"Middling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beeches the shapes of the lords that ride, And down in the marish hollow I have heard the lady who sings. And once in an April gleaming I met a maid on the sward, All marble-white and gleaming and tender and wild of eye;— I, Jehan the hunter, who speak am a grown man, middling hard, But I dreamt a month of the maid, and wept I knew ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... catamites, and whose old men are obstinate as asses." "But I am from Yemen," said the boy. "If so," answered the tyrant, "thou belongest to a comfortless region, where the most honourable profession is robbery, where the middling ranks tan hides, and where a wretched poor spin wool and weave coarse mantles." "But I am from Mecca," said the boy." "Then," replied Hyjauje, "thou comest from a mine of perverseness, stupidity, ignorance, and slothfulness; for from among its people God raised up his prophet, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... "Middle Temple, I suppose?"—he queries. Why? Somehow it would sound more flattering if he had supposed Inner Temple, instead of Middle. Wonder if I shall ever be described as an "Outer barrister, of the Inner Temple, with Middling abilities." Is there a special cut of face belonging to the Inner Temple, another for the Middle (there is a "middle cut" in salmon, why not in the law?) and a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... overlapping another, or in thin flakes, as if occupying slight cleavages. The beauty of the ice was gone, and it was too late to study the bottom. Being curious to know what position my great bubbles occupied with regard to the new ice, I broke out a cake containing a middling sized one, and turned it bottom upward. The new ice had formed around and under the bubble, so that it was included between the two ices. It was wholly in the lower ice, but close against the upper, and was flattish, or perhaps slightly lenticular, with a rounded edge, a quarter ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... and hurried her across the garden, through a small postern door, which stood ajar, into an obscure street bordering the convent wall. Here stood the expectant porter, with a bundle in his hand, which he opened, and took thence a long cloak, such as the women of middling rank in Madrid wore in the winter season, with the customary mantilla or veil. With these, still without speaking, the stranger hastily shrouded the form of the novice, and once more hurried her on till about a hundred yards from the ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... know!" the mason exclaimed with rising excitement. "I've seen it over and over, everywhere. I've seen it in my own family," he said in a burst of bitter confidence. "There were eight of us and we were only middling poor until father died. The old man was a carpenter, up north in Sacramento County. He had a small place outside of town and we raised some stuff. But he got sick and died, when he weren't forty, and mother had ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... can't have you call Utica inferior. It isn't supreme—that's what's the matter with it, and I hate anything middling," said Pandora Day. She gave a light dry laugh, tossing back her head a little as she made this declaration. And looking at her askance in the dusk, as she trod the deck that vaguely swayed, he recognised something in her air and port that ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... The rent, without furniture, would probably have been one hundred pounds; furnished, it is one hundred and sixty pounds. Rock Park, as the locality is called, is private property, and is now nearly covered with residences for professional people, merchants, and others of the upper middling class; the houses being mostly built, I suppose, on speculation, and let to those who occupy them. It is the quietest place imaginable, there being a police station at the entrance, and the officer on duty allows no ragged or ill-looking person to pass. There being a toll, it precludes all unnecessary ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the rheumatism, Miss Hannah, and wasn't able to do no weaving, and as I knowed young Ishmael would be out of work as long as I was, I just made so free, Miss Hannah, as to bring you this bag of flour and middling of bacon, which I hope you'll do me the honor of accepting from ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... found some food—with difficulty, for the proprietors had removed their valuables during the night and made a middling breakfast. He had not fully determined what to do, so he stayed where he was until his next step should become clearer. The morning passed slowly, with no developments. He kept an eye on the crowd of watchers, and once or twice he was puzzled to see that they pointed not only at him, but along ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... that there is anything particularly new or interesting. Not much is going on there. We have had a good crop of hay, the corn looks middling well; the rye is not much rusted. I think we shall not want for bread," ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... having from 30 to 20 and 10 fathoms, and still no land to be seen. The greatest depth was on an oose bottom, the least a coarse yellow sand. About nine o'clock we espied land, bearing N.E. about 8 leagues distant, being a round hummock of middling height. By noon we were in latitude 7 deg. 56' N. having steered all day east, sometimes half a point north or south, as our water deepened or shoaled, for we would sometimes have ten fathoms or more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... "Middling," said the President.—"By the way," he added, "if you have any money, it is usual to offer some champagne. It keeps up a good spirit, and is one of my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passed his thirtieth year. He was a man of middling height, spare figure, and olive complexion, wearing a short chestnut-colored beard. He spoke with vivacity and copious rhetoric, aiming rather at force than at purity of diction, indulging in trenchant metaphors to adumbrate recondite thoughts, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... "Middling ... middling," Uncle William replied. "We're having a wee bit of opposition to fight against. One of these big firms has just opened a branch here. Pippin's! They're causing me a bit of anxiety, the way they're cutting prices down, but I think we'll hold our own with them. ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... their school learning they've been taught to swim, ride, dance, use tools, play on the piano, and speak fair to middling French. Yet, as you say, Fred, the most difficult part is to come, just as we fancied that we were through. And the terrible reflection is that we're not so sure now what we ought to do for them as we were when they ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... Sir pretty middling, within doors; but I don't like the climate, Mr. John I don't the climate, Sir. There's no country like h'England, I believe, for my business. 'Ere's a fine rose, Sir if you'll step a bit this way quite a new kind I got it over last h'autumn ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... discourse, there shone (as it were) a bright live coale within it. He had two kinds of looks; when he laught, was witty, and in a merry humour, one could scarce see his eies; by and by, when he was serious and earnest, he opened his eies round his eie-lids: he had middling eies, not very big nor very little. He was six foote high and something better, and went indifferently erect, or rather, considering his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... complicity from every mind, proposed that Mr K—— should mesmerise a person who should be a perfect stranger to him. To this he readily acceded; and now the only difficulty was to find a subject for our experiment. At length we thought of a young person in the middling class of life, who had often done fine work for the ladies of our family, and of whose character we had the most favourable knowledge. Her mother was Irish, her father, who had been dead some time, had been a Belgian, and she spoke ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... of light, but it was only a glimmering. He could understand that a man should not call his own goods middling; but he could not understand that a man is only carrying out the same principle in an advanced degree, when he proclaims with a hundred thousand voices in a hundred thousand places, that the article which he ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... and that the highest of the aristocracy should feel proud of being connected, either personally or through their relatives, with those pursuits on which their country's greatness depends. The wealthier manufacturers and merchants already mix with those classes, and the larger and even the middling tradesmen are frequently found associating with the gentry of the land. It is good that this ambition should be cultivated, not by any rivalry in expense, but by a rivalry in knowledge and in liberal feelings; and few things would more contribute to ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... piece goods is low or middling, Mr. Sheitlis," Abe replied sadly, "there is a good deal in what you say. But silk is high this year, Mr. Sheitlis, so high you wouldn't believe me if I tell you we got to pay twicet as much this year as ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... Aricia received me in but a middling inn: Heliodorus the rhetorician, most learned in the Greek language, was my fellow-traveller: thence we proceeded to Forum-Appi, stuffed with sailors and surly landlords. This stage, but one for better travellers than we, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... not come often at Middlemoor; not very often, at least. We had two of them during the time we lived there, 'year in and year out,' as Kezia called it. But between them we had much milder ones, one or two quite wonderfully mild, and others middling—nothing really to complain of. Still, a very tiny cottage house standing by itself is pretty cold during the best of winters, even though the walls were thick. And in wet or stormy days one does get tired of very small ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... white as a sheet, had formed a friendship for the rigid and sombre young widow. She showed her a sort of childlike affection mingled with a kind of respectful terror. Olivier complimented the aunt and niece, while Grivet hazarded a few spicy jokes that met with middling success. Altogether the company were delighted, enchanted, and declared that everything was for the best; in reality all they thought about was the ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... immediately: a middling-sized man, with a sharp, unwholesome-looking face, and with a flippant, reckless manner, dressed in a style of shabby smartness, eying me with a bold look, and not so overburdened with politeness as to trouble ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... walnuts, hickory, elm, and other varieties common to the West. There is much level, table land, between the streams. Along the Wabash, below Terre Haute, is an undulating surface, diversified with forest and prairie, with a soil of middling quality, interspersed with some very rich tracts. Along the Wabash and its tributaries above Terre Haute, the land in general is first rate,—a large proportion forest, interspersed with beautiful prairies. The timber consists of ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... things were in all probability but of a middling skill and splendour—it was the pre-trapeze age, and we were caught by mild marvels, even if a friendly good faith in them, something sweet and sympathetic, was after all a value, whether of their own humanity, their own special quality, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... romantic and striking picture, and Sophia thought for an instant that she had at length encountered life on a plane that would correspond to her dreams of romance. And she was impressed, with a feeling somewhat akin to that of a middling commoner when confronted with a viscount. There was, in the distance, something imposing and sensational about that prone, trembling figure. The tragic works of love were therein apparently manifest, in a sort of ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... I, 'my craps are middling good. They might be better, and they might be worse, but I have ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... of a middling stature, well set, and very active, and make their way among the rocks with an amazing agility. Their feet, by this kind of exercise, contract a callosity which renders the use of shoes quite unnecessary to them. But before I conclude the few observations ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... other remaining possible suppositions in respect to the termination of the war, of a middling character, or those lying between the two opposite extremes. In case, without any positive conquest or submission on either side, the general tenor of success throughout the war should be with the South, so that it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... to the plain of Hazeldale, which was a wide valley with a middling river winding about it, the wild-wood at its back toward the Tofts, and in front down-land nought wooded, save here and there a tree nigh a homestead or cot; for that way the land was builded for a space. Forsooth it was not easy for the folk thereabout ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... repairs to the Continent, first to Rouen, then to Switzerland and Italy, in company with his friend Evelyn, and, in fine, settles for a season in Paris. Here he keeps open table for the banished royalists, as well as for the French wits, till his means are impaired by his liberality. A middling poet, a pitiful politician, a fickle dangler in affairs of love, Waller was an admirable host, and not only gave good dinners and suppers, but flavoured them delicately with compliment and repartee. In Paris he recovered his tone of spirits, and, had his money lasted, might have remained ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... over Henry was a puzzle to observers. "Madame Anne," wrote a Venetian, "is not one of the handsomest women in the world. She is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and in fact has nothing but the King's great appetite, and her eyes, which are black and beautiful".[544] She had probably learnt ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... English firms, because, as you say, they couldn't; but they can boycott you. Everything your boss makes is turned out just as well and just as cheap, or cheaper, by the nuns at Robeen. Perhaps you didn't know that these holy ladies have hired a traveller. Well, they have, and he's a middling smart man, too—quite smart enough to play the trumps that are put into his hand; and he's got a fine flush of them now. What with the way that wretched rag of a paper, which started all the fuss, goes ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... water pure Before the coming morn, 'Tis a sign I shall be poor, And unto wealth not born. If I dream of tasting beer, Middling, then, will be my cheer— Chequered with the good and bad, Sometimes joyful, sometimes sad; But should I dream of drinking wine, Wealth and pleasure will be mine. The stronger the drink, the better the cheer— Dreams of ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... 'Why, middling, Miss, i' myseln—my eyes is no better, but I'm a deal easier i' my mind nor I have been,' replied she, rising to welcome me with a contented smile; which I was glad to see, for Nancy had been somewhat afflicted ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... what is that comes gliding in, And quite in middling haste? It is the picture of my Jones, And painted to ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... If the specimen composition you send is about your fair usual average, I should judge that perhaps a couple of whales would be all you want for the present; not the largest kind, but simply good, middling-sized whales!—Mark Twain's Letter ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... coffee under a penalty, and the encouragement given to public distilleries, tend to impoverish the poor, who are not affected by the sumptuary laws; for the regent has lately laid very severe restraints on the articles of dress, which the middling class of people found grievous, because it obliged them to throw aside finery that might have lasted ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... of age. She was born in the United States, of middling well-to-do people. Her father was a gruff, hearty man, not in the least bit finicky, who really despised manners and the like, though he was conventional enough in his own way. Her mother was an old-fashioned ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances. There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the Author's ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wicker-work. It appears to be held by cultivators that the poorer the soil in which they are grown the oftener these willows should be cut over. "In a good soil a coppice of this species will produce the greatest return in poles, hoops, and rods every five, six, seven, or eight years; and in middling soil, where it is grown chiefly for faggot-wood, it will produce the greatest return every three, ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... divided into three categories: good, middling, and bad. The transference from the second to the first class entails certain privileges, especially those respecting communication with the outer world, the right to receive visitors, to have books, and to eat at a common table instead of partaking ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... Checking a Wagon on a Hill-side.—In going down a steep hill a middling-sized tree may be felled, and its root tied to the hind axletree, while its branchy top sweeps along the ground, as is seen in the lowermost wagon in the sketch. [Sketch of horses and wagons on hill] In the south-west of France the leaders ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... that were picked up by one of them on his return; and all I could learn from him, concerning the tree itself, was, that it stood on the border of a rivulet, as described by the old priest; that it was of a middling size; that five or six young trees of the same kind stood close by it; but that no other shrub or plant could be seen near it; and that the ground was of a brownish sand, full of stones, almost impracticable ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... few of them can stand a sea-voyage, and all those I have ever sent away from Manilla, to any distance, have died before reaching their destination. A well-bred dog of this breed of middling size, is about as large as a full grown tom-cat, or ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... is an excellent example of Miss Austen's genius for making her characters talk. Luckily, conversation was still formal in her day, and it was as possible for her as for Congreve to make middling men and women talk first-rate prose. She did more than this, however. She was the first English novelist before Meredith to portray charming women with free personalities. Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse have an independence (rare in English fiction) of ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... chart will show the fluctuations of the average prices of prime field hands (unskilled young men) in Virginia, at Charleston, in middle Georgia, and at New Orleans, aL well as the contemporary range of average prices for cotton of middling grade in the chief American market, that of New York. The range for prime slaves, it will be seen, rose from about $300 and $400 a head in the upper and lower South respectively in 1795 to a range of from $400 to $600 in 1803, in consequence of the initial impulse of cotton and sugar production ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... Amhurst's "Terrae Filius" as "a reverend poetical gentleman;" he knew Pope, and had credit enough for his verse to hold the office of Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1718 to 1728. His genius for writing middling verse passed on to his more famous sons, Joseph and Thomas, and they both became in due time ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... that man of whom he expected things so fair. He had asked in a loud voice of the middling funny gentleman (then in the middle of a song) whether he thought Joey would be long in coming, and when at last Joey did come he screamed out, "How do you do, Joey!" and went into ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... either the Titus or the Brutus in the eye of a Parisian, but it had evidently been twisted on system; and if their drapery in general might startle Baron Stulz, it evidently cost as dexterous cutting out, and as ambitious tailoring, as the most recherche suit that ever turned a "middling man" into a figure ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... villain. Or maybe some at the Court of Mahound. I know not, for I was never there. But here is a goodly world, with prizes for them that can take them. Yet virtue may still flourish, for I have done middling well by serving my country. Now I am minded to retire into my lands, to cultivate good letters and to pursue virtue. For here about the Courts there are many distractions. The times are evil times. Yet will I do one good stroke more ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... fav'ring the Pretender; Or libels yet conceal'd from sight, Against the court to show his spite; Perhaps his travels, part the third; A lie at every second word— Offensive to a loyal ear: But not one sermon, you may swear." His friendships there, to few confined Were always of the middling kind;[36] No fools of rank, a mongrel breed, Who fain would pass for lords indeed: Where titles give no right or power,[37] And peerage is a wither'd flower; He would have held it a disgrace, If such a wretch had known ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... "She's middling," said Barker, "but my married sister that came to live with us since you was there has had a good deal of sickness in her family. Her husband's laid up with the rheumatism ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... personal influence whatever, and I doubt whether the preaching had any adaptation whatever to children. As to intellectual training, I believe that, like the other boys, I shirked my work as much as I could. I went to Eton in 1821 after a pretty long spell, in a very middling state of preparation, and wholly without any knowledge or other enthusiasm, unless it were a priggish love of argument which I had begun to develop. I had lived upon a rabbit warren: and what a rabbit warren of a life it is that ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... a comrade to focus and stimulate his energies he felt modestly but agreeably sure of "doing something". And under this assurance was the lurking sense that he was somehow worthy of his opportunity. His life, on the whole, had been a creditable affair. Out of modest chances and middling talents he had built himself a fairly marked personality, known some exceptional people, done a number of interesting and a few rather difficult things, and found himself, at thirty-seven, possessed of an intellectual ambition sufficient to occupy ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... forms so great a part of the education of our rising aristocracy, and is considered so vitally important to their proper carriage, as well in their set as out of it, that their children are as far advanced in this particular at fifteen, as the children of middling people at twenty-five. The petticoat-string by which the youth of the non-fashionable class is tied to their mother, is a ligature not in use among the fashionable world; from the earliest period professional ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... man, let me see how soon you'll be at the foot." Schiller's negligence and lack of alertness called for repeated reproof, and his final school thesis was unsatisfactory. Hegel was a poor scholar, and at the university it was stated "that he was of middling industry and knowledge but especially deficient in philosophy." John Hunter nearly became a cabinetmaker. Lyell had excessive aversion to work. George Combe wondered why he was so inferior to other boys ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... Lord Bolingbroke, says that he does not "remember to have ever heard or seen one great genius who had long success in the ministry; and recollecting a great many in my memory and acquaintance, those who had the smoothest time were, at best, men of middling degree in understanding." However true this may be in the main,—and it undoubtedly is true that in ordinary times the speculative and innovating temper of an original mind is less safe than the patience ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... from us, to behold her (as it were) straining every nerve to escape the horrors in store. Twice she altered her course and twice we did the like, fetching ever nearer until it seemed she was doomed to share the bloody fate of so many others. By noon we were so close that she was plain to see, a middling-size ship, her paint blistered, her gilding tarnished as by a long voyage, and though very taut and trim as to spars and rigging, a heavy-sailing ship and sluggish. A poor thing indeed to cope with such powerful ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... answered Meg, in a more womanly way than ever, for she felt very low to-day. 'We're only doing middling, thank ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... is composed of a great many very different races: unfortunately, I am unable to describe their several characteristics, as my stay in China was far too short. The people I saw in Canton, Hong-Kong, and Macao, are of middling stature. Their complexion varies with their occupation: the peasants and labourers are rather sun-burnt; rich people and ladies white. Their faces are flat, broad, and ugly; their eyes are narrow, rather obliquely placed, and far apart; their noses ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... and the strap of his revolver case keeping together the torn ruins of the blue coat of a Servian artillery officer. As far as the candlelight and his unwashed, unkempt condition make it possible to judge, he is a man of middling stature and undistinguished appearance, with strong neck and shoulders, a roundish, obstinate looking head covered with short crisp bronze curls, clear quick blue eyes and good brows and mouth, a hopelessly prosaic nose like that of ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... "Middling, middling, maister. I reckon 'at us manufacturing lads i' th' north is a deal more intelligent, and knaws a deal more nor th' farming folk i' th' south. Trade sharpens wer wits; and them that's mechanics like me ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... not be amiss if we bear him company. He had pretty well recovered of his fit of discontent, for morning air and exercise can soon chase gloom away; so he cheerily tramped along, thinking as he went, how that, after all, it is a middling happy world, and how that the raindrops, now that it had cleared up, hung like diamonds on the laurels, when of a sudden, as he turned a corner near the house, there broke upon his ear, at that quiet hour, such a storm of boisterous sounds—voices so loud with oaths ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... instead of a true testicle; and on the left side we observed a testicle fixed to the extremity of one of the vessels, as usual, invested in its tunicle, which left testicle we do not find to be at all flabby, but of a middling size: upon the whole, we are of opinion that the said Le Page is capable of the conjugal act but in a feeble manner. Signed and dated March 5, 1684. By the sentence of M. Cheron, the official, the said De Loris's petition ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... that of intoxicating liquors among other nations, is a species of luxury which all ranks adopt according to their ability, and which, when once become habitual, it is almost impossible to shake off. Being however like other luxuries expensive, few only among the lower or middling class of people can compass the regular enjoyment of it, even where its use is not restrained, as it is among the pepper-planters, to the times of their festivals. That the practice of smoking opium must be in some degree prejudicial to the health is highly probable; yet I am ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the South Sea, use in fight a warlike instrument that is very uncommon. Having great plenty of horses, they always attack their enemies on horse-back, and encumber themselves with no other weapon than a stone of middling size, curiously wrought, which they fasten, by a string about a yard and a half long, to their right arms, a little above the elbow. These stones they conveniently carry in their hands till they ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... according to computation, the largest cotton crop ever known. The last estimates vary from 3,550,000 bales to 3,700,000 bales. A very few years ago it was calculated that cotton at any thing above four cents the pound for "middling quality" on the spot was a profitable crop. Now, the price for the same quality on the spot is fully ten cents the pound;—and it has been about the same or higher for a long time. What is the consequence? A correspondent ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... world as to whether a woman might be an author without incongruity. Thus, too, we have Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne writing to his daughters about the learned women of his century, and cautioning them, in conclusion, that the study of letters was unsuited to ladies of a middling station, and should be reserved for princesses.[63] And once more, if we desire to see the same principle carried to ludicrous extreme, we shall find that Reverend Father in God, the Abbot of Brantome, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sorts, "marchantable, middling, and refuse." The first grade was sold chiefly to Roman Catholic Europe, to supply the constant demands of the fast-days of that religion, and also those of the Church of England; the second was consumed at home or in the merchant vessels ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... of the average man. And such an age will undoubtedly succeed to ours. Few things would surprise me less, in social life, than the upspringing of some anti-luxury movement, the formation of some league or guild among the middling classes (where alone intellect is to be found in quantity), the members of which would bind themselves to stand aloof from all the great, silly, banal, ugly, and tedious luxe-activities of the time and not to spend more than a certain sum per annum on eating, drinking, covering their ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... Stubborn Relic of Feudalism The Editor An Experiment in Syndicalism Hugh H. Lusk Labor: "True Demand" and Immigrant Supply Arthur J. Todd The Way to Flatland Fabian Franklin The Disfranchisement of Property David McGregor Means Railway Junctions Clayton Hamilton Minor Uses of the Middling Rich F.J. Mather, Jr. Lecturing at Chautauqua Clayton Hamilton Academic Leadership Paul Elmer More Hypnotism, Telepathy, and Dreams The Editor The Muses on the Hearth Mrs F.G. Allinson The Land of the Sleepless Watchdog David Starr Jordan En Casserole Special to ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... work out for the last ten years, from figures kindly supplied by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the average margin between the price of a pound of standard yarn (32's twist) and a pound of standard cotton (middling American). The result shows that while the spinners' margin was slightly less in 1895 than in 1893, it stood at practically the same figure as in 1892 and 1894, and was a good deal higher than it had been in 1886. So that here again there is no real foundation ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... ten acres and the house, furnished, and let for less than two hundred a year. Oh! how I long to evict the tenants! They can't have my feeling for the place where I was born. They're people of tolerably good connections, middling wealthy, I suppose, of the name of Warwick, and, as far as I can understand, they stick there to be near the Sussex Downs, for a nephew, who likes to ride on them. I've a half engagement, barely legible, to visit them on an indefinite day, and can't bear the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... countenance is very expressive; but from her long residence with the Indians, she has acquired the habit of peeping from under eye-brows as they do with the head inclined downwards. Formerly her hair was of a light chestnut brown—it is now quite grey, a little curled, of middling length and tied in a bunch behind. She informed me that she had never worn a cap ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... pray for anything else. The congregation doesn't startle us. It is known, I fancy, that the heads of the Church are to be absent to-day, and the attendance is slim. There are no ravishingly beautiful women present, and no positively ugly ones. The men are fair to middling. They will never be slain in cold blood for their beauty, nor shut up ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... ease, the gaiety, and well-dressed every body amaze me. Canterbury, which on my setting out I thought deplorable, is a paradise, (236) to Modena, Reggio, Parma, etc. I had before discovered that there was nowhere but in England the distinction of middling people; I perceive now, that there is peculiar to us middling houses: how snug they are! I write to-night because I have time; to-morrow I get to London just as the post goes. Sir Robert is at Houghton. Good night till another post. You are quite ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... to give, and the other to give, except they have prudence, and are at so good an understanding with each other as to compare notes, they may perhaps put it out of their power to be just. Good frugal doctrine, my dear! But this way of putting it is middling the matter between what I have learnt of my mother's over-prudent and your enlarged notions.—But from doctrine ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... only for the origin of such pearls as are attached to the shell; while the best and greatest number, and, indeed, the only ones which can be strung, have no such attachment, and are formed in the body of the animal itself. 'The small and middling pearls,' says Sir Alexander Johnston, 'are formed in the thickest part of the flesh of the oyster, near the union of the two shells; the large pearls almost loose in that part called the beard.' Now, these may be the effect merely of an excess in the supply ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... wanting the aprons.' 'What quality—pretty good?' said I. 'Oh, you know,' says she; 'about the same that I bought last time. And put in the tape for strings, and a reel of white cotton, No. 30. And I don't mind if you put in a piece of that German ribbon, middling width,' she went on. 'It's nicer than tape for nightcaps, and them sort o' things.' And with that, sir, she was turning out again, when her eyes was caught by some lavender prints, as was a-hanging just in the doorway. Two shades of it, there was, dark and light. 'That's ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... whose name was Godfrey, was about the age of twenty, of a middling size, vigorous make, remarkably well-shaped, and the scars of the small-pox, of which he bore a good number, added a peculiar manliness to the air of his countenance. His capacity was good, and his disposition naturally frank ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... and consequently the demand for stock has ceased. Sheep, which three years ago sold for twenty-five and eighteen shillings, command now, for first quality, eight shillings and sixpence only; ordinary quality, six shillings; and middling as low as five shillings. For cash sale by sheriff-warrant, I have seen beautiful ewes, free from all disease—2000 of them—sold for two and sixpence each! Cattle three years ago sold for ten, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... Therese," he laughed, "I'll not rob you of your occupation. I'll put no bungling hand into your concerns. I know a sound piece of timber when I see it; but I should hardly be able to tell a sample of Sea Island cotton from the veriest low middling." ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... Sauce for ragout, Game, Poultry, Fish, &c.)—If you want gravy, put in a thick and well-tinned stewpan a thin slice of fat ham or bacon, or an ounce of butter, and a middling-sized onion; on this lay a pound of nice juicy gravy-beef (as the object in making gravy is to extract the nutritious qualities of the meat, it must be beaten so as to reduce the containing vessels, and scored to render the surface more susceptible to the action of the water); cover the stewpan. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... blood and water; elsewhere it should be qualified by the prime qualification, the mediocrity that attaches, that endears. Bousefield, he allowed, was proud, was difficult: nothing was really good enough for him but the middling good; but he himself was prepared for adverse comment, resolute for his noble course. Hadn't Limbert moreover in the event of a charge of laxity from headquarters the great strength of being able to point to my contributions? ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... she explained to herself. "If we were poor, we could go on excursions with the charity children; and if we were rich, we'd travel to the mountains or the sea. We're only middling, ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... me—a boy! A lad at last! Well, well, 't is nat'ral, I suppose, though what I can see of him bean't much to look at, Ann—but no more am I, for that matter! And he ain't exactly a Goliath of Gath—though no more am I again. But then I've noticed that great men be generally of a comfortable, middling size. And if he be your chal, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... of the middling or better class, in her turn, pines for the society of the circle of friends she has quitted, probably for ever. She sighs for those little domestic comforts, that display of the refinements and elegancies of life, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... dark-blue uniform, without epaulets, booted to the knee, and with a cloth cap upon his head; and, at first sight, you might have taken him for a corporal of dragoons, of particularly neat and soldier-like aspect, and in the prime of his age and strength. He is only of middling stature, but his build is very compact and sturdy, with broad shoulders and a look of great physical vigor, which, in fact, he is said to possess,—he and Beauregard having been rivals in that particular, and both distinguished above other men. His complexion is dark and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... smaller Almond-Pine, which last bears Kernels in the Apple, tasting much like an Almond; and in some years there falls such plenty, as to make the Hogs fat. Horn-Beam; Cedar, two sorts; Holly, two sorts; Bay-Tree, two sorts; one the Dwarf-Bay, about twelve Foot high; the other the Bigness of a middling Pine-Tree, about two Foot and half Diameter; Laurel-Trees, in Height equalizing the lofty Oaks; the Berries and Leaves of this Tree dyes a Yellow; the Bay-Berries yield a Wax, which besides its Use in Chirurgery, makes Candles that, in burning, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... fresh sacrifices of men and money and increased severity on the part of the police, in order to quell the spirit of revolt. Jerome, conscious of being merely his brother's representative, consoled himself for his want of independence in his gay court at Cassel.[15] He had received but a middling education, and had, at one period, held a situation in the marine at Baltimore in North America. While still extremely young, placed unexpectedly upon a throne, more as a splendid puppet than as an independent sovereign, he ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... catastrophes. I have been watchful, as I said I should be, but have little to tell as yet. You may laugh at me, and very likely think me foolishly fanciful to trouble myself about what is going on in a middling-class household like ours. Do as you like. But here is that terrible fact to begin with,—a beautiful young girl, with the blood and the nerve-fibre that belong to Nature's women, turned ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... town. Of the state of things he spoke more sadly than ever. 'The rich cannot guess, sir, how high ill-feeling is rising in these days. It's not only those who are outwardly poorest who long for change; the middling people, sir, the small town shopkeepers especially, are nearly past all patience. One of the City Mission assured me that he has been watching them these several years past, and that nothing could ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... their modes; that you may know where they belong, especially the women, meet them where you will." And see her description of the dress of the Dutch women of New York: "The English go very fashionable in their dress. But the Dutch, especially the middling sort, differ from our women in their habit, go loose, wear French muches, which are like a cap and a head band in one, leaving their ears bare, which are set out with jewels of a large size, and many in number; and their fingers hooked with rings, some with large stones ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... all put me down as "a queer kid." I was middling good at most of their games and would get sudden spurts when I would become almost a leader. But at other times, often right in the middle of a game, I would suddenly forget where I was and would think of Sam, of the cannibals that I had seen, of the man who had ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... near by, and thinking that it would be less fatiguing for the boy to catch fish than to look after the camp, the Supervisor sent him off to try his luck. Wilbur, delighted to have been lucky, returned in less than fifteen minutes with four middling-sized trout, and he found himself hungry enough to eat his two, almost bones and all. That night they slept under a small Baker tent that Merritt had brought along on his pack horse, the riding and pack saddles being piled beside the tent and ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... guardian to send me there; but there was a vis inertiae in my total want of social and scholastic ambition. I never in my life felt the faintest desire to rise in the world either by making the acquaintance of people of rank (which is the main reason why boys of middling station are sent to aristocratic schools), or by getting letters put after my name as a reward for learning what had no intrinsic charm for me. In the worldly sense I never had any ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... appearance of Guenevere, whom Jurgen loved with an entire heart, was this:—She was of middling height, with a figure not yet wholly the figure of a woman. She had fine and very thick hair, and the color of it was the yellow of corn floss. When Guenevere undid her hair it was a marvel to Jurgen to note how snugly this hair descended about the small head and slender throat, and then broadened ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... he failed in his larger poems, he had a genius little short of perfect in his handling of shorter forms. The Arthurian story which produced only middling moralizing in the Idylls, gave us as well the supremely written Homeric episode of the Morte d'Arthur, and the sharp and defined beauty of Sir Galahad and the Lady of Shallott. Tennyson had a touch ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... observed that these youths come back wearing the American costume, and they continue to do so, rather priding themselves upon it as a mark of self-respect and distinction. A very earnest desire to acquire the English language is evinced by the middling classes especially in the sea-ports. Yet it is an open question with not a few intelligent people of Yokohama, where we heard the subject freely discussed, whether foreign commerce and foreign intercourse, all things considered, have been of any real advantage thus far to Japan. Trade ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... to understand from their motions what they would be at. From there being but little food for them on the beaches here, and their being clothed in the skins of the oppossums, I presume they are Bush natives, the women, I forgot to mention, appeared to be middling well shaped, and good-looking children, they were, however, ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... taken no heed of these details," replied the captain. "I am but a middling sailor. Like all nervous people, I hate the sea; and yet I have an idea that with ships, France being a seaport with two hundred heads, we might ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... maintained successfully, will express the greatest satisfactions which can be reached, though not the greatest that might be conceived or desired. To be interested in the changing seasons is, in this middling zone, a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. Wisdom discovers these possible accommodations, as circumstances impose them; and education ought to prepare men to ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... obscurity of the subject, even though faction had never entered into the question, would naturally have begotten those controversies. But the great influence of the lords over their slaves and tenants, the clientship of the burghers, the total want of a middling rank of men, the extent of the monarchy, the loose execution of the laws, the continued disorders and convulsions of the state; all these circumstances evince that the Anglo-Saxon government became at last ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... as alternately under the despotism of a father, a brother, and a husband; and the middling and the poorer classes shut out from the acquisition of bread with independence, when they are not shut out from the very means of an industrious subsistence. Such were the views she entertained of the ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... shipwrecked men we may have to bring home, and who are pretty sure to be in greater need of the stuff than us. I never drink myself, sir, and that's one reason, I think, why I manage to meet the cold and wet middling well, and rather better than some men who look stronger than me. However, I told Charlie Verrion to measure the rum out and serve it round, and it would have made you laugh, I do believe, sir, to have seen the care ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... in middling circumstances, but having lost her husband by a railroad accident six months previously, the widow was reduced to quite a straightened condition. And when the fever seized her, she was in utter despair at the thought of being taken ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... incapable of being ascertained; but no skill or valour could alone have long preserved a nation so corrupt and pusillanimous from the destruction which, by their meanness, the generality of the upper and middling classes were inviting. There wanted, only, what their subtle invaders well knew was never far distant, some plausible artifice suddenly to prevail over the simplicity of the honest but credulous vulgar, which could not fail to divert that powerful torrent, into whatever ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... despotic sovereign whom England had yet seen on the throne, we discern at once the excuse which Henry would make to himself for his severities against the nobility, and the motive of that extreme popularity of manners by which Elizabeth aimed at attaching to herself the affections of the middling and lower ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... middling epigrams found entrance into the anthology—he confesses the fact so the reader will not look for excellence without flaw. The reasons were, first, that the complete perfection he was looking for is seldom or never attained. Hence, ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... it is this bribery (for bribery it is, in whatever guise it may appear) that upholds one of the most glaring, the most oppressive of all monopolies, in the face of common sense, common justice and common decency. Other taxes are principally felt by the higher and middling classes; but this most odious, this most galling tax, is felt even in the cottage of the labourer, who cannot return to refresh himself after his day of toil with his favourite beverage without paying twice its value out ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... West to sever the slender ties which bound them to the stony hillsides of New England. Yet the older towns of New England also complained of the Western fever which was carrying off the available labor supply. Fearon found "the small and middling tradesmen" always ready to sell out when business got bad and "pack up for the back-country." The immediate destination of these New Englanders was western New York. Within a decade what had been a frontier area was filled with an industrious population eager to secure ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... middling. He explained why he was paying his visit so early in the season; the family had gone to the sea-side for Easter; the cook was doing spring cleaning, on board wages, with particular instructions to clear out the mice. ...
— The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse • Beatrix Potter
... of persons could do it," replied Cyrilla—"a dull person—a plodder—and a genius. Middling people—they're the kind that fill the world, they're you and I, my dear—middling people have to fuss with the trifles that must be sacrificed if one is to do anything big. You call those trifles your freedom, but they're your slavery. And by sacrificing them the Lucia Rivis buy ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... attached to it. All this belonged, under the name of Mademoiselle, to Madame de Mare, her governess. I sat down and chatted with them; but the impatience of the Duc d'Orleans to learn the news could not be checked. He asked me if I was very satisfied. "Middling," I replied, not to spoil his dinner; but he rose at once and took me into the garden. He was much affected to hear of the ill-success of my negotiation; and returned downcast to table. I took the first opportunity to blame his impatience, and the facility with ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... puts himself in a state to be forgiven. Upon reasoning with myself, I should hope they are gone too far to discard you quite, and that they will give you something; which, although much less than they ought, will be (as far as it is worth) better circumstantiated; and since you already just live, a middling help will make you just tolerable. Your lateness in life (as you so soon call it) might be improper to begin the world with, but almost the eldest men may hope to see changes in a Court. A Minister is always seventy; you are thirty years younger; and consider, Cromwell did not begin ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... buried my heart in a ferny hill, Twix' a liddle low Shaw an' a great high Gill. Oh hop-vine yaller and woodsmoke blue, I reckon you'll keep her middling true! ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... friends, if you would only give me the wages of a middling mechanic, you would have pleasure in my undisturbed work, which should all ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... went, but with very different intentions from those imagined by his friend—Cola being now clear-sighted, and Juccio truly blind. The next day Cola called on his friend with very downcast and melancholy looks, and when Juccio bade him good day, he said, "I wish from my soul it were a good, or even a middling, day for me." "Why, what is the matter?" "The matter?" echoed Cola; "why, it is all over with me: some rascal has stolen a hundred florins from the place where they were hidden, and I cannot recover a penny from my relations, so that I may eat my fingers off or anything I have to expect." Juccio ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... his salade thrown back from his face, to see if he gave any token of jeering or malice, but could see nought such: nay, his face was grave and serious, not ill-fashioned, though it were both long and broad like his body: his cheek-bones somewhat high, his eyes grey and middling great, and looking, as it were, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... procured me a ticket to see the Imperial treasure. (Tell Henrietta that I saw there the diamond of Charles the Bold; it is as large as a walnut.) I likewise saw the finest opal, as I suppose, in the world; it was the size of a middling pear; there was likewise a hyacinth as big as a swan's egg; I likewise saw a pearl so large that they had wrought the figure of a cock out of it, and the cock was somewhat more than an inch high, but the thing which struck me most was the sword of Tamerlane, generally ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... noted for her molasses sponge cake. If asked for the recipe, she would give it as follows: "I take some molasses and saleratus and flour and shortening, and some milk. How much? Oh, a middling good sized piece, and enough milk to make it the right thickness to bake good." Needless to say, she continued to be the only molasses ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... do accompany the same. Second, retrench all eating not necessary to health and comfort. A French family would live in luxury on the leavings that are constantly coming from the tables of those who call themselves in middling circumstances. There are superstitions of the table that ought to be broken through. Why must you always have cake in your closet? why need you feel undone to entertain a guest with no cake on your tea-table? Do without it a year, and ask yourselves if you or your children, or any one else, have ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... she felt the wind. On a sudden, and as if the steamer had only just then spied us, she altered her course by three or four points, as one could see by the swift rising of her hull, till, whilst the sun was still hanging a middling height over the sea line, you could see the whole of the vessel—a long, low craft of about one hundred and fifty tons—sweeping through the seas like an arrow, the smoke streaming black and fat from her small, yellow funnel, and her hull sinking out of sight one moment ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... liberty both of ourselves and our country—is in our own hands. England cannot crush or kill it, or even seriously injure it. England can only remain in Ireland, indeed, as long as our character is weaker than her guns. Guns are stronger than middling character. Against real character, passionate, determined, and organized, they are less availing than children's catapults. English domination feeds and thrives on weak character. When every Nationalist makes his or her character ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... read a paragraph. She remembered his gentle, pensive speech. "Ain't it funny, though, those things happen in the slums and they happen in the smart set, but they don't happen near so often to just middling folks like you and me! Don't it sound like a Tenderloin tale, though, South American wife and American husband and her getting jealous and up and shooting him? Money sure makes love popular. Now, if it had been poor folks, why, ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... also a considerable number of middling tradesmen, who having lived decently in the former part of life, begin, as age approaches, to lose their business, and at last fall ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... great virtue to forbear the use of that power? Is not the devil said to be the god of this world? Are we not children of this world? Well, then! let me tell thee my opinion—It is this, that were it not for the poor and the middling, the world would probably, long ago, have been destroyed by fire from Heaven. Ungrateful wretches the rest, thou wilt be apt to say, to make such sorry returns, as they generally do make, to the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the old iron that I had left there. Indeed, this fellow showed abundance of ingenuity in several things which he had no knowledge of: he made him a forge, with a pair of wooden bellows to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work; and he formed out of the iron crows a middling good anvil to hammer upon: in this manner he made many things, but especially hooks, staples, and spikes, bolts and hinges. But to return to the house: after he had pitched the roof of his innermost tent, he worked ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... entirely to the activity and gallantry of the British officers who organized and led them. The veriest cowards in existence must have shown the same front under such discipline. I did not see enough of their gentry to enable me to form an opinion about them; but the middling and lower orders are extremely filthy both in their persons and in their houses, and they have all an intolerable itch for gambling. The soldiers, though fainting with fatigue on the line of march, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... with you, and fetter and disgrace you through life. Why should a woman be so circumspect in her choice? Is it not because when once made she must abide by it? "She sets her life upon the cast, and she must stand the hazard of the die." From domestic uneasiness a man has a thousand resources: in middling life, the tavern, in high life, the gaming-table, suspends the anxiety of thought. Dissipation, ambition, business, the occupation of a profession, change of place, change of company, afford him agreeable and honourable relief from domestic chagrin. If his home become tiresome, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... marked by the entrance of one character and the exit of another, as in the French drama. The dramatis personae were divided into three classes—the inferior characters (nicha), who were said to speak Prakrit in a monotonous accentless tone of voice (anudattoktya); the middling (madhyama), and the superior (pradhana), who were said to speak Sanskrit with accent, emphasis, and expression (udattoktya). In general, the stage is never left vacant till the end of an Act, nor does any change of locality take ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... on the right bank of the Namtoroan, is situated on an extensive open grassy plain, it is stockaded: it contains about 12 houses, the river is here navigable for middling sized canoes. ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... considerably swollen. At seven o'clock the king sent for De Comines, who found him already armed and mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of this charger was Savoy. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling height; and to his great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life upon that day. The French army, ready for the march, now took to the gravelly bed of the Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a quarter of a league from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the light ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... "I am getting middling hungry, though. Had no breakfast to-day. Couldn't you scare up some bread from ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... enfeebled invalid can travel far without fatigue. I had now got greatly stronger; and, if not quite up to my old thirty miles per day, nor altogether so bold a cragsman as I had been only a few years before, I was at least vigorous enough to enjoy a middling long walk, and to breast a tolerably steep hill. And so I resolved on at least glancing over, if not exploring, the fossiliferous deposits of the Orkneys, trusting that an eye somewhat practised in the formations mainly developed in these islands might enable me to make some amends ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... after Aristotle the greatest critic amongst the Greeks, in his twenty-seventh chapter, [Greek: PERI HUPSOUS], has judiciously preferred the sublime genius that sometimes errs, to the middling or indifferent one, which makes few faults, but seldom or never rises to any excellence. He compares the first to a man of large possessions, who has not leisure to consider of every slight expence, will not debase himself to the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... City or monetary tariff of politeness—a tariff that was oftener called in requisition than the 'Debrett' one, in Mr. Puffington's country. To a good 'tip' he vouchsafed as much cap as he gave to a lord; to a middling 'tip' he gave a sort of move that might either pass for a touch of the cap or a more comfortable adjustment of it to his head; a very small 'tip' had a forefinger to the peak; while he who gave nothing at all got a good stare or a good morning! or something of that sort. A man watching ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... of philosophising is very convenient for those who have but middling minds, for the obscurity of the distinctions and principles which they employ enables them to speak of all things as boldly as if they had knowledge of them, and sustain all they have to say against the most subtle and skilful without there ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various |
