"Scanty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and especially the country folk are at the very end of their sacrifices. With grief I see many of my subjects unable to pay their taxes, and obliged to emigrate. Nevertheless, my receipts are so scanty that I have little advantage from them. Nor do I reap more from my hereditary lands, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... northern castle, which was in the hands of the enemy; and how it had been concealed again—only too well, forgotten in the course of a generation or two, and actually lost sight of for a hundred years. She entered the room, "such a very, very small room," she wrote, in her wonder at the rude and scanty accommodation of those days, in which James VI. was born. No doubt "Mons Meg," the old Flemish cannon and grim darling of the fortress, was presented to her. But what seems to have moved her most was the magnificent view, which included the rich Lothians and the silver shield ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... compelled to isolate themselves from their fellows, have taken up their abode in rude hovels or caves by the road-side, and sally forth in all their hideousness to beset the traveller with piteous cries for assistance. Some of these poor lepers are loathsome in appearance to the last degree; their scanty coverings of rags and tatters conceals nothing of the ravages of their dread disease; some sit at the entrance to their hovels, stretching out their hands and piteously appealing for alms; others drop down exhausted in the road while endeavoring to run and overtake the passer-by; there is nothing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Moffat was apprenticed to a gardener, named John Robertson, a just but hard man, who lived at Parkhill, Polmont. The toil was severe and the food scanty. Often in the bitter cold of a Scottish winter the lads employed were required to commence work at four o'clock in the morning, and had to hammer their knuckles against the handles of their spades to try and bring some feeling into them. ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... overwhelming odds, and the Serbians have twice driven back large Austrian forces, although they have a transport by oxen only, an elementary commissariat, no medical or surgical supplies to speak of, and scanty munitions of war. On the other hand, the principal combatants have proved that with money enough they can all use effectively the new methods of war administration and the new implements for destruction. These facts suggest that the war might be much prolonged without yielding any results more ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the wheels which work the bellows and hammers being turned by a powerful stream of water. At this time (Oct. 28, 1802) a cessation has taken place for nearly a year. Lancashire ore, which is brought to Newnham by sea, furnishes the principal supply; the mine found in the Forest being either too scanty to answer the expense of raising it, or when raised too difficult of fusion, and consequently too consumptive of fuel, to allow the common use of it." Since then so great a change has been effected in the mode of reducing the ore, that ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... cannot reproduce. He is a house-agent as well as a draper, and went on to tell us that when he had a cottage he could rent in no other way he planted plenty of creepers in front of it. "The baker's hoose is no sae bonnie," he said, "and the linen and cutlery verra scanty, but there is a yellow laburnum growin' by the door: the leddies see that, and forget to ask aboot the linen. It depends a good bit on the weather, too; it is easy to let a hoose when the sun shines ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... that their lands are declining in value while their debts increase, and that without compensating favor they are forced by the action of the Government to pay for the benefit of others such enhanced prices for the things they need that the scanty returns of their labor fail to furnish their support or leave ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... history I possess several manuscript versions. I incline to the briefest, since, if it should not be wholly true, it is at least likely to contain the least falsehood. "Ogg the son of Beorl," says my private hagiographer, "was a boatman who gained a scanty living by ferrying passengers across the river Floss. And it came to pass, one evening when the winds were high, that there sat moaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in her arms; and she was clad in rags, and had a worn and withered ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... served them for the time, but a repetition would endanger the lives of their animals, who were also in sore straits, inasmuch as the grass was not only poor but very scanty. Matters rapidly grew worse, and soon became so desperate that Carson said they would have to kill one of their animals or else lie down and ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... to their graves under cover of the darkness of night, to save their scanty ration for the survivors, in the division of food. The angel of death flew from house to house, touched pretty little Bessie's heart, and kissed her closed eyes while she slumbered in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in her fine, last-season's dress, with the usual up-to-date hat on her scanty drab hair, and the twinkle of amusement at the continuous entertainment that life afforded her, was looking so well that Patricia voiced her wonder that she should have come to town for doctoring, as her ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... its distinctive character however neither from its vaulted roof, nor from the deep embrasures of its windows, nor from its scanty furniture, but from the peculiar nature of the many curious objects, large and small, which hid the walls and filled almost all the available space on the floor. It was clear that every one of the specimens illustrated some point in the great question of life and death which formed ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... beginning to feel this to be the case with Bessy Amherst. To touch the rock was not enough, if there were but a few drops within it; yet in this barrenness lay the pathos of the situation—and after all, may not the scanty spring be fed from ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... what few particulars they had received or discovered without any additions from their own brains: as it is, the history of the Bible is not so much imperfect as untrustworthy: the foundations are not only too scanty for building upon, but are also unsound. (3) It is part of my purpose to remedy these defects, and to remove common theological prejudices. (4) But I fear that I am attempting my task too late, for men ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... bodies of invaders who entered the colony moved along the line of these two railways, the one crossing the Orange River at Norval's Pont and the other at Bethulie. They enlisted many recruits among the Cape Colony Dutch as they advanced, and the scanty British forces fell back in front of them, abandoning Colesberg on the one line and Stormberg on the other. We have, then, to deal with the movements of two British detachments. The one which operated on the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... chosen! Piang was to ferret out the secret of the lake! Piang was to bring honor to his tribe! When it was explained to him that his mother would be provided for, he abruptly turned from the dato and dashed off to his hut to procure weapons and scanty provisions. A silence held the natives as they waited for Piang to reappear. They all seemed to sense the dangers that were confronting the boy so eager to undertake the task. Hardly ten minutes had elapsed before he was in their midst again. ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... 139: Niebuhr, vol. II, 216, gives a full account of his visit to the tomb. Layard, speaking of Birs Nimroud, says: "To the south-west in the extreme distance rise the palm-trees of Kifil, casting their scanty shade over a small dome, the tomb of Ezekiel. To this spot occasionally flock in crowds, as their forefathers have done for centuries, the Jews of Bagdad, Hillah, and other cities of Chaldea.... It is now but a plain building, despoiled ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... cultivation, all tropical produce would thrive; cotton, coffee, and the sugarcane are indigenous; but although both climate and soil are favourable, the conditions necessary to successful enterprise are wanting—the population is scanty, and the material of the very worst; the people vicious and idle. The climate, although favourable for agriculture, is adverse to the European constitution; thus colonization would be out of the question. What can be done with so hopeless a prospect? Where ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... had. His desire for an education defied the extremest poverty, and no obstacle could turn him from his purpose. He was rich when he discovered a little bookstore, and his thirsty soul would drink in the precious treasures from its priceless volumes for hours, perfectly oblivious of the scanty meal of bread and water which awaited him at his lowly lodging. Nothing could discourage him from trying to improve himself by study. It seemed to him that an opportunity to get at books and lectures ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... of the general admiration of Mrs. Martindale, whence she deduced vanity and extravagance; but she heard nothing more till Jane Gardner, a correspondent, who persevered in spite of scanty and infrequent answers, mentioned her call on poor Mrs. Martindale, who, she said, looked sadly altered, unwell, and out of spirits. Georgina had tried to persuade her to come out, but without success; she ought to have ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... part of that period the foreign quarter was subjected to heavy rifle and artillery fire, and the continuous fighting at close quarters with the hordes of Chinese regulars, as well as Boxers, decimated the scanty ranks of the defenders. The supply of both ammunition and food was slender. But the heroism displayed by civilians and professional combatants alike was inexhaustible. In their anxiety to burn out the British legation, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... a thick mist that rose from the river, overspreading everything and saturating our scanty clothing with moisture, causing us to be chilly and uncomfortable. It was this fact, perhaps, that awakened me during the night, when all my companions lying around were snoring soundly, dreaming most probably, of their triumphant entry into the land of ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... narrative, with his great tongue hanging out of his mouth, and tears running down his cheeks, that the young man was quite sickened. The King's face was thin and long, the cheeks shaven, but the lips clothed with mustaches, and a scanty beard covered his chin. The hair was brushed away from the face, and the cap placed at the back of the head, so as to exhibit a high bald forehead, of which he was prodigiously vain. James was fully equipped for the chase, and wore a green silk ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... entertained at the usual complimentary dinner, and was made the recipient of a very handsome testimonial. I felt most unfeignedly that I had not deserved it, yet the possession of the gold watch and collection of standard books subscribed for out of the scanty earnings of my colleagues was a real comfort to me when, with a sad heart, I left the sacred shelter of my home and quitted the town in which the whole of my life up to that moment had been spent. I reached Preston one summer evening as homesick as any lad could have been. I ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... eighteen hundred feet into the broad Montezuma Valley, and whose gentle southern slope holds the small beginnings of the great canyons of the cliff-dwellers. Both north and south the panorama unfolds in impressive grandeur, eloquent of the beautiful scanty land and of the difficult conditions of living which confronted the sturdy builders whose ancient masterpieces we are on our way to see. At the northern end of Chapin Mesa we swing sharply south and follow its slope, presently entering the warm, ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... and clad in resplendent armour. The stranger stopped, and besought shelter for the night, and the good old fisherman accorded him a most cheery welcome, taking him into the cottage, where sat his aged wife by a scanty fire. Soon the three were freely conversing. The knight told of his travels and revealed that he was Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten, where he had a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... think my scanty letters are worth encouraging, especially with such long and excellent answers as that I have just got from you. It has found its way down here: and oddly enough does your Italian scenery, painted, I believe, very faithfully upon my inner eye, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... with goods of every description, but the war had all but wrecked his trade, and his stock was scanty and shop-worn. ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... sweat and toil under the world's broad eye, Climb into fame, and find myself—O, what?— A most conspicuous monster! Crown my head, Pile Caesar's purple on me—and what then? My hump shall shorten the imperial robe, My leg peep out beneath the scanty hem, My broken hip shall twist the gown awry; And pomp, instead of dignifying me, Shall be by me made quite ridiculous. The faintest coward would not bear all this: Prodigious courage must be mine, to live; To die asks nothing but weak will, and ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... He threw himself on the stooping subahdar and bore him to the floor, at the same time stuffing a gag between his teeth. In a couple of minutes he was lying bound and helpless. His ornate garment was but little sullied. It had been stripped from him by the mistri, who hastily donned it over his own scanty raiment, together with the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... land. He pictured the people at their work, showed the laborer in the field in the rains of Spring, under the blaze of the Summer sun, amid the frosts of Autumn—bond and free working side by side with brain and brawn, to wring from the earth a scanty sustenance. He showed the homes of the poor, the mother with babe at her breast, the girls cooking at the fire, others tending the garden—all the process of toil and travail, of patient labor and endless effort, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... and happy, married, fathers of children, cheerfully toiling at their work, my heart reproached me with the greatness and vanity of my unhappy sacrifice. I will not describe to you how, worn by poverty, poor lodging, scanty food, and an unquiet conscience, my health began to fail, and in the long nights, as I wandered bedless in the rainy streets, the most cruel sufferings of the body were added to the tortures of my mind. These things are not personal to me; they are common ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... abode at Dunkirk. His estates had been forfeited; and after spending the proceeds of his wife's jewels and those he had carried about with him in case fortune went against the cause for which he fought, he sank lower and lower, and had for years lived on the scanty pension allowed by Louis to the King ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... chemistry can as yet give but scanty information; it can tell that it is composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus, and it can also tell the percentage of each element, but it cannot give more than a formula that will express it as a whole, giving no information as to the nature of the ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... thousands of unemployed and impecunious colored people sought refuge in the District of Columbia. Gathering up their scanty chattels, they made their way from the houses of their masters to Washington, the Mecca of their imaginations, with a firm belief that they would there find freedom and plenty. It was a leap in the dark, but they imagined it a leap from ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... those stereotyped common-places, as "Congress a local Legislature," "consent of the District," "bound to consult the wishes of the District," &c. &c., which for the last two sessions of Congress have served to eke out scanty supplies. It declares, that as slavery existed in Maryland and Virginia at the time of the cession, and as it still continues in both those states, it could not be abolished in the District without a violation of 'that good ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... as well as patriots, not those who interpret the need of lightheartedness by the cult of "sport as usual" on the football field and the racecourse. And the example of the Universities shines with the same splendour. Of the scanty remnant that remain at Oxford and Cambridge all the physically fit have joined the O.T.C. Boat-race day has passed, but the crews are gone to "keep it long" ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... despondency fell upon the town. This feeling was not lessened when it began to be whispered that the Chevalier Ramesay had received instructions from the Governor not to attempt to hold the town in face of a threatened assault, but to wait till the scanty provisions had been exhausted, and then raise the white flag and obtain ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the Harbor which lies between their city and Brooklyn. The city itself—its streets—its houses—all wore the livery of this "ruler of the inverted year"—while in many a garret and cellar of its crowded streets, ragged children huddled together, seeking to warm their frozen limbs beneath the scanty covering of their beds, or cowering over the few half-dying embers, which they misnamed a fire. Yet the social affections were not chilled—rather did they seem to glow more warmly, as though rejoicing ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... scrupulously clean, and the scanty furniture was as bright as diligent rubbing could make it. On a rude couch, opposite the open window, lay a girl of about sixteen years of age, but with a wan-pinched face that made her look ten years older. Constant pain had blanched all the colour she might once ...
— How the Fairy Violet Lost and Won Her Wings • Marianne L. B. Ker
... third phase (a common European currency) of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), but Denmark has decided not to join 12 other EU members in the euro; even so, the Danish krone remains pegged to the euro. Growth in 2004 was sluggish, yet above the scanty 0.3% of 2003. Because of high GDP per capita, welfare benefits, a low Gini index, and political stability, the Danish people enjoy living standards topped by no other nation. A major long-term issue will be the sharp decline in the ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... morass the sea: the mountain thrusting so close upon the morass as barely to leave space for a narrow wagon road. This was the western gate of Thermopylae. Behind the narrow defile the mountain and swamp-land drew asunder; in the still scanty opening hot springs gushed forth, sacred to Heracles, then again on the eastern side Mt. OEta and the impenetrable swamp drew together, forming the second of the "Hot Gates,"—the gates which Xerxes must unlock if he would continue his march ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Deacon Harlow, John's two brothers, ten and twelve years old, and Huldah, the "help." This last was the daughter of a neighboring farmer who was poor and hopelessly rheumatic, and most of the daughter's hard earnings went to eke out the scanty subsistence at home. Aunt Judith, the sister of John's mother, "looked after" the household affairs of her brother-in-law, by coming over once a week and helping Huldah darn and mend and make, and by giving Huldah such advice as her ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... all things!" Believer! surely thou art "thoroughly furnished!" Grace is no scanty thing, doled out in pittances. It is a glorious treasury, which the key of prayer can always unlock, but never empty. A fountain, "full, flowing, ever flowing, overflowing." Mark these three ALL's in this precious promise. It is a three-fold ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... where, shall poverty reside, To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride? If to some common's fenceless limits strayed, He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, And even the bare-worn ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... some Samoyedes, who had heard of the caravan, came on four sledges to the camp. They were entertained with tea. The conversation, carried on in Samoyede, was about the health of the reindeer, our journey, and the way to Yugor Strait. When the scanty news of the tundra had been well ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... K——, AEt. 80. Orthopnoea, with sense of oppression about the proecordia. Unable to lie down in bed for some nights past. Anasarca of the lower extremities. Urine very scanty. Complaints of six weeks standing. Had taken sal. diuret. c. ol. junip.—Calom. c. jalap, et gambog.—Et ol. junip. ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... his miniature gardens and the odd little freaks of collecting that attract him. Have you ever heard of chintz oil jars? 'No,' you will say. Nor has anyone else yet except our immediate circle of friends and a few dealers who are no doubt industriously increasing the present scanty supply. We possess three. They are matronly shaped jars about two feet or a yard high, of a kind of terra-cotta with wooden tops surmounted by gilt acorns, and they have been covered with white paint and on this flowers and birds ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... would have to leave the peaceful security of the train and begin to be active again, and quick and clever. Anna-Felicitas, who was slow, found it difficult ever to be clever till about the week after, and Anna-Rose, who was impetuous, was so impetuous that she entirely outstripped her scanty store of cleverness and landed panting and surprised in situations she hadn't an idea what to do with. The Clouston Sacks, now—Aunt Alice had said, "You must take care to be very tactful with Mr. and Mrs. Clouston Sack;" and when Anna-Rose, her forehead ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... his own deficiencies, having generally in his employ some college graduate, whose poverty compelled him to accept the scanty wages which Socrates doled out to him. These young men were generally poor scholars in more than one sense of the word, as Mr. Smith did not care to pay the high salary demanded by a first-class scholar. Mr. Smith was shrewd enough not to attempt to instruct the classes in advanced classics ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... in winter reveries? Berried brier and thistle-bloom, And milkweed with its dense perfume; Slender vervain towering up In a many-branched cup, Like a candlestick, each spire Kindled with a violet fire; Matted creepers and wild cherries, Purple-bunched elderberries, And on scanty plots of sod Groves ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... himself as he walked led some to set him down as a lunatic; others ridiculed his enthusiasm, or darkly whispered suspicions of unhallowed intercourse with evil spirits. This treatment, operating upon a sensitive mind and a body debilitated both by labour and scanty and unwholesome food, had the natural effect of robbing him of hope and buoyancy of spirits. In a fit of desperation he enlisted in the militia, and with other Helpstone youths was marched off to Oundle, a small town ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... well out from the adjacent coast, by reason of their seeing its inhospitable look, and the scanty chance there was of their effecting a landing there. This fact, indeed, was self-evident, for they could see the surf breaking in one continuous line, as far as the eye could reach, against the steep rocky face of the cliff. Besides, ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... downtown parks the youngsters were fairly rolling in the dirt, and rubbing their cheeks on the scanty grass as they furtively scooped up handfuls of cement-like soil to make mud pies, in spite of the big policeman, who, I like to think, was ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Lake of Como have generally the character there described, with a little more cheerfulness, and a little less elevation,[14] but aided by great variety of form. They are not quite so rich in vegetation as the plains: both because the soil is scanty, there being, of course, no decomposition going on among the rocks of black marble which form the greater part of the shore; and because the mountains rise steeply from the water, leaving only a narrow zone at their bases in the climate of ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... economy is based on service activities connected with the country's strategic location and status as a free trade zone in northeast Africa. Two-thirds of the inhabitants live in the capital city, the remainder being mostly nomadic herders. Scanty rainfall limits crop production to fruits and vegetables, and most food must be imported. Djibouti provides services as both a transit port for the region and an international transshipment and refueling center. It has few natural resources and little industry. The nation is, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... in the nature of large fortunes to diminish rapidly, when subdivided and distributed. A million is the unit of wealth, now and here in America. It splits into four handsome properties; each of these into four good inheritances; these, again, into scanty competences for four ancient maidens,—with whom it is best the family should die out, unless it can begin again as its great-grandfather did. Now a million is a kind of golden cheese, which represents in a compendious form the summer's growth of a fat ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... opposed the new evangelism, and those who came under its influence felt constrained to organize "Separate" or "New Light" churches. These were severely persecuted by the dominant party and were denied even the scanty privileges that Baptists had succeeded in gaining. As the chief objection of the "Separates" to the churches of the standing order was their refusal to insist on personal regeneration as a term of membership, many of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... exhausted the patience of my readers by presenting too long a series of illustrations extracted from manuscripts. I love, as I look at them, to picture to myself the medieval man of letters, laboriously penning voluminous treatises in the writing room of a monastery, or in his own study, with his scanty collection of books within his reach, on shelves, or in a chest, or lying on a table. We sometimes call the ages dark in which he lived, but the mechanical ingenuity displayed in the devices by which his studies were assisted might put to shame the ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... books—a plan in which his parents cheerfully acquiesced. He went on and finished off his study in his father's shop, and furnished it as well as his limited means would allow. A table, two or three chairs, his scanty library, and a couch on which he slept nights, constituted the furniture of this new apartment. It was more convenient for him to lodge in his study, since he could sit up as late as he pleased, and rise as early, without disturbing ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... up with the spade, and the surface soil exposed. In subsequent years this land was sown chiefly with turnips, fed off by sheep, until it was found in sufficient heart for the reception of grass and corn seeds, the crops from which were at first scanty and indifferent, but sufficient, however, to pay for cultivation. At the expiration of fifteen years the expenditure upon the whole, inclusive of allowance for rent, at the original rate of 2s. ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... have enchanted the world. They resolve to write novels upon the vulgarest provocations: they see novels bringing money and fame; they think there is no difficulty in the art. The novel will afford them an opportunity of bringing in a variety of scattered details; scraps of knowledge too scanty for an essay, and scraps of experience too meagre for independent publication. Others, again, attempt histories, or works of popular philosophy and science; not because they have any special stores of knowledge, or because any striking novelty of conception ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... religion. There are, indeed, many points of the greatest obscurity, both in the present savage religions and in the scanty vestiges of pre-historic religion. But one point is clear. All savage religions are full of superstitions founded on luck. Savages believe that casual omens are a sign of coming events; that some trees ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... two hundred leagues distant from Madrid, whilst Maraks, the other great city of the Moors, and which also has given its name to an empire, is scarcely farther removed from Paris, the capital of civilisation: in a word, we scarcely know anything of Barbary, the scanty information which we possess being confined to a few towns on the sea-coast; the zeal of the Jesuit himself being insufficient to induce him to confront the perils of the interior, in the hopeless endeavour of making one single proselyte from amongst the wildest fanatics of the ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... remains of Christian literature have been scanty and the stream of evangelical quotation has been equally so, but as we approach the middle of the second century it becomes much more abundant. We have copious quotations from a Gospel used about the year 140 by Marcion; ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... from which our manuscript was copied, very little can be said. The six leaves before us furnish scanty material on which to build any theory. The errors which occur are not sufficient to warrant any conclusion as to the script of the archetype. One item of information, however, we do get: an omission on fol. 52v goes to show that the manuscript from which our ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand
... Sitka, and there I spent some more of my money for a passage to Juneau City. There I landed with forty dollars left in my pockets. Ten of this was paid out for a hard bed and some scanty food, and I soon feared that I would be left without a cent unless I started somewhere for the gold mines. I heard all kinds of stories about the gold found up on the Yukon River, so I found a shed where outfits were sold, and paid twenty dollars for an outfit that ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in. Perhaps what he saw chilled him no less than what he felt. He might have unconsciously expected to see something like the teeming slopes of his own mountains, the yellow ferns, the glittering rocks, shining like polished metal in the sun. Instead of these, the scanty grass was of a blue-green; the stunted firs were black; and the patches of dazzling white intermingled with them formed a contrast of colour hideous to the eye of ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... point where Pie had disappeared, he stuffed his sombrero under a strap on his saddle and slowly rode toward the lake. A coyote slunk past him on a time-destroying lope and an owl hooted at the foolishness of men. He camped at the base of a cottonwood and at daylight took up his journey after a scanty breakfast from his saddle-bags. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... had left Jerusalem practically at the mercy of Saladin. It was crowded with people, but the garrison was scanty, and the armies which should have defended it were gone. Their presence would not, probably, have availed to give a different issue to the siege; but it must have added fearfully to its horrors. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... of most of the settlements in regions to which few travelers found their way and commerce seldom came. Remote from sources of supply, and difficult of access, it had known the time when its population, scanty as it was, suffered from the scarcity of food. Sullivan's successful expedition against the Six Nations did not suffice to keep it from the alarm of savage attack that never came. The immense forest shutting in the hamlet on every side had (p. 005) terrors to some as real ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... like Hallam's, was to be an "unfulfilled renown." Of Hallam, whose name is for ever linked with his own, Tennyson said that he would have been a great man, but not a great poet; "he was as near perfection as mortal man could be." His scanty remains are chiefly notable for his divination of Tennyson as a great poet; for the rest, we can only trust the author of In Memoriam ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... the highest peak of Furness fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: In truth the prison unto which we doom Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me, In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... she resided was a clergyman's widow, who, deprived by an untimely death of her natural protector and provider, sought to augment her scanty means, by opening her house during the summer months to casual visitors. She had been beautiful once, and she was young still; but the glow and the freshness of life's youth had vanished, not so much before time as sorrow, for peculiarly distressing circumstances had attended ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... remember," continued Ali, "that forty years ago a young man asked for shelter from the foes who pursued him? Without inquiring his name or standing, thou didst hide him in thy humble house, and dressed his wounds, and shared thy scanty food with him, and when he was able to go forward thou didst stand on thy threshold to wish him good luck and success. Thy wishes were heard, for the young man was Ali Tepeleni, and I who ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... just a little way above the horizon and a scanty breakfast was being served on board the boat. John had just arisen from his seat to help himself to a big sailor-cracker. He turned and glanced at the newly risen sun and suddenly stopped short, the cracker half way to ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... Majesty to make the expedition immediately. He told me that in no other wise on this occasion could I serve your Majesty. I obeyed, and made ready to go where I was ordered, without seeking any pay of profit. I spent more than four thousand pesos of my scanty property to procure the necessaries for the expedition, some reenforcements, an outfit of arms, and other things. I risked my person, honor, property, and the support of ten children whom God has given me, and a good wife, solely for the service of God and your Majesty; for it is certain that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... yet they had no thought of turning to some more peaceable pursuit. The young Scotts of Harden were no exceptions to this rule, and William, the eldest, found matters, after a time, quite unbearable. Moreover, his father's retainers were growing discontented with their quiet life, and scanty fare, for beef was not so plentiful at Harden now that Border law forbade its being stolen from England; so, without telling either his father or his brothers of his intention, he took a band of chosen men, and rode over, in the gray ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... enough when they appeared the next week at the appointed time. Norah's toes were out of her shoes. Her tangled curls were as rough as a bird's-nest, and the hat on top of them looked as if it had sailed across every mud-puddle in town. Little Kathleen's scanty garments were rather rags than clothes. And Gretchen, tidiest of all, had smears of sausage on her rosy face, and did not seem to have been brought into contact with soap ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... thighs, do chemise and petticoats cling, that it was difficult to see the hairy slits, which it was our great desire to look at. Garters and thighs well above the knees, we saw by scores. Every now and then either by reason of scanty clothing, or short dresses, or by a woman's stooping and opening her legs to look more easily low down at the window, we had a glimpse of the cunt; and great was our randiness and delight when we did. On the whole we were well rewarded. Many as the legs and thighs are, that I ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... as they fell. Most of his glow and vigor remained, however, and he was no whit disheartened or doubtful. But the sky bent darkly over him, and the tall trees shut out all but a strip even of the scanty light that came thence. The moon would not ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... Company, and the Martins were probably important people who lived far out—and handsomely, one might guess—on a Prospect Avenue.... Then there was "Cope, Miss Rosalys M., schooltchr," same address as "David": she was likely his daughter. "H'm!" Randolph had thought, "these pickings are scanty,—enough anatomical reconstruction for to-day...." And now he was thinking, as he sat opposite Foster, "If I had only picked up another bone or two, I might really have put together the domestic organism. Yet why should ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... informed her and Miss Felicia two evenings ago when he had called and been bidden to stay to tea, that he would preach for the first time at the eleven o'clock service. So far he had only occupied the pulpit on Sunday afternoons, when a country congregation is liable to be both scanty and somnolent. To-day he would prove himself before the heads of tribes, before the notables. And Damaris wished him well, esteeming him a worthy young man, if somewhat provincial ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the perpetual delving. The sea-dykes had been robbed of their material, so that the coming winter might find besiegers and besieged all washed together into the German Ocean, and it was hard digging and grubbing among the scanty cellarages of the dilapidated houses. But there were plenty of graves, filled with the results of three years' hard fighting. And now, not only were all the cemeteries within the precincts shovelled and carted in mass to the inner fortifications, but rewards being offered of ten ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the edification of the assistants. As soon as he got home, he ate his Supper without appetite, mumbled his prayers, and shut himself up in the room he used as a study and workshop. He remained there until the night was far advanced, searching through his scanty library to find two dusty volumes treating of "cases of conscience," which he looked eagerly over by the feeble light of his study lamp. During this laborious search he emitted frequent sighs, and only ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and transplanted to the American coast, where the Gulf stream would furnish a suitable temperature beyond the climatic limits that otherwise confine its growth; and thus a new source of profit might perhaps be added to the scanty returns of the hardy fisherman. In certain geological formations, the diatomaceae deposit, at the bottom of fresh-water ponds, beds of silicious shields, valuable as a material for a species of very light firebrick, in the manufacture of water-glass and of ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... walls were in disrepair or crumbling from age they came close up to them. The Othonians above, poising and aiming their weapons with surer effect, rained them down on the Germans, who came rashly charging under the walls with the wild songs and scanty dress of their country, brandishing their shields over their heads. Meanwhile, the legionaries under cover of their mantlets and fascines set to work to undermine the walls, build up a mound, and assail the gates, ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... enthusiasm for virtue, a passionate love of humanity, a deep faith in God. He was not an intellectual man nor a philosopher; and yet what a ridiculous criticism is that which is generally made upon him, that his reasoning is bad, his knowledge scanty, and that people had better read Hobbes! The very reason which made Rousseau so tremendous an influence was that his point of view was poetical rather than philosophical; he was not too far removed from the souls to which he prophesied. What they needed was inspiration, emotion, ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... fact—which possibly, however, escaped your notice"—explained the Professor, scratching his scanty patch of grizzled whisker with a touch of irascibility, "that I myself was not ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... they thought. A chance using of a verbal quibble, an esoteric phrase, the expression of a vague mysticism—these would suffice to call forth reams of exposition. It has been the favorite pastime of historians to weave their own anachronistic theories upon the scanty woof of the half-remembered thoughts of the ancient philosophers. To make such cloth of the imagination as this is an alluring pastime, but one that must not divert us here. Our point of view reverses that of the philosophers. We are chiefly concerned, not with some vague saying ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... and probably a day or two more before they discovered his prison, especially as the snow would make it more difficult to trace him. In the meantime he trusted to be able so to play upon the fears of Amos, and to wear him out by scanty food and rough lodging, that, sooner than continue in such durance, he would sign the cheque ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... resumed, in a yet lower voice, "and indeed until quite recently, there were but few reliable European medical men in Cairo, and during the summer of 1902 an outbreak of cholera temporarily depleted their already scanty ranks. It happened then that one night, whilst I sat in the huge, lofty room, once the principal harem apartment of the house, which I had appropriated as a study, Cassim, my Nubian servant, communicated to me (by means of a sign-language which ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... fever had now taken its departure, but in consequence of the scanty supply of fresh provisions and vegetables, it was succeeded by a malignant scurvy, and one hundred and forty of the seamen were obliged to keep their beds. Their legs, hands, feet and gums became almost black, and swollen to twice their natural size. Some we sent to the hospital, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... all this of the remnant of a civilized religious race hiding in some deep cavern, in darkness, their friends slaughtered by the million by the falling stones, coming like arrows and spears, and the pestilence of poisonous gases; their food-supplies scanty; they themselves horrified, awe-struck, despairing, fearing that they would never again see the light; that this dreadful day was the end ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... revealing their wants and privations to strangers. How bitter those privations were, and how hard the boy worked to remove them, no one ever knew but themselves. Night after night, two, three, four hours after midnight, could we hear the occasional raking up of the scanty fire, or the hollow and half-stifled cough, which indicated his being still at work; and day after day, could we see more plainly that nature had set that unearthly light in his plaintive face, which is the beacon of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... loaf was there, and a basin of the berries his little ones had picked from the plain. In a solitary cup (for it was the only one saved from their wreck of crockery) Graffam saw his tea, and offered to exchange with his wife for the broken mug, into which was poured a scanty ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... came no slightest sound; the men and women were as silent as that other audience listening and watching in every hamlet of the world, wherever radio and television reached. Again the figure of the President was drawn erect; the scanty, white hair was thrown back from his ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... that he is—dry! The best mode for an honest man to go round the country, is to take a straight-forward course, especially when the surcharged clouds do rule the horizon with sloping lines of rain! Besides, it is by no means a pleasant thing for a man with a scanty wardrobe, to find his clothes running away at a most unpleasant rate, while he can scarcely drag one clay-encumbered ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... or scanty cut and open foliage is sometimes of importance, according to whether the location, season and other conditions make it desirable that the foliage protect the fruit from the sun or admit the sunlight, with as little obstruction as possible, to the center of the plant. In different ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... after the fashion of all bush-riders the world over, the foot scouts take up their positions amongst the rocks and shrubs on the hills in front and rear of the laager. Each scout has his rifle in his hand, his pipe in his teeth, his bandolier full of cartridges over his shoulder, and his scanty blanket under his left arm. No fear of his sleeping at his post. He is fighting for honour, not for pay; for home, not for glory; and he knows that on his acuteness the lives of all may depend. He knows that his comrades and the women trust him, and he values the trust as ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... question for learned idleness to discuss. The common people who speak English, have far less inclination to add new endings to our verbs, than to drop or avoid all the remains of the old. Lowth and Murray tell us, "This scanty provision of terminations is sufficient for all the purposes of discourse;" and that, "For this reason, the plural termination en, (they loven, they weren,) formerly in use, was laid aside as unnecessary, and has long been obsolete."—Lowth's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... hunting and fishing was very precarious, it was found necessary to put the crew upon an allowance. In order, however, to stimulate the men to greater exertions, Hudson offered a reward or bounty for every beast, fish, or fowl, which they should kill; hoping, that in this way the scanty stock of provisions might be made to hold out till the breaking up of the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... knew the inner longings of a nature awakening, and yet what it meant to be held down by outer circumstances. He knew the sharp test of waiting, long waiting. He knew hunger and bodily weariness, and the pinch of scanty funds. He was homeless at a time when a home would have been most grateful. He knew what it meant to have the life-plan broken, and something else, a bitter something ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... window peck, To tell their wants to those who lodge within. The poor lank hare flies homeward to his den, But little burthen'd with his nightly meal Of wither'd greens grubb'd from the farmer's garden; A poor and scanty portion snatch'd in fear; And fearful creatures, forc'd abroad by want, Are now to ev'ry enemy ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... of our modern philosophers says that we are sure to meet with the right book at the right time. Now whether it were chance, fate, or Providence that filled the scanty shelves of the old escritoire with a few law books, is not known; but it is certain that their presence there decided the career ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... protected by the police. He proved to be an Irishman, named Hamilton, from Limerick, who had come over from Ireland five years before, and worked as a bricklayer's labourer and a navvy both in England and France. Latterly he had been earning a scanty livelihood by doing chance jobs. There was this to distinguish him from the other dastardly assailants of the Queen: he was not a half-crazed, morbidly conceited boy, though he also had no conceivable motive for what he did. He appears to have taken his measures, in providing himself with pistol ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... Diderot. He was appointed Chaplain at Amsterdam, whence he returned in 1811. (For the circumstances of his quarrel with Hodgson, see page 195 [Letter 102], [Foot]note 1.) He was successively Curate of Prittlewell and Kenilworth. At the latter place, where he eked out a scanty income by taking pupils, he died in 1825 from ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... as it is possible to discover from the scanty documentary evidence the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries provide, the same privileges appear to have been accorded to the guilds of working masons in England and Scotland, which, although presided over by powerful nobles and apparently on occasion ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... enacted while the professor was trading for his desired ethnological material. With inexhaustible patience and imperturbable countenance, he sat on a log, surrounded by yelping dogs, and by children and papooses of more or less tender ages and scanty raiment, playing on ten cent harmonicas that had for a time served as a staple of trade, struggling with the dogs and with their equally excited mothers and sisters for a sight of the wonderful basket from whose apparently inexhaustible ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... start to find the door open, framing the squat figure of a man-servant, a brigand in appearance, French of the Midi; black hair grew low on his forehead; his beetling brows met over sullen shiny eyes which scanned her with a hostile gaze. Diffidently she mustered her all-too-scanty French. ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... nest we find newly hatched young, looking like large strawberries, their little naked bodies of a vivid orange colour, with scanty gray tufts of down here and there. Not far away is a nest, overflowing with five young birds ready to fly, which scramble out at our approach and start boldly off; but as their weak wings give out, they soon come to grief. We catch one and ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... feebly burning in the little stove, then prepared a scanty supper, offset by another cup ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... dalliance, let him but hazard his fortunes for a brief space on the good ship Jurisprudence—he will find the voyage tedious beyond endurance, the ship's company but indifferent in character and the rations scanty. I make no doubt but that it is harder to earn an honest living at the law than by any other means of livelihood. Once one discovers this he must perforce choose whether he will remain a galley slave for life or hoist ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... by both; Who, even while plundering, forge Religion's name To frank their spoil, and without fear or shame Call down the Holy Trinity[4] to bless Partition leagues and deeds of devilishness! But hold—enough—soon would this swell of rage O'erflow the boundaries of my scanty page;— So, here I pause—farewell—another day, Return we to those Lords of prayer and prey, Whose loathsome cant, whose frauds by right divine, Deserve a lash—oh! ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the morning watch we brought the ship to the wind on the larboard tack, with her head about east-north-east, and I then divided my scanty crew into two watches, with Joe Maxwell, the carpenter, as my chief mate, and a very smart A.B., named Tom Sutcliffe, as second. This done, the watch was set, and put to the job of straightening-up ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... three leagues farther, toward the island of Mindoro, is found the island of Similara, with a population of ninety Indians. It is four leagues in circumference, and one league wide. All the people of these islets gather a very scanty harvest; they make ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... most famous men in the street. Among them was a brilliant young man of my own age, who took a great fancy to me, and frequently proposed that we should start for ourselves. Being doubtful of my powers, I shrank from risking my scanty funds in any speculative venture. Much to my mother's concern, I had begun attending the theatre, and one night, on my friend Ed Weed's invitation, I went with him to Niblo's. After the performance we went to supper at Delmonico's, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... face downwards, in the coarse and scanty grass. One arm was bent beneath his forehead, the other was outstretched, the hand clenched. It was the attitude of one who has flung himself down in dumb, despairing misery. As they looked, he gave a long gasping sob that shook his whole frame, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... alabaster. The whole was buried in a rectangular mass of masonry and revetted internally with alabaster, but was wholly destitute internally as well as externally of decoration or even of mouldings. With the exception of scanty remains of a few of the pyramid-temples or chapels, and the temple discovered by Petrie in Meidoum, it is the only survival from the temple architecture of ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... those eighteen men and one woman. Were they happy? Certainly not. Hopeless? Not that, either; for they occasionally got a little besides their scanty pay, and then they stole occasionally, fish, lumps of coal, things without any value to those who lost them, but of great value to the poor, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... somewhat different appearance from the present, being more closely printed, finer type used, and the illustrations (with the exception of small, black, silhouette cuts, after the style of those in similar French publications), were comparatively scanty. Soon, however, "Punch" throve apace, amply meriting its success. To Henning's drawings (mostly those of a political nature), were added those of Leech, Kenny Meadows, Phiz (H. K. Browne), Gilbert, Alfred Crowquill (Forrester), ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... altogether dependent for even the scanty subsistence by which they are dragging out the remnant of a miserable life, upon the whites. And what has been the cause of so great a change in a few years in the circumstances and habits of a whole people! The ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... rich," said a voice, and Hilarius saw, to his surprise, that there was a second friar in the room; a tall, bullet-headed man, with a heavy, obstinate jaw ornamented with a scanty fringe of ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... wolf-dog, the old English bulldog, and several other breeds, such as the alaunt, as I am informed by Mr. Jesse. But the extinction of former breeds is apparently aided by another cause; for whenever a breed is kept in scanty numbers, as at present with the bloodhound, it is reared with some difficulty, apparently from the evil effects of long-continued close interbreeding. As several breeds of the dog have been slightly ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... fortunate possessor cherishes it above wife or children, he keeps it with his white buckskin shoes, red sash, and only embroidered shirt, in the solitary trunk with cyclopean lock and antediluvian key, which goes so far, in Central American economy, to make up the scanty list of domestic furniture. The youngest of our hosts was the owner of one of these instruments, of European manufacture, which had cost him, I dare say, many a load of maize, wearily carried on his naked back down ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... quality of spawn can therefore judge to a certain extent by the appearance of the bricks as to the quality, at least they can judge as to the presence of an abundance or a scanty quantity of the "fiber." Since the spawn remains in good condition for several years, there is usually no danger in the use of spawn which may be one or two years old. But it does deteriorate to some extent with age, and young spawn is therefore to be preferred to old spawn, ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... Under a tall rock, affording an unbroken view of the magnificent landscape outspread below, the tablecloth was laid and secured at the corners by large stones. Pies both savoury and sweet were abundant, bread sufficient, salt scanty, and water absent altogether. Bottles were plentiful—bottles of ale, of porter, of wines heavy and light. Corks popped, champagne fizzed, ale sparkled. Mark surrendered the eatables into other hands, and threw his whole energies into the joint consumption and distribution ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... were fairly entitled to their compensation as it became due. The deficiency as stated in the bill amounted to $3,838,728, but after a careful settlement of all these accounts it has been ascertained that it amounts to $4,296,009. With the scanty means at his command the Postmaster-General has managed to pay that portion of this deficiency which occurred in the first two quarters of the past fiscal year, ending on the 31st December last. In the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... houses in 1770, and either shut its doors against the members of the other. The publication of reports, forbidden by a standing order of 1762, had for some time been carried on under various disguises, and the reports, which were founded on scanty information, were often unfair and scurrilous. In February, 1771, Colonel Onslow complained of two newspapers which misrepresented his conduct in the house, and held him up to contempt by describing him as "little cocking ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... bread, and some oily-looking butter; and on the sideboard there were the remains of a cold shoulder of mutton. The archdeacon, however, had not come up from his rectory to St Paul's Churchyard to enjoy himself, and therefore nothing was said of the scanty fare. ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... of the fourth century; and the imagery has to be put back into the shrine, bit by bit, and finally incomplete. Its central point is the picture of the rending to pieces of a divine child, of whom a tradition, scanty indeed, but harmonious in its variations, had long maintained itself. It was in memory of it, that those who were initiated into the Orphic mysteries tasted of the raw flesh of the sacrifice, and thereafter ate flesh no more; and it connected itself with that strange object ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... this moment the door opened suddenly, and the two received into their arms a thin, severe-looking gentleman, with scanty grey hair and a rather annoyed ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... most famous king of that epoch was Gudea, of Lagash, the prince of whom we possess the greatest number of monuments. But in these records we have but the dust of history rather than history itself. The materials are scanty in the extreme and the framework also ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... excitement of haying immensely. But then, his life was one long holiday now anyway, and the close quarters, scanty fare, and wearisome monotony of Minerva Court only visited his memory dimly when he was suffering the pangs of indigestion. For in the first few weeks of his life at the White Farm, before his appetite was satiated, he was wont to eat all the white cat's food as ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ladder with hasty feet, saw that the room, fogged with gray smoke, was filled with half a score of men; saw Juncina struggling in a corner, held by two; saw others overturning the scanty furniture, slashing with their swords at fish-nets and bedding, thrusting their torches into every nook and corner. She would have stumbled up the ladder again out of their sight, but a shout told her that she was seen. A great fellow seized her, dragging her from ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... secret of the Van Buren discomfort. The bank in which most of Nettie's fortune was deposited had failed, leaving her with only the scanty income of five hundred dollars a year, a sum not sufficient to buy clothes, Mrs. Van Buren said. But Richard did not notice this—his mind was only intent upon Frank's first love affair, which ought to have gone on. He did not ask himself whether, in case it had gone on, Ethelyn would have been ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... mouth the while. The grain remained on account of its weight, the chaff floating away, and the wheat, still soft though fully formed, could thus be pleasantly tasted. The plaintive notes of the yellowhammer fell from the scanty trees of the wheat-field hedge, and the ploughboy who was put there to frighten away the rooks told her the bird said, repeating the song over and over again, 'A little bit of bread and no cheese.' And indeed these syllables, with a lengthening emphasis ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... have waited for voices to speak from out the great unknown. Answering to this universal longing for larger light, to this search for truth, there has been the conviction that, where our own scanty knowledge ended, there something akin to revelation would give us light. We have been listening for voices that would speak with an authority transcending that ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... joined in the welcome and fired off their muskets. A boat made its way towards the island, and the warriors crowded about it as Colonel Elliott stepped ashore. He gave them official information of Brock's arrival, and warned the Indians to save their scanty ammunition. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, Tecumseh with his attendant chiefs accompanied Elliott back to the fort to meet the commander in whose hands he had placed the fate of his people. Arrived at Amherstburg, Elliott replied to the sentry's ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... viewed their scanty possessions with a trace of dissatisfaction. Two rifles, two shotguns, a half of their ammunition, and a half of their scanty stock of provisions had been lost when the canoe upset. Of their original outfit, the two boys retained only their pistols and ammunition and the tattered ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of my playing, and then I saw that famous artists, whom I didn't flatter myself I equaled, accepted money for their performances, sometimes very large sums. In this way I have managed to make a scanty, but honest, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... somewhat better than hundred pounds a year, falling at the same time with the Chancellorship of Christ-Church, to about equal the value, in the gift of his Excellency, the Doctor ventured into the world in a very scanty condition, having squandered away all his annual income in a manner, which although perhaps proper enough for a clergyman without a family, will not be for the advantage of his character to discover either on the exchange, or ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... Shields and all the other artisans fell to fashioning dugouts from the tall pines and cedars, hewing and burning and shaping, until at length they had transports for their scanty store of goods. By the first week of October they were at the junction of their river with the Snake. An old medicine man of the Nez Perces, Twisted Hair, a man who also could make maps, had drawn them charts on a white skin with a bit of charcoal. ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... and saluted him, and he returned my greeting with great courtesy. And, rising, he led me into the hall, which, however, was but poorly furnished. And I wondered that the knight and the youths should be so richly clothed, while the hall was scanty. ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... frequent. The atrocities which marked their second landing on the Roman coast were so appalling that the whole of Europe was shaken with terror. Having failed in his attempt to secure help from Charles the Bald, John placed himself at the head of such scanty forces as he could gather from land and sea, under the pressure of events. Ships from several harbors in the Mediterranean met in the roads of Ostia; and on hearing that the hostile fleet had sailed from the bay of Naples, ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... elderly competent dame who points out the very few surviving objects which you may touch with the reflection—complacent in whatsoever degree suits you— that they have known the familiarity of Rousseau's hand. It was presumably a meagrely-appointed house, and I wondered that on such scanty features so much expression should linger. But the structure has an ancient ponderosity, and the dust of the eighteenth century seems to lie on its worm-eaten floors, to cling to the faded old papiers a ramages on the walls ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... It is running water, and as it runs and bubbles up to the surface it is distributed over the little garden plots and patches. I asked him why he did not make the gardens larger? "God bless you," he replied, "we would if we had more water." It is surprising to notice the regularity of even this scanty supply of water through the years of an old man's life, upwards of eighty, in the heart of The Desert, for such is the site of the oasis of Seenawan. I looked about for birds, but saw none. My aged informant said, "In the winter there ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... small mud-house, where the people were not unkindly disposed. I ate my food, slept as much as I could in the few hours before the appearing of the earliest dawn on the bench allotted to me, feeling thankful that to me had been allowed even this scanty lodging. But I could not conscientiously recommend the place to future travelers—a dirty little village with its dirty people and its dirty atmosphere. At the top of the pass the wind nearly removed my ears as I took a final glance at the mountain ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... ride on a donkey. She had absolutely no pocket-money. For many generations the princes of the country had been accustomed to dip their hands so unrestrainedly into the national treasury, that their legitimate appointments had been fixed on a very moderate, if not scanty, scale; so that any one who, like the dauphin and dauphiness, might be scrupulous not to exceed their income (though that scruple had probably affected no one before) could not fail to be greatly straitened. The allowance ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... (sleeping on a sofa, I was exposed defenselessly to all such contingencies), and then lightly as thistle-down. On the rare occasions when the mal-de-mer proved too much for his valiant self-assertion, he yielded to an overruling fate without groan or complaint: folding the scanty coverlet around him, he would subside gradually into his berth, composing his little limbs as gracefully as Caesar. His courtesy was invincible and untiring: he was anxious to defer and conform even ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... being cowards (and they are far from that), the peasants of our province, as you know, are meek and timid, partly from listlessness, partly from distrust of the law, which they have never understood, and of which even to this day they have but a scanty knowledge. No province of France has preserved more old traditions or longer endured the abuses of feudalism. Nowhere else, perhaps, has the title of the lord of the manor been handed down, as hitherto with us, to the owners ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... well worth reading), borrowed the book from Cotton, and had careful copies of one or two of the illustrations made for him, and these exist. And a further interesting fact has come out: by the help of our scanty relics a student of art, Professor Tikkanen, of Helsingfors, in Finland, was able to show that the designers of a long series of mosaic pictures from Genesis in St. Mark's at Venice must have had before them either the Cotton Genesis or its twin sister, so closely ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James |
