"Tough" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Thurian, four Syracusans, one from Anaia, one Milesian, and one Leon's own. Accordingly the Chians marched out in mass and took up a strong position, while thirty-six of their ships put out and engaged thirty-two of the Athenians; and after a tough fight, in which the Chians and their allies had rather the best of it, as it was now late, retired ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... more the jelly will begin to shrink and become more solid so that the blood will become separated into two parts, the solid and the liquid. The solid part will consist of a firm, tough jelly of a deep red colour, and the liquid part will consist of a pale yellow, clear, ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... was young and athletic, and he fired at a huge bull. Had he been an experienced hunter, he would have known better, as the bull was too big and tough to eat, and he was also one of the savage guardians of the herd. Moreover, the Spaniards were armed mostly with muskets, a weapon far inferior to the ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... she don't! I guess she'd like me to be a mommer's pet in lace collars an' a velvet suit, an' soft an' pretty in me talk. She's made me promise t' cut out d' tough-spiel, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... proportion of C and of other elements present, either as mixtures or as compounds, and in part to other causes not well understood. Wrought-iron is fibrous, as though composed of fine wires, and hence is ductile, malleable, tough, and soft, and cannot be hardened or tempered, but it is easily welded. Pig-iron is crystalline, and so is not ductile or malleable; it is hard and brittle, and cannot be welded. On account of its low melting-point it is generally employed ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... a foot long, playing about on the sand like so many rabbits. He also tells a story, which might have had a sad ending, saying [Footnote: Life of Charles Waterton, p.56] that when he was anxious to secure an alligator, which he much wished to stuff, with its tough skin uninjured, he would not allow his men to shoot at him, but actually jumped upon his horny back and rode him along the sandy river-bank until the poor creature was tired out, and the daring rider secured his prize. I daresay yon would like to see the picture which one ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... greater productivity and growth. Portugal has been increasingly overshadowed by lower-cost producers in Central Europe and Asia as a target for foreign direct investment. The coalition government faces tough choices in its attempts to boost Portugal's economic competitiveness and to keep the budget deficit within the ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... devilish Inquisition, and by threatening our coasts both from Cadiz and from their provinces in the Netherlands. At last so hot became the quarrel that the other nations stood off, as I have seen the folk clear a space for the sword-players at Hockley-in-the-Hole, so that the Spanish giant and tough little England were left face to face to fight the matter out. Throughout all that business it was as the emissary of the Pope, and as the avenger of the dishonoured Roman Church, that King Philip professed to come. It is true that Lord Howard and many another gentleman of the old ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it went ill with me; I got badly stung as high as the elbows by the stinging plant; I was nearly hung in a tough liana—a rotten trunk giving way under my feet; it was deplorable bad business. And an axe—if I dared swing one—would have been more to the purpose than my cutlass. Of a sudden things began to go strangely easier; I found stumps, bushing out again; my body began to wonder, then my mind; I raised ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... introduction of shorthand into our curriculum in the Orphanage school. And at the same moment I recalled the occasions, only yesterday, upon which I had had to 'hold out' my hand to this bitterly enthusiastic wielder of the cane. My palms had purple weals on them at that moment, tough though they were from outdoor work. I clenched my hands involuntarily, and was thankful the artist could not see their palms. That would have been a horrid humiliation; the very thought of it made me ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... opinion, the chief value of R. Strigosus is to be found in two facts. In the first place, they endure the severe Northern winters, and—what is of far more consequence—their best representatives thrive in light soils, and their tough foliage does not burn under the hot sun. It thus becomes the one species of red raspberry that can be raised successfully in the South, and from it, as a hardy stock, we should seek to develop the ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... faces, with his children early learning the language of the country to which he has come, while it is to him a sealed book, are responsible for much juvenile delinquency. Jacob Riis has told us, in compelling description, the story of the evolution of the "gang" and of the "tough" from the children of parents who, well-meaning and in their own ancestral land capable of parental control, here lose command of the family life because the children have to become the interpreters and representatives of the family in the new country to a degree ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell, Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need: I've had it tempered in the streams of hell By masters mighty in the mystic rede: I've had it tempered by the light of stars; Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars; I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade; Then let him come who ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... attention of the company. You have retired to make room for some newer capture. Thrust into the most obscure corner, you sit watching the progress of dinner, gnawing in canine sort any bones that come down to you and regaling yourself with hungry zest on such tough mallow-leaves—the wrappers of daintier fare— as may escape the vigilance of those who sit above you. No slight is wanting. You have not so much as an egg to call your own; for there is no reason why you should expect to be treated in ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... north with a prospecting party. We had a tough time the first year, I can tell you, and some of us never came back. We weren't in a country where post offices were lying round loose either, you see. Then at last, just as we were about giving up in despair, we struck ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... they both burst into immoderate laughter. Rosalie even had to hold on to the table to prevent herself from falling. One day, before their first communion, it seemed, Zephyrin had filched three black radishes from old Rouvet. They were very tough radishes indeed—tough enough to break one's teeth; but Rosalie all the same had crunched her share of the spoil at the back of the schoolhouse. Hence it was that every time they chanced to be taking a meal together Zephyrin never omitted to ejaculate: "Yes; this is better than ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... an every-day tough, bull-necked, square-jawed, red of face, and with his hair cropped short in the fashion that rules at Sing Sing and is admired of Battle Row. Any one could have told it at a glance. The bruised and wrathful face of the policeman ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... and your grandfather set his eyes by me as long as he lived. A good woman who has sense enough not to follow all the rules and precepts and keep good, isn't found every day, and she can hold a man and holding a man is about as tough a job as the Almighty ever set a woman. I've got a pearl necklace and a ring in the bank. Harriet has always wanted them but what is the use of a born old maid decking herself out? I always knew Harriet and Susan ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... what I have heard, they are pretty tough customers. I heard that one man, in an encounter with four of the animals, had one of his eyes scratched out and was otherwise badly clawed before he could shoot them. Half starved, they ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... had a breeze we should do well," observed our commanding officer, "but if not we shall have tough work to keep these fellows off." Our guns were loaded and run out. "We must not throw a shot away," observed the Lieutenant. He kept looking out in hopes of a breeze. The topsails had been loosened, ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... old miner. "It's jest th' same as it was. There it is," and he spread a crinkled sheet of tough parchment in front of Tom. It was covered with a rude drawing, and with names ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... been tough doings in Parliament about the tax on cider; and in the Western counties the discontent is so great, that if Mr. Wilkes will turn patriot-hero, or patriot-incendiary in earnest, and put himself at their head, he may obtain a rope of martyrdom before the summer is over. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... all if you've never been there; but if you mean to grow up you must break loose and get away. The great mother is inclined to bug some of her children rather too tight, I fancy; and by Heaven! it's pretty tough work for some of them wriggling out of ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... borrowed these from Martha. They were her finest best ones, I believe, and very nice, though her clothes generally seemed shabby. This morning she told us to hurry down please, because the maid was feeling miserable. We did hurry and tried not to complain of the cold cocoa or the tough steak, though it is certainly the maid's duty to get fresh hot things no matter how late the girls are. She couldn't find our favorite crescent rolls in the pantry or down-stairs in the bakery or anywhere. Before we were through eating, the other maids had cleared away their breakfast ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... unfortunate followers met his view, and near them he beheld the frightful monster, dripping with the blood of his victims. Seizing a huge rock, the hero hurled it with all his might upon the dragon; but protected by his tough black skin and steely scales as by a coat of mail, he remained unhurt. Cadmus now tried his lance, and with more success, for it pierced the side of the beast, who, furious with pain, sprang at his adversary, when Cadmus, leaping aside, succeeded in fixing the point of his spear ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... world's fourth largest producer, and geological advantages keep production costs low. The recently privatized mining operation, Office Togolais des Phosphates (OTP), is slowly recovering from a steep fall in prices in the early 1990's, but continues to face the challenge of tough foreign competition, exacerbated by weakening demand. Togo serves as a regional commercial and trade center. It continues to expand its duty-free export-processing zone (EPZ), launched in 1989, which has attracted enterprises from France, Italy, Scandinavia, ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... proved by the fact, that sea-kale, so well known as a wholesome and palatable vegetable, is not eatable in its original state; and that any part of the cultivated plant, if accidentally left exposed to the action of the air and light, becomes tough, and so strong in flavour as to be extremely unpleasant to the taste. Celery, also, in its native state, is poisonous; and it is only the parts that are blanched that are perfectly fitted for the table. Though colour is generally supposed to depend principally ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... the door and flung it open as a second squeal rent the air, and found Master Maloney writhing in the grip of a tough-looking person in patched trousers and a stained sweater. His left ear was firmly grasped between ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... grave risk of misinterpretation declare that we were at all nice and refined. We fought much, not sound formal fighting, but "scrapping" of a sincere and murderous kind, into which one might bring one's boots—it made us tough at any rate—and several of us were the sons of London publicans, who distinguished "scraps" where one meant to hurt from ordered pugilism, practising both arts, and having, moreover, precocious linguistic gifts. Our cricket-field was bald about the wickets, and we played without style ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... the many swift fish in the sea, the dolphin, perhaps, is the most marvellous. Its oft-told beauty, too, is indeed remarkable. A few of these fleet racers were captured, on the voyage, but were found tough and rank; notwithstanding some eulogy on them by other epicures, we threw the mess away. Those hooked by my crew were perhaps the tyrrhena pirates "turned into dolphins" in the ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... pieces, while we reached the shore with much difficulty naked, bruised, and wounded. We were forced to adopt the clothing of our first parents, and tied sandals to our feet made of bark which we cut from the trees with sharp stones, fixing them on by means of the tough flexible roots of a plant called bejucos. Travelling in this sorry plight, we came in two days to the village of Yaguarrama, where Fray Bartholome de las Casas was then parish priest, who was afterwards bishop of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... marquis, as he has never been friendly with us, it does not matter. He is, I have heard, a very tough sort of man; and my father is not likely to survive him. But I do not think it would be fair to Geoffrey, when he comes into his peerage, that anyone should be able to say that he has a brother who is porter, in a mercantile ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... for ladies. What with the Zeps, and their brothers and all in France, it's 'arassin'. I've lost a brother meself, and I've got a boy out there in the Garden of Eden; his mother carries on dreadful about him. What we shall think of it when it's all over, I can't tell. These Huns are a wicked tough lot!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... urged on by the monotony of nothing but tough goat on the sideboard, I started before the break of next morning in pursuit of game, and was soon to be seen crawling on hands and knees after antelope, I am afraid unmindful of ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... 'And I, a tough old official, I put my hands to my forehead. You should have seen how the gentleman's pride disappeared in a moment; he became soft as wax and so humble... pliable ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... we drove to the scene of the evictions. These evictions were in July. Mr. Holmes witnessed them, and gave me a lively account of the affair. The "battle" was not a very tough one. Mr. Davitt, who was present, stood under a tree very quietly watching it all. "He looked very picturesque," said Mr. Holmes, "in a light grey suit, with a broad white beaver shading his dark Spanish face; and smoked his cigar very composedly." After it was over, Dr. Dillon brought up one ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... "en blanco"—that is to say, with morion, back-piece, and breast-plate—his sword was girded by his side, and in his hand he wielded a powerful battle-axe. He was followed by a body of his yeomen armed in like manner, and by a band of archers with bows made of the tough English yew tree. The earl turned to his troops and addressed then briefly and bluntly, according to the manner of his country. "Remember, my merry men all," said he, "the eyes of strangers are upon you; you are in ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... comfortable tea, and bread and butter.' Letters, iv. 401. Goldsmith, in 1770, wrote from Paris:—'As for the meat of this country I can scarce eat it, and though we pay two good shillings an head for our dinner, I find it all so tough, that I have spent less time with my knife than my ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... name "Red Shannahan." I was quick to connect the gruff voice and the name "Red Shannahan," and as I had lots of time and nothing else to do, I built up in my mind's eye a picture of a tall, husky, rough and ready, tough Irishman, with red hair—a man of whom it would be conceivable that he had wiped out some two or three German regiments before they got him. To find out more about this character, I called ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... sat several of the party first arrived, washing down tough, stringy beef with brandy. Louis was about to take his place near a very black-bearded young man, who appeared more civilized than the rest, and who surprised him by at once making room for him, leaving the table with an air of courtesy; and when, in his halting Spanish, he begged 'his Grace' not ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been dispatched to Chicago by the officers to take our letters, and bring back the mail from that place. A tough, hardy soldier, named Sulky, acted as messenger, and he had hitherto made light of his burden or the length of the way, notwithstanding that his task was performed on foot with his pack upon his shoulders. But now Sulky had ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... sediment, are driven against the steep outside edges of this wall of stone, yet the oldest pilots know of no tradition of any change in its appearance. This durability is much the most curious fact in its history: it is due to a tough layer, a few inches thick, of calcareous matter, wholly formed by the successive growth and death of the small shells of Serpulae, together with some few barnacles and nulliporae. These nulliporae, which are hard, very simply-organised ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... I was. Well, he's to have it all, I say—every mite, and welcome. I've had a pretty tough life in my time—you can tell it from my hands, suh—but I ain't begrudging it if it leaves the boy a bit better off. Lord, thar's many and many a night,when I was little and my stepfather kicked me out of doors without a bite, that ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... treated her murderers with contempt. "I understand very well," she observed, "why my death is considered necessary. The calf is fat and must be killed." To the executioner she expressed a hope that his sword was sufficiently sharp, "as he was likely to find her old neck very tough." With this grisly parody upon the pathetic dying words of Anne Boleyn, the courageous old gentlewoman ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... had in youth. In a world the very condition of whose being is that it should be in perpetual flux, where all seems mirage, and the one abiding thing is the effort to distinguish realities from appearances, the elderly man must be indeed of a singularly tough and valid fibre who is certain that he has any clarified residuum of experience, any assured verdict of reflection, that deserves to be called an opinion, or who, even if he had, feels that he is justified in holding mankind by the button while he is expounding it. And in a world of daily—nay, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... than gold, tough muscles than silver, and nerves that carry energy to every function are better ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... the Nebraska, the party halted for part of two days on the bank of the river, a little above Papillion Creek, to supply themselves with a stock of oars and poles from the tough wood of the ash, which is not met with higher up the Missouri. While the voyagers were thus occupied, the naturalists rambled over the adjacent country to collect plants. From the summit of a range of bluffs on ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... you. You see, the lesson you gave me to-day is the addition table, and that addition table is a tough, ugly job, I can tell you. Well, I pelted away at it till dinner time, and I guess by that time I knew almost as much as I did before I begun it; and I went to Jones' after my dinner, and Mr. Jones ...
— Three People • Pansy
... awful sight. The wall was splashed with blood and brains, and his face was utterly disfigured. Sanine must have given him a teaser." He laughed. "A tough customer is that lad!" ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... for Ed, and then we skinned the lot. But it was a tough job. We could not help cutting the hides considerably, and in consequence of this, we obtained but eleven dollars for these. We got seventy-six dollars in all, however, and this was a large amount for us ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... Ever since that tough old soldier Charles, first Earl of Monmouth and third Earl of Peterborough, hauled down his flag before the battery of Anastasia Robinson's charms, and made a Countess of his victor, a coronet has dazzled the eyes of many an actress with its rainbow ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... the English bard" (p. 362). The Maori legend describes the dragon as "in size large as a monstrous whale, in shape like a hideous lizard; for in its huge head, its limbs, its tail, its scales, its tough skin, its sharp spines, yes, in all these it resembled ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... I noticed something unusual about the dressing-room. You waited for me to move it back here, I suppose? It's rather a tough job for women." ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... back him (for now he called in two physicians for her), and tried all his arts to get the diamond cross from her on her death-bed, and to get her to make a will in his favour of her separate possessions; but there she was too tough for him. He used to swear at her behind her back, after kneeling to her to her face, and call her in the presence of his gentleman his stiff-necked Israelite, though before he married her, that same gentleman told me he used to call her (how he could bring it out, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... "Tough luck!" suddenly commented Val Russel. "It just occurs to me that our friend Johnny will have to break into his million to ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... difficulties," begged Roddy. "Think that on the other side of that barrier an old man is slowly dying. I admit it's going to be a tough job. It will take months. But whatever a man has put together, a ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... Hilton was unwilling yet to yield his confidence in the treacherous Spaniard, who, I did not doubt, had already received the price of our blood. In this state of painful suspense, vibrating between hope and fear, we remained, until the master fisherman threw on the deck a ball of cord, made of tough, strong bark, about the size of a man's thumb, from which they cut seven pieces of about nine feet each—went to Capt. Hilton and attempted to take off his over-coat, but were prevented by a signal from their Captain. They now commenced binding his arms ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins
... though tough, was very light, was given to Job to carry, and also one of the lamps. I slung the other on to my back, together with a spare jar of oil, while Leo loaded himself with the provisions and some water in a kid's skin. When ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... is essentially the sign of grit, that, when it appears, t' other fellow or t' other opinion must give way. Its power comes from its tough hold on the real, and the surly boldness with which it utters and acts it out. Thus, in social life, it puts itself in rude opposition to all those substitutes for reality which the weakness and hypocrisy and courtesy of men find necessary for their mutual defence. It denies that it has ever surrendered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... wonderful horse would come safe away. Juan was certainly the champion horseman of all that Cogan had ever seen. And when Juan rode out of the ring and the bull stood there and looked after him, bewildered like, Cogan didn't half blame him, for the pair of them, Juan and his horse, certainly made a tough combination. ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... afraid she had a pretty tough time. You'd best not mention her to the old gentleman—or ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... their courage up, but Mrs. Macy says Mrs. Lupey is easy fooled because them's the sort as outlives all their families in the end always. But seems as her gettin' low an' then raisin' up again ain't the only tough part for it seems as she was so low last fall that they really felt safe to send Maria up to the city to buy their mournin' at a bargain sale for there's four of 'em an' they want the veils thick so they'll look sorry from the outside anyhow. And Maria did go, an'— Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I will ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... essential part of a whole; the other and better part of which they were unwilling to lose. Mr. Brougham said, he consented to it as the price, the almost extravagant price, of the inestimable good which would result from emancipation; and it was described by Sir James Mackintosh as one of those tough morsels which he had scarcely been able to swallow. It was opposed by Mr. Huskisson and others as a measure uncalled for by any necessity, and not fitted to gain that object which alone was held out as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... will say that I shall be truly sorry if, after this letter, you decide not to come to us. I like your company; and I shall not get tired of it. But to be more frank still, I think you are one of those charming and sympathetic people who is tough inside, with a toughness which is based on the determination to find things amusing and interesting—and that is not the sort of toughness I can do anything with. People like yourself are incapable as a rule of suffering, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... poor old chap he was little more than a skeleton. But the life Indians lead certainly makes them tough and enduring. He stood starvation and confinement better than the white men. Some of the ex-show people died in that influenza epidemic the second year of the war. But old Totantora was pretty husky, in spite of having all the appearance of a ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... Bureau des Affaires Etrangeres, and charged a fee of ten franca for the signature of the foreign minister. Too old a traveller to be entrapped into the payment of so heavy a fine upon my vanity, I strongly repudiated any more pretentious title than that of simple workman; and after a tough struggle succeeded in carrying off the necessary visa at an outlay of two francs. The journey, by diligence, from Paris to Boulogne, cost twenty-seven francs; I lost a clear six francs in changing my French savings ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... However, when it has been transcribed I will sign it. And I am going to say here and now that there are points in the narrative which I am in a position to substantiate. What I can't prove you must take my word for. But I warn you that the story is tough. ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... those belonging to the touch, are heat and cold, and solidity: all the rest, consisting almost wholly in the sensible configuration, as smooth and rough; or else, more or less firm adhesion of the parts, as hard and soft, tough ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... opposite to English conditions. There were no natural grain-crops; there were practically no food-animals good to eat. The kangaroo and wallaby provide nowadays a delicious soup (made from the tails of the animals), but the flesh of their bodies is tough and dark and rank. Even so it was in very limited supply. The early settlers ate kangaroo flesh gladly, but they were not able to get enough of it to keep ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... on their favorites, could be killed or their horses shot from under them, there would be tough work ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... stand for "Bowery Tough,"' admitted Pinchas; and the table roared again, partly at the rapidity with which this linguistic genius had picked up the local slang. 'But as our pious lunatics think there are many meanings in every letter of the Torah,' went on the pleased poet, 'so there are meanings innumerable ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... the Government on more than one occasion, word was sent from Edinburgh to one of the Grants, who was Laird of Muckerach, that he should dispossess the Shaws of the lands of Rothiemurchus, gin he could. Grant was by no means "blate" in availing himself of the hint, but the Shaws were tough fighters. In a final and decisive contest between the two clans, the Grants were victorious and the chief of the Shaws slain. The victorious Muckerach, now unequivocal Laird of Rothiemurchus, caused his dead rival to be buried deep down within the kirk beneath his own seat. Every Sunday ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... sure to be tough, but I remember how we used to make steak tender at home by beating it before it was cooked. We might serve a thousand pounds or two of this bull in that manner. Besides, ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... spinifex, which both we and the horses dread like a pestilence. We have encountered this scourge for over 200 miles. All around the coronets of most of the horses, in consequence of their being so continually punctured with the spines of this terrible grass, it has caused a swelling, or tough enlargement of the flesh and skin, giving them the appearance of having ring-bones. Many of them have the flesh quite raw and bleeding; they are also very tender-footed from traversing so much stony ground, as we have lately had to ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... ambition in making cylinders is to make them sound and hard; but it is expedient also to make them tough, so as to approach as nearly as possible to the state of malleable iron. This may be done by mixing in the furnace as many different kinds of iron as possible; and it may be set down as a general rule in iron founding, that the greater the number of the kinds of metal entering ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... garments when they should hang on Rodriguez, they plucked a geranium with whose dye they deepened Rodriguez' complexion, and with the sap from the stalk of a weed Morano toned to a pallor the ruddy brown of his tough cheeks. Then they changed clothes altogether, which made Morano gasp: and after that nothing remained but to cut off the delicate black moustachios of Rodriguez and to stick them to the face of Morano with ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... that she might ride more easily. After consulting about the state of the weather, it was resolved to leave the artificers on board this evening, and carry only the smiths to the rock, as the sharpening of the irons was rather behind, from their being so much broken and blunted by the hard and tough nature of the rock, which became much more compact and hard as the depth of excavation was increased. Besides avoiding the risk of encumbering the boats with a number of men who had not yet got the full command of the oar in a breach of sea, the writer had another ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as a verb and noun, but not as frequently in the books as formerly. The farmer says to his hired man, "Go and get a withe and come and withe up the fence;" that is, get some pliant twigs of tough wood, twist them together, and withe or bind them round these posts, so that one may stand firm with, or withed to, the other. A book with a cover, is one that has a cover joined, bound, or attached to it. "A father with a son, a man with an estate, a nation with ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... power of the gods was exercised on behalf of both heroes. While AEneas struggled in vain to extricate the javelin, Juturna, again taking the form of Metiscus, ran forward to her brother and gave him his own sword. Then Venus came to the aid of her son, and the steel was easily drawn from the tough root. Once more the two chiefs stood ready for the combat, the one relying on his trusty sword, the other, on the spear which a ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... cooks, however, make it properly; as a rule too many eggs are used, to which the milk is added cold, and the pudding is baked in a quick oven. The consequence is that the pudding curdles and comes to table swimming in whey; or, even if this does not happen, the custard is full of holes and is tough. ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... the necessary strength to this trunk, and to enable it to war for ages with the elements, its mass of soft cellular tissue is strengthened all round by internal buttresses of dense vascular fibre, tough and elastic as the strongest woods. Now, not a few of the more anomalous forms of the Coal Measures seem to be simply fern allies of the types Lycopodiaceae, Marsileaceae, and Equisetum, that, escaping from the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... and their like, whose social position was not clearly defined, could never be sure how far they could go and yet preserve their "respectability." When they wished to be "proper," they invariably overdid the thing. It was not as if they belonged to the "tough" element, who had no appearances to keep up. Polk Street rubbed elbows with the "avenue" one block above. There were certain limits which its dwellers could not overstep; but unfortunately for them, these limits were poorly defined. They could never be sure of themselves. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... than a large pine-log hollowed with the axe, so as to contain three or four persons; it is flat-bottomed, and very narrow, on which account it is much used on these shallow waters. The birch canoe is made of sheets of birch bark, ingeniously fashioned and sewn together by the Indians with the tough roots of the cedar, young pine, or larch (tamarack, as it is termed by the Indians); it is exceedingly light, so that it can be carried by two persons easily, or even by one. These, then, were our ferry-boats, and very frail they are, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... peacock at the high board, goodly to look upon, bitter to eat; two swans (oh, how tough); vultures, puffins, herons, cranes, curlews, pheasants, partridges (out of season or in season didn't matter); and scores of domestic fowls—hens, geese, pigeons, ducks, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... symptoms: With the beginning of the disease the lymphatic glands of the mucous membrane of the intestines begin to swell; they are constantly growing during the course of the disease and attain the size of a pea; extended over the level of the mucous membrane they feel firm, hard and tough. In favourable cases the swelling may go down at this stage, but generally the formation of matter begins through the dying of the cells, caused by insufficient nourishment. This is gradually thrown off, and a loss of substance remains—the typhoid ulcer. This varies in size and in depth. ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... fool for hollering out. Said he'd been watching that 'tough,' and didn't want to lose sight of him. I got riled. I told him a few things, and said I'd a right to hail my brother any old time. Then he changed around and said he was sorry, and asked me if I was sure it was my brother. When I told ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... though he liked best to hunt and fish and explore. He had a strong boat made by burning out the heart of a large cypress log. In this he often glided swiftly and noiselessly down some stream where the salmon trout lived. He held in his right hand a tough spear, made of a charred reed with a barbed end. When he saw a fish almost as large as himself close at hand he hurled his harpoon at it with all his force. And the fish darted off, leaving a trail of crimson in the clear water and dragging the ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... days! Colette, of course; Colette the inconsolable. I should like to see what the Duchess looks like. At the Loisillon affair she carried herself well, but never lifted her veil or spoke a word. It's a tough bit to swallow, eh? When you think that only yesterday I was helping her to choose materials for the room he was to ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... covered with lead. The clay lining and lead covering are necessary, for if the gas evolved during the process of sublimation came in contact with the iron surface, the gas would be contaminated and the iron corroded. Sublimed sal-ammoniac has a fibrous texture and is tough and difficult to powder. It has a sharp, salty taste and is soluble in two and a half parts of cold and in a much smaller quantity of hot water. During the process of sublimation the ammonia is not decomposed. But there are several ways in which the gas may be decomposed, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... engaged man, who can't afford to marry a charming girl in Detroit, Michigan; and Professor Potter has buried one wife, and wedded another. If Rustler is loyal to his plighted word, you have nobody against you but Wilkinson and old Jenkins of All Souls—a tough customer, I admit, though what a Stinks man like him has to do at All Souls I ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... flaws, stones, lumps of any kind, but especially lumps of lime, should be of a good color for its sort (whether red, yellow, or white), should have a metallic clang when two bricks are struck together; when broken should be sound right through, should be tough and pasty in texture, not granular, and should require repeated blows to break it, rather than one hard blow (such bricks will withstand cartage and handling best). So much for bricks. To make brickwork, however, another ingredient is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... to know who your father or mother is, or whether you have any, or whether you are rich or poor—it sure is tough." ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... "That's the tough part of it," he said thoughtfully. "I suppose rich people are so busy with all the things they have to do that they haven't much time for fooling round with their children. I have a good time with mine though. They're too young to get away anyhow. We read French history aloud every ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... hesitation he dived through the opening and met the fiend as he was rising to his feet. Together they rolled among the wreckage. While no match for his antagonist in size, the pickpocket was tough and wiry and apparently uninjured. He fought viciously, with the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... beam, which filled the apartment, on two chairs, and first they sawed with united efforts at the middle to make it the more manageable. It was hard work, for the oak was tough, and the saw was old, and the workmen were more willing than skilful; but at length it came in two ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... that had been thrown to me. Rowley was at my elbow and seized it also. It was immediately drawn tight, and by its aid we gained the bank, and began ascending the side of the barranca, composed of rugged, declivitous rocks, affording but scanty foot-hold. God grant the lasso may prove tough! The strain on it is fearful. Rowley is a good fifteen stone, and I am no feather; and in some parts of our perilous ascent the rocks are almost as perpendicular and smooth as a wall of masonry, and we are obliged to cling with our whole weight to the lasso, which seems to stretch, and crack, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... hungry that my companion now wished he had brought along with him a piece of the lion's flesh, declaring he could have eaten a collop of it well enough. We had still with us the skin, but that was too tough for ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... down tenderly, but a fit of coughing came on. He struggled in a hemorrhage for a moment, and then crossed over to the waiting figures among the oleanders. Of all the broke-up outfits, we were the most. Dead tough men bawled like babies. I had a good one myself. When we came around to our senses, we all admitted it was for the best. Since he could not get well, he was better off. We took him next day about ten miles and buried him with those freighters who were ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... the meal proved to consist mainly of some curious kind of steamed fish, not unpalatable but rather rank and tough. There were several varieties of fungus, too, more or less resembling mushrooms and doubtless grown in some sunless garden ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... a little man, built like Harry Lauder; hard as nails, tough as raw hide, his skin tanned to the colour of a well-smoked meerschaum, and his face perpetually wreathed in what he called his "sunflower smile." He affects riding-breeches and leather leggings and looks, physically as well as sartorially, as though he had been born on horseback. ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... (Jatropha manihot) is one of the finest vegetables of Peru. The stalk of the plant is between five and six feet high, and about the thickness of a finger. The roots are from one to two feet long, somewhat of the turnip form. Internally they are pure white; but the external skin is tough, somewhat elastic, and of a reddish-brown color. The roots are the edible parts of the plant. They are very agreeable in taste, and easy of digestion. When raw they are hard and tough, and their taste somewhat resembles chestnuts. When boiled in water ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... your institution, and have found your words true in every sense, and take pleasure in authorizing you to use my name in any way to suit yourself. My appetite is good, and I have no pain or trouble whatever. The neuralgia in the lungs, the tough phlegm, weakness, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... hidden under the semblance of a cloud—that hostile beings might inhabit what appeared but thin air—they prepared to oppose violence with violence, and to meet battle with manful battle. Some went and cut new lance poles, others tough and elastic bows. The priests prepared sacrifices to appease the spirit, if spirit it were, and sang propitiatory songs, in which they first called it a good Spirit, and thanked it as such for the fat deer and mooses it had ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... not saying we are not going to find plenty of stumps and roots and a tough sod in this furrow we are going to plow. It's only the fool or the ignoramus who underrates the strength of his opponent. It is going to be just plain, honest justice and the will of the people against ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... "Rather a tough bit of climbing," he cried, after a few minutes' silence; "but I've had worse to do: for I've gone over pieces like this when there has been a fall of a thousand feet or so beneath me, and that makes one mind one's p's and q's, Saxe—precipices and queer spots—eh? But I shall ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... I believe the civil battle for his post will be tough. Now we shall see what service Lord Carteret's Hanoverians will do him. You don't think the crisis unlucky for him, do you? If you wanted a treasury, should you choose to have been in Arlington Street,(837) ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... of that little center of force begin to play. They first open the hard shell from the inside, then build out an arm white and tender as a nerve fiber, but which shall become great and tough as an oak. This arm shuns the light and goes down into the dark ground, pushing aside the pebbles and earth. Soon after the seed thrusts out of the same crevice another arm that has an instinct to go upward to the light. Neither of these arms is yet solid and strong. They are beyond expression ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... been campaigning furiously of late for the new Victory Loan. We Junior Reds canvassed diligently and landed several tough old customers who had at first flatly refused to invest. I—even I—tackled Whiskers-on-the-moon. I expected a bad time and a refusal. But to my amazement he was quite agreeable and promised on the spot to take a thousand ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... gentlemen! Don't be backward. I suppose his birds are as usual, without age to flavor them. It's perfectly heathenish to eat birds as they are served here: we never get a bird here that is sufficiently changed to suit a gentleman o' taste; their beef's tough, and such steak as they make is only fit for shoemakers and blacksmiths. I never come into the place but I think of my journey in France, where they know the style and taste of a gentleman, and things are served to suit your choice." Thus our little friend continued his connoisseur ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... for you," he muttered to himself as he ran the mattock through the rich earth, lifting the long, tough, jointed root stalks of pale yellow, from every section of which broke sprays of fine rootlets. "None too early for you, and as you are worth only seven cents a pound, you couldn't be considered a 'get-rich-quick' expedient, ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... loved him. If he came into a circle where men were laughing or telling stories, they always stopped until he went out. Nobody ever grasped his hand cordially, or slapped him on the shoulder, or spoke of him as a good fellow. He seemed as dry and hard and tough as a piece of jerked beef. There was no softness of character—no ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... be noticed in cases in which the teats of milk cows have become affected, and instances are reported in which sloughing of the tegument immediately around the lesions upon the udder has occurred. Owing to the tough, fibrous nature of the bovine skin, it is exceedingly rare for sloughing to occur upon any part of the body other than ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... to be man enough, you ought to be fair enough to see it in that light. If conditions were reversed, Mr. Landover, and you were in my place, I would be the last to oppose you, because I have learned in a very tough school that it pays to live up to the regulations. Everywhere else in the world it is a question of capital and labour. Here it is a question of labour alone. There is no such thing as capital. Socialism is forced upon us, the purest ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... hundreds of killed and wounded Rebels, groaning and crying aloud for water and for help. We did do what we could for those right around us—but it was so dark, and so many shell bursting and bullets flying around that a fellow could not get about much. I tell you it was pretty tough next morning to go along to the different companies of our regiment and hear who were among the killed and wounded, and to see the long row of graves that were being dug to bury our comrades and our officers. There was ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... was a sad sort of a thing. I'm a tough old fellow, but I declare I'm sorry for that poor woman. Fool to marry Phillips? Of course she was, but most of us are fools, some time or other. And, if I don't miss my guess, she has repented of her foolishness many times and all the time. She wrote me she knew she was going ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... lady of cosmopolitan mien who had me together with many other manuscripts sent to her home in a box, and who consumed innumerable cigarettes as she perused me; by a young gentleman who I am sure had a morning "hang over" at his desk; by a tough-looking customer who wore his hat at his desk; by a young lady of futurist aspect who took me home to her studio; by an old, old man who seemed to "see" me quite, and by many more—all this I may ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... exceedingly abundant among the older rocks of all parts of the globe. Popular names for them are "whinstone," "greenstone," "toadstone" and "trap." They form excellent road-mending stones and are much quarried for this purpose, being tough, durable and resistant to wear, so long as they are not extremely decomposed. Many of them are to be preferred to the fresher dolerites as being less brittle. The quality of the Cornish greenstones appears to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... came up after tea, one night, and Ellen set to work with her mother to pick out every one's bill. There might be about eight customers who had Christmas bills; but many an accountant in a London shop would think eight hundred a less tough business than did the King family these eight; especially as there was a debtor and creditor account with four, and coals, butcher's meat, and shoes for man and horse, had to be set against bread, tea, candles, ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the enemy's position?" returned Captain Ives, his adjutant-general. "We shall have a tough job if we go at ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... DICEY, if your letters are not quite In that style epistolary, which our fathers called "polite"? 'Tis a little too meticulous—in you—and rather late, After giving Mr. GLADSTONE such a wholesome slashing "slate." Take heart of grace, dear DICEY, and don't let Sir WILLIAM's "point" In your tough (if tasteless) armour find a vulnerable joint. "Old Timbertoes" won't trouble, Sir, to wish that you were dead, And his taste (not point) forbids him to call you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... the brightness of her eyes and her faith in that little simple flower, the euphrasia. Though her own love-tide was over, and the romance of life had long relapsed into the old allegiance to the hour of dinner, yet her heart was not grown tough to the troubles of the young ones; therefore all that she could do was done, ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... haphazard; now and then we were lucky enough to come into great open channels and even lakes, but then the ice closed again absolutely tight. It could hardly be called real ice, however, but was rather a snow-sludge, about two feet thick, and as tough as dough; it looked as if it had all just been broken off a single thick mass. The floes lay close together, and we could see how one floe fitted into the other. The ice remained more or less close until we were right down ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... should he do for her? In what way should he himself behave towards her? In the early days of his youth, before the cares of the world had made him hard, he had married his Rachel without a penny, and his father had laughed at him, and his mother had grieved over him. Tough and hard, and careworn as he was now, defiled by the price of stocks, and saturated with the poison of the money market, then there had been in him a touch of romance and a dash of poetry, and he had been happy with his Rachel. Should he try it again now? The woman would ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... may perhaps be innocent enough to apply to the accepted philosophers, especially to Aquinas, whose thoughts had been so thoroughly assimilated by the poet. No doubt that may suggest very interesting inquiries for the metaphysician; but we should find not only that the philosophy is very tough and very obsolete, and therefore very wearisome for any but the strongest intellectual appetites, but also that it does not really answer our question. The philosopher does not give us the reasons which determine men to believe, but the official justification ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... "Tough work, ain't it? I used to do all that stuff; but I found there wasn't any money in it, ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... Robin. "Belike I could have done better, an he had given me time to pull a young tree up by the roots. But I hated to spoil the Queen's blade upon his tough stick or no less tough hide. He had a warrant for my arrest which I ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... was cut and scarred where he had felt Frank's hard fists, and the tough looked on the cool lad ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... outspoken Unionist, and in the next year, when the war put an end for the time to banking in the valley, he became a paymaster in the National army. Colonel Benjamin F. Smith was a noteworthy character also. He was a leading lawyer, a man of vigorous and aggressive character, and of tough fibre both physically and mentally. He shared the wish of Summers to keep West Virginia out of the conflict if possible, but when we had driven Wise out of the valley, he took a pronounced position in favor of the new state movement. A little afterward he was appointed District Attorney ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... tough little fight. She struck out vigorously behind to help him. And, though the losing of the fight might mean tragedy and two white bodies ragging forlornly along the black teeth of Little Sark, she still had time to notice the mighty play of muscles in his back and arms, and the swelling veins ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... "It's tough—-not to have a chance at good sport!" declared Dave Darrin impatiently. "We fellows ought to search this old shore, anyway, to see if we can't find ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock |
