"Tractable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... character. During the five years that he had held his office, he had enforced discipline at the point of the bayonet, as it were, and he boasted with pardonable pride that he had broken the spirit of the haughtiest and least tractable of the Undergraduates. Everybody had been gated at eight o'clock. Many had been sent down. Tears and denunciations were alike unavailing. The ruthless Dean had pursued his course without flinching. A very mild ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... blanket be superseded by the conventional dress sanctioned by the United States President and the people he governed? On the whole, however, Booker Washington found these strange pupils to be amenable to reason; they were quite tractable ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... The First Business of all Governments, I mean the Task which all Rulers must begin with, is, to make Men tractable and obedient, which is not to be perform'd unless we can make them believe, that the Instructions and Commands we give them have a plain Tendency to the Good of every Individual, and that we say Nothing to them, but what we know to be true. To do this effectually, Human Nature ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... he was disturbed for a second time in his life by the thought that, owing to the complexities of his own temperament, he had married unhappily and would find the situation difficult of adjustment. Aileen, whatever might be said of her deficiencies, was by no means as tractable or acquiescent as his first wife. And, besides, he felt that he owed her a better turn. By no means did he actually dislike her as yet; though she was no longer soothing, stimulating, or suggestive to him as she had formerly been. Her woes, because of him, were too many; her attitude toward him ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... who journeys far from his own country, dwelling in those of other men, gains very often a disposition and character of a fine temper, for, in seeing abroad diverse honourable customs, even though he might be perverse in nature, he learns to be tractable, amiable, and patient, with much greater ease than he would have done by remaining in his own country. And in truth, he who desires to refine men in the life of the world need seek no other fire and no better ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... tractable, she would, by this time, have known a good deal about the wise woman's beautiful house, whereas she had never till now got farther than the porch. Neither was she at all ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... had a long and eventful history, but they have not been found tractable by the resources of ordinary Logic, and are now generally neglected by the authors of text-books. No doubt such propositions are the commonest in ordinary discourse, and in some rough way we combine them and draw inferences from them. It is understood that a combination ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... in Natural History are invited to Major KING'S Tavern, where is to be seen a fine young MOOSE of sixteen hands in height, and well proportioned. The properties of this fleet and tractable Animal are such as will give pleasure and satisfaction to ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... some of your words will still stubbornly withhold themselves from memory. Weed these out from your lists, make a special list of them, copy it frequently, construct short sentences into which the troublesome words fit. By dint of writing the words so often you will soon make them more tractable. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... searching for 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 small cross, formed of two pieces of ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... he first captured the cruel Diomedes himself, and then threw him before his own mares, who, after devouring their master, became perfectly tame and tractable. They were then led by Heracles to the sea-shore, when the Bistonians, enraged at the loss of their king, rushed after the hero and attacked him. He now gave the animals in charge of his friend Abderus, and made such a furious onslaught on his ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... Rhamda 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
... 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 ploughs naturally went ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... man becomes accustomed to it, is not so disagreeable as might be expected, particularly if one succeeds in obtaining a tractable animal. On emergencies, an ox can be made to proceed at a tolerable quick pace; for, though his walk is only about three miles an hour at an average, he may be made to perform double that distance in the same ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... very much unlike either, these vestiges of a species on a ruined globe had proved tractable and amenable to discipline. They had become the laborers of the convict settlement that had ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... You know he is always good-humoured and tractable. Blandois must have irritated him,—made faces at him. The dog has his likings and dislikings, and Blandois is no great favourite of his; but I am sure you will give him a character, Minnie, for never having been ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... have got herself under the censure of the neighbourhood, it is a clergyman's office to console, rather than to condemn. And he could not help liking pretty Alice; she had been one of the most tractable pupils in his Sunday-school. He addressed her as soothingly, as considerately, as though she were one of the first ladies in his parish; harshness would not mend the matter now. Her ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable, well-broken horse as unworthy of ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... being brought to justice, was dragged through the city at the heels of a wild horse. This most uncomfortable character appears to be the first hero in the romance of the gondoliers, and he certainly deserves to rank with that long line of imaginary personages who have made childhood so wretched and tractable. The second is the Innocent Baker-Boy already named, who was put to death on suspicion of having murdered a noble, because in the dead man's heart was found a dagger fitting a sheath which the baker had picked up in the street, on the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... ardent patriot in her youth, but the failure of the first 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 in Menotti's confidence; but he had been seen once ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... serving as seamen on board of British vessels, who have proved very tractable, and make excellent sailors; they ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... begged. "I have said good-by to him myself, and all that I hope is that next time you offer a wayfarer the hospitality of St. David's Hall, Gerald, he may be a more tractable person. This morning I shall give myself a treat. I shall eat an old-fashioned English breakfast. Close the door after you, if ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is a daungerous fellow, and much to be feard; he creeps into the bosom of ye state, and will not stick to look into ye Court, nay, if he can, into Court counsells: he will shew himselfe tractable to ye co[mm]on wealthe prescriptions, and with this shew of obedience to Law, he doth ye Pope more service then 20 ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... were so much milder and more agreeable than our hero expected from the misanthrope, that they had a very favourable effect upon his transports, which gradually subsided, until he became so tractable as to promise that he would conform to his advice; in consequence of which, he next morning waited upon his lordship, who received him very politely, as usual, and with great patience heard his complaint, which, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... about to answer this appeal with an angry refusal to be either placable or tractable, but he suddenly stopped the words which rose to his tongue. There was something in all this—some mystery, some queer game, and it might be worth while to find ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... new colonists have a community of race, language, and laws. But then again, they are less obedient to the legislator; and often they are anxious to keep the very laws and customs which caused their ruin at home. A mixed multitude, on the other hand, is more tractable, although there is a difficulty in making them pull together. There is nothing, however, which perfects men's virtue more than legislation and colonization. And yet I have a word to say which may seem to be depreciatory of legislators. ...
— Laws • Plato
... shattered, shivered; disconnected, discontinuous, interrupted; impaired, shattered; subdued, humbled, contrite, penitent, crushed, trained, subjugated, tractable; violated. Antonyms: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... years is that of a child much indulged and petted to 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 that ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... other. Having discovered him I had no need. For allow me to observe—although I know nothing about it—that in poetry the Subject is nine points of excellence; and, Sir John Davies having hit on the most exalted subject tractable by the Muse, it follows that he must be the most exalted poet. Let me tell you—if it will shorten argument—that in general, and in all walks of ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 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
... of it," he answered. "The worst of it is that nothing in the world would induce me to forego the pleasure I promise myself, before very long, too, of giving to the whole world the story of your infamy. I am not tractable to-night. You had better go away, both of you. I ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... marvellously patient and tractable invalid. She did just as she was told, and accepted the presence of the nurse as a matter ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... rider, the clean-cut face, the dark eye. This fellow had a shiny, coiled lasso in hand. He advanced toward Wildfire. The stallion snorted and plunged. If ever Bostil saw hate expressed by a horse he saw it then. But he seemed to be tractable to the control of the girl. Bostil swiftly grasped the strange situation. Lucy had won the love of the savage stallion. That always had been the secret of her power. And she had hated Sage King because he alone ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... retain along while and enjoy the fruit of it, and keep suspended in hope those who aspired to it; confirming her sentences with this cruel parable, 'Glut a hawk with his quarry and he will hunt no more; show it him and then draw it back and you will ever keep him tractable and obedient.' She taught him also that he should be frequently in his chamber, rarely in public; that he should give nothing to any one upon any testimony but what he had seen and known; and many other evil things of the same kind. We, indeed," adds this good hater of Matilda, "confidently ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... and tractable, though wild; And Innocence hath privilege in her, To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes And feats of cunning, and the pretty round Of trespasses, affected to provoke Mock chastisement and partnership ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... Changing from a state of panic to real daring, the people rushed upon their conquerors, and drove them outside the walls by which they had just entered. The sudden violent reaction broke the pride of the King of Hungary, and made him more tractable when Clement VI decided that he ought at last to interfere. A truce was concluded first from the month of February 1350 to the beginning of April 1351, and the next year this was converted into a real peace, Joan paying to the King of Hungary the sum of 300,000 ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... a capital neighbour, and gave such strict orders to his men to respect our property that we rarely lost anything. On the whole, the Turks were the most honest of the nations there (I except the English and the Sardinians), and the most tractable. But the Greeks hated them, and showed their hate in every way. In bringing up things for the Pacha's use they would let the mules down, and smash their loads most relentlessly. Now and then they suffered, as was the case one day when I passed through the camp and saw my friend ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... timber-tree of singular beauty and rapid growth. The northern limit 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 social virtues, it has readily been inferred by sceptics, both ancient and modern, that all moral distinctions arise from education, and were, at first, invented, and afterwards encouraged, by the art of politicians, in order to render men tractable, and subdue their natural ferocity and selfishness, which incapacitated them for society. This principle, indeed, of precept and education, must so far be owned to have a powerful influence, that it may frequently increase or diminish, beyond ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... have I been deceived like this?' she demanded, with a bitter haughtiness of which I had not deemed such a tractable creature capable. 'Do you suppose that anything could justify such an imposition? What, O what a snare you have spread ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... not only to all manner of public buildings, but also to country residences. Carlton House, Bowden Park, and Grange House are instances of this misapplication of Greek forms. Neither did it prove more tractable for ecclesiastical purposes. St. Pancras's Church at London, and several churches by Thomson (1817-75), in Glasgow, though interesting as experiments in such adaptation, are not to be commended ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... the latter, for now that aid had reached her she apparently recovered from her panic and was perfectly tractable. He placed his left hand under her and struck out quietly, aware that the least excitement causing exhaustion on his part might cost both of them ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... desecrate him further. Then the winter song swept past in his voice, sweet, full, sorrowful, as if it wished to make all clear to her; and, tractable as a child, she composed herself and listened. What did it say? That her dreams united two summers, the one which had been and the one which was slowly struggling up anew. Thanks be to the dreams which had awakened ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... place on Pre-Election Methods, led by Mrs. Stewart, who outlined the work done in Illinois, where it had been reduced to a system. "We find candidates much less tractable after election than before," she said, "although we always send literature and letters to the members-elect and subscribe for the Woman's Journal for them. We are now strong enough in some districts for pre-election work to elect our friends and defeat our enemies. Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... deal more tractable now. I always say that I shall get the book out of the library. I draw the line at buying. I still hate to buy a book that ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... If stopped or questioned they were to say the Lord had need of the animals. Matthew alone mentions both ass and colt; the other writers specify the latter only; most likely the mother followed as the foal was led away, and the presence of the dam probably served to keep the colt tractable. The disciples found all to be as the Lord had said. They brought the colt to Jesus, spread their coats on the gentle creature's back, and set the Master thereon. The company started toward Jerusalem, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... tersely put it, "sticking to it." He had stuck to it to such good effect that the supply of fresh young Simiacine was daily increasing in bulk. Again, Victor Durnovo seemed to have regained his better self. He was like a full-blooded horse—tractable enough if kept hard at work. He was a different man up on the Plateau to what he was down at Loango. There are some men who deteriorate in the wilds, while others are better, stronger, finer creatures away from the luxury of civilisation and the softening influence ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... assembly of bishops and counsellors. From these he demanded assistance, but they refused to accord it, until Engelbrecht took the bishop of Linkoeping by the collar, to deliver him over to his followers. Thereupon they became more tractable, and renounced in writing their allegiance to Eric, on the grounds that he had 'made bishops of ignorant ribalds, entrusted high offices to unworthy persons, and neglected to punish tyrannical governors.' The Dalecarlians advanced as far as Schonen, where Engelbrecht ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... it be ebbing-water. And then mildly she argues the matter, not so much to condemn him as to acquit herself. Surely men, contrary to iron, are worst to be wrought upon when they are hot, and are far more tractable in cold blood. It is an observation of seamen, 'That if a single meteor or fire-ball falls on their mast, it portends ill-luck; but if two come together (which they count Castor and Pollux) they presage good success.' But sure in a family it bodeth most bad when ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... started in the 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
... tradesmen, and being left in the lurch himself. A second experiment turned out yet worse, for it cost him his life: he had doubtless had enough of girls, so he took another animal, which he thought might be tamer and more tractable—a horse. He would not allow it to be broken in the usual method, which he considered very cruel: he would talk to it, caress it, make it his friend, win it by kindness. But unfortunately for his experiment, the horse killed him, by a kick, I believe, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... impositions, 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 weakness? And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... prison term with capital punishment as the happy alternative failed to disturb The Hopper. To their surprise and somewhat to their shame he won the Shaver to a tractable humor. There was nothing in The Hopper's known past to justify any expectation that he could quiet a crying baby, and yet Shaver with a child's unerring instinct realized that The Hopper meant to be kind. He patted The Hopper's face with one fat little paw, chokingly declaring ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... governed as the little Lees were; and few children are placed so entirely apart from evil influences as they were in those days. They were quick and restless, and full of spirit, but, as I have said, they were affectionate and tractable; and though often, before the last little busybody was safely disposed of for the night, Christie believed her strength and patience to be quite exhausted, her love for them increased day ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... province of York, however, remonstrated against them, and refused to put away their wives; the unmarried refused also to oblige themselves to continue in that state; nor were the clergy of Canterbury much more tractable. ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... felt the fresh breath of the river—fresh, but tainted. The Chinese theatres across the water made, in the sparsely twinkling masses of gloom an Eastern town presents at night, blazing centres of light, and of a distant and howling uproar. I felt him become suddenly tractable again like an animal, like a good-tempered horse when the object that scares him is removed. Yes. I felt in the darkness there how tractable he was, without my conviction of his inflexibility—tenacity, rather, perhaps—being in the least weakened. His very arm abandoning itself to my grasp ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... little beasts that one could hardly see the Indian at all. The pony that was ridden into the store door was without a bridle, and was guided by a long strip of buffalo skin which was fastened around his lower jaw by a slipknot. It is amazing to see how tractable the Indians can make their ponies with only ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... 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 a bold imagination ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... table. He was then taken ashore by his native wife and the police-boys, who enjoyed this duty immensely. We smoked a quiet pipe, looked after the fish-hooks—empty, of course—and slept on deck in the cool night air. Next morning the planter came aboard somewhat sobered and more tractable. He brought with him his wife, and their child whom he wished to adopt. As the native women do not as a rule stay with their masters very long, the children are registered under the formula: "Child of N. N., mother unknown," ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... with as little energy, have more obstinacy, and are, of course, not quite so tractable. But, though they grumble and procrastinate, they do not resist; and their delays and demurs usually terminate in ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... men, who outnumbered the loyal natives, and in a few minutes he had unchallenged control of the post without losing a single man, killed or wounded. Gomaldo was intensely excited and upbraided Sam bitterly when taken before him, but upon being promised good treatment he became more tractable. Sam gave orders that the villagers should bury the dead, among whom he regretted to see the body of the native lieutenant who had brought him food when they were starving; and then, after a rest of several hours, the expedition set out on the return journey, Gomaldo and ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... tyrant, when 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 with the injunction to go to ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... viscount, that an explanation would admit of no delay; and, as I saw him prepare to dismiss me, I drew from my pocket the count's correspondence, and presented one of the letters to him. On recognizing his father's handwriting, he became more tractable, declared himself at my service, and asked permission to write a word of apology to the lady by whom he was expected. Having hastily written the note he handed it to his valet, and ordered him to send at once to Madame d'Arlange, He then asked me to pass into the next room, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... those districts. The settlements that follow from that point to Bolinao are so near to the black Zambals and Aetas that, when the latter revolt, one cannot go there without running great risk of his life. But when peace makes them tractable, some souls are obtained for God. The villages of Uguit and Babayan, which have recently been founded in this century with the converted blacks and wild Indians, [Zimarrones] clearly attest that fact. In Mindanao the territory conquered ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... powers. We all know that—or should do so—for the moment may arrive when we find ourselves dependent on the judgment of a dog. To fail to recognise it then is to create difficulties and to blunder badly, causing the most tractable of our friends to look up with a puzzled expression in their eyes, and the more head-strong and outspoken to go ahead, with this sentence, flung back over the shoulder—"You fools, you; when will ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... recounted in the 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, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... same name, as well as by the Skynses and the Nez Perces; who bring to it the furs and peltries collected in their hunting expeditions. The Wallah-Wallahs are a degenerate, worn-out tribe. The Nez Perces are the most numerous and tractable of the three tribes just mentioned. Mr. Pambrune informed Captain Bonneville that he had been at some pains to introduce the Christian religion, in the Roman Catholic form, among them, where it had evidently taken root; ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... opinions, with which he was peculiarly at ease, and, consequently, which he peculiarly preferred. He was lord amongst such characters. They, while submitting implicitly to his influence, never acknowledged, because they never reflected on, his superiority; they were quite tractable, therefore, without running the smallest danger of being servile; and their unthinking, easy, artless insensibility was as acceptable, because as convenient, to Mr. Yorke as that of the chair he sat on, or ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... more harm than good. Besides, I should require to have the "necessary consultations" over the dinner-table. Diet does a great deal—not that I care about the "loaves and fishes"—but patients are always more tractable after a good dinner. Now there's an old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... pleased that the serpent should attain such fearful dimensions in his new element, Odin resolved to lead Fenris to Asgard, where he hoped, by kindly treatment, to make him gentle and tractable. But the gods one and all shrank in dismay when they saw the wolf, and none dared approach to give him food except Tyr, whom nothing daunted. Seeing that Fenris daily increased in size, strength, voracity, and fierceness, the gods assembled in council to ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the Navigatioun about the Ylis.[201] 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 you, Jefwellis:[204] gett yow to your chargeis, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... Day, the despairing hunters, again unsuccessful, came to pray succor from Le Jeune. Even the Apostate had become tractable, and the famished sorcerer was ready to try the efficacy of an appeal to the deity of his rival. A bright hope possessed the missionary. He composed two prayers, which, with the aid of the repentant Pierre, he translated into Algonquin. Then he hung against the side of the hut a napkin which ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... 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; but touch upon a particular string, and, before you ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... good and lovely daughter, they may judge of what he suffered. He immediately ordered his carriage, and had barely time to hear that Reilly had been sentenced to transportation for seven years. His daughter was quite meek and tractable; she spoke not, nor could any ingenuity on their part extract the slightest reply from her. Neither did she shed a single tear, but the vacant light of her eyes had stamped a fatuitous expression on her features that was melancholy and heartbreaking beyond all ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... sort of people it is that lives hereabouts," said the receiver. "I have just recently come from Saxony and I notice the contrast. There they all live together, and for that reason they have to be courteous and obliging and tractable toward one another. But here, each one lives on his own property, and has his own wood, his own field, his own pasture around him, as if there were nothing else in the world. For that reason they cling so tenaciously to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... in their proceedings with the natives the severity and chastisement which they deserved were dispensed with. Garrisons were established, and many of the chiefs were subdued; they appeared to act sincerely, and gave evidence of being tractable and living in peace and justice. The troops returned, and thereupon the pacified ones, and those who still remained to be reduced, came down from the mountains to the highways, robbed, murdered, and committed innumerable injuries. Therefore I determined ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... attendants forced food down his throat; so that he abandoned such attempts. At times his eyes would blaze and his breath would come in gasps, for imaginary vengeance was working within him; but steadily he became quieter and more tractable, and was pleasant and responsive when I would converse with him. Whatever might have been the tortures which the rajah had decided on, none as yet had been ordered; and although Neranya knew that they were in contemplation, he never referred to them ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... and Boscawen are brought into the Admiralty under Lord Anson, who is advanced to the head of the board. Seamen are tractable fishes! especially it will be Boscawen's case, whose name in Cornish signifies obstinacy, and who brings along with him a good quantity of resentment to Anson. In short, the whole present system is equally ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... reading and catechism. I was the first, I believe, in Allegheny Co., to teach children without beating them. I abolished corporeal punishment entirely, and was so successful that boys, ungovernable at home, were altogether tractable. This life was perfectly congenial, and I followed it for nearly six years. Mother started a Sabbath School, the only one in the village, and this, too, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... In the drift of her mind, she fancied she saw impressions floating by, first one and then another, impressions that he was more tractable this evening, more likely to be won a little to her side; for social though she was—the blood in her veins to the finger tips—she still cared for this Bohemian brother of hers; considered it trouble well spent to bring him to her way of thinking. We are ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... bait and an argument in favor of his theories on the facility of love-affairs in the country. However that might be, the allusion to the probable presence of Mademoiselle Vincart at the coming fete, rendered young Buxieres more tractable, and he made no further difficulties about accompanying ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... 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 ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... Government, tractable enough under the present influence of a bold and determined spirit, had returned to its old ways when that pressure was removed. It had been agreed that the Treaty of Tien-tsin should be formally ratified within the year, that is, before the 26th of June, 1859; and, when the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... Bel. A tractable Sinner! [Offers to kiss her. Faugh—how she smells—had I approach'd so near divine Celinda, what A natural Fragrancy had sent it self through all my ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... because I had not gone often enough, that he might make his records, his comparisons, his tests—I don't know what flummery. All at once he ceased his importunities; some instinct taught me that he was about to seek a more tractable subject. I was resolved that if he did contemplate such injustice, I should put a stop to it. And I ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... by little a few Indians here and there began to frequent the mission; and with the hearty welcome accorded them their numbers soon increased. Among them there happened to be a boy, of some fifteen years of age, who showed himself more tractable than his fellows, and whom Father Junipero determined to use as an instrument for his purpose. When the lad had picked up a smattering of Spanish, the padre sent him to his people with the promise that if he were allowed to bring back one of the children, ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... and so had the child. Hipcroft was in ordinary a quiet and tractable fellow, but a determination which was to be feared settled in his face now. 'Blast him!' he cried. 'I'll beat his skull in for'n, if I swing ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... bed early and get a good night's rest, or I shall be having you for a patient next, and I am very much afraid you would not prove a tractable one," he said, more troubled by her pale cheeks and weary looks than ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... enduring remembrance of his old mahout, that he cannot easily be brought to obey a stranger."[1] In the extensive establishments of the Ceylon Government, the keepers are changed without hesitation, and the animals, when equally kindly treated, are usually found to be as tractable and obedient to their new driver as to the old, in fact so soon as they have become familiarised with his voice. This is not, however, invariably the case; and Mr. CRIPPS, who had remarkable opportunities for ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... own sex. "Girls!" she would sniff. 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 ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... having no contraband goods I had nothing to fear, but my bad temper cost me two weary hours of delay. The joys of vengeance were depicted on the features of the exciseman. At the time of which I am writing these gaugers were the dregs of the people, but would become tractable on being treated with a little politeness. The sum of twenty-four sous given with good grace would make them as supple as a pair of gloves; they would bow to the travellers, wish them a pleasant journey, and give no trouble. I knew all this, but there are times when a man acts mechanically ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Alfreton remembered that he was not usually so tractable with him, proceeded to do Winston's bidding. When he came back there was a twinkle of comprehension in his eyes, and Winston, who cut off the length of ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... presently to undergo an Ordeal of some unknown nature, probably extremely unpleasant, and that this matter of the vanishing bridge must have been arranged in order to put him in a properly subdued and tractable frame of mind. ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... and was a revolutionary of the worst sort—a revolutionary and monarchist. He was only a monarchist because he loved conspiracy and hated the Republican rulers who had imprisoned him—"those bombastics," he called them. It was a constitutional quarrel with the world. However, he became tractable, and then he and Larue formed a plot to make Carnac marry Luzanne. It was hatched by Ingot, approved by Larue, and at length consented to by the girl, for so far as she could love anyone, she loved Carnac; and she made up her mind that if he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tractable boy au fond, they made him a poltroon and worse by their persecutions, their meanness, their petty tyranny. He is proud, and they sent him to reside on a village manure heap; he is ambitious, and must drill raw recruits from morn till ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... a little plan for his benefit two weeks ago. I think he will be tractable, maybe. He ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... little Alisa Bennett assumed maternal responsibilities at the age of ten, and gained her sobriquet of 'Marm Lisa.' She grew more human, more tractable, under Mr. Grubb's fostering care; but that blessed martyr had now been dead two years, and she began to wear her former vacuous look, and to slip back into the past that was still ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a derisive sneer. "We were married about two years ago. She became popular in the halls very soon after, and it turned her head. You may have discovered yourself by this time that she is not always as tractable as she might be. I had to teach her obedience and respect, and eventually I succeeded. I conquered her—as I hoped—completely. However, six months ago she took advantage of a stage fire to give me the slip, and till recently I believed that she was dead. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... left with thoughts such as perchance might render him a more tractable subordinate for Mr. Parsons, instead of getting into training for the Order of ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a cry and dropped the gigot, and from that moment she submitted herself to Woirland, whom she no longer dared to bite. I tried the same trick and achieved the same result. Lisette, as docile as a dog, allowed herself to be handled by myself and my servant; she even became a little more tractable with the grooms whom she saw every day, but woe betide any stranger passing too close to her. I could give many examples of her ferocity, but I shall ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... that 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 like ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... impossible 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
... Silan has been recently assigned to the Jesuits; they find the people well-disposed and tractable, and soon have many, both children and adults, under instruction. In caring for these, they are greatly aided by a blind native helper, formerly a heathen priest. Letters from the fathers in charge of this mission ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... asked them to breakfast. One of them means to publish his Journal of the campaign. The Bavarian wonders a little that the Greeks are not quite the same with them of the time of Themistocles, (they were not then very tractable, by the by,) and at the difficulty of disciplining them; but he is a 'bon homme' and a tactician, and a little like Dugald Dalgetty, who would insist upon the erection of 'a sconce on the hill of Drumsnab,' or whatever it was;—the other ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... harmless, and tractable, and so, I suppose, were these people. They may not have been very clever and shrewd; not good scholars. No doubt they were a poor, wild, ignorant, set of people; but they were tractable; they were willing to come and learn; they felt their own ignorance, and wanted to be ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... 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 tram wire ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... asserted that there were several very old men in that neighbourhood. The natives of this country are very lean and live sparingly. They eat no beef, but use their oxen for riding upon. Their oxen are small and handsome, very tractable, and have an easy pace. Instead of a bridle, they use a cord passed through a hole in the nostrils of the ox. Their horns are long and straight, and they are used as beasts of burden, like mules in Italy. These animals ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... dear reader. I gladly believe that your beasties never caused you much trouble, that they were willingly satisfied with lettuce leaves, or would probably also fast at will, or submit contentedly to the matrimonial leash. Possibly they were marmots. But did you yourself rear this tractable race? Then count not yours the honor nor mine the shame, but accord both to that unknown Breeder who followed the genealogical tables and selected the mothers and fathers, uniting them with delicate discernment and hidden design. The pasturing ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... be tractable before it comes to that pass, captain. I've seen girls before. I know how to ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... 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 make her ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... them. He, indeed, is a king whose subjects are engaged in their respective duties and do not fear to cast off their bodies when duty calls for it; whose people, protected duly, are all of peaceful behaviour, obedient, docile, tractable, unwilling to be engaged in disputes, and inclined to liberality. That king earns eternal merit in whose dominions there is no wickedness and dissimulation and deception and envy. That king truly deserves to rule who honours knowledge, who is devoted to the scriptures ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... find a person capable of coming into a home and taking the reins in the manner you suggest. Such women already have their places. Lila would not be easily managed, especially if she should be approached in the wrong manner. She has a peculiar temperament, but is tractable enough if one understands her. She would likely resent any interference from one whom she would consider an outsider. I have no idea where I could find a person who ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... 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 attempt ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... By way of precaution, we ordered our protector to choose desert roads and carefully to avoid all kraals. At first, not understanding our reasons, and ever hankering after milk, he could not pass a thorn fence without eyeing it wistfully. On the next day, however, he became more tractable, and before reaching Berberah he showed himself, in consequence of some old blood feud, more anxious even than ourselves to ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... stand him in good stead. He was assigned, during one year, to a 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. Fry, in ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden |
