"Tough" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could distinguish a stratum of earth and large stones about ten feet thick, and under this a stratum of two feet of ferruginous pebbles about the size of a pigeon's egg, and a yellow and rusty-coloured sand and earth; under this a stratum of tough white clay. The rusty-coloured sand is that in which the gold is found. Saw plenty ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... puffing with pride, excitement, and a fine uniform of khaki, whom he had met at Chickamauga; and Willings, the surgeon; and Chaffee, now a brigadier; and Lawton, soon to command a division; and, finally, little Jerry Carter, quiet, unassuming, dreamy, slight, old, but active, and tough as hickory. The little general ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... I might say that so far as I have tested them, some of the Japanese are quite sweet, but the meat is generally tough, not brittle and sweet ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... is a bit rough, as they are now. We have got to be firm, Alison, and we have got to be brave, and there aint no manner o' use drawing on the feelin's. Keep 'em under, say I, and stand straight to your guns. It's a tough bit o' battle we're goin' through, but we must stand to our guns, that's ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... Hepzibah was, she could not remember when Uncle Venner, as the neighborhood called him, had not gone up and down the street, stooping a little and drawing his feet heavily over the gravel or pavement. But still there was something tough and vigorous about him, that not only kept him in daily breath, but enabled him to fill a place which would else have been vacant in the apparently crowded world. To go of errands with his slow ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who wish to hear the glories of our crew, I'll tell you all the names of those who wear the Cambridge Blue. First HAWKSHAW comes, a stalwart bow, as tough as oak, nay tougher; Look at him ye who wish to see the Antipodes to "duffer." Swift as the Hawk in airy flight, strong as the guardsman SHAW, We men of mortal muscles must contemplate him with awe. Though I dwell by Cam's slow river, and I hope am not a bigot, I think that Isis ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... 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 justifying it. It was absurd, it was said, to allege as a pretext for it, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... but it was apparent that he had some sort of a queer, tough customer on his trail and it's always in ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... I implore you, help me and show me the man that stole it. (Picking out one of the spectators, probably a tough looking "bruiser", and stretching out his hand to him.) What do you say? I know I can trust you. I can tell by your face you're honest. (To the whole audience, in response to the laughter sure to ensue.) What's the matter? What are ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... reason he would probably live longer than many other men. There is nothing like a hypochondriack for tough holding out.' ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... not, and I wonder that you expect me to have. I say again, give me tough masts, sound spars, well set-up rigging, and stout canvas, with a properly built ship under my feet, and I'll keep the sea in all weathers, and carry her ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... first noticed it. This was one of those things, of course, that were not supposed to happen in space, and often did. Every precaution had been taken against it. The outer shell of the ship was tough enough to stop medium-velocity meteoroids, and inside the shell was a self-sealing goo, like a tubeless tire. Evidently the goo hadn't worked. Something had got through the hull and made a pinhole leak. In fact the ...
— Last Resort • Stephen Bartholomew
... plenty tough for an Outsider, and a hard-headed businessman to boot, but he'd never run into a customer like Doc before. You could see him trying to make up his mind on how to handle this thing. He glanced around quick at the crowd, and I could tell he decided to play it out to ...
— Trees Are Where You Find Them • Arthur Dekker Savage
... had arrived from "the sea"! They proved to be Grant and Speke, who had just come from the Victoria Nyanza. Both looked travel-worn. Speke, who had walked the whole distance from Zanzibar, was excessively lean, but in reality in good tough condition. Grant's garments were well-nigh worn-out, but both of them had that fire in the eye which showed the spirit that had ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... ship of such enormous size that she simply took Vinesauf's breath away. No one thought that any ship so big had ever been built before, "unless it might be Noah's Ark", Richard had a hundred galleys. The Turkish ship was quite alone; but she was a tough nut to crack, for all that. She was said to have had fifteen hundred men aboard, which might be true, as soldiers being rushed over for the defence of Acre were probably packed like herrings in a barrel. As this was the first English sea fight in the Crusades, and the first in which ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... turned against an old acquaintance, it were well to set an inquiry afoot. First, however, I put him alongside Herbert Spencer. If it were Bell's desire to play the grandmother to him, he would find him tough meat. ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... China and the Sandwich Islands at a good profit. Until 1864 the government prohibited the export of timber, although it had inexhaustible quantities growing on the Amoor and its tributaries. I saw at Nicolayevsk and elsewhere oak and ash of excellent quality. The former was not as tough as New England oak, but the ash could hardly be excelled anywhere, and I was surprised to learn that no one had attempted its export to California, where good timber for wagons and similar work is altogether wanting. Pine trees are large, straight, ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... shadow of regret in his tone. "That will carry off only a few watchmen and engineers. Mighty tough ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... "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
... cannonade; if Christianity, with its charity; if Trade, with its money; if Art, with its portfolios; if Science, with her telegraphs through the deeps of space and time, can set man's dull nerves throbbing, and, by loud taps on the tough chrysalis, can break its walls and let the new creature emerge erect and free,—make way and sing paean! The age of the quadruped is to go out—the age of the brain and the heart is to come in. The time will come when the evil forms we have known ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... murder of Isom Chase. The old men of the place sat there in the summer days, whittling and chewing tobacco and living over again the stirring incidents of their picturesque past. Their mighty initials were cut in the tough wood of the bench, to endure long after them and recall memories of the hands which carved them so ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... weeds are pretty tough, ma'am; roots 'way down in China, and the Emperor objects to ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... and droop and die, worn down by the unremitting work and the bad, insufficient food; but your ragged little South African will still amble on, still hump himself for his saddle in the morning, and still, whenever you dismount, poke about for roots and fibres of withered grass as tough as himself, or make an occasional hearty meal off the straw coverings of a case of whisky bottles. With an action that gives the least possible exertion; with the digestion of an ostrich, and the eye of a pariah dog for any stray morsel of food; with an extraordinary capacity for taking rest ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... time to reach The Nest that night. My wife did her best to dress some of the flesh of the land crab, but it was tough, and did not taste so nice as the soup made from the beast that we ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... received so amiably) I heard a good many things about your way of life in Paris. "Tannhauser", with ballet, and a contest of translators as well as of minstrels, are immediately before you. It will be a tough piece of work for you, and I advise as many walks and cooling baths as possible. Fips should teach you a little philosophic patience during the rehearsals. Frau Burde-Ney told me lately when she was "starring" here, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... stomach and bowels was occasioned by some antimonial wine, which he had taken over night, under the denomination of plague-water. She seemed to think that his apprehension might put an end to his life: the knight swore he was no such chicken, but a tough old rogue, that would live long enough to plague all his neighbours. — Upon enquiry, we found his character did not intitle him to much compassion or respect, and therefore we let our landlord's humour take its course. — A glyster was actually administered ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... these divided into equal-sized pieces or cubes. Place the pieces on shallow baking pans in a rather hot oven, which, after a short time, should be allowed to cool to moderate heat, and bake for two hours, when they should be of a dark, rich brown color and light and crisp throughout. If tough, they need rebaking. If the oven is too hot, the pieces will puff up, becoming mere hollow shells; if not sufficiently hot, they will not ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... gathering some berries, would wander away over the hills in search of game and to explore the neighbouring hills and valleys, and sometimes it was sunset before he made his appearance. Hector had made an excellent strong bow, like the Indian bow, out of a tough piece of hickory wood, which he found in one of his rambles, and he made arrows with wood that he seasoned in the smoke, sharpening the heads with great care with his knife, and hardening them by exposure to strong heat, at a certain ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... a philosopher was assailed for some particularly tough absurdity in his system, he was wont to parry the attack by the argument from the divine omnipotence. 'Do you mean to limit God's power?' he would reply: 'do you mean to say that God could not, if he would, do this or that?' This retort was supposed to close the mouths of ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... was a bit of a character. Poacher and trapper, with an eye like a lynx and a fore-arm like a bullock's leg, he was undoubtedly a tough proposition. What should have made him take a liking to Reginald is one of those things which passes understanding, for two more totally dissimilar characters can hardly be imagined. Our friend—at the time of the shooting ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... public character, have for the greater part taken out, not, indeed, a poetical, but a critical, license to make game of me, instead of sending game to me. Thank heaven! I am in this respect more tough than tender. But, to be serious, I heartily thank you for your polite remembrance; and, though my feeble health and valetudinarian stomach force me to attach no little value to the present itself, I feel still more obliged by the kindness ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... other:—these are vulgarly known as "mares' tails." The plumy and expanded extremity of these is often bent upwards, sometimes back and up again, giving an appearance of great flexibility and unity at the same time, as if the clouds were tough, and would hold together however bent. The narrow extremity is invariably turned to the wind, and the fibres are parallel with its direction. The upper clouds always fall into some modification of one ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... guess that's the course most likely to appeal to a man constituted as you seem to be. But the question is, are you tough enough to see it through? It's one that may cost ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... coefficient is among the lowest in the world. For the time being, Belarus remains self-isolated from the West and its open-market economies. Growth has been strong in recent years, despite the roadblocks in a tough, centrally directed economy and the high, but decreasing, rate of inflation. Growth has been buoyed by increased Russian demand for ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... conversation should be of the lightest and least exciting kind; mere common-places about the weather and late arrivals. You should not amuse the company by animated relations of one person who has just cut his throat from ear to ear, or of another who, the evening before, was choked by a tough beef-steak ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... mental bubbles and did not pay any more attention to what Prophet Elias was saying outside. And as if the Prophet had received a psychological hint that his text shafts were no longer penetrating the money king's tough hide, the diminuendo of his orotund marked ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... say." He wrestled valiantly with the leg of a tough chicken, and thus was able to evade ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... Jeffreys was tough and hardy; and the night's rest had done more for him than twenty doctors. He got up, shook himself, and behold his limbs were strong under him, and his head was clear and cool. He dressed himself quietly and descended to ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... kitchen, our orderlies discussed the incident, and discovered in course of conversation that Biggs had never killed a man. All the others were tough old warriors, ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... curvetting over the prairie on a tough little mustang, had been at school at Toronto, whence he was returning to rejoin his father, Captain Mackintosh, now a chief officer, or factor, in charge of Fort Duncan, a Company's post to the south-west, situated on the borders of the Blackfeet territory. It was a somewhat ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... experienced. At the end of the 6th century all the provinces of the Empire had become independent kingdoms, in which conquerors of Germanic race formed the dominant nationality. The remnants of the Empire showed an uncommonly tough vitality. It is true that the Teutonic states succeeded everywhere in establishing themselves; but only in England and in the erstwhile Roman Germany did the Roman nationality succumb to the Teutonic. In the other countries it not only maintained itself, but was able to assimilate the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... Martin. "He is a tough old fellow. You cannot come in here, you know, Wanda. It is against the Jockey Club laws, ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... "It's a tough deal," he remarked abruptly. "—I mean this art stuff. You work like the dickens and kick your heels in ante-rooms. If they take your stuff they send you back to alter it or redraw it. I don't know how anybody makes a living at ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... That famished slave, Beggared by wealth, who starves that he may save, Brings hither but his sheet. Nay, the ostrich-man, That feeds on steel and bullet, he that can Outswear his lordship, and reply as tough To a kind word, as if his tongue were buff, Is chapfallen here: worms, without wit or fear, Defy him now; death has disarmed the bear. Thus could I run o'er all the piteous score Of erring men, and having done, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... intently in. In the course of the day I saw this act several times, and in no case did the bird enter the box with food as it had been doing. Then I investigated and found the nearly fledged birds all dead. On removing them I found the nest infested with many dark, tough-skinned, very active worms or grubs nearly an inch long, that had apparently sucked the blood out of the bodies of the fledglings. They were probably the larvae of some species of beetle unknown to me. The parent birds had looked on and seen their young destroyed, and made no effort to free ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... dirty board 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 ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Serpent cannot get up that creek, though she can place herself at the entrance and prevent their getting away; but there still remains the work of capturing or driving them down the creek, and that is likely to be a very tough job." ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... albuminous food should be cooked at as low a temperature as possible in order to avoid rendering them tough. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... which he did not eat without grumbling, for the cock was very tough, the man struck his hand on the table, and said: 'Now listen to me. Go and fetch my cock and my basket, ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... of a clever, cultured man—that Martin kept seeing himself down all his past. He saw himself when he had been quite the hoodlum, wearing a "stiff-rim" Stetson hat and a square-cut, double-breasted coat, with a certain swagger to the shoulders and possessing the ideal of being as tough as the police permitted. He did not disguise it to himself, nor attempt to palliate it. At one time in his life he had been just a common hoodlum, the leader of a gang that worried the police and terrorized honest, working-class householders. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... in the Seminole physique, namely, the diminutive toe-nails, and for the heavy, cracked, and seamed skin which covers the soles of their feet. The feet being otherwise well formed, the toes have only narrow shells for nails, these lying sunken across the middles of the tough cushions of flesh, which, protuberant about them, form the toe-tips. But, regarded as a whole, in their physique the Seminole warriors, especially the men of the Tiger and Otter gentes, are admirable. Even among the children this physical superiority is seen. To illustrate, one morning ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... 1855, Gregory's party left Moreton Bay in the barque Monarch, attended by the schooner Tom Tough. There were eighteen men in all. H.C. Gregory was second in command, Ferdinand von Mueller was botanist, J.S. Wilson geologist, J.R. Elsey surgeon and naturalist, and J. Baines artist and storekeeper. They had on board fifty horses, two hundred sheep, and provisions and stores calculated ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... joy we expect in the mansions of the blessed, when received with the embraces of our forefathers, we shall be welcomed with their blessing as having done our part not unworthily of them. The storm through which we have passed, has been tremendous indeed. The tough sides of our Argosie have been thoroughly tried. Her strength has stood the waves into which she was steered, with a view to sink her. We shall put her on her republican tack, and she will now show by the beauty of her motion the skill of her builders. Figure apart, our ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Jefferson held the gates by main force, which was relaxed by the war under Madison and the fusion of parties under Monroe, but which swelled again into a furious torrent as the later parties took form. John Quincy Adams adhered, with the tough tenacity of his father's son, to the best principles of all his predecessors. He followed Washington, and observed the spirit of the Constitution in refusing to remove for any reason but official misconduct or incapacity. But he knew well what was coming, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... plank, which, 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. ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... thy enterprise? thy aim? thy object? Hast honestly confess'd it to thyself? Power seated on a quiet throne thou'dst shake, Power on an ancient consecrated throne, Strong in possession, founded in all custom; Power by a thousand tough and stringy roots Fix'd to the people's pious nursery-faith. This, this will be no strife of strength with strength. That fear'd I not. I brave each combatant, Whom I can look on, fixing eye to eye, Who, full himself of courage, kindles courage In me too. 'Tis a foe ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... "I'll do all I kin for the poor little shaver, but I don't expect I can git no horse. I'll go and see, but the teams has all got the extry stock in harness, fer the roads is mighty tough, and snow, down the canon, is up to the hubs of the wheels. You've got to be back before too late or your claim goes up, fer, Jim, you know as well as me that Parky's got the ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... way. We did not then know how to scaffold up above the tough, swelled bases of the large trees, and this made it very difficult to chop them down. So we burned through them. We bored two holes at an angle to meet inside the inner bark, and when we got a fire started there the heart of the tree would ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... middle and wind the coil with the doubled wire. Fig. 40 shows how the coil would look and you can see that part of the way the electrons are going around the coil in one direction and the rest of the way in the opposite direction. It is just as if the boys were paired off, a "goody-goody" and a "tough nut" together. They both shout at once opposite advice and ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... at this," she said. "If it's cooked too much, it gets tough and—" She straightened suddenly and stood staring out ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... left upon Colworts or Cabbages: All which kindes of dews being thickened and condensed, are by the Suns generative heat most of them hatch'd, and in three dayes made living creatures, and of several shapes and colours; some being hard and tough, some smooth and soft; some are horned in their head, some in their tail, some have none; some have hair, some none; some have sixteen feet, some less, and some have none: but (as our Topsel hath with great diligence observed) [In his History of ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... were on his heart, but he is too introspective for the fullness of inspiration. Even his strange and grotesque ways are not redeemed by showing the fatal inevitableness of a natural product. They do not appear to grow out of a tough, knotted, impracticable intellect; in that case we should not hesitate to forgive them; but they seem to be adopted with malice aforethought; and used with the keenness of a native Yankee, as the most available capital for the accomplishment of his purposes. With this writer, the story ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... those fellows' kites may fly high, but they will not be able to pull anything along," growled out Blackall. "Before they think that they are going to carry off all the prizes, let us see what my kite can do. He looks like a strong, tough fellow, who can pull hard at ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... he was owned by William Dorsey, Perry by Robert Dade, Sam and Isaac by Thomas Owings, all farmers, and all "tough" and "pretty mean men." Sam and Isaac had other names with them, but not such a variety of clothing as their master might have supposed. Sam said he left because his master threatened to sell him to Georgia, and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... the last crop been set apart for the reaper and mower trials, it would have been cut three weeks ago, when there were again about eight tons to the acre. As it was, however, last week the crop had gone too much to seed, and was too much laid for being of prime quality; the result of which is, Mr. Tough, the owner, reckons the plants are too much spent to stand well through a second year, and he therefore contemplates turning it over in the spring for mangolds. Mr. Tough calculated, however, that there were ten tons to the acre this cut, and lots of carts and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... a second at Smolensk"—he showed a scar on his cheek—"and this leg which as you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at the great battle of la Moskowa. Sacre Dieu! It was splendid! That deluge of fire was worth seeing. It was a tough job you set us there, my word! You may be proud of it! And on my honor, in spite of the cough I caught there, I should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Thistle, "I can tickle, But not as a Hedgehog can prickle; Even my tough old friend the Moke Would find ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... grocer, a family baker, A family butcher and sausage-maker— A butcher, proud of his craft and willing To admit that his business in life is killing, Who parades a heart as soft as his meat's tough— There's a little shop for the sale of sweet stuff; There's a maker and mender of boots and shoes Of the sort that the country people use, Studded with iron and clamped with steel, And stout as a ship from toe to heel, Who announces himself above his entry ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... wild, crowded "hoe-downs" and "shuffles" amid much howling and more liquidation; on our side a few Spanish laborers quietly sipped their liquor. The Marines of course were "busted." The rest of us scraped up a few odd "Spigoty" dimes. The Spanish bar-tender—who is never the "tough" his American counterpart strives to show himself—but merely a cheery good-fellow—drifted into our conversation, and when we found I had slept in his native village he would have it that we accept a round of ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... drink—daily, from morn to eve, their favorite occupation is to curse the land-shark who took their money from them for transport, land, and improvements, and brought them into this district, which is under water two months in the year, and for the ten others more like a tough kind of pap than any thing else. Now the men who have pointed out to them this dirty way into heaven are no other than my agents and colleagues, so that I, Fritz Fink, am the lucky man upon whom every imprecation there is in German and Irish falls all the day long. I send ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... and the four dapple-greys which pressed their fine shoulders into the harness of his breaking plow might have delighted the heart of any teamster. As he sat on his steel seat and watched the colter cut the firm sod with brittle cracking sound as it snapped the tough roots of the wild roses, or looking back saw the regular terraces of shiny black mould which marked his progress, he felt that he was engaged in a rite ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... Raw, row. Reaming, foaming. Reck, observe. Rede, counsel. Red up, cleared up. Reek, smoke. Reike, (smoky), Edinburgh. Restricket, restricted. Reveled, ravelled, trouble-some. Reynynge, running. Reytes, water-flags, iris. Rig, ridge. Rigwoodie, lean, tough. Rin, run. Rodde, roddie, ruddy. Rodded, grew red. Rode, skin. Roset, rozet, rosin. Rowan, rolling. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... several tough-looking men standing about, and from their ready sympathy, real or feigned, it was easy to be seen that these men, too, like the others of the underworld, stood ready to do Paul's slightest bidding, to guard him with their lives ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... smile, and off-hand and really winning manner, enabled him to carry off, occasionally, a degree of impudence which would not have been tolerated from others—"I hate a large formal breakfast party of all things; it disgusts me to see a score of men jostling each other over tough beefsteaks." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... MONITOR met and fought for mastery in Hampton Roads. The ironclad vessel was not then a new idea in naval architecture, but its efficiency as a fighting machine was then first demonstrated. Iron for armor soon gave way to thick and tough steel, while each improvement in armor led to a corresponding improvement in guns and projectiles, until now a battle at sea has grown to be a remarkably different affair from the great ocean combats ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... ladies are tough; but that poor son of hers! Do tell me what he said: I saw he was terribly ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... George have a tiny little apartment 'way up town,—three rooms, I believe, and so far she hasn't taken in anybody's washing. Anne wants to refund the money to Lutie, but doesn't know how to go about it. She—er—sort of left it to me to find the way. Lordy, I seem to get all of the tough jobs." ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... on through the bunches of tough twigs; the massive boulders closed the view on every side; and Seraphina followed me with her hands on my shoulders. This was the best way in which I could help her descent till the declivity became less steep; and then I went ahead, forcing a path for her. Often we had to walk into the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... of which the Romans really did fall in with a serpent, as monstrous as their imagination had depicted. It was said to be 120 feet long, and dwelt upon the banks of the river Bagrada, where it used to devour the Roman soldiers as they went to fetch water. It had such tough scales that they were obliged to attack it with their engines meant for battering city walls; and only succeeded with much difficulty in ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... following spring a vexatious incident occurred in Warwick Street. The highly-considered county member, who was the yearly tenant of Mr. Rodney's first floor, and had been always a valuable patron, suddenly died. An adjourned debate, a tough beefsteak, a select committee still harder, and an influenza caught at three o'clock in the morning in an imprudent but irresistible walk home with a confidential Lord of the Treasury, had combined ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... or, to use a common expression, "bridle in hand." And one of the best proofs of our advancement in virtue is, he said, a love of correction and reproof; for it is a sign of a good digestion easily to assimilate tough and coarse food. In the same way it is a mark of spiritual health and inward vigour to be able to say with the Psalmist, The just man shall correct me in ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... an overwhelming contingent of the whole tough gang of wasps and hornets—brown wasps from under the eaves and fences; black hornets from the big paper nests; yellow-jackets from where you please; deep steel-blue wire-waisted wasps from the mud cells in the garret, to say nothing of an occasional longer-waisted digger-wasp, and ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... hands and looked up into his face with such poignant longing and tenderness, that Jack's comrades, already uncomfortable enough, were quite overborne by the scene. Tough old Hatch snuffled audibly, and Brady ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... 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 ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... have to put up with you when the doctor told him to let me have my way. His temper gets worse, too, all the time. I declare, he sometimes makes me wish he were dead and buried." "Oh, he'll live long enough yet, never fear—those wiry, cross-grained people are as tough as lightwood knots. It's a pity, though, he wants to bully you like that—it would kill me in a day." A flush mounted to Will's forehead. "I knew you'd think so," he said, "and it's what I tell him all the time. He's got ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... about noon next day when I reached Valcartier and after a month of solid work, the like of which I had never before experienced, I was as hard as a nail, and as tough, as indeed was every man in that honor division ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... so strange; it seemed as if her father must both get down with her from the carriage and come to meet her from the house. Her glance involuntarily took in the familiar masses and details; the patches of short tough grass mixed with decaying chips and small weeds underfoot, and the spacious June sky overhead; the fine network and blisters of the cracking and warping white paint on the clapboarding, and the hills beyond the bulks of the village houses and trees; the woodshed stretching with ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... long unkempt heads of hair, and only a coral necklace and a silver bangle by way of clothing. I quickly secured them, and although one was really only a boy, I decided to trust to luck and take Dr. Wilson's assurance that he looked tough enough and ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... compelled to lay bare the secrets of his unsavory past, perhaps resulting indirectly in a term in prison for himself.* Thus may be accounted for much of the supposed "romantic, if misguided, chivalry" of the south Italian. It is common both to him and to the Bowery tough. The writer knew personally a professional crook who was twice almost shot to pieces in Chatham Square, New York City, and who persistently declined, even on his dying bed, to give a hint of the identity of his assassins, announcing that if he got well he "would attend to that little ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... generally ova formed, sometimes longer and more rarely partially divided or brancing; always attended with one or more radicles at it's lower extremity which sink from 4 to 6 inches deep. the bulb covered with a rough black, tough, thin rind which easily seperates from the bulb which is a fine white substance, somewhat porus, spungy and moist, and reather tough before it is dressed; the center of the bulb is penitrated with a small tough string or ligament, which passing from the bottom of the stem terminates ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... judgment upon his evil-doings. It's a regilar court, though we make it up ourselves, and app'ints our own judges and juries, and pass judgment 'cordin' to the case. Ef it's the first offence, or only a small one, we let's the fellow off with only a taste of the hickory. Ef it's a tough case, and an old sinner, we give him a belly-full. Ef the whole country's roused, then Judge Lynch puts on his black cap, and the rascal takes a hard ride on a rail, a duck in the pond, and a perfect seasoning of hickories, tell thar ain't much left of him, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... brave son of Anchises disregarded him not. And they twain went right onward, their shoulders shielded by ox-hides dried and tough, and bronze thick overlaid. And with them went both Chromios and godlike Aretos, and their hearts were of high hope to slay the men and drive off the strong-necked horses—fond hope, for not without blood lost were they to get them back from Automedon. He ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... indeed, there must be spaces of dreariness in it for us all—some find it interesting; some surprising; some find it entirely satisfactory. But those who find it satisfactory seem to me, as a rule, to be tough, coarse, healthy natures, who find success attractive and food digestible: who do not trouble their heads very much about other people, but go cheerfully and optimistically on their way, closing their eyes as far as possible to things painful and sorrowful, and getting all the pleasure ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Richard and Philip met a peasant bringing a load of tough canes to town. The two kings and all their knights took each a reed, and using it as a lance, began to tilt against one another. Richard and a French knight, William des Barres, charged each other. The reeds were shattered, and the headpiece of Richard was broken. Enraged at this mishap, the king ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... cheerful. He, too, had been reviewing the situation, and the presence of a uniformed policeman had dispelled the last shred of suspicion that some stupid joke had been worked off outside the Police Headquarters when a fearsome looking tough was introduced to him as the Chief of the New York ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... might be awkward in appearance, he might wear his clothes badly, but the boy at ten years had been a man, doing a man's work and with a man's soul. He had come into the field, no parade soldier, but with a body and mind as tough and enduring as steel, the whole surcharged and heated ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tough luck," sympathized Barnes. "I can see that you need bucking up, and I think I've got the right kind of remedy for you. Wait, ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... weapon sent the air like a strong wind against his face. Ere he had time to renew his attack, he was suddenly seized from behind, and found himself struggling in the arms of two men. From these he broke, and his dagger glanced harmless against the tough jerkin of his first assailant. The next moment his right arm fell to his side, useless and deeply gashed. A heavy blow on the head—the moon, the stars reeled in his eyes—and then darkness,—he knew no more. His assailants very deliberately proceeded to rifle the inanimate ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... leaving Suzanne to wander to and fro looking for the shells, and not for an hour or more did she get up to find her. Then she searched in vain, for the spoor of the child's feet led from the sand between the rocks to the pebbly shore above, which was covered with tough sea grasses, and there was lost. Now at the girl's story I was frightened, and Jan was both frightened and so angry that he would have tied her up and flogged her if he had found time. But of this there was ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... his forefingers together as an intimation that if I am we ought by all means to form a combination and travel the country together. About ten o'clock the khan-jees make me up quite a comfortable shake-down, and tired out with the tough journey over the mountains and the worrying persecutions of the afternoon, I fall asleep while yet the house is doing a thriving trade; the luti singing, the mandril grunting, kalians bubbling, and people talking, all fail ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... "It is tough to be poor!" insisted Catharine fiercely. "It drives me almost frantic to see what I see in all those limousines,—and then walk home, or take a car ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... kissed her that afternoon, but more often of Sanford and Nu Delta. He was so deeply grateful to his father for talking to him frankly and telling him everything about college. He was darned lucky to have a father who was a college grad and could put him wise. It was pretty tough on the fellows whose fathers had never been to college. Poor fellows, they didn't know the ropes the way ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... "A tough case!" he whispered as we sat by him. "Our man has his spies out, and my every step is dogged both ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... calculation, the result was announced. Palo turned round and descended from his pedestal with much dignity, though panting from his exertions, and looking so hot that I feared an apoplexy for the old man. I did not know how tough such an old heathen is, nor that his efforts were by no means at an end. Noblesse oblige and such high caste as Palo's is ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... degradation, with no clear prospect before us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the chance of this painted pasteboard, and playing the "joker" with vivid delight. Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough chess games. When dark came we decided to take the risk, and lit ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... the room, running a nervous hand through his cornshuck hair. She's only thirty, he thought, and I'm three years older. That's awfully young to have bred three kids and lost them. He took her in his arms. "I know how tough it is. It's bad enough for me, and probably worse for you. But at least we're sure they'll never be bomb fodder. ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Wesley Barefoot
... sand hills, very heavy travelling. The trees in the scrub are of a different description to any that I have seen; they grow high and very crooked, without branches until near the top, and with a rough, ragged bark; seven or eight seem to spring from one root. The wood is very tough and heavy, and burns a long time, giving out a glowing heat. The leaves resemble the mulga, but are of a darker colour and smaller size. The native name is Moratchee. Shot a wallaby, and had him for dinner. They are very wild, ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... another book) "An account of Joe Skilliter's pig, who could say 'Yes' and 'No,' by moving his ears. Note: When Joe's pig was killed it was tough eating. Another argument against the ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... crack of the sliding door. It gave me a strip of man, a long drab face at top, solid, meaty looking, yet somehow slightly cadaverous, a half shut eye, a crooked mouth—if I'd met that mug in San Francisco, I'd have labeled it "tough," and located it South ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... purpose of keeping my papers in order, I have prepared thin laths of tough wood dressed with the draw knife to a thin edge, the back being one fourth of an inch thick, leaving the lath one and a quarter inch broad; these are cut in lengths to suit the paper they are intended to hold. Take for instance ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... process, the character of the wheat raised in the different sections of the Union must be taken into consideration. Wheat may be divided into two classes, spring and winter, the latter generally being more starchy and easily pulverized, and at the same time having a very tough bran or husk, which does not readily crumble or cut to pieces in the process of grinding. It was with this wheat that the mills of the country had chiefly to do, and the defects of the old system of milling were not then so apparent. With the settlement of Minnesota, and the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... every mile of the way between Liverpool and New York as conscientiously as though he were on her deck, and the accordion pumped and the fiddle squeaked beside him. Tom Platt followed with something about "the rough and tough McGinn, who would pilot the vessel in." Then they called on Harvey, who felt very flattered, to contribute to the entertainment; but all that he could remember were some pieces of "Skipper Ireson's Ride" that he had been taught at the camp-school in the Adirondacks. It seemed ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... dark forest where people seldom went, lived a wizened old Alan. [70] The skin on her wrinkled face was as tough as a carabao hide, and her long arms with fingers pointing back from the wrist were horrible to look at. Now this frightful creature had a son whose name was Sayen, and he was as handsome as his mother was ugly. ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... earth he tore the fibres, Tore the tough roots of the Larch-tree, Closely sewed the bark together, Bound it closely to ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... talk of Paris for the last two 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 ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... has been brought within the portals of the boarding-house, the next step is to induce him to drink. Sailors are very tough, but even they cannot stand up against the effects of the poisonous liquors sold here. If the landlord is not able to induce the new-comer to drink, the "Jackal," or the porter, is called in. Jack never suspects the porter of any design ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... sah," returned the negro. "Fus-rate sailor, sah. But them greasers is having tough times," he grinned. "Can't abide the sea, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... facing her as she entered, a tall man, tough and muscular, with black hair that was tinged with grey, and a long stubborn jaw that gave him an indomitable look. His lips were thin and very firm, with a sardonic twist that imparted a faintly supercilious expression. His eyes were dark, deep-set, and shrewd. He was ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... "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 ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... looked upon Alexandria as the centre of the world's learning. The library was then in its greatest glory; the readers were numerous, and Christianity had as yet raised no doubts about the value of its pagan treasures. All the wisdom of Greece, written on rolls of brittle papyrus or tough parchment, was ranged in boxes on the shelves. Of these writings the few that have been saved from the wreck of time are no doubt some of the best, and they are perhaps enough to guide our less simple taste towards the unornamented grace of the Greek model. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport |
