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Tame   Listen
verb
Tame  v. t.  (past & past part. tamed; pres. part. taming)  
1.
To reduce from a wild to a domestic state; to make gentle and familiar; to reclaim; to domesticate; as, to tame a wild beast. "They had not been tamed into submission, but baited into savegeness and stubbornness."
2.
To subdue; to conquer; to repress; as, to tame the pride or passions of youth.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tame" Quotes from Famous Books



... silver braced The azure-dyed ichella[198] round her waist; Her ancles rung with shells, as unconfined She danced, and sung wild carols to the wind. With snow-white teeth, and laughter in her eye, So beautiful in youth she bounded by. Yet kindness sat upon her aspect bland,— The tame alpaca[199] stood and licked her hand; 100 She brought him gathered moss, and loved to deck With flowery twine his tall and stately neck, Whilst he with silent gratitude replies, And bends to her caress his large blue eyes. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... he looks at me." She flashed to anger. "As if I was something he owned and meant to tame." ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... Chillun eat with wooden spoons. Clay pot? Just broken piece. Indian had big camping ground on beach near the Ark. After big blow you can find big piece of pot there. I see Indian. Didn't see wild one; see tame one. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... eyes of crabs, owl's brains, liver of frogs, viper's fat, grasshoppers, bats, etc., these supplied the alkalis which were prescribed. Physicians were accustomed to order doses of the gall of wild swine. It is presumed the tame hog was not sufficiently efficacious. There were other choice prescriptions such as horse's foam, woman's milk, laying a serpent on the afflicted part, urine of cows, bear fat, still recommended as a hair restorative, juice of boiled buck horn, etc. For colic, powdered ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... the stream placed here expressly to traverse it and water it? Afterwards, if God assist me, I will raise little kids which will become goats and give me milk, butter, cheese! Why have I not thought of this before? It would have been too much to have undertaken at once. I shall then have tame goats; I will also have Guinea-pigs, agoutis, and coatis. My house shall be enlarged, I will have a farm, a dairy! But the time has not yet come; let us first prepare the garden. Why has it not been already prepared? ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine

... art thou! What an exemplar to wives now, as well as thou wast before to maidens! Thou canst tame lions, I dare say, if thoud'st try.—Reclaim a rake in the meridian of his libertinism, and make such an one as my brother, not only marry thee, but love thee better at several months' end, than he did the first day, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... could do them more injury, or, if he chose, be more useful to them, than Prexaspes. He was much looked up to by the Persians, and his assurance, that he had not murdered Bartja, would have been sufficient to tame the fast-spreading report of the real way in which the youth had met his death. Oropastes, therefore, sent for Prexaspes, who, since the king's dying words, had been avoided by all the men of his own rank and had led the life of an outlaw, and promised ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... The tame animal stepped with dignity upon his outstretched hand and permitted itself to be lifted into the light.... Its glittering neck-feathers stood up, and while it whetted its beak on Niebeldingk's cuff-links, it repeated in a most ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... by his fall, his family knew not what else to do with him, and so sent him off to the Monastery of St. Michaelsburg, where he lived his simple, witless life upon a sort of sufferance, as though he were a tame, ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle

... of feathers, hens as small as domestic pigeons, hens with plumes on their heads like militia captains, and hens with bare crowns like shaven priests. There were also green pigeons and speckled crows, tame as domestic fowls, among which was seen that anomaly, a white crow. At the tea-house where we stopped for the night, our passports, specially granted, were taken by the local officials and returned to us in the morning. The passport was rather a curious document, and disclaimed ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... are. I cannot see any thing so very desirable in the motive of which you speak, that I should seek to act from it. There is something tame in the idea of striving only to do good ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... Swallows Nests. He Builds himself a Store-house and a Pantry, to lay up the remainder of his Provision in: and made a Door to it of Canes twisted together, to prevent any of the Beasts getting in, during his absence. He took Birds of prey and brought them up for Hawking; and kept tame ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail

... in the Dominican that afforded any amusement. The remainder of the paper, made up of the usual articles sneering at the Sixth and crowing over the school generally, were very tame. The result of the Nightingale ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... awful stenches—they cannot but say that I was a diligent pupil, who honestly tried to learn the lessons they taught me so kindly, though some of those lessons were hard to a person who had never previously been even in a tame bit of tropics, and whose life for many years had been an entirely domestic ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... account being now before the public, dispenses me from speaking of it in other than a few general terms. In 1803, it was progressively advancing towards a state of independence on the mother country for food and clothing; both the wild and tame cattle had augmented in a proportion to make it probable that they would, before many years, be very abundant; and manufactures of woollen, linen, cordage, and leather, with breweries and a pottery, were commenced. The number of inhabitants was ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... desks, gave her a momentary sense of relief. The stillness soothed her, and the tumultuous singing in her head and ears seemed to lull. She sat down in one of the inner recesses and looked out on the row of ivy-covered studies and the little gate that led down to the town. A tame jackdaw was hopping among the stones, and a couple of fan-tail pigeons were strutting near him. The mellow brightness of the October sunshine seemed to flood the whole court. Oh, how peaceful it looked, how calm and still! and then ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... naturalists," answered the Judge, "that man comprehends, within himself, the peculiarities of all inferior animals. Now, there are some capable of domestication, while others are irreclaimable. You may tame the horse, but not the tiger. The wild element controls the one, and is controllable in the other. In my opinion, this wild element so predominates in the Indian as to make him incapable of ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... and poems, among which are a pretty story, by Mrs. Hofland; a Cricketing Story, by Miss Mitford, &c. There are two or three little pieces enjoining humanity to animals, and some pleasing anecdotes of monkeys and tame robins, and a few ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various

... a fighting cock, But he's game enough, and it's many a mile that he's tramped with the travelling stock.' The cook he banged on a saucepan lid; and, soon as the sound was heard, Under the dray, in the shadows hid, a something moved and stirred: A great tame Emu strutted out. Said Saltbush, 'Here's our bird!' But Rooster Hall, and his cronies two, drove home without ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... opinion of some, those animals which now are fierce and kill others, would, in that state, have been tame, not only in regard to man, but also in regard to other animals. But this is quite unreasonable. For the nature of animals was not changed by man's sin, as if those whose nature now it is to devour the flesh of others, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... they swept, past leafy glades of beech trees, where the swineherd drove his half-tame charges, or where the woodcutters plied their toil, and loaded their rude carts or hand barrows with fuel for the kitchen of the hall; past rookeries, where the birds made the air lively by their noise; over brook, through the half-dry ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... the gentlemen departed; Fleda, it must be confessed, seeing nothing in the whole leave-taking but Mr. Carleton's look and smile. The muffins were a very tame affair after it. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... Dexter used to go daily to get rid of the vitality which often battled for exit in the confinement of the house. Half an hour here of the performance of so many natural gymnastic tricks seemed to tame him down—these tricks being much of a kind popular amongst caged monkeys, who often, for no apparent object, spring about and hang by hands or feet, ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... till further order. And there they kept him, not letting him go either forward or backward. In this manner and place he remained for three days, till the King sent Order that he might return to his House whence he came. This the King did to tame him. But afterwards he was pleased to call him before him. And there he remained when I left the Countrey, maintained with Plenty of ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... little animals can fly without resting. At first, it seemed weary, but soon recovered, and flew gaily about. When far out at sea, cut off from every other society than that of our shipmates, any guest from land, even a bird, is welcome. Ours soon became a general favourite, and was so tame, that it would hop on our hands and take the flies we offered him without any symptom of fear. He chose my cabin to sleep in at night; and at sunrise flew again upon deck, where he found every one willing to entertain him, and ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... latter were more guided by reason the former by sentiment. Nearly three times as many boys in the early teens chose books because they were exciting or venturesome. Even the stories which girls called exciting were tame compared with those chosen by boys. Girls chose books more than four times as often because of children in them, and more often because they ware funny. Boys care very little for style, but must have incidents and heroes. The ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down. "The damn fool!" he fumed. "He goes lounging about, wasting the money we make. It's all wrong. And if we weren't a herd of tame asses, we wouldn't ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... home his defiance. "Drop that gun, you four-flusher, and I'll whale you till you can't stand. Sabe? Call yourself a bad man, do you? Time I'm through with you there will be one tame wolf crawling back to Dead Cow with its tail between ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... water and toward the shore. I heard her quick breathing, and saw a sudden shudder pass through her, and her hands clutch one another more tightly in a nervous clasp, as she came to that place where she had fallen last. She looked at that spot on the dark water for a long tame, and in visible agitation. What had taken place after she had fallen she well knew, for I had told it all on my first visit to her house, but it was only from my account that she knew it. Yet here were the visible illustrations of my story—the ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... so fond of using. Thus we have Pasquill of England to Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given to Martin Junior; A sound boxe on the eare for the father and sonnes, Huffe, Ruffe, and Snuffe, the three tame ruffians of the Church, who take pepper in their nose because they cannot marre Prelates grating; and ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... augment debt, to multiply the public burdens, to create armies and navies, and, by the instrumentality of all this machinery, to govern and enslave the people; that they were a paper nobility, whose extreme sensibility at every measure which threatened the funds, induced a tame submission to injuries and insults, which the interest and the honor of the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... ecclesiastical discipline (a practice never justified in the world but either by the Turk or by the Pope): this put us upon the defensive part. They must not think that other men are so cowed or grown so tame, as to stand still blowing of their noses, whilst they bridle them and ride them at their pleasure. It is time to let the world see that this discipline which they so much adore, is the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various

... prisoner appear in the dock looking like a young clergyman, dressed in a complete suit of black, a long frock coat, fitting him up to the neck and very nearly down to the heels. He had the appearance of a very tame curate. His hair, instead of being short and stumpy, as when the young policeman saw him, was now long, shiny, and carefully brushed over both sides of his forehead, which gave him the appearance so fashionable amongst the ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... all seen, heard, or read of the various devices adopted by the different peoples of the globe in the capture of the finny tribe, from our own familiar hook and line to the Chinaman's trained cormorant or the Chenook Indian's tame seal. These are all good in their way, only they involve a great loss of time and require no end of patience. But the method illustrated to us the morning after our arrival, besides being a more certain is also ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... But this somewhat tame conclusion does not make it any less important to grasp clearly the significance of the appreciation in the value of capital goods. A failure to realize it lies at the root of our bewildered muddling of many crucial problems of the day. In the matter of housing, for instance, ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson

... a mistake," said the other, regarding him severely; "girls like a masterful man, and, instead of getting your own way, you sit down quietly and do as you're told, like a tame—tame—" ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... there have been legends similar to the story of Audunn, where a man, after having been to the Norwegian king with a tame bear, decides to present it to the king of Denmark. However, we know of no earlier source for this motif than the story of Audunn. Whatever its value as historical fact, it could well be the model to which the other versions might be traced. This story is preserved ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... this matter of the vox populi. "Leave this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... breakfast, they repaired to his habitation, which was contiguous to their own. After being conducted through a number of yards and huts, inhabited only by goats and sheep, which were tethered to posts, and a number of tame pigeons, they perceived the object of their visit squatting on a leopard's skin, under a decent looking verandah. He was surrounded by his drummers, and other distinguished persons, who made room for the travellers as they drew near. But the chief arose as soon as he saw them, and ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... come on unexpectedly early, and caused many of the hunters to return from the plains with scarcely any provisions. There were a few tame buffaloes that had been reared in the colony, which have been slaughtered, and to save as much seed corn as possible, the allowance of grain is given out to the settlers with the most rigid economy by the Charge d'Affaires. ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West

... a streamlet trickled through the long grasses, and following it she found that it led her to the fish pond in the shrubbery, at the back of St. Peter's walk. There was there a pleasant, shady place, where she could sit and read. She stood for a moment watching the fish. They were so tame that they would take the bread from the novices' hands. She had brought some bread, but she had to throw it to them. She divided it amongst them, not forgetting to favour the little ones, and she thought it strange that they could distinguish her from the novices. That much ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... amount, to beer; of which he swigged such copious draughts, that most of his faculties were utterly drowned and washed away, except the one great faculty of sleep, which he retained in surprising perfection. The creaking Lion over the house-door was, therefore, to say the truth, rather a drowsy, tame, and feeble lion; and as these social representatives of a savage class are usually of a conventional character (being depicted, for the most part, in impossible attitudes and of unearthly colours), he was frequently supposed by the more ignorant and uninformed among the neighbours, to ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... word in his answer. As for his 'will,' his 'will' is that the uncle's 'goodwill may stand with his' and Beatrice's 'will'—in other words that the uncle may consent to their union. Slender and Anne Page vary the tame sport when the former misinterprets the young lady's 'What is your will?' into an inquiry into the testamentary disposition of his property. To what depth of vapidity Shakespeare and contemporary punsters could sink is ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... This flattery was meat and drink to him. Holding the arm of his admiring friend, he poured out his soul in verse, allowing his companion, from time to time, the opportunity of contributing a little to the poetic feast. The two virtually forgot to notice the level, sandy road and tame scenery, the clouded sun, the troublesome flies. For the time being, they were everything, the one to the other. By their own spirits were they deified, or thought they ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... stronger individual, finds that covenant to be productive of injury instead of benefit. Nobody is anybody's friend; nobody is anybody's well-wisher; persons become friends or foes only from motives of interest. Interest enlists interest even as tame elephants catch wild individuals of their species. After, again, an act has been accomplished, the doer is scarcely regarded. For this reason, all acts should be so done that something may remain to be done. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... sleep, although fatigued, I am writing down my impressions; yet how tame and colourless they seem on paper when compared with the emotions that dictate them! How often have I experienced the impossibility of painting ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... in the bosom of the Maid, but I had never believed the tale. Yet now I saw this thing with mine own eyes, a fair sight and a marvellous, so beautiful she looked, with head unhelmeted, and the wild fowl and tame flitting about her and above her, the doves crooning sweetly in their soft voices. Then her ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... unknown God, A Promethean conqueror came; Like a triumphal path he trod The thorns of death and shame. A mortal shape to him Was like the vapor dim Which the orient planet animates with light; Hell, sin, and slavery came, Like bloodhounds mild and tame, Nor preyed until their lord had taken flight. The moon of Ma'homet Arose, and it shall set; While, blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... quite as cold and fixed and unapproachable, as the title implied. Knowledge of her identity had come as a shock, for Law knew something of her history, and to find her suing for his protection was quite thrilling. Tales of her pale beauty were common and not tame, but she was all and more than she had been described. And yet why had no one told him she was so young? This woman's youth and attractiveness amazed him; he felt that he had made a startling discovery. Was she so cold, after all, ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... of Midian have till late years been a turbulent "mixed multitude," and are ready to become troublesome again. It is only by building forts and by holding the land militarily, that the civilized can hope to tame this vermin. I repeat, however, my conviction that the charming Makna Valley is fated to see happy years; and that the Wild Man who, when ruled by an iron hand, is ever ready to do a fair day's work for a fair wage (especially ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... I grew tame, would raise my great head close to the strong wire-netting, and over would come all kinds of what Folks call "treats." Once, however, a man-Folk threw me part of a small round, dark roll or stick, such as men-Folks put in their mouths ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever

... priest, "which it pleases you to condemn, I'd have you to know, that I will teach my people how to resist oppression so long as I am able to teach them anything. I will not allow them to remain tame drudges under burthens that make you and such as you as ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... paper. "I could afford to take a trip around the earth after them, too, with the way money is coming in now. Yes, I do wish I could have some excitement. Hello, what's this! A big elephant hunt in Africa. Hundreds of the huge creatures captured in a trap—driven in by tame beasts. Some are shot for their tusks. Others will be ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... me full sorely / that I came to this land. And had my brother Hagen / his good sword in hand, And had I mine to help him, / a bit more gently then, A little tame of spirit, / might show themselves ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... and they are much cleaner and more respectable in appearance than any you ever saw in a circus or a zoo. They are as large as Italian greyhounds, and of similar color, with long hair and uncommonly long tails, and so tame they will come up to strangers who know enough to utter a call that they understand. Our coachman bought a penny's worth of sweet bread in one of the groceries that we passed, and when we reached the first grove he uttered a cry similar to that which ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... dropping Ollie he started toward the girl to take her from the horse by force. As he reached the pony's side, Sammy raised her whip and with all her strength struck him full across the face. The big ruffian drew back with a bellow of pain and anger. Then he started toward her again. "I'll tame you, you wild cat," he yelled. And Sammy raised her ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright

... creator of the universe, to whom every thing that is in it belongs, gave to Noah and his descendants a grant or charter for this purpose. In this charter no exception is made. Hence wild animals are included in it equally with the tame. And hence a hare may as well be killed, if people have occasion for food, as ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... swanne with cawdrons / [c]rybbes of befe with garlycke, mustarde, peper, vergyus; [d]gynger sauce to la{m}be, pygge, & fawne / mustarde & suger to fesande, partryche, and conye / sauce gamelyne to hero{n}sewe, egryt, plouer, & crane / to brewe, curlewe, [e]salte, suger, & water of tame / to bustarde, shouyllarde, & bytture, sauce gamelyne: [f]woodcocke, lapwynge, larke, quayle, mertynet, venyson, and snyte, with whyte salte / sparowes & throstelles with salte & synamo{n} / thus with all metes, sauce shall ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... is a world all unexplored, where no man can dwell; where, as yet, no human-made instrument has reached. This unknown world calls for explorers, it calls for adventure, it calls for daring and patient work. It is for Man to tame the forces of the sky, and tame them he must and will. To show how much the Weather Bureau is accomplishing, to depict the marvels of its work, to portray the ruthless ferocity of the forces as yet uncontrolled and to reveal the gripping fascination of this work, in which every American boy may ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... port wine, the same quantity of good meat gravy, a little shalot, a little pepper and salt, a grate of nutmeg, and a bit of mace, for ten minutes. Put in a piece of butter, and flour; give it all one boil, and pour it through the birds. In general they are not stuffed as tame fowl, but may ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... my lord, when tame doves live cooped within the pen of your precepts, I do think ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... the window at them?' I asked scornfully, for I had seen a score of tame bears in captivity, and, like you, Mary, was inclined to despise them, though there was far less excuse for me; for I had heard stories which should have convinced me that, small as he is, the Indian bear is not a beast to ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... at Carter's was a very tame affair. Many were the curses showered upon Pete, and had that worthy been present, I doubt if even the thought of the famous miracle would have sustained him in the beating he would have received. But if Pete's conduct produced such a sad effect upon the festivities at Carter's, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... and the trees swaying to its caress. Moose-birds began to gather around us, calling out with voices ranging from the shrillest to deep raucous cries, sometimes changing to imitations of other birds. They became very tame at once, and hopped impudently among us, cocking up their saucy little heads and watching us. Susie happened to put a little bacon on a piece of bread, beside her on the clean moss, the better to handle a ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... enough; but I don't believe 's any one in kingdom come could overlook them ears. Mr. Kimball says Belgian hares an' Deacon White 's both designed to be catched by their ears. I looked at him to-day 'n' figured on maybe tryin' to tame 'em in a little with a tape nightcap; but then I says to myself, I says: 'No; if he 's to be my husband, I 'll probably have so much to overlook that them ears 'll soon be mice to the mountain o' the rest,' an' so I give up the idea. I had bother enough with tryin' to see where I 'd put ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner

... perhaps, any harder task than to tame the natural wildness of Wit, and to civilize the Fancy. The generality of our old English Poets abound in forced conceits and affected phrases; and even those who are said to come the nearest to exactness, are but ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... them away! Sometimes I have seen them come with the intention of carrying off everything and throwing him into prison. But when he talks to them they end by being the best of friends, and part with cordial handshakes! There are some men who can tame jackals and lions. That's not a circumstance; M. Mercadet can ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac

... eyes were fixed upon an open letter, which she instinctively knew to be Deryck's, and he did not look up at once. When he did look up, she saw his unmistakable start of surprise. He opened his mouth to speak, and Jane was irresistibly reminded of a tame goldfish at Overdene, which used to rise to the surface when the duchess dropped crumbs. He closed it without uttering a word, and turned again to Deryck's letter; and Jane felt herself to be the crumb, or rather the camel, which he was finding ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... would not luxuriate in it; he took the beauty of the universe more seriously than himself. To him wickedness was a matter of imps and monsters rather than of villains, and of imps and monsters that could be exorcized by music. He was the Orpheus of the world who might tame the beast in all of us if we would listen to him, the wandering minstrel whom the world left to play out in the street. And yet his ultimate seriousness and the last secret of his beauty is pity, not ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock

... aforesaid, and all the Countreis about the said Sea, the people liue without towne or habitation in the wilde fields, remouing from one place to another in great companies with their cattel, whereof they haue great store, as camels, horses, and sheepe both tame and wilde. Their sheepe are of great stature with great buttocks, weighing 60. or 80. pound in weight. There are many wild horses which the Tartars doe many times kil with their hawkes, and that in this order. The hawkes are lured to sease vpon the beasts neckes ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... the youngest Voukotitch tempted the major—who was in splendid mood—suggesting that it was rather tame to go home after having come within mere bowing distance of the Austrians, and that a few stray bullets would ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... into the interior of Viti Levu, our guide and companion being Ratu Pope Seniloli, a grandson of king Thakombau, and one of the high chiefs of Mbau. Upon meeting Ratu Pope every native dropped his burdens, stepped to the side of the wood-path and crouched down, softly chanting the words of the tame, muduo! wo! No one ever stepped upon his shadow, and if desirous of crossing his path they passed in front, never behind him. Clubs were lowered in his presence, and no man stood fully erect when he was near. The very language addressed to high chiefs is different from that used in conversation ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... are going on a long journey," he said. "Well, I thought it was time that we did something more than wander about these tame countries selling blankets to stinking old women and so forth, Baas. Moreover, Zikali does not wish that you should come to harm, doubtless because he does wish to make use of you afterwards—oh! it's safe to talk now when that spirit is away looking for another snake. What ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... I had enough to do, even with Nettle's assistance, in acting as police to keep off those bold thieves, the wekas, who are as impudent as they are tame and fearless. In appearance they resemble exactly a stout hen pheasant, without its long tail; but they belong to the apterix family, and have no wings, only a tiny useless pinion at each shoulder, furnished with a claw like a small fish-hook: what is the use of this claw I was never able to discover. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... it, no doubt, it may be tame enough—we cannot tell; but to those who mount an engine for the first time and drive through the crowded thoroughfares of London at a wild tearing gallop, it is probably the most exciting drive conceivable. It beats steeple-chasing. ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... our departure in the Alton steamboat, in order to see the first twenty-four miles of the Upper Mississippi, and the junction of that river and the Missouri, which takes place about six miles below Alton; both rivers, however, are very tame and monotonous, and it was only as we were reaching Alton, that the banks of the Mississippi assumed anything like height. Alton itself stands very high, and as it was getting dark when we arrived, the lights along the hills had a fine effect. We are told it is a pretty town, ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... my soul desired the harvest of the sword: Then I slew the great Gold-wallower, and won the ancient Hoard, And I turned to the dwellings of men; for I longed for measureless fame, And to do and undo with the Kings, and the pride of the Kings to tame; And I longed for the love of the King-folk; but who desired my soul, Who stayed my feet in his dwelling, who showed the weary the goal, Who drew me forth from the wastes, and the bitter kinless dearth, Till I came to the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... and when he wold be all byshrwed, as they tameth the Elephantes and Lyons or suche beastes that can not be wonne by strength xantyppa. Suche a beaste haue I at home. Eula. Thei that goth vnto the Elephantes weare no white garmentes, nor they that tame wylde bulles, weare no blasynge reedes, for experience teacheth, that suche beastes bee madde with those colours, like as the Tygers by the sound of tumbrels be made so wode, that thei plucke theymself in peces. Also thei ...
— A Merry Dialogue Declaringe the Properties of Shrowde Shrews and Honest Wives • Desiderius Erasmus

... fervid Pote who never potes, Great Artists, Male or She, that Talk But scorn the Pigment and the chalk, And Cubist sculptors wild as Goats, Theosophists and Swamis, too, Musicians mad as Hatters be— (E'en puzzled Hatters, two or three!) Tame anarchists, a dreary crew, Squib Socialists too damp to sosh, Fake Hobohemians steeped in suds, Glib females in Artistic Duds With Captive ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis

... new-raised log-heaps fire, And see them burn to suit his heart's desire. The fire is placed; where, think you? Not below, But on the top, and burns at first but slow. See, now, the wind has blown it to a flame; And soon the log-heap fire's no longer tame! Dry sticks and chips, in all the openings placed, Will prove the time spent on them was not waste. The embers, falling, make these soon ignite; And now the heap, from end to end, is bright! With pale or ruddy flame; the smoke ascends Thick, black and curling, as its way it wends Toward the ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... snowy white decorations, and is a singer; he has a murmurous rich note that is lovely. He was once modest, even diffident; but he lost all that when he found out that he was Australia's sole musical bird. He has talent, and cuteness, and impudence; and in his tame state he is a most satisfactory pet—never coming when he is called, always coming when he isn't, and studying disobedience as an accomplishment. He is not confined, but loafs all over the house and grounds, like the laughing jackass. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... thrilling as it was, however, grew tame for Young Joe. He wanted something different. He had brought along, also, a steel-shod sled, known to the boys as a "pointer," because its forward ends ran out to sharp points, protected by the turning up of the steel runners. ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... twenty-one, old Jack Clay reckoned he was gettin' too old for drivin' in all weathers, an' Jim come home an' took his place. A fine great feller he was, all tanned and brown, with his white teeth showin' among his black beard. He said he'd seen no girl that wasn't as tame as ditch water after me, an' as for me, no one else could ever give me the feelin' he could, so we reckoned to be publicly engaged. It raised the most terrible bobberie, and me mother nearly took a fit. She had me laid ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... Sophistry passes for reasoning; nothing appears profound but what is obscure; nothing sublime but what is beyond the reach of mortal comprehension. To their vitiated taste the simple pathos, which o'ersteps not the modesty of nature, appears cold, tame, and insipid; they must have scenes and a coup de theatre; and ranting, and raving, and stabbing, and drowning, and poisoning; for with them there is no love without murder. Love, in their representations, is indeed a distorted, ridiculous, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... help in trouble, even the seed Of mighty Hercules, Eurypylus. A great host followed him, in battle skilled, All that by long Caicus' outflow dwelt, Full of triumphant trust in their strong spears. Round them rejoicing thronged the sons of Troy: As when tame geese within a pen gaze up On him who casts them corn, and round his feet Throng hissing uncouth love, and his heart warms As he looks down on them; so thronged the sons Of Troy, as on fierce-heart Eurypylus They gazed; and gladdened was his aweless soul To see those throngs: from ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... have passed so far out of sight of the Falkland Islands, Sir John Hawkins's maiden land. The idea of seeing a town left standing as it was, by all its inhabitants at once, and of the tame animals becoming wild, had something romantic. It seemed like a realisation of the Arabian tale of the half-marble prince, and in real interest comes near the discovery of the lost Greenland settlements. I do not know any thing that gratifies the imagination, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... equally with these latter they serve him as means of subsistence or articles of commerce; indeed, a large portion of the human family do not use the products of the soil as food at all, but live on the milk and cheese and flesh of their flocks and herds, whilst all men everywhere tame and domesticate the more useful kinds of animals, and turn them to account as fellow-workers in war and for ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... putting it. Y'see even a tame shark don't get over a lifetime habit of swallowing most things that come his way. Peterman figures to ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... secret doings, of all the horrors and crimes perpetrated by this disgraceful institution, would fill up many volumes, before the contents of which the most sensational novels would appear tame and shallow. There is scarcely any sphere of public or private life which is exempted from the irresponsible control of this Inquisition of the nineteenth century. The verdict of a Court has no value whatever for the ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name, Or noble Elgin beats the heav'nward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays. Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... too. Most of the sea-gulls are white with a gray coat on their backs, but they look snowy-white as they fly. You may see them walking about the wharves, or perching on roofs and piles watching for food, and seeming very tame as they pick up bits of bread or the refuse floating in the water. They follow steamers for miles, scarcely moving their wings as they float in the air; and if you throw a cracker from the deck, some gull will make ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... the subsequent progress of the Expedition which had so ignominiously failed, have no interest for the reader of Gordon's life. It failed to accomplish the object which alone justified its being sent, and, it must be allowed, that it accepted its failure in a very tame and spiritless manner. Even at the moment of the British troops turning their backs on the goal which they had not won, the fate of Gordon himself was unknown, although there could be no doubt as to the main fact that the protracted siege of Khartoum had terminated ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... risen. "In this room, what can I say? Your kindness to me has been very great. My God, sir, I should be stock or stone not to feel abashed! And yet—and yet—Will you have it at last? You ask discipleship—you must have about you tame and obedient spirits—a Saint James the Greater and a Saint James the Less to hearken to your words and spread them far and wide, and all the attentive band to wait upon your wisdom! Free! We are tremendously free, but you must still be Lord ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... have been invented, flying is not thought so wonderful as once it was. But loafing along through the air in a biplane or a monoplane at eighty or a hundred miles an hour is a very tame business when you compare it with racing the day round the world on a Cloud horse. And Neville is very probably the only person who ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis

... deficiency. Thus you may expect from him first a dogma, and presently a doubt. If you fight his dogma, he will do battle for it stoutly; if you let him alone, he will very probably explain its extravagances, if it has any, and tame it into reasonable limits. Sometimes he is in ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... When his senses returned he rose and untied the veil that Ino had given him and cast it back into the sea. Then he knelt down and kissed the earth, and moved to a sheltered spot where a wild and a tame olive-tree were standing close together, whose branches had mingled with one another, and there he ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... not last. A great calamity was coming—a calamity beside which the slow destruction of the former town would seem tame and uninteresting. ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert

... hating the settlement and all the folk therein, was glad to be quit of it. And she found the hunting of deer far more thrilling than the tame pursuit of sheep. Slipping with curious ease the inherited sympathies of her kind, she fell into the ways of the wild kindred, save for a certain brusque openness which she ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... of freedom, when they had been wont to chat and laugh with careless hilarity. But they were mute enough now. A few of them had tasted the bastinado and been tamed; most of them had been wise enough to tame themselves. If Shakespeare had been a Turk he would probably have written a very different version of the Taming of ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... the man of courage—few and far between—who will stand the chance of a first bite from Nature, which may kill him for aught he knows—for her teeth, though clumsy, are very strong—in order that he may tame her and break her in to his use by the very same method by which that admirable inductive philosopher, Mr. Rarey, used to break in his horses; first, by not being afraid of them; and next, by trying to find out what they were thinking of. But after all, as ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... it very lonely since Ruth married her tame clergyman and Lissa went away to become ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... first in flow'rs, his lofty pines, With friendly shade, secur'd his tender vines. For ev'ry bloom his trees in spring afford, An autumn apple was by tale restor'd He knew to rank his elms in even rows, For fruit the grafted pear tree to dispose, And tame to plums the sourness of the sloes With spreading planes he made a cool retreat, To shade good fellows from the ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... for it, and no one came to cheer them up. Of course some of the men's own friends were there, and the few strangers who were present shook hands with the men as they came limping and hopping and stumbling down the gangway. But it was all very quiet, very sad, very tame from a spectator's point of view, but deeply significant. One could hardly imagine a greater contrast than was presented by the same shed on a day of departure and on a day of arrival like this. In the one case great crowds hurrahing ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... from the steep The shadow of its coming; The beasts grow tame, and near us creep, As help were in the human: Yet while the cloud-wheels roll and grind We spirits tremble under!— The hills have echoes; but we find No answer for the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... he spake a bird flew forth at his right hand, an eagle that bare in his claws a great white goose, a tame fowl from the yard, and men and women followed shouting. But the bird drew near them and flew off to the right, across the horses, and they that saw it were glad, and their hearts were all comforted within them. And Peisistratus, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... repairs. The officer enquired whether he really understood the job, and received the reply, "Yes, mon Lieutenant, I think I do, but I am rather a novice, as before the war I was a lion-tamer!" Apparently the gallant son of Gaul found it easier to tame ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke

... like so many triumphal arches. He also added to the temple at Hibe in the Great Oasis, and began a small temple at Esne, or Latopolis, where he is drawn upon the walls in the act of striking down the chiefs of the conquered nations, and is followed by a tame lion. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... that I could not bend One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye That dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend, Where is Mark ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson



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