"Tether" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doing I cannot divine. I am ready to believe any mortal thing except that Louis Napoleon has taken you away to make paraffin oil for the Tuileries. I don't believe that he is supreme ruler, or that he can go an inch beyond his tether. Well, as I cannot conceive what you are about, I must tell you what we are doing, and we are just trudging up the Zambesi as if there were no steam and no locomotive but shank's nag ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... with a perfect confidence on the part of his master of finding him, again, at the expiration of a few hours. The old man strongly remonstrated against this arrangement, and more than once hinted that the knife was much more certain than the tether, but the petitions of Obed, aided perhaps by the secret reluctance of the trapper to destroy the beast, were the means of saving its life. When Asinus was thus secured, and as his master believed secreted, the whole party proceeded to find some place where ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... frosty. A faint silvery vapor stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the packsaddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the 10 length of the tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the color of the sky, as we call the void ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... thinks he is himself. But by the time he is fairly under full headway, his rope tightens up with a jerk, and away he goes heels over head. The only difference is, that Halicarnassus knows the length of his tether, and always fetches up in time to escape an overturn; but other people do not know it, and they imagine he is going pell-mell into infidelity. Now I was determined to have none of this trash in a steamboat. One has no desire to encounter superfluous risks ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... in for it now, to the whole length of the tether," he told himself, as he stepped briskly forward toward the place where he knew the boat to be; and he was halfway across the glade when suddenly from one of the groups of men near a fire, one of them ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... opposite side of the clearing where the trees approached closer to the kid. To leap quickly to the little animal's side and cut the tether that held him would be the work of but a moment. In that moment Numa might charge, and then there would be scarce time to regain the safety of the trees, yet it might be done. Meriem had escaped from closer quarters than that many ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... defect, fault, foible, infirmity. Famous, renowned, celebrated, noted, distinguished, eminent, illustrious. Fashion, mode, style, vogue, rage, fad. Fast, rapid, swift, quick, fleet, speedy, hasty, celeritous, expeditious, instantaneous. Fasten, tie, hitch, moor, tether. Fate, destiny, lot, doom. Fawn, truckle, cringe, crouch. Feign, pretend, dissemble, simulate, counterfeit, affect, assume. Fiendish, devilish, diabolical, demoniacal, demonic, satanic. Fertile, fecund, fruitful, prolific. Fit, suitable, appropriate, proper. Flame, blaze, flare, glare, glow. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... gave, already, to ceaseless applications, more than he could positively spare. So every now and then she relinquished in discouragement her aspirations, and lived on, from day to day, as other girls did, getting what pleasure she could; hampered continually, however, with the old, inevitable tether, of "can't afford." ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the power of flight and get away. This was a thought under which he could not lie still. In his pocket he always carried a bunch of stout salmon-twine and a bit of copper rabbit-wire, apt to be needed in a hundred forest emergencies. He resolved to catch the young eagle and tether ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... that nothing was unduly soiled. The morning air was clear and frosty, and had enabled him to dispense with the costly comfort of a cab. Mr. Maule hated cabs in the morning,—preferring never to move beyond the tether of his short daily constitutional walk. A cab for going out to dinner was a necessity;—but his income would not stand two or three cabs a day. Consequently he never went north of Oxford Street, or east of the theatres, or beyond Eccleston Square towards the river. The regions of South Kensington ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... expectantly at Archie, as a man gazes at some favourite dog whom he calls upon to perform a trick. But Archie had reached the end of his tether. The hand that had twiddled so often and so bravely lay inert beside his trouser-leg, twitching feebly. Archie ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... horses back with fire, and the colonel, with the help of his officers, formed them rapidly to meet the attack. The house, the stable and the corn crib were filled with sharpshooters and others lay down among the trees or behind any shelter they could find. A number were detailed rapidly to tether the horses, and make them secure against a second fright. Warner was sent to the men guarding the entrance, Pennington to those at the exit, while Dick was kept with the colonel, who crouched, after his arrangements were made, in a little clump ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in the street alone, Outside a house, on the pavement-stone, I sang to her, as we'd sung together On former eves ere I felt her tether. - Above the door of green by me Was she, her casement seen by me; But she would not heed What I melodied In my soul's sore need - ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... it was to write a simple note to Madame Lamotte when he reached his Club warned him still further that he was at the end of his tether. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... they obeyed, Michael strained backward in a paroxysm of rage, making fierce short jumps to the end of the tether as he snarled and growled with utmost ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... little sigh, the collie curled up in a miserable heap on the stony ground, the shortness of his tether making even this effort at repose anything but ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... that he had a kind of affection for the old man, such as a dog will sometimes have for a master who beats him, or a woman for a drunken husband. I believe the moment came when he simply found himself at the end of his tether of endurance—and he just did for him. His grief, when it was all over, was real enough. Nobody could doubt that. In fact, it was so evidently genuine that the theory I am putting forward now only came to ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... animal had disappeared. We returned to the dead tetel and to our captive baboons; but times had changed since we had left them. One had taken advantage of our absence, and, having bitten through his tether, he had escaped; the other had used force instead of cunning, and, in attempting to tear away from confinement, had strangled himself with the slip-knot ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... What should your chamber do? 160 —With all its rarities that ache In silence while day lasts, but wake At night-time and their life renew, Suspended just to pleasure you Who brought against their will together These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether That dumb they look: your harp, believe, With all the sensitive tight strings Which dare not speak, now to itself 170 Breathes slumberously, as if some elf Went in and out the chords, his wings Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze, As an angel may, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... was a plain case," said the Squire. "Take your pleasure, Nellie; I won't tether you. What do you want to do, child? I take it, you belong to me till you belong ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... like. She's got a still tongue in her head." Peter senior gasped out his words with the desperate air of a man at the end of his tether. "Only go now—go, and let my head rest. You and I can discuss all these things later. That'll ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... the little craft, with only her deck and conning-tower showing, rode lightly at the end of her tether, while Ross and his men—all but one, to watch—climbed aboard and ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... To tether a cow, tie her by one hind leg, making the rope fast above the fetlock joint, and protecting the limb with a piece of an old bootleg or similar thing. The knot must be one that will not slip; regular fetters of iron bound with ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... frosty. A faint silvery vapor stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the color of the sky, as we call the void of space, where it showed a reddish gray behind ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... with Ned Burnleigh, and daily imbibation of that young man's stories of his wonderful conquests among young women of peerless beauty and exalted social station confirmed this feeling, and led him to wish for at least such slackening of the betrothal tether as would permit excursions into a charmed realm like that where ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... dogs. A loud bellow was the response, which caused Reynard to take himself off in a hurry. A moment more, and the mother turkey would have shared the fate of the geese. There she lay at the end of her tether, with extended wings, bitten and rumpled. The young ones, roosting in a row on the fence near by, had taken flight ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... end of his long life. And he knew he would be slipping the tether of life and going out and up and in to the real thing of life. And I think John was a bit troubled. Not because he was going to die. This never troubles the man who knows Jesus. The Jesus-touch overcomes the natural twinges ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... opposite her. His bared head revealed a shock of exquisitely slicked-back red hair. His face was pleasantly ugly—nondescript, yet unmistakably the face of a gentleman and a sportsman. His brown suit was well cut, but perilously near the end of its tether. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... of Ernst Krause's "Erasmus Darwin", with a notice by Charles Darwin. "I am EXTREMELY glad that you approve of the little 'Life' of our Grandfather, for I have been repenting that I ever undertook it, as the work was quite beyond my tether." (To Mr Francis ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... set you free; for I see your dress is caught in the window. When it's once out, I'll shut the window, and you can call the porter to raise it." He leans forward over her chair, and while she shrinks back the length of her tether, he tugs at the window-fastening. "I can't get at it. Would you be so good as to stand up,—all you can?" Miss Galbraith stands up, droopingly, and Mr. Richards makes a movement towards her, and then falls back. "No, that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... thy tether! for Janina makes A grave for thee where every turret quakes, And thou shalt drop below To where the spirits, to a tree enchained, Will clutch thee, there to be 'mid them retained For all to-come ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... had a beef roast, we'd put it in a sealed container of clear plastic," Gimp laughed. "Set it turning, outside the bubb, on a swiveled tether wire. It would rotate for hours like on a spit—almost no friction. Rig some mirrors to concentrate the sun's heat. Space Force ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... age and size. He seemed like the ancient, eldest Evil. Certainly his kind have left horrible unconscious memories in all warm-blooded life. When we dragged him down into the draw, Dude sprang off to the end of his tether and shivered all over—would n't let us ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... heavens forbid! Is it me stay here all night? No, your honor: I tether the boat at siven o'hlyock, and lave Brimstone Billy—God forgimme!—to take care of it ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... we use it. One of the most frequently exercised of my magisterial functions is to certify conscientious objections to the Vaccination Act. I do it against the grain. A doctor told me the other day that he believed smallpox had reached the end of its tether, and was on the ebb. I am sure I hope so, lest there should be one day a bad outbreak among these liberty men. I must have signed away the chances of hundreds of children, who, by the way, are not of an age to consent. I never fail to ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... as expert as his teacher. Jim told them the best way to camp out on the plains at night, how to make their fires, and warned them to be careful not to set the grass ablaze in dry weather. He also showed them how to tether their horses, the best way of adjusting a saddle, and instructed them in the art of finding their way at night by ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... "it is a hard thing; my friend here has ruined me," but, you should add, "I have also ruined him." If you had said in the first place, "I will accommodate you, but I never indorse without taking ample security," he could not have gone beyond the length of his tether, and he would never have been tempted away from his legitimate business. It is a very dangerous thing, therefore, at any time, to let people get possession of money too easily; it tempts them to hazardous ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... near the end of his tether that the Major has barely time to say, "Honour bright, Colonel," when the bronchial storm bursts. It may be that the last new anodyne, which is warranted to have all the virtues and none of the ill-effects of opium, had also come to the end of its tether. Mrs. Fenwick came quickly ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... gash guidwife, [jolly, sensible] An' sits down by the fire, Syne draws her kebbuck an' her knife; [Then, cheese] The lasses they are shyer. The auld guidmen, about the grace, Frae side to side they bother, Till some are by his bonnet lays, An' gi'es them't like a tether, [rope] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... it that way," he said. "But I'm nearing the end of my tether, Lucy, and increasing age makes me restless. I want change of scene—and change of surroundings. I am thoroughly tired of my ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... to the longest tether; and as no officer would remain in the ship, and the desertion of the men became so extensive, that a fine frigate lay useless and unmanned, the government at last perceived the absolute necessity of depriving of command one who could not command himself. The ship was paid ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... notion that the girl had not seen him. Before she got out, when she put her hand to tether the boat, she felt his hand gently taking the rope from her and fell back with a cry ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... charming occupation. We viewed, with much serene disdain, The smoke and scandal of Cockaigne, Its dupes and dancers, knaves and nuns, Possess'd by blues, or bored by duns. With souls released from earthly tether, We gazed upon the moon together. Our sympathy, from night to noon, Rose crescent with that crescent moon, We lived and loved in cloudless climes, And died ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... lustrum mirabile the daily press has taken the Empire by storm. Some twenty or more journals have sprung up under the shadow of the throne, and they are not gagged. They go to the length of their tether in discussing affairs of state—notwithstanding cautionary hints. Refraining from open attack, they indulge in covert criticism of ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... content with the little piece of country we found recently, we have since been up the Hurunui to its source, and seen the water flowing down the Teramakaw (or the "Tether-my-cow," as the Europeans call it). We did no good, and turned back, partly owing to bad weather, and partly from the impossibility of proceeding farther with horses. Indeed, our pack-horse had rolled over more than once, frightening ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... particularly struck by the great success of the Rochdale experiment—an experiment begun and carried out, as Mr. Holyoake has set forth at length, by weavers, who, being nearly at the end of their tether, and worn out with distress, had associated themselves into a company under the name of the 'Equitable Pioneers of Rochdale.' He looked thoroughly into the history of this experiment, and having convinced himself that the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... on Serchio's stream, Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, The helm sways idly, hither and thither; Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, And the oars, and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast, 5 Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... much too sagacious a man, even if he were rich enough, to play; but for him, indeed, some say the Squire would have come to the end of his tether before this. He manages every thing at Crompton, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... "The rascals will reach the end of their tether some time, and we can't prove who worked ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... bade me bring her, and the duck with the golden neck, and the salmon with the silver sides, to his cottage; if I shall catch them, I know not. But carry you the roe to the back of the cottage, and tether her so ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... to condone my offence. At any rate, I have risked it." She laughed again, more gayly, and recovered herself in a cheerfuller and easier mood. "Well, the long and the short of it is that I have come to the end of my tether. I have tried, as truly as I believe any woman ever did, to do my share, with money and with work, to help make life better for those whose life is bad; and though one mustn't boast of good works, I may say that I have been pretty thorough, and, if ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... Kingsland, and you own a fine fortune and a haughty, handsome wife, and G. W. Parmalee's no more than the mud under your feet. Very well—we'll see! 'Every dog has his day,' and 'the longest lane has its turning,' and you're near about the end of your tether, and George Parmalee has you and your fine lady under his thumb—under his thumb—and he'll crush you, sir—yes, by Heaven, he'll crush you, and strike ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... Pirate Tom a note—colonial for a sovereign—that the engines would blow up, and the latter laid on the chance that the rebel craft would spend herself kicking at the bank. After churning up the mud, plunging at the bank, and straining at her tether for an hour or so, the Lily quieted down, all her steam having worked off. So the Pirate won and pocketed the engineer's note; and then the party adjourned on board again, to resume their ordinary avocation ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... horse go free, or tether him to a pine; in either case he will not wander far," said the girl. "I fear my fellows have gone off to lay in provisions. We have taken a day or two more on the way than we had counted on, so that to-night's feast makes an end of our store. But still there is enough for ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... bonheur!" she said, smiling back at him. "We will break our journey here. You can tether 'Modestina' to that stump. I must do a rough sketch of this, and put in notes for colouring, while you sit beside me and smoke, and talk. When it's complete, I'll present it to you as a memento of to-day. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... answered this doughty partizan, 'I wasna bred at sae short a tether, I was brought up to hack and manger. I was bred a horse-couper, sir; and if I might live to see you at Whitson-tryst, or at Stagshawbank, or the winter fair at Hawick, and ye wanted a spanker that would lead the field, I'se be caution I would serve ye ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... boards shod with a pair of old shoes, or to get one's backbone gently polished by a hearty dressing with a stick. In one word, you have been a prodigal with money, you have ordered and been obeyed—have been steeped to the lips in enjoyment; while I have dragged my tether after me, have been commanded and have obeyed, and have drudged my life away. Well, although I may seem of such trifling importance beside you, monseigneur, I do declare to you, that the recollection of what ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... living tether The prince and priest and thrall, Bind all our lives together, Smite us and save us all; In ire and exultation Aflame with faith, and free, Lift up a living nation, A single ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... rose, rocked and tilted Like a beaker in the hand, Till the moon-hung tide broke tether And stampeded in ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... sunshine; and in his ears was the drone of countless insects. This was Saturday. Another full day and would come Monday. Monday! He had not thought of it until now. He suddenly felt the uselessness of his bonds. And yet he could feel the stretching of his tether. Was everybody fastened to a tether? Was there no such thing as freedom? Singularly enough, this field in all its idleness, with all its heat, with its droning and buzzing, suggested freedom. In fact, the feel of the entire country, this ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... about the meeting house before and after meeting, and even during meeting, and that in later years the resident of Site No. 32, who owned valuable horses, used to exhibit a blooded stallion on a tether, leading him up and down to the admiration of the horse-owners present, and ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... the fact that on several occasions her sang-froid has been severely tested. To put the matter in a nutshell, she is a changed woman. But what impresses me most is the fact that when she took to your method she thought herself at the end of her tether, and in the event of its doing her no good had decided to kill herself (she ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... and a means of effectually throwing over all restraint, I did not view it at all in this light. My love of Art was very genuine and deep-rooted; the tobacconist's betting-book was now as nothing, and a certain Botticelli in the National Gallery held me in tether. And when I look back and consider the past, I am forced to admit that I might have grown up in less fortunate circumstances, for even the studio, with its dissipations—and they were many—was not unserviceable; it developed the natural man, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... shocked to find a peculiar stiffness and hardness about these men. When I pictured to them the distress of our people in case this strike became a reality, they sat unmoved and apparently indifferent to the seriousness of the whole bad business. I am at the end of my tether, and I do not know ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... nasal puppyish whine and the protest of a straining chain. Had it been daylight, an observer would have seen a woolly grey ball with a pointed nose and a pair of sharp eyes tugging at the end of that tether; but as it was, two gleaming eyes, very close together, were all that were visible. It was to the owner of these eyes that the man gave the scraps from his lunch remaining in the saddlebag. For it, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... bounces in the ante-chamber, and concluded, when poor Florence was at last asleep, and dreaming of the rosy children opposite, by scratching open her bedroom door: rolling up his bed into a pillow: lying down on the boards, at the full length of his tether, with his head towards her: and looking lazily at her, upside down, out of the tops of his eyes, until from winking and winking he fell asleep himself, and dreamed, with gruff barks, of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Three Rivers we came to a horse tethered among the trees by the road-side; of course, on hearing and seeing the automobile and while we were yet some distance away, it broke its tether and was off on a run up the road, which meant that unless some one intervened it would fly on ahead for miles. Happily, in this instance some men caught the animal after it had gone a mile or two, we, meanwhile, creeping on slowly so as not to frighten it more. ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... told him that the loop knot had untied itself, as he hoped it would. Holding on to the sheet line with one hand, he rapidly passed the rope once under and through. Ross had not learned his knots from the Mississippi sailors for nothing, and as the boat came to the end of its tether and jerked on the line, the boy had the satisfaction of seeing the knot tighten. With the strain off, it was easy to take another half-hitch around the line, and the knot was secure beyond peradventure. He climbed aboard, raised a cheery cry to Anton, and commenced to pull the boat hand ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... is worked out. I have written ghost stories for years now, serious and comic, and I am to-day at the end of my tether—compelled to move forward ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... About the same time Sergeant Niblett, in charge of the bullocks, came to inform me that these animals were looking very ill, and could not drink the mud remaining in the pond. At the same time intelligence was brought me that four of the horses had broken their tether ropes during the night, and that William Baldock had been absent in search of them on foot, from an early hour in the morning. I immediately sent back the whole of the bullocks to Nyingan, with a dray containing the empty harness ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... speaking of his recent contributions to the "London Magazine,"—"In the next number I shall figure as a theologian, and have attacked my late brethren, the Unitarians. What Jack-Pudding tricks I shall play next I know not; I am almost at the end of my tether." Talfourd, of course, does not publish the article, or even give its title, which is, "Unitarian Protests." Those who would see how well or how ill Elia figures ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... think that's always such a bad plan—for the man." He waited for her to speak; but she had gone the length of her tether in this direction. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... must forget what's past and go to work. I'll tether the burros out of the roadside while you clean up their shed; and when they come back to find it all sweet and white, like Pepita herself, they'll be as pleased as Punch. Wonder we never thought of having the old stable at ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... the donkeys up the slope," replied Dr. Cairn, "where those blocks of granite are, and tether them there." ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... the Fisherman's Children, after Collins, by C. Rolls, is exquisitely delicate; and the Gleaner, by Finden, after Holmes, has a lovely set of features, which art and fashion may court in vain. But we have outrun our tether, and must halt here. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... longing to hear about Phoebe! If you had only come, I could have contrived her going to the Zauberflote with us last night, but I didn't know the length of her tether.' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... paradoxical loss of desire now to land the tuna, the change in my feeling of elation and thrill to wonder, disgust, and utter weariness of spirit and body—all these warned me that I was at the end of my tether, and if anything could be done ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... fear, their tails between their legs, and their lips drawn back, revealing their fangs, in a sort of snarling grin. Leo was the only animal who did not seem very greatly perturbed, but even he was awake, and lay crouching at the extreme end of his tether, his eyes lambently aglow, and his tail softly beating ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... entered Salem, Once in Moab bullied Balaam, Once by Apuleius staged He the pious much enraged. And, again, his head, as beaver, Topped the neck of Nick the Weaver. Omar saw him (minus tether— Free and wanton as the weather: Knowing naught of bit or spur) Stamping over Bahram-Gur. Now, as Altgeld, see him joy As Governor ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... Nothing but the general hard times and hay shortage. Every farmer at the end of his tether, or almost there, no one with as much as a wisp of hay to spare, and only a few likely to make ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... prisons sneers at them, and sits undisturbed. Let air and sunshine come to outer courts and clean-swept cells; the star-chambers and the secret dungeons remain. Let the outraged creatures out, to stray to the extent of their honor-tether; they are slaves and prisoners still. There were compassionate reformers in Ancient Egypt, who tried to make the lot of the captive Israelites easier; but the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and God Himself must intervene before he would let the people ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... listened avidly to the speeches of his grandfather in the courtrooms of the mountain counties. And when Walter Scott Harkins was only a strip of a lad he rode the unbeaten paths to courts of law with his law books in his saddlebags. If the day were fair he'd get off his horse, tether it to a tree and climb high on the ridge. There with statute or law reporter in hand he would read aloud for hours. Again he'd close the book and with head erect, hands behind him, young Harkins would repeat as much as he could remember of the text. Often he waxed ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... for a man to lie down in, and full of holes bored in the bottom and sides. He investigated the ship-builders' big grind-stone, which was nearly as tall as a man. There were bent planks lying there, with nails in them as big as the parish constable's new tether-peg at home. And the thing that ship was tethered to—wasn't it a real ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Jumna flows between And from Chakrata's hills afar Mussoorie's vale is seen. The mountains sing together In cloud or sunny weather, The Jumna, through their tether, Foams white or ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... his whole string of phrases, and Monsieur Vernier let him go the length of his tether, listening with apparent interest which completely deceived him. But after the word "guarantee" Vernier paid no further attention to our traveller's rhetoric, and turned over in his mind how to play ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... patience had reached its tether. She was a stout, heavily made woman, and when she walked into the center of Polly's ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... fed among the graves a pony, the companion of his journey, whose extreme whiteness, as well as its projecting bones and hollow eyes, indicated its antiquity. It was harnessed in the most simple manner, with a pair of branks, a hair tether, or halter, and a sunk, or cushion of straw, instead of bridle and saddle. A canvass pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for the purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else he might have occasion to carry with him. Although I had never seen the old man ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that everybody should know how to solve. The goat is placed in a half-acre meadow, that is in shape an equilateral triangle. It is tethered to a post at one corner of the field. What should be the length of the tether (to the nearest inch) in order that the goat shall be able to eat just half the grass in the field? It is assumed that the goat can feed to the ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... Only the day before she had fainted suddenly, and, honestly glad of an excuse, the local doctor had ordered her to bed forthwith. Valerie had obeyed dumbly. She knew that she had come to the end of her tether, and so to that of her wit; and since, to deal at all hopefully with Anthony's return to consciousness, her understanding must be on tiptoe, she knew that she was better away. If the change was to come before she was fit for duty, it could not be helped. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... the anecdotes they relate are not far removed from the Chinese-like tale—given, if my memory is correct, in Herodotus—of the Athenian soldier, who went into action with a small grapnel or anchor attached by a chain to his waist, that he might tether himself out to resist the shock of the charging foe. A flagrant example is the story which describes how the white man sees an Indian very far off making insulting gestures; how he forthwith loads his rifle with two bullets—which ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... would have called very sufficient small-beer with a peasant's wife, the following description of the fairy host may come more near the idea he has formed of that invisible company:—Bessie Dunlop declared that as she went to tether her nag by the side of Restalrig Loch (Lochend, near the eastern port of Edinburgh), she heard a tremendous sound of a body of riders rushing past her with such a noise as if heaven and earth would come together; that the sound swept past her and seemed to rush into the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... together together; embody, reembody^; roll into one. attach, fix, affix, saddle on, fasten, bind, secure, clinch, twist, make fast &c adj.; tie, pinion, string, strap, sew, lace, tat, stitch, tack, knit, button, buckle, hitch, lash, truss, bandage, braid, splice, swathe, gird, tether, moor, picket, harness, chain; fetter &c (restrain) 751; lock, latch, belay, brace, hook, grapple, leash, couple, accouple^, link, yoke, bracket; marry &c (wed) 903; bridge over, span. braze; pin, nail, bolt, hasp, clasp, clamp, crimp, screw, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... though, I vow, I thought when you city ladies courted and married, and all that, you put feeling out of the question. But I want to know whether you are really affronted, or only pretend to be so? 'Cause, if you are certainly right down affronted, I am at the end of my tether; Jessamy didn't tell me what to say ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... seen that the danger line had been reached, for he was erect again, and pulling ferociously at his tether, gnashing his ugly white teeth together with an ominous sound, and showing his ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... tethered to a stake at the beginning of the performance, and the little ferret-like enemy of the snake family kept tugging at his tether and sniffing suspiciously about whenever snakes appeared in the conjurer's manipulations. He bad promised me a fight between the mongoose and a snake, and before presenting his little brass bowl for backsheesh he holds out a four-foot snake toward the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... personal servitude, while your colleague is allowed purchaseable service. Sleep over the same, and repeat the foregoing regime on the second day; and, filled with the happy influences so much cause for gratitude must inspire, give reflection her full tether, and sleep over her again. On the third morning, let your heart and brain dictate a despatch upon the subject of your reflections to all public servants in slave-holding communities, and, while repudiating slavery, you will find ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... treated with little respect at the restaurants. The people evidently did not think that they were married; because they were affectionate and civil to one another. She had borne it in silence for a long time, but now she had come to the end of her tether. And yet this was nothing compared to what they were saying ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... thither past thy head Because the door opes, like that child, I know, For I should have thy gracious face instead, Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together, And lift them up to pray, and gently tether Me, as thy lamb ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... phrase. It had been said that evening a hundred times—and Scarron was at his hundredth bon mot on the subject; he was very nearly at the end of his humoristic tether, but ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... celebrated in literature, hanging a few feet away, seems factitious when compared with this portrait; I have heard that tedious smile excused on the ground that she is smiling at the nonsense she hears talked about her; that hesitating smile which held my youth in tether has come to seem but a grimace; and the pale mountains no more mysterious than a globe or map seen from a little distance. The Mona Liza is a sort of riddle, an acrostic, a poetical decoction, a ballade, a rondel, a villanelle or ballade with double burden, a sestina, that is what it ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... in the week when those most gallant volunteers entitled the "Yorkshire Invincibles" came down for their annual practice of skilled gunnery against the French. Their habit was to bring down a red cock, and tether him against a chalky cliff, and then vie with one another in shooting at him. The same cock had tested their skill for three summers, but failed hitherto to attest it, preferring to return in a hamper to his hens, with a story ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... said Gudbrand, 'at the worst, I can only go back home again with my cow. I've both stable and tether for her, I should think, and the road is no farther out than in'; and with that he began to toddle home ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... dispersed when I arose; the sunbeams glittered on the stream, and the purity and transparency of the tether added new charms to the woody eminences around. Such was the clearness of the air that even objects on the distant mountains were distinguishable. I felt quite revived by the exhilarating prospect, and walked in the splendour of sunshine to the porticos beneath the famous gallery; then ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... yon tether," he said to Whittal Ring, who at the moment was passing towards the stables; "here is one wild as the most untamed of thy colts. Man is of our nature and of our spirit, let him be of what color it may have pleased Providence to stamp his features; but he who would have a young savage in his ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... cage the many-facultied and mightily intelligenced spirit wastes its excruciating immortality in varying and ever varying still, always beginning and monotonously completing, like a caged beast upon its iron tether, a threefold movement, which is not three movements successively, but one triple movement all at once. In rage it would fain get at God to seize Him, dethrone Him, murder Him, and destroy Him; ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... she sat down under an olive tree which grew before the door, and fixed her whole intelligence in all its force upon the black-and-white cow, the only living thing in sight, which was browsing in the space allowed by a short tether. So great did the responsibility appear to her that she grew anxious, and by dint of earnest gazing at the cow came to believe that there was something wrong with it. In truth the poor beast had exhausted all the grass within its reach, ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... is, it appears, no probable chance of his recovery. Sir Omicron Pie is, I believe, at present with him. At any rate the medical men here have declared that one or two days more must limit the tether of his mortal coil. I sincerely trust that his soul may wing its flight to that haven where it may forever be at rest and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... silent. Madame de Pastourelles, feeling that for the moment she also had come to the end of her tether, fell into a reverie, from which she was presently roused by finding Fenwick standing before her, ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brigands' lair, for the brigands' lair, where, unless you first take and put me in fetters, I intend to cut the throat of every man that I meet. Yes, a hundred murders will I commit, for all folk will be the same to me, and not a soul will I spare. Aye, the end of my tether is reached, so take and fetter ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... in this squadron of Recalde. The Armada was minded to smoke us out of Plymouth; and God's grace it was they tried not: but their orders from home are too strait, and so the slaves fight like a bull in a tether, no farther than their rope, finding thus the devil a hard master, as do most in the end. They cannot compass our quick handling and tacking, and take us for very witches. So far so good, and better to come. You and I know the length of ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... behind at the previous night's camp. About an hour afterwards, McGorrerey discovered a piece of folded-up paper on the nipple of the gun, and on examination this proved to be an insolent note, addressed to his leader, stating that he had gone back, taking with him a horse, saddle, bridle, tether-rope, and sundry other things not belonging to him. Mr. Stuart had been much dissatisfied with his conduct for some days, and had made up his mind to send him back, believing that he was doing everything in his power to discourage the party, and bring ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... were only beginning to mount the steps as Drake and Frobisher reached the top and darted in through the great doorway. Drake was by this time dreadfully out of breath, and gaspingly protested that he had come to the end of his tether; nevertheless he managed to muster sufficient strength to jog along close behind his friend. At their last hiding-place they had sought concealment aloft, but Frobisher decided now to take refuge below, since the palace appeared to ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... reply, "merely tether her to the galleon as you would a horse and when we are ready to load, haul her to a level with the deck and then with a full cargo of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... comrade, when we tramped God's land together, And we sang the old, old Earth-song, for our youth was very sweet; When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether, Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... estimable father. By the time he came back to the house on Tether-down, Harry was resolved to enlist under the ambiguous ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... to life, lay on in bed. She heard the summons, was strong to answer it; but was held back as by a high surrounding wall. She was like a tied bird, unfolding wings with the heart to soar, and continually brought down by the shortness of her tether. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the Minor's tether, Free to mortgage or to sell, Wild as wind, and light as feather, Bid the sons ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... wagon-train one of those universally despised but useful animals, a donkey, the private property of a man from Iowa, who expected to make it of service in California. The animal was tethered near the camp, and was generally quiet. But to-night he was wakeful, and managed about midnight to slip his tether, and wandered off. Peabody did not observe his escape. His vigilance was somewhat relaxed, and with his head down he gave way to mournful reflection. Suddenly the donkey, who was now but a few rods distant, uplifted his voice in a roar which the night stillness made louder than ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... less necessary is faith on the other side. The recipient must exercise trust. This lame man, no doubt, like the other that Paul looked at in a similar case, had faith to be healed. That was the length of his tether. He believed that he was going to have his legs made strong, and they were made strong accordingly. If he had believed more, he would have got more. Let us hope that he did get more, because he believed more, at a later ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... stock doth prove, Wealth cannot make a life, but love. Nor art thou so close-handed, but canst spend, (Counsel concurring with the end), As well as spare; still conning o'er this theme, To shun the first and last extreme; Ordaining that thy small stock find no breach, Or to exceed thy tether's reach; But to live round, and close, and wisely true To thine own self, and known to few. Thus let thy rural sanctuary be Elysium to thy wife and thee; There to disport your selves with golden measure; For seldom ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... generally compensated by a proportionally increased activity of brain, is too unimportant to enter into the calculations of the great King Laissez-faire. Well, my dear Society, it is you that suffer for the mistake, after all, more than we. If you do tether your cleverest artisans on tailors' shopboards and cobblers' benches, and they—as sedentary folk will—fall a thinking, and come to strange conclusions thereby, they really ought to be much more thankful to you than you are to them. If Thomas Cooper ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... attached, in like manner, to our stalwart alcalde. Long before we reached the middle of the stream, notwithstanding I carried a large stone under each arm by way of ballast, I was swept from my feet out to the length of my tether, and thus towed over by our guide. When all were snugly across, the laughter was loud and long over the ridiculous figure which everybody had cut in everybody's eyes, except his own. H. immortalized the transit in what the French call un ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... her coming nigh And could not well forbear to cry, Your donkey you must tether. My dainty maiden, Marian, Tether you here your donkey, Jan, ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... brief respite. But, since Simon went on for a space and then wheeled, it also cut him off from the coulee. He tore toward the shack, now. After him, tether whipping among the stalks, charged the bull. Again the interpreter side-stepped, just in time, and with the dexterity of a matador. But Simon was more alert, and came about like a cow-pony, emitting terrible bellows. Matthews fled toward Dallas. His ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... to the beach I saw the Plymouth Battalion as it marched in from the front line. They were quite different excepting only in the fact that they also had done marvels of fighting and endurance. They were done: they had come to the end of their tether. Not only physical exhaustion but moral exhaustion. They could not raise a smile in the whole battalion. The faces of Officers and men had a crushed, utterly finished expression: some of the younger Officers especially had that true funeral set about their lips which spreads the contagion ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... referred to as preceding the tragedy. The two young people concerned were standing only a few feet away, the girl pretty, a little peevish, an ordinary type; her companion, whose boyish features were marred with dissipation, a very passable example of the young man about town going a little beyond his tether. ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he replied, "not I. The Byrons are a short-lived race on both sides, father and mother; longevity is hereditary: I am nearly at the end of my tether. I don't care for death a ——; it is her sting! ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... ban; Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man. Flesh of the flesh that I bred, bone of the bone that I bare; Stark as your sons shall be — stern as your fathers were. Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether, But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together. My arm is nothing weak, my strength is not gone by; Sons, I have borne many sons, but my dugs are not dry. Look, I have made ye a place and opened wide the doors, That ye may talk together, your Barons and Councillors ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... something to which to tether my horse. A bridle is in one's way—when one has to discuss important business. There was really nothing about that seemed fit for the purpose. Hilda saw what I sought, and pointed mutely to a stunted bush beside a big granite boulder which rose abruptly ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... other sheep were near, the Lamb was all alone, And by a slender cord was tether'd to a stone; With one knee on the grass did the little Maiden kneel, While to that Mountain Lamb she gave its ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... courser To the best of all the stables, To the best of resting-places, To the hindmost of the stables. Tether there the bridegroom's courser, To the ring of gold constructed, 100 To the smaller ring of iron, To the post of curving birchwood, Place before the bridegroom's courser, Next a tray with oats overloaded, And with softest hay another, And a third ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous |
