"Passable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... language which "is not made, but grows." Like the governments which are in a similar case, it may be compared to a road which is not made but has made itself: it requires continual mending in order to be passable. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... whole was passable. In March there were days of strong west wind which were really chilly. In April it began to warm up, and the thermometer in the tents—and a tent with flaps gave us the best shade temperature we could find—reached 100 deg. before ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... a grand centre, issues twelve roads, that point to as many towns; some of these, within memory, have scarcely been passable; all are mended, but though much is done, more is wanted. In an upland country, like that about Birmingham, where there is no river of size, and where the heads only of the streams show themselves: ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... 8,000 feet and rough of access, had capitulated to lawn- tennis. To a traveller this Anglo-Indian hubbub was intolerable, and I left Srinagar and many kind friends on June 20 for the uplifted plateaux of Lesser Tibet. My party consisted of myself, a thoroughly competent servant and passable interpreter, Hassan Khan, a Panjabi; a seis, of whom the less that is said the better; and Mando, a Kashmiri lad, a common coolie, who, under Hassan Khan's training, developed into an efficient travelling servant, and later into a ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... mean time made haste to get the horse and his burden beyond the reach of bullets. They toiled up the bed of the brook until it was no longer passable. Huge bowlders lay jammed and crowded in clefts of the mountain before them. Penn remembered the spot. He had been there in spring, when down over the rocks, now covered with lichens and dry scum, poured ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... was not asking for commiseration. "Tell Elspeth not to worry about me. If I have no big ideas just now, I have some very passable little ones, and one in particular that—" He drew a great breath. "If only Grizel were better," that breath said, "I think Tommy Sandys could find a way of making the public remember ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... high civilization; but the broad divans and velvet cushions of the cabin brought us back to luxury in spite of ourselves. The captain, smoothly shaven and robust, as befitted his station,—English in all but his eyes, which were thoroughly Russian,—gave us a cordial welcome in passable French. P. drove up presently, and the crowd on the floating pier rapidly increased, as the moment of departure approached. Our fellow-pilgrims were mostly peasants and deck—passengers: two or three officers, and a score of the bourgeois, were divided, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... excise as when goods remain in the Prussian territory, or return back until we came again into the Zoll-strasse. It took some time to consider which was best to be done. To be sent about we knew not whither, and on roads scarcely passable, would prove a serious inconvenience; and on the other hand it was exceedingly mortifying to pay for such a trifle so enormous an excise. The officer was very civil, but told us it was not in his power to do otherwise. We concluded it would be best and cheapest to pay dearly for our error rather ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... the road. When it was still I could hear a cart or wagon, coming or going, rattling and pounding over the logs for nearly a mile. But it was so much better than water and mud that we thought it quite passable. We threw some clay and dirt on to the logs and it made quite an improvement, especially in a dry time. But in a wet time it was then, and is now, a very disagreeable road to travel, as the clay gathers on the feet of the pedestrian, ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... of hills at the back of the French Army lay a gap, just as there is a gap through the hills behind Leatherhead. Not only was that gap easily passable by an army—easily, at least, compared with the hill country on either side—but it had running through it the great road from Metz to Paris, so that advance along it ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... to give him an account of the Crusades. This was not the most difficult part of her task. Thanks to the stores of information derived from the abbe and to his prodigious memory for facts, Patience had a passable knowledge of the outlines of universal history. But what he had great trouble in grasping was the connection and difference between epic poetry and history. At first he was indignant at the inventions of the poets, and declared that such impostures ought ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... seemed droll enough to me then, and it is odd even now that I have become familiar with it in the talk of old-fashioned people. Interpreting it as they do, I dispute it stoutly. Parsnips may be only passable to most palates even when buttered. They would be intolerable with vinegar. Furthermore,—before we drop the figure,—if anything can butter them, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... title is an old one, and Sir Eustace is evidently a rich man. I had the opportunity for a little talk with the brother yesterday evening. A very courteous little chap—quite unusually so. I think we may regard them as quite passable." His eyes also wandered to the graceful, lounging figure on the balcony. "At the same time I shouldn't let Dinah accept hospitality from them, anyhow at this stage. She is full young. She must be content to stay in the background—at least for ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... they are now. In this case the temptation was great, and the punishment, even in case of detection, was not likely to be very severe, as Will came of a loyal stock, and his uncle was in good repute, and a passable tale to account for his possession of the body and his ignorance of the identity might ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... the last two letters are is a matter of taste,—how impossible, a matter of knowledge; but we submit that any man with a passable degree of either taste or knowledge is able to decide, and will decide that No. 6 is not more impossible than No. 1, or No. 4 more monstrous than No. 2; while in Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, there is exhibited a variation in the form of capital letters, instances of which Dr. Ingleby intimates ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... necessary to convince them [76] that the cosmos works through the lower nature of man, not for righteousness, but against it. And it finally drove them to confess that the existence of their ideal "wise man" was incompatible with the nature of things; that even a passable approximation to that ideal was to be attained only at the cost of renunciation of the world and mortification, not merely of the flesh, but of all human affections. The state of perfection was that "apatheia"[Note 17] in which desire, though it may still be felt, is powerless ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... looks both widely and narrowly, shape themselves into some ground-scheme of a Whole: to select these with judgment, so that a leap from one to the other be possible, and (in our old figure) by chaining them together, a passable Bridge be effected: this, as heretofore, continues our only method. Among such light-spots, the following, floating in much wild matter about Perfectibility, has seemed worth ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... journey westward of Bammakoo; and as there were not any canoes large enough to receive his horse, he could not possibly get him over for some months to come. Mr. Park consulted with his landlord how to surmount this difficulty, who informed him that one road which was very rocky, and scarcely passable for horses, still remained, but if he procured a proper guide over the hills to a town called Sibidooloo, he had no doubt but he might travel forwards through Manding. Being informed that a jilli-kea, or singing-man, was about to depart for ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... they are more than passable," replied he. "We have had many offers, but not such as come up to my expectations. Baronets are cheap now-a-days, and Irish lords are nothings; I hope to settle them comfortably. We shall see. Try this claret; you will find it excellent, not a headache in a hogshead of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... weather near the Pole, and had sailed 300 leagues to the east of Nova Zembla. The first argument only proved, that there was sea between Nova Zembla and Japan; but not that it was navigable, though passable for whales: the other two positions were unfounded. Wood, however, persuaded the Duke of York to send him out in 1676. He doubled the North Cape, and reached 76 degrees of north latitude. One of the ships was wrecked off the coast ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... been a torture that she could not bear. It wanted but two days to Christmas and the gaiety of the season, forced or genuine, rang out everywhere. Christmas shopping, with its anxious solicitude or self-centred absorption, overspread the West End and made the pavements scarcely passable at certain favoured points. Proud parents, parcel-laden and surrounded by escorts of their young people, compared notes with one another on the looks and qualities of their offspring and exchanged loud hurried confidences on the difficulty or success which each had experienced ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... little over an hour brought us to some well-known rapids, or "kihams," as they usually are called in Borneo. Formerly this Kiham Raja had a bad reputation, Dayaks being killed here occasionally every year, but of late the government has blasted out rocks and made it more passable. However, even now it is no trifle to negotiate these rapids. Below them we halted and threw explosive Favier into the water in the hope of getting fish, and as soon as the upheaval of the water began the Kenyahs, as if by a given signal, hurried all the prahus out to the scene. ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... drank the Dochfalla; when, having occasion to send the piper to the other side of the wood, and being so near home, I shouldered the roe, and took the way for the ford of Craig-Darach, a strong wide broken stream with a very bad bottom, but the nearest then passable. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... of the island have within the last twenty years been rendered passable for vehicles of all kinds, even to stage coaches, yet by far the best mode of inspecting this English Arcadia is to travel through it on foot, commencing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... preparing to accost them. Never was dislike more instinctive and hearty. Vandermere, an ordinarily intelligent but unimaginative Englishman, of the normally healthy type, a sportsman, a good fellow, and a man of breeding—and Saton, this strange product of strange circumstances, externally passable enough, but with something about him which seemed, even in that clear November sunshine, to ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wanted to give a feast—said he had heard it was a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand banquet. He invited nine of us, and we ate an excellent dinner at the principal hotel. In the midst of the jollity produced by good cigars, good wine, and passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. He took another look to assure himself that his senses had not deceived him and then read the items aloud, in a faltering voice, while the roses in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... passable," said the voice. "Small, of course, and underfurnished, but some pictures and antimacassars would take off that bare look. And Marmaduke is adorable. Your cook would soon be devotion itself. ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... account for a good deal, we admit, but not for all that. We are acquainted with the ordinary condition of the Rhine, and although muddy, and at times unpleasant, it is passable. As it is this summer, however, we would prefer not to travel upon it. We will wait ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... immediately in rear of the Windward Passage that its command of the latter can scarcely be considered less than that of Santiago. The analogy of its situation, as a station for a great fleet, to that for an army covering a frontier which is passable at but a few points, will scarcely escape a military reader. A comparatively short chain of swift lookout steamers, in each direction, can give timely notice of any approach by either of the three passages named; while, if entrance ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... asked the editor, "rendering none? But let that pass. You at least, I am told, are among the passable players. But Ebenezer Brown abhors plays and players; he detests billiards and cards; strong drink is anathema to him. How can you expect to keep your position—an actor, a billiard player, exponent of bridge, and one who ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... passable, Jean saw Monsieur Bargemont come out of the Mairie. He was very red and a sleeve of his overcoat was ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... on the end of a long stone sticking vertically from the rubbish, and another on one of the stones projecting from the wall, his head was already through the break in the roof; and in a minute more he was climbing a small, broken, but quite passable spiral staircase, almost a counterpart of that already described as going like a huge augerbore through the house from top to bottom—that indeed by which he had just descended. There was most likely more of it buried below, probably communicating with an outlet in some ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... you are joking then," said I, "this is a very passable SKULL,—indeed, I may say that it is a very EXCELLENT skull, according to the vulgar notions about such specimens of physiology—and your scarabaeus must be the queerest scarabaeus in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may get ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... adventurous C. Bonney, Esquire, who connected Port Phillip with Adelaide by a direct road running nearly parallel to the coast, so that the portion of the continent of Australia which lies between Moreton Bay and Adelaide is now connected by a passable route. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... the same material Then I arranged joints, so the jaw and the tongue could move. It was a great day for us when we fitted the two parts of the device together. Did it speak? It squeaked and squawked a good deal, but it made a very passable imitation of "Mam-ma—Mam-ma." It sounded very much like a baby. My father wanted us to go on and try to get other sounds, but we were so interested in what we had done we wanted to try it out. So we proceeded to use it to make people think there was a baby in the ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... Londoner who appreciates a quiet holiday. As a centre for the exploration of East Sussex Lewes has no equal; days may be spent before the interest of the immediate neighbourhood is exhausted; for those who are vigorous enough for hill rambling the paths over the Downs are dry and passable in all weathers, and the Downs themselves, even apart from the added interest of ancient church or picturesque farm and manor, are ample recompense for the small toil ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... good points; they're so refreshingly sure of themselves and their views, while the rest of us don't believe in anything. You can't be a fanatic without being thorough, and in renouncing the world and the flesh you may gain more than a passable figure. Among other things, the ascetic life means straight shooting, steady hands, and an eye you can depend upon. The overcivilized man who does nothing to counterbalance his luxuriousness is generally ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... will make a passable Darby and Joan, no doubt. Still, it always vexes me to see people, who pretend to any sense, acting ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... lips Max formed the word: "Stolen?" but Carrie declined to answer. As there was no help for it, Max dressed his friend in such of the clothes as were a passable fit for him, while Carrie went out to watch for the expected carriage. When she returned to the kitchen, Dudley was ready for the journey. He was lying back in a chair, looking very white and haggard and exhausted, casting about him glances full of expectancy ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... of roses, approached the Yates house. It was late in the afternoon. There had been a warm day, and the trees were clouds of green and more bushes had blossomed. Eudora had put on a green silk dress of her youth. The revolving fashions had made it very passable, and the fabric was as beautiful ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... original Mexican government, and they paid no wages to their peons. These Spaniards, with the priests, however, are to be credited with whatever progress civilization made in the early days of California. They built the first passable roads, they completed rough surveys and they first discovered the wonderful fertility of the California soils. The towns they built were built solidly, with an eye to the future ravages of earthquakes and of Time, which is something ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... cord he had been keeping dry within the breast folds of his tunic. He fitted an arrow to the string, grateful to be a passable marksman. The slash on his arm smarted in protest as he moved, and he noted that Ashe did ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... A West-end cut is not achieved, but for flannels, light tweeds and all such clothes as are worn in the tropics, they are very passable. ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... tip-toe to see the sport. I had some distance to go; and as I turned up one street and down another, the throng of people increased, until my arrival at Smithfield, where the fair was held, and where the crowd became so dense as to be hardly passable. The spectators consisted of both sexes, of all ages and degrees. But how shall I describe the scene that presented itself? A large field of several acres was filled with tents, stages and booths, with Punch and Judys, quack doctors, mountebanks and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... we find new charms in after making her mother's acquaintance. You know how some young people would be passable enough if it were not for a lurid light thrown upon their identity by other members of their family. You know the sister you thought was a beauty and dear, until you met her sister, who was gristly and a jade. But it's a great shame in Tishy's case, because we do honestly ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... low wall without the doors and awaited the exit of this devotee who was not of his flock. For though, as he often said, the good God had intended him for a soldier, his own strong will and simple faith had in time produced a very passable priest who, with a grim face, ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... order that none might suspect me of being other than Willis Morgan. But if any one had seen me I do not believe the deception would have been discovered, so close is my resemblance to my brother. Always having been a passable mimic, I imitated my brother's voice. It was a voice that had often stirred me to wrath, because of its cold, cutting qualities. The first time I imitated my brother's voice, Wong came in from the kitchen looking frightened beyond measure. ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... "My dear girl," he said, "your father's tailor estimated that he might make me a very passable dress suit for one hundred and seventy-five dollars. Brett's ties were stunning, just as you say, but the prices ranged from five to eight dollars, which was more stunning still. For a young person from the country out of a job, which is my condition at present, such things may ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... fully. Indulgence in port made him somewhat rubicund and "portly,"—he who had once been a pale little counter-jumper; and by means of shooting-coats, tight gaiters, and the right shape of hat he turned himself into a passable imitation of the fine old English gentleman. His tone altered, too, and instead of being uniformly diplomatic, it varied abruptly between a sort of Cheeryble philanthropy and a sort of Wellingtonian ferocity. During an attack of gout he was terrible ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... non-resistance, and that there still is grave doubt whether the peoples of these Western nations are at present in a sufficiently tolerant frame of mind, or can in the calculable future come in for such a tolerantly neutral attitude in point of national pride, as to submit in any passable fashion to ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... money, mum,' observed the housekeeper. 'Wouldn't some o' them old ones at home be passable, if they was made over ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... at the first encounter were put to the worsse, and Labienus the tribune slaine. In the second conflict he vanquished the Britains, not without great danger of his people. After this, he marched to the riuer of Thames, which as then was passable by foord onelie in one place and not else, as the report goeth. On the further banke of that riuer, Cassibellane was incamped with an huge multitude of enimies, and had pitcht and set the banke, and almost all the [Sidenote: The stakes remained to be seene in Bedes daies.] foord vnder the ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (3 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed
... valuable. He has made the greatest improvements I have anywhere met with. The whole country twenty-two years ago was a waste sheep-walk, covered chiefly with heath, with some dwarf furze and fern. The cabins and people as miserable as can be conceived; not a Protestant in the country, nor a road passable for a carriage. In a word, perfectly resembling other mountainous tracts, and the whole yielding a rent of not more than from three shillings to four shillings an acre. Mr. Forster could not bear so barren a property, and determined to attempt ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... creditors with tranquillising assurances, and railed, or pretended to rail, against their indecent conduct with great vigour. Thus at last we succeeded, though not without some difficulty, in making the corridor outside my door once more passable. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... was taken. Our travellers reached it on the evening of the third day; the 'Sands, which are now traversed in less than an hour, then occupying more than half of the first day. When at Fort Stanwix, a passable country road was found, by which the travellers journeyed until they reached a tavern that united many of the comforts of a coarse civilisation, with frontier simplicity. Here they were given to understand they had only a dozen miles to go, in order ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... tell you everything afterwards. Oh, I got on better than I expected, though most of the people were rather starchy. How did my dress look? Well—promise you won't breathe a word to darling Mother—it was just passable, and that's all. Some girls had lovely things. I didn't care. The second part of the evening was far nicer than the first, and I enjoyed the dances that I sat out the most. The conservatory was all hung with lanterns. There; I'm dead tired ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... of having attended to his business closely, so as to learn thoroughly the work he was to do. Some boys perform their work in just a passable way, not caring particularly whether it is well done, if they can only "pass muster." But not so with Benjamin. He sought to understand the business to which he attended, and to do as well as possible the work he undertook. The ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... its hide proved a passable supper, and Rolf curled up to sleep. The night would have been pleasant and uneventful, but that it turned chilly, and when the fire burnt low, the cold awakened him, so he had a succession of ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... is a paucity of wagon-roads in the Archangel district, and those that are passable in the summer are many miles apart, with infrequent cross-roads. Roads which are good for "narrow-gauge" Russian sleds in the winter when frozen and packed with several feet of snow, are often impassable even on foot in the summer. And dirt or corduroy roads which are good in dry summer ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... surveyors employed, he was usually out from daybreak to sunset, often fifteen hours without food, traversing on foot, with great bodily exertion, wastes and deserts of bog, so wet and dangerous as to be scarcely passable at that season, even by the common Irish best used to them. In these bogs there frequently occur great holes, filled with water of the same colour as the bog, or sometimes covered over with a slight surface of the peat heath or grass, called by the common people a shakingscraw. 'In traversing ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... built up from a metal disc about 3/4 inch diameter and two slightly larger discs soldered concentrically to the sides. The width of the middle disc should be the same as that of the eccentric rod. A careful filer could make a passable eccentric by sinking a square or semicircular groove in the edge of a wide disc. The centre of the eccentric must be found carefully, and a point marked at a distance from it equal to half the travel of the valve. To ascertain ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... him back near the extensive ruins of the destroyed city: they soon found tolerably passable roads, the few unobstructed tracks of the former principal streets of the large royal city; but they were often obliged to scramble over the rubbish of overthrown buildings, across pillars, and the remains of mighty columns. His guide turned now right, now left, to seek the easiest road; ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... praise. The reason of all this is twofold; partly in the book, and partly in the reader. The backbone dislikes the raising of any question which it deems to have been decided: a peculiarity which at once puts it in opposition to all fine work, and to nearly all passable second-rate work. It also dislikes being confronted with anything that it considers "unpleasant," that is to say, interesting. It has a genuine horror of the truth neat. It quite honestly asks "to be taken out of itself," unaware that to be taken out of itself is the very last thing it ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... a very self-possessed young man, to all appearances, who moved sedately round the end of the counter to greet these possible customers. His bow was a very passable imitation of the real thing, he flattered himself; and there's no manner of doubt but that it flattered the two prettiest and most forward young women in Radville ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... severe march, rendered particularly fatiguing by the inclement state of the weather and the badness of the roads, he entered the province of Andaguaylas. It was a fair and fruitful country, and since the road beyond would take him into the depths of a gloomy sierra, scarcely passable in the winter snows, Gasca resolved to remain in his present quarters until the severity of the season was mitigated. As many of the troops had already contracted diseases from exposure to the incessant rains, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... dear fellow, you are joking then," said I, "this is a very passable SKULL—indeed, I may say that it is a very EXCELLENT skull, according to the vulgar notions about such specimens of physiology—and your scarabaeus must be the queerest scarabaeus in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may get up a very thrilling bit of superstition upon this ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... bearing the writer sped eastward, the reports at each stop grew more appalling. At Derry a group of railway officials were gathered who had come from Bolivar, the end of the passable portion of the road westward. They had seen but a small portion of the awful flood, but enough to allow them to imagine the rest. Down through the Packsaddle came the rushing waters. The wooded heights of the Alleghanies looked down in wonder at the scene ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... untaught females.' The same young girl, he says, accompanied them to the boat, carrying on her shoulders, as a present, a large basket of yams, 'over such roads and down such precipices, as were scarcely passable by any creatures except goats, and over which we could scarcely scramble with the help of our hands. Yet with this load on her shoulders, she skipped from rock to rock like a ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... serve you right." She went off to dance with someone else, and Bud turned smiling to find a passable partner amongst the older women—for he was inclined to caution where strange girls were concerned. Much trouble could come to a stranger who danced with a girl who happened to have a jealous sweetheart, and Bud did not court trouble of that kind. He much preferred to fight ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... from the summit of the hill on June 30th were very poor, and indeed, little better than bridle paths, except between El Caney and San Juan River and the city. Within this region, a distance of from four to four and a half miles, the roads were passable. El Caney lay about four miles northeast of Santiago, and was strongly fortified, and, as events proved, strongly garrisoned. This position was of great importance to the enemy, because from it a force might come to attack the right flank and rear ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... at one of the numerous cold drink stands where for a few kopecks you could get raspberry syrup fizzed up with soda water. While he sipped it, a teen-ager came up beside him and said in passable English, "Excuse me, are you a tourist? Do you ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... has been occupied again by the Turks. It gives then little annoyance, being distant, I should think, five miles from the head of the lake. All was now water, but the principal channels above were passable, the rest being overgrown with weeds. At several of these, long consultations occurred as to our best route. It began to rain a little, and the place of our destination seemed doubtful. At length we emerged on the broad ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... Some interesting details may be learned from a letter written about that time by a German officer in charge of a heavy munition train: "From Czestochowa we advanced in forced marches. During the first two days roads were passable, but after that they became terrible, as it rained every day. In some places there were no roads left, nothing but mud and swamps. Once it took us a full hour to move one wagon, loaded with munitions and drawn by fifteen horses, a distance ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... method of spinning, grinding corn, and in the construction of their boats. The forests are so impenetrable that the land is nowhere cultivated except near the coast and on the adjoining islets. Even where paths exist, they are scarcely passable from the soft and swampy state of the soil. The inhabitants, like those of Tierra del Fuego, move about chiefly on the beach or in boats. Although with plenty to eat, the people are very poor: there is no demand for labour, and consequently the lower orders cannot scrape ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the squire would have grieved over the capture of his almost son-in-law was never known, for events gave him no opportunity. Spring was now come, and with it the breaking up of winter quarters. The moment the roads were passable, the garrison of Brunswick, under the command of Cornwallis, marched up the Raritan to Middle Brook, driving back into the Jersey hills a detachment of the Continental army. In turn Washington's whole force was moved to the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... tassels, a bunch of violets in a glass vase, and green plants in the jardinieres. Everything is arranged exactly as in the Fromonts' apartments on the floor below; but the taste, that invisible line which separates the distinguished from the vulgar, is not yet refined. You would say it was a passable copy of a pretty genre picture. The hostess's attire, even, is too new; she looks more as if she were making a call than as if she were at home. In Risler's eyes everything is superb, beyond reproach; he is preparing to say so as he enters the salon, but, in face of ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... there is a communication with the inlet at the south side of Moreton Bay, insulating the land whose north extremity is Point Lookout. The entrance of this inlet is shoal and only passable for boats. ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... were lanes in all directions, which proved a great obstacle when I went out driving with the dogs. The temperature, however, was still so low that the channels were quickly frozen over again and became passable; but later on in the month the temperature rose, so that ice was no longer so readily formed on the water, and the channels became ever more ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... have a real "story" up your sleeve and know how to word it in passable English, the next thing to learn is the way to prepare a manuscript in professional form for marketing. In the non-fiction writer's workshop only two machines are essential to efficiency and economy. The first of these, and absolutely indispensable, is a typewriter. The ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... cigar? I don't smoke myself; my throat won't stand it; but I understand these are passable. Grant left them here. He's a chimney, that man Grant. At ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... These drop from them, but stagnate here. We, you perceive, have no tears, not even at moments—' Then, 'You will soon be accustomed to all this,' he said. 'You will fall into the way. Perhaps you will be able to amuse yourself to make it passable. Many do. There are a number of fine things to be seen here. If you are curious, come with me and I will show you. Or work,—there is even work. There is only one thing that is impossible, or if not impossible—' ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... so much one of years, but they gave Mrs. Samstag, in spite of the only slightly plump and really passable figure, the look of one out of health. Women of her kind of sallowness can be found daily in fashionable physicians' outer offices, awaiting ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... they at last approached sunny regions which produced the herbs the woman had brought away. Going further, they came on a swift and tumbling river of leaden waters, whirling down on its rapid current divers sorts of missiles, and likewise made passable by a bridge. When they had crossed this, they beheld two armies encountering one another with might and main. And when Hadding inquired of the woman about their estate: "These," she said, "are they who, having been slain by the sword, declare the manner ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... post gave him the leisure to write plays. But for the fact that it brought him into such frequent contact with the Lord Loudwater it would have been a really pleasant post: the food was excellent; the wine was good; the library was passable; and the servants, with the exception of James Hutchings, liked and respected him. He had the art of making himself valued (at far more than his real worth, said his enemies), and his air of importance continuously ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... for a considerable distance, he came to a spot where it was passable, and made his way down to the river bank. Here he indulged in a long drink of fresh water, and then began to examine the caves which perforated the rocks. These caves Cuthbert knew had formerly been the abode of hermits. It was supposed to be an essentially sacred locality, and between the third ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... wanderings; nay, that my footsteps must needs pass through this Mizricz, the political stronghold of Chassidism. This discovery did not displease me, for I felt that thus I should reach the Master better prepared. In my impatience I could scarcely wait for the roads to become passable, and it was still the skirt of winter when, with a light heart and a wild hope, I set my face for the wild ravines of Severia and the dreary steppes of the Ukraine. Very soon I came into parts where the question of the Chassidim ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... no impatience to see the neighboring ruins of Susa. He was not one, this young man who was out for a bit of a lark, to sentimentalize about antiquity or the charm of the unspoiled. Yet even such young men are capable of finding the rumness of strange towns a passable enough lark, to say nothing of the general unexpectedness of life. And Dizful turned out to be quite as unexpected, in its way, as Bala Bala. Matthews found that out before he had been three days in the place, when a sudden roar ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a quietening effect on the temper of the men, and the squabbles and brawls among them notably diminished. One of the Frenchmen unearthed an old fiddle, and though one of its strings was wanting, a man named Ben Tolliday contrived to scrape very passable melody out of it. Old John Dilly announced that he had played the cornet in his youth, and before very long an instrument was found for him, and after a few days' practice (during which we had to suffer a variety of discordant and ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... hands hang over the arms of it—the picture of discontent. The gaslight showed her the possessor of bright brown eyes, under fine brows slenderly but clearly marked, of a pink and white skin slightly freckled, of a small nose quite passable, but no ways remarkable, of a dainty little chin, and a thin-lipped mouth, slightly raised at one corner, and opening readily over some irregular but very white teeth. Except for the eyes and eyebrows the features could claim nothing much in the way of beauty. Yet at this moment of seventeen—thanks ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... perfection, Caroline was middling, Eugene played very well, Lauriston was rather heavy, Didelot passable, and I may venture to assert, without vanity, that I was not quite the worst of the company. If we were not good actors it was not for want of good instruction and good advice. Talma and Michot came to direct us, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of the Python and Tityus are in like manner appropriated by these localities. I omit many of the points that are used as arguments. For our tradition does not rank this god amongst those that were born, and then made immortal, as Hercules and Bacchus, whom their virtue raised above a mortal and passable condition; but Apollo is one of the eternal unbegotten deities, if we may collect any certainty concerning these things, from the statements of the oldest and wisest in ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... failed to materialize, and it was not long before the expected began to happen. Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy's business appeared outwardly passable, but curiously enough it almost always seemed—after the loss—that the risk was one on which the company should never have been committed. And there were two unpleasant incidents where the Guardian was "caught ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... a nightmare, lunch was rather worse, and as for dinner, it was quite unspeakable. Miss Beezley seemed to gather force during the day. It was not the actual presence of the lady that revolted the Babe, for that was passable enough. It was her conversation that killed. She refused to let the Babe alone. She was intensely learned herself, and seemed to take a morbid delight in dissecting his ignorance, and showing everybody the pieces. Also, she persisted in calling him Mr MacArthur in a way that seemed ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... European explorers reached the Congo on their coasting voyages to the south that they found a natural and inviting pathway into the heart of Africa. The desert of the north and west, the fever-haunted swamps and jungle of the Guinea Coast only left narrow inlets of more healthy and passable country, and these the Portuguese did their best to close by occasional acts of savage cruelty and impudent fraud in their dealings with ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... roads, which were passable at all seasons, brought a new era in correspondence and business. Lines of stages and wagons, as well known at that time as are the great railways of today, plied the new thoroughfares, provided some of the comforts of travel, and assured the safer and more ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... better than it has been for the last few days, and this is the principal thing that matters. The route, however, lay over very hummocky floes, and required much work with pick and shovel to make it passable for the boat-sledges. These are handled in relays by eighteen men under Worsley. It is killing work on ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... at last, and that day, about noon, we reached a ford of the Tugela which luckily was quite passable. Here Kambula bade me farewell, saying that his mission was finished. Also he delivered to me a message that I was to give from Dingaan to the English in Natal. It was to this effect: That he, Dingaan, had killed the Boers who ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... away of hindrances. 'Crooked things straight.' A careful guide lifts stones out of a blind man's way. How far is this true? There will be plenty of crooked things left crooked, but still so many straightened as to make our road passable. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... bed betimes, and as I felt in passable good case, I went up to the castle to see whether I might peradventure get to my daughter. But I could not find either constable, albeit I had brought a few groats with me to give them as beer-money; neither would the folks that I met tell me where they ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... letters, always typewritten, were copied and objectionable matter omitted, and his signature reproduced by the photo-engraving process, separately each time. But before long, several letters came back to him rubber-stamped: "Not passable. Please revise." It took Benda two days to cool down and rewrite the first letter. But outwardly no one would have ever known that there was anything amiss ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... doings is true. "In the course of these last months great stretches of French territory have been turned by us into a dead country. It varies in width from 10 to 12 or 13 kilometres, and extends along the whole of our new positions. No village or farm was left standing, no road was left passable, no railway track or embankment was left in being. Where once were woods, there are gaunt rows of stumps; the wells have been blown up.... In front of our new positions runs, like a gigantic ribbon, our Empire of Death" ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... stopped, and I saw Mr Hay. I durst not speak, but he instantly said, "He is alive. I sent my servant to Waterloo this morning; he is just returned, and Sir William is better than they expected. I have horses standing harnessed, and you will soon be there if the road is passable, though it was ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... opposite Jumalpore, the banks are about a mile apart, but the distance between the extreme banks, leaving the island opposite the cantonment out of the question, is much more. During the dry weather this part of the river is passable, and indeed is in some places nothing but a dry bed of sand, so that people walk across it. During our stay at the above place we met with many interesting and new plants, among which a new species of Villarsia occupied the most prominent place. Cyperaceae, Gramineae, and aquatic Scrophularineae ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... stipulated quantum of manuscript each four-and-twenty hours. He wrote a very small hand; sixty written slips of the kind of paper he habitually used would represent—thanks to the astonishing system which prevails in such matters: large type, wide spacing, frequency of blank pages—a passable three-hundred-page volume. On an average he could write four such slips a day; so here we have fifteen days for the volume, and ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... up here!" was the interruption which my suggestion met from our practical little guide. "Horses couldn't climb those stairs," she added, somewhat scornfully; and I then observed that I had unconsciously ascended a rough, angular stairway, passable only to foot-passengers. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... what was not the shortest path, but went inland to Armenia in order that such action, coupled with the truce, might enable him to find them not expecting him. And the Cyrnus, too, he crossed at a point where it had become passable because of summer, ordering the cavalry to cross down stream with the baggage animals next, and the infantry afterward. The object was that the horses should break the violence of the current with their ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... the winter of 1911-12 shut down, David Drennen had found a nugget which he had concealed, saying nothing about it. The snows came and he went back to MacLeod's Settlement to wait for the coming of springtime and passable trails. The first man to pack out of the Settlement prospecting, he had come to the spot which last year he had marked under the cliffs known locally as Hell's Lace. The trail had been rotten underfoot and he had slipped and fallen into one of ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... what he still eagerly desires, and that he must beware of being ridiculous. It is indeed a very unpleasant discovery. If he has done anything well which was worth doing, or has made himself a name, he may be treated by women with respect or adulation, but any passable boy of twenty is really more interesting to them, and, unhappily, there is perhaps so much of the man left in him that he would rather see the eyes of a girl melt when she looked at him than be adored ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... but he has his peculiarities. Belden is your real enemy. He is blue with malignity—so are most of the cowmen I met up there. I wish I could do something for the Service. I'm a thoroughly up-to-date analytical chemist and a passable mining engineer, and my doctor says that for a year at least I must work in the open air. Is there anything in this Forest Service for ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... whilst he was prating to the great king of celestial, sublime, and transcendent things, the lacqueys and footboys of the court, upon the upper steps of stairs between two doors, jumbled, one after another, as often as they listed, his wife, who is passable fair, and a pretty snug hussy. Thus he who seemed very clearly to see all heavenly and terrestrial things without spectacles, who discoursed boldly of adventures past, with great confidence opened up present cases and accidents, and stoutly professed the presaging of all future events and contingencies, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... mode of communication was by water, but there was a road along the whole coast of Massachusetts. In the interior of the colony, as Johnson boasted, "the wild and uncouth woods were filled with frequented ways, and the large rivers were overlaid with bridges, passable both for horse ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... commander back to rail-head, we retraced our steps with all speed to Hit, and thence the eight miles up-stream to Salahiyeh. The road beyond Hit was in fearful shape, and the engineers were working night and day to keep it open and in some way passable. In the proposed attack we were to jump off from Salahiyeh, and it was here that the armored cars were assembled. Our camp was close to a Turkish hospital. There were two great crescents and stars laid out for a signal to warn our aeroplanes not to ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... certainty, it behoves us not to go beyond what we really know. I am beginning to have a passable acquaintance with insects, after spending some forty years in their company. Let us question the insect, then: not the first that comes along, but the most gifted, the Hymenopteron. I am giving my opponents every advantage. Where will they ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... ask me so pointedly, I am free to say that I think him a very good preacher on the whole. But, you know, he is far from perfect. I have again and again perceived his false logic, his weak metaphors, and his unsound expositions. Still, he is passable, and you may go a long way before you hear ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... to mankind, produced an equal impression? I can scarcely analyze these feelings; but it must be partly owing to the free scope given to the imagination. The plains of Patagonia are boundless, for they are scarcely passable, and hence unknown; they bear the stamp of having lasted, as they are now, for ages, and there appears no limit to their duration through future time. If, as the ancients supposed, the flat earth was ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... bridge across James Bay has been built, giving access to the newly-erected Government offices for public lands and to Government House, which are of an ornamental character. Streets leading to the bridge have been graded and metalled over and are passable at all times. A temporary want of funds alone prevents more being done in this way, as also the completion of two embankments (in lieu of bridges) in a ravine [Johnson Street, I think, E. F.]. Wooden buildings have ceased to be the order of the day. We have been fortunate in hitherto escaping with ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... much in classes. Sometimes he recited in the police court, sometimes to his Pa back home, and sometimes the whole college took a hand in looking over his examination papers. He used to pass medium fair in Horace; sub-passable in Trig., and extraordinary mediocre in Polikon. But his marks in Imagination, the Psychological Moment and Dodging Consequences were plus perfect, extra ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... the crow flies, but Buck was no aviator. He was forced to take a most tortuous, roundabout route, and when he finally emerged on the first passable track heading approximately in the right direction, the sun was low and there seemed little chance of his accomplishing his purpose in the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... as a very passable imitation of Dickens's pathetic writings, was a poser. In default of language, I looked Miss Sawley straight in the face, and attempted a substitute for a sigh. I was rewarded with a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... months up here, not having been allowed to go to the Virginia springs, on account of the difficulty of carrying my children there; but I am promised that we shall all go there next summer, when there is to be something like a passable road, by which the health-giving region ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... a bright and transparent cold morning in Gloversville, N.Y., November, 1919, and passing out of the Kingsborough Hotel we set off to have a look at the town. And if we must be honest, we were in passable good humour. To tell the truth, as Gloversville began its daily tasks in that clear lusty air and in a white dazzling sunshine, we believed, simpleton that we were, that we were on the road toward making our fortune. Now, we will have to ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... of his intellect and the suppression of his soul. Because his mother had been a religious woman, he reasoned that faith was merely an amiable feminine weakness, and because he himself was clever enough to make passable Latin verses, he argued that no Supernatural Being could have been clever ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... were quite ready, but what were their cousins of Devonshire doing? And so it came to pass that the King's Commissioner returned without any army whatever; but with promise of two hundred men when the roads should be more passable. And meanwhile, what were we to do, abandoned as we were to the mercies of the Doones, with only our own hands to help us? And herein I grieved at my own folly, in having let Tom Faggus go, whose wit and courage would have been worth at least ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... went six miles further to the northeast. At first the trail followed the little river, whose clear and rapid water is about a foot deep and on an average six feet wide. Frequently its bed had to be cleared of palm trees to make it passable for the pack train, and big boulders and heavy undergrowth made travel rough. Then, ascending a cordon which led directly up to the main range, we followed for a while a dim trail on which the Apaches used to drive the herds of cattle they had stolen, and which ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the siege-guns, to put them in position to bombard Savannah, and to prepare for the general assault. The country back of Savannah is very low, and intersected with innumerable saltwater creeks, swamps, and rice-fields. Fortunately the weather was good and the roads were passable, but, should the winter rains set in, I knew that we would be much embarrassed. Therefore, heavy details of men were at once put to work to prepare a wharf and depot at Grog's Bridge, and the roads leading thereto were corduroyed in advance. The Ogeechee Canal was ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Well, the sisters and cousins of an undergraduate seldom seem more passable to his comrades than to himself. Altogether, the instinct of sex is not pandered to in Oxford. It is not, however, as it may once have been, dormant. The modern importation of samples of femininity serves to keep it alert, though ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... five schools, but six school matches. The school that they played twice in the season was Ripton. To win one Ripton match meant that, however many losses it might have sustained in the other matches, the school had had, at any rate, a passable season. To win two Ripton matches in the same year was almost unheard of. This year there had seemed every likelihood of it. The match before Christmas on the Ripton ground had resulted in a win for Wrykyn by two ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... to be somebody on the Force close enough to Salgath Trod's anthropometric specifications that our cosmeticians could work him over into a passable impersonation. Our story is that Salgath is on PolTerm, undergoing narco-hypnosis. We will produce an audio-visual of him as soon as he is out of narco-hyp. That will give us time to fix up an impersonator; We'll need a lot of sound-recordings of ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... MOUNT, an islet, forming a precipitous granite mass, in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, connected with the mainland by a low causeway passable only at low tides; a fine old castle crowns its rocky height, and a small fishing village lies sheltered ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Hudson which washes three-fourths of its base. The remaining fourth was in a great measure covered by a deep marsh, commencing near the river on the upper side and continuing into it below. Over this marsh there was only one crossing place, but at its junction with the river was a sandy beach passable at low tide. On the summit of this hill stood the fort which was furnished with heavy ordnance. Several breastworks and strong batteries were advanced in front of the main work, and about half way down the hill were two rows of abattis. The batteries were calculated to command ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... officers were deceived. With pictures it was their usual method to coat the genuine picture with a certain varnish, over which one of the organization, an old artist living in Chelsea, would paint a modern and quite passable picture and ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... have to do is simply to follow the beaten path. Nature has conveniently left narrow shelves, crevices, and less precipitous slopes here and there, which need only the application of the pick and shovel to be made passable even for pack animals. Where the trail winds into shady recesses, we find stunted fir and pine trees clinging to the crevices and stretching their roots down into the waste rock ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... infinitely. The paintings of Pompeii and many statues and marbles that are now admired in European museums are examples of this industrialised art, inexpensive, creating nothing original, but furnishing to families in comfortable circumstances passable copies of works of art—once a privilege only ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... in the woods of Itching field, and were permitted to reside with their countryman Alexander Hay; indeed we can hardly imagine a more suitable place for concealment, than the parsonage house, situated as it was at that time, in the centre of a dense forest, through which there was hardly any passable road. ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... a comfortable little restaurant, where they cooked well, while the Tischwein was really most passable. We stopped there for a couple of hours, and dried ourselves and fed ourselves, and talked about the view; and just before we left an incident occurred that shows how much more stirring in this world are the influences of evil ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... looks like a thick, or, if you please, a corpulent sweet potato, in shape, but is of a light purple color when boiled. When boiled it answers as a passable substitute for bread. The buck Kanakas bake it under ground, then mash it up well with a heavy lava pestle, mix water with it until it becomes a paste, set it aside and let if ferment, and then it is poi—and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from Victoria,) we had three bad boggy brooks to cross; besides a great deal of cutting to do with axes in order to open the road; and many bad ravines and gullies to render passable. To make a bridge, across a boggy stream, with no other material than the short, knotty, hard and crooked chaparral bush, was no easy matter. The first day's march was about ten miles—we encamped about sunset after a ...
— Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war • Gustavus Woodson Smith
... instruction. It was the sort of music that rich amateurs used to write by the ream, subject to the unacknowledged 'corrections' of a well-paid professional; but the girl's sweet voice and genuine talent made the airs sound passable, while her dreamy eyes and her caressing pronunciation of the trivial words did the rest. It was mere talent, for she hardly understood what she was saying, or singing, and she felt not the least emotion, but ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... of the puppets is only passable, and the matter of the entertainment stupid and tiresome, consisting in a great part of worn-out old English songs, such as "The death of Nelson"! Colonel Phipps considers "Punch" a much more amusing performance. Lady Mount Edgecumbe, who was in a box there, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... meagreness of the intellectual results. They have waited on the visitors from another world, notebook in hand, plying them with careful questions intended to increase our modest store of knowledge. The replies were unsatisfactory, commonplace, sometimes ludicrous. Attempts to write a passable textbook on life in the spirit world have failed lamentably. The indignation of the sorely disappointed scientist was voiced by the late Professor Hugo Muensterberg, of Harvard, in his ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... machete in clearing away the brushwood that obstructed the path. This did not turn out such a task after all. It was only at the brow of the ridge, where the undergrowth had choked up the way. A little farther down it was quite passable, and the party, animals and all, were soon winding down the Sierra towards the valley. Half-an-hour's travelling brought them to their destination; and then a shout of joy, coming simultaneously from all of them, announced ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... to be thought of, so we visited the theatre and cafe chantants, ending the evening with a supper at the Metropole (previously ordered by the fur merchants) which proved that money, even in Irkutsk, will convert a culinary bungler into a very passable chef. Our departure for the North took place very early on the morning of January 19, and I have since heard that nothing would induce our merry little hostess to seek her couch until the tingle of our sleigh bells had died out ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... tramping the hills, about the comrades that have added to the joys of my former existence. Let me hear from you occasionally, because a letter from you seems to revive some of the old feeling that formerly made life passable.' ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... not expected till the tenth of January; but the kind soul could not wait, and, as soon as the road was passable, he came with 300,000 francs in his hands to see what he could do for his poor Romans. He arrived at 4 A.M., and though unexpected, the news flew through the city, and a crowd turned out with torches to escort ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... well keep her, Sargent," said Mrs. Severance placidly. "You will have to pay her blackmail, of course—but after all that's really your fault a little, isn't it?—and it seems as if that was more or less what you had to do with any kind of passable servant nowadays. And Elizabeth is perfection—as a servant. As police—" she smiled a little cruelly. "Well, we shan't go into that, but I think it would be so much better to keep her. Then we'll ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... contrive another; which finding himself unable to do, Cardinal du Bellay was constrained to perform that office. The pleader's part is, doubtless, much harder than that of the preacher; and yet, in my opinion, we see more passable lawyers than preachers, at all events in France. It should seem that the nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden, and that of judgment to have it more deliberate and more slow. But he who remains ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... passed. Mrs. Friend at ten o'clock in the morning had just been having a heart to heart talk with the landlady of the inn on the subject of a decent luncheon for three persons, and a passable dinner for four. Food at the inn was neither good nor well-cooked, and as criticism, even the mildest, generally led to tears, Mrs. Friend's morning lot, when any guest was expected, was not a happy one. It was a difficult ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
