]. Adv. resolutely &c adj.; in earnest, in good earnest; seriously, joking apart, earnestly, heart and soul; on one's mettle; manfully, like a man, with a high hand; with a strong hand &c (exertion) 686. at any rate, at any risk, at any hazard, at any price, at any cost, at any sacrifice; at all hazards, at all risks, at all events; a' bis ou a blanc [Fr.]; cost what it may; coute [Fr.]; a tort ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was only her subself that recognised that any one had said anything at all. Her superself dismissed it as a fancy; and, therefore, being put on its mettle to justify that action, it pointed out to her that, after that, it would be the merest cowardice to shirk finding out about Dr. Conrad's young lady. She would manage it somehow by the end of this walk. But still an element of postponement came in, and had its say. Yet it excited no suspicions ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... here, boy, here's your antidote, here's your Jesuits' powder for a shaking fit. But who hast thou got with thee? is he of mettle? [Laying his hand upon ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... charger, who, despite his jaded air and look of neglect, had evidently come of a good stock, and had both blood and mettle of the true soldier sort in him, pricked his ears, arched his neck, and appeared to be fully aware of what was required of him by his loved master. He broke into a gentle canter, and despite the roughness of the ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... 30, the 'where' of the Folios represents the monosyllabic pronunciation of this word common in the sixteenth century. In Shakespeare's verse the 'th' between two vowels, as in 'brother,' 'other,' 'whither,' is frequently mute.—/basest metal./—The Folio spelling is 'mettle,' and the word here may connote 'spirit,' 'temper.' If it be taken literally, the reference may be to 'lead.' Cf. 'base lead,' The Merchant of Venice, II, ix, 19. In this case the meaning may be that even these men, though as dull and ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... is felt to be a very serious menace to Europe. The Sultan has an enormous number of soldiers now under arms, and moreover this army of his is a victorious army, proud of its strength, and anxious to have fresh opportunity to show its mettle and courage. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 44, September 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... each was occupied in individual affairs. At luncheon time they met again. Etta was now almost defiant. She was on her mettle. She was so near to loving Paul that a hatred of him welled up within her breast whenever he repelled her ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... classic face, a lovely disposition, a pure heart and a finely cultivated mind. The German painter, Peter Cornelius, said of her that any one who spoke with her felt elevated and ennobled. The family was of the right mettle. The Countess Blanka Teleki, who was condemned to death for complicity in the Hungarian uprising of 1848, but whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment—she finally was released in 1858,—was Therese's niece, and is said to have borne a striking likeness ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... to do that," was the thoughtful answer. "And you know I believe he'll do it. McClellan's on his mettle now. His army will fight like tigers to show their faith in him. He's vain and ambitious, yes—many great men are. Ambition's a ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... his doubts as to his ability to hold his own against all-comers were extreme, nor were they lessened by the knowledge that his cousin, Allen Thomson, was to be one of his opponents. Indeed, if he had not been a man of mettle, he might well have thought that with Allen's advent his chances ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... heel and hand admonish'd, She ventured forward on the light; And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight! Warlocks and witches in a dance; Nae cotillon brent new frae France, But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels Put life and mettle in their heels. A winnock-bunker in the east, There sat auld Nick in shape o' beast; A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, To gie them music was his charge: He screw'd his pipes and gart them skirl Till roof and rafters a' ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... put on his mettle, Moses would keep a keen look-out on his hopeful family for the next day, and the seed which the grandmother had sown came up in black and blue bruises or, the family anatomy, especially on that portion of it ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... about town, placed in high command by the influence of his sister, the Queen's tire-woman, had now an opportunity to justify his appointment and prove his mettle. Many a man of pleasure and fashion, when put to the proof, has revealed the latent hero within him; but Hill was not one of them. Both he and Walker seemed to look for nothing but a pretext for retreat; and when manhood is conspicuously wanting in ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... on her mettle by hearing about Mrs. Alden's rye bread; and the very next week she made some quite ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... submariner. Of all hands along the battle line, the first aid man has the greatest calm and confidence in the face of fire, largely because he has seen the miracles worked by modern medicine in the restoring of grievously wounded men. The general or the admiral who is most familiar with the mettle of his subordinate commands will also have the most relaxed ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... to acquaint myself with what he had been doing, I found to my great pleasure that he had made very considerable progress both in Latin and Mathematics, and I resolved that I would now push him a little. I found this only brought out his mettle; and his progress, as it seemed to me, was extraordinary. Nor was this all. There were such growing signs of goodness in addition to the uprightness which had first led to our acquaintance, that although I carefully abstained from making ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... fitted for the work in hand. Equal in courage, dash, and discipline to the other fine cavalry commands which General Bragg had at his disposal, it had passed a longer apprenticeship in expeditionary service than had any other. Its rank and file was of that mettle which finds its natural element in active and audacious enterprise, and was yet thrilled with the fire of youth; for there were few men in the division over twenty-five years of age. It was imbued with the spirit of its commander, and confided in his skill and fortune; no endeavor was deemed ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... educated men than in our public schools for two hundred pounds, and of late the school boards have shown how efficiency can be combined with low prices. This last development has put the great educational establishments upon their mettle, and induced them to consider whether a smattering of Greek obtained in twenty years, and forgotten in the twenty-first, is, after all, the highest form of intellectual culture. The head-masters of Harrow, Winchester and Marlbro' have come at last to the sage conclusion that twelve years of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... in making a fool of himself about her. However, he must speak, to support his own character as a man of the world;—it would never do to knock under to a country girl in this way;—she might go and boast of it all over the town;—beside, foiled or not, he would not give in without trying her mettle somewhat further. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... on an earwig set, Yet scarce he on his back could get, So oft and high he did curvet, Ere he himself could settle: He made him turn, and stop, and bound, To gallop, and to trot the round, He scarce could stand on any ground, He was so full of mettle. ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... that she was there. If the mere knowledge that Sophie Carr dwelt somewhere within the city boundaries had power to make a mooning idiot of him, he said to himself testily, then he had better get out, go somewhere, get down to work, be at his fixed purpose of proving his mettle upon an obdurate world, and get her out of his mind in the process. He couldn't tune his whole existence to a sentimental craving for any woman—even such a woman as Sophie. He would, in the moment of such emotional genuflexions, have dissented ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the country, and Mr. Hollenbeck's own health had greatly suffered by the labours he undertook in endeavouring to get the vessel off the sunken rock on which it had struck. Notwithstanding this and other misfortunes, enough to try a man's mettle to its foundation, his native pluck carried him through all his difficulties, and he was away to the States to get new vessels and blow another blast at fortune's iron gates. Whilst I write these last few pages I learn that a new steamer ploughs the lake, and that his transit service is again ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... into the saddle like one who had spent much of his time on horseback. Domino curvetted and pranced a little, being still full of mettle and spirits; but a very ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... they are not neglected:—thus prepared, the lad enters upon a new scene, where he finds himself surrounded by a large number of youthful companions, all busy in qualifying themselves for a future career, we will say in the service of their country. The first thing done is to try the mettle of the new comer by putting upon him some insult, which if he resents and offers to fight his way, he may be looked on with some respect; but if he appear timid, or reluctant to retaliate, he may be assured of becoming the object of a most harassing persecution for the amusement of the thoughtless ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... be your salvation. Mr. Kerns says you must marry her to be happy. Mr. Keen told me yesterday that it only needed a word from the right woman to put you on your mettle. . . . And—and that is ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... done a fault, be always pert and insolent, and behave yourself as if you were the injured person; this will immediately put your master or lady off their mettle. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... good mettle to run up first," M. Etienne said. "And it is no disgrace to fall to your sword, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... mle. Even the Legion boys don't know just where they're at till there's a showdown. I can depend on 'em right now while they're waiting for that showdown. They'll fight their finger-nails off to hold the plain rowdies in line. Such boys have been showing their mettle in one city in this country, haven't they? But a mere licking, no matter which side wins, doesn't last long enough for any general good unless the licking is based on principle and the principle is thereby established ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... thus able to get within a couple of hundred yards, when the wingless birds showed signs of alarm. Mr Hayward gave the signal to mount, and leaping on his horse the rest followed his example, and the emus set off running at a speed calculated to try the mettle of the fleetest horse and the endurance of the dogs. The pack, with loud yelps, bounded after them, followed by the horsemen, whose object was ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... La Mothe was a captain of the second rank, full of mettle, but not a man of much sense. He was affable and courteous in civil life, and a very useful man in a faction because of his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... unnerve him in the least, as he had feared it might. Even when he realized that the missiles were cutting holes through the wings a few feet away he did not grow uneasy. The spirit of battle had gripped Tom. He was now attaining what had seemed to be the height of his ambition. He was trying out his mettle against one of the enemy pilots, a man with considerable more experience than himself, and therefore well fitted to spur him on to do his ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... of care, hopeful, promising, even brilliant. How gaily he jokes with his three sisters; with what inexhaustible volubility he pours out quotations from his favourite poets, applying them to the lovely scenes around him; and with what a mischievous delight in his superior nerve and mettle, he attempts the feats of charioteering, which fill the heart of the youngest of the party with sudden terrors! Beside him, in a dress of marvellous plainness, and ugliness, stamped with the brand "home-made" in characters which none can mistake, is the eldest of the sisters. ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... who would convict a Tolliver, for there were no twelve men in the mountains who would dare. And so the Tollivers decided to await the outcome of the trial and rest easy. But they did not count on the mettle and intelligence of the grim young "furriners" who were a flying wedge of civilization at the Gap. Straightway, they gave up the practice of law and banking and trading and store-keeping and cut port-holes in the brick walls of the Court House and guarded town and jail night and ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... and Ed and Bill Campbell came over in their boat from Kenemish, where they had spent the previous night. It had been a short day for Bob, the shortest it seemed to him he had ever known, for though he was anxious to be away and try his mettle with the wilderness, these were the last hours for many long weary months that he should have at home with his father and mother and Emily. How the child clung to him! She kept him by her side the livelong ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... has made many an author. Failure often leads a man to success by arousing his latent energy, by firing a dormant purpose, by awakening powers which were sleeping. Men of mettle turn disappointments into helps as the oyster turns into pearls the sand which ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... was 17 1/2 miles, and the roads pavee almost the whole way. There was also some rain. In spite, however, of the absence of other Battalions to keep them on their mettle, not a single man fell out of ...
— Short History of the London Rifle Brigade • Unknown
... until Roberts' victory at Candahar gave them body and life—provided ample means for sending troops easily to the neighbourhood of Cabul, Ghazni, and Candahar; and experience showed that troops kept in the hill stations on the frontier preserved their mettle far better than those cantoned in or near the unhealthy cities just named. The Afghans had also learnt a sharp lesson of the danger and futility of leaning on Russia; and to this fact must be attributed the steady adherence of the new Ameer to the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... me on my mettle, so I picked up a bit and waved my handkerchief to dad, whom I could see standing still gazing after me; and, when the boat got alongside the vessel, I clambered up the side- ladder instead of allowing myself to be hoisted in ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... cases, and where the remonstrances were least respectful, or where the resistance of inertia was longest, we differ altogether from M. Brouwer in his belief, that the suitors fancied Apollo to have gone distracted. If they ever said so, this must have been merely by way of putting the Oracle on its mettle, and calling forth some plainer—not any essentially different—answer from the enigmatic god; for there it was that the doubts of the clients settled, and on that it was the practical demurs hinged. Not because even Battus, vexed as he was about his precious ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of Lunan, being discovered hidden in a kiln at Dysart, was ta'en, they say, in a cart, like a malefactor, by twa uncircumcised loons, servitors to his Grace, and it's thought it will go hard wi' him on account of his great godliness; so mak what haste ye dow, and the Lord put mettle in ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... consented and I plunged into it. It was a delightful but exacting task. At the end of it I knew a good deal more French than I did at the beginning! For the book abounded in passages that put one on one's mettle and seemed to challenge every faculty one possessed. M. Scherer came over with his daughter Jeanne—a schoene Seele, if ever there was one—and we spent hours in the Russell Square drawing-room, turning and twisting the most crucial sentences this ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... flyman, briskly, and flicked his horse: whereat, displaying a mettle one was by no means prepared for, the horse dashed suddenly off in a great clattering gallop, and the ancient vehicle behind him followed with a succession ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... displayed. The hunter had intended to take his comrade on a hunting trip, and to return with him, after that was over, to Fort Henry. They had now been in the woods for weeks and every day in some way had Joe showed his mettle. Wetzel finally admitted him into the secrets of his most cherished hiding place. He did not want to hurt the lad's feelings by taking him back to the settlement; he could not send him back. So the days wore on swiftly; full of heart-satisfying ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... bit of it. Nothing is impossible to a man who has served twenty years' apprenticeship as a Bow Street runner. You don't know what we old Bow Street hands can do when we're on our mettle. I've heard a deal of talk about Fooshay, that was at the head of Bonaparty's police—but bless your heart, ma'am, Fooshay was a fool to us. I've done as much and more than what you talk of before to-day. All you have to do is to give me the names and descriptions of the two men I am ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... plain to me: it was the nature of his errands to the Exchange. The first time he had been ordering the cake for his own wedding, and to-day it was something about the wedding again. Evidently the high mettle of his delicacy and breeding made him painfully conscious of the view which others must take of the part that Miss Rieppe was playing in all this—a view from which it was out of his power to shield her; and it was this consciousness ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... make the matter right, Here are we, classmates, thirty men of mettle; We're strong and tough, we've lived nigh long enough,— What if the Nation gave ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... put to his mettle towards the close of his life. A contest had long prevailed among telescope makers as to who should turn out the largest refracting instrument. The two telescopes of fifteen inches aperture, prepared by Merz and Mahler, of Munich, were the largest then in existence. Their ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... craft and road-craft. He spoke no word, putting his soul and body into his work, determined, as he had said, to make the thirty miles by nine o'clock. There was no abatement of speed after we struck the hills: what was lost in going up was regained in going down. The mettle of those California-bred horses was wonderful; the quick beating of their hoofs upon the graveled road was as regular as the motion of machinery, steam-driven. It was an exciting ride, and there was a weirdness ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... Robin had felt no fear. He was on his mettle, and fighting for liberty, to gain which he felt that he must effectually beat his enemy; and thanks to Little John's lessons he thrashed him so well that at the end of five minutes the young swine-herd received a final stroke across the knuckles ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... hour's gallop over the prairie in the cool of the morning, or evening, was not looked upon as any thing very disagreeable. On this particular morning, Roderick and Marmion were impatient to exhibit their mettle; and even Sleepy Sam lifted his head and pawed the ground when Archie placed his foot in the stirrup. Scarcely waiting for their riders to become firmly seated in their saddles, the horses started down the road ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... time the girl remained where he had left her, looking out past the islet and over the bright sea. Then with a start, as one who throws off preoccupation and puts energy again upon its mettle, she broke into a rapid and decisive walk. She also was much incensed by what had passed. She had forgotten where she was. And I beheld her walk straight into the borders of the quicksand where it is most abrupt and ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Adam of Wills!" said a stout woman, to one of the speakers; "thou wert ever a tough fighter; and the cudgel and ragged staff were as glib in thine hands as a beggar's pouch on alms-days. Show thy mettle, man. I'll spice thee a jug of barley-drink, an' thou be for the bout ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... over Adderley's face. But he took the remark without offence, thereby showing himself to be of better mettle than the little affectations ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... must first see the result of your confession to M. de la Marche. If, as I make no doubt, he is a man of mettle, he will take you under his protection, and then procure the removal of this Bernard, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... and her son, Tom, persons of wealth and social position, who were summering at one of the fashionable hotels along the shore of the bay, prepared the way for a series of eventful happenings in which the crew of the "Merry Maid" amply proved their mettle. ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... but of one thing there can be no doubt—it had a most salutary effect. It held up the mirror to weaknesses and deficiencies which, if Tennyson did not care to acknowledge to others, he must certainly have acknowledged to himself. It roused him and put him on his mettle. It was a wholesome antidote to the enervating flattery of coteries and "apostles" who were certainly talking a great deal of nonsense about him, as Arthur Hallam's essay in the 'Englishman' shows. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... cavalierly, "these Southern youths are so full of mettle, that it's seldom we fight but one or two gets knocked over; one of the wounded, who came up before the troops, told me that Captain Singleton ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... momentary indecision. She WAS a good rider—the best since her mother, as he had often told her. He could see this meant an issue. He felt she would be on her mettle to-morrow, as far as her work was concerned, if he ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... twinkled; his gallantry was on its mettle. He was grave and severe, fixing his gaze on the Colonel's attack, and remaining blind to the nods and shrugs and smiles of amusement of his patrons in the background. Again he touched the Colonel, and, alas! again; with an ease which, good-natured as ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... showed how entirely she had forgotten him. And all the time her eyes were absent, and the straight line in her cheek held the dimple a prisoner. Blair, who had begun with a sort of good-natured, rather condescending amusement at his old playmate, found himself, to his surprise, on his mettle. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... of anger, sent Jim Cleve out to a lawless Western mining camp, to prove his mettle. Then realizing that she loved him—she followed him out. On her way, she is captured by a bandit band, and trouble begins when she shoots Kells, the leader—and nurses him to health again. Here enters another romance—when Joan, disguised as an outlaw, observes Jim, in the throes of ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... slain—brave fellows—and we have already buried them. Five more were wounded, but none severely. Do you think, Mr. Ware, that having had a taste of our mettle, they ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... is in "Jennie Gerhardt" that Dreiser first shows his true mettle.... "The power to tell the same story in two forms," said George Moore, "is the sign of the true artist." Here Dreiser sets himself that difficult task, and here he carries it off with almost complete success. Reduce the story to a hundred words, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Endo[u] Uji: he at least has proved his mettle. The pressing offices of the day do not call for sleep all night. He is of the stock of Kiemon Dono. Old Hikoza never tired of tales of his father's prowess." Kondo[u] chuckled as he continued—"The old fellow (oyaji) spoke well of the dead. The living ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... enough that your cowardice has already cost us the lives of three knights, whose capture would have brought us a big sum? Throw him down and bind him. What! are fifty of you afraid of one unarmed man? No wonder these Christians capture our ships, if this is the mettle of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... you, keep him off, And pamper him with papmeat, if ye will, Old milky fables of the wolf and sheep, Such as the wholesome mothers tell their boys. Nay, should ye try him with a merry one To find his mettle, good: and if he fly us, Small matter! let him.' This her damsels heard, And mindful of her small and cruel hand, They, closing round him through the journey home, Acted her hest, and always from her side ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... to please them.' If some youth replies, 'This is a laborious, troublesome, hopeless occupation, in which there is not reward enough to make it worth my while,' I tell him but 'Attack it: rejoice to see something so near to challenge your mettle, and if you meet the battle boldly so, and ennoble yourself, you will immediately understand how to think of the ennoblement of your people and your country as glorious.' 'Altius tendimus! We move towards a higher!'—The ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... in a convent in Florence in 1509. In her fatherland she left a son of the same mettle as herself, Giovanni Medici, the last of the great condottieri of the country, who became famous as leader of the Black Bands. There is a seated figure in marble of this captain, of herculean strength, with the neck of a centaur, near the church of ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... three kings—as has many and many another plotter in history before and since—reckoned without their host. They did not know the mettle that was in this ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... times; but, fortunately for himself, his was a nature so large, tolerant, and self-sufficing that his martyrdom sat very lightly upon him. His unpopularity was rather a tonic to him than otherwise. It was of a kind that tries a man's mettle, and brings out his heroic traits if he has any. One almost envies him his unpopularity. It was of the kind that only the greatest ones have experienced, and that attests something extraordinary in the recipient of it. He said he was more resolute because all had denied him ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... afternoon, and the horse-races elsewhere proved to be strong rival attractions, but in spite of them, and of the threatening weather, 5,500 people had assembled to see how the American National Game was played. Fortunately the members of bath teams were on their mettle, and the result was a game full of exciting features from start to finish, the pitching of Teller for the Chicagos and Healy for the All-Americas being of the gilt-edged order, while the fielding and base-running of both teams ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... to think we have both been well fooled, for the smart of this ingenious punishment is more than I have mettle to endure." Tickler had scarce uttered this sentence when he began to scream at the very top of his voice; and to declare the pain so acute that he ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... that!" cried Archie hastily. "She just fancies the life—thinks it offers me a good chance to prove my mettle. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... Indian the only enemy to test the youngster's mettle. The pioneer soldiers of the rank and file in these turbulent days had minds of their own which they sometimes ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... to my house the next morning, and I proceeded to acquaint myself with what he had been doing, I found to my great pleasure that he had made very considerable progress both in Latin and Mathematics, and I resolved that I would now push him a little. I found this only brought out his mettle; and his progress, as it seemed to me, was extraordinary. Nor was this all. There were such growing signs of goodness in addition to the uprightness which had first led to our acquaintance, that although I carefully abstained from making the suggestion to him, I ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... full speed towards Miribeau. We reined up amidst exclamations from the men; and the fugitive, who had got a fair distance off by this, looked back and laughed at us. It was a brave attempt at escape, and she evidently felt sure of her horse; but I had a mind to try the mettle of Montluc's gift to me, and so I told the men to go on quietly, and then, turning Lizette, followed Diane at an easy canter. As I did so, and felt the power of the long, swinging stride beneath me I smiled ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... be my work. It had enough of the charm in it on account of the hazard which accompanied us on every step, and this for the first time put me on my mettle to learn to dig out the hidden secrets, which caused it to be called ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... the men was scarcely able to walk, after the punishment; but, in general, after a few lashes they drank paiwari, and returned to the main body of dancers, from which fresh couples were continually falling out to test each other's mettle. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... with this imposing fleet, that of Phips, twenty-one years earlier, seems feeble. Phips had set out too late. This fleet was in good time, for it sailed on the 30th of July. Vetch, always competent, was in command of the colonial military forces, but never had any chance to show his mettle, for during the voyage the seamen were in control. The Admiral had left England with secret instructions. He had not been informed of the task before him and for it he was hardly prepared. There were no competent pilots to correct his ignorance. Now that he knew where he was going he ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... cowards, and men cautelous, Old, feeble, carious, and such suffering souls That welcome wrongs, unto bad causes. Swear Such creatures as men doubt, but do not stain The even virtue of our enterprise, Nor the unsuppressive mettle of our spirits, To think that our cause, or our performance, Did need an oath; when every drop of blood That every Roman bears, and nobly bears, Is guilty of a several bastardy If he do break the smallest particle Of any promise ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... Peter. And he added to himself, as Nicholas moved away, "Ey'st tak care Tum Lomax gies an egg to Merlin, an that'll may aw fair, if they chance to try their osses' mettle." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... prove to that man that he wasn't much of a judge of boys," said Margaret, with a tilt of her chin and a glint of her teacher-mettle showing in her eyes. "If you're not in algebra before two months are over I'll miss my guess. We'll get at it right away and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... a wench of matchless mettle! This were a leaguer-lass to love a soldier, To bind his wounds, and kiss his bloody brow, And sing a roundel as she help'd to arm him, Though the rough foeman's drums were beat so nigh, They seem'd to bear the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... plain—his hindmost tail-hairs touch the tire, for the wheel runneth hard anigh nor is much space between, as he speedeth far over the plain—by so much was Menelaos behind high-born Antilochos, howbeit at first he was a whole disk-cast behind, but quickly he was catching Antilochos up, for the high mettle of Agamemnon's mare, sleek-coated Aithe, was rising in her. And if yet further both had had to run he would have passed his rival nor left it even a dead heat. But Meriones, stout squire of Idomeneus, came ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... three days' time for Plymouth, there to form part of the escort of a large fleet of merchantmen and transports bound to the West Indies under convoy. But now it was that our new second and third lieutenants showed their mettle, for on the very night of my arrival on board they organised two formidable pressgangs, which they led ashore, one party landing at Portsmouth and the other at Gosport; and between them they managed to make a clean sweep of pretty nearly ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... all very well for you to show your mettle," Lavendar went on, "for you to endure your aunt's displeasure rather than give up a cause you know to be just; but look where it ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... cousin should be able to hold his own well, when we get to blows with the enemy. So I and Van Bruff have taken him in hand, and for the last three weeks he has made such progress that this morning, when we had open play, it put me on my mettle to hold my own. So, what with that and his regimental work, his hands are more than full; and indeed, he could not get through it, had he to attend here in the evening; and I know that as soon as he has finished his supper he turns in for a sound sleep, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... pleases;" consequently, there is a little information to be obtained from the fresh arrival, a cock-tail with a friend or two, a quiet piling on of luggage, &c.; all this takes a long half-hour, and away we go with four tough little nags. A tremendous long hill warms their hides and cools their mettle, though by no means expending it. On we go, merrily; Jehu, a free-and-easy, well-informed companion, guessing at certainties and ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... who had formerly proved himself to be so excellent a shot with the eighteen-pounder,—was still aboard the schooner, and I had great hopes of him, especially as I knew that he would be by this time upon his mettle and animated by a feeling that it behoved him to speedily do something remarkable if he would save his reputation. Nor was I deceived in my expectations of him; for, very shortly afterwards, a ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... the bag which is taking George." To prevent him arguing I told Geraldine that you can tell a real K.M. by his Silver Greyhound badge, which he'll show you if you doubt him, just as you can tell a stockbroker by his pearl tie-pin, which you can see for yourself. This put George on his mettle. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... the twinkling of a humorous faculty or the wild gleam of imagination. The shaggy little horses, of a dun or dull tan-color, seemed to understand that their best performance was required, and rushed up and down the road with an amazing exhibition of mettle. I could understand nothing of the Finnish tongue except its music; but it was easy to perceive that the remarks of the crowd were shrewd, intelligent, and racy. One young fellow, less observant, accosted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... was woman's very part, Not mine, whom deep suspicion from of old Would have debarred. Now by his treasure's aid My purpose holds to rule the citizens. But whoso will not bear my guiding hand, Him for his corn-fed mettle I will drive Not as a trace-horse, light-caparisoned, But to the shafts with heaviest harness bound. Famine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark, Shall look on him ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... be let or sold. But what want had Michael Strogoff now for a carriage? Was he not alone, alas? A horse would suffice him; and, very fortunately, a horse could be had. It was an animal of strength and mettle, and Michael Strogoff, accomplished horseman as he was, could make good use ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... see the Dop Doctor upon this brilliant November morning mounting a charger lent him by his friend, a handsome Waler full of mettle and spirit—oats not being yet required for the support of humans—and calling au revoir to Taggart as he rides away from the Hospital gates followed by an orderly of the R.A.M.C. in a spider, pulled by a wiry, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Everard was straying about the beach, watching the sun go down in splendour. He smiled to himself frequently. The hour had come for his last trial of Rhoda, and he felt some confidence as to the result. If her mettle endured his test, if she declared herself willing not only to abandon her avowed ideal of life, but to defy the world's opinion by becoming his wife without forms of mutual bondage—she was the woman he had imagined, and by her side he would go cheerfully ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... next chapel, the Bardi, we find Giotto at work on a life of S. Francis, and here again Ruskin is essential. It was a task which, since this church was the great effort of the Florentine Franciscans, would put an artist upon his mettle, and Giotto set the chosen incidents before the observers with the discretion and skill of the great biographer that he was, and not only that, but the great Assisi decorator that he was. No choice could have been better at any time in the history of art. Giotto chose ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... true that he did not know Dr. Morrison, but he had heard that this gentleman had said it would be for the advantage of Torrington's to receive a few scholarship boys, for they were sure to be sharp, studious lads, and it would waken the other boys up and put them on their mettle. So he declined to go and see Mr. Morrison, but declared that Leonard ought to undertake the mission ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... it became him—the shield on his neck and the helm on his head and the sword-belt on his left hip! And the boy was tall and strong and comely and slim and well-grown; and the horse he bestrode was fleet of foot and high of mettle, and the boy had put him through the gate cleverly. Now don't you suppose that his thoughts would have been set on taking spoil of oxen or cows or goats? that he would have struck at some knight or been stricken in turn? Not a whit! ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous
... job to straighten out the washstand, clear up the general muss, and disrobe. But the boys were on their mettle, and in less than two minutes the light was out and all were under the covers, although, to be sure, Sam had his shoes still on and Tom ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... put upon its mettle. It had inherited from the army an incipient epidemic of bubonic plague in Manila, and the disease soon spread to Cavite and also to Cebu, then the second port of the Philippines in commercial importance. It ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Jove accords a lengthened spring, And winters wanting winter's sting, And sunny Aulon's[1] broad incline Such mettle puts into the vine, Its clusters need not envy those ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... met one of his own mettle at last," said the mother, and the girl fancied she detected a note of pride, but whether of father, or daughter, or both, she could only guess. "Well, it's all very sad. Your father is a good man, ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... Beethoven as monstrous. Therese was an exceptional woman. She had an oval, classic face, a lovely disposition, a pure heart and a finely cultivated mind. The German painter, Peter Cornelius, said of her that any one who spoke with her felt elevated and ennobled. The family was of the right mettle. The Countess Blanka Teleki, who was condemned to death for complicity in the Hungarian uprising of 1848, but whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment—she finally was released in 1858,—was Therese's niece, and is said to have borne a striking likeness to ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... she would have the 'finest gentleman' to die! What if it is on the scaffold, and not the battle-field? Though it be not a glorious death, it can be glorified! How could she know that that was just what I would need to put me on my mettle? How could she know?" ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... loudly by the smokers, and Mr. Crooper was put upon his mettle. He spoke too quickly to consider whether or no the facts justified his assertion. "Me? I don't smoke paper and ole ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... jade of a mistress, Master Francois, had found the same sentiment," dryly observed Myndert: "for let me tell you, this cruising about in a suspicious vessel is as little creditable to her judgment as—cheer up, Patroon; the girl is only putting thy mettle to the trial, and the sea air will do no damage to her complexion or her pocket. A little predilection for salt water must raise the girl in ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... at his best in this fearful four days' struggle. Hooker, says a high Confederate authority, had guided his army "into the mazes of the Wilderness, and got it so mixed and tangled that no chance was afforded for a display of its mettle." Lee with inferior forces managed by consummate strategy to meet and overcome Hooker's subordinates in detail. Then he prepared for a crushing blow at Hooker himself, which the latter escaped by a timely retreat. The bombastic Order No. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... campaign, without hearty cheers, each, for the other, and friendly greetings and complimentary references to the "Spottsylvania lines." Gregg's Texans! Noble fellows! Better soldiers never trod a battlefield. I saw them fight; I saw their mettle tried, as by fire. They live in my memory as "the bravest of the brave." I hope Texas is growing ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... he missed one of the women passengers, and likewise a led horse which was owned by a gentleman of the neighborhood. The horse he was taking along, tied to the end of the cart. On inquiry he found out that during his absence, the woman, who had been anxious to try the mettle of the pony, had mounted it, and the animal had set off at full speed. The carrier expressed much anxiety for the safety of the young woman, casting at the same time an expressive look at his dog. ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... to none but Hamilton, whose services in the Cabinet of General Washington had given him great celebrity. Aged members of the New York bar remember that Burr alone was the antagonist who could put Hamilton to his mettle. When other lawyers were employed against him, Hamilton's manner was that of a man who felt an easy superiority to the demands upon him; he took few notes; he was playful and careless, relying much upon the powerful declamation of his summing up. But when Burr was in the case,—Burr the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... after all, the original Henley was not so important a personage as he had imagined. But Paul scarcely hoped that his identity would remain undiscovered after arriving at the young lady's home; then, indeed, he might expect to be thrown upon his mettle to make things satisfactory to ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... had sat a little, she rose, and beckoned to the Chancellor to come to her, who came with great ceremony and respect; and after a little speaking together he returned to his place, and the Queen sat down again a little time; then rising up with mettle, she came forward to the utmost part of the foot-pace, and with a good grace and confidence spake to the Assembly, as it was interpreted to Whitelocke, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... than Admiral William F. Halsey's grimace over the fact that he once "commanded an LSD—Large Steel Desk." He is a poor stick of a military man who has no natural desire to try his hand at the direct management of men, if for no better reason than to test his own mettle. Even the avowed specialist is better equipped for his own groove if he has proved himself ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... on their own dialect, their style would kindle, and they would write of their convivial and somewhat gross existences with pith and point. In Ramsay, and far more in the poor lad Fergusson, there was mettle, humour, literary courage, and a power of saying what they wished to say definitely and brightly, which in the latter case should have justified great anticipations. Had Burns died at the same age as Fergusson, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is not the physical scale and executive efficiency of preparation, supply, equipment and dispatch that I would dwell upon, but the mettle and quality of the officers and men we sent over and of the sailors who kept the seas, and the spirit of the Nation that stood behind them. No soldiers, or sailors, ever proved themselves more quickly ready for the test of battle or acquitted themselves ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... against the Trojans he was never seen to hang back, but fought ever in the van among the foremost champions, like a mighty man of war. Nor was it only in the clamour and heat of war that he proved his mettle; for in that perilous hour when we lay ambushed in the wooden horse, when the stoutest hearts among us quailed, he never changed colour, but sat fingering his spear and sword, waiting for the signal to go forth to the assault. And after we had sacked the lofty towers of Troy he received ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... replied Pen. "My grandfather thinks it isn't such a bad idea for boys to try their mettle on each other, so long as they fight fair. He thinks they'll make better soldiers sometime. And he says the country is going ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... and, as might have been expected, the St. Louis team did about as they pleased. No, that is hardly correct. Even a country aggregation of players can sometimes make the finest nine of professionals stand on its mettle. And, in this case, for a time, the contest ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... Lord Let there be some more test, made of my mettle, Before so noble, and so great a ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of dignity that would have done credit to the Emperor of China. You see, at that moment he felt himself to be the spokesman for, and, with his comrades, the representative of, the entire British army, and was put upon his mettle ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... nettle, And it stings you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... "The beautiful St. George's Hall crowded to excess last night" (28th of January 1862) "and numbers turned away. Brilliant to see when lighted up, and for a reading simply perfect. You remember that a Liverpool audience is usually dull; but they put me on my mettle last night, for I never saw such an audience—no, not even in Edinburgh! The agents (alone, and of course without any reference to ready money at the doors) had taken for the two readings two hundred pounds." But as the end approached the fatigues had told severely on ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... deepest part of the dhow being, as you see, under the foremast, it forms a pivot round which the shallow stern, obeying the helm, rapidly turns. Clumsy as they look, I hear that these craft are wonderfully fast, and, with the wind free, will put us on our mettle to overhaul them." ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Song was sung with mettle, and it was choicely fitted to the occasion; I shall love you for it as long as I know you: I would you were a brother of the Angle, for a companion that is cheerful and free from swearing and scurrilous ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... is, the primrose-glove adventurers—were a very different order of men from the present-day fellows, who take a turn in Circassia or China, or a campaign with Garibaldi; and who, with all their defects, are men of mettle and pluck and daring. Of these latter I found my new acquaintance ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... a veteran of the war! Those marches put something into him I like. Even at this distance his mettle is but little softened. As soon as he gets warmed up, it all comes back to him. He catches your step and away you go, a gay, adventurous, half-predatory couple. How quickly he falls into the old ways of jest and anecdote and song! You may have known him for years without ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... she exclaimed saucily, "as we are certain to meet again. If you act on my advice it will be in the palace of Conde. The prince loves a lad of mettle." ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... Sarah will not be here for another two hours, and it is as well that you should begin to make yourselves useful at once. We shall all have to be upon our mettle, too. See how nicely the boys have cooked the breakfast. These spatch-cock ducks are excellent, and the mutton chops done to a turn. They will have a great laugh at us, if we, the professed cooks, do not do at least ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian names, as, Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff, but a corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy,—by the Lord, so they call me;—and, when I am King of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dying scarlet; and, when you breathe in your watering, they cry hem! and bid you play it off. To conclude, ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... helped Montgomery to storm the heights of Quebec, and nearly reached the upper citadel when his commander was shot dead and the Americans retreated. In all this confusion Burr showed himself a man of mettle. The slain Montgomery was six feet high, but Burr carried his body away with wonderful strength amid a shower of musket-balls ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... English dogs, of which there were about 120, all kept in the same enclosure, but each in separate kennel. In order to gratify his Highness, and at his desire, two bears and a bull were baited; at such times you can perceive the breed and mettle of the dogs, for although they receive serious injuries from the bears, and are caught by the horns of the bull and tossed into the air so as frequently to fall down again upon the horns, they do not give in, [but fasten on the bull so firmly] that ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... of it Johnny Whitelamb had risen and was holding his drawing aslant, in some hope, perhaps, that the angle might correct the perspective of old Mettle's portrait. Certainly it was a villainous portrait, as he acknowledged to himself with a sigh. Parts of it must be rubbed out, and his right hand rummaged in his pocket and found a crust. But Johnny, ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... showed his mettle. He, too, had had a little trouble in getting at his gun, but now the weapon was pointed at the fox at Shep's feet. Giant ran closer and pulled the trigger. Bang! went the gun, and the fox received the full charge directly in the left ear. It keeled over, and Giant sent the second ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... proudly-arched and glossy neck, thy dark and fiery eye.' Catching the eye of this other horse, I saw that such fire as might once have blazed there had long smouldered away. Chestnut though he was, he had no mettle. His chestnut coat was all dull and rough, unkempt as that of an inferior cab-horse. Of his once luxuriant mane there were but a few poor tufts now. His saddle was torn and weather-stained. The one stirrup that dangled therefrom ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... Yes, I will sing the Lion-King o'er all the tribes victorious, To living thing may not concede thy meed and actions glorious; How oft thy noble head has woke thy valiant men to battle, As panic o'er their spirit broke, and rued the foe their mettle! Is there, thy praise to underrate, in very thought presuming, O'er crested chieftainry[120] thy state, O thou, of right assuming! I see thee, on thy silken flag, in rampant[121] glory streaming, As life ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... was always a big tide made round Cape Blowmedown, and as t' land fell sharp away on each side of it, it were never too safe to go off very far on t' ice. But, that being a bad year, every man was on his mettle, and us all took more chances ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... become an actuality, it was due to the weather rather than to any clemency on the part of Mr. Bangs. He seemed bent upon testing Quin's mettle, and required tasks of him that only a man used to the discipline of the army would ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... fellow," said he, alluding to the whole length figure of the Centinel, "stands as motionless as a statue; by the powers, but half-a-dozen peep-o-day boys in his rear would be after putting life and mettle in his heels!—Shoulder and carry your arms, you spalpeen; and is this the way that you show the position of a soldier?" at same time enforcing his admonition with a smart stroke of his cane over the arm ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... like a bugle call. "Men, we are needed at Belmont; the Boers are there in force, and we have been sent for to relieve the place. I'll want you in less than two hours." It was then the men showed their mettle. Up to their feet they leapt like one man, and they gave the Colonel a cheer that made the sullen, halting mules kick in their harness. "We are ready now, Colonel, we'll eat as we march," and the "old man" smiled, and gave the order to fall in, and they fell in, and ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... haughty mind. He was always ready to be informed; his diffident kindness asked to be set at ease; while in any real ardour of debate his trained capacity and his stores of knowledge would put even the expert on his mettle. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Villon and Francois Villon I, To yonder gloomy boulevard at midnight I would hie; "Stop, stranger! and deliver your possessions, ere you feel The mettle of my bludgeon or the temper of my steel!" He should give me gold and diamonds, his snuffbox and his cane— "Now back, my boon companions, to our brothel with our gain!" And, back within that brothel, how the bottles ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... through the forest yonder and you shall see the trees bear strange fruit in our country. The world's amiss, messire, yet here sit you wasting your days, a foolish brush stuck in thy fist. So am I come, nor will I go hence until I have tried thy mettle." ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... High in his pathway hung the sun, And many a gallant, stayed perforce, Was fain to breathe his faltering horse, And of the trackers of the deer Scarce half the lessening pack was near; So shrewdly on the mountain-side Had the bold burst their mettle tried. ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... Puerto Cabello; Caracas fell on the 28th; and Miranda, betrayed by his own party into the hands of the Spaniards, was sent a prisoner to Cadiz in October. Simon Bolivar and others, men of different mettle, regained all that had been lost, and cut loose the Colonies from Spain. From California to Cape Horn the inestimable system of self-government was established. According to the theory, the South Americans should have been prosperous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... exemption from all duty, our adventurer managed matters so as to pass for a youth of infinite mettle, and even rendered his backwardness and timidity subservient to the support of that character, by expressing an impatience of lying inactive, and a desire of signalising his prowess, which even the disabled condition of his body ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... inheritance of life's best goods? Why are their tender feet so often ensnared even when they are going about youth's legitimate business? One would suppose that in such an age as ours moral teachers would be put upon their mettle, that moral authority would be forced to speak with no uncertain sound if only to be heard above the din of machinery and the roar of industrialism; that it would have exerted itself as never before to convince the ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... little Belgium. Whatever brief we may hold for her though, we ought not to picture even her peasant people as a mild, meek and inoffensive lot. That isn't the sort of stuff out of which her dogged and continuing resistance was wrought. That isn't the mettle which for two weeks stopped up the German tide before the Liege forts, giving the allies two weeks to mobilize, and all they had asked the Belgians for was two or three days of grace. But before the German avalanche hurled itself on Liege ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... an audience worthy his mettle; but Willie was better than no one, yet when he turned to note the effect of his remarks on his son, Willie was no where to be seen. If Jeb had but known it his young hopeless was already in the loft of the hay barn deep in a small, ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... both commanders' mettle to the utmost. At the end of the hammering campaign, after losing men enough to form an army as large as Lee's, Grant's van was full twice as far from Richmond as McClellan's had been two years before. Not once was Lee flanked, duped, or surprised. As always ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... audience," said Chatty Burns; "it's rather inspiring. Of course, it makes one nervous, but, at the same time, it puts one on one's mettle. I always do better when there are plenty ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown, and the police were put on their mettle to discover the unknown and daring murderer. The result of their investigations, conducted with marvellous skill by Mr. William Fisher, led, about a week after the crime, to the sensational arrest of one of ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... time when Roberts Sahib should have turned his back on the city, as pray God and the Prophet he might do with no more delay than Pollock Sahib had made out yonder on the Logur plain. So after a trial of Roberts' mettle at Charasiah, and finding the testing sample not quite to their taste, the Afghans fell into an attitude of expectancy, and were mightily relieved by his proclamation read at the Balla Hissar durbar of October 12th. After a reasonable amount of hanging and the exaction of the fine laid on the ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... a hatred irreconcilable, who, were they severed, would be straight friends in any other relation"; "two carcases chained unnaturally together, or, as it may happen, a living soul bound to a dead corpse"; "enough to abase the mettle of a generous spirit and sink him to a low and vulgar pitch of endeavour in all his actions": such are a few specimens of the phrases with which the tract abounds. [Footnote: Some of the phrases quoted occur in passages added in ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... looking over the fields. In the distance towards the left he caught sight of a horse and buggy coming at a good pace along the new country road. He watched it drawing nearer. A lady was driving. Her horse was on its mettle this morning and the reins were tight. They were at that ugly place where the road crosses the canal—he was to repair it that morning—He awoke from his dreaming with a start, but too late; the horse shied, a wheel went into the ugly hole, and the occupant was pitched into the dry bottom ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... we lie, Both on one settle— Halldor and I, Men of no mettle. Youth ails thee, But thou'lt win through it; Age ails me, And I must ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... however, had seen through the argument, and in her courteous way had shattered its effect. This put Mrs. Turner on her mettle, and she half rose ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... no resistance is offered to the insult, the person insulted is thenceforth a disgraced wretch, a dog, and universally despised. Do-ran-to forthwith demanded satisfaction of the young Sioux, who, by the way, was only too anxious to give it, being full of game and mettle, as well as sanguine as to the victory he would gain over the hated young Pawnee. They agreed to settle their difficulty by single combat, and the weapons to be used were war-clubs and short knives. A ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... constitutional governments, to denote which the novel term of Liberalism was borrowed from France. Liberty was ever on the tongues—of the most devoted servants of the state. The ancient church and the nobility were attacked with incredible mettle—in order to suit the purposes of ministerial caprice. Prussia and Austria were loudly blamed for not keeping pace with the times—with the intent of favorably contrasting the ancient policy of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... made of fighting mettle, as we knew from old experience. It was no question of surrender. They did not know how to surrender, and we did not know how to demand their surrender. Besides, the destruction of the two electrical ships with the forty men, many of ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... choler, the Young Doctor intervened. He did not know Kitty was purposely stinging Crozier's unhappy little consort, so that she should be put upon her mettle to do ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... portrait," replied Burns, promptly. "Your best indoor work—Brant and the Misses Kendall put on their mettle to rival it." ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... for you, by the Lord I didn't s'pose you had the mettle to do it. Little Pete is just the man for the business, but if he don't come, you can have one of my Welshmen. I s'pose most of the Stockbridge men wouldn't quite dare, but just wait till after the whipping. They won't be afraid of the bigwigs any longer. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
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