"Niggard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the niggard lands were we driven; 'twixt desert and foe are we penned. To us was the Northland given, ours to stronghold and defend; Ours till the world be riven in the crash of ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... heap stand Runic stones, Thereunder rest gigantic bones. From Arild's time, that heap stands there, But now 't is till'd with utmost care, In order that its owner may Thereoff reap golden corn one day. Oft has he tried, the niggard soul, The mighty stones away to roll, As useless burdens of his ground; But they for that too big were found. See, see! the moon through cloud and rack Looks down upon the letters black: And when the ghost its form uprears He shines upon its bursting tears— ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... indeed to think that what he had was necessarily identical with what he ought to have, and that any law not based on a recognition of this fact was an iniquitous law, but loyal to his friends, his class, his party, and his country; ready to spend and work for his own rights' sake, but no niggard of time or money in larger causes; sincere in his convictions, dauntless in affirming and upholding them, hardly conceiving that honest men could differ from them; strong in his self-confidence, believing that the best men always won, suspecting from the bottom of his heart every appeal ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... you to make any fence for your Orchard, if you be a niggard of your fruit. For as liberality will saue it best from noysome neighbours, liberality I say is the best fence, so Iustice must restraine rioters. Thus when your ground is tempered, squared, and fenced, it is time to ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... immortal strain, Had raised the table-round again But that a ribald King and Court Bade him toil on to make them sport, Demanding for their niggard pay, Fit for their ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... as one might say, his finger in every pie: for "a fly and a friar will fall in every dish and every business." His readily-proffered arbitration settles the differences of the humbler classes at the "love-days," a favourite popular practice noted already in the "Vision" of Langland; nor is he a niggard of the mercies which he ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... woman's will: Who ev'ry Sunday morn, to please her sight, Knots up his neck-cloth gay, and hosen white: Who for her pleasure keeps his pockets bare, And half his wages spends on pedlar's ware; When every niggard clown, or dotard old, Who hides in secret nooks his oft told gold, Whose field or orchard tempts with all her pride, At little cost may win her for his bride; Whilst all the meed her silly lover gains Is but the neighbours' ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... by coming so far to do him a service. But I think, from what I have seen of him last night, that he is not such a niggard and misanthrope as I was led to believe. He exhibited considerable emotion, despite the monosyllabic greeting, when he shook my hand. If he were a man to feel annoyance at any person coming after him, he would not have ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... niggard leas, My orchard, too late hoar, And wander over lands and seas To find the ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... miserable niggard! You always think yourself unwanted. But you will see to-night. Every reserved seat and every box is taken, every single one! Think of that—and all because of what you have done. Are we ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the niggard band, The chief who loves the Northman's land, Was only twelve years old when he His Russian war-ships put to sea. The wain that ploughs the sea was then Loaded with war-gear by his men— With swords, and spears, ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... good and affectionate son, but as I took my way into the great world from which I had been so long secluded I could not help remembering that all my misfortunes had flowed like a stream from the niggard economy of my parents in the matter of school luncheons; and I knew of no reason to think they ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... 90 Where my Love abideth. Sleep's no softer; it proceeds On through lawns, on through meads, On and on, whate'er befall, Meandering and musical, 95 Though the niggard pasturage Bears not on its shaven ledge Aught but weeds and waving grasses To view the river as it passes, Save here and there a scanty patch 100 Of primroses too faint to catch A weary bee. And scarce it pushes Its gentle ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... more comfort brought the gloomy night, In her thick shades was burning heat uprolled, Her sable mantle was embroidered bright With blazing stars and gliding fires for gold, Nor to refresh, sad earth, thy thirsty sprite, The niggard moon let fall her May dews cold, And dried up the vital moisture was, In trees, in plants, in ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... that fate, which all must undergo, From earth removed him to the shades below, The large domain his greedy sons divide, And each was portion'd as the lots decide. Little, alas! was left my wretched share, Except a house, a covert from the air: But what by niggard fortune was denied, A willing widow's copious wealth supplied. My valour was my plea, a gallant mind, That, true to honour, never lagg'd behind (The sex is ever to a soldier kind). Now wasting years my former strength confound, And added woes have bow'd me to the ground; Yet ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... rewards the worthless—kings of knaves exalters be; Wealth attends the selfish niggard, and the cloud rains ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... Should in a pet of temperance feed on Pulse, Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but Freize, Th'all-giver would be unthank't, would be unprais'd, Not half his riches known, and yet despis'd, And we should serve him as a grudging master, As a penurious niggard of his wealth, And live like Natures bastards, not her sons, Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight, And strangl'd with her waste fertility; Th'earth cumber'd, and the wing'd air dark't with plumes. 730 The herds would over-multitude their Lords, The Sea o'refraught ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... have a soul Above this humble fate. I could command, Love to do good, give largely to true merit, All that a king should do: But though these are not My province, I have scene enough within, To exercise my virtue. All that a heart, so fixed as mine, can move, Is, that my niggard fortune starves ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... see a niggard man, One of the great Macdonald clan; When others are in quest of gain This man the needy will sustain. Your mother, if an honest dame, Has not retained her wedlock fame; No part is Mac from top ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... her husband's shallow tongue, (The niggard prodigal that prais'd her so) In that high task hath done her beauty wrong, Which far exceeds his barren skill to show: Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe Enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise, In silent wonder of ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... It must, I think, have been in the year 1815 that my father and mother took me with them on either one or two more journeys. The objective points were Cambridge and London respectively. My father had built, under the very niggard and discouraging laws which repressed rather than encouraged the erection of new churches at that period, the church of St. Thomas at Seaforth, and he wanted a clergyman for it.[4] Guided in these matters very much ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... groweth less. Wherefore, to the end that the unright of Fortune may by me in part be amended, which, where there is the less strength to endure, as we see it in delicate ladies, hath there been the more niggard of support, I purpose, for the succour and solace of ladies in love (unto others[1] the needle and the spindle and the reel suffice) to recount an hundred stories or fables or parables or histories or whatever you like to style them, in ten days' time related by ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of harm, Has smitten Janasthan and made Asylum safe in Dandak's shade. Enslaved and dull, of blinded sight, Intoxicate with vain delight, Thou closest still thy heedless eyes To dangers in thy realm that rise. A king besotted, mean, unkind, Of niggard hand and slavish mind. Will find no faithful followers heed Their master in his hour of need. The friend on whom he most relies, In danger, from a monarch flies, Imperious in his high estate, Conceited, proud, and passionate; Who ne'er to state affairs attends With wholesome ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... really wonderful: architecture, painting, gardening, all are alike subject to his genius. Be it remembered, that English gardening is the purposed perfectioning of niggard Nature, and that without it England is but a hedge-and-ditch, double-post-and-rail, Hounslow-heath and Clapham-common sort of a country, since the principal forests have been felled. It is, in general, far from a picturesque country. The case ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... "Niggard in nothing, Near and far strewed he Beauty and blessing, Bought with his gold; Gave he most gladly Guerdon unstinted, Sadness he ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... Let the proudest squire that sits at thy table rise and encounter with me in any honorable point of activity whatsoever, and if he and thou prove me not a man, send me away comfortless. If thou refuse this, as a niggard of thy cates, I will have amongst you with my sword; for rather will I die valiantly, than perish with so ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... mist enshrouds the rocks, Shattered in earth's primeval shocks, And niggard Nature ever ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... felt was hardly sufficient against the multitude of enemies, and he asked himself whom he could choose among the rest. [67] He remembered how his Persians led the sorriest of lives at home owing to their poverty, working long and hard on the niggard soil, and he felt sure they were the men who would most value the life at his court. [68] Accordingly he selected ten thousand lancers from among them, to keep guard round the palace, night and ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... would give us of her store, and that often, and abundantly. We deem also that every time when she came to us our increase became more plenteous, which is well seen by this, that since she hath ceased to come, the seasons have been niggard unto us." ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... God doth reign, There is no chance," she gently said, "For, whether large or small his gain, Here every man alike is paid. No niggard churl our High Chieftain, But lavishly His gifts are made, Like streams from a moat that flow amain, Or rushing waves that rise unstayed. Free were his pardon whoever prayed Him who to save man's soul did vow, Unstinted his bliss, and undelayed, For the grace of God ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... routine as a man sits down in a comfortable chair. To others, not a few, all this hustle was an act in a domestic tragedy. Sometimes it was a comedy, as in the case of one man who had built up a "nice little butchering business," snatching his profits from the niggard hand of competition; and now he must go forth to kill men, leaving his rival master in the field of domestic butchery. But the comedies were few, or else I did not come across them, for it was the serious side of this business that impressed me the most. Men caught ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... Ireland ever since Englishmen have controlled her fortunes, be mingled with considerations of mournfulness and peril! It is not merely—and, alas! that such a calamity should have to be treated as of secondary magnitude—it is not merely that the niggard state charity of England is now at once to cease and be entirely withdrawn, but we have to contemplate a still more fearful and far wider-spreading misery at the end of autumn ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... first water. Oh, he was no niggard of his crowns, our Emperor! I had a bed-fellow of mine, a brave soldier, who was afterwards promoted to be king. This flattered us; for, if it was not one, it was the other. And so, at this game, your father became count; but, count or not, he was one of the best and bravest ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... surely get great good of him; and if thou grudge him the banquet do thou bid him and I will entertain him of my monies." Quoth he, "Dost thou know me to be niggardly, that thou sayest this Say?; and quoth she, "Thou art no niggard, but thou lackest tact. Invite him this very night and come not without him. An he refuse, conjure him by the divorce oath and be persistent with him "On my head and eyes," answered he and moulded the ring till he had finished it, after which he passed the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... persons of every rank and condition: some, dressed in all the brilliancy of the mode; others, whose garments bespoke direst poverty. There were women, too, whose costume emulated the classic drapery of the ancients, and who displayed, in their looped togas, no niggard share of their forms; while others, in shabby mourning, sat in obscure corners, not noticing the scene before them, nor noticed themselves. A strange equipage, with two horses extravagantly bedizened with rosettes and bouquets, stood at the door; and as I looked, a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... left unpunished to record their Tale. But who shall hear it? on that barren Sand None comes to stretch the hospitable hand. That shore reveals no print of human foot, Nor e'en the pawing of the wilder Brute; And niggard vegetation will not smile, All sunless on that ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... highest, That recketh not who hath the world in hand. By this proverb thou shalt well understand, Have thou enough, what thar* thee reck or care *needs, behoves How merrily that other folkes fare? For certes, olde dotard, by your leave, Ye shall have [pleasure] right enough at eve. He is too great a niggard that will werne* *forbid A man to light a candle at his lantern; He shall have never the less light, pardie. Have thou enough, thee thar* not plaine** thee *need **complain Thou say'st also, if that we make ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... parcity|; parsimoniousness[obs3], stinginess &c. adj.; stint; illiberality, tenacity. avarice, greed &c. 817a. miser, niggard, churl, screw, skinflint, crib, codger, muckworm[obs3], scrimp, lickpenny[obs3], hunks, curmudgeon, Harpagon, harpy, extortioner, Jew, usurer; Hessian [U.S.]; pinch fist, pinch penny. V. be parsimonious &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... he biassed the actors against the play before they had even seen it, but no sooner had the rehearsals begun in earnest than they warmed to their assigned parts, and in due time admired and revelled in the comedy. Colman, niggard, would risk nothing in the production of the piece, neither in new costumes nor theatrical fittings. He actually held forth disparagingly in his own box-office to those who sent to purchase tickets for ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... their acts of reprisal. It was from Egypt and Chaldaea that the knowledge and the arts of antiquity—astronomy, medicine, geometry, physical and natural sciences—spread to the ancestors of the classic races; and though Chaldaea yields up to us unwillingly, with niggard hand, the monuments of her most ancient kings, the temples and tombs of Egypt still exist to prove what signal advances the earliest civilised races made in the arts of the sculptor and the architect. But on turning to Assyria, if, after patiently ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... him; the citizen is buried beneath the ruins of his own penates, when engaged in paying his vows to the gods; another falls from his chariot and dashes out his ardent spirit; the glutton chokes at dinner; the niggard starves from abstinence. Give the dice a fair throw and you will find shipwreck everywhere! Ah, but one overwhelmed by the waves obtains no burial! As though it matters in what manner the body, once it is dead, is consumed: by fire, by flood, by time! Do ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... being.— When does he make advances?—He thinks that women should woo him; Yet, if a girl should do so, would be but alarmed and disgusted. She that should love him must look for small love in return,—like the ivy On the stone wall, must expect but a rigid and niggard support, and E'en to get that must go searching all round ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... she despised would give herself trouble unending. But these are serious, simple qualities which do not show much, and are soon forgotten by those who benefit from them. Had she laughed more, danced more, taken more kindly to the fools and their follies, she might have been acid of tongue and niggard of sympathy; the world would have thought her much ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... struck him as being passing strange that she had begun to love him when the last sand of his life was well nigh run out; that wondrous are the ways of the revolving heavens which bestow wealth upon the niggard that cannot use it, wisdom upon the bad man who will misuse it, a beautiful wife upon the fool who cannot protect her, and fertilizing showers upon the stony hills. And thinking over these things, the gallant ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... I should you, who are alone to me, More then wide Greece could to that wanderer be. The winter windes still Easterly doe keepe, And with keene Frosts haue chained vp the deepe, The Sunne's to vs a niggard of his Rayes, But reuelleth with our Antipodes; And seldome to vs when he shewes his head, Muffled in vapours, he straight hies to bed. 10 In those bleake mountaines can you liue where snowe Maketh the vales vp to the hilles to growe; ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... wisely. "Thy predecessor was too cold for me, (He said) and when he gave, he gave unkindly; Informed himself with too precautious strictness Concerning the receiver, not content To leant the want, unless he knew its cause, And measuring out by that his niggard bounty. Thou wilt not thus bestow. So harshly kind Shall Saladin not seem in thee. Thou art not Like the choked pipe, whence sullied and by spurts Flow the pure waters it absorbs in silence. Al-Hafi thinks and feels like me." So nicely The fowler whistled, that ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... who count the niggard cost In time and coin and gear Of succoring the under-dog, How often have ye seen a hog, Establishing his glutton boast, Survive a famine year? Fast ye have kept, feast ye have made; Vain were the deeds and doles If it was fear that ye obeyed To ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... had only to ask and have. After my wife's death, I had only the boy. Do you know what he has in this house? Why, rooms fit for a prince, two servants and four horses. I allow him monthly, fifteen hundred francs, and he goes about calling me a niggard, and has already squandered every bit of his poor mother's fortune." He stopped, and turned pale, for at that moment the door opened, and young Gaston, or rather Peter, slouched into ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... on this head. But I will tell you, that you must look upon the forty pounds you have, as the effect of just distinction on many accounts: and your salary from last quarter-day shall be advanced, as the dear niggard intended it some years hence; and let me only add, that when my Pamela first begins to shew a coldness to her Mrs. Jervis, I shall then suspect she is beginning to decline in that humble virtue, which is now peculiar to herself and makes her ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... changed,—hath felt the touch of sorrow, No love hath she, no understanding friend; O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow What the poor niggard earth has not to lend; But when the stalk is snapped, the rose must bend. The tallest flower that skyward rears its head Grows from the common ground, and there must shed Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely, That they should find so base a bridal bed, Who lived ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... It is the niggard praise of Zosimus himself, (l. iv. p. 267.) Augustin says, with some happiness of expression, Valentinianum.... misericordissima veneratione restituit.] The empress Justina did not long survive her return to Italy; and, though she ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... came down to the river. Perhaps the world can show more beauteous sights than the river which runs between Truro and Falmouth, but I have my doubts. Nature here is at the height of her loveliness and spreads her riches with no niggard hand. For the clear water coils its way through a rich countryside, where green woods and rich meadows slope down to the river's bank. Here the flowers come early in the springtime, and scent the air through ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Mammon's harpy keeping. Go, lure the tomtit from the twig, Go, coax the tiger from his quarry, The toper from his thirsty swig, The swindler from his schemings sorry: "Persuade" the Sweater to be just, The 'cute Monopolist to be kindly; Tempt hunger to resign his crust, The niggard churl to lavish blindly: Make—by soft words—the ruthless wrecker Subscribe for life-boats, ropes and rockets; Then plump the National Exchequer By willing doles ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... extortion to another; may you disgorge as quickly as you have crammed yourself! Then only would I sing, "Let us drink, let us drink to this happy event!"[50] Then even the son of Iulius,[51] the old niggard, would empty his cup with transports of joy, crying, "Io, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... lofty distance? Does the leaf of the forest twinkle futurity? the lonely lichen brighten or pale its lustre with change? Does not the gift of prophecy dwell with the family of the violets and the lilies? The prescient harebells, do they not let drop their closing blossoms when the heavens are niggard of their dews, or uphold them like cups thirsty for wine, when the blessing, yet unfelt by duller animal life, is beginning to drop balmily down from the rainy cloud embosomed in the blue of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... worst possible substitute in certain parts of America; and, if of any conceivable effect, was likely to prove an occasion to him of such annoyances, on account of his faith, as we have described in these pages. "The character," however, he succeeded in procuring, and written in no niggard terms. If it offended in any thing, it was in being too favorable to the bearer. It was by means of this paper, with the respectable name of Rev. Dr. H—— at its foot, that Cunningham succeeded in ingratiating himself into the confidence and favor of the O'Clerys during the voyage, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... Highlands: nor is the sense of duty lessened by absence from the mountains where first the sentiment was felt. The Highland soldier, far from his country, is accompanied by this holy love, this inexhaustible stimulus to exertion, which induces him to save with what may be unjustly called a niggard hand his earnings, to support, in their old age, those who have given him birth. "I have been," says General Stewart, "a frequent witness of these offerings of filial bounty, and the channel through which they were communicated; and I have generally found that a threat ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... "accommodating" his better knowledge to popular ignorance, as well as to point out the inadmissibility of the other alternative, that he shared the popular ignorance. And to those who hold the latter view sarcasm is dealt out with no niggard hand. ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of insufficient aid to the poor is niggardliness.—The niggard is thinking all the time of himself, and how he hates to part with what belongs to him. He gives as little as he can; and that little hurts him terribly. This vice cannot be overcome directly. It is a phase of selfishness; and like all forms of selfishness it can be cured only by ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... he spends his money?" interrupted Madame Lecoeur, with much asperity. "He's a miserly niggard, a scurvy fellow, that's what I say! Do you know, mademoiselle, he'd see me die of starvation rather than lend me five francs! He knows quite well that there's nothing to be made out of butter this season, any more than out of cheese and eggs; whereas ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... if his reason imposed this just and necessary severity, his heart had taught him another lesson in respect to private distresses of his men; he visited them in their sickness, relieved their miseries, and was a niggard of nothing but human blood. But I ought to correct myself in that expression, for he was rashly lavish of his own, and to that we ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... mean to sneer at everything the man does. We abused him yesterday as a niggard; let us have the grace to-day to say we were mistaken." He was afflicted with the over-scrupulosity of a refined, but strictly limited mind, and his conscience smote him. "I, at any rate, was quite mistaken," he went on; "I quite misinterpreted his ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Ye niggard Gods! you make our Lives too long: You fill 'em with Diseases, Wants, and Woes, And only dash 'em with a little Love; Sprinkled by Fits, and with a sparing Hand. Count all our Joys, from Childhood ev'n to Age, They wou'd but make a ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... in the lower town, especially in the locality of the university. Old Stuler's was filled with smoke, students and tumult. Ill feeling ran high. There were many damaged heads, for the cuirassiers had not been niggard ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... another name. No man spake for a little while, till at last Surly John pushes forth to the front and says: "I name Erling Thomasson, a good man and true!" Brake forth then great laughter and whooping, for the said Erling was a manifest niggard, a dastard who sweated in his bed when the mouse squeaked in the wall a nighttime. But one man sang out: "Yea, Lawman, and I name Surly John." Thereat was great laughter, and men shoved John to and fro till ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... was seventy-five years or more, but worked his niggard hillside all the day, and seldom came to town. His aged wife was kind; the flowers of her life she gave away, but none could glance upon the garden. She seemed to know when neighbors were ill; hers was the dignity of ...
— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis
... is better to give than to receive. That commodity is good advice. We note further that the liberality with which this is everywhere offered is only to be equalled (he means 'to be equalled only') by the niggard reception at most times accorded to the munificent donation; in fact the very goodness of advice given apparently militates against its due appreciation in (by?) the recipient." The critic then proceeds to fit his ipse dixit upon ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... by the 'luring charms Of phantoms gay, our reason all seduc'd, With pleasure roams thro' endless desarts wild, Enjoys the objects which herself has form'd. And this illusion for some time repairs The want of real joys, which niggard Nature Never has granted to ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... drawn sword, as in the other days when we twain stepped into one bed together; and then may we have the name of man and wife, nor shall the door swing to at the heel of him as I go behind him. Nor shall that be a niggard company if there follow him those five bond-women and eight bondmen, whom my father gave me, and those burn there withal who ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... any of these disagreeable sensations, let me prescribe for you patience; and a bit of my cheese. I know that you are no niggard of your good things among your friends, and some of them are in much need of a slice. There, in my eye is our friend Smellie; a man positively of the first abilities and greatest strength of mind, as well as one of the best hearts and keenest wits that I have ever met with; when you see him, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... him that is a niggard of his meat the whole city shall murmur; and the testimonies of his niggardness shall not ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... that monster, whom you call God, beautiful—the giant who for ever regenerates himself that he may devour himself again? God is the All, you say, who suffices to himself. Eternal he is and shall be, because all that goes forth from him is absorbed by him again, and the great niggard bestows no grain of sand, no ray of light, no breath of wind, without reclaiming it for his household, which is ruled by no design, no reason, no goodness, but by a tyrannical necessity, whose slave he himself is. The coward hides behind the cloud of incomprehensibility, and can be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his kindred, from his country's soil, By want enfeebled, and oppress'd by toil, Compelled with slow reluctance to demand The niggard pity of a stranger's hand, And forced, in silent anguish, to abide The sneer of malice, the rebuke of pride: A wretch opprest by sorrow's galling weight, Deplored his ruined peace, his hapless fate. His was such anguish as the guilty know, For self-reproach was mingled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... lands which a niggard nature had apparently condemned to perpetual poverty and obscurity, the principle of reasonable human freedom, without which there is no national prosperity or glory worth contending for, was taking deepest ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Mazarin a niggard," said he, still smiling, "but there will be at least one to hold him a good paymaster. You have done your share, De Lalande, and now I will do mine. There, go now; you must be anxious to see your parents. Some day I may ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... faint-hearted, and rides forthwith to see Hoskuld to tell him of his troubles. Hoskuld said, "Times have been that you have been terror-struck, through not having with such overwhelming odds to deal." Then Thord offered Hoskuld money for his help, and said he would not look at the matter with a niggard's eye. Hoskuld said, "This is clear, that you will not by peaceful consent allow any man to have the enjoyment of your wealth." Answers Thord, "No, not quite that though; for I fain would that you should take over all my goods. That being settled, I will ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... to Matipa's for all our party. I give two dotis to repair the canoe. Islanders are always troublesome, from a sense of security in their fastnesses. Made stirrups of thick brass wire four-fold; they promise to do well. Sent Kabinga a cloth, and a message, but he is evidently a niggard, like Matipa: we must take him as we find him, there is no use in growling. Seven of our men returned, having got a canoe from one of Matipa's men. Kabinga, it seems, was pleased with the cloth, and says that he will ask for maize from his people, and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... least for my own profit, for I am well convinced already, but simply to win your cordiality and your approval—never did an unexceptional wooer receive such niggard encouragement!—I wish there were some sort of test for her quality. I would be proud to stand by it, and you would be convinced. I can't find words to describe my objection to ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... days, a farm, inhabited, cultivated, the home of human hopes and desires and labours, but now relapsed into solitude and wilderness. What could the life have been among these rugged and inhospitable Highlands, on this niggard and reluctant soil? Where was the house that once sheltered the tillers of this rude corner of ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... BIBAMUS! Whate'er to his treasures the niggard may add, Yet regard for the joyous will ever be had, For gladness lends over ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... King's ministers in Holland had orders to do all they could to thwart the projects of the Prince of Orange, to excite people against him, to protect openly those opposed to him, and to be in no way niggard of money in order to secure the election of magistrates unfavourable to him. The Prince never ceased, until the breaking-out of this war, to use every effort to appease the anger of the King. At last, growing tired, and hoping soon to make his invasion into England, he said publicly, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... All this is not quite like you, who never used to be over-ready with your commendation; you seem to have gone now to the opposite extreme of prodigality, and developed from a niggard into a spendthrift of praise. Do not be ashamed to make alterations in what you have already published, either. They say Phidias did as much after finishing his Olympian Zeus. He stood behind the doors when he had opened them for the first time to let the work be seen, and listened ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... I should have something more to say unto you! I should have something more to give unto you! Why do I not give it? Am I then a niggard?— ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... cheat him the more; of his barn, his kitchen, cellar, nay, and his very purse too, others had the greatest use and share, whilst he keeps his keys in his pocket much more carefully than his eyes. Whilst he hugs himself with the pitiful frugality of a niggard table, everything goes to rack and ruin in every corner of his house, in play, drink, all sorts of profusion, making sport in their junkets with his vain anger and fruitless parsimony. Every one is a sentinel against him, and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of water from the scene; but the native peasant would have explained to them that the eye alone had reason to be discontented, and that the thick foliage and the uneven surface did but conceal what mother earth with no niggard bounty supplied. The Bagradas, issuing from the spurs of the Atlas, made up in depth what it wanted in breadth of bed, and ploughed the rich and yielding mould with its rapid stream, till, after passing Sicca in its way, it fell into the sea near Carthage. It was but the largest of a multitude ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... cities who refuse To their own child the honours due, And look ungently on the Muse; But ever shall those cities rue The dry, unyielding, niggard breast, Offering no nourishment, no rest, To that young head which soon shall rise Disdainfully, in might and glory, ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... exulted again in the luxurious rooms that Dick had fitted up for her in fashion more modern than the somber dignity of the rest of the house. Here was another new sensation—a household without bickerings. The elder Mrs. Percival, having accepted the situation, was no niggard in her spirit of courtesy, but very gracious as was her wont, and Lena was astonished to find that she and her new mother-in-law ran their respective lines without collisions. The half-invalid older woman breakfasted in her own room and occupied herself ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... in life," said Richmond, "and a consistent character in fiction is merely a strained form of art. In life the most arrant coward will sometimes fight; the bravest man at times lacks nerve; the generous man may sometimes show the spirit of the niggard. But your character in fiction is different. He must be always brave, or always generous, or always niggardly. He must be consistent, and consistency is ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... unbending egotist satisfy us when we remember the life-long devotion that existed between him and Dorothy, and the fact that Coleridge loved him, and that Lamb and Scott were his friends. He may have been a niggard of warm-heartedness to the outside world, but it is clear from his biography that he possessed the genius of a good heart as well as of a ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... exquisite musical service of the cathedral. Enter, then, with us one that has seemed, in some degree, to revive the glory of the olden time, when men, as they received, gave lavishly for the service of the altar; nor meted out their offerings with the niggard hand that is moved by the heart of this generation; unmoved, unwarmed, but boastful of its light—the light of a moonbeam playing on an iceberg! There is the long sweep of the nave, with the open chancel (not separated from the former by the richly carved and fretted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... ambassador, your excellency?" exclaimed Brunelli, contemptuously. "The Spanish ambassador knows nothing of the art of cookery, or he would not possibly be satisfied with his cook! He is a niggard, a poor fellow, of whom all Rome is speaking to-day, and laughing at him and his master, while they are ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... dark-green corn, Towers wood-girt Harden far above the vale, And clouds of ravens o'er the turrets sail. A hardy race who never shrunk from war, The Scott, to rival realms a mighty bar, Here fixed his mountain home;—a wide domain, And rich the soil, had purple heath been grain; But what the niggard ground of wealth denied, From fields more bless'd ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... his pleasure to act as a providence, many a time robbing Peter to pay Paul, and stripping the niggard that he might indulge his fervent love of generosity. Of all usurers and bailiffs he had a wholesome horror, and merry was the prank which he played upon the extortionate money-lender of Warwick. Riding on an easy rein through the town, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... Userti, or Saptah. Perhaps the divine neck has not been oiled of late, or too much oiled, or too little oiled, or prayers—or strings—may have gone wrong. Or Pharaoh may have been niggard in his gifts to that college of the great god of his House. Who am I that I should know the ways of gods? That in the temple where I served at Thebes fifty years ago did not pretend to bow or to trouble himself as to which of the royal race sat upon the throne. ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... me a water-skin and gear. So I sallied forth a-morn trusting in Allah to provide, and went round about the city. I offered the gugglet to one, that he might drink; but he cried, 'I have eaten naught whereon to drink; for a niggard invited me this day and set two gugglets before me; so I said to him, 'O son of the sordid, hast thou given me aught to eat that thou offerest me drink after it?' Wherefore wend thy ways, O water-carrier, till I have eaten somewhat: then come and give me to drink.' Thereupon I accosted ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... believe he had seen famous fields and once bidden fair to be a great Captain, was nursing a dog on his lap, the while he listened with a weary air to the whispers of the beautiful woman who sat next him. Apparently he had a niggard ear even for her witcheries, and little appetite save for the wine flask. Lassitude lived in his eyes, his long thin fingers trembled. Bazan watched him drain his goblet of wine, almost as soon as he sat down, ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... that makes him bethink him how he shall shift another day. He prays hotly against fasting, and so he may sup well on Friday nights, he cares not though his master be a puritan. He practices to make the words in his declaration spread as a sewer doth the dishes of a niggard's table; a clerk of a swooping dash is as commendable as a Flanders horse of a large tail. Though you be never so much delayed you must not call his master knave, that makes him go beyond himself, and write a challenge in court hand, for it may ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... letters which compromise people of wealth or position. He receives these wares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but frequently from genteel ruffians who have gained the confidence and affection of trusting women. He deals with no niggard hand. I happen to know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have you become such a niggard? You should have economized when you gave the sasandars[41] something like ten ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... old squaw of the Strike Axe outfit issues forth an' throws the broncos loose. That's to show that the Saucy Willow is a onusual excellent young squaw an' pop'lar with her folks, an' they don't aim to shake her social standin' by acceptin' sech niggard terms. ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... addition, there were the three little flotillas on Lakes Erie, Ontario, and Champlain; and a few minor vessels elsewhere. All the crews together did not exceed ten thousand men, replacements included. Yet, even with these niggard means, the American Navy won the command of two lakes completely, held the command of the third in suspense, won every important duel out at sea, except the famous fight against the Shannon, inflicted ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... excusing, it is by the figure Paradiastole, which therfore nothing improperly we call the Curry-fauell, as when we make the best of a bad thing, or turne a signification to the more plausible sence: as, to call an vnthrift, a liberall Gentleman: the foolish-hardy, valiant or couragious: the niggard, thriftie: a great riot, or outrage, an youthfull pranke, and such like termes: moderating and abating the force of the matter by craft, and for a pleasing purpose, as appeareth by these verses of ours, teaching in what cases it may commendably ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... wish it, old man," said Halbert, "if I am to be the butt that every fool may aim a shaft of scorn against?—What avails it, old man, that you yourself move, sleep, and wake, eat thy niggard meal, and repose on thy hard pallet?—Why art thou so well pleased that the morning should call thee up to daily toil, and the evening again lay thee down a wearied-out wretch? Were it not better sleep and wake no more, than to undergo this dull exchange of labour ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... annual harvest-home came round. It was a season of great festivity at Greymoor Park. Sir Thomas, as we have said, wished all his tenants and labourers to be sober, and spoke to that effect on these occasions; at the same time he was equally anxious that both meat and drink should be dealt out with no niggard hand. So men and women took as much as they liked, and the squire was very careful to make no very strict inquiries as to the state of any of his work-people on the following day; and if any case of intemperance ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... contrast between his own and hers; between the niggard spirit of the beggarly receiver, and the high bloom of the exalted giver. Nevertheless, he loved her too well not to share much of her nature, and wedding it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... veldt. To the nomadic traveller and man of peace, landmarks as barren and bare as the great ironstone belts of Northern Africa, which constrain the power of the unwilling Nile until she surges in angry cataract through such niggard opening as they will allow her. To the man of war, a veritable Gibraltar; a maze of possibilities in defence; a stupendous undertaking in attack, an undertaking which will brook neither error nor miscalculation, and from which nature has eliminated much of the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... And left the living scandal that shall die— Were dead to him already; bent as he was To make disproof of scorn, and strong in hopes, And prodigal of all brain-labor he, Charier of sleep, and wine and exercise, Except when for a breathing-while at eve, Some niggard fraction of an hour, he ran Beside the river-bank: and then indeed Harder the times were, and the hands of power Were bloodier, and the according hearts of men Seem'd harder too; but the soft river-breeze, Which fann'd the gardens of that rival rose ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... resolved to attempt the conquest of Egypt. He "set his face to go to the country of Magan and Milukha."[14165] He let his intention be generally known. No doubt he called on his subject allies for contingents of men, if not for supplies of money. To Tyre he must naturally have looked for no niggard or grudging support. What then must have been his disgust and rage at finding that, at the critical moment, Tyre had gone over to the enemy? Notwithstanding the favours heaped on him by his suzerain, "Baal, king ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... on the whole, Mr. Fairford was a man much liked and respected on all sides, though his friends would not have been sorry if he had given a dinner more frequently, as his little cellar contained some choice old wine, of which, on such rare occasions he was no niggard. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... at last won from his patient leave to depart, he set forth laden with rich gifts. In Scotland, Cardan found the most generous paymasters he had ever met. In recording the niggard treatment which he subsequently experienced at the hands of Brissac, the French Viceroy, he contrasts it with the liberal rewards granted to him in what must then have been the poorest of the European kingdoms;[153] and ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... have within their hull of use A wisdom and a meaning which may speak Of spiritual secrets to the ear Of spirit; so, in whatsoe'er the heart Hath fashioned for a solace to itself, To make its inspirations suit its creed, And from the niggard hands of falsehood wring Its needful food of truth, there ever is A sympathy with Nature, which reveals, Not less than her own works, pure gleams of light 30 And earnest parables of inward lore. Hear now this fairy legend ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... duke is no more a hero to his valet-de-chambre than you or I; and his Grace's Man at his club, in company doubtless with other Men of equal social rank, talks over his master's character and affairs with the ingenuous truthfulness which befits gentlemen who are met together in confidence. Who is a niggard and screws up his money-boxes: who is in the hands of the money-lenders, and is putting his noble name on the back of bills of exchange: who is intimate with whose wife: who wants whom to marry her daughter, and which he won't, no not at any price:—all these facts gentlemen's ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... That God will aid it on its way? And so, my friends, it is my prayer That God will have you in his care." His well-fed saintship said no more, But in their faces shut the door. What think you, reader, is the service, For which I use this niggard rat? To paint a monk? No, but a dervise. A monk, I think, however fat, Must be more ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... lost felt the money well spent; those who had won would be the more lavish in the spending. They had simply won a few more pleasures. "Quick come; quick go!" sang the whirling wheels. "The niggard in pound and pence is a usurer in happiness; a miser driving a hard bargain with pleasure. Better burn the candle at both ends than not burn it at all! In one case, you get light; in the other nothing but darkness. Laughter ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... martyrized on far-off detachments, or vegetating with friends in the country; the more ambitious, after much private practice, strove to imitate his way of twisting his mustache as he stood before the fire, though with some, to whom nature had been niggard of hirsute honors, it was grasping a shadow and ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... "Entering the tower, he finds her harboured there Whereof I spake, so dear in Clodion's eyes; Whom SHE had equalled with the loveliest fair, Nature, so niggard of such courtesies. With her Sir Tristram talks, while fell despair Aye racks the houseless prince in horrid wise. Who prays the conquering knight, with suppliant cry, Not to his arms the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... inhumanity! think you these wretched outcasts have less sensibility than yourselves? think you, in cold and hunger, they lose those feelings which even in voluptuous prosperity from time to time disturb you? you say they are all cheats? 'tis but the niggard cant of avarice, to lure away remorse from obduracy. Think you the naked wanderer begs from choice? give ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... have to say, so far. It has been decided that you shall go, if you are willing, with us to Petersburg the day after to-morrow to see the balloon, and make your report. All your expenses will be paid on the most liberal scale, for the Tsar is no niggard in spending either his own or other people's money, and you will have a handsome fee into the ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... Breakfast was well on, and he had to take his pannikin and plate round to Teddy's cookhouse to get his food. "Slushy," as the cook was familiarly called, dipped him out a liberal measure of pork and beans, and handed him half a loaf of new-made bread. Jinks was no niggard, and Tresler was always welcome to all ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum |
