"Sturdy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... offspring even when it is shown to her. We used in such cases to put them together in a little pen during the night, hoping that she would "own" it by the morning. But very often she would not, and then the lamb usually died. If, indeed, it was one of a more sturdy constitution than most, it would refuse to die and became a kind of Ishmael in the flock. The milk which was necessary it took, or tried to take, from the ewe, who, for just a moment, might not know a stranger was trying to share the right of her own lamb. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... life and give it a new cohesion. Whether we consider it from the point of view of his own country or of the world, or of literature, art and science, his life coincides with one of the most wonderful periods in the world's history. At his birth Portugal was a sturdy mediaeval country, proud of her traditions and heroic past. Her heroes were so national as scarcely to be known beyond her own borders. Nun' Alvarez (1360-1431), one of the greatest men of all time, is even now unknown to Europe. And Portugal herself as yet hardly appraised at its true worth the ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... which could hardly be mistaken. Had there been any misapprehension on the part of the visitors, there was none after several scores launched their arrows at the boat, as it glided away from the shore and up stream. The aim was wild and no one was struck, but when Professor Ernest Grimcke, the sturdy, blue-eyed scientist of the party, picked up one of the missiles and carefully examined it, he made the disturbing announcement that it was tipped with one of the ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... implementation of an IMF-recommended structural adjustment program that is helping the economy grow, diversify, and attract foreign investment. Mali's adherence to economic reform and the 50% devaluation of the African franc in January 1994 have pushed up economic growth to a sturdy 5% average in 1996-2002. Worker remittances and external trade routes have been jeopardized by continued unrest in ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... child grew, brave of heart and sturdy of limb, and ever ready to hunt the wild beasts or to go against the cities of men. Many great deeds he did in the far-off Kolchian land, when the chieftains sailed with Athamas and Ino to take away the golden fleece from King Aietes. But there were greater things for him to do ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... much further, or that I had any strong sense of opportunity; I catch at but two or three projections of him, and only at one of his standing much at his ease: I see him before the fire in the Fourteenth Street library, sturdy, with straight black hair and as if the Beaverkill had rather stamped him, but clean-shaven, in a "stock" and a black frock-coat—I hear him perhaps still more than I see him deliver himself on the then great subject of Jenny ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... hands, attracted at once by both voice and face. Donald Ferry was a sturdy young man, with broad shoulders and a thick thatch of reddish-brown hair; he possessed a pair of searching but friendly hazel eyes. He was dressed in a rough suit of blue serge, and a gray flannel shirt ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... their discoveries from each other has been the means of putting great difficulties in the way of tracing out the early traditions of the great South Land. The domineering Spaniard looked upon the Portugese navigator as a formidable rival in the race for trade; and the sturdy Hollander they regarded as a natural enemy and a rebel. The generous emulation of fellow-workers in the cause of scientific discovery was unknown, and the secrets of the sea were ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... 1900), concludes that it is possible and beneficial to take cold baths (though not sea-baths) during the period, provided due precautions are observed, and that there are no sudden changes of habits. Such a course should not be indiscriminately adopted, but there can be no doubt that in sturdy peasant women who are inured to it early in life even prolonged immersion in the sea in fishing has no evil results, and is even beneficial. Houzel (Annales de Gynecologie, Dec., 1894) has published statistics of the menstrual life of 123 fisherwomen on the French coast. They were ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... blue eyes did not, for one moment, rest upon the excited scene about him, so unspeakably new to his scanty experience. His fine figure showed to great advantage on horseback, despite his uncouth, coarse garb; he was mounted upon a sturdy, brown mare of obscure origin, but good-looking, clean-built, sure-footed, and with the blended charm of spirit and docility; she represented his whole estate, except his gun and his lean, old hound, that had accompanied him to the fair, ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... as inevitable. Friends of his though they were, he knew these sturdy plainsmen would never submit to be foiled in their purpose by one man. In the momentary silence before the clash the quiet voice of ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... the twins outgrew their French baby talk the famous cradle was too small to hold their sturdy bodies, and they were promoted to a trundle-bed on the floor. The cradle was an awkward bit of furniture in such a little house, and Angelique was for giving it away or breaking it ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... touch, counterbalanced by the sturdy reality of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace and ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... just now cut off from a large and sturdy oak, of about two hundred years old, an admirable branch, selected on purpose, of tolerable thickness, of which immediately, upon the spot, I made a cudgel, about ... yes, of this size (showing his arm); not so thick ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... shock of confident hair rolled and tumbled about with careless affluence. And with no great shyness she appraised his hands and his feet—those strong forceful hands that had dominated the lurching, self-willed plough, those sturdy feet that had resolutely tramped the miles of humpy furrow the ploughshare had turned up blackly to sun and air. She shrank. She dwindled. Her slender girlhood—that remote, incredible time—was on her ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... age, General Epanchin was in the very prime of life; that is, about fifty-five years of age,—the flowering time of existence, when real enjoyment of life begins. His healthy appearance, good colour, sound, though discoloured teeth, sturdy figure, preoccupied air during business hours, and jolly good humour during his game at cards in the evening, all bore witness to his success in life, and combined to make existence a bed of roses to his excellency. The general was lord of a flourishing family, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... pushed on. Great expanse of country spread around and below. The lads were eager to get to the top of the hill. It was capped by a round knoll, half of which was by now cut away, and on the top of which stood an ancient monument, sturdy and squat, for signalling in old days far down into the level lands of Nottinghamshire ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... that are no longer fit to live among men nor to see light." "I would have him branded in the forehead, slit in the nose, and his ears cropped too." The sentence was executed the 7th and 10th of May, 1633.[31] But nothing intimidated, the sturdy man committed other offences of like nature, "obstructing" other "officers," and was punished again, and banished. But on the summoning of Parliament returned to England, and became powerful in that Revolution which crushed the tyrants of ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... doings," said he, shaking his fist in impotent wrath at the sturdy hunter, whom he would have attacked had he dared. "It's your fault, and you shall pay for it if there's law ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... I don't believe you'll be unconscious long," mused Truax, standing over his young victim, regarding him critically. "There wasn't steam enough in the blow to hurt you for long. You're sturdy, following the sea all the ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... promise he was sure to be summarily deposed and expelled. The people had an old rhymed proverb, "Koli khud knyaz, tak v gryaz!" "If the prince is bad, into the mud with him!", and they habitually acted according to it. So unpleasant, indeed, was the task of ruling those sturdy, stiff-necked burghers, that some princes refused to undertake it, and others, having tried it for a time, voluntarily laid down their authority and departed. But these frequent depositions and abdications—as many as thirty took place in the course of a single century—did not permanently ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... thick hedge of box. Though less prone than most men to put faith in omens, I accepted this as one, and, notwithstanding that it wanted but an hour of sunset, I rode on steadily, remarking that, with each turn in the woodland path, the scrub on my left also gave place to the sturdy tree which had been in my mind all day. Finally we found ourselves passing through an alley of box,—which, no long time before, had been clipped and dressed,—until a final turn brought me into a cul-de-sac, a kind of arbor, carpeted with grass, and so ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... of men does not deny; they are a hardy people, accustomed to work. Every moment of the day they remember from what sturdy stock they have sprung. ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... Pennsylvania—provincial and petty enough, but often very large and important so far as the principle which they involved was concerned. The Legislature of Pennsylvania in those days was a small body composed of only about twenty-five or thirty members, most of them sturdy, thrifty Quakers. They could meet very easily anywhere—at the Governor's house, if in conference with him, or at the treasurer's office or at the loan office, if investigating accounts. Beneath their broad brim hats and grave demeanor they were as Anglo-Saxon ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... at the gate. I am afraid my son will flee. It would be a disgrace on my house to have him become a mendicant. The kings of Kosala, of Magadha, and all the others look with envy on our sturdy people; they dislike our free institutions and our warlike spirit. They would scoff at us if a Sakya prince had become a monk. But if Siddhattha does flee, I swear by Lord Indra that I shall disown him; I will no longer recognize him as my son. I will disinherit ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... explore the wildest, most savage districts, and as a start we selected the province of Orissa. The forests there are wonderful, and it is there, if anywhere, that the almost extinct Indian lion is still to be found. We engaged two sturdy hillmen to accompany us and pushed our way downwards from Calcutta over mountains, rivers and through some of the densest jungles I've ever traversed. It was on the outskirts of one of the latter that the tragedy took place. We ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... treacherously boggy underfoot. Several times we were ankle-deep in mud and water, and Louis had to slash down the tall vegetation that obstructed our way. Before long he cried out: 'Behold your banana patch!' And there it was, sure enough—a great number of sturdy, thickset young plants, many with bunches of fruit hanging above the strange purple flower of the plant, choked with a rank undergrowth and set with the roots in sluggishly running water. Here and there ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... And if his heart fails him, and his coward spirit turns to flee, often as he sits, tearful, in the solitude of his chamber, will the remembrance of the early struggles of the immortals shame that coward spirit. The shade of the sturdy Johnson, hungering, dinnerless, will mutely reproach him for sinking thus beneath the ills that the "scholar's life assail." The kindly-hearted, amiable Goldsmith, pursued to the gates of a prison by a mercenary wretch who fattened upon the produce of that lovely mind, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... with a sturdy horse lived with his wife and three children and his old mother. He hired 1 cho for 28 koku of rice and his crop was 40 koku. He spent 30 yen on manure and 4 yen ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... FIRST approached the Elephant, And happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl: "God bless me!—but the Elephant Is ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... And whether the sturdy toiler had overheard aught of their infernal conspiring—or, having heard it, grasped its dire and criminal significance—who, who in all this weary and ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... evident that he was determined to support to the utmost the power of the crown. He was plus royaliste que le roi. In the ordinary sense he was no orator. He hesitated, he coughed, he sought for words; his voice, in spite of his herculean frame, was feeble. But sturdy in his loyalty, although inexperienced in parliamentary usage, he offered a bold front to the liberalism which he saw to be dangerous to his sovereign's throne. Like Oliver Cromwell in Parliament, he gained daily in power, while, unlike the English ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... torpidly, half dead with thirst, but the new occupation to which their sturdy commander urged them, the hope of victory, and the great value of the prize: a piece of land at the foot of the sacred mountain, rich in springs and palm-trees, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hopelessly lost: such strong men as Cardinal Wiseman in the Roman Church, Dean Buckland in the Anglican, and Hugh Miller in the Scottish Church, made heroic efforts to save something from it, but all to no purpose. That sturdy Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon honesty, which is the best legacy of the Middle Ages to Christendom, asserted itself in the old strongholds of theological thought, the universities. Neither the powerful logic of Bishop Butler nor the nimble reasoning of Archdeacon Paley availed. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... maintenance of England—not an England that would be half Spanish or half French, or even partly Dutch and Flemish, but the Merry England of tradition—the England that was one and undivided, with its growing freedom of thought, its bows and bills, its nut-brown ale, its sturdy yeomen, and its loyalty to crown and Parliament. She once said, almost as in ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... the Rue de Rennes. Only a little blue sky shewed at the end of the lane, between roofs, by which the sun came in. Not a tree, not an inch of grass, in sight; only, in her room, half a dozen roses that Temple had left for her, and the white marguerite plant—tall, sturdy, a little tree almost—that Vernon had sent in from the florist's next door but two. Everything was packed. She would say good-bye to Madame Bianchi; and she would go, and leave no address, as she ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... but she replied, with sturdy decision, "Oh, but he never could have looked like that. His eyes must have been alike, Fred. Mustn't ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... Holt's short, sturdy body was descried in the offing tramping the sand-dunes on his way to Fogarty's, and a signal flag—part of Mother Fogarty's flannel petticoat, and blood-red, as befitted the desperate nature of ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... tastes, and all,' said Edgar, scanning Felix's clear, bright, fresh face, glossy hair, and rather short figure, at once trim and sturdy. 'The goldfinch hit him off exactly, but I don't see the force ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but they, unfortunately, were in a minority of one to ten. The managers, disregarding the outcry that it excited, advertised the recommencement of the performances for Wednesday the 4th of October following. They endeavoured to pack the house with their friends, but the sturdy O.P. men were on the alert, and congregated in the pit in great numbers. The play was "The Beggar's Opera," but, as on former occasions, it was wholly inaudible. The noises were systematically arranged, and the actors, seeing how useless it was to struggle against the popular feeling, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... rendered Stanton a sturdy and unappeasable applicant; and the shrill voice of the old woman, repeating, "no heretic—no English—Mother of God protect us—avaunt Satan!"— combined with the clatter of the wooden casement (peculiar to the houses in Valencia) which she opened to discharge her volley ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... driving an indiscriminate mob of about five times their number before them, who, with courage enough to resist, were yet so totally ignorant of the boxing art, that they retreated, pell-mell, before the battering phalanx of their sturdy opponents—the most ludicrous figure of all being Mr. O'Leary himself, who, standing upon the table, laid about him with a brass lustre that he had unstrung, and did considerable mischief with this novel ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... swords, so that the fight that ensued beneath the ruined wall of the farm was waged on fairly even terms. And when it comes to a contest in which nature's weapons are employed, I never yet met combatants to match sturdy English tars. There were six Frenchmen, and my comrades (Joe and the bosun being busy with the captain) numbered seven, but of these Dilly was old and Runnles was small, and, coming up in the rear of the rest, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... daughter hast'ning to prepare Her father's humble morning fare— The sturdy reaper's meal. In russet gown and apron blue, The daughter sings; like "Lucy," ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... house. He said it would be an easy task for a designing seditious person to raise a tumult and disorder among them: that gentlemen might give them what name they should think fit, and affirm they were come as humble suppliants; but he knew whom the law called sturdy beggars: and those who brought them to that place could not be certain but that they might behave in the same manner. This insinuation was resented by sir John Barnard, who observed that merchants of character had a right ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... sturdy independence and simple habits of the borderers were not affected by contact with wealthier communities, isolation was not in every way a blessing. Served by throngs of slaves, the great landowners of East Virginia found leisure to cultivate the arts which make life more pleasant. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... pack, he was suddenly conscious of a movement in the branches of a fir a little beyond them. Then his quick eye, keener in discrimination than that of any wolf, detected the sturdy figure of a large wolverene making its way from tree to tree at a safe distance above the snow, intent upon the wolves. What one carcajou—"Glutton," he called it—could hope, for all its cunning, to accomplish against five big timber-wolves, he could ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... that ball, unique in her life! It seemed far away now, for it dated back to December, and May had already returned. All the sturdy partners of that evening were out fishing yonder now, scattered over the far northern seas, in the clear pale sun, in intense loneliness, while the dust thickened silently ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... of extraordinary excitement. England was in a transition state. A long chain of events brought on a crisis which involved the kingdom in tribulation. It was the struggle between the unbridled despotism of Epsicopacy, and the sturdy liberty of Puritanism. For although the immediate cause of the civil wars was gross misgovernment—arbitrary taxation without the intervention of Parliament, monopolies and patents, to the ruin of trade; in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... later, a slouching horseman, cigarette in mouth, shaggy chaps on long legs, spurred and booted and decorated with a red neck-scarf came picturesquely into view. His pony dug sturdy feet into the steep roadside, avoiding the mud of the road itself. The man led two other horses, saddled, but empty of riders. He stopped and between him and Thatcher took place one of the immensely tranquil, meditative, and deliberate ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... weatherbeaten; it looks like a Land's end, a regular break up of the world's then useless ribs: an outlier of rocks in the sea, surmounted by a lighthouse: looks like the end of the struggle between conquering man, and sturdy desolation. One place, where I tremble to think I have been, struck me as quite awful: helped by an iron-handed sailor, who comforts you in the dizzy scramble with "Never fear, sir, you shan't fall, unless I fall too," you fearfully pick your way to ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the plantations which here and there varied the scene, gangs of negroes could be seen at labour—their sturdy overseers, of ruffianly mien, prowling sulkily about, watching every motion of the bondsmen, whip in hand; which weapon they applied with the most wanton freedom, as if the poor sufferers were as destitute of physical sensation, as they themselves ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... as not, an actual beating. One would have thought that such treatment would have broken the spirit of the poor little foundling, but it had just the opposite effect upon Tom Chist, who was one of your stubborn, sturdy, stiff-willed fellows who only grow harder and more tough the more they are ill-treated. It had been a long time now since he had made any outcry or complaint at the hard usage he suffered from old Matt. At such times he would shut his teeth and bear ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... three heart-warming days spent with Whitley a month earlier, and his farewell words of helpfulness and cheer spoken as I was boarding the outgoing train at the Springville station. But though Whitley's sturdy faith in me came to do its part, it was another and much longer leap of memory that made me hesitate and draw back; a flash carrying me back to my school-days in Glendale . . . to a certain afternoon when a ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... "Yes, the sturdy elements of the natural constitution of the English people have vindicated their liberty against all constitutional violations of it; and while I cordially detest them, one and all, there isn't another nation in Europe that I am willing ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... among the couples. It is needless to say that George Robinson and Maryanne Brown had suffered no defeat. At that moment a refreshing breeze of the night air was wafted into the room from the opened door, and Robinson, looking up, saw before him a sturdy, thickset man, with mottled beefy face, and by his side there stood a spectre. "It's your sister," whispered he to Maryanne, in a tone ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... turn her head so as to show the lines of the neck to advantage. But Peggy's own good sense, aided by Margaret's calm wisdom, had told her the inappropriateness of Rita's graceful airs and poses to her own sturdy personality. She was to look nice; more she could not aspire to. So here she was to-night, in a pretty blue silk waist, with a serge skirt of a darker shade, her hair smoothly braided in one mammoth "pigtail," and tied with ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... entered into his own make-up; the man matched the craft. Broad-nosed, wide of beam, big, massive, obstinate-looking, the Lord Nelson plowed aggressively through the seas. With every square sail tugging hard at her sturdy masts, she smote and over-rode the waves, and, beating them down, maintained an unvarying, stubborn poise. But although she refused to vacillate or shuffle to the wooing efforts of the uneasy waters, she progressed not ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... you fill my pipe?" asked the Colonel, when he had finished his supper and had pulled his big chair nearer the fire. His oldest child, Noah, a sturdy lad of six, climbed upon his knee and plied ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... with apprehensions that fraud will at length effect what force could not, and that what with currents and counter-currents, we shall in the end, be driven back to the land from which we launched twenty years ago. Indeed, my dear Sir, we have been but a sturdy fish on the hook of a dexterous angler who letting us flounce till we have spent Our force, brings us up ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... angel. Connie was in the same trade that Sue earned her bread by; she also was a machinist in a large warehouse in the City. All day long she worked at the sewing-machine, going home with Sue night after night, glad of Sue's sturdy support, for Connie was much ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... sturdy churls would not give way, Though Richard in person rushed to the fray With all of his rash proclivity For knocks; till, despairing of knightly fame In doughty deeds for a doubtful claim, The hero of Jaffa changed his game To ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... sturdy old fellow, harping unconsciously the notes of my lament, and the tones of his sorrow wail through the green boughs today, though he has been lying now these two hundred years in England's Sleeping Palace, among silent kings and queens. Fair and fresh and always young ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... over the water on the Kentucky shore, a mile away, was first to fall. In the lurid darkness, August and Julia saw it meet its fate. Then the rail fences on the nearer bank were scattered like kindling-wood, and some of the sturdy old apple-trees of the orchard in the river-bottom were uprooted, while others were stripped of their boughs. Julia clung to August and said something, but he could only see her lips move; her voice was drowned by ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... Master Percy. But"—feeling for the precious bag—"I think I couldn't rest heasy in my grave if I 'ad the statoo of the queen 'erself hover me if I'd let the child I brought up come to this disgrace an' 'im the puny, weakly baby he was, too, when I took 'im, the fine, sturdy lad he is now if he is maybe a bit too soon led hastray. But what can you hexpect of a lad when he's kept hunder the way hour boys is. An' he's not a bad 'eart, 'asn't Master Percy, an' maybe he might put up a monyment and a hepithet 'imself for me if he did ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... said, on the night of Coquette's arrival, "Oh, she's an actress, and I hate actresses!" But before many days had passed, he completely changed that hasty view. The big, sturdy, long-legged lad succumbed to the charms of his parentless cousin—the daughter of the minister's brother, who had settled in France and taken to himself a French wife—and he became her defender against those inhabitants of the Manse and the parish—from his brother Wattie ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... the remains of Henry the Second's former adversary, the Chancellor Thomas Becket, assassinated on the steps of the altar, and canonised.[531] Mounted each on his steed, either good or bad, the knight on a beast sturdy, though of indifferent appearance; the hunting monk on a superb palfrey, "as broun as is a berye"; the Wife of Bath sitting astride her horse, armed with great spurs and showing her red stockings, they set ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the President of the Association introduced me was sturdy, well-knit, a little under average height. He had a broad but rather low forehead that reminded me somewhat of the late electrical wizard Steinmetz. Under level black brows shone eyes of clear hazel, kindly, shrewd, a little ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... any point, and much more on that of the future lot of the soul; but as they held the doctrine of metempsychosis, it is fair to class them among the adherents to the notion of a period of purgation between death and the soul's entrance into its final rest. Of the views of the sturdy Norsemen, on the contrary, there can be no two opinions; in their mythology the idea of a middle state is expressed in the clearest language. The following passage from Mr. Anderson, places the matter beyond question. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... can still be found, Anger and clamorous accord, And virtues growing from the ground, And fellowship of beer and board, And song, that is a sturdy cord, And hope, that is a hardy shrub, And goodness, that is God's last word— Will someone take me to ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... with their trusty rifles, furnished antelope, deer and buffalo meat for their small army of employees. On entering, a sight met our gaze too revolting to pass from memory. Upon the earthy floor lay two of those sturdy and warm-hearted dwellers of the plains and rockies, cold in death, scalped and mutilated almost beyond recognition—a deed committed by those dastardly red fiends of the Far West. Both were friends of mine and with uncovered head, ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... asked no questions. A gray-headed, gray- eyed, stocky, sturdy-looking man, who had made impossibilities come true on three continents, he waited for trouble to come to him instead of seeking it. There was silence for several minutes over the cigars and whiskey before Grim opened fire at last. He talked straight out in front of Mrs. Davey, for she had mothered ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... ranch, for instance, was our first camp; but will be one of the last to be forgotten. The two Logan boys were sturdy, companionable young men, full of pranks, and of that bubbling, generous humour that flourishes in this Western air. We were amused by their kindly offer to allow Jimmy to ride "the little bay"—a beautiful animal, with the shifty eye of a criminal. But ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... muscular type than the ancient Assyrian. The great brawny limbs are too large for beauty; but they indicate a physical power which we may well believe to have belonged to this nation—the Romans of Asia—the resolute and sturdy people which succeeded in imposing its yoke upon all its neighbors. [PLATE XXXIV., ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... was reared among the Scotch Covenanters, and had in her character that sturdy Calvinistic devotion to Protestant liberty which gave those religionists the poetic daring and pious picturesqueness which we find so graphically set forth in the pages of Sir Walter Scott and in ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... both pick and shovel with vigor and effect. The yellow, gravelly sand was heaping on both sides, and the shoulders of the sturdy digger were sinking below the level. After an hour's digging, enlivened by frantic rushes of the dogs after the old fox, who hovered near in the woods, ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... that crowd each other in the thickly peopled soil of that breezy summit. You love to lean on the free-stone slab which lies over the bones of the Mathers,—to read the epitaph of stout John Clark, "despiser of little men and sorry actions,"—to stand by the stone grave of sturdy Daniel Malcom and look upon the splintered slab that tells the old rebel's story,—to kneel by the triple stone that says how the three Worthylakes, father, mother, and young daughter, died on the same day and lie buried there; a mystery; the subject of a moving ballad, by the late BENJAMIN ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... forth, sturdy-mooded warrior, until he came to the floor, where the fiend lay and slept. Ever was Arthur void of fear; that was manifest therein, wondrous though it seem; for Arthur might there have hewed the giant in pieces, slain the monster where he lay and slept; then would ...
— Brut • Layamon
... mould, like fairy cobwebs. The Smoked Beef, and Doughnuts, as being more sober and unemotional features of the pageant, appeared on either side the remains of a Cold Chicken, as rendering pathetic tribute to hoary age; while sturdy, reliable Hash and Fishballs reposed right and left in their mottled and rich brown coats, with a kind of complacent consciousness of having been created according to Mrs. GLASS'S standard ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... was separated by only a few feet of underbrush from Jeems' domain. In the middle of a clearing was a sturdy platform, reinforced with upright posts and standing about four feet from the surface of the ground. On this was a small cabin constructed of slabs of bark-covered wood. As a dwelling it might be crude, but it had an air of scrupulous ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... at their wine after dinner. Robert sipped claret, the sturdy Philip quaffed his more generous port. Catherine and the boys might be seen at a little distance, and by the light of a soft August moon, among the shrubs ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Tibble, as they call him, was a sturdy fellow till he got a fall against the mouth of a furnace, and lay ten months in Saint Bartholomew's Spital, scarce moving hand or foot. He cannot wield a hammer, but he has a cunning hand for gilding, and coloured devices, and is as ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was seen with as much distinctness as if he were only a few rods distant. When looking at him the Shawanoe, for the first time in his life, saw a dwarf belonging to his own race. The man had broad shoulders and body and sturdy legs, but his height could not have been more than four and a half feet. Moreover he was very bow-legged, was a hunchback, had a broad mouth, a flat nose and small twinkling eyes. His long black hair dangled loosely about his shoulders, he was clad in a hunting dress similar ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... side. I knew him afterward in the Department of the Interior. He was, in my judgment, the ablest administrative officer without an exception who has been in any executive department during my public life. His sturdy honesty, his sound, rapid, almost instinctive judgment, his tact, his business sense, his love of justice were felt in every fibre and branch of the great Interior Department, then including eight great bureaus each almost important enough to be a ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Gibbs, director and former governor of the Bank of England, was an advocate of the single gold standard; but a few years' experience so completely changed his views that he said: "Mr. Goschen and I were together in the conference in Paris; both of us were sturdy defenders of gold monometallism; but I have changed my mind. I do not say Mr. Goschen has changed his mind, but he has ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... the other hand, a mature and vigorous man, English to the core, stable in his tested views of life, already an active participant in the affairs of the nation and certain to move victoriously onward; a sure patriot, a sturdy politician. It was humiliating to Piers ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... expect to find it as happy a place as his own home, much less a paradise. A number of little boys were playing a game of ring-taw in a corner of the yard. Ernest walked up to them. No one took any notice of him, but went on with their game. "Knuckle down," was the cry. A sturdy little fellow, with a well-bronzed hand, was peppering away, knocking marble after marble out of the ring with his taw, and bid fair to win all that remained. Ernest had long ago given up marbles himself, but he did not pretend to forget how to ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... again entertain royalty. She kept firmly to her resolve to superintend only the outdoor manners and behaviour of Prince Adalbert. She would not have her feelings again harrowed by his painfully exact rendering of the noises made by a sturdy, happy porker over its trough. But out of doors he continued, for the rest of her stay, to be her perpetual, noiseless, ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... know; and he knew that these words of his mother's had been terribly earnest ones—they had burned themselves into his brain. He remembered his mother as one who had given him what little care and kindness he had ever received. Finally he had a sturdy, positive, emphatic will of his own, which is not a bad thing to have if one takes proper care of it. So without any sort of idea as to the right or wrong of the matter, with perfect indifference as to whether this thing came under either head, he had sturdily resolved that ...
— Three People • Pansy
... array of rather slender, lean-checked chaps. But then I made no doubt, that, in a sea-tussle, these lantern-jawed varlets would have approved themselves as slender Damascus blades, nimble and flexible; whereas these Britons would have been, perhaps, as sturdy broadswords. Yet every one remembers that story of Saladin and Richard trying their respective blades; how gallant Richard clove an anvil in twain, or something quite as ponderous, and Saladin elegantly severed a cushion; so that the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... His fine taste notwithstanding, he loved, in those long rambles, to partake of homely fare, paying largely for it. Everywhere it was as if the earth in him turned kindly to [108] earth. "Under the sun," the sturdy purple thistles, the blossoming burrs also, were worth knowing. Let us grow together with you! they seem to say. Himself was one of those whom he thought "Heaven favoured" in making them die, so naturally, by degrees. "I shall be blind before I am sensible of the decay of my sight, with such kindly ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... fled from the Christian teachings of Nicodemus Frapp—fall away on the right hand and Essex on the left. They fall away and vanish into blue haze, and the tall slow ships behind the tugs, scarce moving ships and wallowing sturdy tugs, are all wrought of wet gold as one goes frothing by. They stand out, bound on strange missions of life and death, to the killing of men in unfamiliar lands. And now behind us is blue mystery and the phantom flash of unseen lights, and presently ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... farm-house, with Martinswand towering above it and Zirl a mile beyond, there lived, and lives still, a little boy who bears the old historical name of Findelkind. His father, Otto Korner, was the last of a sturdy race of yeomen who had fought with Hofer and Haspinger, and had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He had been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things wherein he wanted help he must do his own part faithfully, and help himself. I have known him set out in the night, on a misgiving that the light might not be, by some accident, in the window of the old boat, and walk ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... stout, that is to say, and strong, and fit to ride over a heavy sea, and plunge gallantly into the trough of it. But as the strongest men are seldom swift of foot or light of turn, so these robust and sturdy boats must have their own time and swing allowed them, ere ever they would come round or step out. Having met a good deal of the sea, they knew, like a man who has felt a good deal of the world, that heavy endurance and patient bluffness are safer to get through the waves somehow ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... goodly presence glimmers through the music of Max Reger. No sturdy bardic spirit vibrates in it. This Reger is a sarcastic, churlish fellow, bitter and pedantic and rude. He is a sort of musical Cyclops, a strong, ugly creature bulging with knotty and unshapely muscles, an ogre of composition. He has little delicacy, little finesse of spirit. In listening to ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... rough dark-blue coats and leathern gaiters. Each man wore upon his breast a round plate of chiselled silver, bearing the arms of the Astrardente; each had a long rifle slung behind him, and carried a holster at the bow of his huge saddle. A couple of sturdy black-browed peasants held a mule by the bridle, heavily caparisoned in the old fashion, under a great red velvet Spanish saddle, with long tarnished trappings that had once been embroidered with silver. A little knot of peasants and ragged boys stood all around watching the preparations ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... Mrs. Murray, and it heightened her anxiety. Lord only knew what the girl'd try to do once she got out of their sight! But where the intellectual and argumentative Smythe had failed, what could be expected of these simple mountain folk, who for all their sturdy independence were not a little awed by the superior poise and distinction of their visitor? Moreover, Marion was at this moment entirely honest in her assurance that she intended to go no farther than timber line. If the idea that lay deep in the back of her mind had grown since its inception ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... master. He alone spoke with authority. Reverence was first of all due him. Gard soon saw how the wife and children, notwithstanding their stirring presences, were on a secondary plane. How different in the land where he had come from where they are quite free to rule in the house! The sturdy Frau was submissive, energetically helpful. But in her husband's absence she assumed ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... river Slaney. Strongbow's uncle, Herve, was endowed with two other cantreds, to the south of the town, now known as the baronies of Forth and Bargey, where the descendants of the Welsh and Flemish settlers then planted are still to be found in the industrious and sturdy population, known as Flemings, Furlongs, Waddings, Prendergasts, Barrys, and Walshes. Side by side with them now dwell in peace the Kavanaghs, Murphys, Conors, and Breens, whose ancestors so long and so fiercely disputed the intrusion of these ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... relieved anxiety for a time, because every Parisian expected that help would come. But soon gas could not be spared to inflate balloons and sturdy messengers were in request who dared brave the Prussian lines. Sheep-dogs were sent out as carriers after several attempts had been frustrated, but the Prussian sentries seized the animals, and pigeons were soon the only means of communication with ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... have always manifested when the question was a change of religion, is worthy our consideration. For the facility with which some nations have, in the course of ages, yielded to the spirit of novelty, and the sturdy resistance opposed to it by others, is a subject that would repay investigation, but which we ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... great achievements of a mighty people it is impossible to estimate the share contributed by the sturdy pioneers and their descendants of this vast tract of country, the cession of which more than doubled the area of our country a century ago. What great states have been carved out of this territory! What wonderful wealth of resources have been brought forth here! What a splendid ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... rock looms up large like a frowning inhospitable islet, the stretch of the Neutral Ground being so low that one cannot detect it above the sea-level until almost right upon it. We left the Vinuesa and entered a boat with a couple of sturdy rowers, who offered to pull us across the Bay for five dollars. As I dipped a hand in the brine one of them raised a cry of "Take care!" there were "mala pesca" there. Mr. Shark, who is an ugly customer, had been cruising in the neighbourhood, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... though no more aged than himself, was manifestly unequal to the rugged expedition, begun fasting in the morning chill and concluded, likewise fasting, in the noonday heat. Still, it would scarcely have distressed those sturdy limbs, well developed and preserved by Roman training, never permitted by him to degenerate into effeminacy. And as his fine countenance and well- knit frame testified, Marcus AEmilius Victorinus inherited ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the ladies sought a little more comfort, and followed the equipage sitting in a sort of hamper-like, diminutive basket, hung from the broad back of a sturdy quadruped. Dresses became more fanciful, both in materials and colours. From this it was but a step to even more elaborate toilettes which necessitated a conveyance of some sort on wheels, but the most intrepid still clung to the traditionally classic methods. Marie Antoinette had her ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... from the heart of the elk back into its breech, he bounded from his position in close imitation of the elk, but with better success. The trees! he hoped and prayed, as he fairly flew over the ground with the bears hot in chase, for one quick grasp at a sturdy sapling. By good fortune, or special Providence, his hope, or prayer, was answered. Grasping a lower limb he swung his body up into the first tier of branches just as passing Bruin brushed against one of his legs. Bears climb trees ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... him, did these worn and broken men, for the news of the President's declaration had already filtered through the wards; and they waved their hands to the brave American colonel with the white moustache, stern visage, and tender heart, and in sturdy English and voluble French and musical Italian, they congratulated him and his noble grandson, and the charming ladies of his family, on the splendid words of his President, to which words the ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... follows, with all its harmony of golden tints, from pale yellow up to brightest orange. The dog-wood gives almost the purple colour of the mulberry; the chesnut softens all with its frequent mass of delicate brown, and the sturdy oak carries its deep green into the very lap of winter. These tints are too bright for the landscape painter; the attempt to follow nature in an American autumn scene must be abortive. The colours are in reality extremely brilliant, but the medium through ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... blue-eyed baby, and there came in his place a sturdy little freckle-faced chap, with a distinct dislike for water as a cleansing agent, who stoutly declared that washing his hands was a great waste of time, for they were sure to get dirty again; which seems to be reasonable, and ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... question'd winter's sway, And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight, Thee on this bank he threw To mark ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... the saloon, with all its interests and iniquities, he labored, watched, and prayed, for such a consummation. In this, as in his religious conceptions, he was always in the advance, running new lines and opening broad highways, and inviting fields for the less sturdy but oncoming multitude. As he had battled to prevent this, his adopted State, from being desecrated by the blot of human slavery, so now he voted, preached, lectured, wrote, that it might be delivered from the body and soul destroying curse of the ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... with fire and plunder, and came, in a boastful swaggering manner, to Lincoln. The town submitted; but the Castle in the town, held by a brave widow lady, named NICHOLA DE CAMVILLE (whose property it was), made such a sturdy resistance, that the French Count in command of the army of the French Prince found it necessary to besiege this Castle. While he was thus engaged, word was brought to him that Lord Pembroke, with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty men ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... some contemporary accounts to be invariably mixed up together in helpless and apparently inextricable confusion. The general bewilderment was made more bewildering by the very babel of street cries bawled from the sturdy lungs of orange-girls, chair-menders, broom-sellers, ballad-singers, old-clothes men, and wretched representatives of the various jails, raising their plaintive appeal to "remember the poor prisoners." The thoroughfares, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... is and fleet it is That none whose words are not as fleet as birds upon the wing, And regal as her mountains, And radiant as the fountains Of rainbow-coloured sea-spray that every wave can fling Against the cliffs of England, the sturdy cliffs of England, Could more than seem to dream of it, Or catch one flying gleam of it, Above the seas of England that ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... slackening for a wayside station. Outside a man was driving a plough across a field where grain had been harvested. Nicholas followed with his eyes the walk of the horses, the purple-brown trail of the plough, the sturdy, independent figure of the driver as he passed, whistling an air. Over the Virginian landscape—the landscape of a country where each ragged inch of ground wears its strange, distinctive charm, where each rotting "worm fence" guards a peculiar ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... whip, called a "black snake," which was lying on the seat and cracked it over the horses, a fine, sturdy pair, as he had noticed already. They stepped briskly along, as if anxious to warm themselves after their long wait in the cold, and Prescott, who was a good driver, felt the glorious sensation of triumph over difficulties ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler |
