"Tough" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... young King hath about him no more true men than he needeth. And as I wait at his coucher, betimes I can drop a word in his ear that may, an' it please God, be to his profit. He is yet tender ground, and the seed may take root and thrive: and I am tough gnarled old root, that can thole a blow or twain, and a rough wind by now ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... for their master gallantly, with their tough oaken staves; and the young man showed his patrician blood by his patrician courage in the fray. Flaccus, too, wished and endeavored to interpose, not so much that he cared to shield his unworthy kinsman, as that he sought to preserve the energies of the people for a more noble trial. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... countenance could be the one for whom they were searching. At Queensferry the house still stands where he and Captain Hall were arrested. The brave Captain threw himself between Cargill and the officer. The struggle was a tough one; Hall was mortally wounded; Cargill, too, was much hurt but escaped. But this did not prevent him from keeping his engagement at a Conventicle; he preached in his wounds. Nothing but death seemed able to check this man of God in the work of the ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... off with his bag while he was eating," remarked Fred. "Rather tough luck if he had anything of real value ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... to be tough, but I remember how we used to make steak tender at home by beating it before it was cooked. We might serve a thousand pounds or two of this bull in that manner. Besides, we want ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... tough baby," pronounced Neale; but after Mabel had wheeled Bubby away Tess confided to Neale that she knew why the Creamer's ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... morning, the air fresh and sweet, the sun comfortably warm, a little too warm, perhaps, presently, when they had trodden the narrow path by the Tongue Ghyll, and were beginning to wind slowly upwards over rough boulders and last year's bracken, tough and brown and tangled, towards that rugged wall of earth and stone tufted with rank grasses, which calls itself Dolly Waggon Pike. Here they all came to a stand-still, and wiped the dews of honest ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... years ago, has shown conclusively how the hardness of men's hearts limits any sort of moral and spiritual revelation. It will be remembered that William James in discussing the openness of minds to truth divided men into the "tough-minded" and the "tender-minded." James was not thinking of moral distinctions: he was merely emphasizing the fact that tough-minded men require a different order of intellectual approach than do the tender-minded. If we put into tough-mindedness the element of moral hardness and unresponsiveness ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... she thought the child answered, but her reply was interrupted by Hapgood's loud voice, saying, "She's an orphan, poor kid. Pretty tough just to have an old bachelor uncle to ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... complete, and a perfect stack of rushes had been raised in readiness. A great number of long rods had been cut from the bushes, and as the most of them were as flexible and tough as willows they were well ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... one who has recently emerged from one of our public schools, one of the sort of young Englishmen for whom all commissions in the Army are practically reserved, who will own some great business, perhaps, or direct companies, and worm your way through the tough hide of style and restraint he has acquired, get him to talk about women, about his prospects, his intimate self, and see for yourself how much of him, and how little of him, his school has made. Test him on politics, on the national future, on social relationships, and lead him if ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... lumbago. And I have the gout sometimes in my knee. I'm cross enough then, and so you'd be. And, among 'em all, I don't get much above half what I ought to have out of my jointure. That makes me very cross. My teeth are bad, and I like to have the meat tender. But it's always tough, and that makes me cross. And when people go against the grain with me, as Lizzie Eustace always did, then ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... dainty things the household of small or moderate means can have just as easily as the most wealthy. Beautiful bread—light, white, crisp—costs no more than the tough, thick-crusted boulder, with cavities like eye-sockets, that one so frequently meets with as home-made bread. ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... gunbearers expressed such horror at the mere thought of our plunging into the mud, that we dutifully climbed them pick-a-back and were carried. The hard shell beach was a hundred feet away, occupying a little recess where the persistent tough mangroves drew back. From it led a narrow path through the thicket. We waved and shouted a farewell to the crews of the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... school law went into effect, or at least before it affected me. I was not, however, a bad boy. I was neither rough nor tough; I had no bad habits other than smoking corn-silk cigarettes, and I soon stopped that as the novelty of the thing wore off. My young mind and body required recreation. Unlike the children of the South, who had three months of school and nine months of play or work in the ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... whereas in the company of another it is refined and moralized and spiritualized; and over our earthly victuals (or rather vittles, for the former is a very foolish mode of spelling),—over our earthly vittles is diffused a sauce of lofty and gentle thoughts, and tough meat is mollified with tender feelings. But oh! these solitary meals are the dismallest part of my present experience. When the company rose from table, they all, in my single person, ascended to the study, and employed themselves in reading the article on Oregon in the Democratic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... on his clever "catch" to a third expert in the task of hoodwinking Siva and depriving him of his lawful prey. Sundry cocks and hens, evidently toothsome morsels, are then thrown from one priest to another, and saved for the cooking-pot, but a tough-looking chanticleer of the Cochin China persuasion is finally selected, and cast into the seething pit to propitiate the terrible wrath of the Avenging Deity at the smallest expense and loss to the astute priesthood. ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... without a word, up, and up, and up, climbing over the precipitous sides, with tough root or fibrous vine lending us their aid, till, breathless, we stopped to gaze round or down into ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... resembles a chorus of wild spirits, is apt to startle the traveller who may be in jeopardy, as if laughing and mocking at his misfortune. It is a harmless bird, and I seldom allowed them to be destroyed, as they were sure to rouse us with the earliest dawn. To this list of Fraser's spoils, a duck and a tough old cockatoo, must be added. The whole of these our friends threw on the fire without the delay of plucking, and snatched them from that consuming element ere they were well singed, and devoured them ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... letters bore the traces, and I cannot but think they must have exercised upon me some kind of influence for good. As to miscellaneous notices, I had a great affinity with the trades of joiners and of bricklayers. Physically I must have been rather tough, for my brother John took me down at about ten years old to wrestle in the stables with an older lad of that region, whom I threw. Among our greatest enjoyments were undoubtedly the annual Guy Fawkes bonfires, for which we had always liberal allowances of wreck timber ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... and hung sprawling over Eternity. The grass, tough as wire, and wound about his hands, stood ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... part sadnesse and melancholy my tender Iuuenall? Boy. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough signeur ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... my very best," said I, pulling off my coat and waistcoat, as if I were going to wrestle; "but I fear he will prove too tough for me." ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... beggars jumped on that zebra, and bit at him; but the skin was too tough for their little teeth, bless them! It was the funniest sight. But when the old woman and I started in, we did more than that, I can tell you; we tore off great chunks of him, and the little ones ate what they ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... returned to Washington in March, 1897, to take up his duties as a subordinate officer in the National Government, he was thirty-eight years old; a man in the prime of life, with the strength of an ox, but quick in movement, and tough in endurance. A rapid thinker, his intellect seemed as impervious to fatigue as was his energy. Along with this physical and intellectual make up went courage of both kinds, passion for justice, and a buoying sense of obligation ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... too much, my boy," said Father Payne. "You must not get soft. That's the danger of this life! It's all very well for me; I'm tough, and I'm moderately rich. But you would not have cared so much if you had not thought there was something in what he said. It was very low, no doubt, and I give you leave to hate him; though, if you are going ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for keeping him a prisoner," Jack answered. "For that matter, I guess he's nothing but a hired tough. The Washington police can find and take care of him ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... rice, hominy, fried tomatoes, and an infinity of Mexican hashes and stews seasoned with chiles or red-pepper pods. Item, we had a huge pavo, a turkey,—a wild turkey; and then, for the first time, did I understand that the bird we Englishmen consume only at Christmas, and then declare to be tough and flavorless, is to be eaten to perfection only in the central regions of the American continent. The flesh of this pavo was like softened ivory, and his fat like unto clotted cream. There were some pretty little tiny kickshaws in the way ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... to withhold its annual subsidy of $130 million - roughly one-third of the islands' budget revenues - unless the Faroese make significant efforts to balance their budget. To this extent the Faroe government is expected to continue its tough policies, including introducing a 20% VAT in 1993, and has agreed to an IMF economic-political stabilization plan. In addition to its annual subsidy, the Danish government has bailed out the second largest Faroe bank to ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... constructed before the first trip across the island, had been through some tough places, and the wheels and axles were in bad condition. These needed replacing, and that was a task which ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... many waterbuck, because there is no excuse for doing so except to secure the heads as trophies. The meat is so coarse and tough that even the porters, who seldom draw the line at eating anything their teeth can penetrate, do not care for waterbuck meat except under the stress of great hunger. They do like the skin, however, for it is of the waterbuck skin that their best sandals are made. Consequently, when a ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... the Free Library. I have two cards, my mother's an' mine, an' I draw 'em out all the time, after school, before I have to carry my papers. I stick the books inside my shirt, in front, under the suspenders. That holds 'em. One time, deliverin' papers at Second an' Market—there's an awful tough gang of kids hang out there—I got into a fight with the leader. He hauled off to knock my wind out, an' he landed square on a book. You ought to seen his face. An' then I landed on him. An' then his whole gang was goin' to jump on me, only a couple of iron-molders stepped in an' saw ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... in white wine; cutting it in small pieces, and putting it into a glass jar with wine enough to cover it well. Either the wine or the rennet will be found good for turning milk; but do not put in both together, or the curd will become so hard and tough, as to be uneatable. ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... Tough old Experience gives us many a hard floggin', before we learn the day's lessons. And we find the benches hard, long before sundown. And it makes our hearts ache to see the mates we love droop their too tired heads in sleep, all round us before ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... over the porch in safety, depending more upon the tough vine branches than the trellis-work during my ascent. My next employment was to pull up the pruning-ladder, as softly as possible, by the rope which I held attached to it. This done, I put the ladder against the house wall, listened, measured ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... been on guard at Miletus, five of which were Thurian, four Syracusans, one from Anaia, one Milesian, and one Leon's own. Accordingly the Chians marched out in mass and took up a strong position, while thirty-six of their ships put out and engaged thirty-two of the Athenians; and after a tough fight, in which the Chians and their allies had rather the best of it, as it was now late, retired ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... another Spiritualism Surfeits of pathological piety Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of thought Talked as if I believed what I said The dead-living Took it for granted that he and his crowd were right Torturing of dying people Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble Truth never goeth without a scratcht face Way the pseudo-sciences go to work Wholesale moral arrangements are so different from retail Whoso offers me any article of belief for my signature Wider the intellect, the ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger
... without an attempt at mitigation. He asked frankly for a place in the troop, the lowest, as his chance of redemption, or rather demanded it as a grace due from man to man. Drake was taken by his manner, noticed his build, which was tough and wiry, and conceded the request. Nor had he reason to regret his decision on the march out. Gorley showed himself alert, and vigilant, a favourite with the blacks, and obedient to his officers. He ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... from their tendency to wear unevenly. The Chicago Varnish Company of Chicago supplies a varnish under the name of "Supremis," which has proved by years of use under trying conditions, such as those of asylums, hospitals, and public buildings, to be of exceptional merit. It is elastic, tough, and gives a fine waxy surface which can be rubbed and will preserve its finish. It has the additional merit of being easily applied. It dries quickly and is remarkably durable. Wax should be carefully applied ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 05, May 1895 - Two Florentine Pavements • Various
... They have so many girls to choose from, you know. Young Powell, who married Norma Gale, was the same sort. She was twice his age, but he married her just the same, and his people made a fine settlement to get rid of her. She was—tough, too. Mrs. Wharton is a great club—woman and the head of a ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... cage, where they adjoined those of the tiger's place, and prodded the Wolfhound's side as he stood erect. The thing seemed to come from the tiger's cage, and Finn was upon it like a whirlwind, his fangs sinking far into the tough wood, till ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... pretend you're so infernal green, Perry! The 'Thunderbolt' is a fighting man from Lambeth, a tough customer who's won a fight or so lately and thought he could beat anything on two pins. So we were bringing him down here, hoping to match him with Jessamy, or, failing him, some other good man. But the ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... hours—the cat. The bones and sinews and the fat were the last to go, and the tips of the coloured hairs. And, as I say, the back part of the eye, tough, iridescent stuff it is, wouldn't ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... cried George Wyndham. "We boys must be boys to the end of the chapter; and I tell you, some of us are pretty tough subjects! The only hope is that we may turn out not quite so horrid, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... eh? Women particularly. I can imagine," Rutherford drawled. "Tough luck, all right. People don't take very much stock in fellows that got smashed. Not much of a premium on disfigured ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... boxes piled one atop the other to form a crude table on which were laid eating utensils. As soon as Cazi Moto saw that his master was ready, he brought the meal. It consisted simply of a platter of curry composed of rice and the fresh meat that had been so recently killed that it had not time to get tough. This was supplemented by bread and tea in a tall enamelware vessel known as a balauri. From the simplicity of this meal one experienced would have deduced—even had he not done so from a dozen other equally significant nothings—that this was no sporting ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... glad of it," she responded, grimly. "I hope I look so blame tough that woman won't say a civil word to us. You can bet I ain't going to strain myself to please the ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... have proved equally difficult, for, struggle as he might, the tough old Arab, no longer troubling himself about the control of his camel, had twisted his sinewy fingers under the midshipman's dirk-belt, and held the latter in juxtaposition to his own body, supported by the hump of the maherry, as if his very life depended ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... Ever since that tough old soldier Charles, first Earl of Monmouth and third Earl of Peterborough, hauled down his flag before the battery of Anastasia Robinson's charms, and made a Countess of his victor, a coronet has dazzled the eyes of many an actress with its rainbow allurement, and has proved the passport ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... if you were delicate, and I said no, you were as tough as fencing-wire. She said you looked rather pale and thin, and asked me if you'd had an illness lately. And I said no—it was all on account of the wild, dissipated life you'd led. She said it was a pity you hadn't a mother or a sister to look after you—it was a pity that something couldn't ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... with loosened tongue to talk with him. That day the daisy had an eye indeed— Colloquized with the cowslip on such themes! We find them extant yet in Jacob's prose. But by the time youth slips a stage or two While reading prose in that tough book he wrote, {30} (Collating and emendating the same And settling on the sense most to our mind) We shut the clasps and find life's summer past. Then, who helps more, pray, to repair our loss— Another Boehme with a tougher book And subtler meanings of what ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... he could land three blows to the Dutchman's one. It was here that the boy's days of alert watching on the line, the perpetual swinging of the heavy cudgel, and the endurance of all weather stood him in good stead; for he was tough, and agile. He skipped, ducked, and dodged. For the first five minutes he endured fearful punishment. Then Wessner's breath commenced to whistle between his teeth, when Freckles only had begun fighting. He sprang back with ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... is in the right, my lord governor," answered the physician, "and therefore I am of opinion you should not eat of these stewed rabbits, as being a food that is tough and acute; of that veal, indeed, you might have taken a little, had it been neither roasted nor stewed; but as ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was going to be a tough job, so I took a good rest—an hour, I should think. And then I started to walk back. I found that I had come a devil of a way—I must have gone at Marathon pace. I walked and walked, and at last I got into Paris, ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... plan, but it was evident he had thought it all out. First he made a simple but effective gag; then he selected a long piece of thin but tough rope, several strips of hide, a large rug, and ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... popular," I smiled. "I think it would do me good to use my mind, to chew on something. Besides, you can help me over the tough places." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... engagement, we soon succeeded in subduing them, and passed off the field in triumph. After this we were perpetually engaged with small bands of the enemy, no longer extended in line of battle, but in small detachments of two, three, and four in company. We had some tough work here, and now and then they were too many for us. Having annoyed us thus for a time, they began to form themselves into close columns, six or eight abreast; but we had now attained so much address, that we no longer found ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Sometimes I keep so near—under the shadow of his huge calf d'ee see—that he don't observe me on lookin' round; an', thinkin' he's all alone, lets fly his French broadsides in a way that a'most sends Antoine on his beam-ends. But Antoine is tough, he is. He gin'rally says, 'I not un'r'stan' English ver' well,' shakes his head an' grins, but the Cappen never listens to his answers, bein' too busy loadin' and primin' for ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... tough grim talk of the monkish days They hammered and slashed about, - Dry husks of logic,—old scraps of creed, - And the cold gray dreams ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... not," returned the dame, hastily. "Thou comest of noble blood and long descent, though, as I have told thee often, I know not the exact names of thy parents. But what art thou shaping that tough sapling of oak into?" ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the top from base to point. It is further strengthened by a keel on each side. Inside of it, ere the bird became a mummy, was her tongue, which I myself drew out three inches beyond the point of the bill. It was rough and tough, like gutta-percha, tipped with a fine spike, and armed on each side, for the last inch of its length, with a row of sharp barbs pointing backwards. The whole was lubricated with some patent stickfast, "always ready for use." That grub must ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... inquired the cause of their grievance. The cook, it seems, having been served out fresh water to dress vegetables for all hands, had inadvertently used it for some other purpose, and boiled the greens in a copper of salt water, which rendered them so intolerably tough, that they were not fit for use; consequently the sailors had not their expected garnish, and a general murmur taking place, the ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... laid by in the garden of his house in King Street, Covent Garden, some planks sent to him by his brother, a West Indian captain, asked the joiner to use a part of the wood for this purpose; it was found too tough and hard for the tools of the period, but the Doctor was not to be thwarted, and insisted on harder-tempered tools being found, and the task completed; the result was the production of a candle box which was ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... didn't miss you," said Casey. "I'm blame sorry about that arm, Tom. It'll be a tough ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... whale! How the tough ash bends!" cried Uncle Sam, panting like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself. "Martin, lay your chest to it. We'll grass him in two seconds. Californy never saw a sight like ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... time, where it is nearly as offensive to our sensations as within us; and that prolonged occupation of the jaws goes a length to persuade us we are filling. All the better when the substance is indigestible. Tramps of the philosophical order, who are the practically sagacious, prefer tough grain for the teeth. Woodseer's munching of his nuts awakened to fond imagination the picture of his father's dinner, seen one day and little envied: a small slice of cold boiled mutton-flesh in a crescent of white fat, with a lump of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... establishing for himself the title of the "Moralist of the Main." The letters were reprinted in San Francisco and widely read. Now and then some one had the temerity to answer them, but most of his victims maintained a discreet silence. In one of these letters he told of the Mexican oyster, a rather tough, unsatisfactory article of diet, which could not stand criticism, and presently disappeared from the market. It was a mistake, however, for him to attack an Alta journalist by the name of Evans. Evans was a poet, and once composed an elegy ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... with seemingly geometrical precision. The hardy little horses could be hired very cheaply, and the justly extolled natural beauties of the island in the vicinity of Funchal were fully explored. The greater portion of it is quite inaccessible except on foot, but the tough little native ponies which are as sure footed as goats perform wonderful feats in the way of climbing, and are quite equal to the double duty of carrying their riders, and dragging along their owner who holds by one hand to the pony's ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... as queer as his master in appearance, being a large, raw-boned animal, with patches of hair upon him, a long tangled mane and tail, and he was unshod, though his hoofs looked as tough as iron. ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... so used to it, he won't go noways without it; feels kind o' lonesome, I 'xpect. It don't hurt him none, nuther; his skin's got so thick an' tough, that he wouldn't know, if you was to put ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... He knew not how it was. He had never been treated so before. He was not proof against entreaty and submission; but I had neither supplicated nor submitted. The stuff that I was made of was at once damnably tough and devilishly pliant. When he thought of my impudence, in staying in his house after he had bade me leave it, he was tempted to resume his passion. When he reflected on my courage, in making light of his anger, notwithstanding his known impetuosity and my personal inferiority, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... in any trance," answered the dark girl, "and I think it's pretty tough for him to take up with a rank outsider, and expect us to warm up to her as though he'd married one of our own folks." She tossed her head, the pride of class distinction welling ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... tough subject to begin with," said the elder, looking about him again. "But it's a nice farm now; — it's the handsomest farm in the county; — it ought to ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... frightened. She advanced slowly, waving the long, draped arms, and moaning. All at once something came down on the head of George Baker, just as he had raised his club to hurl it at the ghost. The something was a long tough stick in the hand of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... debtor in the Iayle that lies, Yet cannot this his Creditor suffice Doth woe thee oft with many a sigh and teare, Yet thou art coy, and him thou wilt not heare. The Captiue slaue that tuggeth at the Oares, And vnderneath the Bulls tough sinewes rores, Begs at thy hand, in lieu of all his paines, That thou wouldst but release him of his chaines; Yet thou a niggard listenest not thereto, With one short gaspe which thou mightst easily do, 20 But thou couldst come to ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That was the way he "put her through." - "There!" said ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... go off and try to catch some fish," I said. "Our friends will be much obliged to us if we can offer them some fish instead of the ducks, which, to say the best of them, are rather tough and strong-tasted." ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... wish all the fellers in your stories didn't have such tough old names!) 'most dis-as-ter-ous triumphs he had when playing at Lord Holland's.' (Who was Lord Holland, uncle Tony?) 'Some one asked him to im-provise on the violin the story of a son who kills his father, runs a-way, ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... creatures, my flame is also spent. But I do not intend, like you, to lie by the roadside in the wind, and keep myself warm with memories. Now I am going where I can be of use to others. For I am brisk and tough, and do not hope to gain by my efforts more than ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... firm enough for the purpose—the thin broad laths of the same wood with which these are inclosed, and the broad sheets of birch-bark, impervious to water, which sheathed the outside, all firmly sewed together by the tough slender roots of the fir-tree, and when I considered its extreme lightness and the grace of its form, I could not but wonder at the ingenuity of those who had invented so beautiful a combination of ship-building and basket-work. "It cost me twenty dollars," said the half-breed, "and I would ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... "lassies" were not deemed worthy to touch the classics, and the classics were everything to him. In America it is reported that the best specimens of university students often come from remote schools in which no external advantages have been available; but the tough unyielding habit of study has been developed in grappling with difficulties without much support ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... Maenalian lays. Now let the wolf turn tail and fly the sheep, Tough oaks bear golden apples, alder-trees Bloom with narcissus-flower, the tamarisk Sweat with rich amber, and the screech-owl vie In singing with the swan: let Tityrus Be Orpheus, Orpheus in the forest-glade, Arion 'mid his ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... of a fortune is tough," wrote Pond, "but there are other resources for another fortune. You and I will make ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... wise guy, an' don't ye forget it, Jack. Only I'm sorry for poor Buster, becase, ye say, he really don't hanker afther goin' on the thrip at all, it sames. And sure, it must be pretty tough balancing in that cranky ould boat all ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... trailed out beside the slimy carcass of his captor, and into the tough armour the ape-man attempted to plunge his stone knife as he was borne to ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the most quiet way, in meats, and vegetables, and huxter's wares. Nature has denied to the butcher of hot climates the privilege of salting meat, but he makes amends for this defect by cutting his tough beef into strips, which he rubs over with salt, and offers to sell to you by the yard. Vera Cruz is now as venerable a looking town as when I was here before, although the houses, and the plastered walls, and tops of the stone churches seem to have had a new coating of Spanish ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... think better, and then beat these together in a Mortar; or sometimes work them in your hands, (your hands being very clean) and then make it into a ball, or two, or three, as you like best for your use: but you must work or pound it so long in the Mortar, as to make it so tough as to hang upon your hook without washing from it, yet not too hard; or that you may the better keep it on your hook, you may kneade with your Paste a little (and not much) white or ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... face, Siddhartha watched the leaving monk. The sleep had strengthened him much, but hunger gave him much pain, for by now he had not eaten for two days, and the times were long past when he had been tough against hunger. With sadness, and yet also with a smile, he thought of that time. In those days, so he remembered, he had boasted of three three things to Kamala, had been able to do three noble ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... from this came every week the indispensable Graham cakes, which are the despair of all the cooks. Of course, on this point it is impossible, without seeing their experiment, to say why it failed; but all the given conditions being met, if the cakes were tough, there was probably too much meal; if soggy, too little. Also the latest improvement is not to cut them in diamonds, but to roll them into various forms. After scalding, the dough is just too soft to be handled easily; it is then to be dropped ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... hills; but the best, and also the most convenient, were those upon Entrance Island, some of them being fit to make top masts for ships. The branches are very brittle; but the carpenter thought the trunks to be tough, and superior to the Norway pine, both for spars and planks: turpentine exudes from between the wood and the bark, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... use the epithet within his hearing. People were afraid of him. One day in the street a tough, swaggering bully, fearless in the consciousness of his powers as a first-class boxer, lurched up against him, deliberately, and with offensive intent. Those who witnessed the act stood by for the phase of excitement dearest of all to their hearts, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... only, perhaps not so faultily, leave Emerald Uthwart and the like of him [227] essentially what they are. "He holds his book in a peculiar way," notes in manuscript one of his tutors; "holds on to it with both hands; clings as if from below, just as his tough little mind clings to the sense of the Greek words he can English so closely, precisely." Again, as at school, he had put his neck under the yoke; though he has now also much reading quite at his own choice; by preference, when he ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... all my family was not worth one piece of silver. You think you are worth many pieces of gold, I suppose. No one likes you. Your own master would not eat you. And the market people would never buy a thing so old and tough as you are. But I suppose you will have to stay here in our yard a thousand years or so, until you die. Then they will carry you to the wilderness and throw ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... up that he'd given in!" Jake remarked. "The fellow's a blamed obstinate old tough. I wonder whether he felt curious ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... "Some tough!" remarked a Canadian when he saw the Australians for the first time marching along a French road. They and the New Zealanders were conspicuous in France, owing to their felt hats with the brim looped up on the side, ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... across. And—listen, little river—again at the same old place I shall cut me the willow wand, and down the long slope to the certain place I knew I am going to hurry, running the last quarter of a mile in sheer expectation, but forgetting not the binding on of the tough linen line. And now I cast my gaudy float on that same swinging, wimpling, dimpling eddy, and let it swim in beneath the bank. And—No! Can it be? Have I here, now, again, plainly in my hands, the strange and wonderful creature, the gift of the little stream? ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... fighting.... Fraulein.... Some said it was true... some not. They could not both be right. It was probably true... only old-fashioned people thought it was not. It was true. Just that—monkeys fighting. But who began it? Who made Fraulein? Tough leathery monkey.... ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... blowed!" exclaimed Brakeman Joe, using Conductor Tobin's favorite expression, when the boy had finished. "If that isn't tough luck, then I don't know what is. But I'll tell you what we'll do. I can't get you a place on the road, of course; but I believe you are just on time for a job, such as it is, that will put a few dollars in your pocket, and keep you for a day or two, besides giving you a chance to pick up ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... "It's tough on you, I know, but think of all them poor sufferin' females that's settin' up nights and worryin' for fear they won't be picked out. Why, say, when you make your ch'ice you'll have to let the rest know right off; 'twould be cruelty to animals ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... adapted to environment than the malamute dog. His coat, while it is not fluffy, nor the hair long, is yet so dense and heavy that it affords him a perfect protection against the utmost severity of cold. His feet are tough and clean, and do not readily accumulate snow between the toes and therefore do not easily get sore—which is the great drawback of nearly all "outside" dogs and their mixed progeny. He is hardy and thrifty and does well on less food than the mixed breeds; and, despite Peary to ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... was of tough buckskin, and when the lynx set her teeth in the collar she imagined that she was wreaking vengeance upon flesh and blood. And the sound she made was enough to ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... erected around the tree at a height several feet above the buttresses of the tree or at such a point as is considered expedient. Trees are cut down high above the base because the wood at the bottom of the tree is usually exceedingly tough. Standing on his perch at a distance of about 8 feet from the ground, the feller plies his native axe[11] until the tree yields and crashes down in its fall such of its fellows as may stand in its way. It may be observed here that the Manbo as a rule ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... time for the hunter to look out for his precious skin. If the man is armed with a gun, he must take the best of aim, and his bullets must be like young cannon-balls, for the Elephant's head is hard and his skin is tough. If the hunter is on a horse, he need not suppose that he can escape by merely putting his steed to its best speed. The Elephant is big and awkward-looking, but he gets over the ground in a very ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... 1999. Growth then rose to 6% to 7% in 2000-02 even against the background of global recession. These numbers mask some major difficulties in economic performance. Many domestic industries, including coal, cement, steel, and paper, have reported large stockpiles of inventory and tough competition from more efficient foreign producers. Since the Party elected new leadership in 2001, Vietnamese authorities have reaffirmed their commitment to economic liberalization and have moved to implement the ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... dear,' said he, with a smile, 'I don't know how it is. I've tried experiments on my brains. I have gone through half-a-dozen tough calculations. I have read over a Greek play, and made out a problem or two in mechanics, without being the worse for it; but, somehow, I can't for the life of me hark back to the opinions that ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tore the fibres, Tore the tough roots of the Larch-tree, Closely sewed the bark together, Bound ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... They were dressed exactly alike, in shapeless garments with petticoat-like skirts. The imperfect thing that lived within them moved those beings to howl at us from the top of the bank, where they sprawled amongst the tough stalks of furze. Their cropped black heads stuck out from the bright yellow wall of countless small blossoms. The faces were purple with the strain of yelling; the voices sounded blank and cracked like a mechanical imitation of old ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... interested. I am feeling very unwell to-day, and this note is badly, perhaps hardly intelligibly, expressed; but you must excuse me, for I could not let a post pass, without thanking you for your note. You will have a tough job even to shake in the slightest degree Sir H. Holland. I do not think (privately I say it) that the great man has knowledge enough to enter on the subject. Pray believe me ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... butter.' Letters, iv. 401. Goldsmith, in 1770, wrote from Paris:—'As for the meat of this country I can scarce eat it, and though we pay two good shillings an head for our dinner, I find it all so tough, that I have spent less time with my knife than my pick-tooth.' Forster's Goldsmith, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... not so with No. 2, and with the large middle class who all live in the same way. The usual female cook at 12s. a week is not even capable of sending up a plain meal properly. Her meat is tough, and her potatoes are watery. Her pudding-range extends from rice to sago, and from sago to rice, and in many middle-class households pudding is reserved for Sundays and visitors. A favourite summer dish is stewed fruit, and, as it is not easy to make it badly, there is a great deal to ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... the type. A smooth surface may be an element of beauty, as with the paper employed by Baskerville, but it must not be a shiny surface. The great desideratum in modern paper from the point of view of the book-buyer is a paper that, while opaque and tough, shall be thin enough to give us our books in small compass, one more akin to the dainty and precious vellum than to the heavier and coarser parchment. ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... resolved this season to be his own head man; and appointed Lucas Springer the second in command, with a posse of labourers to execute his decrees. It did not work well. Mr. Rossitur found he had a very tough prime minister, who would have every one of his plans to go through a kind of winnowing process by being tossed about in an argument. The arguments were interminable, until Mr. Rossitur not unfrequently quit the field with, ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... that was wandering amongst the hills, killed, skinned, and put it into a pot to boil, baked some fresh tortillas, and brought us the spoil in triumph! One penknife was produced—the boiling pan placed on a deal table in the room off the bath, and every one, surrounding the fowl, a tough old creature, who must have chuckled through many revolutions, we ate by turns, and concluded with a comfortable drink of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... as he termed it, and after 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 distance from the fire. The entrails of the woodchuck, ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... them, as they act as foreign bodies in bearing down upon the sensitive lower layers of the skin. Continued irritation often leads to inflammation of the skin around and beneath the corn with the formation of pus. Ordinarily, corns are tough, yellowish, horny masses, but, when moistened by sweat between the toes, they are white, and are ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... be glad enough t' get back t' th' river tilt, an' when he is gettin' back he'll be findin' it fine. He'll be thinkin' o' th' tough cruisin' with th' Injuns instead o' th' grub at his college place, an' that'll make he think 'tis fine in th' tilts. That's the way it mostly is with folks. They always wants somethin' they ain't got, an' when they gets un ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... to and fro. The focal point of their destination was the figure at the center of the disturbance. Most of the blows found other marks. Four or five men could have demolished Clay. Fifteen or twenty found it a tough job because they interfered with each other at every turn. They were packed too close for hard hitting. Clay was not fighting but wrestling. He used his arms to push with rather than ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... are but tough morsels, and 't were well If we had found the FRESH more eatable; Garrick! I do not say 't were well for HIM, For we had pluck'd ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... sinewy hands of an Indian in full war-paint. Arkwright showed that he had physical strength, too; but it was of the kind got at the gymnasium and at gentlemanly sport—the kind that wins only where the rules are carefully refined and amateurized. Craig's figure had the solidity, the tough fiber of things grown in the open air, in the cold, wet hardship of ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... wondered," Arthur said, when they were discussing the details of the mission to Livingstone, "how your tough fiber ever generated beings so tender and beautiful as Mona, and Louis, and the Trumps. And now I'm wondering why Sullivan associates you and me in this business. Is it his plan to sink the Mayor ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... None have a right to make them save our craft. This is one of the rascaille Spaniards who have poured into the city under favour of the queen to spoil and ruin the lawful trade. Though could you but have seen, Ambrose, how our tough English ashwood in King Harry's hand—from our own armoury too—made all go down before it, you would never uphold strangers and their false wares that CAN only ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the old man, and he looked out again on Niles and his audience. "The tough part of it is, Presson, those men out there are right—at bottom. They're playing traitor to me and acting like infernal fools, and I wouldn't let them know that I thought them anything else. But I'd like to step out there, Luke, ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... mighty slick if you want to do that, they watch you so close. But do you know what's going on in this country right now, Mr. Popple? There's a regular organized band of law-breakers operating from one end of the nation to the other. We're tryin' to bust it up, but it's a tough job. The best way to reform a reformer is to rob him. The minute he finds out he's been robbed he turns over a new leaf and begins to beller like a bull about how rotten the police are. Ninety nine times out of a hundred he quits his cussed interferin' with the law and becomes a decent, law-observin' ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... could not catch him in the act however. He was too sharp for that, and if disturbed, when he had but half demolished [Footnote: Demolished: destroyed.] a pullet he would hastily sit on the remainder and look as innocent as could be. He was discovered at last, however, by the cackling of a tough old hen which he had failed ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... greatly in the different species of Mollusca—the group to which the snail belongs. In some there may be as few as sixteen; in others, in some relatives of our garden snail, for example, there may be as many as forty thousand! The working portion of this ribbon is fixed to a sort of tough cushion, which, by means of muscles, can be drawn forward and protruded from the mouth, where it is worked backwards and forwards with a licking or rasping action that effectually scrapes away, in a fine pulp, the edge of the cabbage leaf on which ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Smokeless Powder Factory, Tonbridge, Kent. It consists of a mixture of nitro-cellulose, paraffin, barium, nitrate, and some other ingredients. It is claimed for this powder that it combines hard shooting with safety, great penetration, and moderate strain on the gun. It is hard and tough in grain, and may be loaded like black powder, and subjected to hard friction without breaking into powder, that it is smokeless, and leaves no residue in the gun. The charge for 12 bores is 42 grains by weight, and 1-1/8 oz. or 1-1/16 ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... angry rows. A chap named Isaiah Rhynders, a fierce politician of those days, with a band of robust supporters, would attempt to contradict the speakers and break up the meetings. But the Anti-Slavery, and Quaker, and Temperance, and Missionary and other conventicles and speakers were tough, tough, and always maintained their ground, and carried out their programs fully. I went frequently to these meetings, May after May—learn'd much from them—was sure to be on hand when J. P. Hale or ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... anything else. Plates are formed of them by sewing them together, when required; and they become as pliable as leather, even after being kept for a year or more, by having a little water sprinkled over them. They are long, wide, and tough, and well suited to the purpose. All kinds of food are put upon them, and served up to the family and guests. The cattle do not eat them, as they do leaves of the peepul, bur, neem, &c. The sakhoo, when not preserved, is cut down, when young, for beams, rafters, &c., required in building. ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... failure of his harvest. Neither has any capital, yet the Irishman obtains an amount of credit which would strike Hodge dumb with amazement. He is allowed to owe, frequently one year's, sometimes two years' rent. Indeed, I know of one particularly tough customer who at this moment owes three years' rent—to wit, 24l.—and will neither pay anything nor go. Now for an English labourer to obtain credit for a five-pound note would be a remarkable experience. His cottage and his potato patch cost him from one to two shillings per week; but who ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... the answers," Freddy bragged. "Like I said, this is just exercise. Mental gymnastics. Like this last one; it was pretty tough compared to most of them. Had some questions about things I hadn't even thought about since college, things I'd forgotten I knew. What good's an education if you forget what things ...
— Master of None • Lloyd Neil Goble
... his character were of tough fibre, there was also a chance that he might render service to his king. At times of danger the government was glad to call on him for aid. When Tracy or Denonville or Frontenac led an expedition against the Iroquois, it was fortunate that Canada could muster a cohort of men who knew ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... Kings word is a Statute graven in Brasse, And if he breakes that Law I will in Thunder Rouze his cold spirit. I long to ride in Armour, And looking round about me to see nothing But Seas and shores, the Seas of Christians blood, The shoares tough Souldiers. Here a wing flies out Soaring at Victory; here the maine Battalia Comes up with as much horrour and hotter terrour As if a thick-growne Forrest by enchantment Were made to move, and all the ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... protect your garden; and that"—she embraced it with her glance—"is not so very big. You could teach your dragon, if you procured one of an intelligent breed, to devour greengrocers, trusted friends, and even moneylenders too (tough though no doubt they are), as ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... whiskers broke the back of Dowieism. Not the laws of the United States but the mother-in-law joke brought the Mormons to compromise and surrender. Not the horror of it but the absurdity of it killed the doctrine of infant damnation.... But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth. How loudly the barber-surgeons laughed at Harvey—and how vainly! What clown ever brought down the house like Galileo? Or Columbus? Or Jenner? Or Lincoln? Or Darwin?... They are ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken |
