at the best of times

Example Sentences

• "When that gentleman came from the city, and was welcomed in the drawing-room by his daughters and the elegant Miss Wirt, they saw at once by his face—which was puffy, solemn, and yellow at the best of times—and by the scowl and twitching of his black eye-brows, that the heart within his large white waistcoat was disturbed and uneasy."
• "Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, but it would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he sold at this time."
• "She could only reply that I was welcome to any thing she could tell me in return for the kindness I had shown to Anne. But as she was not very quick and ready, at the best of times, in talking to strangers, she would beg me to put her in the right way, and to say where I wished her to begin."
• "In the case of the Cusack-Bremmils, this reaction did not set in till the third year after the wedding. Bremmil was hard to hold at the best of times; but he was a beautiful husband until the baby died, and Mrs. Bremmil wore black, and grew thin, and mourned as if the bottom of the Universe had fallen out."
• "His shoes were covered with mud, and he was looking very rough and touzled; but then he had never been a very smart man, the Badger, at the best of times."
• "This is not unsatisfactory, but the change at Ballybrophy (a dismal station at the best of times) is not one that meets with the approval of the citizens of Clonmel."