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Middling   Listen
adjective
Middling  adj.  Of middle rank, state, size, or quality; about equally distant from the extremes; medium; moderate; mediocre; ordinary. "A town of but middling size." "Plainly furnished, as beseemed the middling circumstances of its inhabitants."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Middling" Quotes from Famous Books



... and body both found rest, as one athirst finds joy who drinks of heavenly dew. The elephant being thus converted, the people around were filled with joy; they all raised a cry of wonder at the miracle, and brought their offerings of every kind. The scarcely-good arrived at middle-virtue, the middling-good passed to a higher grade, the unbelieving now became believers, those who believed were strengthened in their faith. Agatasatru, mighty king, seeing how Buddha conquered the drunken elephant, was moved at heart by thoughts ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... of this embouchure is a mile and a half, and the banks on both sides are high, steep, and little wooded. It is crossed by a shallow, not above two or three feet deep; but on its east side the channel will admit ships of a middling size fully laden. The current was so strong against us, that it was with much exertion our rowers accomplished crossing the shallow. We landed on the left bank in order to determine the geographical position of the mouth, and found the latitude ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... evident marks of hurry in its execution. If the author shall ever learn the self-possession of the true artist, and come to tell his stories with leisurely dignity of manner—and so on—and so on—and so forth—he will—well, he will—do middling well for a man who had the unhappiness to be born in longitude west from Washington." Ah! well, I shrug my shoulders, and bidding both Cormorant and Critic to get behind me, Satan, I write my story in my own fashion for my gentle readers ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... poetis Non homines, non Di, non concessere columnae.' 'But God and man, and letter'd post denies That poets ever are of middling size.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... bantering master repeatedly said to him, "Now, George, man, let me see how soon you'll be at the foot." Schiller's negligence and lack of alertness called for repeated reproof, and his final school thesis was unsatisfactory. Hegel was a poor scholar, and at the university it was stated "that he was of middling industry and knowledge but especially deficient in philosophy." John Hunter nearly became a cabinetmaker. Lyell had excessive aversion to work. George Combe wondered why he was so inferior to other boys in arithmetic. Heine agreed with ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... why, the sooner you set about it the better: and, to save unnecessary trouble I may as well tell you not to strive to make too much of me; for, I must own it to my shame, I never took learning kindly. If you can fit me for some middling berth in the other world, like the one I hold in this ship, it will suit me as well, and, perhaps, be easier to all hands ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... his grammar lesson without a slip, the letter B—standing for bene, well—was put in the grammar column. If he made one mistake, the entry was V B, vix bene—scarcely well; if two mistakes, Med, mediocriter—middling; and if three, M, male—badly, equivalent to not knowing it at all. The same system prevailed for all the lessons, and in a modified form for the behaviour or deportment also. As regards behaviour, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... myself that however contemptible the Lives of the Criminals, etc., may seem in the eyes of those who affect great wisdom and put on the appearance of much learning, yet it will not be without its uses amongst the middling sort of people, who are glad to take up with books within the circle of their own comprehension. It ought to be the care of all authors to treat their several subjects so that while they are read for the sake of ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... was still a middling young fellow, only about a thousand years old or so, he went walking up and down the earth one night, just ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... sudden fame, has its drawbacks. Gray read the poem, and wrote of it to his friends, in a style thought at the time depreciatory, although it comes pretty near the truth. He says, "It seems to me above the middling, and now and then for a little while rises even to the best, particularly in description. It is often obscure and even unintelligible. In short, its great fault is, that it was published at least nine years too early." Gray, however, had not as yet himself emerged as a poet, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... material for primitive satire in the forecastle, but, as a rule, quite alone, muffled in a dark, hooded cloak, watching the sea, always with her face turned yearningly back, as if England and home lay straight out along the vessel's wake. She was middling tall, eighteen perhaps, with a thin but supple and pleasing figure, and a quiet, smileless face, that wanted only happiness to make ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... middling," Uncle William replied. "We're having a wee bit of opposition to fight against. One of these big firms has just opened a branch here. Pippin's! They're causing me a bit of anxiety, the way they're cutting prices down, but I think we'll hold our ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... that man of whom he expected things so fair. He had asked in a loud voice of the middling funny gentleman (then in the middle of a song) whether he thought Joey would be long in coming, and when at last Joey did come he screamed out, "How do you do, Joey!" and ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... which had been sent off to the whale, returned laden with fat and flesh, which afforded relief from the pressure of hunger, "and made," say the missionaries, "all our hearts leap for joy;" and on the succeeding day, the whole party set off for the whale. When they reached it they found it of the middling size, about sixty-four feet long, but covered with ice and snow almost a fathom deep. The Esquimaux, however, crept into the mouth and cut off what they wanted from the interior to supply themselves; but the wants of the brethren were only increased, they could make little use ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... and folding-doors, with a passage six feet wide, a narrow carpeted flight of steps, and a bed-room prepared for the ladies to uncloak in, and another in which the men can brush their hair and hide their hats. Some such snuggeries very possibly exist in England, among the middling classes; but I believe all over the continent of Europe style is never attempted without more suitable means to carry ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the lower and middling classes of society never entertained the opinion that the highest classes exhibited models of piety and virtue, and were, indeed, disposed to believe them worse than they really were, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... five groups of collections called the Nikayas. These are (1) Digha Nikaya, called so on account of the length of the suttas contained in it; (2) Majjhima Nikaya (middling Nikaya), called so on account of the middling extent of the suttas contained in it; (3) Sa@myutta Nikaya (Nikayas relating to special meetings), called sa@myutta on account of their being delivered owing to the meetings (sa@myoga) ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... to reply, 'I'm thinking we'd better take it to the bank and get the money,' for she always felt surer of money than of cheques; so to the bank we went ('Two tens, and the rest in gold'), and thence straightway (by cab) to the place where you buy sealskin coats for middling old ladies. But ere the laugh was done the park would come through the map ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... said to the jury when it came to his turn to charge them. "Are they guilty, or not? If the question was put to me I should say the Laird of MacLachlan, arrant Papist! should keep his men at home to Mass on the other side of the loch instead of loosing them on honest, or middling honest, Campbells, for the strict virtue of these Coillebhraid miners is what I ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... middling soft mud—I should think about sixty miles from here. We are the second boat sent off for assistance. We parted company with the other on Tuesday. She must have passed to the northward of you to-day. The chief officer is in her with ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... to England he was called to the bar, in June 1790; and but for a singular circumstance might have passed through life as a literary barrister, with middling success in ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various

... any grades save those he has specifically commissioned the buyer to obtain for him. The actual grades, and the terms describing them have been established by the United States Government, and are rigidly adhered to by the trade. Prices are established on the grade known as "middling" as a basis, and variation from this basis is ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous

... She asks her readers not to grudge Amos Barton his lovely wife, that "large, fair, gentle Madonna," with an imposing mildness and the unspeakable charm of gentle womanhood. He was a man of very middling qualities and a quite stupid sort of person, but he loved his wife and made the most he could of such talents as he had. She pleads ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... cattle, cleaning dishes,—in fine, performing their moderate share of the labors of life, without being harassed by its cares. The sable inmates of the mansion were not excluded from the domestic affections: in families of middling rank, they had their places at the board; and when the circle closed round the evening hearth, its blaze glowed on their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with their master's children. It must ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... purpose. One would like to know, however, when it was that Mrs. Hume committed herself to this not too flattering judgment of her younger son. For as Hume reached the mature age of four and thirty, before he obtained any employment of sufficient importance to convert the meagre pittance of a middling laird's younger brother into a decent maintenance, it is not improbable that a shrewd Scots wife may have thought his devotion to philosophy and poverty to be due to mere infirmity of purpose. But she lived till 1749, long enough to see more than the dawn of her son's literary ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... away, and during the passage of that period March Marston's bosom became a theatre in which, unseen by the naked eye, were a legion of spirits, good, middling, and bad, among whom were hope, fear, despair, joy, fun, delight, interest, surprise, mischief, exasperation, and a military demon named General Jollity, who overbore and browbeat all the rest by turns. These scampered through his brain and tore up his heart and tumbled about in his throat ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... Earl. That Sir Gilbert was indeed a man among a thousand. I knew him very intimately in the beginning of the century, and, which was very agreeable, was much at his house on very easy terms. He loved the Muses, and worshipped them in secret, and used to read some of his poetry, which was but middling. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... you feel about that. A squire in Seat-Sandal out of the old name would have a very middling kind of time, I think. He'd have a sight of ill-will at ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... the ambassdriss, brot by the ambasdor's Shassure, and sealed with his seal of arms, would affect anybody in the middling ranx of life. It droav Lady Griffin mad with delight; and, long before my master's arrivle, she'd sent Mortimer and Fitzclarence, her two footmin, along with a ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... there is anything particularly new or interesting. Not much is going on there. We have had a good crop of hay, the corn looks middling well; the rye is not much rusted. I think we shall not ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... on the Penobscot. Our birch was nineteen and a half feet long by two and a half at the widest part, and fourteen inches deep within, both ends alike, and painted green, which Joe thought affected the pitch and made it leak. This, I think, was a middling-sized one. That of the explorers was much larger, though probably not much longer. This carried us three with our baggage, weighing in all between five hundred and fifty and six hundred pounds. We had two heavy, though slender, rock-maple paddles, one of them of bird's-eye maple. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... in store. Twice she altered her course and twice we did the like, fetching ever nearer until it seemed she was doomed to share the bloody fate of so many others. By noon we were so close that she was plain to see, a middling-size ship, her paint blistered, her gilding tarnished as by a long voyage, and though very taut and trim as to spars and rigging, a heavy-sailing ship and sluggish. A poor thing indeed to cope with such powerful vessel as this Happy Despatch, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... design; his imagination was not brilliant enough to surmount the difficulties inherent in a poem dealing so largely with abstractions; but the work was well received by the general public. His success was not unchallenged. Gray wrote to Thomas Wharton that it was "above the middling,'' but "often obscure and unintelligible and too much infected with the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... lunch. Her judgment of men and affairs—for so young a woman—is nothing short of amazing. I attribute it to the Asiatic streak on her mother's side. It is a kind of second-sight. What a wife for a Prime Minister! And Marshire, a fellow of middling ability and no experience, has had the sense to perceive her qualities!... My feelings can't be easily defined, nor, indeed, is it necessary they should.... I have gone so far that I cannot see anything for it but to ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... railways, along which the enfeebled invalid can travel far without fatigue. I had now got greatly stronger; and, if not quite up to my old thirty miles per day, nor altogether so bold a cragsman as I had been only a few years before, I was at least vigorous enough to enjoy a middling long walk, and to breast a tolerably steep hill. And so I resolved on at least glancing over, if not exploring, the fossiliferous deposits of the Orkneys, trusting that an eye somewhat practised in the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... in a period of 432 years, from 1420 to 1852, the statistics exhibit only 11 years which can be pronounced eminently good, and but 28 very good,—192 being simply what may be called "pretty good" and "middling," and 201, or nearly one-half, having proved total failures, not paying the expenses. Again, the enormous productiveness of the soil is an immense advantage. We make on an average from five hundred and fifty to six hundred and fifty gallons ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... should feel proud of being connected, either personally or through their relatives, with those pursuits on which their country's greatness depends. The wealthier manufacturers and merchants already mix with those classes, and the larger and even the middling tradesmen are frequently found associating with the gentry of the land. It is good that this ambition should be cultivated, not by any rivalry in expense, but by a rivalry in knowledge and in liberal feelings; and few things would more contribute to so desirable an ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... immediately: a middling-sized man, with a sharp, unwholesome-looking face, and with a flippant, reckless manner, dressed in a style of shabby smartness, eying me with a bold look, and not so overburdened with politeness as to trouble himself about taking off his hat when he came in. I had never seen ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... middling, and dull at that, on the "Sluys Castle," till we reached Madeira. Then the description I have given of our voyage ceases to apply. The two or three days after that were exciting enough to one or ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... the pomp and the punctilios of court etiquette. As this new era of independence dawned upon him, it was his first and most anxious object to regulate even to the minutest details the ceremonies of the court. He was of middling stature. High-heeled shoes added between two and three inches to his height. His hair was very fine and abundant, and he wore it long, in masses of ringlets upon his shoulders. Deep blue eyes, a fair complexion, and well moulded features ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... it. He had two kinds of looks; when he laught, was witty, and in a merry humour, one could scarce see his eies; by and by, when he was serious and earnest, he opened his eies round his eie-lids: he had middling eies, not very big nor very little. He was six foote high and something better, and went indifferently erect, or rather, considering his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various

... if not before taken out for the housewife's convenience, is removed, as is also the tenderloin—a fishy-shaped piece of flesh—often used for sausage, but which makes delicious steak. The middling or sides are now cut out, leaving the shoulders square-shaped and the hams pointed, or they may be rounded to your taste. The spare-ribs are usually wholly removed from the sides, with but little meat adhering. It ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... pounds of veal cutlets, cut them in middling sized pieces, season with pepper and a very little salt; likewise one of raw or dressed ham, cut in slices, lay it alternately in the dish, and put some forced or sausage meat at the top, with some stewed mushrooms, and the yolks of three eggs boiled hard, and a gill of water; then proceed ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss

... vanished in his brain; a surge of temptation, a beat of all his blood, went over him, to set spur to the mare and to go on into the unknown for ever. And then it passed away; hunger and fatigue, and that habit of middling actions which we call common sense, resumed their empire; and in that changed mood his eye lighted upon two bright windows on his left hand, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... are," Helen admitted. "Our garden is 'middling' dry, but we can keep the wet lovers moist by watering them ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... right bank of the Namtoroan, is situated on an extensive open grassy plain, it is stockaded: it contains about 12 houses, the river is here navigable for middling sized canoes. ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... thing, at least right then. This exasperated the haughty Captain, and he hollowed for the First Lieutenant to come and put me in irons. I asked him what he was there for, and he told me that it was "none of my business." I then got pretty middling hot myself, and I told him that if he did not know his business, that it was "up to me" to "put you next," or words to that extent. I told him that he was there for the purpose of furnishing escorts for ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... above their school learning they've been taught to swim, ride, dance, use tools, play on the piano, and speak fair to middling French. Yet, as you say, Fred, the most difficult part is to come, just as we fancied that we were through. And the terrible reflection is that we're not so sure now what we ought to do for them as we ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... 'Un, Gemmen? Lor bless yer, he ain't no account, nohow. Can't 'it a 'ole in a pound o' butter, 'e can't. Allus was a muff and a muddler; middling showy style, and a bit dodgy with his dooks, but neither a slogger nor a stayer, and, atween you and me and the post, allus ready to hist the white feather when 'ard pressed. Wot's that you say? His 'Travelling Company'? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 7, 1891 • Various

... everything. He always is so sure things are going to turn out just splendid; and they don't—only just middling; and then he loses ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet

... been in middling circumstances, but having lost her husband by a railroad accident six months previously, the widow was reduced to quite a straightened condition. And when the fever seized her, she was in utter despair at the thought of being taken away from ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw

... ridiculous custom formerly prevailed at the public-houses in Highgate, to administer a ludicrous oath to all travellers of the middling rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns, fastened on a stick: the substance of the oath was, never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress, never to drink small beer when he could get strong, with many other injunctions ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... to the plain of Hazeldale, which was a wide valley with a middling river winding about it, the wild-wood at its back toward the Tofts, and in front down-land nought wooded, save here and there a tree nigh a homestead or cot; for that way the land was builded for a space. ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris

... consulted the middling sort of Poets, or the first Practicers in this Art: In this Enquiry I observ'd from Hesiod and Ennius among the Greek and Latin Poets, and afterwards from Ovid with relation to the latter, and which I am now to speak of, that the common Pause or Stop in all ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson

... affectations of the poetaster, but was not aware that these foibles were united with all the talents and vices which lead to success in active life, and that the unlucky versifier who pestered him with reams of middling Alexandrines was the most vigilant, suspicious, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Percy if I can. She was of middling height, and very delicately formed, with a face as destitute of color as if it had been carved out of marble. Her dark hair was cut short in her neck, and parted over her forehead and her even brows. Her eyes were dark and soft, but almost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... creatures go on." The tears came to her eyes; she felt a genuine regret for them, a kind of respect for their youth and beauty, and a kind of shame for herself; but the tears did not fall; and she opened one of those innumerable novels which she used to pronounce good or bad, or pretty middling, or really wonderful. "I can't think how people come to imagine such things," she would say, taking off her spectacles and looking up with the old faded eyes, that ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... a nephew of Mrs. Finnegan," he said, "and they call him Jimmy Finnegan, though Finnegan might not be his proper name. He does be helping Finnegan himself about the farm, and they say he's middling useful. But, of course, now the harvest's gathered, Finnegan will be able to do well enough without him till ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham

... Sir pretty middling, within doors; but I don't like the climate, Mr. John I don't the climate, Sir. There's no country like h'England, I believe, for my business. 'Ere's a fine rose, Sir if you'll step a bit this way quite a new kind I got it over last h'autumn the Palmerston ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... a ferny hill, Twix' a liddle low shaw an' a great high gill. Oh hop-bine yaller an' wood-smoke blue, I reckon you'll keep her middling true! ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... Mr. Shrimplin, looking into the round innocent face of his son, "that's the stuff the traders used to sell the Indians. Strong? Well, you might say it was middling strong—just middling—about three drops of it would make a rabbit spit ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... since," she sobbed. "I would have been praying for the bonnie ship building for him, every plank would have been laid with a blessing. And as I sat quiet in my house, I would have been thinking of my son Captain Binnie, and many a day would have been a bright day, that has been but a middling one. So selfish as the lad ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... method of philosophising is very convenient for those who have but middling minds, for the obscurity of the distinctions and principles which they employ enables them to speak of all things as boldly as if they had knowledge of them, and sustain all they have to say against the most subtle and skilful without there being any means of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... the South Sea, use in fight a warlike instrument that is very uncommon. Having great plenty of horses, they always attack their enemies on horse-back, and encumber themselves with no other weapon than a stone of middling size, curiously wrought, which they fasten, by a string about a yard and a half long, to their right arms, a little above the elbow. These stones they conveniently carry in their hands till they reach their enemies, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... had my youth, and I shan't begin to put on a long face because I've lost it. I didn't have your stature, Ben, but I had a pretty fair middling-size one of my own. They used to say of me that I had an eye for the big chance, and that's a thing a man's got to be born with. To see big you've got to be big, and that's what I like about you—you ain't busy looking ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... officers who organized and led them. The veriest cowards in existence must have shown the same front under such discipline. I did not see enough of their gentry to enable me to form an opinion about them; but the middling and lower orders are extremely filthy both in their persons and in their houses, and they have all an intolerable itch for gambling. The soldiers, though fainting with fatigue on the line of march, invariably ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... spirited and often aristocratic faces, but somewhat more devil-may-care in expression than we are accustomed to see in New England. They poured down the gangway, trailed arms, ascended the promenade-deck, ordered arms, grounded arms, and broke line. The drill struck me as middling, which may be owing to the fact that the company has lately increased to about two hundred members, thus diluting the old organization with a large number of new recruits. Military service at the South is a patrician exercise, much favored by men of "good family," more especially ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... are divided into three categories: good, middling, and bad. The transference from the second to the first class entails certain privileges, especially those respecting communication with the outer world, the right to receive visitors, to have books, and to eat at a common table instead of partaking of a solitary ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... friendship for the rigid and sombre young widow. She showed her a sort of childlike affection mingled with a kind of respectful terror. Olivier complimented the aunt and niece, while Grivet hazarded a few spicy jokes that met with middling success. Altogether the company were delighted, enchanted, and declared that everything was for the best; in reality all they thought about was the ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... as alternately under the despotism of a father, a brother, and a husband; and the middling and the poorer classes shut out from the acquisition of bread with independence, when they are not shut out from the very means of an industrious subsistence. Such were the views she entertained of the subject; and such the feelings with ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin

... "Middling down in the mouth, too, and plagued out of his life between the ruck of you," continued Pete; "but God forgive you all, ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... arnica bloom glowing like sunrise on the back! Those new trousers, of "middling" sacks, "Brand No. 1" proudly distinct upon the ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... seemly to behold, *middling height* Lusty and fresh, demure of countenance, Young and well shap'd, with haire sheen* as gold, *shining With eyne as crystal, farced* with pleasance; *crammed And she gan stir mine heart a lite* to dance; *little But suddenly she vanish gan right there: Thus I may say, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... she's strapp'd and muzzled too withal, Would eat her fellows, and the prey and all; And yet she cares not much for any food, Unless it be the purest harmless blood. All these are kept abroad at charge of many, They do not cost me in a year a penny. But there's two couple of a middling size, That seldom pass the sight of my own eyes. Hope, on whose head I've laid my life to pawn; Compassion, that on every one will fawn. This would, when 'twas a whelp, with rabbits play Or lambs, and let them go unhurt away: Nay, now she is of growth, she'll ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... for marriage alone that God fashioned this associate and moral equal of man. Neither was it for high life, or low life, or middling stations, for east, west, north, or south, that she was made in the sacred image of her Creator. For all these circumstances, if Providence so appoint, should she be prepared. In one word, her whole nature, physical, intellectual ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... to guide us back to our bivouac. All of a sudden my friend enjoined silence; an opossum, followed by five young ones, was coming near us on our left. The animal indolently approached a tree of middling size, which it climbed, aided by its prehensile tail. Its progeny crowded busily round the foot of the tree, uttering plaintive cries. The opossum then came down again, and scarcely had it put foot ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... of amber again, or that the sea might have washed away the cliff below, as often happens, whereupon the top had slipped down, so that only a miraculum naturale had taken place. The proof which he brought forward from Scripture we have quite forgotten, seeing it was but middling. ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, pp. 153, 157. In speaking of going to Grand Cape Mount, Mr. Cary says, "I should have went up last year ... we may anticipate a middling severe struggle from the Mandingo priests who have been for years propagating their system of religion among that nation. They are a kind of Mahometan Jews—they are very skilful in the Old Testament...." ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... you round middling easy, Madam," answered Charity. "Th' upholder were bidden to put th' house to rights all through, and send the bill to Mistress Joyce. She gave me lodging fro' Setterday to Monday, and bade me see to 't that yo' had all things comfortable. 'Don't split sixpences,' she saith; 'the bigger the charges ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... and necessarily exist numerous and important diversities and inequalities, which oneness of laws and similarity of rights neither prevent nor destroy. In point of property, real or personal, land or capital, there are rich and poor; there are the large, the middling, and the small property. Though the great proprietors may be less numerous and less rich, and the middling and the small proprietors more numerous and more powerful than they were of yore, this does not prevent the difference from being real and great enough to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Britain pays the slaveholders in America thirty millions per annum. If cotton can be sold in the Liverpool market at anything less than 4-3/4d. per lb., the slaveholders in America will cease to grow what, under altered circumstances, would be unprofitable. Cotton of middling quality (which is in the greatest demand) may be obtained in West and Eastern Africa at 4d. per lb.; and, already, cotton from Western Africa (Liberia) has been sent to Liverpool, there re-shipped, and sold at Boston, in the United States, at a less cost than cotton ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... widow Lady Jones, mistress of a good fortune; and a woman of virtue, I believe. We have also old Sir Simon Darnford, and his lady, who is a good woman; and they have two daughters, virtuous young ladies. All the rest are but middling people, and traders, at best. I will try, if you please, either Lady Jones, or Lady Darnford, if they'll permit you to take refuge with them. I see no probability of keeping myself concealed in this matter; but will, as I said, risk all things to serve you; ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... another death, if I don't die aither ov consumption or production! I ever and always thought that asthronomy was the hardest science that was till now,—and, it's no lie I'm telling you, the same asthronomy is a tough enough morsel to brake a man's fast upon,—and geolidgy is middling and hard too,—and hydherastatics is no joke,—but ov all the books ov science that ever was opened and shut, that book upon P'litical Econimy lifts the pins! Well, well, if they wait till they persuade me that taking a man's rints out ov the counthry, and spinding ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... landholder will therefore have a common interest to keep the taxes on land as low as possible; and common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy. But if we even could suppose a distinction of interest between the opulent landholder and the middling farmer, what reason is there to conclude, that the first would stand a better chance of being deputed to the national legislature than the last? If we take fact as our guide, and look into our own senate and assembly, we shall find that ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... last! Well, well, 't is nat'ral, I suppose, though what I can see of him bean't much to look at, Ann—but no more am I, for that matter! And he ain't exactly a Goliath of Gath—though no more am I again. But then I've noticed that great men be generally of a comfortable, middling size. And if he ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... undoubtedly, after Aristotle the greatest critic amongst the Greeks, in his twenty-seventh chapter, [Greek: PERI HUPSOUS], has judiciously preferred the sublime genius that sometimes errs, to the middling or indifferent one, which makes few faults, but seldom or never rises to any excellence. He compares the first to a man of large possessions, who has not leisure to consider of every slight expence, will not debase himself to the management of every trifle: ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... already told you; and it is, that I know my own writings are trifling and of no depth. The other is, that, light and futile as they were, I am sensible they are better than I could compose now. I am aware of the decay of the middling parts I had, and others may be still more sensible of it. How do I know but I am superannuated? nobody will be so coarse as to tell me so; but if I published dotage, all the world would tell me so. And who but runs that risk who is an author after seventy? What happened to the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... from his inexperience; but he may be still deficient from a want of knowledge in nature. For it is possible that the man in question may stop here, and that the masterpiece of a great hand may please him no more than the middling performance of a vulgar artist; and this not for want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not observe with sufficient accuracy on the human figure to enable them to judge properly ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... schools," says Mr. Symons, "was made the subject of minute and accurate inquiry in 1838, by the Rev. Thomas Sutton, the vicar; and I have reason to believe that no material difference has taken place in the amount of scholars taught at the 'common' and 'middling' private day-schools since Mr. Sutton's census was made." From this census it appears that the maximum number of children on the books of the different day-schools, including the infant-schools, is 800; but on a personal examination of these schools by the Sub-Commissioner, ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... ever be good for me, aunty. I'm gone. This sweet civilization of ours has got me. The first reform school I went to reformed me, all right—formed me into a crook. I used to show signs of growing up to be fair to middling intelligent, once. But now—nothing to it. You people, though you're twice as old as I am, you're twice as young. You got a chance. Look here, Uncle Appleby, why don't you go out for being one of these famous old pedestrians that get their ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... of jeering or malice, but could see nought such: nay, his face was grave and serious, not ill-fashioned, though it were both long and broad like his body: his cheek-bones somewhat high, his eyes grey and middling great, and looking, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... genuine leaf I managed to make a large store, with the assistance of different sorts of dungs. I had a great tact in discovering amongst my customers the real connoisseur, and to him I gave it almost genuine. My whole profits, in fact, depended upon my discrimination of characters. To those of the middling ranks, I gave it half-mixed; to the lower sort, three-quarters; and to the lowest, almost without any tobacco at all. Whenever I thought I could perceive a wry face, I immediately exerted my ingenuity in favour of the excellence of my tobacco. I showed specimens of the good, descanted ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... of an hour before taking up your roasts, peel middling-sized potatoes, boil them until partly done, then arrange them in the roasting-pan around the roast, basting them with the drippings at the same time you do the meat, browning them evenly. Serve hot with ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... call me—Silas Grant. Let me take your bag. My son John will be here in a minute, and will help you in with your trunk. Needn't worry, it's all right where it is. Folks are middling honest about here," he added, with a dry laugh, and his hand closed on his guest's—a cold limp, dead-fish sort of a hand, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... reciting past glories in which Mary had no part. If the parlour furniture with its tidies and a Rogers group in the front window sometimes got on her nerves she forced herself to laugh over it and say: "It's mother's house, and all she has." She concerned herself far more with Luke, an active, fair-to-middling American boy somewhat inclined to be spoiled. Mary had taken Luke into the office after school hours to keep a weather eye on him and make him contribute a stipend to ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... Lazzaroni of Naples, is incapable of being ascertained; but no skill or valour could alone have long preserved a nation so corrupt and pusillanimous from the destruction which, by their meanness, the generality of the upper and middling classes were inviting. There wanted, only, what their subtle invaders well knew was never far distant, some plausible artifice suddenly to prevail over the simplicity of the honest but credulous vulgar, which could not fail to divert that powerful torrent, into ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... "She's middling," said Barker, "but my married sister that came to live with us since you was there has had a good deal of sickness in her family. Her husband's laid up with the rheumatism most ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... "Middling," she answered. "My aunt's been terrible bad with bronchitis this winter. Poor soul, it'll carry her off one ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... the London City Mission, got some similar appointment in a large manufacturing town. Of the state of things he spoke more sadly than ever. 'The rich cannot guess, sir, how high ill-feeling is rising in these days. It's not only those who are outwardly poorest who long for change; the middling people, sir, the small town shopkeepers especially, are nearly past all patience. One of the City Mission assured me that he has been watching them these several years past, and that nothing could beat their fortitude and industry, and their determination ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... need to eat—at least with certainty. If the specimen composition you send is about your fair usual average, I should judge that perhaps a couple of whales would be all you want for the present; not the largest kind, but simply good, middling-sized whales!—Mark Twain's Letter ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... "Well, yes, middling; but as obstinate as a mule. When he gets his mind set on a thing, it's no use to try to budge him. I've whipped him till he was black and blue, and it didn't do a penny's ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... the feeling between the different denominations ran high, and the middling good folk who did not go to church counted those who did. In the Established Church there was a sparse gathering, who waited in vain for the minister. After a time it got abroad that a flag of ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... which the best boat-builder in the place had finished and tarred over that very autumn. Elias had a very good notion of what a boat should be, and it seemed to him that he had never seen a Femboering so well built below the water-line. Above the water-line, indeed, it looked only middling, so that, to one of less experience than himself, the boat would have seemed rather a heavy goer than otherwise, and anything ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... days that it lived was remarkable for refusing to be fed by any but one particular person. Among the natives it was an object of wonder and fear, as they could never be prevailed upon to go near it. They asserted, that it would carry off a middling-sized kangaroo. Captain Waterhouse hoped to have brought it to England; but it was one morning found to have divided the strands of a rope with which it was fastened, and escaped. A drawing had been made of it while in ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... said the other. "Middling," said Dick, deprecatingly. "I hadn't my shoes, that makes ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... Here I'd been working like a nigger 'most five months on the Duluth house—and the last three weeks running night shifts and Sundays; didn't stop to eat, half the time—and what does Brown do but— 'Well,' he says, 'how're you feeling, Charlie?' 'Middling,' said I. 'Are you up to a little job tomorrow?' 'What's that?' I said. 'Seems to me if I've got to go down to the Calumet job Sunday night I might have an hour or so at home.' 'Well, Charlie,' he says, 'I'm mighty sorry, but you see we've been putting in a big rope drive on a water-power ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster

... England had yet seen on the throne, we discern at once the excuse which Henry would make to himself for his severities against the nobility, and the motive of that extreme popularity of manners by which Elizabeth aimed at attaching to herself the affections of the middling and lower ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... coronation robes, in our wedding dresses, let the likeness be correct and the colours bright—we leave the rest to you." Such seems to have been the Royal artistic edict issued in the beginning of the present reign. In no instance has the choice fallen on a painter of talent; but the middling from every country in Europe seems to have found a ready welcome at the Court of Queen Victoria. We find there middling Germans, middling Italians, middling Frenchmen—and all receiving money ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... denied that there are men in this world in whose lot failure seems to be the rule. Everything to which they put their hand breaks down or goes amiss. But most human beings can testify that their lot, like their abilities, their stature, is a sort of middling thing. There is about it an equable sobriety, a sort of average endurableness. Some things go well: some things go ill. There is a modicum of disappointment: there is a modicum of success. But so much of disappointment comes to the lot of almost all, that there ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... "Middling, boss," the worthy fellow answered: "just keeping up, you know. And how's yourself? And the work? When shall you finish? I don't know if you know it, but these trains stopping regularly in my section give me ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... for a poor man's manners, it may not be amiss if we bear him company. He had pretty well recovered of his fit of discontent, for morning air and exercise can soon chase gloom away; so he cheerily tramped along, thinking as he went, how that, after all, it is a middling happy world, and how that the raindrops, now that it had cleared up, hung like diamonds on the laurels, when of a sudden, as he turned a corner near the house, there broke upon his ear, at that quiet hour, such a storm of boisterous ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... to enter the mouth of the Sacramento. There was a freshet on the river, the flood tide from the bay had been beaten back into a strong ebb, and the lusty west wind died down with the sun. It was just sunset, and with a fair to middling breeze, dead aft, we stood still in the rapid current. We were squarely in the mouth of the river; but there was no anchorage and we drifted backward, faster and faster, and dropped anchor outside ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London

... push; ’Tis a good long way across the bush, And the mob to drive are middling hard; I do not think ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson

... the spirit of welcome and stood a moment watching the others approach. "There will be no difficulty in talking, to judge by the gentleman," he dropped; and while he remains so conspicuous our eyes may briefly rest on him. He was middling high and was visibly a representative of the nervous rather than of the phlegmatic branch of his race. He had an oval face, fine firm features, and a complexion that tended to the brown. Brown were his eyes, and women thought them soft; dark brown his hair, in which the same ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... character of the fruit and the arrangement upon the stalk make it very expensive to harvest. Besides, the stalk grows too much to a tree and is not prolific proportionately, and the quality of the lint is equal to American "middling." We are trying to develop a plant that will yield 1,000 pounds of seed-cotton to the acre, with a lint equal in quality to fully good "middling" or ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... is composed of a great many very different races: unfortunately, I am unable to describe their several characteristics, as my stay in China was far too short. The people I saw in Canton, Hong-Kong, and Macao, are of middling stature. Their complexion varies with their occupation: the peasants and labourers are rather sun-burnt; rich people and ladies white. Their faces are flat, broad, and ugly; their eyes are narrow, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... Godfrey Hammond, sits down by me, and says some rubbish about consoling me. I think I laughed. Then he looked at me out of his little, light eyes, and said that you and I seemed to get on well with his young friends. So I said, 'Oh yes—middling.'" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... according to Lord Brougham's opinion, the party robbed must have been M. de Voltaire. I notice the case, however, of the Greek thefts and frauds committed upon so many of our excellent wits belonging to the 18th and 19th centuries, chiefly with a view to M. de Talleyrand—that rather middling bishop, but very eminent knave. He also has been extensively robbed by the Greeks of the 2d and 3d centuries. How else can you account for so many of his sayings being found amongst their pages? A thing you may ascertain in a moment, at any police office, by having the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... distribution of it. Forced masters to release their apprentices, carried off the daughters of rich farmers, and ravished them into marriages, of which four instances happened in a fortnight. They levied sums of money on the middling and lower farmers in order to support their cause, by paying attorneys, etc., in defending prosecutions against them; and many of them subsisted for some years without work, supported by these contributions. Sometimes they committed ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... to divide the profits, without reckoning the privilege, of which I paid the whole expense. Such were the future proceedings of this Quillau that I lost the expenses of my privilege, never having received a farthing from that edition; which, probably, had but very middling success, although the Abbe des Fontaines promised to give it celebrity, and, notwithstanding the other journalists, had spoken ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... sugar tree, walnuts, hickory, elm, and other varieties common to the West. There is much level, table land, between the streams. Along the Wabash, below Terre Haute, is an undulating surface, diversified with forest and prairie, with a soil of middling quality, interspersed with some very rich tracts. Along the Wabash and its tributaries above Terre Haute, the land in general is first rate,—a large proportion forest, interspersed with beautiful prairies. The timber consists of oaks of various species, poplar, ash, walnut, cherry, ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... no heed of these details," replied the captain. "I am but a middling sailor. Like all nervous people, I hate the sea; and yet I have an idea that with ships, France being a seaport with two hundred heads, we ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... said Stephen one of those evenings, "eleven boys beside the stand-by Jimsy. Fair to middling popularity, ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... of society. Among the upper classes gaming is reduced to a science and is almost exclusively the order of the day. There is little or no taste for litterature among any part of the native society. The upper classes are sensualists; the middling ignorant and superstitious. With regard to the Lazzaroni, I do not think that they at all deserve the ill name that has been given to them. They always seem good humoured and willing to work, when employment is given to them; and they do not appear at all disposed to ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... principles of Mr Mill be sound, we say, without hesitation, that the form of government which he recommends will assuredly produce all this. But, if these principles be unsound, if the reasonings by which we have opposed them be just, the higher and middling orders are the natural representatives of the human race. Their interest may be opposed in some things to that of their poorer contemporaries; but it is identical with that of the innumerable ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Catherine his wife, lived in the little town of Tergou. He traded, wholesale and retail, in cloth, silk, brown holland, and, above all, in curried leather, a material highly valued by the middling people, because it would stand twenty years' wear, and turn an ordinary knife, no small virtue in a jerkin of that century, in which folk were so liberal of their steel; even at dinner a man would leave his meat awhile, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... him and welcome if you can put up with him. He's like Mis' Peavey always says of her own jam; 'Plenty of it such as it is and good enough what they is of it.' A real slow-horse love can be rid far and long at a steady gate. He ain't pretty, but middling smart." And the handsome young Doctor's mother eyed him with a well-assumed ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... "Just middling," replied Wayland, reticent from weariness and with joy of their camping-place. The lake, dark as topaz and smooth as steel, lay in a frame of golden willows—as a jewel is filigreed with gold—and above it the cliffs ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... is a species of luxury which all ranks adopt according to their ability, and which, when once become habitual, it is almost impossible to shake off. Being however like other luxuries expensive, few only among the lower or middling class of people can compass the regular enjoyment of it, even where its use is not restrained, as it is among the pepper-planters, to the times of their festivals. That the practice of smoking opium must be in some degree prejudicial to the health is highly probable; ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... Stubborn Relic of Feudalism The Editor An Experiment in Syndicalism Hugh H. Lusk Labor: "True Demand" and Immigrant Supply Arthur J. Todd The Way to Flatland Fabian Franklin The Disfranchisement of Property David McGregor Means Railway Junctions Clayton Hamilton Minor Uses of the Middling Rich F.J. Mather, Jr. Lecturing at Chautauqua Clayton Hamilton Academic Leadership Paul Elmer More Hypnotism, Telepathy, and Dreams The Editor The Muses on the Hearth Mrs F.G. Allinson The Land of the Sleepless Watchdog David Starr Jordan En Casserole ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... convert one into a crack player. Among those who now practice football, and their name is legion, the superior players can be numbered in (to give it a wide scope) hundreds. In fact, to be able to master all the details requisite to win a first-class match, one has to be capable of dribbling, middling, heading, and passing in a way that would do credit to solving a complicated problem in Euclid. It is all very well to talk about brute force and lasting power, but unless these are accompanied by scientific application, they are worth little, and ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... in, and brought me a host of odorous violets. I made George a visit in the afternoon, in the midst of my battle with headache, and to my question of 'How dost?' he replied, for the first time, 'Pretty fair,' instead of the unvarying 'Middling.' Skeptics surely cannot disbelieve in one thing that is invisible, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... ranks, and by the men of the Parbatiya cast, called Magar. The cotton grows in the hilly parts of the kingdom, and is sufficient for the consumption; but none is exported from Nepal Proper. These cloths constitute the dress of the middling and lower classes of people, although woollen would be better fitted for the cold of a Nepal winter. All those, however, that are not very poor, can afford to have woollen blankets, which are manufactured by the Bhotiyas, who even in summer wear no linen. The whole dress ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... out,') which is worth repeating. A retired green-grocer, rejoicing in the euphonious name of TIBBS, living at Hackney, near London, sorely against his will, and after warm remonstrance, finally yielded to his wife's entreaty that he would go in character to a masquerade-ball, given to the 'middling interest' by one of his old neighbors. He went accoutred as a knight, wearing his visor down. What was his surprise on entering the room, to find first one and then another member of the motley company slapping him familiarly on the back, with: 'Halloa! TIBBS! who thought to ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... dreams and 'voices' in this hustling world wouldn't have put any guile into the soul of Nathaniel, and they won't into Angel Halsey's. Saints are saints, sinners are sinners, middling folks are middling, just the same whether they have three 'revelations' a day apiece, or one once a year, or none at all. You're fretting because you think a righteous man might do something wicked, thinking that the voice of the Lord ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... ragout, Game, Poultry, Fish, &c.)—If you want gravy, put in a thick and well-tinned stewpan a thin slice of fat ham or bacon, or an ounce of butter, and a middling-sized onion; on this lay a pound of nice juicy gravy-beef (as the object in making gravy is to extract the nutritious qualities of the meat, it must be beaten so as to reduce the containing vessels, and scored to render the surface more susceptible to the action ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... millionaire-envying were not the sole preoccupations of the average man. And such an age will undoubtedly succeed to ours. Few things would surprise me less, in social life, than the upspringing of some anti-luxury movement, the formation of some league or guild among the middling classes (where alone intellect is to be found in quantity), the members of which would bind themselves to stand aloof from all the great, silly, banal, ugly, and tedious luxe-activities of the time and not to spend more than a certain ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett

... influential citizens in intelligence and wealth. The third was that of the ultra Democrats or Jacobins, who wished to raise the multitude from degradation, penury, and infamy, into power, by the destruction of the throne, and the subjection of the middling classes, and the entire subversion of all the distinctions of wealth and rank. The approach of the allies united both of these latter classes against the throne. A motion was immediately introduced into ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... architecture of every window and turret; and the frost-like frailness and delicacy of the whole mass, make an effect altogether upon the eye that must stand high on the list of new sensations. It is a vast structure withal, but a middling easterly breeze, one would think on looking at it, would lift it from its base, and bear it over the Atlantic like the meshes of a cobweb. Neither interior nor exterior inspire you with the feelings of awe common to other ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... flesh. It is the rapidity of the throws, the glitter of the blades, and the curve which the handles make toward their living object, which give an air of danger to an exhibition that has become commonplace, and only requires very middling skill. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant



Words linked to "Middling" :   immoderately, fair to middling, reasonably, fairly, mediocre, pretty, commodity, unreasonably, trade good, jolly, average, fair



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