"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be—men caring more for the getting of money than for the getting of love—loving more the cold grip of gold than the grip of kith or kin, yet bear buried in their hearts the seeds of a nobler manhood, for which, however, the barren soil of their ambition affords scant nourishment. ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... self-control with the air of one who does it under great provocation, and who has scant respect for those who lose it; but his face was flushed, and his eyes were angry. The strained coldness of his tone and manner were like oil to the flame of his uncle's wrath. The judge's hand went out in a gesture that had almost ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... reared his palace, to which Solomon added numerous edifices that occupied thirteen years in construction. Other great works were undertaken by the Hebrews, with the view of carrying to a distance the precious water of the springs; and they were compelled to supplement their scant supply of water by ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... well accustomed to handle; but before they could cast off the lashings and run them out, a broadside from the Constant Warwick came crashing into us, several of the crew being struck to the deck to rise no more. With scant ceremony their shipmates hove the bodies overboard, while the gunners, running out their pieces, returned with interest the ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... in a place where the scant grassland lapped down over the edge, Happy Jack led the way and the rest followed eagerly. Too often had they made dry camp not to feel jubilant over the prospect even of a brackish water-hole. Even the horses seemed ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... a scant piece of coarse sense and stretch it on the tenterhooks of half-a-score rhymes, until it crack that you may see through it and it rattle like a drumhead. When you see his verses hanged up in tobacco-shops, you may say, in defiance of the proverb, "that the weakest does not always go ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... answer (in low octaves of strings) is a scant disguise of the lower tune in the stormy duet of the first movement. Yet all the strains move in the gentle, soothing pace and mood until suddenly awakened to ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... were for the large part still homeless. Many were still down in the villages, living upon neighbourhood kindness and the scant help of public charity. Only the comparative few who could obtain ready credit had been able even to begin rebuilding. If they were not roused to prodigious efforts at once, the winter would be upon them before the hills were resettled. And with the coming of the pinch of winter men ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... a piece of bread in his hand, from which he had been recklessly munching as he had stood for a moment's breathing spell on the horizontal ledge beside the niche before venturing to enter, for the command had broken camp with scant allowance of time for breakfast. With a genial laugh he thrust a morsel into the pappoose's open mouth and put the rest ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Thar's the scent o' a woman on it, sure; an' whar thar's a woman Frank Hamersley ain't likely to be let die o' sturvashun. He air too good-lookin' for that. Wall I reck'n it's all right an' thar ain't no more need for me to hurry. T'war rayther a scant breakfast I've hed, an' hain't gin this chile's in'ards saterfacshun. I'll jest chaw another griskin o' the deer-meat to strengthen me for this six-mile ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... extended dreariness was potent. Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools and tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open bay were all hard facts. Occasionally, here and there, could be seen a few green tussocks, with their scant blades, their amphibious flavor and unpleasant dampness. And if you chose to indulge your fancy, although the flat monotony of Duck Island was not inspiring, the wavy line of scattered drift gave an unpleasant consciousness of the spent waters and made the certainty of the returning ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... conservative and enamored of force. In 1830 four-fifths of the population lived by agriculture and the landlord governed his peasants patriarchally. He kept the conservatist spirit of a rustic, a very lively sense of authority and the military instinct. He had scant liking for distant enterprises or adventures. He was at once religious, warlike, and realist, knowing how to nurse his ambitions and to confine his view to what ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... had scant notice from his love. 'Yes, I 'm glad,' and she passed him to follow her newly constituted mistress. His pride was dashed, all the foam of the first draw on the top of him blown off, as he figuratively explained the cause of his gloom to the earl. 'I drink and I gets a licking—that girl nurses ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which had at the lest fiue hundred horses; their sumptuousnes was aboue measure, not onely in them selues, but also in their horses, as veluet, cloth of golde, and cloth of siluer set with pearles and not scant. What shall I farther say? I neuer heard of nor saw men so sumptuous: but it is no dayly guise, for when they haue not occasion, as I sayd before, all their doing is but meane. And now to the effect of their warres: They are men without al order in the field. For they runne hurling on heapes, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... arose, fresh and vigorous. He was cheerful and buoyant that day; he was to graduate bedecked with all the honors of his class. Mr. King, his benefactor, was to be present. His mother had saved up her scant earnings and had come to see her son wind up the career on which she had ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... crept out—the peoples sat at home, And finding the long invocated peace (A pall embroidered with worn images Of rights divine) too scant to cover doom Such as they suffered, nursed the corn that grew Rankly to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... English America was in its first phase a bit of the frontier. Commerce was rudimentary, capital scant, and industry primitive. Each family had to suffice itself in the main with its own direct produce. No one could afford to specialize his calling, for the versatility of the individual was wellnigh a necessity ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... flood to follow, I congratulated myself on the foresight which led to our retrenchment, for I know these ravening hordes would have devoured the property of Consolidated Pemmican with as little respect as they did the scant store of Ah Que, Ram Singh or Mohammed Ali. My chief concern was now to keep my industrial and organizational machinery intact against the day when a stable market could again be established. To this end ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... is in the centre of the ship, and fills up about one-third of her length and three-fourths of her breadth. The surrounding deck is flush, its surface being broken only by the skylights, which are three in number. The skylights allow but a scant and dim light to penetrate to the officers' and seamen's quarters below; but even this is wanting in time of action, when a shot-proof shield takes the ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... legislation. The laws enacted during this period were distinctly undemocratic. While the interests of the land-holding aristocracy were carefully guarded, the well-being of the laboring population received scant consideration. The poor laws, the enclosure acts and the corn laws, which had in view the prosperity of the landlord, and the laws against combination, which sought to advance the interests of the capitalist at the expense of the laborer, show the spirit ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... She liked him, really, and that dismissed him from serious consideration. Anyhow, in spite of the perfection of his manner, Arnaud's careless dress displeased her: his shoes and the shoulders of his coat were perpetually dusty, and his hair, growing scant, was always ruffled. Linda understood that he was highly intellectual, and frequently contributed historical and genealogical papers to societies and bulletins, but compared with Dodge Pleydon's brilliant personality ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... inconsistent. Each tribe filled in the details of the mythical land and the mythical journey to suit its own geographical position. The souls had generally to cross water, either the sea or a river, and they were put across it by a ghostly ferryman, who treated the passengers with scant courtesy.[773] According to some people, the River of the Souls (Waini-yalo) is what mortals now call the Ndravo River. When the ghosts arrived on the bank, they hailed the ferryman and he paddled his canoe over to receive them. But before he would take them on board ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... theatre of the Court has made me the object of much false admiration, and much real satire. Many men who owed to me their elevation or their success have defamed me; many women have belittled my position after vain efforts to secure the King's regard. In what I now write, scant notice will be taken of all such ingratitude. Before my establishment at Court I had met with hypocrisy of this sort in the world; and a man must, indeed, be reckless of expense who daily entertains at his board ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... This was all forest once. Under the shade of the mighty oaks here those gallant O'Caharneys your ancestors followed the chase, or rested at noontide, or skedaddled in double-quick before those smart English of the Pale, who I must say treated your forbears with scant courtesy.' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... him seven others more wicked than himself, only did so because he found the chamber "swept and garnished," and its owner sitting with folded hands. Had he found it all alive with the "busy hum" of active work, there would have been scant welcome for him ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... side there were outhouses, and in the rear quite near the house a barn. There was not a tree on the place; indeed, there was little vegetation upon the entire Neck, save the grass of the middle meadows which in summer furnished scant nourishment for the cattle and a flock of sheep. Now all was bleak and covered with snow, and a freshening gale swept out of the great maw of ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... right trail. The two were together, and here was an opportunity for me to reach them unobserved. Slowly, using every precaution to avoid noise, I turned the knob, and opened the intervening door a scant inch. I could hear the voice now plainly, but my view was blocked by a heavy curtain. Breathless, I drew a fold aside, and caught a glimpse ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... been brought in by a fisherman named Andrew Robertson, to whom he offered to take us. Him we found at a little inn, near the harbour—a taciturn, somewhat sour-faced fellow who showed no great desire to talk, and would probably have given us scant information if we had not been accompanied by the police official, though he brightened up when Mr. Lindsey hinted at ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... said Jarette, fiercely; and in a slow surly way first one and then the other was dragged to the hatchway and lowered down, with scant attention to ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... around the table, each man thinking hard. The professional gunman gets scant sympathy from ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... rests upon the employment of the lowest form of conventional musical idiom. The material which the natural world provides for imitation by the musician is exceedingly scant. Unless we descend to mere noise, as in the descriptions of storms and battles (the shrieking of the wind, the crashing of thunder, and the roar of artillery—invaluable aids to the cheap descriptive writer), we have ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... simply told the truth," he answered. "We who calculate in terms of eternity and infinity have scant use for untruth. I told the Nine Unknown the exact truth—that this man Athelstan King might not be killed, because of the consequences; and that whatever he might say to certain officers of the Government would be believed. So they let ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... on the desert, Like pebbles on the shore, And they rushed upon the Christian With a shout like cannon's roar; Like the dashing of the torrent, Like the sweeping of the storm, Like the raging of the tempest, Came down the dusky swarm. From the scant and struggling brush-wood, From the waste of burning sand, Sped the warriors of the desert, Like the locusts of the land: They would crush the bold invader, Who had dared to cross their path; They were fighting for their prophet, In the might of Islam's ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... brusquely between the victim and his persecutors. He took the dirty object away from the priest with scant ceremony, in spite of the whisper, "Infection!" and gave it ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... know not aught within the universe More slight, more pitiful than you, ye Gods! Who nurse your majesty with scant supplies Of offerings wrung from fear, and mutter'd prayers, And needs must starve, were't not that babes and beggars Are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... Hotel was scant and badly prepared. I gave a negro lad who waited upon me a few cents, but a burly negro carver, who seemed to be his father, boxed the boy's ears and put the coppers into his pocket. The proprietor of the place had voluntarily taken ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... the English tongue and behaviour, to the great charge of the said houses; that is to say, the woman kind of the whole Englishry of this land, for the more part, in the said nunnery, and the man kind in the other said houses."[35] This petition received but scant consideration, and no wonder; because, although the Archbishop of Dublin had agreed to it, he wrote on the same day to Cromwell asking him for the lands of Grace-Dieu,[36] and, according to a letter addressed to Cromwell by another prominent Irish official, the Deputy at that very time ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... plump and resigned—alight with the same smile of welcome. Father Abella mentioned them as his coadjutor Father Martin Landaeta, and their guest Father Jose Uria of San Jose; and then the three, with the scant rites of genuine hospitality, applied themselves to the tickling of palates long unused to ambrosial living. Responding ingenuously to the glow of their home-made wines, they begged Rezanov to ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Allinson wholemeal, 1 egg, a scant 1/2 pint of milk and water. Separate the yolk from the white of the egg. Beat up the yolk with the milk and water, and mix this with the meal into a thick batter; whip up the white of the egg stiff, and mix it well ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... more than a symptom in Spain. Such men even as Angel Guimera, the dramatist, a Catalan separatist who has been under surveillance for years, or Pere Aldavert, who has suffered imprisonment in Barcelona because of his opinions, while they speak for the proletariat, nevertheless have had scant sympathy for Ferrer's ideas. It would be interesting to know just to what extent these commend themselves to Pablo and Emiliano Iglesias and the ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... winter of bitter cold and of almost unexampled severity. It came suddenly, too, and with scant warning, as we shall see, and a full fortnight in advance of the time ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... long one; in the course of the next ten minutes they drew up at the end of a shallow pocket of a street, a scant half-block in depth; where alighting, Lanyard helped the girl out, paid and dismissed the cocher, and turned to an iron gate in a high stone wall crowned ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... every source of intimate knowledge of the boy, who was a mature man at twenty-two, has left the record of the early period curiously scant. Fortunately, there are in his letters and speeches some casual allusions to his childhood and youth, and a few facts and anecdotes of the period from members of his family, from school, college, and early newspaper associates. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... commendable if he obeys nature by attaching to the understanding what had been separated by abstraction, and when, by appealing at the same time to the sensuous and to the spiritual faculties, he addresses altogether the entire man. No doubt the vulgar critic will give very scant thanks to this writer for having given him a double task. For vulgar criticism has not the feeling for this harmony, it only runs after details, and even in the Basilica of St. Peter would exclusively attend to the pillars on which the ethereal edifice reposes. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... about five feet from the nest, and after carefully securing and focussing the camera, secured the view. My second I found later in the day in an apple tree. The tree was in bloom, but not leaved out, and offered but scant hide or protection for the nest. Indeed I, at first, took it for an old crow's nest, and was about to pass on, when up over the rim of the nest bobbed two long ear-like tufts—whence the bird gets its name. Approaching the tree, the mother ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... through the whole is due to many causes. As a nation, we are little inclined to system-making, and as a consequence the problem of education as a whole and in its total relation to the life and well-being of the State has received but scant attention from politicians. Educational questions, in this country, are rarely treated on their own merits and apart from considerations of a party, political, or denominational character, and hence the problems which have received attention ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... chance actors, as if it had been Drury Lane with Garrick and Mrs. Siddons. The little town kindly smiled upon the lively efforts of the Presbyterian deacon's son; and its welcome of his small essays, the provincial echo of the famous Queen Anne's men in London, is a touching revelation of our scant and spare native literary talent. The essays are forgotten now, but they were enough to bring Charles Brockden Brown to find the young author, and to tempt him, but in vain, to write for The Literary Magazine and American Register, which ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... quick to perceive the necessity for haste, while the pirates at the same instant realized the menace of the new danger which confronted them. A score of muskets belched forth their missiles at the fearless girl behind the scant shield of the machine gun. Leaden pellets rained heavily upon her protection, or whizzed threateningly about her head—and then she got the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... noticed, on our Laird's court-day,— And mony a time my heart's been wae,— Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, How they maun thole a factor's snash; He'll stamp and threaten, curse and swear, He'll apprehend them, poind their gear; While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, And hear it a', and ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... enjoy a dinner more than when, in those homeless days of his boyhood, he tore the flakes off a loaf fresh from the baker's oven, and ate them as he walked along the street. The old highlanders of Scotland were trained to think it the part of a gentleman not to mind what he ate—sign of scant civilization, no doubt, in the eyes of some who now occupy but do not fill their place—as time will show, when the call is for men to fight, not ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... garb, dim with hereditary dirt, and of obsolete stuffs and fashions, that made them look, in the eyes of the city people, like a way-worn ancestry returning from a pilgrimage on which they had set out a century ago. Just then it was the hardy, scant-feeding peasant-women from the mountains of Pistoia, who wore entering with a year's labour in a moderate bundle of yarn on their backs, and in their hearts that meagre hope of good and that wide dim fear of harm, which were somehow to be cared for by ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... for the young church lay in the Babel confusion of races and languages among its disciples, and in the lack of public resources, which could be supplied no otherwise than by free gift. Yet another difficulty was the scant supply of clergy; but events which about this time began to spread desolation among the institutions of Catholic Europe proved to be of inestimable benefit to the ill-provided Catholics of America. Rome might almost have been content to see the wasting and ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... which it turned along the line of High Street, past St. Julian's Church which overhung it, to the top of Wyle Cop, when it followed the ridge back to the castle. Of the part extending from Pride Hill to Wyle Cop only scant traces exist at the ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... ventilation, a properly regulated workshop is the exception. The average room is either stuffy and close, or hot and close, and even where windows abound they are seldom opened. Toilet facilities are generally scant and inadequate, a hundred workers being dependent sometimes on a single closet or sink, and that, too ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... Easter Day), and fashioned engines of divers sorts, and set such miners as they had to work underground and so undermine the wall. And thus did they celebrate Easter (10th April) before Adrianople, being but few in number and scant of provisions. ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... Lesotho tasked with providing an additional 50,000 fixed-line connections within five years, a target not met; mobile-cellular service is expanding with a subscribership approaching 25 per 100 persons; rural services are scant international: country code - 266; satellite earth station - 1 ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Scant feet from ground surface, the sportster pilot flicked his pitch control and pulled his throttle out for the brief burst of power which would allow him to drop ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... below him, on a brush-dotted level, his horse, Dexter, slowly circled his picket and nibbled at the scant bunch-grass. The western sun trailed long shadows across the canon; shadows that drifted imperceptibly farther and farther, spreading, commingling, softening the broken outlines of ledge and brush until the walled solitude was brimmed ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... a ship, scores of men, and thousands of pounds, in a fruitless search for buried treasure in Hispaniola. When he had urged his case upon the basis of fresh information, he was drily told that the security was too scant, even for a king. He had then pleaded his case to the Duke of Albemarle and other distinguished gentlemen. They were seemingly convinced, but withheld their answer ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... yellow-flower'd meadow, and scant rigs o' tillage, The sheep a' neglected had come frae the glen; The cushat-dow coo'd in the midst o' the village, And the swallow had flown to the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... always hard work for Judith to refuse Blossom anything. Besides—Judith went to the window and lifted the scant little curtain—yes, it certainly was a "Blossom day." The sky was Blossom-blue, the sea spread away out of sight, Blossom-smooth and shining. And the little pleader there in the bed looked so eager ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... trapesing over miles and miles of moor and fell, to beautiful mills and dells and waterfalls—too many miles for slender Marty or little Chips; or even Bob and Chucker-out—who weigh thirty-two stone between them, and are getting lazy in their old age, and fat and scant ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... I was halfe amazed, and stood musing with my selfe, and my courage came then upon mee, which before was scant. And I spake unto Fotis merrily and sayd, O Fotis how trimmely you can stirre the pot, and how finely, with shaking your buttockes, you can make pottage. The shee beeing likewise merrily disposed, made answer, Depart I say, Miser from me, depart from my fire, for if the flame thereof doe never ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... shadow infested, until the Servitor's room was reached. The barrenness of the place seemed to be sufficient guarantee for the honesty of its usual occupant. A table without a drawer, no closet and some burned-out logs in the large fireplace afforded but scant hiding places. Sobieska carefully tapped each board separately to ascertain if a secret receptacle had been formed in such a fashion, but the floor was perfectly solid. He tried the flagging of the hearth as well as ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... marsh with flooded streams Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams. Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies Shine scant with one forked galaxy, — The marsh brags ten: looped ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... the very end of its labors, the Constitutional Convention rejected, with scant consideration, a proposal by Gerry and Mason, to prepare a bill of rights.[2] This omission furnished the principal argument urged against ratification of the Constitution. Hamilton replied with the following ingenious argument: "* * * bills ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... daughter of the dead Baaltis, Mesa by name, was considered to be certain of election at the poll of the priests and priestesses. This ceremony was to take place within two days. Nothing discouraged, however, by the scant time at his disposal or other difficulties, without her knowledge or that of her father, Metem began his canvass ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... Edinburgh. He had come into the world unnoted in a shepherd's lonely cot. With little wit of mind or skill of hand he had been a common tool, used by this master and that for the roughest tasks, when needed, put aside, passed on, and dropped out of mind. Nothing ever belonged to the man but his scant earnings. Wifeless, cotless, bairnless, he had slept, since early boyhood, under strange roofs, eaten the bread of the hireling, and sat dumb at other men's firesides. If he had another name it had been forgotten. In youth he was Jock; in age, ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... called the boat by name, knowing her voice: "It's the Bessie May Brown!" They started on a run to the bluff overlooking the river, their short legs making a full mile of the scant furlong. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the lowest possible rate of wages, which is calculated simply upon the price of the quartern loaf. In order to work he must live. That is a fact which the tyrants of the spinneries do not overlook, but they take care that the livelihood shall be as scant as possible. The labourer is desired to work for his daily bread, to which the wages are made to correspond, and, of course, the cheaper bread is, the greater are the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... it not?" interrogated the doctor.—"Of a pale blue! and this pale blue light was followed by a tall, meagre, stern figure, who appeared as an old man of seventy years of age, arrayed in a long light coloured rug gown, bound with a leathern girdle: his beard thick and grisly; his hair scant and straight; his face of a dark sable hue; upon his head a large fur cap; and in his hand a long staff. Terror seized my whole frame. I trembled till the bed shook, and cold drops hung upon every limb. The figure advanced with a slow and solemn step."—"Did you not speak to it? there was money ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... poetry is but the interpretation of true-dreaming. What if this dream now should contain a hint how you may to-day be made a master?"—"No, no," Walther rejects the idea with distaste; "In the presence of the guild and its masters, scant inspiration would animate my dream-picture!"—"But yet, suppose your dream contained the magic spell by which you might win over the guild?" Walther shakes his head: "How do you cling to an illusion, if after such a rupture as you witnessed you still cherish such a ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... leaves of one harmonious bower, Fed by a sap that never will be scant, All-permeating, all-producing mind; And in our several parcellings of doom We but fulfil the beauty of the whole. Oh, madness! if a leaf should dare complain Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be The gayer, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... in warm, mellow ground, well cultivated and copiously watered. Such small plants as cress, corn salad, and parsley may be grown in small beds, or even in boxes or pots; but in a garden where space is not too scant, they may be more conveniently managed in rows, like peas or beets. Nearly all the salad plants may be sown in the spring, and from time to time throughout the summer for succession. The group is culturally not homogeneous, inasmuch as some of ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... found that they had many interests in common. Sometimes he would join them in their box at the opera, or when Stafford brought him home to dinner they sat and chatted on all kinds of congenial topics while the husband, wholly absorbed in the business details of a busy day, paid only scant attention to ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... weeks at a time; but our horses,—ah, that was different. There was no grain to be had for them. They had been starving for a month, for the Indians had burned the grass before us wherever we went, and here in the pine-covered hills what grass could be found was scant and wiry,—not the rich, juicy, strength-giving bunch-grass of the open country. Of my two horses, neither was in condition to do military duty when we got to Whitewood. I was adjutant of the regiment, and had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... picked up a little "book learning" in a backwoods school and a little more in a minister's study at Albany. At thirteen he entered Yale; but he was a self-willed lad and was presently dismissed from college. A little later, after receiving some scant nautical training on a merchantman, he entered the navy as midshipman; but after a brief experience in the service he married and resigned his commission. That was in 1811, and the date is significant. It was just before the second war with Great Britain. ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... Salvador, would assist in caring for the pack-animals, and would also be efficient guides. Without Stanton's aid the entire party would have been lost; not a single soul would have escaped. The provisions, though scant, were sufficient to entirely alter the situation of affairs. Had the party pressed immediately forward, they could have passed the summits before the storms began. For some cause, however, it was concluded ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... not entirely coherent, received at first scant attention from the usher to whom he addressed himself. They were directed to their places at last, however. The house was in darkness, and with the music Edith forgot, for a time, the slight shock which she had received. The opera was Samson et Dalila, and a very famous ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... lightly on Israel Putnam, who never went about looking for trouble, nor gave it more than a scant welcome as a guest. Possessed of sturdy common sense, an unblemished character, and a conscience "void of offence," Old Put did not long harbor the hasty words of Hamilton, nor dwell upon the tacit reprimand of his chief. He still sat astride his "hobby-horse," as ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... This, scant as it is, is all I have to say about Bergson on this occasion—I hope it may send some of you to his original text. I must now turn back to the point where I found it advisable to appeal to his ideas. You remember my own intellectualist difficulties in the last lecture, about ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... and Peleg her husband, who worked from sun to sun, with scant reward save that of pride in their own forehandedness. I can imagine them as they drove to church in the open wagon, a couple portentously large and prosperous: their one child, Hannah, sitting between ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... the approaches to his throne were one-and-twenty of his favourite women, beautifully dressed in feather textures, with the curved neck and head of a bird surmounting their brows. But their costume was scant and simple compared with that of the dancing girls below us. They wore a wonderful head-dress, composed of the entire body of a small peacock. The head and neck were arched over the forehead, the ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... conspicuous and momentous period of the world's history, Sea Power had a strategic bearing and weight which has received scant recognition. There cannot now be had the full knowledge necessary for tracing in detail its influence upon the issue of the second Punic War; but the indications which remain are sufficient to warrant the assertion that it was a determining factor. An ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... your state wi' theirs compar'd, And shudder at the niffer; But cast a moment's fair regard, What maks the mighty differ? Discount what scant occasion gave, That purity ye pride in, And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) Your better art ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Sore Eyes," or March, had come at last, and Wazeah, the God of Storm, was still angry. Their scant provision of dried meat had held out wonderfully, but it was now all but consumed. The Sioux had but little ammunition, and the snow was still so deep that it was impossible for them to move away to any other region in search of game. The worst was feared; indeed, some of the ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... a very simple diet. When I first saw numbers of them make meals of dry bread and fruit, I supposed poverty impelled them to partake of so scant a diet, but by the time I came back from Egypt, I too had learned to sit down and eat dry bread and grapes together, though I could procure meat as cheap in Italy as elsewhere in Europe. It is not advisable to partake of much meat in any warm country. ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... along the river bank; it was a farmer behind a huge load of green grass; atop of the grasses two moon-faced children had laps and hands crowded with field flowers. Behind them the mother walked, with a rake slung over her shoulder, her short skirts and scant draperies giving to her step a noble freedom. The brush of Vollon or of Breton would have seized upon her to embody the type of one of their rustic beauties, that type whose mingled fierceness and grace make their peasants the rude ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... continue long as at present, but remembers our proximity to Cape Crozier and the length of the blizzards recorded in that region. As usual we sleep and eat, conversing as cheerfully as may be in the intervals. There is scant news of our small outside world—only a report of comfort and a rumour that Bowers' pony has ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... found entirely on the Cecil mica loam, but those farms of the Piedmont, extending up the mountain slopes, generally include some of this soil. Such areas are often farmed, but more generally used as woodlots. Where cultivated the yields are scant, except where the soil is heavily fertilized. Corn yields from 10 to 30 bushels per acre and sometimes more, and wheat from 6 to 12 bushels per acre. The type is best adapted to forestry, chestnut ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... are too much a son, [Embracing him. And I too little am a father: you, And you alone, have merited Lucretia; 'Tis now my only grief, I can do nothing to requite this virtue: For to restore her to you, Is not an act of generosity, But a scant, niggard justice; yet I love her So much, that even this little, which I do, Is like the bounty of an usurer; High to be priz'd from me, Because 'tis drawn ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... were hoping to reach soon, loomed up grand and majestic, with patches of snow, like white sheets, spread over their sides and tops. From Nipishish to Washkagama we had passed through a burned and rocky country where no new growth save scant underbrush and a few scattering spruce, balsam and tamarack trees had taken the place of the old destroyed forest. The dead, naked tree trunks which, gaunt and weather-beaten, still stood upright or lay in promiscuous ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... lookest thou one him halfe a scorne I pomise you he is a scant gentylman borne 630 What sstyest thou ...
— The Interlude of Wealth and Health • Anonymous
... boat is lower'd with all the haste of hate, With its slight plank between thee and thy fate; Her only cargo such a scant supply As promises the death their hands deny; And just enough of water and of bread To keep, some days, the dying from the dead: Some cordage, canvas, sails, and lines, and twine. But treasures all ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... the time of the first Riel Rebellion in Manitoba, and although we were living far north of the actual scene of rebellion, yet our supplies had in so great a measure been cut off, that we were existing on very scant rations. Often we averaged no more than two meals a day, and frequently, when eating breakfast, we did not know from what quarter our dinner was to come. And now while on the verge of starvation, came this extraordinary addition to our family, ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... establishment the furnishings were scant and poor, and in every way things were vastly different from what we find them in the poorhouse of our modern times. In the main office, where Mr. Engler transacted his business affairs and entertained strangers, there was simply a rude desk, a homemade ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... That gives six feet scant in the head of Murderer's Chute. We can just barely rub through if we hit it exactly right. But it's worth trying. She don't dare ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... Belloni's, I was greatly surprised to see the impostor Ivanoff, who instead of pretending not to know me, as he ought to have done, came forward to embrace me. I stepped back and bowed, which might be put down to a feeling of respect, although my coldness and scant ceremony would have convinced any observant eye of the contrary. He was well dressed, but seemed sad, though he talked a good deal, and to some purpose, especially on politics. The conversation turned on the Court of Russia, where Elizabeth ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the place of honor on the nursery bookshelf until it falls to pieces from such handling is "Little Miss Weezy's Sister," a simple, yet absorbing story of children who are interesting because they are so real. It is doing scant justice to say for the author, Penn Shirley, that the annals of child-life have seldom been traced with more ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... the beginning, the record is very scant. As a rule, there is not more than one short sentence for a year, sometimes not even that, but merely a date. It is ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... quietly for some distance, and then he said, "Now you understand the sort of man I am. Much brutality, more weakness, scant pity for anyone—Oh, it has been ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... from her store Of spikenard, cool relief, And kissed them o'er and o'er In penitential grief. Therefore her joy begins, Her prayer is heard in heaven; Though many are her sins, They all shall be forgiven!" Scant mercy he receives Whose love for God is small; But he whom God forgives The most, loves most ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... scant attention to the fellow's tirade. Could there be smuggling going on from this mine? It all seemed to be conducted openly enough. If the production record were being falsified I felt that this dissatisfied mine commander ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... one day thy poor mother Had thought to lead thee, and this simple dower Suits not the bridal hour; A tiny shroud and gown of her own sewing She gives thee at thy going. Thy rather brings a clod of earth, a somber Pillow for thy last slumber. And so a single casket, scant of measure, Locks thee and all ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski
... was on the porch, waiting for my coffee, and my thought seemed to be shared by Jim, my bony young setter, who, being but a scant year old, had not yet forgotten the lesson of Greek art. Over the grassy stretch before the porch he chased robins tirelessly, though with indifferent success. His was a spirit truly Greek. I knew it by reason of his inexhaustible enthusiasm for this present ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... fire and neglect are able to achieve in a hundred years. The walls of heavy blocks of stone, roofless and broken in outline, are still standing. Great trees have grown up within them and now overtop them. Here and there a poplar leans forth from a broken window casement, leaving scant room for the ghosts of ancient spinners and weavers to peer into the outer world at midnight. From a distance it resembles a green, enclosed orchard. Decay may mantle itself in newest green but cannot obliterate memories of former generations. On these fallen floors the young women of Bellingham ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... twenty-four years old, and the immemorial custom of that village gave her a scant remaining year in which to make up her mind. All girls who ran true to pattern were either snugly married or serenely teaching by the time they were twenty-five, and the choice was not always their ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... complete that the Old Man glides through scenes of insult and passes over what the humblest member of the House would often find it hard to endure. There is something indeed strange, wistful, almost uncanny, in the unbreakable gentleness of that white figure, with the ivory complexion, the scant white hair, the large white collar and broad white shirt-front—there is something which becomes almost an obsession to the observer in watching the figure with its strangely tranquil and gentle expression in the heat and centre of ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... Congress appreciate the probable long duration of the struggle, and he bent every energy to giving permanency to his army, and decisiveness to each campaign. The other idea which had grown in his mind during the weary siege was that the Tories were thoroughly dangerous and deserved scant mercy. In his second letter to Gage he refers to them, with the frankness which characterized him when he felt strongly, as "execrable parricides," and he made ready to treat them with the utmost severity at New York and elsewhere. ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... the school house. It seemed as if he saw his father bowed over the rude bench within. In the distance he caught a glimpse of "The Hall." There was a feeling of homesickness with it all, and he would have given all that his scant purse contained to see Lisbeth and have her know that he had become a person of some importance. Wouldn't the squire rave if he knew the errands he had in charge. Ah, but those stiff-necked Tories would have ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... the failure of the plan to capture a city in the northwest in February with irritation, but without discouragement. They had acted prematurely there and without sufficient secrecy. That was all. The plan in itself was right. And he had watched the scant reports of the uprising in the newspapers with amusement and scorn. The very steps taken to suppress the facts showed the uneasiness of the authorities and left the nation with ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... have already been commented upon. Personally, these two men were very much disposed to magnify the importance of their own position and to resent anything that looked like interference on the part of the military. As a matter of fact, the military men treated them with scant courtesy and made little or no provision for their comfort and convenience.[342] Colonel Weer seems to have ignored, at times, their very existence. On more than one occasion, for instance, he deplored the absence ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... immediate answer. Desperation makes men bold. Conventionalities are burned up by the fire of agonised petitioning for help in extremity. Without apology or preliminary, Jairus bursts in, and his urgent need is sufficient excuse. Jesus never complains of scant respect when wrung hearts cry to Him. But this man was not only driven by despair, but drawn by trust. He was sure that, even though his little darling had been all but dead when he ran from his house, and was dead ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... always finding Indian arrowheads and hatchets and pestles. He picks full pails of the nicest-looking huckleberries. He is always dressed in clean, tidy clothes, a little scant and well patched. He pats me on the head and says, "Didn't know you were Evelyn's sister; thought it was a little three-year old." About to tell me a sad story he had read in the newspaper, he stops suddenly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... come-uppance," Archie observed, with scant pity for Phebe. "She's no end ill with chicken pox. That's the reason your father couldn't ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... scollops round the promontories where the hills come down into the lake. The forest on these hills, or mountains—for they are part of the Sierra del Cristal—is very dark in colour, and the undergrowth seems scant. We presently come to a narrow but deep channel into the lake coming from the eastward, which we go up, winding our course with it into a valley between the hills. After going up it a little way we find it completely fenced across with stout stakes, a space being left open in the middle, broader ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... one day a hawk pounced on a bird, * A wildling sparrow driven by destiny; And held in pounces spake the sparrow thus, * E'en as the hawk rose ready home to hie:— 'Scant flesh have I to fill the maw of thee * And for thy lordly food poor morsel I. Then smiled the hawk in flattered vanity * And pride, so set the sparrow free ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... boxes or bags of coffee and sugar, as I might choose. The movement of the train was very slow, as the soil was soft on the newly made and sandy roads. We progressed but a few miles on our first day's journey, and in the evening parked our train at a point where there was no wood, a scant supply of water—and that of bad quality—but an abundance of grass. There being no comfortable place to sleep in any of the wagons, filled as they were to the bows with army supplies, I spread my blankets on the ground between the wheels of one of them, and awoke in the morning ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Mr. Theodore Thomas is a case in point. There is among the works of the Scottish poet Alexander Wilson, better known as the "American Ornithologist," a ballad entitled "Watty and Meg; or, The Wife Reformed." Its moral is for all to read. Watty's measure of domestic felicity was but scant, and when the burden laid upon him became greater than he could bear he determined to leave the cause of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... till the Saturday—the wonted day for the poor to seek their meat—when the swarm of beggars that came forth was a sight truly calamitous. Many a decent auld woman that had patiently eiked out the slender thread of a weary life with her wheel, in privacy, her scant and want known only to her Maker, was seen going from door to door with the salt tear in her e'e, and looking in the face of the pitiful, being as yet unacquainted with the language of beggary; but the worst sight of all was two bonny bairns, ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... who enter. A nobleman sleeps here to-night—see that 260 All is in order in the damask chamber— Keep up the stove—I will myself to the cellar— And Madame Idenstein (my consort, stranger,) Shall furnish forth the bed-apparel; for, To say the truth, they are marvellous scant of this Within the palace precincts, since his Highness Left it some dozen years ago. And then His ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... mortified and penitential Foundress regarded as a relaxation. The Sisters, including the saintly woman who founded them, had accustomed themselves to sleep on straw mattresses, with pillows of the same material, to wear none but low shoes; to make their simple dress without plaits, and as scant as convenience for working would allow; not to be ashamed of patches, no matter how numerous or inelegant; to eat only broken bread; in short to live in every respect like the poorest classes of society. These, and innumerable other practices ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... been completely forgotten until a few years ago, when the custom was revived in one of the German clinics. The innovation met with violent opposition in Europe, and, so far as I know, has found but scant ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons |
