"Scum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to say 'must not?'" he gibed, now wholly beside himself. "You—you, who love a vagabond, a tramp, scum and off-scouring ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... of the name of enemy, my boy, certainly would not; but those fighting against us are most of them the bloodthirsty scum of a half-savage tropical city, let loose for a riot of murder, plunder, and destruction. Why, my dear boy, the moment you and Poole got outside the shelter of these walls, a hundred rifles would be aimed at you, with their owners burning to take revenge for the little ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... to their country's service, but to the exaltation and glorification of plausible windbags."[592] "The panacea of Labour representation will not remedy those defects. It is in the eternal nature of things that in the electoral competition of rival personalities the scum must rise to the top. So long as self-seeking is rewarded by the highest honours self-seeking will flourish."[593] "A Parliament of Labour members would develop just the same tendency as any other to division into parties commanded by rival ambitions, ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tall; Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant, over the rice in its low moist field, Over the sharp-peak'd farm house, with its scallop'd scum and slender shoots from the gutters, Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn, over the delicate blue-flower flax, Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with the rest, Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... was not quite so sure of the two chips on which he was to carry Eloise out if she tried to boss him. He'd wait and see. That city chap from Crompton Place had certainly been very friendly, and had not treated him as if he was scum; and after taking his seat and telling Ruby Ann, with quite an air when she asked why he was so late, that he had been detained by Mr. Harcourt, who wanted to talk with him, he took from his desk his ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Anderson," said the captain, "so at the slightest sign of danger draw back. I don't want a man to be even wounded at the expense of capturing a score of the black scum, even if one of them proves ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... to Teutonic languages), the scum formed on the top of malt liquor when fermenting; yeast used to leaven bread, or to set ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... neither grew any thinner nor any thicker, but seemed to remain at a stand-still. In the early part of the morning it was almost strong enough to bear them; but during the day the sun melted it, until it was little better than a scum over ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... English, Spanish, or French pirates were much better," said the mate, laughing. "Pirates are generally the scum of the ports they sail from; reckless, murderous ruffians. But I should say that of all pirates out in the East, the gentle, placid, mild-looking Chinaman makes the worst; for he thinks nothing of human life, his own or any ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... who can boast that precious endowment himself, "you can't keep it down. There's no use talking to me about this equality between men at the hour of birth; it's all a poetic fiction. It would take forty generations of this European scum such as is beginning to drift across to us and taint our national atmosphere to produce one Joe Newbolt! And he's got blood on ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... for myself. For my part, I had thought it praiseworthy, but he says none of the rest of us care a rush for my mother, and so the only one of us good for anything has to be the victim. But don't plume yourself. You'll be the scum of the earth when he has you before him. Poor old boy, it is a sore business to him, and it doesn't improve his temper. I believe this place is a greater loss to him than to my mother. What ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and adroitness; he loved to present the smouldering and flashing of passions, the thrill and sting of which he had never known. Saved as he was by his temperament alike from deep suffering and tense emotion, and from any vital mingling either with the scum and foam or with the stagnancy and mire of life, the books remain as a brilliant illusion, with much of the shifting hues and changing glimmer of his own ardent and restless mind rippling over the surface of a depth which is always a little ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a thick scum forms over the surface of the lake, dead, like the scum on the surface of a lonely forest pool. Then it shivers. Flashes of fire dart from side to side. The centre bursts open and a huge fountain of lava twenty feet thick and fifty high, streams into the air ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... those qualifications of which you read in the sign foregoing. For what can better fit a generation for such a work, than to be themselves all turned devils, and also succourers of all foul spirits. Wherefore, they must be the wickedest of men that shall do this: the very scum of the nations, and the very vilest of people. Nor is this a new notion: God threatened to give his sanctuary 'into the hands of strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil' (Eze 7:21); To robbers, burglars, and they should defile it (verse ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... showing them some of the tricks of fence taught me by Captain Galsworthy. The only work which all the prisoners had to perform in turn was the drawing of water from a well in the keep. The water of the moat, as I had seen when we crossed it on entering, was covered with a green scum, the rivulet which fed it not being of sufficient volume to keep ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... are contemporaneous with the makers of this literature cannot with any certainty point them out. To voice a hoary truism, time alone is the test of "vitality." In our present flood of books, as in any other flood, it is the froth and scum which shows most prominently. And the possession of "vitality," here as elsewhere, postulates that its ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... brute! You scum!" he cried in a deep harsh voice, unrecognizable as his own. "You'll chase your own children, will you? You'll hit your little Lucy with sticks like this, will you? And she savin' the poor baby in her arms. Dog! I've a mind to ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... ages! Before I was out, or knew Nevile, or anybody except you. It was ten years ago. I must have been eighteen. It was when I was at Gorston with Grace Mauleverer—trying to save water-lilies from drowning in green scum. He—Mr. Senhouse—came along in his cart, and saw me, and lent me his bed for a raft—and worked it himself. That was the first time I ever saw him—" she ended softly in a sigh: ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... cover and stew them half hour. Mash them well, when all are broken turn into a bowl covered with cheese cloth. Drain well and when cool squeeze out all the juice. Put the blueberry juice on to boil, add one pint of sugar to each pint of juice and remove all scum. Allow one quart of sliced pears to one pint of juice. Use hard pears not suitable for canning. Cook them in the syrup, turning over often and when soft and transparent skim them out into the jars. Boil down the syrup and strain over the fruit. ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... for evensong, and a squad of Salvation Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down the stream in patches. The sun was just setting, and the Clock Tower and the Houses of Parliament rose against one of the most peaceful skies it is possible to imagine, a sky of gold, ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... As they rise, he spoons them out and throws them away, until half of the best beans being wasted, the rest settle to business. He fills the kettle with water and watches it for an hour. When bean-skins and scum arise he uses the spoon; and when a ring of greasy salt forms around the rim of the kettle, he carefully scrapes it off, but most of it drops back into the pot, When the beans seem cooked to the point of disintegration, he lifts off ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... the butter till it runs to oil. It will now be found that, although the bulk of the butter looks like oil, a certain amount of froth will rise to the top. This must be carefully skimmed off. Continue to expose the butter to a gentle heat till the scum ceases to rise. Now pour off the oiled butter very gently into a basin till you come to some dregs. These should be thrown away, or, at any rate, not used in making the roux. Now mix the pound of dried and sifted flour with the oiled butter, which is ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... The republic stood alone, abandoned by France to the hot rage of Clement and the cold contempt of Charles, deserted by the powers of Italy, betrayed by lying captains, deluged on all sides with the scum of armies pouring into Tuscany from the Lombard pandemonium of war. The situation was one of impracticable difficulty. Florence could not but fall. Yet every generous heart will throb with sympathy while reading the story of that final stand for independence, in which a handful of burghers ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... leagues. It is a small high island, with two round peaks, and two detached rocks lying off to the northward. When abreast of this island, we had soundings of fifteen fathoms. During this and the preceding day, we saw great quantities of a reddish-coloured scum or spawn, floating on the water, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... fermentation commence; the liquor turns thick and frothy, little globules of air are disengaged, which rise and burst at the surface; the quantity of these globules quickly increases, and there is a rapid and abundant production of very pure carbonic acid, accompanied with a scum, which is the yeast separating from the mixture. After some days, less or more according to the degree of heat, the intestine motion and disengagement of gas diminish; but these do not cease entirely, nor is the fermentation completed for a considerable time. During the process, 35 libs. 5 oz. ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... floating scum-like substances on fresh water; they deserve to be more studied, for some, as dulse, laver, badderlocks, &c., are eatable, and others are ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... goose giblets; scald and cut them as for stewing; set them on the fire in three quarts of water, and when the scum rises skim them well: put in a bundle of sweet herbs, some cloves, mace, and allspice, tied in a bag, with some pepper and salt. Stew them very gently till nearly tender: mix a quarter of a pound of butter with flour, and put it in, with half a pint of white wine, and a little cayenne pepper. ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... we will have some for high tea to-night, and some for breakfast in the morning, and give our landlady the rest. Nice woman that; full of stories about the prisoners, and Bony and his wretched scum. Ugh! The very name of the rascal raises my bile, and—There, I think I had better take you home and give you ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... He had come to the surface again, and, with some difficulty, owing to the encumbrance of his under-shirt, clambered out upon the bank. But not as when he went under. Instead, with what appeared a green cloak over his shoulders, the scum of the stagnant water long collecting undisturbed. The hackney-driver—there was but one now, the other taken off by Duperon, who had hired him, their doctor too—joined with Rock in his laughter, while Kearney, Crittenden, and their own surgeon could not help uniting in ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... explanation of the half-hearted reception came to light. An element of negro troops had started the story on its rounds among the guileless French peasants that the white troops, who had just arrived, comprised the "Scum of America," and that they (the negroes) were the real Americans; the whites being the so-called "American Indians." As the flames of gossip spread from tongue to tongue, admonition was added that the white arrivals were dangerous and corrupt ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... starting, yet after a few hours, or at most a few days, if the temperature is high, this liquid begins to be turbid, and by-and-by bubbles make their appearance in it, and a sort of dirty-looking yellowish foam or scum collects at the surface; while at the same time, by degrees, a similar kind of matter, which we call the ...
— Yeast • Thomas H. Huxley
... should do now in her behalf. She would then have an opportunity of clearing her character from imputations which, to a certain extent, will affect it, even though they come from a madman, and from the very scum of the press." ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... in society, light as froth, blown every whither of temptation and fashion—the peddlers of filthy stories, the dancing-jacks of political parties, the scum of society, the tavern-lounging, the store-infesting, the men of low wink, and filthy chuckle, and brass breast-pins, and rotten associations? For the most part, they came from mothers idle and disgusting—the scandal-mongers of society, going from house to house, attending to everybody's business ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... one of the boards under his feet in the cockpit. A man with half an eye could have seen the scum of gasoline on the ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... Devil was ready Widespread went the whisper of gold, And the white men stampeded like cattle, There never was tie that could hold. The first mad rush to the Northland When the scum from the four ends of earth Came in with a rush, a scramble, a crush Like scrap in a ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... this done, as such things only can be done, in a boundless ignorance of all natural veracity; the faces falsely drawn—the lights falsely cast—the forms effaced or distorted, and all common human wit and sense extinguished in the vicious scum ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... declivity of the mountain towards the west, they met with another well, but the water was a very strong mineral, had a thick green scum on the top, and stunk intolerably. Necessity, however, obliged some to drink of it; but it soon made them so sick, that they threw it up the same ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... I don't know 't anythin' 's ever equaled it since. He spent money on me, an' he give me money to spend—that had never had a cent to call my own—an', Mis' Cullom, he took me by the hand, an' he talked to me, an' he gin me the fust notion 't I'd ever had that mebbe I wa'n't only the scum o' the earth, as I'd ben teached to believe. I told ye that that day was the turnin' point of my life. Wa'al, it wa'n't the lickin' I got, though that had somethin' to do with it, but I'd never have had the spunk to run away's I did if ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... show the gentlemen something of a sight more interesting that this," the newcomer continued. "They don't want to sit down and drink with the scum of ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... geare drehton tha hergas on East Englum and on Northhymbrum West Seaxna lond swithe be thm suth stthe . mid stl hergum . ealra swithust mid thm scum the hie fela geara r timbredon. Tha het Alfred cyng timbran lang scipu ongen tha scas[104] . tha wron fulneah tu swa lange swa tha othru . sume hfdon lx ara . sume ma. Tha wron gther ge swiftran ge unwealtran . ge eac hieran thonne tha othru. Nron ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... to the Convent of Mar Saba, following the course of the Brook Kedron down the Wady en-Nar (Valley of Fire). In half an hour more we reached two large tanks, hewn out under the base of a limestone cliff, and nearly filled with rain. The surface was covered with a greenish vegetable scum, and three wild and dirty Arabs of the hills were washing themselves in the principal one. Our Bedouins immediately dismounted and followed their example, and after we had taken some refreshment, we had the satisfaction of ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... place there hung a still and awful calm. The heave of the main ocean on the great sandbank out in the bay, was a heave that made no sound. The inner sea lay lost and dim, without a breath of wind to stir it. Patches of nasty ooze floated, yellow-white, on the dead surface of the water. Scum and slime shone faintly in certain places, where the last of the light still caught them on the two great spits of rock jutting out, north and south, into the sea. It was now the time of the turn of the tide: and even ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... wine grower is glad to see his must deposit the greater part of these chemical ingredients in the "tartar," a product much disliked, and therefore named Sal Tartari, or Hell Salt; and Cremor Tartari, Hell Scum ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... than did his soldiers the treacherous nature of the ground in front of the enemy. He saw that it was one of those districts where peat had been taken out in large squares for fuel, and where a fallacious and verdant scum upon the surface of deep pools simulated the turf that had been removed. He saw that the battle-ground presented to him by his sagacious enemy was one great sweep of traps and pitfalls. Before he could carry the position, many men must ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... rude but spacious fireplace and chimney to accommodate the great iron pot in which the sap was boiled down into sugar. While the sap was running freely, the pot had to be kept boiling uniformly and the thickening sap kept skimmed clean of the creaming scum; and therefore, during the season, some one had to be always living ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the papers that there are two hundred and fifty thousand men out of work and hunting jobs in New York this spring," mused Bob. "It appears to me as if we might look after Americans first for a while, instead of letting in more scum. Cheap labor is all right; but when honest men have to pay higher taxes to take care of the peasants of Europe who don't want to work, and who do crowd our hospitals and streets, and fill our schools with their children, and our jails and hospitals ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... men! Your deeds bring disgrace on the king's cause, and on our religion. It is not because the scum who march with the Dutchman behave like brutal savages, that we should do the same. There's plenty of work for you, in fighting against the enemies of your country, instead of frightening women and pillaging houses. Return ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... usual in the East, they make butter out of curdled milk; and for this reason the vessel is always covered with scum. ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... realities, the things more living than flesh and blood, which in his way he still contrived to believe in? The idea made him extremely uncomfortable, and he put it from him. He had drifted into that stagnant backwater of the soul where the scum of thought rises to the surface. Molly was better than most women; but, poor little thing, there was nothing transcendent about her virtues. She loved him after ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... usual—it is to the humans of Planet Three, whose bodies are a trifle less puny than those of the humanity of the satellites, that we owe our recent reverses. However, those reverses were merely temporary—humanity, no matter what its breed, shall very shortly disappear from the satellites. Now, you scum of the Solar System, you shall be permitted to witness an entrancing spectacle on the way to our headquarters, where all your knowledge is to be taken from you before you die, lingeringly and horribly. There is a strange space-vessel nearing us probably searching for the one we took and which ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... along that vale of Good and Ill Where London streets ferment in full activity, While everything around was calm and still, Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot he Heard,—and that bee-like, bubbling, busy hum Of cities, that boil over with their scum:— ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... I left, a clatter of horses' feet was heard outside, and Adelaide (always loquacious), exclaimed, "Here comes the General and his staff!" The words were scarcely uttered before the men jumped from their seats and dashed from the room. We were afterwards convinced that they were some of the scum of Sherman's army, and while we (myself and daughters) were sitting quite unsuspectingly, they were ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... class," the social scum, that passively rotting class thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... pot boils the scum rises to the surface, and the first result of these disloyal murmurings and agitations was to bring into prominence the two brothers, Francisco and Diego de Porras, who, it will be remembered, owed their presence with the expedition entirely to the ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... condensation within the pipes. The primary object of the defecator is to remove all impurities and perfectly clarify the liquid passing through it. All portions of pomace and other minute particles of foreign matter, when heated, expand and float in the form of scum upon the surface of the cider. An ingeniously contrived floating rake drags off this scum and delivers it over the side of the pan. To facilitate this removal, one side of the pan, commencing at a point just below the surface of the cider, is curved gently outward ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... excepting B [see below], in which the temperature is higher), is "pitched" with liquid yeast (or "barm," as it is often called) at the rate of, according to the type and strength of the beer to be made, 1 to 4 lb to the barrel. After a few hours a slight froth or scum makes its appearance on the surface of the liquid. At the end of a further short period this develops into a light curly mass (cauliflower or curly head), which gradually becomes lighter and more solid in appearance, and is then known as rocky head. This in its turn shrinks to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... thunder from the breasts of all present; the court itself did not seek to restrain the feelings of the audience. The exclamations, the insults addressed to Benedetto, who remained perfectly unconcerned, the energetic gestures, the movement of the gendarmes, the sneers of the scum of the crowd always sure to rise to the surface in case of any disturbance—all this lasted five minutes, before the door-keepers and magistrates were able to restore silence. In the midst of this tumult the voice of the president ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thickets; its roads, narrow and deserted, which seem to wind on forever; the desolate fields, here and there covered with stunted bushes; the owls flapping their dusky wings; the whip-poor-will, crying in the jungle; and the moccasin gliding stealthily amid the ooze, covered with its green scum. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the Commune had decided upon certain measures they had them voted by the Assembly then and there. If the Assembly resisted, they sent their armed delegations thither— that is, armed bands recruited from the scum of the populace. They conveyed injunctions which were always slavishly obeyed. The Commune was so sure of its strength that it even demanded of the Convention the immediate expulsion of deputies who ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... wreckage thus made. Cotton bales, cotton-laden ships and steamers on fire, and working implements of every kind such as are used in ship-yards, were continually encountered. On the piers of the levees, where were huge piles of hogsheads of sugar and molasses, a mob, composed of the scum of the city, men and women, broke and smashed without restraint. Toward noon of the 25th, as the fleet drew round the bend where the Crescent City first appears in sight, the confusion and destruction were ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... omitted our devotions. For awhile the deserters outside, who were composed of the very scum of Southern society, many of them being the rowdies, gamblers, and cutthroats of the large cities, tried to interrupt us by every means in their power; but finding that their efforts produced no effect, they finally gave over, ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... saw men past fifty. We saw slope-shouldered, hollow-chested, pale-faced men of the academic type, wearing glasses an eighth of an inch thick. We saw scrubby looking men who seemed to "be the dirt and the dross, the dust and the scum of ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... little knack worth knowing about combining the sugar and water for the sirup. If the sugar is sifted into the boiling water just as fine-grained cereals are sifted into water, there will be no scum formed. This is a saving ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... myself, but there was no choice. Things came to a climax last night. I don't like to talk about it—think about it—but you're bound to hear. I consented to go out with him. He dragged me through the dance-halls and the saloons—made me drink with him, publicly, and with the scum of the town." Noting the expression on her hearer's face, the Countess laughed shortly, mirthlessly. "Shocking, wasn't it? Low, indecent, wretched? That's what everybody is saying. Dawson is humming with it. God! How he humiliated me! But I loosened his tongue. I got most of the details—not ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... wrong to speak to you so. I give you free liberty to say what you will to me. Say I am not a bit of a soldier, or anything! Abuse me—do now, there's a dear. I'm scum, I'm froth, I'm ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... others bore back and stood at a little distance scowling upon Robin. "Come on, ye scum!" cried he merrily. "Here be cakes and ale for all. Now, who will ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... this field too it was Cato, of course, who took the lead as the vigorous champion of his native country against the foreigners. The Greek literati and physicians were in his view the most dangerous scum of the radically corrupt Greek people,(72) and the Roman "ballad- singers" are treated by him with ineffable contempt.(73) He and those who shared his sentiments have been often and harshly censured on this account, and certainly the expressions of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... fostered the boy's natural strong spirit of revolt. Adolph loathed authority, especially the authority of irresponsible court officials; and in some of his preserved letters he lashes these gentry, the scum of humanity and the parasites of courts, with scathing sarcasm. His sarcasm had no practical result, because the officials never saw it—if they had they would have shrugged their fat shoulders and gone ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... mischievous face, that all the sun-tan of Africa and all the wild life of the Caserne would not harden or debase. But he was sorry a child so bright and so brave should be turned into three parts a trooper as she was, should have been tossed up on the scum and filth of the lowest barrack life, and should be doomed in a few years' time to become the yellow, battered, foul-mouthed, vulture-eyed camp-follower that premature old age would surely render the darling of the tricolor, the pythoness of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... kin smell money; and I swear they's kind of a scum comes over your eyes when you see it. How do you know he's carryin' ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... knowing them. You who spend your lives at home can never know how much good there is in the world. In rude unrefined races, evil naturally rises to the surface, and one can discern the character of the stream beneath its scum. It is only in the highest civilisation where the outside is goodly to the eye, too often concealing an ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... appeared assured, began to feel sad. For it grew increasingly plain that Theresa was not of the stuff of which warriors, any more than saints, are made. Stand up to her and she collapsed like a pricked bubble.—So little was left, a scum of colourless soap suds, in which very certainly there is no fight. Again she showed a pitiful being, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... are given along with real and positive virtues, and in an antithetical manner. His antithetical manner is preserved in the Annals; but, instead of blandness, we come across a propensity to form unfavourable opinions of character and conduct, as when the Athenians are designated "that scum of nations":—"colluviem illam nationum" (II. 55); and Octavia, "the sprig of a gipsy fiddler" [Endnote 074]:—"tibicinis Aegyptii subolem." (XIV. 61) There is wit and ridicule in both works, but it is not the wit and ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... days, no freshening motion in the atmosphere is perceptible. 'A fire?'—yes; then why is my grate full of grey, cold ashes, and one little spark in the corner? 'A fountain springing into everlasting life?'—yes; then why in my basin is there so much scum and ooze, mud and defilement, and so little of the flashing and brilliant water? 'The power that works in us' is sorely hindered by the weakness in which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... present applicability of the note upon 'Magazines' compiled by Pope, or rather by Warburton, for the episcopal bludgeon is perceptible in the prose description. They are not at present 'the eruption of every miserable scribbler, the scum of every dirty newspaper, or fragments of fragments picked up from every dirty dunghill ... equally the disgrace of human wit, morality, decency, and common sense.' But if the translator of the 'Dunciad' ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... The very scum of civilisation, the dregs of the population of France, were roused in fierce and unjust revolt against the royal family; yes, in revolt and in power, and on a day of early October, 1789, a howling mob of frenzied men, women and children swept up the peaceful avenues of Versailles, shrieking ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... alloy— Who Earth's brightest portions cut through at a dash— Who mix beauty and beastliness all in one hash"— (I don't dwell upon deaths, since a reason so brittle Is but worthy of minds unpoetic and little)— "Base scum of the Earth, and sweet Nature's dissectors, Meet with no just reward—these same Railway Directors!" I've not mentioned the "Laughters," the "Bravos," the "Hears," "Agitations," "Sensations," and "Deafening Cheers," Which of course would attend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... water dignified during the wet season of the year by the high-sounding title of "Lake Stansbury," but spoken of scornfully as the "slough" after the summer's sun had reduced its surface to a few scattered wallows, foul and green with scum. It was now full of water and presented quite an imposing appearance to the new citizen as he skirted its brush-covered banks; in his ignorance he was counting the probability of one day building a handsome home on the ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... original, the word is kai, or the green scum that floats on stagnant water. "Bihzad Khan, dispersed the enemy as kai is dispersed when a stone is thrown into the water," is ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... documents found in the rebel camps were exhortations to stand up in the defence of their nation. "General Orders" had been found which had been scattered over a country 500 miles in extent, and these call upon the colored men to unite and drive the white men into the sea, "of which they are the scum." ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... gate, is it, that this plat is not mended, that poor travellers might go thither with more security?" And he said unto me, "This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended: it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond; for still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there arise in his soul many fears and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... you've got to do, young fellow, is to get up your strength and go back and lick the stuffing out of that scum. If you don't, your life won't be ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... aniline gentian violet three to five minutes. Filter as much aniline water on to the cover-slip as it will hold; then add the smallest quantity of alcoholic solution of gentian violet which suffices to saturate the aniline water and form a "bronze scum" upon its surface—if too much of the alcoholic gentian violet is added the ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... the glory of England. The approach to the Chase lay through twenty miles of glorious forest, filled with fallow deer and wild bulls. The house itself, dating from the time of the Plantagenets, was surrounded by a moat covered with broad lilies and floating green scum. Magnificent peacocks sunned themselves on the terraces, while from the surrounding shrubberies there rose the soft murmur of doves, pigeons, bats, ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... salt.—Saturate a quart of water and strain it; pour some in a saucer and sprinkle guano upon the surface. Good guano sinks immediately, leaving only a slight scum. If it has been adulterated by any light or flocculent matters, they will be seen upon ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... he could keep the students in order, watch his assistants draw beer, the Rhine wine, and the scum (dregs of the cask, muddy and strong), and eye the accumulating accounts on the slate. This slate was wiped out once the month; that is to say, when remittances came from home. The night following remittances was a glorious one both to Stuler and the students. There were ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... plays the hypocrite. He likes praise, he likes to be talked about, he likes to know great people, and he no more cares to conceal his likings than Sancho Panza cared to conceal his appetite. Three pullets and a couple of geese were but so much scum, which Don Quixote's squire whipped off to stay his stomach till dinner-time. By the time Boswell was six-and-twenty he could boast that he had made the acquaintance of Adam Smith, Robertson, Hume, Johnson, Goldsmith, Wilkes, Garrick, Horace Walpole, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... that we had come north only about ten miles. We had calms after the squall, and this morning the sea is as smooth as glass, and a thick haze over the land. A scum as of dust on face of water. We are, as near as I can guess by the chart, about twenty-five miles from the port of Bombay. Came to Choul Rock at mid-day, and, latitude agreeing thereto, pushed on N. by W. till we came to light-ship. It was so hazy inland ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... in the lack of knowledge as to the victim's end; and they conjured me, if I would see such things, at least to go under the escort of the police. All this I had paid scant attention to at the time; but the reality was before me with its grim terror. The room was filled with the scum of sea-going humanity; foul smoke from foul pipes floated in choking clouds to the dirt-begrimed ceiling; great brown pots of strong drink were emptied as though their contents had been milk; horrid blasphemies were uttered as ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... called Scum Goodman, a knave more abandoned, if possible, than Porter, was in the plot. Goodman had been on the stage, had been kept, like some much greater men, by the Duchess of Cleveland, had been taken into her house, had been loaded by her with gifts, and had requited her by bribing an Italian ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you will or not until I see you try,' says the Captain. 'I've handled a Malay crew, which is worse than serpents, and I've mixed it up with most of the scum that sails the seven seas, but this blame snake's got me bluffed all right. He's three fathom long, as big around as the mainmast, and made up ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... did not easily catch the spirit of the place. For when you merely observe and admire some view, and if industrious make a note of your impression, and then go home to luncheon, you are but a vulgar tripper, scum of the earth, deserving the ridicule with which the natives treat you. The romantic spirit is your only justification; when by the comeliness of your life or the beauty of your emotion you have attained that, ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... replied; "How insolent is upstart pride! Hadst thou not thus, with insult vain, Provoked my patience to complain, I had concealed thy meaner birth, Nor traced thee to the scum of earth: For, scarce nine suns have wak'd the hours, To swell the fruit, and paint the flowers, Since I thy humbler life surveyed, In base, in sordid guise arrayed; A hideous insect, vile, unclean, You dragg'd a slow and noisome train; ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Societe de Secours aux Blesses was ill-treated. Matters would, however, probably be far worse at the present time, for Paris, with all her apaches and anarchists, now includes in her population even more scum than was the case ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... peculiar form. An observer states that, "The bore is eight feet in diameter at the top, and forty-four feet deep. Below twenty-seven feet it contracts to nineteen inches, so that the turf thrown in completely chokes it. Steam collects below; a foaming scum covers the surface of the water, and in a quarter of an hour it surges up the pipe. The fountain then begins playing, sending its bundles of jets rather higher than those of the Great Geyser, flinging ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... and daughter worked as busily as father and son. The men cut the cane and fed it to the mill, while the womenfolk took turns tending the pans in which the syrup boiled, skimming off the greenish foam and scum that gathered on the top. They urged the young boys, who hung around on such occasions, to bring on more wood to keep the fire going under the pans. The owner of the portable sorghum mill sometimes took his pay for its use in sorghum, if there ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... no verdurous visions come, Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum, - No concave vast repeats the tender hue That laves my milk-jug ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and hospital-in care for the wounded, in prayer for the dying. Ah! it is easy to declaim against the frivolities and vices of Parisian society as they appear on the surface; and, in revolutionary times, it is the very worst of Paris that ascends in scum to the top. But descend below the surface, even in that demoralising suspense of order, and nowhere on earth might the angel have beheld the image of humanity more amply vindicating its claim to the heritage ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... flogging would have made it work more "splendidly." Mr. Hugh Fraser Leslie, who the February before had, in his place in the Assembly, denominated the anti-slavery delegates assembled in London, as "a set of crawling wretches;" "the scum and refuse of society." "The washings and scrapings of the manufacturing districts," &c. &c. now delivered himself of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... before I was married—was wid twelve av the scum av the earth—the pickin's av the gutter—mane men that wud neither laugh nor talk nor yet get dhrunk as a man shud. They thried some av their dog's thricks on me, but I dhrew a line round my cot, an' the man that thransgressed ut wint into hospital ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... which it has been managed. One can imagine how Swift might have introduced the subject in Grildrig's conversations with the King of Brobdingnag. "The King asked me more about our 'dots' of houses, as his Majesty was pleased to call them; and how we removed the scum and filth from those little 'ant-heaps' which we called great towns. I answered that our custom was to have a long brick tube, which we called a sewer, in the middle of our streets, where we kept a sufficient supply of filth till it fermented, ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... which, like the alternate push Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum, And defecates the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... was, of course, more terrible. Brought forth amongst the scum of criminal Paris, on a charge, the horror of which, he could but dimly hope that she was too innocent to fully understand, he dared not even think of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... although it had been planked over, but it was partially filled up with rubbish, as Rosa discovered when she peered into it. Only a tiny pool of scum was in the bottom. After a long scrutiny the girl arose, convinced at last of her brother's delusion, and vaguely ashamed of her own credulity. This was about the last repository that such a man as Don Esteban, her father, would have been likely to select; for, after all, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... is to "sugar off" all the time. He boils his kettle down as rapidly as possible; he is not particular about chips, scum, or ashes. ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... caterpillars have crawled down the trunk in autumn, to lie there self-buried and die to live again next spring in a new and fairer shape. And if you cannot reach even there, go to the water-but in the nearest yard, and there, in one pinch of green scum, in one spoonful of water, behold a whole "Divina Commedia" of living forms, more fantastic a thousand times than those with which Dante peopled his unseen world: and then feel, as you should feel, abashed at the ignorance and weakness of mortal ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... of the riddle as it respects the strength of democratic government? It has heretofore been said by the revilers of the masses in America, that 'for two hundred years the scum, the crime, and poverty of Europe have been cast upon the shores of the Atlantic.' It is immaterial to the question of humanity, whether such has been the seed from which a new nation has been raised ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... on both faucets in the bowl in the small dressing-room adjoining, a thick scum rose to the surface of the water, and she realized the bowl had not been washed for some time. At first she gazed at the dust helplessly. Utterly unused to doing anything for herself, she looked about anxiously. ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... enough among the noblemen of the South, which they can fill up, in the place of the French scum who now riot over Wessex. And if that should not suffice, what higher honor for me, or for my daughter the Queen-Dowager, than to devote our lands to the heroes who have ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... sir. But I've had enough of moneymakin'. It's too dear at the price. And if you'll let an old servant speak his mind it ain't fit for you, this 'ere kind of work. It's good enough for black-scum and for chocolate-birds like Durnovo; but this country's not built for honest white men—least of all for born ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Looks mean enough," said Yellin' Kid. The cattle men could say nothing too strong against this despised class of breeders and their innocent charges. Sheep herders were the scum of the earth to the ranchmen, and to say that a man has "gone in for sheep" was to utter the last word against him, though he might be a decent member of society for all that, and with as kind and human instincts as his more affluent ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... the help of a microscope, but is as fearfully and wonderfully made as you and me, and has its proper food, habitation, work, appointed for it, and not in vain. Nothing is idle, nothing is wasted, nothing goes wrong, in this wondrous world of God. The very scum upon the standing pool, which seems mere dirt and dust, is all alive, peopled by millions of creatures, each full of beauty, full of use, obeying laws of God too deep for us to do aught but dimly guess at them; and as men see deeper and deeper into the mystery of God's creation, ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... saw whom they had with them and the way that those villains treated their captive I noted that his face paled, and that there came a look into his eyes which I had not often seen there, but which meant no good for Jensen and his scum if Lancelot got the top of them. For Lancelot was a staunch Churchman and a respecter of ministers of God's Word, and as loyal to his religion as ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... yer nose punched? If you think I'm a thief, just keep it to yerself, or you'll find 'ow bloody well mistyken you are. Strike me blind if this ayn't gratitude for yer! 'Ere you come, a pore mis'rable specimen of 'uman scum, an' I tykes yer into my galley an' treats yer 'ansom, an' this is wot I get for it. Nex' time you can go to 'ell, say I, an' I've a good mind to give you ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... was silent, and then brought out a string of expletives. "I mistrusted the filthy pack from the first," he said. "See what they give us to work with, sir—the scum of Glasgow and London; and none of us to have a say in the matter. I'd sooner go to sea with Satan than scum like that," he said fiercely. "As soon as I set eyes on them I knew we were in for it—but not this," he added, "not this ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... Ki Ki was certain that Kapchack was really dead, he returned, and he has gathered to himself a crew of the most terrible ruffians you ever beheld. He has got about him all the scum of the earth; all the blackguards, villains, vermin, cut-throat scoundrels have rallied to his standard; as the old proverb says: 'Birds of a feather flock together'. He has taken possession of the firs, yonder, on the slope (which are the property of my friend the jay), and which command ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... were out, those that were burning being very sickly, as if they did it under protest. A number of women were employed here, because much of the work was merely automatic, and just now men were scarce and women would work cheaper. The women were coarse and rough, rather the scum of the city—perhaps some might have fallen; but the place was noisome and grimy, with a sickening smell of oil everywhere, repulsive enough to ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... of the Boy Scouts were filled with splendid dreams as they followed with their eyes the directions indicated by the pointing hand. It was all a fairyland to them. Peter talked for some time on the causes which had brought the scum of the seven seas to the Isthmus, and then Ned Nestor interrupted the talk by inviting them all to the stateroom he occupied in common with ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... and tinkers, with an old patch-work counterpane atop of a clothes-prop for their flag, he'll ride along the front of his ridgement of cavaliers, and he'll shout to 'em in that big voice of his as I've followed many's the time; and 'Don't draw, gentlemen,' he'll say; 'ride the scum down, and make the rest run;' and then they'll all roar with laughing loud enough to drown the trumpet charge. My word, I'd a gi'n something to ha' been there to see the rebels fly like dead leaves before a wind in November. But it were a mean and a cruel thing, Master Roy. Look at that arm, ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... better purpose than their own hanging; and incendiaries, that are snapping the flint upon wet tinder. You'll as soon raise the dead as raise the Highlands—you'll as soon get a grunt from a dead sow as any comfort from Wales or Cheshire. You think because the pot is boiling, that no scum but yours can come uppermost—I know better, by—. All these rackets and riots that you think are trending your way have no relation at all to your interest; and the best way to make the whole kingdom friends again at once, would be the alarm of such an undertaking as these ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... the shoes—the cobbler. Cobblers are always philosophers. Not pretty men, but thinkers. In their little, dingy shops they sit all day with their eyes down, isolated from the "hum and scum" about them, to the tune of their "tap, tap, tap," their minds are detached to think and ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... who call themselves the best people—Society, that is to say," said Mrs. Kilroy cheerfully. "Society is the scum that comes to the surface because of its lightness, and does not count, except in sets ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... preliminary purification. Not over one to two per cent. of scums should be used. If in too great quantity, the raw juices will yield inferior results. During operations that follow, experiments are not yet sufficiently advanced to determine with certainty within what limits the refuse scum utilization process is to be recommended. We have great doubts as to the wisdom of introducing foreign elements, eliminated from other juices in a previous operation, into a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... until it was no longer passable. Huge bowlders lay jammed and crowded in clefts of the mountain before them. Penn remembered the spot. He had been there in spring, when down over the rocks, now covered with lichens and dry scum, poured an ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... look for anything to happen in the photo plays which staged bloody scenes in a corner of a city park, called it "the Canadian wilds" and shot at least one man every thousand feet of film. But here in Northern Ontario, a few miles from the luxurious trans-continental passenger trains de luxe—! Scum and all as these fellows were, they would not dare do this unless ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... eggs in sinks, tanks, cisterns, and water about houses, but the Anopheles deposits her ova in shallow pools and sluggish streams, especially those on which is a growth of green scum or algae. Such are the main distinguishing features of the malaria-carrying mosquito, the Anopheles, and the ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... retiring; if these men of learning can not be found, as in most cases, let others who, for the above qualifications minus learning, be substituted in their stead. In the selection of the jury in the most cases they come as the most refined element of the scum and refuse of the party class, whose labor in the election of some democratic officer, can only be rewarded under these terms; being unqualified to fill even the most inferior office of their party, in a majority of cases, not even one of these is acquainted with even the lowest ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... tongue, but a pleasant manner for every human being who tries to act decently. With you it's different. Before to-day I didn't know much about you. What little I did know wasn't to your credit. But now I know you to belong to nothing better than the scum of the earth. No human being with any self-respect could ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... dancing which would make her dance at a funeral if anybody asked her, and I had too much spirit to give in at this signal instance of insult towards me; so we danced with some of the very commonest low people at the bottom of the set—your apothecaries, wine-merchants, attorneys, and such scum as are allowed ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray |
