"Supportable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sterling worth of consternation, annually (a remarkably light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves, sown, reaped, and granaried by the 'science' of the modern political economist, teaching covetousness instead of truth). And, all unjust war being supportable, if not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who appear to have no will in the matter, the capitalists' will being the primary root of the war; but its real root is the covetousness of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... now enjoying his first decently competent and peaceful weeks for close upon two years; happy in a big brown moor behind him, and an incomparable burn by his side; happy, above all, in some work - for at last I am at work with that appetite and confidence that alone makes work supportable. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hand, the Sunday is soberly kept. In the less strict families music is allowed, but never cards or games of any kind. The man who proposed such a thing in Adelaide would be anathema maranatha. The general feeling, is, that the Sunday was made too wearisome in England to be supportable in a common-sense community; and Sabbatarianism is gradually losing ground day by day, as fast as the keeping up of appearances will allow. There was a great outcry on one occasion because the Governor of Victoria travelled on a Sunday; but this was rather because ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... a miserable thing is a voyage! Here we are now eight days at sea, the eternal sameness of all around growing every hour less supportable. Sea and sky are beautiful things when seen from the dark woods and waving meadows on shore; but their picturesque effect is sadly marred from want of contrast. Besides that, the "toujours pork," with crystals of salt as long as your wife's fingers; the potatoes that seemed varnished ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... together and never being separated. Wherever destiny may lead you, be it on the tempestuous ocean or be it among the hardships that await you on land, I should be your companion. There is nothing I would more fear, nor any kind of death that might threaten me, which would not be more supportable than for me to live without you and separated by such an immense distance. I would rather die and even be eaten by fish in the sea or devoured on land by cannibals, than to consume myself in perpetual mourning ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... circumstances has been effected, we shall feel convinced that so sudden a transition from affluence to poverty could not be patiently endured, and that every method of rendering so unexpected and galling a burthen more supportable, would be naturally and inevitably resorted to. To prove still more satisfactorily that this state of slavery to which so large a proportion of the original settlers are reduced, has not been so much the result of their own imprudence as of the impolicy of their government, numerous instances ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... all these distractions, our delay was barely supportable; and watching the course of the muddy river, the ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... there. It is neither by force, nor by surprise, nor by the wishes of one party, that the national will can be brought to change its government. It would even be in vain, at the present moment, to offer us conditions, to render a new government more supportable. There are no conditions that can be examined, as long as the necessity of bending our necks to the yoke, of renouncing our independence, is not proved to us. Now, my lord, this necessity cannot even be suspected, before the allied powers are in accord. None of their ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... umbrella is required, and when the invariably grey sky rarely rains. Travellers are told that June and July are the cream of the year, the healthiest time for seasoned Europeans, and this phantom of a winter renders the climate more supportable to the northern constitution. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... England for six months or a year at a time. He had just gone abroad again, and she had taken the opportunity of coming to see her grandmother—and even of living with her for awhile, if she found Birchmead supportable. They were not rich, but Mr. Beadon allowed her quite ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the test her practice of those pious virtues we all know her to possess, and of which she sets so bright an example. James's presence is of the greatest comfort to me, and alone enables me to make my cabin supportable. He returned most opportunely from St. Petersburg the day on which the news of this affliction arrived, and it was he that communicated it to me. He was the bearer of Lord Cathcart's despatches, which I have forwarded, for I could not spare him ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... man may not half suspect it will slip Knowledge and truth may be in us without judgment Knowledge is not so absolutely necessary as judgment Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists Known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new Ladies are no sooner ours, than we are no more theirs Language: obscure and unintelligible in wills and contracts Lascivious poet: Homer Last death will kill but a half or a quarter of a man Law: breeder of altercation and division Laws (of Plato ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... rose on hers like the clapping echo of it. She had up the whole angry pride of the man in arms, and could discern that she had struck the wound in his history; but he was terrible to look at, so she made the charge supportable by saying: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this lost a confidence which alone rendered life supportable to me, it is impossible for me to take the journey so much thought of. For would there be any propriety in travelling sixty miles in this season, in order to burden you with a person so little suited to you, that after years of a passion without parallel, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... without great mortification I saw myself on the point of being transported to such a distant and unhealthy climate, destitute of every convenience that could render such a voyage supportable, and under the dominion of an arbitrary tyrant, whose command was almost intolerable; however, as these complaints were common to a great many on board, I resolved to submit patiently to my fate, and contrive ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... his losses. He has a mistress, or perhaps several; sneers at marriage, and gives it as his opinion that there is not a virtuous woman in the land. When he is fairly of age he has lost his freshness, and is tired of life. His great object now is to render his existence supportable. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... given up to the happiness inspired by the safe return. The exploring party were rejoiced to find everything in good condition, which assured them a supportable though it might be a rough winter. The ship had not been shaken by her sudden elevation, and was perfectly tight. When the season of thawing came, they would only have to slide her down an inclined plane, to launch her, in a word, in the ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... will explain the whole; and, I trust, will relieve our minds of that burden, hardly supportable at present. ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... trick grows into habit, and habit is a second nature. A secret idea of fame makes his forbearance of happiness supportable to him: for he has now the self-satisfaction of considering himself raised to that highest pinnacle of fashionable refinement which is built upon apathy and scorn, and from which, proclaiming himself superior to all possibility of enjoyment, he ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... proof of whose providence he quickly received; for the keeper of the prison taking notice of his care and fidelity in the affairs he had set him about, and the dignity of his countenance, relaxed his bonds, and thereby made his heavy calamity lighter, and more supportable to him. He also permitted him to make use of a diet better than that of the rest of the prisoners. Now, as his fellow prisoners, when their hard labors were over, fell to discoursing one among another, as is ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... imperious Mr. Delvile was more supportable here than in London. Secure in his own castle, he looked round him with a pride of power and possession which softened while it swelled him. His superiority was undisputed: his will was without control. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... frequently he degenerates into witticisms, which abruptly destroy the pathetic. That he abounds with images of too florid a kind; affected turns; conceits and frivolous thoughts; which, far from being adapted to his Jerusalem, could hardly be supportable in his 'Aminta.' So that all this, opposed to the gravity, the sobriety, the majesty of Virgil, what is it ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... should pay me some little attention. Yet you heard how my granddaughter took the matter up this morning. Instead of being content with me for retiring to this wilderness of a place, which I did to please her, she does nothing to render my life supportable." ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... these verses sufficiently supportable, so that people will not laugh at me, you can put them into the Paris paper, even with my name. I shall honor myself in rendering this homage to Franklin, but on condition that you find the verses printable. As I make no pretension on account of them, I shall be perfectly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... can't say that. No; I couldn't have stood Cruger's arguments. 'Ditto to Mr. Burke' is certainly not a very brilliant observation, but still it's supportable, whereas I must have found the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... expressed, as they are more sincere, so they are more supportable, than when they appear under the disguise and pretence of fears. Some of these gentlemen are employed to shake their heads in proper companies; to doubt where all this will end; to be in mighty pain for the nation; to shew ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... her mind totally unlettered, and her morals defective in that point in which female excellence is supposed chiefly to consist. She possessed super-abundant health and good-humour, and was quite a supportable companion in the hay-field ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... ugly a sickness magnified this dislike; at the same time, and with more than compensating strength, shame for a sentiment so inhuman bound them the more straitly to his service; and even the evil they knew of him swelled their solicitude, for the thought of death is always the least supportable when it draws near to the merely sensual and selfish. Sometimes they held him up; sometimes, with mistaken helpfulness, they beat him between the shoulders; and when the poor wretch lay back ghastly and spent after a paroxysm of coughing, they would sometimes peer into his face, doubtfully exploring ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... any considerable time; when it is manifest that her peace and happiness, and, perhaps, her life, depend upon their fulfilment; when things have been carried to this length, the change in the Lover ought to be announced in the manner most likely to make the disappointment as supportable as the case will admit of; for, though it is better to break the promise than to marry one while you like another better; though it is better for both parties, you have no right to break the heart of her who has, and that, too, with your accordance, and, indeed, at your instigation, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... have wondered at the patience of the antediluvians; their libraries were insufficiently furnished; how then could seven or eight hundred years of life be supportable?—COWPER, Life and ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... duck in a farmyard drain becomes in a wonderful way supportable when you tackle it as cheerfully as that. It comes to the Australian as a shock, at the first introduction—the Manning River country after the Manning River flood has subsided is, as a New South Welshman suggested, the ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... fragrant perfumes, and enlivened by the notes of innumerable birds arrayed in all the splendid hues of the Tropics. Although Tahaiti is only seventeen degrees from the Equator, the heat is so much moderated by refreshing breezes that it is very supportable even to an European. Bougainville never found it above twenty-two, and often under eighteen degrees of Reaumur. That indeed was during the winter; but even in January, the middle of the Tahaitian summer, the ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... life, in this his eclipsed state, is one of constraint, anxiety, continual liability; but after the first months are well over, it begins to be more supportable than we should think. He is fixed to the little Town; cannot be absent any night, without leave from the Commandant; which, however, and the various similar restrictions, are more formal than real. An amiable Crown-Prince, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... one is the most detrimental all round. Never confess! Never, never! An untimely joke is a source of bitter regret always. Sometimes it may ruin a man; not because it is a joke, but because it is untimely. And a confession of whatever sort is always untimely. The only thing which makes it supportable for a while is curiosity. You smile? Ah, but it is so, or else people would be sent to the rightabout at the second sentence. How many sympathetic souls can you reckon on in the world? One in ten, one in a hundred—in ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... both English and Irish. His resistance to alterations on these heads was conducted with great ability, and for a long time with success; but he was endeavouring to uphold a system which was no longer supportable, and having imbibed in his career much of the liberal spirit of the age, he found himself in a state of no small perplexity between his old connections and his more enlarged propensities. Still he was chained down by the former, and consequently being ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... leaving her in a state of nervous prostration, moral sickness, and distressful exasperation. It needs all the tireless patience of the fairy, all the magic of her memories constantly evoked, to make life supportable beside this restlessness, this wicked anger, which growls beneath the girl's long silences and suddenly bursts out in a bitter word or in an "Ugh!" of disgust at everything. All the critics are asses. The public? An immense goitre ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... expulsion of the Tarquins, it seemed as though the closest union prevailed between the senate and the commons, and that the nobles, laying aside their natural arrogance, had learned so to sympathize with the people as to have become supportable by all, even of the humblest rank. This dissimulation remained undetected, and its causes concealed, while the Tarquins lived; for the nobles dreading the Tarquins, and fearing that the people, if they used them ill, might take part against them, treated them with kindness. But no ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... even now scarcely keep the boat clear of water; should our strength fail altogether, as seemed but too probable, she would sink below us. Our lot was that which many poor seamen have endured, but that did not make it more supportable to us. ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... cultivation, especially in the Island of Luzon, being once settled, and the facilities of obtaining hands increased, such legal acts of compulsion, far from being any longer necessary, will have introduced a spirit of industry that will render the labors of the field supportable and even desirable; and in this occupation all the tributary natives of the surrounding settlements can be alternately employed, by the day or week, and thus do their work almost at the door of their own huts, and as it were in sight of ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... exiles passed in solitude were not unhappy. The child Evadne pruned the large-leaved vines, and gave the rugged cheeks of certain melons to the sun. The continual hope of departure rendered all privations supportable. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... weather. I thought over Leah and her designs, feeling certain that she would pay me another nocturnal visit and renew the assault in force. I resolved to weaken myself with some common woman, if I could find one at all supportable. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... those illustrious persons were no more disagreeable to their lovers, or to each other, than people of the same quality are with us in England. And, after all, I found their natural smell was much more supportable, than when they used perfumes, under which I immediately swooned away. I cannot forget, that an intimate friend of mine in Lilliput, took the freedom in a warm day, when I had used a good deal of exercise, to complain of a strong smell about me, although I am as ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... armour? I suppose in the fact that he had risen too rapidly. It would almost seem as if a transmitted education of some generations is necessary for the due enjoyment of great wealth. Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime. Nevertheless a certain kind of good fortune generally attends self-made men to the last. It is their children of the first, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... the least Use to themselves in the Conduct of their Lives. And hence it is certain, that tho the Gentlemen of a pleasant and witty Turn of Mind often make the industrious Merchant, and grave Persons of all Professions, the Subjects of their Raillery, and expose them as stupid Creatures, not supportable in good Company; yet these in their Turn believe they have as great a right, as indeed they have, to reproach the others for want of Industry, good Sense, and regular Oeconomy, much more valuable Talents than those, which any mere Wit can boast of; and therefore ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... render such a mass of taxation, so disproportionate to the whole wealth of the kingdom, in any degree supportable, recourse has been had, either from ignorance or design, to the most monstrous schemes in tampering with the currency, or circulating money of the country, at one time by greatly diminishing the value of the same, and at another ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... conceivable that, at some. in the history of the fabled Atlantis, the production of food should have been exactly sufficient to meet the wants of the population, that the makers of the commodities of the artificer should have amounted to just the number supportable by the surplus food of the agriculturists. And, as there is no harm in adding another monstrous supposition to the foregoing, let it be imagined that every man, woman, and child was perfectly virtuous, and aimed at the good of all as the highest personal ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... coincided for me with a moment of vision. It's extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few of us who had never known one of these rare moments of awakening when we see, hear, understand ever so much—everything—in a flash—before we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... evaporating water, would have formed a thick circle of clouds which would have lessened the excessive heat, hence there would be compensation between the cold of the aphelion and the heat of the perihelion, and an average probably supportable." ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... dost, I'll write it down."—"Then, Madam," said he, "have your pen and ink always about you, when I am present; and put that down to begin with!" This made every one laugh. "What a happy thing is it," thought I, "that good nature generally accompanies this character; else, how would some people be supportable?" ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... happiness of Imogen. He is now grown reasonable enough to determine, that having done so much evil he will do no more; that he will not fight against the country which he has already injured; but as life is not longer supportable, he will die in a just cause, and die with the obscurity of a man who does not think himself ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... indisputable possession. One must admit regretfully that to-day is but a scramble, that to-morrow may never come; it is only the precious yesterday that cannot be taken away from us. A gift from the dead, great and little, it makes life supportable, it almost makes one believe in a benevolent scheme of creation. And some kind of belief is very necessary. But the real knowledge of matters infinitely more profound than any conceivable scheme of creation ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... became speechless in about fifteen minutes after Captain HARDY left him. Doctor SCOTT and Mr. BURKE, who had all along sustained the bed under his shoulders (which raised him in nearly a semi-recumbent posture, the only one that was supportable to him), forbore to disturb him by speaking to him; and when he had remained speechless about five minutes, HIS LORDSHIP'S Steward went to the Surgeon, who had been a short time occupied with the wounded in another part of the cockpit, and stated his apprehensions that HIS LORDSHIP ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty
... in their perfection. We purchased as many as we could carry off for a real. They were full, rich, and juicy, and proved to be a grateful restorative, after our day's exposure to the direct rays of the sun, and their scarcely less supportable reflection from the water. The melon-patch of Las Sandias is overflowed daring the rainy season, and probably the apparently bare, sandy surface hides rich deposits of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... that their habiliments are more coarse and the colours less in harmony. Amongst them misery appears beneath the most revolting aspect; whilst the poorest Gitano preserves a certain deportment which would make his aspect supportable, if his unquiet and ferocious glance did not inspire us ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... its own vanity; what was my power, when its exercise only served to work out the decrees of an inexorable necessity? I had parted myself from my kind, but I had not acquired the nature of a spirit. I had lost of humanity but its illusions, and they alone are what render it supportable. The mystic scrolls over which I had once pored with such intenseness, were now flung aside; what could they teach me? Time was to me but one great vacancy; how could I fill it up, who had neither ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... again. I have no news to give you. Mr. Smith leaves in the course of a fortnight. He will spend a few weeks in Ireland previously to settling at Keighley. He continues just the same: often anxious and bad-tempered, sometimes rather tolerable—just supportable. How did your party go off? How are you? Write soon, and at length, for your letters are a great comfort to me. We are all pretty well. Remember me kindly to each member of the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... is not only necessary to me, but would make happier the marriage in which, as you compelled it, you must still (I think) feel no small concern. My child, on whose frail help I had counted to make our life more supportable to my husband and myself, is dead. Should God give and take away another, I can never escape the thought that my father's intercession might have prevailed against His wrath, which I shall then, alas! take ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Robert Wortley, is it supportable this thing?"—a brand now on his brow—"an alien race in Britain opposing thus daringly not my will only, but the plain will of the people? And have I the air of one who will support it? Rather, I assure you, would I govern without a Parliament! But stop—perhaps I shall be found ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... inwardly, so that you feel grief has him actually by the heart, recalls the reluctance—the question—wherewith you perceive the interior grief of poetry or of a devout life. Cannot the Muse, cannot the Saint, you ask, live with something less than this? If this is the truer life, it seems hardly supportable. In like manner it should be possible for a child of seven to come through his childhood with griefs that should not so closely involve him, but should deal ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... determining causes of the products of that age. If d'Angivillier was responsible for displacing a transcendent art with a false one, if he routed a dainty mythology and its accessories with the heavy effort and paraphernalia of the Romans, on whom shall we place the entirely supportable responsibility of diminishing tapestries from noble draperies down to mere ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... her pitching was but slight. This mode of progressing was not such as to affect the looks of the passengers and give them pinched noses, hollow eyes, livid foreheads, or colourless cheeks. It was supportable. They steered south-west over a splendid sea, hardly lifting in the least, and the American coast soon ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... distinguished them from one another: upon which he took an opportunity, when he presented them with fruit, &c., to say something gallant. "Eat this fig for my sake," said he to Chain of Hearts, who sat on his right hand; "and render the fetters, with which you loaded me the first moment I saw you, more supportable." Then, presenting a bunch of grapes to Soul's Torment, "Take this cluster of grapes," said he, "on condition you instantly abate the torments which I suffer for your sake;" and so on to the rest. By these sallies ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... lay, the public expectation, the Emperor made numerous changes in the laws relating to the consolidated taxes (droits reunis), which, while they diminished the impost, freed it from its abuses and tyrannical forms, and rendered it less odious, and more supportable. These beneficial meliorations, though incomplete, were received with gratitude; and the Emperor was thanked for his endeavours to reconcile the interests of individuals with the ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... quite a supportable degree. With an involuntary shudder, I reflected on what the heat must have been when the volcano of Sneffels was pouring its smoke, flames, and streams of boiling lava—all of which must have come up by the road we were now following. I could imagine the torrents of hot ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... nature. Much as I dislike all formal declarations of this kind, I have deemed it well to say this. I have as strong feelings of gratitude as any man. Shame upon me if in the sickness and the sorrow which I have had, and which have been kept unaggravated and supportable by your kindness, and your brother's (Mr. Josiah Wedgewood) shame upon me if I did not feel a kindness, not unmixed with reverence towards you both. But yet I never should have had my present impulses to be with you, and this confidence, that I may become an occasional comfort to you, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... idea, which so besets the man, that he can see nothing clearly in the world around him. At this age he has a philosophy, a metaphysical system, which he really believes in, (a species of delusion the first to quit us,) and he persists in seeing his dogma reflected to him from all sides. This is supportable, or may be disguised in poetry; it becomes intolerable in prose. Add to all which, that the writer of a novel should have had some experience in the realities of life, a certain empirical knowledge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... by the regards of the seemingly more hardened ruffians from the windows. Under the riveting there was no smile; whilst after it, apathy was affected or resumed, each endeavouring to make his iron collar as supportable and comfortable as possible, by enveloping it in a handkerchief, and guaranteeing the neck ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... existence of Eustace, the safety of De Vallance, and their welfare and comparative happiness. What a weight of anguish was removed from these amiable victims of tyranny by the intelligence! Imprisonment, poverty, dependence, personal infirmity, were all supportable evils. But for a complete exemplification of the extreme limit of human misery, we must look to the oppressor, not to the oppressed; to Cromwell, galled by the armour worn under his robes of state to defend his person from the expected ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West |
