"Tractable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kind and tractable, now, and went whenever she bade him go without her, though tea at the Hallecks was getting to be an old story with him, and it was generally tea at the Hallecks to which she sent him. The Halleck ladies came faithfully to see her, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... yourself," returned Jaime, who, notwithstanding the intelligible hint to be tractable which he had already received, found it a hard matter to restrain his sulkiness. "It is ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... incalculable benefit to human industries, and the promise of triumph in the treatment of human disease which prophecy would not have dared to anticipate. I will not say that I have a full belief that hydrophobia—in some respects the most terrible of all diseases—is to be extirpated or rendered tractable by his method of treatment. But of his inventive originality, his unconquerable perseverance, his devotion to the good of mankind, there can be no question. I look upon him as one of the greatest experimenters that ever lived, one of the truest benefactors ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Danglars, pleased to find the other so tractable. "Let us take ourselves out of the way, and leave things for the present to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thither aboord, and receiued of me the kings duties for to haue free traffike with the Negros, with whom dayly I exchanged my yron and other wares for hides and some elephants teeth, finding the people very friendly and tractable. And the next day after our arriuall I went vp into the land about three miles to the towne of Refisca, where I was friendly vsed and well entertained of the alcaide, and especially of a yoong nobleman called Conde Amar Pattay, who presented ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... not," agreed the Colonel. "But all the same, I rather think that her mother will find her considerably less tame and tractable when she sees her again than she has ever been before. Liberty, you know, is a dangerous ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... open to suggestions as to the need of clarifying obscure phrases in his verses, but on one or two occasions, when I was so bold as to hint at changes, I found him in highly tractable moods. I called his attention to what I imagined might prove to be merely a printer's slip in his poem (a great favourite of mine) entitled The ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... says, that, surrounded as he was by ragged children, without shoes and stockings, the first lesson he taught them was silence and submission.—They acquired habits of subordination, became tractable and docile; and, of all his scholars, there were not any more attentive and affectionate than these; and when the Gypsies broke up house in the spring, to make their usual excursions, the children expressed much regret ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... but cinched his saddle; the boys sprang upon the now tractable mustangs and plunged into the forest below. The brush was thin, and they pushed their way downward as rapidly as the steep descent would permit. Sometimes the forest protected them from the storm, at others the trees grew wide apart and the riders were exposed to its pitiless rush. ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... Butt then it was refuissed by the prudent and stowt counsall of the Lard of Grange,[202] who opened clearly to the King the practise of the Prelattis, and the danger that thairof mycht ensew. Which considered by the King, (for being out of his passioun, he was tractable,) gave this answer, in the Palice of Halyrudhouse, to the Cardinall and Prelattis, after that thei had uttered thair malice, and schew what profit[203] mycht arise to the Croune, yf hie wold follow thair counsall. "Pack ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... that may be tamed, and others whose wildness is irreclaimable. Horace says, that all men are mad: and no doubt mankind in general has one of the features of madness. In the ordinary current of our existence we are to a considerable degree rational and tractable. But we are not altogether safe. I may converse with a maniac for hours; he shall talk as soberly, and conduct himself with as much propriety, as any other of the species who has never been afflicted with his disease; ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... tractable; he only asked permission to ride before, to make matters ready, and spurring his horse, he posted before the litter, while Varney falling about threescore paces behind it, it remained only attended ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... particularly intractable young horse—a big, raw-boned sorrel, named York. One of York's tricks was to rear and throw himself backward with his rider. But in Grant he found his master, and the steed not only grew tractable, but developed under his rider's training into a famous jumper. Horse and rider are vividly described by General James B. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... escort, seeing that the peasants whom he had purchased were exceptionally peace-loving folk, and that, being themselves consenting parties to the transferment, they would undoubtedly prove in every way tractable. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... actresses and ballet-girls are proverbially more tractable than actors, less exacting, more uncomplaining, more unfailingly prompt in their attendance and in the discharge of their arduous duties. Why, then, are they subjected to such grinding injustice, except because of their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... docile childhood seems to have been his; so obedient, that when an attack on the lungs necessitated the use of very painful remedies, the physician said that the chances of his recovery turned upon his being the most tractable of children; and with such a love and knowledge of the Bible that, when only five years old, his father could consult him like a little Concordance, and withal full of boyish mirth and daring. When sent to school at Neasdon, he was so excited by the story ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... no more tractable a mood. Even before Bob could reach his post at the wireless station and adjust his double head receiver to his ears his employer came briskly across the grass with his after-breakfast cigar ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... have had some weight at Whitehall, for by the month of August the Viceroy somewhat lowered his tone; he gave up all hope of influencing Merv, and consented to make another effort to win back the Ameer, or to seek to replace him by a more tractable prince. But, failing this, he advised, though with reluctance on political grounds, the conquest and occupation of so much of Afghan territory as would "be absolutely requisite for the permanent ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... neck. All understood a word or two of English; but Neil was the only one who judged he had enough of it for general converse, in which (when once he got embarked) his company was often tempted to the contrary opinion. They were tractable, simple creatures; showed much more courtesy than might have been expected from their raggedness and their uncouth appearance, and fell spontaneously to be like three servants ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mistress hearing of Strong's arrival sent for him at this juncture, and the chevalier went up to her ladyship not without hopes that he should find her more tractable than her factotum Mrs. Bonner. Many a time before had he pleaded his client's cause with Lady Clavering and caused her good-nature to relent. He tried again once more. He painted in dismal colors ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... trail. Following him comes a flock of sheep and goats, bleating and nibbling at the bushes and grass as they slowly trot along, urged by the dust-begrimed squaw and her children. Several of the more tractable ponies carry packs of household effects stuffed into buckskin and cotton bags or wrapped in blankets, a little corn for food, the rude blanket loom of the woman, baskets, and wicker bottles, and perhaps a scion of the house, too young to walk, perched on top of all. Such a caravan is always ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... of its range extends from Newfoundland to Manitoba; it grows throughout the northern states from Minnesota to the Atlantic, and, south of Pennsylvania, along the Appalachians to northern Georgia. Its tractable and reliable wood, its adaptability to various soils and climates, its early maturity and stately habit, recommend it to the forester ...
— The Genus Pinus • George Russell Shaw
... the first rule for all who believe in a progressive world is not to believe in it too much. Long ago Plato said that he drove two horses, one white and tractable, the other black and fractious; Jesus said that two masters sought man's allegiance, one God, the other mammon; Paul said that his soul was the battle-ground of two forces, one of which he called spirit ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... English race on both sides of the Atlantic. But the American was a free citizen, any one's equal, a voter with a personal interest in his country's welfare, and, above all, without having perpetually before his eyes the degrading fear of the press-gang. In consequence, he was more tractable than the Englishman, more self-reliant, and possessed greater judgment. In the fight between the Wasp and the Frolic, the latter's crew had apparently been well trained at the guns, for they aimed well; but they fired at the wrong time, and never ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... and sand hills. The Kaed assures me, however, that in seven years he will have a fine plantation of palms. He has planted several, and is about to fetch some choice shoots from Tripoli. With toil and care The Desert, in truth, can not only be rendered habitable and tractable, but even comfortable, as the building of this fort well proves. It has been built since Mr. Gagliuffi passed this way to Mourzuk, and I am the only European who has seen this bran-new town of Bonjem. The Bashaw of Tripoli boasts of it as his work, and on my return ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... more tractable than poor Emma's," was John's parting shot.—Strange, thought Mary, how attached John was to his ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... to be represented on a stage. But how many dramatic personages are there in Shakespeare, which though more tractable and feasible (if I may so speak) than Lear, yet from some circumstance, some adjunct to their character, are improper to be shown to our bodily eye. Othello for instance. Nothing can be more soothing, more flattering to the nobler parts of our ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... silent this evening,—vexed at the thwarting of her schemes. It was the first time that the idea had ever gained a foothold in her mind, that her docile and tractable grandchild could really have for any serious length of time a will opposed to her own, and she found it even now difficult to believe it. Hitherto she had shaped her life as easily as she could mould a biscuit, and it was all plain sailing before ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... it is set forth that in 1596 the Jesuits, Valero de Ledesma and Manuel Martinez, began their missionary labors in the Agsan Valley where they found the inhabitants "by no means tractable on account of their fierce and violent nature." Christianity, however, made surprising advances, so great that the principal chief of the district, Silogan, divorced five of his wives, and protected the missionaries ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of work towards clothing Pedro in the manner she had heard me talk of, and laid hard at me to show her the use of the needles, thread, and other things she had brought. Indeed I must say she proved very tractable; and from the little instruction I was able to give her, soon out-wrought my knowledge; for I could only show her that the thread went through the needle, and both through the cloth to hold it together; but for anything ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... and things of moods. The razor you sharpen to-day may not be sharp, though manipulated upon hone or strap with all persistence and all skill. The razor you sharpen to-morrow may be far more tractable. Furthermore, the razor which is comparatively dull to-day may be sharp to-morrow, without ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... disturbance, but they were even re-elected for the following year, without one offensive expression, much less any violence being employed. By soothing and managing the commons they gradually rendered them tractable. By these methods the law was evaded for ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... friends got into office and power. His friend, John Clarke, was elected Governor, upon the demise of Governor Rabun; but his day had passed, and other and younger men thrust him aside. Parties were growing more and more corrupt, and to subserve the uses of corruption, more tractable and pliant tools were required than could ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... To the mind of most Americans, I venture to say, the very name "Indian" suggests scalpings, massacres, outrages of all kinds and an interminable list of kindred horrors; all too true. But it must be remembered that the Indian presented to his first discoverers a race most tractable, tenderhearted, and responsive to kindness. He was indeed the child of the plain, but ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... he had fully satisfied himself that his minion was in a tractable state, took his leave, much to the satisfaction of the sufferer. The old negro who acted as his physician paid him another visit in the evening, and assured him that he would be well in a few days. He left him ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... Avec told that the day approaches; he had opened the Spot of Life and gone through it; but he had NOT sent the fact and the substance." Watson smiled. There was just enough superstition, it seemed, beneath all the Rhamda's wisdom to make him tractable. However, Chick asked: ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... Ay. 'Tis true, but unimportant. Nevertheless, I am a tractable old fellow.—Look you, I will but stay to map the lay of the pieces Upon this bit of letter. 'Tis from a king Who could not tell the bishop from the board,— And yet went blind at forty.—A little chess By twilight, mark you, and all might have ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... and six-inch howitzers were more gregarious. They worked in groups of four and sometimes a number of batteries were in line. Beyond them were those alert commoners, the field guns, rapid of fire with their eighteen-pound shells. These seemed more tractable and companionable, better suited for human association, less mechanically brutal. They were not monstrous enough to require motor tractors to draw them at a stately gait, but behind their teams could be up and away across the fields on short notice, their caissons of ammunitions creaking behind ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... some time, and at Mango's suggestion I had mounted the ox. I have not before described the animal. It was clean-limbed, almost white, with long pointed horns projecting horizontally from its head; a thoroughly tame and tractable animal. It went on at a steady pace, sufficient to keep Mango and the zebra at a trot. We were searching carefully as we went for Leo's promised indication of his route, when Mango suddenly started off, and running a few paces, lifted up a ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... and hardest point of wisdom. When it is once learned and imprinted on the heart, O what a docility is in the mind to more! What readiness to receive what follows! It makes a man a weaned child, a little simple child, tractable and flexible as Christ would have all his disciples. A man thus emptied and vacuated of self-conceit, these lines of natural pride being blotted out, the soul is as a tabula rasa, "an unwritten table," to receive any impression of the law of God that ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... pursue her during the ensuing evening and even interfered with her slumbers during the night. This—most unusual occurrence—rendered her fretful. She reproached her tractable and distressed little General with having encouraged her to walk much too far. In future he swore to insist on the carriage, however confidently she might assert the need of active exertion. She pointed out the fallacy of rushing to extremes; which rather ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... "My cousin taught little Polly Waller and she says she was the most tractable child she has ever had in her class. The boy was too young for school, but I happened to hear his kindergarten teacher discussing the family with my cousin and she said Peter was a love of a boy and clever beyond anything. He is a born leader, ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... departed from Dooggi, and being joined by a number of Foulahs and other people, made a formidable appearance; and were under no apprehension of being plundered in the woods. About eleven o'clock one of the asses proving very refractory, the Negroes took a curious method to make him tractable. They cut a forked stick, and putting the forked part into the ass's mouth, like the bit of a bridle, tied the two smaller parts together above his head, leaving the lower part of the stick of sufficient length to strike against the ground if the ass should ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... of Buckingham has, at his seat at Avington, a team of Spanish asses, resembling the zebra in appearance, which are extremely tractable, and take more freely to the collar than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... but entertaining conversation, which he, and some others, had with the honorable and worthy General Oglethorpe, concerning the condition, temper, and genius of the Indians in the neighborhood of Georgia, and those parts of America; who, as he assured us, are a tractable people, and more capable of being civilized and of receiving the truths of religion than we are generally made to believe, if some hindrances were removed, and proper measures taken to awaken in them a sense of their true interest, and of their unhappy condition, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... Java are, generally speaking, a quiet, tractable race, but rather lazy withal. The Dutch Government could never have made the Island produce half the quantity it now yields of either sugar, coffee, or rice, without a little wholesome coercion;—coercion ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... direction of the knoll, and Ja-don, followed by a few of his more intrepid warriors, ran to meet him. Tarzan, loath to enter an unnecessary quarrel, tried to turn the animal, but as the beast was far from tractable it always took a few minutes to force the will of its master upon it; and so the two parties were quite close before the ape-man succeeded in stopping the mad charge of ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Ariston, Periandre, Oronte, Alcidamas, Clitandre, and Polydore; No one denies their claim to true religion; Yet they're no braggadocios of virtue, They do not make insufferable display, And their religion's human, tractable; They are not always judging all our actions, They'd think such judgment savoured of presumption; And, leaving pride of words to other men, 'Tis by their deeds alone they censure ours. Evil appearances find ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... most if not all metals; for even iron, the most abundant as well as most useful of metallic products, which forms an ingredient of most minerals and of almost all rocks, is susceptible of exhaustion so far as regards its richest and most tractable ores. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... long-winded, as the pace had to be great and one must be utterly regardless of dog and badger holes, etc. This kind of work we kept up for a couple of weeks, some days being successful, some days getting a run but securing nothing. We made a satisfactory gathering of all the gentler and more tractable mares, but some of the wilder ones we could not hold. At night we stood guard over the band, and it was amusing, and even alarming, how the stallions would charge out and threaten any rider who approached too near his ladies. A good deal of fighting went on too between these very ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... could never be induced to re-enter that stable, but always manifested signs of wild alarm and excitement when brought even to the door, though in all other respects he was perfectly gentle and tractable. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... should not serve them half so well. The service of love is swifter than the service of fear; the Turks, who treat their Camels more as you do the Ass in England, find them neither so willing nor so tractable, though all Camels are by nature patient, and strong to endure. Here in Arabia a young Camel is fondled as if it were a baby. 'A child is born to us,' cry our master's family; and silver charms are hung on our heads and about our necks, while ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... brought them to be more tractable and obedient in all things; for now they thought themselves no longer to be led by a stranger, but rather conducted by a god, and the more so, as the facts themselves seemed to bear witness to it, his power, contrary to all expectation or probability, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the drawbridge, in his way to the lonely valley of Glendearg. In a brief conversation with the churlish warder, he had the address to render him more tractable in the controversy betwixt him and the convent. He reminded him that his father had been a vassal under the community; that his brother was childless; and that their possession would revert to the church on his death, and might be either granted ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... little lamb; how demure he is and how simple and innocent, and how foolish and how tractable. Yet observe!' With that he whipped the cassock from his arm where he was carrying it and threw it all over the lamb, covering his head and body; and the lamb began plunging and kicking and bucking and rolling and heaving and sliding and rearing and pawing and most ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... grow along in the iaw, and are about two inches in height, and almost as much in thicknesse. The tuskes of the male are greater then of the female: his tongue is very litle, and so farre in his mouth, that it cannot be seene: of all beastes they are most gentle and tractable, for by many sundry wayes they are taught, and doe vnderstand: insomuch that they learne to doe due honor to a king, and are quick sense and sharpenesse of wit. When the male hath once seasoned the female, he neuer after toucheth her. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... forest and climbing every mountain, for no more than the pleasure of killing. Negro slavery was introduced into the New World before its existence had been known in Spain for a century, and although the black men have usually been tractable, the severities of their masters led to many revolts and to the organization of bands for retaliation. These bands often degenerated, and during this century the Spanish Antilles have been troubled by companies of beggars and outlaws, mostly blacks and half-breeds, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... observation and experience, but the abortions of hypothesis and precipitate deduction. Lunatics, from the excitation of various causes, become at times more violent or desponding, and these exacerbations are often succeeded by tranquillity and cheerfulness, they are more tractable, and less impelled to urge the subjects of their prevailing delusions: but this apparent quietude or assumed complacency, does not imply a renunciation of their perverted notions, which will be ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... dearly love to give you pleasure, my darlings, my heart's desire is for my children's happiness in this world and the next; but life can not be all play; so lessons must be taken up again to-morrow morning, and I hope to find you all in an industrious and tractable mood." ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... Majesty would not be wanting to support them as far as she was able, and improve the concessions already made by France; in which case, a good understanding and harmony among the confederates, would yet be of the greatest use for making the enemy more tractable and easy." ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... he pretended to be unconscious of anything unusual, it would probably provoke her to stronger measures, and yet he was very loth to stir up strife between them, and leant towards the hope that this spirit of fractiousness would die out in time and that Bella would become her loving, tractable self again. But he reckoned ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... ad se vt Cesias nubes Pryauste gaudes gaudium. Bellerophontis literae (producing lettres or evidence against a mans self). Puer glaciem. To hold a woolf by the ears fontibus apros, floribus austrum Softer then the lippe of the ear More tractable then wax Aurem vellere. [Greek: Aeeritrimma]; frippon To picke owt the Ravens eyes. Centones Improbitas musce (an importune that wilbe soone awnswered but straght in hand agayne). Argentangina, sylver mumpes Lupi illum videre priores Dorica musa. To looke ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... had become a tractable and almost amiable prisoner. Like Turner, he was ugly only when he was drinking, and there was not even enough liquor on the Ella to revive poor Burns. He spent his days devising, with bits of wire, a ring puzzle that he intended should ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Before the end of it he was scrambling about the vessel, and describes himself as "quite expert at climbing to the masthead, and going out on the maintopsail yard." Irving's body was never to be altogether tractable, but we shall hear nothing further ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... the Southern Country is not so well watered as are Central and Northern Midian On the other hand, the tenants, confined to the Baliyy tribe, with a few scatters of the despised Hutaym, are milder and more tractable than the Huwaytt. As I have remarked, they are of ancient strain, and they still conserve the instincts of their predecessors, or their forefathers, the old mining race. It will be necessary to defend them against the raids and incursions of the Juhaynah, or "Sons of Dogs," ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... educated men from the colleges, and the robust individuals from the factory and farm. In natural quality they are as well suited to the service as any who seek it out in peacetime, but in disposition they are likely to be a little less tractable. On the whole, however, there is no radical difference between them, if we look at both groups simply as training problems for the study ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... proper place. Nevertheless, the Spaniard does not notice that no one receives any harm [from the Chinaman], except when he opens the doors to him, and brings him into his house. Besides this they are excellent merchants, and are very tractable; and in this regard they are far ahead of the Japanese. The Sangley, or Chinaman (for the two are one), when he makes any profit in his merchandise, trusts and waits very accommodatingly. We shall treat of their other customs as occasion offers. This trade, then, must doubtless ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... the neck, and said sundry pleasant things to encourage her in her assumed purpose of doing better. Kate appeared to understand Bobby's kind words, and declared as plainly as a horse could declare that she would be sober and tractable. ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... and soul, moved by commiseration for the unparalleled rigour of your confinement, and for the precious moments that are lost to you through this recluse way of life. By the life of my father, I am a man so artless, so meek, so tractable and obedient, that I will never do more than I am bidden. If any one of you should please to say, 'Maestro, sit down here; Maestro, step this way, step that way, go yonder,' I will do just as you bid me, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the farmer, nodding over his shoulder. The "woman" was more tractable, and for a dime Jurgis secured two thick sandwiches and a piece of pie and two apples. He walked off eating the pie, as the least convenient thing to carry. In a few minutes he came to a stream, and he climbed a fence and walked down the bank, along a woodland path. By and by ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... arrived with his men during my Master's colloquy, was ready with an offer of wains and pack-horses to convey the bulk of it to the outhouses at Godolphin. But this, when I interpreted it, the Portuguese captain would not hear. Nor was he more tractable to Mr. Saint Aubyn's offer to set a mixed guard of our three companies upon the stuff until daybreak. He plainly had his doubts of such protection: and I could not avoid some respect for his wisdom ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... had been married at Mendota a few days before and had gone on ahead. I expected to catch up with them. My oxen were most tractable and the country through which I passed very beautiful. The ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... hauing espyed our shippes came downe vnto vs in their Canoas, and holding vp their right hand to the Sunne and crying Yliaout, would strike their breasts: we doing the like the people came aboard our shippes, men of good stature, vnbearded, small eyed and of tractable conditions, by whome as signes would permit, we vnderstood that towards the North and West there was a great sea, and vsing the people with kindenes in giuing them nayles and kniues which of all things they most desired, we departed, and finding the sea free from yce supposing our selues ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... plenty of Indian corn, that abundance is daily exported, as well by Europeans as Blacks resorting thither from other parts." "These inland people are said to live in great union and friendship, being generally well tempered, civil, and tractable; not apt to shed human blood, except when much provoked, and ready to ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... possession of a building, or the right of haunting it, did not defend themselves against mortals on the knightly principle of duel, like Assueit, nor were amenable to the prayers of the priest or the spells of the sorcerer, but became tractable when properly convened in a legal process. The Eyrbiggia Saga acquaints us, that the mansion of a respectable landholder in Iceland was, soon after the settlement of that island, exposed to a persecution of this kind. The molestation was produced by the concurrence of certain mystical ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... little amongst them. But since my master and mistress have bought you, there's no going but by their consent: therefore I will make them acquainted with your purpose, and I doubt not but I shall find them tractable enough. ome, I'll do for thee what ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... fool Sebastian Dundas say she was difficult to manage? and how can Adelaide see in her the possibility of anything like wickedness? She is the most loving and tractable little angel in the world. She will give me no kind of trouble, and I shall be able to mould her from the first and do what I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... willingly no more, to speak willingly no more, on the subject of my marriage. That page is turned for ever: there shall be no glancing back. Moods inevitably must come; spasms of despair are as little tractable as spasms of physical pain. But I can at least keep silent about their true cause. The first step toward the cure of egoism is to lock away one's Journal. I shall add no more to this till I have mastered my present state. And ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... post-mortem, and the coroner. This storm, the opportunity for which he has been waiting for weeks, is merely the cloak to his act. The weapon which he has planned to use—scarcely less powerful than lightning but much more tractable—is the high voltage current of electricity that flows along the ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... yet you think much to bestow a little Pains to mould your Husband, with whom you may live a pleasant Life all your Days. What a Deal of Pains do Men take to render a Horse tractable to them: And shall we think much to take a little Pains to render our Husbands ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... had not informed Boo-Khaloum what district he would allow him to attack, but observed that the Kerdie nations, being extremely tractable, were becoming Mussulmans ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... you to be reasonable and think of the advantages which, as Emil's wife, you may enjoy. You are a poor girl, without home or friends, and obliged to work for your living. There is an escape from all this if you will be tractable; you can have a beautiful house elegantly furnished, horses, carriages, diamonds, and velvets—in fact, not a wish you choose to express ungratified. You may travel the world over, if you desire, with no other object in view than to enjoy yourself. On the other hand, if you ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... from the bench and merged into journalism, by means of which he chanced to become acquainted with Mr. Rigby. That worthy individual was not slow in detecting the treasure he had lighted on; a wit, a ready and happy writer, a joyous and tractable being, with the education, and still the feelings and manners, of a gentleman. Frequent were the Sunday dinners which found Gay a guest at Mr. Rigby's villa; numerous the airy pasquinades which he left behind, and which made the fortune of his ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... the woods of the old home farm where I grew up. It looks and smells like home. When I bring in a maple stick to put on my fire, I feel like caressing it a little. Its fiber is as white as a lily, and nearly as sweet-scented. It is such a tractable, satisfactory wood to handle—a clean, docile, wholesome tree; burning without snapping or sputtering, easily worked up into stovewood, fine of grain, hard of texture, stately as a forest tree, comely and clean as a shade tree, glorious in autumn, a fountain ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... to deal with. I am obliged to hold frequent and long parleys with them, and, at every occasion, to heap upon them the most fair and flattering promises. I must incessantly excite them to the practice of acts of religion, and labor to render them tractable, sociable, and loyal to the king (of France). But especially, I apply myself to make them live in ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... has a tendency to develop the animal propensities to a greater or less degree, especially in the young, whose characters are unformed. Among animals we find the carnivorous the most vicious and destructive, while those which subsist upon vegetable foods are by nature gentle and tractable. There is little doubt that this law holds good among men as well as animals. If we study the character and lives of those who subsist largely upon animal food, we are apt to find them impatient, passionate, fiery in temper, and in other respects greatly ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... waywardness and equally passionate repentance, and self-willed disobedience, alternating with sudden bursts of reformation, were a constant source of worry and anxiety, and the direct opposite of her ideal of girlhood. Poor Mrs. Fitzgerald would have liked a docile, tractable daughter, who would have been content to sit beside her sofa doing fancy work, instead of riding to hounds; and who would have had more consideration for her weak state of health. She appreciated Honor's warm-hearted affection to the full, but at the same time wished she could make her realize ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... further the time of the Stanley visit, Dorothy suggested that the betrothal should take place in the presence of the queen. Sir George acquiesced, and in his heart grew less eager for the Stanley match as Dorothy apparently became more tractable. He was, however, engaged with the earl to an extent that forbade withdrawal, even had he been sure ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... sides. A brisk trade began. The savages eagerly handed over their garments of sealskin and fur, their darts, oars, and everything that they had, in return for little trifles, even for pieces of paper. They seemed to the English sailors a very tractable {26} people, void of craft and double dealing. Seeing that the English were eager to obtain furs, they pointed to the hills inland, as if to indicate that they should go and bring a large supply. But Davis was anxious for further exploration, and would not delay his ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... declared Mr. Lawrence; "that is, he's never been so in the past. No keeper ever had the least trouble with old Coombs. They all liked him, because he was so gentle and tractable. But would you mind taking us to that cabin now, ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... three horses proved more tractable than Caliente, and after some skirmishing they managed to get their new ships rigged up with the saddles and other tackle. Now as soon as they got their cargo aboard, they would be prepared to set sail and ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... at any of the bandits' camps and they often made me show off my admired powers on fox-cubs, badgers, weasels and other such wild creatures which they or their peasant friends had trapped alive. My ability to tame, handle, fondle and make tractable to anyone such animals appeared a source of unflagging interest and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... is ever tractable, and even this short time had accomplished much. Already the warm, contagious, college comradeship possessed him. Violent attacks of homesickness that made gray the brightest fall days, like the callous spots on his palms, were becoming more rare. The old existence was ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... expansive, thrusting force of thirty thousand pounds to the square inch, over two thousand tons to the square foot; an incomprehensible force, but applicable in nature to little besides splitting rocks. On the other hand, when water is rarefied into steam its power is vastly more versatile, tractable, and serviceable in a thousand ways. Take a bit of metal called zinc. It is heavy, subject to gravitation, solid, subject to cohesion. But cause it to be burned, to pass away, and be changed. To do this we use fire, not the ordinary kind, but liquid that we keep in a bottle and call acid. ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... strong, and there were at times runs of roughish water. But gradually the stream now was beginning to widen and to show an occasional island, so that on the whole they found their journey less dangerous than it had been before. The dugout, although not very light under the paddle, proved very tractable, and made a splendid boat for ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... I have hit it," said Don Quixote; "thou wouldst say thou art so docile, tractable, and gentle that thou wilt take what I say to thee, and submit ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... down, and thus offering a passive resistance that could not be overcome. There is nothing like arbitration to obtain pure justice, and as I was the arbitrator, I ordered all refractory bullocks to be eaten as rations by the troops. A few animals at length became fairly tractable; and we had a couple of ploughs at work, but the result was a series of zigzag furrows that more resembled the indiscriminate ploughings of a herd of wild boar than the effect of an agricultural implement. Nothing will ever go straight at the commencement, therefore the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... carried out on both horses about eighteen months ago. Within a fortnight they were at their duty, absolutely free from lameness, and with first-rate action, and one of them, from being troublesome and unsteady in the ranks—probably from the pain in its feet—had become quite steady and tractable. Instead of being lame, blundering, and unsafe, both were sound, free in movement, and secure, and, the pain being abolished, they ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... the sciences of morals and politics, men are found far less tractable. To a certain degree, it is right and useful that this should be the case. Caution and investigation are a necessary armor against error and imposition. But this untractableness may be carried too far, and may degenerate into obstinacy, perverseness, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... also, my lord, find them much more easy and tractable, than the squeamish, fretful, discontented wretches, with which other ministers have had to do. There is but one expence that will be requisite. It is uniform, and capable of an easy calculation. In any great and ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... the new monarch thus appointed by divine dictation was completely under the control of the priests, and before long, if he failed to prove sufficiently tractable, they claimed the right to dispense with him altogether; they sent him an order to commit suicide, and he obeyed. The boundaries of this theocratic state varied at different epochs; originally it was confined to the region between the First Cataract and the mouth of the Blue Nile. The bulk of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... attempts against Austria had discouraged her. She thought that in losing her husband she had sacrificed enough for her country, and her one idea was to keep Emilio on good terms with the government. But the Verna blood was not tractable, and his father's death was not likely to make Emilio a good subject of the Estes. Not that he had as yet taken any active share in the work of the conspirators: he simply hadn't had time. At his trial there was nothing to show that he had been ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... front. She had heard Joan speak at Cambridge and was eager to secure her adherence, being wishful to surround herself with a group of young and good-looking women who should take the movement out of the hands of the "frumps," as she termed them. Her doubt was whether Joan would prove sufficiently tractable. She intended to offer her remunerative work upon the Nursing News without saying anything about the real motive behind, trusting to gratitude to ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... somewhat out of place, and lonesome, amongst his screaming companions from foreign lands. I purchased him for a trifle, and have never since regretted the bargain, for, he was a dear, bright little fellow; so tractable, too, and intelligent, that I was able to educate him to a pitch of excellence, which, I believe, no bullfinch in England ever reached, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... uttered the last word, when he found himself mounted upon a noble white steed with a black tail, the arrow in his left hand, and the spear in his right; and without his taking hold of the reins, which were ornamented with gold and precious stones, the tractable steed flew along the hill rapidly, and bore him safely ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... It was all I could do to keep them from shooting him, in the flush of success; but I persisted in my bargain, and Alfred sold him to me. Well, I took him in hand, and in one fortnight I had him tamed down as submissive and tractable ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... girl in the Fourth Book had an autograph album, even if it were only one made of foolscap and trimmed with tissue-paper such as Rosie made for Elizabeth. It proved far more interesting and twice as tractable as a beau. A new era dawned in Forest Glen, an age of learning, when one racked one's brains to compose a poem for a friend's book, and the ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... Bert believing it to be the best policy to be tractable, held out their guns with amiable smiles. They were snatched rudely from them. When the rifles were safely in the hands of the soldiers, a little fat man whom they had not seen before stepped out of the bushes, where he had evidently intended to remain until the prisoners ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... blamed, though hee reaped not the fruits answerable to his exquisite toyle and painefull manuring. [Footnote: Cultivation.] Two things hindered the same; first the barrennesse and unfit soyle: for howbeit I were of a sound and strong constitution, and of a tractable and yeelding condition, yet was I so heavie, so sluggish, and so dull, that I could not be rouzed (yea were it to goe to play) from out mine idle drowzinesse. What I saw, I saw it perfectly; and under this heavy, and as it were Lethe-complexion did I breed hardie imaginations, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... fearful imagination in her, not only happened this long-desired conversion of a maid so obstinately scornful and proud, but likewise all the women of Ravenna, being admonished by her example, grew afterward more tractable to men's honest motions than ever they showed themselves before. And let me make some use hereof, fair ladies, to you not to stand over-nicely conceited of your beauty and good parts when men solicit you with their best services. Remember then this disdainful ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... at once, and asked imploringly to be set free; promising to be quiet and tractable if my grandfather would give him a trial. This was promised him: his chains were removed the same day; and Jacob was ever after not only harmless and obedient, but also a very useful man in ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... submissive; their mothers, however, should not be inexorable. To make a young person tractable, she ought not to be made unhappy; to make her modest she ought not to be rendered stupid. On the contrary, I should not be displeased at her being permitted to use some art, not to elude punishment in case of disobedience, but to exempt herself from the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... religion, had already taken place within the city. Upon the 22d, possession had been taken of at least three churches. The senate had deputed pensionary Wesenbeck to expostulate with the ministers, for the magistrates were at that moment not able to command. Taffin, the Walloon preacher, had been tractable, and had agreed to postpone his exercises. He furthermore had accompanied the pensionary to the cathedral, in order to persuade Herman Modet that it would be better for him likewise to defer his intended ministrations. They had found that eloquent enthusiast ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... vast oak-forests, and here and there had a glimpse of the Theiss rushing along over its stony bed. Occasionally we caught sight of herds of buffaloes bathing in the river. It is difficult to imagine that these fierce-looking creatures, with their massive shaggy heads, can ever be tractable; yet they can be managed, though only by kindness—"the rod of correction they cannot bear." At length we reached the end of our railway journey. Marmaros Szigeth is the present terminus of the line, and I should say will very probably remain such; for ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... Council was issued for omitting the Queen's name from the Church Service, and other signs appeared, indicating a desire to withhold from her her queenly title. This made a temper, never remarkably tractable, not to be controlled by the dictates of prudence; the old spirit manifested itself in its most spirited form; and she lost no time in letting the world know that she was returning to England to obtain justice ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... and tractable guests. You will not object to my depriving you for a short time of her. May I ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... for they contain an antiseptic oil, and no leaves of spring are more tenderly green or in more ceaseless motion at the lightest breeze. Privet makes the last and least esteemed of these "one-tree" hedges. Yet it is the most tractable of all hedge material, and was almost invariably used to form the intricate "mazes," once a favourite toy of the ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... greed, independent members of parliament saw the crown as the only means for creative, effective leadership. For that reason George, after 1770, not only had a minister he could work with, he had a more tractable parliament aided by the complete disintegration of the Whigs and a hardening attitude toward the Americans whose actions bordered on disloyalty, ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... be considered at all after a little! She'll find plenty of men glad to wake the devil in her—just to keep her from yawning! But she's not very tractable even now, though her sins all lie ahead of her! She's altogether too cool on the surface for her make-up, but—well, full of suggestion, and one feels a volcano surging and steaming just below the mask she wears, and has an ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... although so kindly disposed, they did not follow us. Indeed, the natives generally, seemed to regard our progress with suspicion, and could not imagine why we were going up the Darling with so many drays and cattle. Our sheep had now become exceedingly tame and tractable; they followed the party like dogs, and I therefore felt satisfied that I had not done wrong in bringing them with me. We travelled on the 4th, over harder and more open ground than usual, having extensive polygonium flats to our right. There were belts of brush however on the plains, ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... and another cascade; and so on, out of view; and bridges and pools and resounding cascades said, plainly as inarticulate things can tell a story, the river was running by permission of a master, exactly as the master would have it, tractable as became a servant ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... exposed to all the weather, were housed the more tractable sheep, who had, without objection, bleated their way aboard docilely up the runway—behind their black ram ... that the cattle-boss had to help on a bit, by pulling him the few first yards ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... several visits from the Elector, who used every art of persuasion to make him divulge his secret. Seton obstinately refused either to communicate his secret, or to make any gold for the tyrant; on which he was stretched upon the rack, to see if the argument of torture would render him more tractable. The result was still the same, - neither hope of reward nor fear of anguish could shake him. For several months he remained in prison, subjected alternately to a sedative and a violent regimen, till his health broke, and he wasted ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... whom nothing of moment happened; and into whose narrow, protected life no jarring came that was not foreseen, and the shock of which was not deadened with solicitous care. In my manners I was always very tractable and submissive. That I may not make my recital tedious, I will note without continuity and without the proper transitions those moments which are impressed upon my mind because of their strangeness, those moments ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... hands. So new was this denial that even La Galissoniere himself, the foremost in making it, had declared without reservation two years before that Acadia was the entire peninsula.[122] "If," says a writer on the question, "we had to do with a nation more tractable, less grasping, and more conciliatory, it would be well to insist also that Halifax should be given up to us." He thinks that, on the whole, it would be well to make the demand in any case, in order to gain some other point by yielding this one.[123] It ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... disdain to love me, lady?" says he; "upon my word, you are too proud. Neither for flattery nor for prayer you will do my will? It is surely true that a woman's pride mounts the more one prays and flatters her; but whoever insults and dishonours her will often find her more tractable. I give you my word that if you do not do my will there soon will be some sword-play here. Rightly or wrongly, I will have your lord slain right here before your eyes." "Ah, sire," says Enide, "there is a better way than that you say. You would ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... characteristic Roman triumphs are the triumphs of a material civilisation.' Rome's role in the world was 'the absorption of outlying genius.' Themselves an unimaginative race with a language not too tractable to poetry, they made great poetry, and they made it of patient set purpose, of hard practice. I shall revert to this and maybe amplify reasons in another lecture. For the moment I content myself with stating ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... crews and for the vessels. That would increase our reputation among the Indian princes, who as yet have not dared repose entire confidence in us. The natives are sufficiently convinced that the Dutch are a good race, and more gentle and tractable than the Spaniards. "But," they say, "what good does that do us? The Dutch come here in passing, and only while on their journey. As soon as their vessels are laden, they return. After that we are abandoned ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... not reap fruits answerable to so exquisite a culture. Of this, two things were the cause: first, a sterile and improper soil; for, though I was of a strong and healthful constitution, and of a disposition tolerably sweet and tractable, yet I was, withal, so heavy, idle, and indisposed, that they could not rouse me from my sloth, not even to get me out to play. What I saw, I saw clearly enough, and under this heavy complexion nourished ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... cured by a few drops of corrective lotion. Daughters are trained by their mothers to leave no efforts untried, short of those absolutely immoral, in winning wealthy husbands. Usually the daughters are tractable enough. Rebellion is rare with them; why should it not be? Almost from infancy (unless when their parents have made fortunes with prodigious quickness) they are taught that matrimony is a mere hard ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... much more tractable. She had been christened Alberta, and was called Snooky. She promised to be pretty when she grew up, but was at this time in that distressing transitional stage between twelve and fifteen; was long-legged, and endowed with all the awkwardness of a colt. Her shoes were still ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... feared by the PARTY who govern the Royal Society, that its Council would not be sufficiently tractable, or whether the Admiralty determined to render that body completely subservient to them, or whether both these motives concurred, I know not; but, low as has been for years its character for independence, ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... Shrewdly, Sally watched the comedy; but for all her shrewdness she never quite understood the cause of Gaga's weakness. It was that Madam had insisted upon early obedience in days when Gaga's precocious ill-health made him pliable; and a docile child becomes a tractable boy and finally a man who needs constant guidance. Sally only saw the last stage. She nodded grimly to herself one day. "Wants somebody to look after him," she said. "Somebody to manage him." With one of her unerring supplements she added confidently: "I could manage him. And look after him, ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... become swollen. The monks of the missions, though ignorant of the works or even of the name of Rousseau, attempt to oppose this ancient system of physical education: but in vain. Man when just issued from the woods and supposed to be so simple in his manners, is far from being tractable in his ideas of beauty and propriety. I observed, however, with surprise, that the manner in which these poor children are bound, and which seems to obstruct the circulation of the blood, does not operate injuriously on their muscular movements. There is no race of men more ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... own, and the other belonging to a nobleman, upon each of which the slaves, in consequence of humane treatment, had increased by natural population only. Another effect of this humane treatment had been, that these slaves were among the most orderly and tractable in that island. From these and other instances he argued, that if the planters would, all of them, take proper care of their slaves, their humanity would be repaid in a few years, by a valuable increase in their property, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... resolved that she would do so. But she postponed the performance of her resolution from month to month and year to year, and finally it was not performed at all. Mary Erskine was so very useful at home, that a convenient time for sparing her never came. And then besides she was so kind, and so tractable, and so intent upon complying with all Mrs. Bell's wishes, in every respect, that Mrs. Bell was extremely averse to require any thing of her, which would mortify her, or ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... them; and, with the assistance of God's grace, which operated in their souls while he was working by outward means, he made so total a change in them, that they who formerly, in respect of their manners, were like wolves and tygers, now became tractable and mild, and innocent ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... or example, hurries them along. If these fears act, it is commonly on those, who have but little occasion to abstain from evil; they make honest hearts tremble, but fail of effect on the perverse. They torment sensible souls, but leave those that are hardened in repose; they disturb tractable, gentle minds, but cause no trouble to rebellious spirits: thus they alarm none but those who are already sufficiently alarmed; they coerce only those who are ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... broken. His subsequent actions proved that. He did not become docile by any means, but he was tractable, which is to say that he did as he was bidden with a minimum of urging; he was intelligent, divining, and learned quickly. Also, he respected his conqueror. If Dade or Malcolm came near him he gave unmistakable evidence of hostility; he even shied at sight of Betty, ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... attributes of leadership—were humiliated and discouraged for their uppityness. "I was astounded," he said, "by the willingness of the white officers who preceded us to place their own lives in a hazardous position in order to have tractable Negroes around them."[5-30] In short, the men of the 92d who fought and died bravely should be honored, but their unit, which on balance did not perform well, should be considered a (p. 134) ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... 142-207.—So much were the Dutch alienated from the common cause at this time, and set on acquisitions of their own, that they beheld with undisguised satisfaction the battle of Almanza, and disasters in Spain, as likely to render the Emperor more tractable in considering their proceedings in Flanders. "The States," says Marlborough, "received the news of this fatal stroke with less concern than I expected. This blow has made so little impression in the great towns in this country, that the generality of the people have shown satisfaction at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... traded to Holland and Portugal, and had a strong passion for women. This Jew was much attached to my person, but could not triumph over it; I resisted him better than the Bulgarian soldier. A modest woman may be ravished once, but her virtue is strengthened by it. In order to render me more tractable, he brought me to this country house. Hitherto I had imagined that nothing could equal the beauty of Thunder-ten-Tronckh Castle; but I found ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... that great gate of the city they are all making for? We will drop down there, just in front of them, and prevent their entrance. It will be better to keep the whole army outside the walls, if possible, for its absence and disorganization will make the rulers all the more tractable when we are ready to drop down into their city and make peace with them on our ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... many times with the pope, as well afore the coming of the emperour as sythen, yet I have not at any time found his Holiness more tractable or propense to show gratuity unto your Highness than now of late,—insomuch that he hath more freely opened his mind than he was accustomed, and said also that he would speak with me frankly without any observance or respect at all. At which time, I greatly ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... inclination for botany, and exalted her passion into a science. He filled the green-houses of Malmaison with the rarest plants, and taught Josephine at the same time their classifications and sexes, and she quickly proved herself to be a zealous and tractable pupil. She soon learned the names of the plants, as well as their family names, as classified by the naturalists; she became acquainted with their origin and their virtues, and was extremely sad and dejected when, in one of her families, a single species ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... common milkman and often they drove out in the milk-car to Carrickmines where the cows were at grass. While the men were milking the boys would take turns in riding the tractable mare round the field. But when autumn came the cows were driven home from the grass: and the first sight of the filthy cowyard at Stradbrook with its foul green puddles and clots of liquid dung and steaming bran troughs, ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... been at first to have two popular songstresses, they were soon dismayed at the fierce rivalry that sprang up between them and was fanned to flames by Master Handel himself, who now composed exclusively for Faustina. By increasing the salary of her more tractable rival they finally disposed of Cuzzoni, who thenceforth through her exaggerated demands, managed to disgust her patrons wherever she appeared. Her reckless extravagance left her wholly destitute after losing her voice and her husband, Signor Sandoni, a harpsichord-maker. She passed her last years ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... more tractable, then, than the church's," quoth William; and, turning his face toward the chair, he made an obeisance to Sir Thomas, ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... and the little fellow got it. I need not record the means I adopted to prevent the sullen-looking blockhead from carrying out his purpose of thrashing the little fellow. It may suffice to say that the means were thoroughly effectual; and that the blockhead was very meek and tractable for about six weeks after ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... attended at the Haud Hotel, 24th June, 1851, and engaged four of Mr. Williams' donkeys for the use of a party of ladies, who expressed themselves highly gratified. The animals were remarkably tractable, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... so tractable, so peaceable are these people," says Columbus in his journal, "that I swear to your Majesties, there is not in the world a better nation, nor a better land. They love their neighbours as themselves; and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... scourges in their fists do they give counsel to those who protect them from the cart and halter. In the name of the Lord, I must spit outright (or worse) upon these crackling bouncing firebrands, before I can make them tractable. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... His children haue the selfe same title of Paracoussy: The eldest is named Athore, a man, I dare say, perfect in beautie, wisedome, and honest sobrietie, shewing by his modest grauitie that he deserueth the name which be beareth, besides that he is gentle and tractable. After we had soiourned a certaine space with them, the Paracoussy prayed one of his sonnes to present vnto me a wedge of siluer, which hee did and that with a good wil: in recompence whereof I gave him a cutting ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... I shall at once have your teeth extracted, and your eyes gouged out.' His obstinacy and waywardness are, in every respect, out of the common. After he was allowed to leave school, and to return home, he became, at the sight of the young ladies, so tractable, gentle, sharp, and polite, transformed, in fact, like one of them. And though, for this reason, his father has punished him on more than one occasion, by giving him a sound thrashing, such as brought ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... conclude our remarks on Adams' narrative, by noticing only two important circumstances, respectively propitious and adverse to the progress of discovery and civilization, which is decidedly confirmed by the account of Adams, viz. the mild and tractable natures of the pagan negroes of Soudan, and their friendly deportment towards strangers, on the one hand; and, on the other, the extended and baneful range of that original feature of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... our Saviour said to His apostles. "For I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist or gainsay." Meledin became so mild and tractable, that, admiring the courage of Francis, he listened quietly to him for some days, and invited him to stay with him. The man of God said: "If you and your people will be converted, I will remain for the love of Jesus Christ. And if ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... hear so good an account of his little girl, but that he had expected everything amiable from the sweetness of her disposition, adding, 'It would be very strange if she had behaved otherwise with you as, I assure you, she is at all times equally tractable and engaging.' ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... them by-and-by." So far as Buddha is concerned this promise is kept; but in relation to Confucius it is broken. Probably the Chinese sage was found too tough and embarrassing a subject, and so it was thought expedient to ignore him for the more tractable prophet of India, whose doctrine of Transmigration might with a little sophistry be made to resemble the Christian doctrine of Immortality, and his Nirvana the Kingdom ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... multiplication table, that had been the bane of his school life, up to date, and which, under the stupid management of Amos Waughops and the over-wrought Grube methods of Miss Stone, had floored him in every tussle he had had with it, now grew tractable and docile, a creature subservient to his will and quick to ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... hovering at a considerable height in the air; with its keen vision detects its small prey half hidden in the grass or stubble, and then with lightning rapidity, drops like a stone upon it, and bears it away. I have kept kestrels and sparrow-hawks and tamed them; and the former will become tractable and almost affectionate, but the latter is a winged Ishmaelite, and very treacherous, and if allowed a little liberty, it generally ends in his ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... are probably more tractable and less disposed to the emotions that lead to criminal acts than are the more intelligent. Their crimes are especially noticed because they seem to be without any serious motive and often shockingly brutal. City life most readily uncovers ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... spirits, and also by bad. One of these latter, a little one, made a deep impression on me. His particular mission seemed to lie in his power to present before me, within a flaming frame, pictures of whatever I wished to behold. He was wonderfully tractable at first, and showed me whatever I asked for,—my mother, Bella, Nicholas, and many of my friends,—but by degrees he insisted on showing what I did not wish to see, and among these latter pictures were fearful massacres, and scenes of torture and bloodshed. I have a faint recollection ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... merely serving as a compulsory savings bank. Many salutary laws benefit the Malay, possessing a notable share of tropical slackness, and the lack of initiative partly due to a servile past under the sway of tyrannical native princes. The little brown people of Java, eminently gentle and tractable, are honest enough for vendors of eatables to place a laden basket at the roadside for the refreshment of the traveller, who drops a small coin into a bamboo tube fastened to a tree for this purpose. The customary payment is never omitted, and at evening the owner of the basket collects ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... memory, of their daily intimacy, of the visits that they paid to each other, of that unknown existence which was all the more inaccessible, all the more painful to me from being, conversely, so familiar, so tractable to this happy girl who let her message brush past me without my being able to penetrate its surface, who flung it on the air with a light-hearted cry: letting float in the atmosphere the delicious attar which that message had distilled, by touching them with precision, from certain invisible points ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust |
