"Tolerably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tolerably mild, To make a wash, would hardly stew a child; Has even been proved to grant a lover's prayer, And paid a tradesman once to make him stare; Gave alms at Easter, in a Christian trim, And made a widow happy, for a whim. Why then declare good-nature is her scorn, When 'tis by that alone she ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... 30th, Captain Bremer discovered a running stream on Melville Island in a cove to the southward of the ships. The water fortunately was fresh. The south-east point of the cove was pleasantly situated on a slight rise, and was tolerably clear of timber and suitable for a settlement. Captain Bremer therefore took the ships into it, and he gave the cove the name of King's Cove, in honour of its discoverer, ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... years before, when he was chaplain to his co-religionists in a prison in Chicago—where the Irish population displayed a capacity both for crime and penitence which kept him tolerably busy. The official second-in-command under the Governor was an ex-detective named Greywood Usher, a cadaverous, careful-spoken Yankee philosopher, occasionally varying a very rigid visage with an odd apologetic ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... which would be the best course to take if I ran for my life. For I could run, and pretty swiftly, then. The hardy life I had led out in the bush, with Jimmy for my companion, had made me light of foot and tolerably enduring. ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... having discharged a few million tons of stones upon a small village, asked the mayor if he thought that a tolerably good supply ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... there be any general principle to assert, any essential method to inculcate, its adoption is the most essential statesmanship. Twenty millions of white men, with ballots and school-houses, will be tolerably sure to thrive, whatever be the legislation: legislation for them is secondary, because they are assured in their own strength. But four millions of black men, just freed, and as yet unprovided with any of these tools,—the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... feet. When the Batrachia above mentioned were discovered, they appeared inanimate, but the influence of a warm sun to which they were subjected soon imparted to them a moderate degree of vigor. In a few hours from the time they were liberated they were tolerably active, and able to move from place to ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Mansana started on his journey without meeting Major Sardi, it is tolerably certain that he would, in two or three days' time, have been married to the Princess Leaney; whereas the following conversation now ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... Regina, and perhaps Regina herself had better make a little trip for a change. Yes, Settimia had travelled a good deal; she even knew enough French to travel in a foreign country, if necessary. Corbario said that he did not know where she had learned French, but he was quite sure she knew it tolerably well. Regina would be safe under her care, in some quiet place where the air would ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... satisfied with gentle palliatives for such disorders" (Francis to Burke, November 3, 1790). This is a very terse way of putting a crucial objection to Burke's whole view of French affairs in 1789. His answer was tolerably simple. The Revolution, though it had made an end of the Bastille, did not bring the only real practical liberty, that is to say, the liberty which comes with settled courts of justice, administering settled laws, undisturbed by popular fury, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... they came into country which Boss Stobart did not know. The mountains sent out spurs far into the plains, and when the drover, who was riding a mile or two ahead of the cattle, came upon a rocky water-hole in a valley tolerably covered with low bushes, he decided to camp there for a day or two and explore the surrounding district to find the best route to take ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... now under the charge of Jasper, and they got on tolerably well, for Jasper would do anything in the world for Hollyhock, and as Hollyhock was the only love of Leucha's life, she talked on no other subject ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... said to himself, but Josephine held the fragments, and he would make himself tolerably content with the rivet. Still, it was broken all the same; which simply meant that of the two he loved madame the better, and would have chosen her before the other could she have come back; but that failing, this other would do, even Josephine's love being better than no love at all. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... Rule must necessarily be historical. To postulate a vague acceptance of the principle of Home Rule, and to proceed at once to the details of the Irish Constitution, would be a waste of time and labour. It is impossible even to attempt to plan the framework of a Home Rule Bill without a tolerably close knowledge not only of Anglo-Irish relations, but of the Imperial history of which they form a part. The Act will succeed exactly in so far as it gives effect to the lessons of experience. It will fail at every point where those lessons are neglected. Constitutions which do not faithfully ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... in Castilla, they were formerly not to be found in this land, because of its proximity to China, where there are so many fruits peculiar to that country. There are here some tolerably good fruits, such as excellent bananas [17]; nancas, a very fragrant fruit, and larger than the largest Spanish melon; macupas, which resemble apples; and santors, which taste like the quince. There are also ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... gents! Young, wealthy, not undistinguished in the matter of learnin', well-bred, nurchured in the lap of luxury, tolerably good-lookin', if not actually 'andsome, my way was easy, gents. It was child's play for me to get at the inside of things, to get under the surface, to see what was agitatin' the boorses of 'alf the Continent, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... of the surrounding country, was a very plain establishment, being nothing more than a tolerably large, simply furnished frame house accommodating about forty persons. But it was bright and home-like ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... a flourishing town of probably about ten thousand or twelve thousand people, governed practically by the Calvinistic ministers, and composed chiefly of merchants, fishermen, and ship-carpenters, yet all tolerably versed in the rudiments of education and in theological speculations. The young Benjamin, having no liking for the opinions, manners, and customs of this strait-laced town, or for his cold and overbearing brother, concluded in his seventeenth year to run away from his apprenticeship. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... a faint recollection of his boyhood's days, when he had been a tolerably efficient ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Ffolliot's desk, and seeing a shilling lying on the table seized it and fled from the room. Three minutes later Ger saw him bowling down the drive in the dog-cart, then Mr Ffolliot returned, and Ger, feeling tolerably certain of the "perfect and pluperfect and future perfect," went slowly upstairs to his mother ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... prescribe times for its irresponsible presence. A great deal may accordingly exist which cannot be known by science, or be reached from the outside at all. This fact perhaps explains why science has as yet taken so little root in human life: for even within the limits of human existence, which are tolerably narrow, there is probably no little incoherence, no little lapsing into what, from any other point of view, is inconceivable and undiscoverable. Science, for instance, can hardly reach the catastrophes and delights, often so vivid, which ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... wholly ignores all sorts of active causes for this difference: Berlin has a tolerably homogeneous population, New York the most heterogeneous in the world; Germans by nature respect law and authority, and hanker for centralization; Americans make and break laws light-heartedly, and are restive under authority; and ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... care, will be the matter of his work. We know what was thought of such matter, when Lydia in the play was driven to the necessity of flinging "Peregrine Pickle under the toilet," and thrusting "Lord Aimwell under the sofa." We have got beyond that now, and are tolerably sure that our girls do not hide their novels. The more freely they are allowed, the more necessary is it that he who supplies shall take care that they are worthy of the trust that is given ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... Potomac. He is jet-black, or rather, I should say, wine-black, his complexion, like that of others of my darkest men, having a sort of rich, clear depth, without a trace of sootiness, and to my eye very handsome. His features are tolerably regular, and full of command, and his figure superior to that of any of our white officers, being six feet high, perfectly proportioned, and of apparently inexhaustable strength and activity. His gait is like a panther's; I never saw such a tread. No anti-slavery ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... adj.; rather, somewhat, pretty well, tolerably. for aught one cares. Int. no matter! pish! tush! tut! pshaw! pugh! pooh,pooh-pooh! fudge! bosh! humbug! fiddlestick[obs3], fiddlestick end[obs3]! fiddlededee! never mind! n'importe[Fr]! what signifies it, what boots it, what of it, what of that, what matter, what's the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... because they felt that they were not competent to grapple with the acute intellects and subtle philosophy of Indian thinkers. It is commonly said that the acutest intellects in India are to be found amongst the Brahmins of Poona City. A tolerably wide acquaintance amongst them would lead one to say that the would-be missionary's fears are groundless. The real difficulty of controversy with Indians, so far as it may be expedient to embark in it at all, which is doubtful, is that their arguments are often so discursive, their reasoning ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... resistance was useless, Harpour accordingly stood out in the centre of the room, but not until he had cast an inquiring look among those who embraced his side; and these, who, as we have seen, were tolerably numerous, all looked at Kenrick that he might give some hint as to what they should do. Thus appealed to, Kenrick ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... "the Soldan of Babylon himself, were he your son-in-law, would find Lord Warwick a tolerably stubborn servant!" ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ribald again she let this pass. "It takes a great many things to account for Maggie. What is definite, at all events, is that—strange though this be—her effort for her father has, up to now, sufficiently succeeded. She has made him, she makes him, accept the tolerably obvious oddity of their relation, all round, for part of the game. Behind her there, protected and amused and, as it were, exquisitely humbugged—the Principino, in whom he delights, always aiding—he has safely and serenely enough suffered the conditions ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... armistice I was in almost constant touch with all Russian parties within the country and without, and received detailed accounts of the changing conditions of the people, which, although conflicting in many details, enabled me to form a tolerably correct picture of the trend of things and to ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... lawn, and through the house. Their eyes, weary of the harsh colours and forms of the city, took pleasure in the worn wainscots and the stained walls. Some of the rooms were still occupied; fires were burning in the wide fire-places. All were tolerably furnished, and there was no uncomfortable sense of repair or newness. They mounted the stairs, and Mrs. Lee fairly laughed when she was shown the room in which General Washington slept, and ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... not have been an absurdity, before poor Harry Edgham. She was not quite contented to accept him. She had hoped for something better; but he was good-looking, and popular, and his social standing, in her small world, was good. He was an electrical engineer, with an office in the city, and had a tolerably good income, although his first wife's New England thrift had compelled him ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and I met with indifferent success. It was not a pleasant dinner. Mr. Desmond alone appeared not to mind the restraint, and he alone ventured to address the widow. She was polite, but far from sociable. We contrived to pass the afternoon tolerably, but not at all in the spirit which I wished to have prevail when I had friends to visit me, and ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... old Books.—Can any of your readers oblige me with a good receipt for varnishing the bindings of old books? Bees-wax and turpentine, used very thin, is a tolerably good one; but I am ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... made by frequent passage from the station, and Rex found it tolerably easy running. He had acquired—like most men who live much in the dark—that cat-like perception of obstacles which is due rather to increased sensitiveness of touch than increased acuteness of vision. His feet accommodated ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Madge, and Simon Ford entered through the narrow orifice which put the Dochart pit in communication with the new mine. They found themselves at the beginning of a tolerably wide gallery. One might well believe that it had been pierced by the hand of man, that the pick and mattock had emptied it in the working of a new vein. The explorers question whether, by a strange chance, they had not been transported ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... she is very short, and considerably under the middle size, and stands tolerably erect, with her head bent forward, apparently from her having for a long time been accustomed to carrying heavy burdens in a strap placed across her forehead. Her complexion is very white for a woman of her age, ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... This was within a quarter of an hour of the time that had been fixed on. The Emperor went on the forecastle to see the island; but it was still hardly distinguishable. At daybreak next morning they had a tolerably clear ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Eugene at Court to-day very plain; he's plaguy yellow, and tolerably ugly besides. The Court was very full, and people had their Birthday clothes. I dined with the Secretary to-day. I was to invite five, but I only invited two, Lord Anglesea and Lord Carteret. Pshaw, I told you this but yesterday. We have no packets from Holland yet. Here ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... disliked, and often laughed at, religious people. I was in great darkness; I knew nothing of the way of salvation. I never prayed, nor was sensible of the awful danger of a prayerless state. I wished to maintain the character of a good servant, and was much lifted up whenever I met with applause. I was tolerably moral and decent in my conduct, from motives of carnal and worldly policy; but I was a stranger to God and Christ. I neglected my soul; and had I died in such a state, hell must, and would justly, have ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... Pisa, and only returned to Milan in 1479 when he was Lord (Governatore) of the State of Milan, in 1480 after the minister Cecco Simonetta had been murdered. It may have been soon after this that Ludovico il Moro announced a competition for an equestrian statue, and it is tolerably certain that Antonio del Pollajuolo took part in it, from this passage in Vasari's Life of this artist: "E si trovo, dopo la morte sua, il disegno e modello che a Lodovico Sforza egli aveva fatto per la statua a cavallo di Francesco Sforza, duca di Milano; il quale disegno e nel ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... give you an appetite for your supper, Rodolfo; this is the portrait of your bride; but I must tell you that what she wants in beauty is more than made up for in virtue. She is of good family, and tolerably wealthy; and since your father and I have made choice of her, you may be assured she will ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... servant. She made a low reverence, cast a look of admiration on him, and gave him a letter. His eye darted on it: his hand trembled as he took it. He turned away again to open it. He forced himself to say, in a tolerably calm voice, "I ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... and afterwards had my discourse printed in one or other of the Reviews. It has seemed to me that these addresses might now be worthy of collection in a volume, as they shed explanatory light upon each other, and taken together express a tolerably definite philosophic attitude in ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... The first operation was to mix the salt water and the chopped cocoa-nut together, so as to make an appetising sauce, into which we were supposed to dip each morsel we ate, the empty salt-water bowl being filled up with fresh water with which to wash our fingers and lips. We were tolerably successful in the use of our fingers as substitutes for knives and forks. The only drawback was that the dinner had to be eaten amid such a scene of novelty and beauty, that our attention was continually distracted: there was so much to admire, both ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... of their conduct, that all persecution for matters of religion, as it is highly criminal in the eyes of the Supreme Being, so it is inadequate to the end proposed. This proposition, indeed, seems to be tolerably Well understood at the present day. At least they whose minds have been well informed, acknowledge it. The history of martyrdom, by which we learn how religion soars above all suffering, how the torments inflicted on the body are unable to reach the mind, how the moral Governor of the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... order to avoid delay, I directed my way across the smooth sward round which the pathway wound, intending, at the opposite side of the flat, at a point which I distinguished by a group of old birch-trees, to enter again upon the beaten track, which was from thence tolerably direct to the gate. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... was to reign under the protection of the queen his mother. His brother-in-law, as chief man, accompanied by several other people of condition, came down to bid us welcome, and used us very kindly. Both he and many others of the islanders spoke tolerably good Portuguese, so that I had much conversation with them, and was informed of every thing I ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... Valliere some idea of the manner in which it had really happened, and La Valliere afterward told the king, who laughed exceedingly at it, and pronounced Malicorne to be a first-rate politician. Louis XIV. was right, and it is well known that he was tolerably ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... no secret of their intention of coming on board whenever they could or of tossing the good ship Edinburgh Castle hither and thither like a child's plaything—and of more deceitful sluggish rolling billows, looking tolerably calm to the unseafaring eye, but containing a vast amount of heaving power beneath their slow, undulating water-hills and valleys. Sometimes sky and sea have been steeped in dazzling haze of golden glare, sometimes brightened to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... Kinloch, I will follow your prudent suggestions,"—adding to himself, as he walked away, "I shall have to be tolerably shrewd to get ahead of that woman. I wonder what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... felt, I will not say almost marriageable, but almost married. Images of leisure played before him, leisure in which he saw himself covering foolscap paper with his views on several subjects, and with favourable illustrations of Southern eloquence. It became tolerably vivid to him that if editors wouldn't print one's lucubrations, it would be a comfort to feel that one was able to publish ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... homogeneously dispersed amid an all-embracing sea, there must have gradually arisen heterogeneous arrangements of continent and ocean. Once more, this double change in the extent and in the elevation of the lands, involved yet another species of heterogeneity—that of coast-line. A tolerably even surface raised out of the ocean must have a simple, regular sea-margin; but a surface varied by table-lands and intersected by mountain-chains must, when raised out of the ocean, have an outline extremely irregular both in its leading features and in its details. Thus, multitudinous ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... earl is a title of nobility so antient, that it's original cannot clearly be traced out. Thus much seems tolerably certain: that among the Saxons they were called ealdormen, quasi elder men, signifying the same as senior or senator among the Romans; and also schiremen, because they had each of them the civil government of a several division or shire. On the irruption of the ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... of those orders of men of whom the historic muse takes count, such as bards, rulers, builders, and religious, there is much information to be found scattered up and down our annals, which, if properly put together and clearly interpreted, may afford us a tolerably clear view of the men and ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... single-handed. The wars of these bishops against the petty nobles, who made their castles so many receptacles of robbers and plunder, were thus the foundation of public liberty. And it appears tolerably certain that the Paladins of Ariosto were in reality nothing more than those brigand chieftains of the Ardennes, whose ruined residences preserve to this day the names which the poet borrowed from the old romance writers. ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... plodded silently onward over the icebelt by the light of a clear, starry sky. At the end of that time clouds began to gather to the westward, rendering the way less distinct, but still leaving sufficient light to render travelling tolerably easy. Then they came to a part of the coast where the ice-belt clung close to a line of perpendicular cliffs of about three miles in extent. The ice-belt here was about twenty feet broad. On the left the cliffs referred to rose sheer up several hundred ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... fruit. Nub having climbed to the top of a tree, secured a rope, at which the whole of the party hauling together, hoped to bring it down in the right direction. The mate, axe in hand, then commenced chopping away. The wood was tolerably soft, and as the weapon was sharp and he was a good axe-man, the tree was soon cut through, and came crashing down to the ground. He then, by the doctor's directions, divided the trunk into pieces five feet in length. While he ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... for his father probably prevented him from criticising this letter as he would have criticised a similar utterance from another teacher. He has, however, endorsed it—I cannot say whether at the time—with a tolerably significant remark. 'This,' he says, 'is in the nature of a surrebutter; only the parties, instead of being at issue, are agreed. My opinion as to his opinions is that they are a sort of humility ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... do not think they even wanted to see on the other side. There were some few tolerably good and clear-sighted ones among them, you know: and these all agreed in pointing out how, by changing one or two of their old man-in-the-moon Bedlam arrangements, they could greatly better themselves: ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... beyond their market value. Like the designs on the Etruscan vases, their main excellence is, that, being so good, they should be done so facilely. An imitator loses the rapidity and spirit of execution. The mass of imitations are of things only tolerably good, and of things whose characteristics are in the execution merely, as in the Roman ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... worthless than usual in the present case, because Mr. Carlyle is ostentatiously illogical and defiantly inconsistent; and, therefore, the term which might correctly describe one side of his teaching or belief would be tolerably sure to give a wholly false impression of some of its other sides. The qualifications necessary to make any one of the regular epithets fairly applicable would have to be so many, that the glosses would virtually overlay ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... displays as an author exhibits the same character. They are, however, very curious, and it is to be hoped will one day be made public, as a valuable addition to the catalogue of royal and noble authors. It is singular that the author seems to have written himself into a tolerably good style, for the language of the Memoirs, which at first is scarcely grammatical, becomes as he advances ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... to have reversed your decision somewhat suddenly," he said. "I had not noticed it before, but Miss Townshead is distinctly pretty. She was, I believe, on tolerably good ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... was poet laureate, a poor writer, of no invention; but who sometimes translated tolerably when assisted by Dryden. In the second part of Absalom and Achitophel there are about two hundred lines in all by Dryden which contrast strongly with the insipidity ...
— English Satires • Various
... grandmother, though seemingly in possession of ample means, betrayed an indifferent education, and in her flow of gossip never referred to ancestral dignities, never made mention of the calling her husband had pursued. Mr. Vawdrey was known to be 'in business,'—a business which must be tolerably lucrative. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... them), they strangle them. This he told me himself; and I supposed that their hogs were killed in the same way. Dr Johnson said, 'This must be owing to their not having knives, though they have sharp stones with which they can cut a carcase in pieces tolerably.' By degrees, he shewed that he knew something even of butchery. 'Different animals,' said he, 'are killed differently. An ox is knocked down, and a calf stunned; but a sheep has its throat cut, without ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... hours every day on the lake, learning and practising, and when Joseff had time he would come with me; and after three days I was able to manage the skees tolerably well. I kept them in line and they did not slip out from my feet any more. I could go several thousand yards without stopping and with ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... tolerably old gentleman—an old bachelor, moreover—and, what is more to the point, an unpretending and sober-minded one. Lest, however, any of the ladies should take exceptions against me in the very outset, I will merely remark, en passant, that a man can sometimes become an old bachelor ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... his boat, which was flying along on the water, towed by the ship, prepared to take his leave; for he was fully aware that he had no power to compel the other to heave-to his ship, to enable him to get out of her. Luckily the water was still tolerably smooth, and with fear and trembling, Mr. Seal succeeded in blundering into the boat; not, however, until the watermen had warned him of their intention to hold on no longer. Mr. Grab followed, with a good deal of difficulty, and just as a hand was about to let go ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... development of those qualities of mind and heart for which he is celebrated was remarkably rapid. He was always Ivan the Terrified, and he became Ivan the Terrible before he was old enough to have played a reasonably good game of marbles, or to have become tolerably expert in the art of mumbling the peg. Indeed, it seems that the young grand-prince was wholly insensible to the joys of these and the other excellent sports in which ordinary youths delight, and being of an ingenious turn of mind, he invented others better suited to his tastes and ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... my poems, sent, before he opened the book, a tolerably handsome letter:—I have not heard from him since. His opinions I neither know nor care about: if he is the least insolent, I shall enrol him with Butler[74] and the other worthies. He is in Yorkshire, poor man! and very ill! He said he had not had time to read the contents, but thought it necessary ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... after our arrival in Richmond, the rations were tolerably good. There had been so much said about the privations of the prisoners that our Government had, after much quibbling and negotiation, succeeded in getting the privilege of sending food and clothing through the lines to us. Of course but ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... who had a mind to be a hero, with a bushel of curled hair on his head, and a gilt truncheon in his hand.—The French have been so voluminous on the history of this town, I need say nothing of it. The houses are tolerably well built, and the Belle Cour well planted, from whence is seen the celebrated joining of the ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... tales of Clever Dog Tom, who told him that hands like his would work well in his line, and his innocent-looking face would go a long way towards softening any judge and jury, or would bring him favour with the chaplain, and easy times in gaol. He kept his crossing still, and did tolerably well, earning enough to keep himself in food, and to pay for his night's shelter; but he was beginning to hanker after something more. If he could not be good, and be on the same side as old Oliver and Dolly, he thought it would be better ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... though, there was a change, and that was followed by plenty of variety in the shape of huge trees, with all their branches and leaves tolerably fresh, floating seaward, just as they had fallen from the bank after the mighty stream had undermined them. In one case there were land birds flitting about the few boughs that appeared above the water, but generally they were gulls snatching at the ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... had dawned even upon the mind of Cutts, who, though not very familiar with romance, had once stumbled upon a translation of Spindler's novels, and was, therefore, tolerably up to the proceedings of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... you know that I am guardian to a tolerably young and passably handsome girl who lives in this neighbourhood, and ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... these objects an equivalent for renewing the displeasure of the legislature. Unless we can carry their hearty patronage with us, the institution can never flourish. I would not, therefore, hint at this additional aid, unless it were agreeable to our friends generally, and tolerably sure of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... as the Oriental religions are concerned, the results of all the laborious investigations now being made in the classical countries can be indirectly controlled, and this is a great advantage. To-day we are tolerably well acquainted with the old religions of Egypt, Babylonia and Persia. We read and translate correctly the hieroglyphics of the Nile, the cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia and the sacred books, Zend or Pahlavi, of Parseeism. Religious history has profited more by their deciphering than the ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... ideas and such habits, is indeed in a most hopeless state. The art of seeing Nature, or, in other words, the art of using models, is in reality the great object, the point to which all our studies are directed. As for the power of being able to do tolerably well, from practice alone, let it be valued according to its worth. But I do not see in what manner it can be sufficient for the production of correct, excellent, and finished pictures. Works deserving this character never were produced, nor ever will arise, from memory alone; ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... the figure," said the Critic, "is tolerably good, though rather Etrurian, but the expression of the face is decidedly Tuscan, and therefore false to nature. By the way, have you read my work on 'The Fallaciousness ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... of the journeyings of Gotama are succeeded by tolerably clear accounts of the last few days of his life.[9] On a journey towards Kusin[a]r[a], a town about 120 m. north-north-east of Benares, and about 80 m. due east of Kapilavastu, the teacher, being then eighty years of age, had rested for a short time in a grove at P[a]w[a], ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... position on the mantelpiece, which I considered as a sort of recognition of old times. I saw her once or twice casually; nothing particular happened till the next day, which was Sunday. I took occasion to go into the parlour for the newspaper, which she gave me with a gracious smile, and seemed tolerably frank and cordial. This of course acted as a spell upon me. I walked out with my little boy, intending to go and dine out at one or two places, but I found that I still contrived to bend my steps towards her, and I went back ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... that there seemed scarcely the remotest prospect of its being "found" by any one disposed to do it good. However, even in this dark spot there was a corner from which there shone a little flickering light. John Price and his family tenanted a tolerably roomy cottage at the entrance to the village, close to the horse-pond. The poor man had seen better days, having acted as steward to the young squire from the time he came into the property till he disappeared with his infant son ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... Men: with Women he was what They pleased to make or take him for; and their Imagination's quite enough for that: So that the outline's tolerably fair, They fill the canvas up—and "verbum sat."[737] If once their phantasies be brought to bear Upon an object, whether sad or playful, They can ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Pickwick, looking round him. It was a tolerably large double-bedded room, with a fire; upon the whole, a more comfortable-looking apartment than Mr. Pickwick's short experience of the accommodations of the Great White Horse had ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Though tolerably well treated at the villages where he stopped, he in vain endeavoured to obtain a guide. The rains were now falling, and the country, it was supposed, would soon be completely flooded. He heard that a report had been abroad that he had come to Bambarra as a spy and that, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... and recross the frozen stream several times, owing to the sides of the hill rising almost perpendicularly from its base. To add to our difficulties, we had to pick our way over deep snow (even in May), not only over branches, but tolerably large sized trunks of trees that had been uprooted. I was told that during the winter months a regular hurricane blows up this valley, carrying everything before it. The Pass (Kotal) forms the northern ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... a word, learning to feel that the world was alive. Of the three she was the merriest that night as they went together along the quiet road. A little way out of the village, Richard set her on the mare, and walked by her side, leading Miss Brown. Such was the tolerably sufficient foundation for the report that he was seen rollicking with a common-looking lad and a servant girl on the high road, in the immediate vicinity of ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... passed, nothing will make me happy or even permanently comfortable till I can call you fairly my own. My mother has already said that she hopes you will come here in about a fortnight—that is, as soon as we shall have fallen tolerably into our places again; but she will write herself before that time. I have written a line to your brother, addressed to the office, which I suppose will find him. I have written also to Cecilia. Your brother, no doubt, will hear the news first through the French ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... professors recruited in Europe and America. Of these 20 came from Germany, 16 from England and 12 from the United States. The average pay was L384. In the highest Imperial University the average pay is L684. As soon as Japanese could be found to do the work, even tolerably well, the foreigner was dropped.' When he first started work in India, he found that there was no physical laboratory, or any grant made for a practical experimental course. He had to construct instruments ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... at the starry sky and said: "The moon is already tolerably high, and my lord meant to be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "Tolerably tired at last of looking on the grim faces that surrounded us, we agreed to make our retreat; and descended into the garden, intending to pass out by the gate leading to the Quays. Here, however, we were met by a figure, at the sight ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... that party, has made us tolerably familiar with the men who composed it. They were a band of eccentric and mischievous spirits, bold of heart, ready of hand, and of boundless fidelity to one another. Professing to hold the most outrageous maxims, incessantly invoking Brutus and old ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Chadwick herself! She has been getting on very nicely with the housekeeping (part of the credit belongs to me, but no one would ever believe it), and the boarders have been gradually weaned from mamma and accustomed to the new order of things, so they are tolerably content. Ah Foy also has agreed to stay, and that makes matters still more serene, since he is the best cook in Santa Barbara. Mrs. Chadwick will pay eighty-five dollars a month. Dr. George thinks we ought to get ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... this work puts an end to the numerous conjectures of scholars as to the source of Galland's unidentified tales; and the notes on various MSS. of the Nights are also very valuable. It therefore appears desirable to give a tolerably full sketch of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... first tolerably good, and lay through a level country, but, when we had proceeded about half way, became hilly, rugged, and slippery, particularly after passing the second of two streams which intercepted our road. A number of the natives, principally women, continued to follow, passing ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... now is tolerably smooth. If he really needs goods the merchant will be willing to order at prices paid before; if he thinks he does not need anything I may tempt him by quoting prices a little under what he paid. In either case I am in good shape to make a fight for an order; thanks to the clerk's ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... we landed was, however, tolerably well cultivated by the inhabitants of several villages hereabouts. The soil, where it was not cultivated, was completely covered with trees, generally of no great height, and with bushes and long rank grass. The habitations of many of the inhabitants could with difficulty be found; ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... determined the form of the Roman alphabet were, upon the whole, correct; and, hence, the Roman alphabet, although not originally meant to express an Italian tongue at all, expressed the language to which it was applied tolerably. ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... rather surprised," said I, "by all this, for it seems to me that after all the country must be tolerably populous." ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... vine-twigs had been steeped, when they instantly fell off. My Basque was at length dressed in a torn, threadbare cassock, masked by his false beard, with an old hat upon his head, a breviary under his arm, and a tolerably thick stick in his hand, and received an order to post himself near the little gate of the Luxembourg stables. The Cardinal then desired me not to leave him, as he had certain orders to give me which he could not entrust to every ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... and the island, which the wary Abbot of Furness soon turned to his own advantage, occupying the place with some of his armed vassals. The rebels, proved to be such by their ill success, took up a tolerably advantageous position upon Swartz Moor, in the neighbourhood of Ulverstone, where, waiting in vain for the expected reinforcements, they found themselves obliged to move forward, or be utterly without the means either of subsistence or defence. Sir Thomas Broughton, and a few more of little ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... are beginning to get some knowledge. Besides this idea of locality and movement, we have the equally certain one of a former soft and more diffused state of the materials of these bodies; also a tolerably clear one as to gravitation having been the determining cause of both locality and movement. From these ideas the general one naturally suggested to us is—a former stage in the frame of material things, perhaps only a point in progress from some other, or a return from ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... has followed thus far he has a tolerably fair notion of the unpropitious and eccentric surroundings amid which Field worked immediately after coming to Chicago. Out of this strange environment came as variegated a column of satire, wit, and personal persiflage as ever attracted and ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... now be pretty well aware of what my delight will be to see my dear Fanny again, and to know her tolerably well; but you have not lived with her five-and-twenty years, and therefore memory has no place in your affection for her, and you cannot even now comprehend the blank she makes to me. But you can well comprehend the extent of my pleasure in reading her letters, which breathe ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... most particular about the length of the waistcoat, and the height of the cockade, and you see I have followed your orders tolerably close; and now, adieu to sweet equality for the season, and I am your most obedient servant for four weeks—see that you make the most ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... 'that's perfectly invulnerable. Lenox may remain; it will be a wholesome discipline for him—a warning, you know, my hero; although, girls, Lenox is tolerably faultless, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Paris, because a few days ago I could not get as far as Ville d'Avraye, near Versailles, where I have a goddaughter. For the same reason they do not send me this winter to a warmer climate. It is, then, illness that retains me; were I only tolerably well I should certainly have ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the extensive ruins of the destroyed city: they soon found tolerably passable roads, the few unobstructed tracks of the former principal streets of the large royal city; but they were often obliged to scramble over the rubbish of overthrown buildings, across pillars, and the remains of mighty columns. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the like post in Captain Carton's boat. I had a special station of my own, behind Miss Maryon, and no hands but hers ever touched my wound. (It has been healed these many long years; but, no other hands have ever touched it.) Mr. Pordage was kept tolerably quiet now, with pen and ink, and began to pick up his senses a little. Seated in the second boat, he made documents with Mr. Kitten, pretty well all day; and he generally handed in a Protest about something whenever we stopped. The Captain, however, made so very light ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... injury. The environment which is necessary to compensate for an injury may become very narrow. For an individual with a badly working heart more and more restriction of the free life is necessary, until finally the only environment in which life is even tolerably harmonious is between blankets and within the ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... Now, it has been my daily habit, since I retired from business, to lay down my book at two o'clock, and take a little out-door exercise. Miss Pillbody's school is not far from my house; the street is pretty clean for New York, and the sidewalks are tolerably dry. Therefore I select that neighborhood for my daily walk—my—my 'constitutional,' as they call it. If, in so doing, I should occasionally cast my eyes—in fits of absent-mindedness, I may say—on Miss Pillbody's school, that is not strange, considering—considering the interest that I take ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... any considerable diligence or sagacity. For which reason men are wise with but little reflection, and good with little self-denial, in the business of all times except their own. We are very uncorrupt and tolerably enlightened judges of the transactions of past ages; where no passions deceive, and where the whole train of circumstances, from the trifling cause to the tragical event, is set in an orderly series before ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... killed. If by killed was meant knocked down and stunned, which is the Irish acceptation of the word—there is a great deal about Ireland in the book—they were right enough. It was not dead, however, oh dear no! as is tolerably well shown by the present edition, which has been long ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... occasions the tolerably discreet African would have made some evasive reply, but with her feathers all ruffled, she belched out, "The upshot of the matter is, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... eyes being less sharp than hers, he was on his way to the waiting-room before she joined him, and as he had not seen her encounter, she would not tell him. They were settled in the carriage again, and she was tolerably refreshed. Mr. Mohun fell asleep, and she, after reading by the lamp-light as long as she could find anything to read, gazed at the odd reflections in the windows till she, too, nodded and dozed, half waking ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... parties are tolerably in agreement when it is a question of making war on the Socinians; and as the philosophy of these sectaries is not of the most exact, in most cases the attack succeeded in reducing it. But the Protestants themselves had dissensions on the matter of the Eucharistic Sacrament. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... considered." General von Fleck was rather late: on September 26, 1915, when the French had already taken nearly the whole first-line trenches, he expressed the opinion that "The French Higher Command appears to be disposed to make another desperate effort." What is tolerably certain is that the German General Staff did not foresee the strength of the blow nor suspect the vigor with which it would be delivered. Even the command on the battle field itself apparently failed to recognize what was happening before their eyes. Inside the shelters of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... impulses of a nervous temperament. Mr. Charlston was a hatter by trade; and at the time referred to kept a hat factory of his own in Fleet Street. His industry had placed him in favorable circumstances. Estimating the value of labor and intellect, he had given his children a tolerably good education, and at a proper age had apprenticed his sons to become tradesmen. George followed the business of his father. Frederick was a cabinet-maker, and at the time referred to had been two years employed as a journeyman. Neither Mr. Charlston nor ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... sword which had apparently experienced a good many hard knocks. The lack of any other baggage to speak of, as well as the frayed and stained condition of his uniform, indicated that however rich the rider might be in glory, he was tolerably destitute of more ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy |
