"Mettlesome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Islands, when found by us, had become an abject race, more docile and submissive than those of any other locality. The native African was of a fierce and mettlesome temper, sullen and untamable. The master was obliged to abate something of the usual rigor in dealing with the imported slaves. A tax-commissioner, now at Port Royal, and formerly a resident of South Carolina, told me that a native African belonging to his father, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sitting down. Sometimes, however, the rare occasion serves the rare harpooner, when the whale and canoe appear as if about to meet each other straight head-on. Then, in a flash, the man in the bow is up on his feet, with the harpoon so poised that the rocking water, the mettlesome canoe, and his watchful comrade in the stern, all form part of the concentrated energy with which he brings his every faculty to a single point of instantaneous action. There, for one fateful moment, he stands erect, his whole tense body like the full-drawn bow before it speeds ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... hands were suspiciously unresponsive as she took them when he helped her into the Silverdale wagon—a vehicle a strong man could have lifted, and in no way resembling its English prototype. The team was mettlesome, the lights of Macdonald's homestead soon faded behind them, and they were racing with many a lurch and jolt straight as the crow ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... the Beaverdam Circuit, and he had bought a new horse—a horse gifted with ungodly speed in the legs and a mettlesome, race-track temperament. On a certain Saturday, after services at Beaverdam Church, we were returning home in a light buggy drawn by the big, rawboned bay. When we came to a long stretch of good road William tightened the reins, took on ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... rowed up and down a few times before the spectators. They appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesome as colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, disciplined to work together as symmetrically as a single sculler pulls his pair of oars. The fisherman offered to make his quarter fifty ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Godmother, who did not like her points to be anticipated. "On the contrary, she treated him with every mark of affection, and was constantly bestowing on him gifts of the costliest description. One day she presented him with a wondrous mechanical horse, fiercer and more mettlesome than even the steeds ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... by the other knight, proceeded to the stable, from whence, with his own hands, he drew forth one of his best horses, a fine mettlesome sorrel, who had got blood in him, ornamented with rich trappings. In a trice, the two knights, and the other two strangers, who now appeared to be trumpeters, were mounted. Sir Launcelot's armour was lacquered black; and on his shield was represented the moon ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... judging from the manner in which it acted; for he sat with his hat cocked on one side, a pipe in his mouth, and the two reins in his hands, just as the skillful driver controls the mettlesome horses and keeps ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... in their faces, over the long hollow, and up a slope again, until, as the white grass rolled behind her, Flora Schuyler yielded to the exhilaration of swift motion, and, flinging off the constraint of the city, rejoiced in the springy rush of the mettlesome beast beneath her. Streaming white levels, the blue of the sliding sky, the kiss of the wind on her hot cheek, and the roar of hoofs, all reacted upon her until she laughed aloud when she hurled her half-wild broncho ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... it with Master Mordacks, who of all born men was foremost, with his wiry fingers spread, to pass them through the scattery forelock of that mettlesome horse, old Time. The old horse galloped by him unawares, and left him standing still, to hearken the swish of the tail, and the clatter of the hoofs, and the spirited nostrils neighing for a race, on the wide breezy down at the end of the lane. But Geoffrey Mordacks was not to blame. His instructions ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... is definitely known of Lewis's family and early life. It is not much; but it suffices to show that he came of fine, fearless stock, mettlesome and reliant,—the sort of stock that brings forth men of action. The invertebrate vanity of blood is kept out of this story, in accord with the democratic belief of the time that a strong man's ancestors are what he himself ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... looked magnificent on horseback; there was something of the fighter, something bold and mettlesome about him, a valiant look, as our grandmothers used to say, when they threw themselves into the arms of the conquerors, between two campaigns, though the same conquerors had loud, rough voices, even when they ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... mouth, to the Proclamation of the Consuls, of which I inclose you a printed copy. The civil officers were habited in their dresses of parade, and decorated with tricoloured sashes; the heads of their steeds, which, by the bye, were not of a fiery, mettlesome race, being adorned in ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... that Lesbia, the self-same Lesbia whom Catullus more than himself and all his own did worship, now at cross-roads and in alleys husks off the mettlesome descendants ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... old Archie only wagged his head and answered, "Odd zooks, Cousin Charlie, Christmas raisins are not the only fruit that burns the fingers in the plucking, and mayhap you too may live to know that a mettlesome horse never stumbleth ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... though of almost too mettlesome an eye; in length of leg showing just the lack, in girth of waist just the excess, to imply a better dignity on horseback and to allow a proud tailor to prove how much art can overcome. Out on the road a liveried black coachman had halted an open carriage, in which this soldier had arrived ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... stanchest, bravest, fastest type of horse is suited for hunting in Virginia, and for this reason the more experienced riders to hounds prefer the thoroughbred, though half-bred and three-quarter-bred horses are also used to some extent, the thoroughbred often being too mettlesome, when he becomes excited, for any but the best riders. The finest qualities of a horse are brought out in hunting in the Piedmont section, for the pace here is very fast—much faster than in England, though it should be added that in the English hunting country there ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... she leaped lightly into the saddle, and soon she was flying over the old familiar road, down across the creek bridge, past the old grist-mill, around the fort and then out on the river bluff. The Indian pony was fiery and mettlesome. He pranced and side-stepped, galloped and trotted by turns. He seemed as glad to get out again into the warm sunshine as was Betty herself. He tore down the road a mile at his best speed. Coming back Betty pulled ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... you; still her look of slenderness is deceptive. She's one of the build that aren't so big as they look, nor yet so small as they look. Thoroughbred is the word for her, style and action, as the horse people say, perfect. The poise of her head, her mettlesome manner, her walk, show that she's been bred up like a Derby winner. Her face is the one all the aristocrats are copied from, finely cut nose, chin firm but dainty, lips just delicately full and the reddest ever, and ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... Ayr with a gathering host overflowed, She marked with a look of delight A white-bearded horseman who gallantly rode On a mettlesome steed black as night, And cried, forcing wildly her way through the throng, "Oh! master, thy pupil ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... that's restless," he defended. "Don's as contraptious as a mule. And I've caught a look in young O'Neill's eye once or twice like old Sim's black mare, mettlesome and ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... for review" and "To the rear open order" were instantly followed by a stentorian "Action front" down at the left, the instant leap and rush of some thirty nimble cannoneers, shouts of "Drive on!" the cracking of whips, the thunder and rumble of wheels, the thud of plunging hoofs. Forty-eight mettlesome horses in teams of two abreast went dancing briskly away to the rear, at sight of which Minor dropped his jaw and the point of his sword and sat gazing blankly after them, over the bowed head of his placid sorrel, ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... of the dark. He knew that trail almost as well by night as by day. His horse was a mettlesome colt that had not been worked during the harvest, and he plunged down the dim, winding trail as if, indeed, to verify Jerry's fears. Presently the thin, pale line that was the trail disappeared on the burned wheat-ground. Here Kurt was at fault as to direction, but he did not slacken the pace ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... bent, a little while; but if you both pull together, you are sure to lose your game, for either your line, or hook, or hold, will break: and after you have overcome them, they will make noble sport, and are very shy to be landed. The Carp is far stronger and more mettlesome ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... chased, the boy had urged Firefly into a mad gallop, desirous of getting as long a start as possible. And well it was that he did, for so mettlesome were the horses of the conspirators that, despite the start the loungers had, they quickly ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... Count Daun comes on in a tempest of furious fire; 'very heavy,' they say, from great guns and small; till close upon the place, when he summons Du Chatelet: 'No;' and thereupon attempts scalade. Cannot scalade, Du Chatelet and his people being mettlesome; takes then to flinging shells, to burning the suburbs; Town itself catches fire,—Town plainly indefensible. 'Truce for one hour' proposes Du Chatelet (wishful to consult the covering General across the River): 'No,' answers Daun. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... waiting for the spur, while the carle looked over his shoulder and said, "Yonder they come! they are three; and ever they ride well horsed. Nay, nay! They are four," quoth he, as a shout sounded behind them. "Spur, young lord! spur! And thine horse is a mettlesome beast. Yea, it will do, it ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... Cranbery. He didn't know how to manage her. His bridle hand warn't good, I tell you. A spry, mettlesome hoss, and a dull critter with no action, don't mate well ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... actually fancied myself invited to be valiant by this transparent embodiment of passion whose outburst of amorous rebellion had been uttered not because I was there, but only in pure recklessness of my presence. Of course I ought to have seen that this was a soul only over-rich in woman's love; mettlesome, aspiring, but untrained to renunciation; consciously superior in mind and soul to the throng about her, and caught in some hideous gin of iron-bound—convention-bound—or even law-bound—foul play. But I was so besotted as to suggest a base ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... And the way he sat in his saddle, the poise of the lean, lanky muscular frame! No wonder the first stockman seemed to the wild blacks a new sort of beast with four legs and two bodies. And the clean-limbed mettlesome creature under him! Man and beast seemed truly a part of each other. Lady Bridget O'Hara's soul warmed to that stockman ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... But, like a mettlesome steeplechaser, Drake took a leap in his stride during the preliminary canter before the great race. The wind being foul for the Canaries, he went on to the Cape Verde archipelago and captured Santiago, which had been abandoned in terror on the approach of the ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... twenty years, the rich man will avoid the poor; he does not recognize him, he is afraid even to glance into the gulf which Fate has set between him and the friend of other years. The one has been borne through life on the mettlesome steed called Fortune, or wafted on the golden clouds of success; the other has been making his way in underground Paris through the sewers, and bears the marks of his career upon him. How many a chum of old days turned aside at the sight of the doctor's ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... an old one, stiffened and jaded by much hard travel, but it had been a mettlesome one in its younger days, with the recollection of many exciting adventures. Now, although it seemed half asleep, dreaming, maybe, of the many jaunts it had taken with other American tourists, or wondering if it were not time ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a time for quick judgment. The scout said they could not ride down over the ridge, and the chief decided they must follow along it. The going got to be hard and rough. One by one the men dismounted to lead their horses. Neale, who rode a mettlesome ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... Experience, that these Creatures are made fierce by these Colours, just as Tygers are made so raging mad by the Sound of a Drum, that they will tear their own selves; and Jockies have particular Sounds, and Whistles, and Stroakings, and other Methods to sooth Horses that are mettlesome: How much more does it become us to use these Acts towards our Husbands, with whom, whether we will or no, we must live all our Lives at ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... lass," she said, "though a bit mettlesome and wild; but I'm not saying anything again her. The Lord forbid that I should run down my own flesh and blood! An' she's better than most gels of her age. I wouldn't grudge her a bit of fun while ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L——, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out; and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... breakfast. As he did so he heard voices from a stable-yard in the street. He lifted his head and looked out mechanically. A four-wheeled dogcart was coming down the archway behind a mettlesome young horse with silver-mounted harness. The man driving it was a gorgeous person in a light Melton overcoat. One of his spatted feet was on the break, and he had a big cigar between his teeth. It ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... in an open place, and were just discussing the matter, when—whiz!—a bullet grazed the flank of Wildgoose, and the mettlesome creature reared straight into the air, threatening to fall backwards over ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of horses that," he said, indicating the mettlesome bays attached to the vehicle, which, in spite of their brisk run, were tossing their heads and ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... prick of it, the high-spirited mettlesome animal, scarcely broken, reared and sprang forward, all but unseating him. He dropped the reins and instinctively caught its mane, at the same time pressing his legs more closely in against the animal's sides, thus driving the spur deeper. They shouted to him to lie down, ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... ours in England. The horses that accompanied him for his own riding were six in number, and were all richly caparisoned. These horses were not tall, but of the size of our middling nags, short and well knit, small-headed, and very mettlesome, and in my opinion far excelling the Spanish jennet in spirit and action. His palanquin was carried before him, being lined with crimson velvet, and having six bearers, two and two to carry ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... said Lewis an instant later; for they brought out two handsome horses, one coal-black, the other piebald, both mettlesome and high-strung. ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... Having fed our mettlesome steed, the next thing was to water him. The Anakim remembered to have seen a pump with a trough somewhere, and they proposed to reconnoitre while we should "wait BY the wagon" their return. No, I said we would drive on to ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... church-time. Everything that he looked at delighted him—the richness of shop-windows, showing all the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the liveries worn by pampered servants standing at carriage wheels; the glossy coats of mettlesome, prancing horses; the extravagant dresses of fine ladies mincingly walking on the common public pavement; the stolid grandeur of huge policemen, and the infinite audacity of small newspaper boys; the life, the color, the noise. It seemed as if the busy city ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... Ruggieri lay, and by her cajoleries prevailed upon the warders to let her speak with him; and having told him how he must answer the Stadic if he would get off, she succeeded in obtaining preaudience of the Stadic; who, seeing that the baggage was lusty and mettlesome, was minded before he heard her to grapple her with the hook, to which she was by no means averse, knowing that such a preliminary would secure her a better hearing. When she had undergone the operation and was risen:—"Sir," said ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... sensitive; impressible, impressionable; susceptive, susceptible; alive to, impassionable^, gushing; warm hearted, tender hearted, soft hearted; tender as a chicken; soft, sentimental, romantic; enthusiastic, highflying^, spirited, mettlesome, vivacious, lively, expressive, mobile, tremblingly alive; excitable &c 825; oversensitive, without skin, thin-skinned; fastidious &c 868. Adv. sensibly &c adj.; to the quick, to the inmost core. Phr. mens aequa in arduis [Lat.]; pour ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the music excellent. I knew that the piece had stood its rehearsal—and then suddenly it was hissed. Some young men, who gave the word to hiss, had said to some others, who inquired from them their reasons for doing so, that the trifle had too much luck, and then Andersen would be getting too mettlesome. ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... there, Down to the earth and aloft through the air! Now see the man, as for combat, enter— Where is the peril he fears to adventure? See how the puppets speed on to the race,} Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; } How many the rivals, how narrow the space! } But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game! The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame. How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow! How the craven behind them come creeping slow— Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Mr. Ivison, "I am beginning to take quite an interest in that young fellow. He has genuine pluck. You cannot understand, Mrs. Arnot, what an ordeal he has passed through. He is naturally as mettlesome as a young colt, and yet day after day he was subjected to words and actions that were to him like the cut of ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... the Kaiser's horse in the ribs, that animal gave a mighty spring and bounded from his position. Usually a tractable, though mettlesome beast, the horse was greatly surprised at the treatment he was receiving, and it is not surprising that he made every ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... little interest that the bishop and his friends watched the young page mount his new steed, for it was a mettlesome one, and used only to a man's weight. When Pierre bounded into the saddle, the horse reared and plunged; but the boy kept his seat, and soon, with the aid of bit and spur, had the animal under complete ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... heavy brass candlestick and the next instant had aimed a murderous blow at Jack's head. Armitage caught the flash of the descending weapon in time to duck his head, taking the force upon the lower muscles of his neck. The wave of pain was as the lash to a mettlesome horse. Before the Prince could swing the candlestick again Armitage had him by the throat and bore him to the floor, half stifling his ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... all along anxious to try the speed of his horse, proposed to Richard a gallop towards a clump of trees about a mile off, and the young man assenting, away they started. Master Potts started too, for Flint did not like to be left behind, but the mettlesome pony was soon distanced. For some time the two horses kept so closely together, that it was difficult to say which would arrive at the goal first; but, by-and-by, Robin got a-head. Though at first indifferent to the issue of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that further remonstrance would be unavailing, and very reluctantly got ready the mettlesome steed. Gilbert jumped on his back and put his feet ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... hear the neighing of those mettlesome horses? They brought me hither, and I can guide them well; nay, at the last Isthmian games I won the crown with my own quadriga. You said you had never ridden standing in a chariot. How would you like to try for once how it feels? I will drive you with pleasure up and down behind ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that question led him to the conclusion that perhaps Thalassa had been impelled to his choice by the realization that she was as good-looking a wife as he could afford. Barrant reflected that women resembled horses in value. The mettlesome showy ones were bred to display their paces for rich men only. Serviceable hacks, warranted to work a lifetime, could not be expected to be ornamental as well as useful. So long as they pulled their burdens without jibbing overmuch, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... she is said to have had an encounter with the arm of the law. The story is that, mounted on a blood horse, she attended a review held in honour of the King and the Czar; and her steed, being somewhat mettlesome, carried her at full tilt across the parade ground and into the midst of the royal party assembled at ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... three advancing youths, though similar, are subtly varied. So everywhere monotony is absent from the frieze. Fig. 126 is taken from the most animated and crowded part of the design. Here Athenian youths, in a great variety of dress and undress, dash forward on small, mettlesome horses. Owing to the principle of isocephaly (cf. page 145), the mounted men are of smaller dimensions than those on foot, but the difference does not offend the eye. In Fig. 127 we have, on a somewhat larger scale, the heads of four ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... Miss Johnstone if she has entirely recovered," gravely said Captain Hardwicke to Mademoiselle Justine Delande, when the still excited Swiss woman poured forth her congratulations to the young hero of this morning's episode. Hardwicke was standing with his gloved hand grasping the mettlesome "Garibaldi's" bridle. Justine Delande threw her arms around the neck of the noble horse and kissed his sleek brown cheek. Then she whispered a few words to Captain Hardwicke, which made that young warrior's heart leap ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Nails were ending it. Though forced to ride carefully so long as they were on the mountain trail, when the latter reached the plains they had "cut loose." Both were expert horsemen and the ponies under them were mettlesome. Indeed, Blackhawk had not entirely recovered his temper since his roping and it was he that set the pace. Yet the riders did not allow the ponies to run themselves out in the first few miles, holding them down to a long, steady lope that ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... to the praise earned by the mettlesome veterans of Jackson's corps, in the deadly fight at Fairview. They had continuously marched and fought, with little sleep and less rations, since Thursday morning. Their ammunition had been sparse, and they had been obliged to rely frequently upon ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... tail ceased, she half rose; she began to purr, a purr that sounded to me as loud as the roar of a water-fall in a gorge; she took a few steps towards me, then, suddenly, she made a peculiar movement hard to describe, something like the curvetting of a mettlesome colt, but characteristic of a leopard and therefore like the movement of no other animal save a leopard or lion or tiger; she leapt daintily clear of the pavement and struck sideways with her forepaws. The antic perfectly expressed playful ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... rode over to the fortress. As his usual custom was, he went to see Grigori Aleksandrovich, who always used to give him sweetmeats to eat. I was present. The conversation was on the subject of horses, and Pechorin began to sound the praises of Kazbich's Karagyoz. What a mettlesome horse it was, and how handsome! A perfect chamois! In fact, judging by his account, there simply wasn't another like ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... came from Dave's uncle, Dunston Porter, who had just finished a belated lunch. "Well, have a good time, and don't let that pair of grays run away with you. John was telling me they are feeling quite mettlesome lately. I guess they don't ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... come out yet," began Sam, when he caught sight of a buggy on a road behind the barn. It was going at a furious rate, the scarred man driving, and lashing his mettlesome horse at ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... dinner, Lavretzky said that he would like some tea, if.... "This very moment, sir, I will serve it, sir,"—interrupted the old man,—and he kept his promise. A pinch of tea was hunted up, wrapped in a scrap of red paper, a small but very mettlesome and noisy samovar was searched out, also sugar, in very tiny bits, that seemed to have been melted around the edges. Lavretzky drank his tea out of a large cup; he remembered that cup in his childhood: playing-cards were depicted ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... with the ardour of the male is a certain amount of reluctance in the female. The pairing act on her part only takes place after prolonged stimulation, for affording which the behaviour of male courtship is the requisite presentation. The most vigorous, defiant and mettlesome male is preferred just because he alone affords a contributory stimulation adequate to evoke the pairing impulse with its attendant ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... Giovanni, was made Duke; but that certain conditions had been imposed at his election, which would hold him back from kicking up his heels at his own pleasure. I now had my opportunity for laughing at them, and saying: "Those men of Florence have set a young man upon a mettlesome horse; next they have buckled spurs upon his heels, and put the bridle freely in his hands, and turned him out upon a magnificent field, full of flowers and fruits and all delightful things; next they have ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... pulled an' she pulled, an' she pulled an' they pulled, until at length the mare was compelled to practise the virtue of resignation in the ditch, wid the goats about her neck. She died by suspinsion; but the mettlesome ould crathur, wid a love of justice that did her honor, hanged the goat's in requital; for they departed this vale of tears on the mountain side along wid her, so that they had the satisfaction of dyin' a ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... those eyes Will search the marrow. Jim will have his hands full, Unless she's used to menfolk and their ways, And past the minding. She'd the quietness That's a kind of pride, and yet, not haughty—held Her head like a young blood-mare, that's mettlesome Without a touch of vice. She'll gan her gait Through this world, and the next. The bit in her teeth, There'll be no holding her, though Jim may tug The snaffle, till he's tewed. I've kenned that look In women's eyes, ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... Davenport. We had come down the Mississippi, mightiest of rivers! half a mile wide seventeen hundred miles from its mouth, and were in the far West. Waggons with white tilts, thick-hided oxen with heavy yokes, mettlesome steeds with high peaked saddles, picketed to stumps of trees, lashing away the flies with their tails; emigrants on blue boxes, wondering if this were the El Dorado of their dreams; arms, accoutrements, and baggage surrounded the house or shed where we were to breakfast. Most ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... a mettlesome spirit! You struck him swift and hard. 'Twould please me better if you had ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the objectivity which we have to expect from this book. Not the soft, flabby, indifferent, contradictory objectivity of the scientific dilettante, of the arch-eunuch: but a mettlesome objectivity which is appropriate in this fighting age, the objectivity of one who honestly attempts to see everything and to know everything; but who, having done so, endeavours to organise his data in accordance with a hypothesis, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... mere supernumerary at first, who played beside Clarisse the part of one of those advisers to whom we cling in the serious crises of our lives and who suddenly, shaking off his torpor, appeared in the full light of day, resolute, masterful, mettlesome, brimming over with daring, ready to overthrow all the obstacles that ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... a pavilion where a number of pleasure-seekers were gathered and selected a sleigh and two mettlesome horses. She took the reins from the man, and sprang lightly into the graceful cutter. Thorndyke followed her and wrapped the thick robes about her feet. Away they sped like the wind down the smooth road, through a leafless forest. Overhead ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... the square—a distance of about one hundred yards. James Cooper was named as one of the runners, and his rival was soon chosen. According to custom, the village boys, girls, men, and women were spectators. Like a mettlesome steed in curb young Cooper looked at the wager,—a basket of fruit,—then at his race-mate, and accepted the challenge, but not on even terms. It was not enough for a sailor simply to outrun a landsman; he could do more. A little girl stood near, her bright ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... forsaken her. He bounded along over the rugged ground on the mettlesome steed, striking fire from the flinty rocks, leaping creeks and rivulets, bursting through bush and brake, mile after mile, until he gained the open prairie, while the black coat of his charger was speckled with foam. Here he drew rein, and trotted hither and thither ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... a short one to the handsome residence of the Warmores. As Tom guided the mettlesome pony through the open gate and up the winding roadway to the front of the porch, Mrs. Warmore came out pale with fright. She had just learned of the accident from G. Field Catherwood, who had limped up the steps with a rambling tale of how he had been flung headlong from the vehicle at the moment ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... sat calm and judicial on the other side. Judge Harlin pleased himself much by believing that he could handle Nick Ellhorn better than any other man in the county, except Emerson Mead, and he liked to have the opportunity to try his hand, just as he liked to drive a nervous, mettlesome, erratic horse. He could drive the horse, but he could not manage Nick Ellhorn. The tall Texan had learned not to batter words against the judge's determination, which was as big and bulky as his figure. He simply gave tacit acquiescence, and then went away and did as he pleased. If ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... it, having in mind the old adage that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. There was never any doubt in Stuyvesant's mind that the first business of a ruler is to rule, and popular government seemed to him the merest idiocy. "A valiant, weather-beaten, mettlesome, obstinate, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited old governor"—the adjectives describe him well; a sufficiently imposing figure, with his slashed hose and velvet jacket and tall cane and silver-banded wooden leg, he ruled the colony for twenty ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... nor the woman curbed the mettlesome Pegasus "Emotion", methinks the colts and fillies would want for hay and ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... said the Black Colonel to his beast; "can't you stand still with those mettlesome legs of yours? You may," he went on, more to himself than to the horse, "need them to-night, for our friend, Captain Ian Gordon of his Hanoverian Majesty's forces, is late, and when a man is late it generally bodes trouble; for a woman anyhow, I might confess from my experience. ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... nowadays." In point of fact he did not think so. He liked girls who were good sportsmen and played the game hard. But he was talking merely to bridge a mental stress. "Think they can do anything a man can. 'Fess up, Miss McLean. You'd try to ride any horse I could, no matter how mettlesome it was. ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... learned of changes that had happened at home. His brother had been thrown by a young and mettlesome horse, and so badly trampled that he must remain a helpless invalid for the rest of his life. Sir Willoughby Stokes, even before he heard of the death of his nephew Peloti, had made Desmond his heir. Mr. Merriman had bought an estate near his father's old friend, and ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... James George Jackson and her guide that the latter gentleman was not only to accompany the lady every foot of the route, but was meantime to cling valiantly to the bridle with both hands. Unfortunately, this arrangement, so deeply satisfying to all, was not ratified by the mettlesome Irish pony; the result being that, after the guide had been swept off his feet by a sudden and unexpected lift of the animal's forelegs, Aunt Nancy and the pony continued the excursion alone. Judging from ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... employment. Even so in my later life. Loth to obey, loth to command. Convention (for she too frightens me) has made me accept what servants would do for me by rote. But I would liefer have it ill-done than ask even the least mettlesome of them to do it better, and far liefer, if they would only be off and not do it at all, do it for myself. In Italy—dear Italy, where I have lived much—servants do still regard service somewhat in ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... touched the saddle, the mettlesome creature bounded from the earth with a sudden spring, that threw his master sprawling, some feet off, on the soft, dry turf. Sam, with frantic ejaculations, made a dive at the reins, but only succeeded in brushing the blazing palm-leaf afore-named into the horse's eyes, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... mettlesome horse gave a plunge and started off at a three-minute gait. The boy drew out his watch and observed: "He hain't got but fifteen minutes to git to camp in, but he 'll do it. The mare 's a stepper, and Phil King knows how to handle ...
— An Echo Of Antietam - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... her hunting, as she was returning from the chase, and was arrived within a little distance from Mr Western's house, her horse, whose mettlesome spirit required a better rider, fell suddenly to prancing and capering in such a manner that she was in the most imminent peril of falling. Tom Jones, who was at a little distance behind, saw this, and immediately galloped up to her assistance. As soon as he came up, he ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Messrs. Hewitt, Tegetmeier, and Brent, three of the highest authorities and best observers, "do not believe that the females prefer certain males on account of the beauty of their plumage." Mr. Hewitt was convinced "that the female almost invariably prefers the most vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome male;" and Mr. Tegetmeier, "that a gamecock, though disfigured by being dubbed, and with his hackles trimmed, would be accepted as readily as a male retaining all his natural ornaments."[126] Evidence is adduced that a female pigeon will sometimes turn antipathy to a particular male without ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... pace was too hard for her. She couldn't face that highest rock; the one below had made her feel cold and queer and shaky as she stood on it. Besides, why was she trying, for the first time in her life, to go Nan's pace, which had always been, and was now more than ever before, too hot and mettlesome for her? She didn't know why; only that Nan had been, somehow, all day setting the pace, daring her, as it were, to make it. It was becoming, oddly, a point of honour between them, and neither ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... away stands Malachi with a gun smokin' in his fist. It seems to be the opinion that it was cussedness—just cussedness—that made Malachi turn the sheriff's boots to the sun. For Malachi was quarrelsome. I'll give you a quarter on that. And the sheriff was mettlesome, used to have high spirits, like as if he's lift himself over the fence with his bootstraps. So when Malachi come and saw the sheriff steppin' round in his paten' leathers, it give him the needle, and he got a bead on him—and away went Sheriff Fargo— right ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... night, till Sancho, perceiving that daybreak was coming on apace, very cautiously untied Rocinante and tied up his breeches. As soon as Rocinante found himself free, though by nature he was not at all mettlesome, he seemed to feel lively and began pawing—for as to capering, begging his pardon, he knew not what it meant. Don Quixote, then, observing that Rocinante could move, took it as a good sign and a signal that he should attempt the dread adventure. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... whistle, with the words, "Good humour, ahoy!" had hitherto served to keep down the rising tempers of the different parties, when the joke bore too hard on the high-spirited soldier, or the revengeful, though perhaps less mettlesome, member of the after-guard. But an oversight on the part of him who in common kept so vigilant an eye on the movements of all beneath his orders, had nearly led to results of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... wooden shoes, and she wore a jersey which fitted her body closely and left her brown neck bare. Her watchful eyes were like those of some shy animal, but her lips had the faculty of repose. Helen had once compared her to a mettlesome young horse and there was about her some quality of the male. She might have been a youth scorning ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... mettlesome, stood waiting for music that could scarcely be lighter or more devoid of moral quality than her own immature heart. Life, at that time, had for her but one great desideratum—fun; and with her especial favorites about her, with a careful selection ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... to promise so well as that of Mr. Pratt, so he waited. At last he came, a tall, sandy-bearded fellow, who walked beside a four-horse team drawing two covered wagons tandem. Behind him straggled a bunch of bony cattle and some horses, herded by a girl and a small boy. The girl rode a mettlesome little pony, sitting sidewise on a ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... and watch his horses graze, but ever he saw that the riders were close at hand, and that the horses did not get out on the slope of sage. He sat back and gloried in the sight. He owned bands of mustangs; near by was a field of them, fine and mettlesome and racy; yet Bostil had eyes only for the blooded favorites. Strange it was that not one of these was a mustang or a broken wild horse, for many of the riders' best mounts had been captured by them or the Indians. ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... a mettlesome old horse suddenly pulled up in full career, he stamped and reared and plunged with fury, and foamed and spluttered and stuttered before he ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the alert and defensive. Out on the prairie, three hundred yards beyond, a spotted Indian pony, heels up, was rolling on the turf, evidently sorely wounded. Behind this rolling parapet crouched a feathered warrior, and farther still away, sweeping and circling on their mettlesome steeds, three more savage braves were darting at speed. Already they had sighted the coming reinforcements, and while two seemed frantically signalling toward the northwest, the third whirled his horse and sped ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... striped coat, such as has gone on more recently in the case of the quaggas, is absolute evidence of the North African origin of a horse, and he shows that all the swiftest horses mentioned in history are of that race, while the heavier and less mettlesome horses of Northern origin have been, when pure ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... kissed her passionately, in the midst of the immense forest whose every leaf was moving. And she returned his kiss without restraint. For they were betrothed. And Rachel imagined the free life of distant forests, where love was, and where slim girls rode mettlesome horses more easily than the girls of the Five Towns rode bicycles. She could not even ride a bicycle, had never had the opportunity to learn. The vision of emotional pleasures that in her narrow existence she had not dreamed of filled her ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... hundred ducats to Captain Crispe, yeoman of Whitelocke's stables, and twenty-five ducats to the servants of Whitelocke's stable. To the Prince, Whitelocke also presented a young English gelding of Fenwicke's breed, very handsome and mettlesome; the more esteemed by Whitelocke, and afterwards by the Prince, when he heard that it had been given ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... a horseman was seen riding rapidly towards them. It was Captain Hibbert. The movement of his shoulders, as he reined in his mettlesome bay, was picturesque, and he was coaxingly and gushingly upbraided for ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... two vigorous and mettlesome horses resounded on the pavement, a gigantic footman opened the emblazoned door, and a young man descended slowly from this brilliant vehicle, and not less slowly mounted the five or six steps ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... riding hard to Hauterive, came in sight of a besieging army round about it—a tented field, a pavilion, wherefrom drooped the saltire of De Forz, a long line of attack, in fine, a notable scheme of offence. He saw a sortie from the gates driven back by as mettlesome a cavalry charge as he ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... spend at home. Peaceful thoughts filled the hearts of most of them, but B.J. dreamed chiefly of the furious conflicts that awaited him on the lake, which had been the scene of many an adventure in his mettlesome ice-boat. ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... to his soliloquy, there rose above the crackling of the fire, the muffled distant thud of galloping hoofs. A few moments later a well-built, sturdy lad astride a mettlesome pony dashed into ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Jews—and my geese were quite as good as those of Mukhan, and I had genuine slate-coloured tumbler-pigeons.... I was an amateur of all sorts of things! Except that I never was a dog-fancier, because of the drunkenness and the clownishness! I was mettlesome, untamable! God forbid that a Telyegin should be anything but first-class in everything! And I had a splendid horse-breeding establishment.... And those horses came ... whence, thinkest thou, my little sir?—From those very renowned studs of the Tzar Ivan Alexyeitch, the brother of ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... with you one day, and next day, for no earthly reason, he returns your hospitality by slapping you on the cheeks in the face of all decent society, if the fancy takes him, out of sheer wantonness. And what's more, the fair sex is everything for them, these butterflies and mettlesome-cocks! Grand gentlemen with little wings like the ancient cupids, lady-killing Petchorins! It's all very well for you, Stepan Trofimovitch, a confirmed bachelor, to talk like that, stick up for his ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... weather. Audrey had not been in the leafy street more than a moment when she forgot that she was tired and short of sleep, and also very worried by affairs both private and public. Her body responded to the sun, and her mind also. She felt almost magically healthy, strong and mettlesome, and, further, she began to feel happy; she rather blamed herself for this tendency to feel happy, calling herself heedless and indifferent. She did not understand what it is to be young. She had risen partly because ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... the place were his pets, and he knew the peculiarities of each as well as did the man who cared for them. Riding and driving came to him as naturally as breathing, and the fact that a steed was mettlesome did ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... at nothing; even Nature herself she had a try at, like some mettlesome horse which does not like to be balked by anything in the shape of ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... at once. She is the most beautiful animal in the world. Though small of limb, she is swift as the wind, and as easy as a cradle in her gaits. She is mettlesome and fiery, but full of affection. She often kisses Dorothy. Mare and rider are finely mated. Dorothy is the most perfect woman, and Dolcy is the most perfect mare. 'The two D's,' we call them. But Dorothy says we must be ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... them if, when the horse has been thoroughly exercised, he attempt to do to him what he did before he began to ride him; since horses that, after having been exercised, are ready to submit to exercise again give sufficient proofs of a mettlesome spirit. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... spiritual mentor, and I was seriously resolved to fill these positions hopefully for her and with credit to myself. With respect to the rest of my flock, I felt a different sort of interest—the wide-awake concern of one who finds himself suddenly perched on the back of a mettlesome, untried steed. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... scare my birds. Rein in that mettlesome steed of yours! That green cock was just ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... and sun-glare, in mud and rain, in pelting hail-storm and darkness, and never once until late in the autumn could they again come within striking distance. By that time the jaunty riders of the early spring-tide were worn to skeletons; the mettlesome horses—those that were left—barely able to stagger through weakness, exhaustion, and starvation. Then like prairie wolves the warriors closed once more about the jaded flanks, waiting, watching every chance of picking off the stragglers. Just one day did Differs's troop get ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... restive and rebellious, that, it was obvious, he had found it no easy matter to urge them along. A place was found where he appeared to have been thrown by the turbulent Briareus, which he seemed afterwards to have pursued, mounted on the pony, in the vain hope of retaking the mettlesome charger, until persuaded of his inability, or afraid, from the direction in which the animal had fled, of being led back again to the settlement. His track, after abandoning the chase, was as plain as that ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... years his people had been gay and careless livers on this very soil; among them all he knew of not one who had gone without the smallest of his desires, nor of one who had permitted his left hand to learn what his right one cast away. Big, blithe, mettlesome, they passed before him in a long, comely line, flushed with the pleasant follies which had helped to sap the courage in their ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... a large southern city. And that is why the entire region was called the Yamskaya Sloboda—the Stage-drivers' Borough; or simply Yamskaya, or Yamkas—Little Ditches, or, shorter still, Yama—The Pit. In the course of time, when hauling by steam killed off transportation by horses, the mettlesome tribe of the stage-drivers little by little lost its boisterous ways and its brave customs, went over into other occupations, fell apart and scattered. But for many years—even up to this time—a shady renown has remained to Yama, as of a place ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... living in peace at Bordentown in the year Seventeen Hundred Eighty-seven. The war was ended, the last hostile Britisher had departed, and the country was awakening to prosperity. Paine rode his mettlesome old war-horse "Button," back and forth from Philadelphia, often stopping and seating himself by the roadway to write out a thought while the horse that had known the smell of powder quietly nibbled the grass. The success of Benjamin Franklin as an inventor had fired ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... sorrel steed of sir Launcelot Greaves. The word means a "mettlesome sorrel."—Smollett, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... saw their wonder, for the first words he said after they left the ground were, "Pixie, though small, is mettlesome, gentlemen," (here he contrived that Pixie should himself corroborate the assertion, by executing a gambade,)—"he is diminutive, but full of spirit;—indeed, save that I am somewhat too large for an elfin horseman," (the knight ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... no one did Nancy speak so interestedly as she did to a tall, good-looking young fellow with peculiarly frank eyes and a particularly winning smile, who cantered up to the side door on a mettlesome thoroughbred at ten o'clock that Thursday morning. At the same time, to no one did she talk with so much evident embarrassment, so far as the manner of address was concerned; for her tongue stumbled and blundered out a "Master Jimmy—er—Mr. Bean—I mean, Mr. Pendleton, Master ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... to the period during which the breed achieved its celebrity both at home and abroad, and that period is the long reign of George III." Dr. Knapp expresses himself as much terrified by the invasion of the free path by "a party rushing madly up, striving to keep pace with a mettlesome steed . . . at the sight of whose enormous hoofs and shaggy fetlocks you are all but ready to perish." Such niggling super refinement would be quite repugnant to Borrow's highway ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... French joined up with the second and third brigades of Canadians, and where the British troops joined up with the Canadians. When about to leave, a friend, Major Maclaren of the 10th Infantry battalion, riding a mettlesome horse, rode up and I got out of the car and held the bridle while we had a long talk about the experiences of the Canadians since we had left ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... Topinard's suggestion that it is a matter of race or that a change of environment operates to stimulate growth. Rather does it appear that it is the growth which suggests the change. The tall men are in the main those vigorous, mettlesome, presumably healthy individuals who have themselves, or in the person of their fathers, come to the city in search of the prizes which urban life has to offer to the successful. On the other hand, the degenerate, the stunted, those who entirely outnumber the others so far as to ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... doubt we shall nicely agree, As no twins can be liker, in most points, than we; Both, specimens choice of that mixt sort of beast, (See Rev. xiii. I) a political priest: Both mettlesome chargers, both brisk pamphleteers, Ripe and ready for all that sets men by the ears; And I, at least one, who would scorn to stick longer By any given cause than I found it the stronger, And who, smooth in my turnings, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... hunting-field in saving Sophia from her too mettlesome horse kept Jones a prisoner for some time in Mr. Western's house, and during those weeks he not only found that he loved Sophia with an unbounded passion, but he plainly saw the tender sentiments she had for him; yet could not ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... when she could have gone to her own. To be sure, she did not know then who he was, and she had stopped coming when she learned; but why had she crossed again that day? Perhaps she too was bantering him, and he was at once angry and drawn to her; for her mettlesome spirit touched his own love of daring, even when his humiliation was most bitter-when she told him he warred on women; when he held out to her the branch of peace and she swept it aside with a stroke of her oar. But Rome was little conscious of the weight of subtle facts like ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... of the little Hertfordshire inn, Anthony drafted his application with the utmost care. All the time he tried to keep a tight hand upon his hopes—unruly and mettlesome fellows, which more than once had carried him into the meadow of Expectation before he knew where he was. There the going was splendid—till you came to the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... he dragged the cumbersome thing all over Russia and played it in recitals with amazing success. In 1903, when Mr. Koussevitzky was twenty-nine (he's sixty-eight now but looks a mettlesome fifty), the Czar decorated him—the only instance in history of a ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... trotted into the enclosure a span of handsome bay horses with a low phaeton in which were seated two ladies; and directly after them, at full gallop, came two riders on spirited, mettlesome sorrels. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... of killed, wounded, and missing. I repaired to his room, and arrayed myself in a fatigue officer's suit, with clean underclothing, after which, descending, I climbed into his saddle, and dashed off, with a mettlesome, dapper pony. The railroad track was about a mile from the house, and the whole country, hereabout, was sappy, dank, and almost barren. Scrub pines covered much of the soil, and the cleared fields were dotted ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... into the claims of the rich—a code, in fact, which makes the greasing of the fat pig a work holy unto the Lord. The keen selfishness of my proposal touched a kindred chord in poor Tom's bosom; the mettlesome casting of my sprat upon the waters, in sure hope of finding a mackerel after many days, awoke his admiration; whilst an immediate and prospective advantage to himself stood out through it all. Yet, under this crust of clannishness, cunning, and money-hunger, there lay a fine manhood. I saw the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... game that had fallen to their guns—wild-boars, roebucks, cerfs-dix-cors, and what not; of perilous swims in stormy seas—tremendous adventures in fishing-smacks on moonlight nights (it seemed that the moon had been at the full all through those wonderful six weeks); rides ventre a terre on mettlesome Arab steeds through gloomy wolf-haunted forests with charming female cousins; flirtations and "good fortunes" with beautiful but not happily married women in old mediaeval castle keeps. Toujours au clair de la lune! They didn't believe each other in the least, these gay young ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... along, still on high gear—that tin car certainly pulled strongly—a horseman emerged from a fold in the hills. He was riding a sweat-covered, mettlesome black with a rolling eye. His own eye was bitter, and likewise the other features of his face. After trying in vain to get the frantic animal within twenty feet of our mitrailleuse, ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... her Spanish jennet; some of the other gentlemen assisted the Senora Agapida to the back of the sure-footed mule which she had elected as her mount; Alvarado saluted and sprang to the back of his mettlesome barb, and, followed by a half-dozen troopers who constituted the escort, the rear being brought up by servants with pack mules carrying the personal baggage of the two ladies, the little cavalcade moved off, the gentlemen in the Viceroy's ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... high, and he would now and then shake it in that manner peculiar to the equine race. Angel and I followed closely with occasional caracoles, and cavortings, and scornful blowings through the nostrils. All three shied at a lamp-post. It needed no second glance to perceive that we were mettlesome steeds out for exercise, and feeling ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... him," and Bell examined Kate carefully; "but a' can tell yir mither's dochter, a weel-faured mettlesome lady as wes ever seen; wae 's me, wae 's me for the wars," at the sight of Carnegie's face; "but ye 'll come in to see Marjorie. A 'll mak her ready," and Bell hurried ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... Revolutionary times, and Mistral the grandfather—only he was not a grandfather then, but a mettlesome young soldier of two-and-twenty—was serving with the Army of the Pyrenees, down on the borders of Spain. December was well on, but the season was open—so open that he found one day a tree still bearing oranges. He filled a basket with the fruit and carried ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier |
