"Skim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Minneapolis, though as a rival to the waltz and two-step the new dance was ridiculed by every one. He mastered all the savoir faire of the boarding-house. But he was always hurrying away from it to practise football, to prowl about the Plato power-house, to skim through magazines in the Y. M. C. A. reading-room, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Mrs. Waddler in Parker. She always talked so big that folks who didn't know her thought she must have millions of money; but when she came to giving, it was usu'ly skim milk or some of ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... say they are doomed. This lady is well along in years, therefore, this one fair spot of sky-scene is large enough to fill in the remaining periods with joy and hope. I am not content to skim over the mere surface. Helpful revelations ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... and, young and fine and fair as they both were, formed a complete superficial harmony with the peaceful English scene. A near view, however, would have shown that Godfrey Chart hadn't taken so much trouble only to skim the surface. He looked deep into his sister's eyes. "What was it you said that morning to ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... smooth and sparkling sea, is excessively difficult to navigate; its surf looks no more than champagne foam, but a thousand quicksands and shoals lie beneath: there are breakers ahead for more than half the dainty pleasure-boats that skim their hour upon it; and the foundered lie by millions, forgotten, five fathoms deep below. The only safe ballast upon it is gold dust; and if stress of weather come on you, it will swallow you without remorse. Trevenna had none of this ballast; he had come out to sea in ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... "Wow!" says Whitey, them skim-milk eyes of his gettin' big. "They wouldn't let you within a mile of him if they knew. But say, suppose I could lug him outside, would I get ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... tablespoonful of capers and a bean of garlic. Fry in olive-oil, seasoning with pepper and grated nutmeg. Add a wineglassful of white wine, a cupful of Veloute Sauce, a bay-leaf, and a sprig of thyme. Boil for fifteen minutes, skim, add another wineglassful of white wine, strain, and add the yolks of three eggs well beaten. Season with lemon-juice, butter, anchovy essence, ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green
... my driver drop the skim-copter to the street when we got to Pennsylvania Avenue within a block of the building, and he skimmed to the outskirts of the crowd that was pressing around the entrance. There were four or five hundred people there, milling around like a herd of restless cattle. Tighter knots of humanity were ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... brown, cut the meat in pieces, add this with all the juice it has drawn, to the chicken soup. Set on the back of the stove, and cook slowly all day. Set in a cold place, or on ice over night, and next morning after it is congealed, skim ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... themselves into the clouds. We were rent from our anchors, and with all our enormous load were whirled swift as an arrow along the vast abyss. Now we climb the rolling mountains, we plough the frightful ridge, and seem to skim the skies; anon we plunge into the opening gulf, we reel to and fro, and stagger in the jarring decks, or climb the cordage, whilst bursting seas foam over the decks. Despair is in every face, and death sits ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... Orphans of Defective Brain Power," I give an excellent Coffee, made of five parts chicory, and one of Mocha, supplied at a cheap rate by a House in the City, which owes me money, and is paying it off in this way, with skim-milk added, in moderation, and no sugar. None of the orphans has ever complained of my Coffee. I should like to catch them doing so. It is nonsense to say the art of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... in the process. As you stone them, throw them into a large pan or tureen and strew about half the sugar over them and let them lie in it an hour or two after they are all stoned. Then put them into a preserving kettle with the remainder of the sugar and boil and skim them till the fruit is clear ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... a dozen men are watching the fords of the Lodden, and a bullet in your back would probably be the first intimation of the presence of a party of skulkers. No, sirs, unless you can skim over the surface of this bog, and then scale Mount Tarrengower, your only place of safety is on this island. Trust ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... might be the result. Next morning was as beautiful as a spring morning ever could be, and Kat took much comfort in the fact, that, in her haste to get out to the pond, Kittie flew about the sitting-room in a hurry, whisked the dirt under the stove, didn't stop to dust, except a rapid skim over the top, left the piano shut, neglected to put fresh flowers under father's portrait, and shut the blinds so as to hide all defects under a comfortable shielding gloom. Kat looked on and felt relieved. Kittie wasn't going to be so ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... but yo' done passed me. Yo' so ugly till they could throw yo' in de Mississippi River and skim ugly for ...
— Three Plays - Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing • Zora Neale Hurston
... to a vault or firmament, of a sort of floorcloth, with an indistinct pattern distantly resembling eyes, which occasionally obtrudes itself on her repose. Neither am I. Neither is Winking Charley. It is quite common to all three of us to skim along with airy strides a little above the ground; also to hold, with the deepest interest, dialogues with various people, all represented by ourselves; and to be at our wit's end to know what they are going ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... the nest on the high bright tree Blazing with dawn and dew, She knoweth the gleam of the world and the glee As I drop like a bolt from the blue; She knoweth the fire of the level flight As I skim, close, close to the ground, With the long grass lashing my breast and the bright Dew-drops flashing around. She watcheth the hawk, the hawk, the hawk, (O, the red-blotched eggs in the nest!) Watcheth him sway in the sun's bright way; ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... beat the air on tireless wings, or skim close to the water, intent upon their ceaseless search for food. Far out the lighthouse stands anchored to the rocks, the waves dashing against it, as if to tear it from its firm foundation. But it defies them all, and sends ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... me some of that cold porridge too," he said, with a defiant look at Jones; "yesterday's, if you have it, and a few potato peelings and a glass of skim milk." ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... out to his companions a characteristic of the hawk and buzzard tribe, by which these birds can always be distinguished from the true falcon. That peculiarity lay in the manner of seizing their prey. The former skim forward upon it sideways—that is, in a horizontal or diagonal direction, and pick it up in passing; while the true falcons—as the merlin, the peregrine, the gerfalcon, and the great eagle-falcons—shoot down upon their ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Schurz convention. As Chicago will make no attempt to secure this convention, we do not mind telling St. Louis, Philadelphia and Cincinnati that the biggeet inducement which can be held out to the Carl Schurz party is a diet of oatmeal and skim milk ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... quoth he. "She will skim like a bird over the snow; so get into the sleigh, and we will go ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... had rooted itself—reading of the adventurous and poetical kind. There were two or three books which Marcella had absorbed in a way it now made her envious to remember. For at twenty-one people who take interest in many things, and are in a hurry to have opinions, must skim and "turn over" books rather than read them, must use indeed as best they may a scattered and distracted mind, and suffer occasional pangs of conscience as pretenders. But at thirteen—what concentration! ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... peppered all over with shot. I'll teach you how to get a living without being a house-cat. I hate houses and the people who live in them, and I do them all the mischief I can. I eat up their chickens and I suck their eggs. I climb in at the pantry window and skim their milk. Once when the cook left the kitchen door open I snatched the beefsteak from the gridiron and made off with the family dinner. They hate me—they do. They've tried to kill me a dozen times; but I'm Robber Grim, ha! ha! ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... grin; "there ain't so many of my pattern. I'll take a glass of rum for the good of the house; and if you can lend me a paper, I'll skim the news of ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... inaccessible; to know how to look at them with laboriously-acquired indifference and to practise to take no notice of them, saying to yourself that here are objects which are probably sacred, since merely to skim them with the tip of a respectful tongue is enough to let loose the unanimous anger of all ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... childer, dear, don't be thinkin' of it, and Pearlie, I think ye'd better not be puttin' notions inter their heads. Yer father wouldn't like it. Well Danny, me man, how goes it?" went on Mrs. Watson, as her latest born was eating his rather scanty supper. "It's not skim milk and dhry bread ye'd be havin', if you were her child this night, but taffy candy filled wid nuts and chunks o' cake as big as yer head." Whereupon Danny wailed dismally, and had to be taken from his chair and have the "Little Boy Blue" ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... required sturdy appetites to make it even tolerable. Even in later days Frank T. Bullen was able to write: "I have often seen the men break up a couple of biscuits into a pot of coffee for their breakfast, and after letting it stand a minute or two, skim off the accumulated scum of vermin from the top—maggots, weevils, etc—to the extent of a couple of tablespoonsful, before they could shovel the mess ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... away across the seas, Borne by ever-favouring breeze, Skim and plough the ocean's breast To the islands of ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... a responsive look, and she began to gaze round and admire, feeling it safest to skim on the surface; and he could not but be gratified by her appreciation of the pains spent upon this, her especial home. He had recovered himself again by the time these few sentences had passed; they discussed the few needful ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the same encounters in war and rivalries in love between Christian and Pagan champions; journeys through undiscovered lands and over untracked oceans; fantastic hyperboles of desire, ambition, jealousy, and rage, employed as motive passions. Enchanted forests; fairy ships that skim the waves without helm or pilot; lances endowed with supernatural virtues; charmed gardens of perpetual spring; dismal dungeons and glittering palaces, supply the furniture of this romance no less than of its predecessors. Rinaldo, like any other hero ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... pleasant little excursion from Gurgan Point to the harbour; the sea was luckily calm, but there was sufficient breeze to enable The Kittiwake to skim over the water like her sea-gull namesake. The girls, who by this time had grasped the depths of their friend's plot, enjoyed the situation immensely. They were actually having their coveted sail in the very ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... rather suppose that I may transfer my love of France to him," said Max Emmanuel. "But let us eschew politics, and enjoy the bliss of the hour. To-day la bella Venezia puts forth all her charms. And as the swift gondolas skim over the green waters of the lagoon, so flies my heart ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... of a Yale boat crew. He made the "Water Witch" skim through the waters, and at the same time he kept a sharp lookout for a small boat. There were a number of skiffs filled with young girls and men. But Mr. Brown was looking for a boat with the single figure of ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... spuds he had planted that spring. He made a swing around his beaver lakes, tallying the blankets in each house. He took the canoe and moved supplies to his upper cabin. He harvested some fat mallards that had moved down on the river with the coming of skim ice on the lakes. He bucked up firewood and stacked it to move into camp ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... coffin, Virginia Dane. Now—they won't take any more help from me, and I like 'em for it; and yet I want them to have more to do with. Will is clerk in the post-office, and his salary would give the three of them skim milk and red herrings, but not much more. I want you to leave them ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... Labour we mean us working men; and by Capital we mean those that derive benefit from us, take the cream off us and leave us the skim. ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... beside me. I am afraid his chief remembrance of the day is fixed upon Kanambat's tiny boat and outrigger, which he sat in on the beach, and went on voyages, in which the owner waded by his side, and saw him (Kanambat) skim along the waves like a white butterfly. We all dined in hall, after the boys, on roast beef and plum pudding, melons and water melons, and strolled about the place and beach at leisure, till it was time to ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been accomplished, and they were once more speeding onward, as Tom touched the controls that started the motor working. All then was well, as far as they had gone. Apparently they could by successive stages descend close to the treetops, and skim along until some favorable open space showed, into which a skillful pilot would find it possible to ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... the steamer stopped by where I was watching the flying fish fizz out of the blue-ink-like water, skim along for some distance, and drop in again, often, I believe, to be snapped up by some bigger fish; and he gave me a poke in the shoulder with one finger, so ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... of blackbirds fed in the fresh-turned earth. The boy watched them with half-shut eyes. When one of the birds had fed, it would hop upon a lump of wet, black earth, and being satisfied that it could eat no more, would skim in rapid, undulating flight to the row of willows in the next pasture. On a fence-post, a meadow-lark filled the silence with a liquid flow of music. As it laid back its head in an abandon of joy, the boy noticed how ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... heart, you've got the matter twisted. It was you interfering with our game. We've been after this man two months. And you ain't going to skim the cream off our hard work, ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... our mother, 'what matters it whether the boon which Santa Claus brings be royal English cheddar or fromage de Bricquebec, Vermont sage, or Herkimer County skim-milk? We should be content with whatsoever Santa Glaus bestows, so long as it be cheese, disjoined from all traps whatsoever, unmixed with Paris green, and free from glass, strychnine, and other harmful ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... towards the tavern, I see him a-coming back, kinder wild-like; so I slipped behind a lumber-pile, hoping he might come over the bridge, so I could lay my fingers on him. The moon was about its highest, so I could see his face, plain as day,— white,—skim-milk warn't a circumstance to it,—and his eyes wide open as they could stretch. I tell you, he was wild! He looked up and down a bit, mumbled somethin' I couldn't make out, and then what do you think that boy did? Why, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... twenty-four hours, then run off, and fresh water put on. This precaution is essentially necessary, in order to make clean bright malt, and should never be omitted. It is further right, at each watering, to skim off the surface of the water the light grain, chaff, and seed weeds, that are found floating on it; all this kind of trash, when suffered to remain in the steep, is a real injury to the malt, and considerably depreciates its value ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... Jane's twisted words sent a little breeze of laughter before the coming storm. For the rest of the afternoon Zura had little to say. Book in hand she sat in the windowseat overlooking the water, watching the snow-white sails skim the opal sea. ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... to lead him into the light, when it is so much easier to seize him by the pompadour and pantelettes and drag him bodily from the abyss? Some may complain that our Christian charity carries a razor edge, that we skim the cream off our milk of human kindness then put the can under an alkali pump before serving it to our customers as a prime article; but bless God! ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... when Lincoln was President, like those which weary you now about the Declaration of Independence. It will not be the same world then. Your children will not be always children. Enjoy their fresh, youth while it lasts, for it will not last long. Do not skim over the present too fast, through a constant habit of onward-looking. Many men of an anxious turn are so eagerly concerned in providing for the future, that they hardly remark the blessings of the present. Yet it is only because the future will some day be present, that it ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... replied. "A great many of these Indian dhows can run away from a square-rigged ship, in light weather. I don't know whether it is the lines of their hulls or the cut of the sails, but there is no doubt about their speed. They seem to skim over the water, while our bluff-bowed craft shove their way through it. I suppose, some day, we shall adopt these long sharp bows; when we do, it will make a wonderful difference in our rate of sailing. Then, too, these craft have a very light draft of ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... cleansing the meat from the blood, tends to keep it from tasting strong; it should be turned daily, and, if wanted soon, rubbed. A salting tub may be used, and a cover should fit close. Those who use a good deal of salt will find it well to boil up the pickle, skim, and when cold pour it over meat that has been sprinkled and drained. In some families great loss is sustained by the spoiling of meat. If meat is brought from a distance in warm weather, the butcher should be charged to cover it close, and bring ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... black as his. What cruelty to slaves! And black Frank thinks me cruel, too, when he meets me with a patronizing grin, and shows me the nicest vats of candy, and peels cane for me. Oh! very cruel! And so does Jules, when he wipes the handle of his paddle on his apron, to give "Mamselle" a chance to skim the kettles and learn how to work! Yes! and so do all the rest who meet us with a courtesy and "Howd'y, young Missus!" Last night we girls sat on the wood just in front of the furnace—rather Miriam and Anna did, while ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Racey allowed his eyes casually to skim the expressionless faces of the men backed against ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... visits it. Sometimes, when I pushed off my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great mud-turtle which had secreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent it in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows (Hirundo bicolor) skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus macularius) "teeter" along its stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting on a white pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... reached the narrower parts of the river, where it flowed between high banks, the swift current made paddling useless and compelled the men to haul the canoes with the towing line. At other times steady strong winds from the north enabled them to rig their sails and skim without effort over the broad surface of the river. Mackenzie noted with interest the varied nature and the fine resources of the country of the upper river. At one place petroleum, having the appearance of yellow wax, was seen oozing from the rocks; at another ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... not more lightly skim the air, than Marmion's steed flew along the drawbridge. The man drew rein when he had reached the train, turned, clenched his fists, shouted defiance, and shook his gauntlet at the towers where so lately ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... is on the boil; enough, enough, he is boiling over; remove some of the embers from under him and skim off his threats. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... walks; The sun shot down his noontide beams, The Swans were sporting in the streams. Their snowy plumes and stately pride Provoked her spleen. "Why, there," she cried, "Again, what arrogance we see! Those creatures, how they mimic me! Shall every fowl the waters skim Because we Geese are known to swim? Humility they soon shall learn, And their own emptiness discern." So saying, with extended wings, Lightly upon the wave she springs; Her bosom swells, she spreads her plumes, And the Swan's stately crest assumes. Contempt and mockery ensued, ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... thanked my stars that there were no curves to be taken, and I blessed the memory of that famous ruler wielded by the hand of Nicholas I. Here and there, at some slight rise in the ground, the engine literally did leave the rails and skim through the air for a few yards, alighting with a jar that brought my teeth together like castanets, ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... of The Times' broad-sheets. I don't exactly know whether they are good or not. It is undoubtedly a benefit to have "bits" from great writers to skim over when you haven't the time, or the inclination, to wade through a volume. On the other hand, it is intensely aggravating to experience the feeling of incompleteness that naturally results from having your reading ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... heart of the torrid zone that he sees the flying-fish in perfection. I have hardly ever observed a person so dull or unimaginative that his eye did not glisten as he watched a shoal of flying-fish rise from the sea, and skim along for several hundred yards. There is something in it so totally dissimilar to everything else in other parts of the world, that our wonder goes on increasing every time we see even a single one take its flight. The incredulity of the old Scotch woman on this head is ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... whate'er its kind, Some lot, some part, some station is assigned The feathered race with pinions skim the air; Not so the mackerel, and still less the bear.... Ah! who has seen the mailed lobster rise, Clap her broad wings, and soaring claim the skies? When did the owl, descending from her bower, Crop, midst the fleecy ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... were on a jury trying Cleveland, no want of food or fire should induce him to endorse any such recommendation in regard to that intolerable book. It is, to speak frankly, one of the very few books—one of the still fewer novels—which I have found it practically impossible to read even in the "skim and skip and dip" fashion which should, no doubt, be only practised as a work of necessity (i.e. duty to others) and of mercy (to oneself) on extraordinary occasions, but which nobody but a prig and a pedant will absolutely ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... go, and saw them plunge away among the trees, no easy capture for their lawful owners. Meanwhile, I dashed forward whithersoever the horse took me. I remember, even amid my panic, what a delight it was to sit astride of so noble a beast, who seemed to scorn my weight, and skim the earth as lightly as if he carried a child. Had it been my own sorry nag I should long since have been ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... genera and species. Their profiles and full faces, even in outline, are often most bizarre and strange. Their interfemoral membranes, we may add, are actual "unreticulated" nets, with which they catch and detain flies as they skim through the air. They pick these out of this bag with their mouths, and "make no bones" of any prey, so sharp and pointed are their pretty insectivorous teeth. Their flying membranes, stretched on the elongated finger-bones of their fore-legs, are wonderful ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... they could see her, she led them forward at a swift pace, which astonished them both. She did not run, but she seemed to skim over the ground, and she took advantage of every bit of cover till they entered ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... social events of the year. The favorite resort is Napa, a pretty little town in the lap of a lovely valley, approached by a narrow stream that winds through meadow lands and scattered groves of oak. The yachts are nearly all of them there, from twenty-six to thirty, a flock of white wings that skim the waters of San Pablo Bay, upward bound. At Vallejo and Mare Island they exchange salutes, abreast of the naval station, and enter the mouth of Napa Creek; it is broad and marshy for a time, but soon grows narrow, and very crooked. More than once as we sailed we missed stays, and drifted broadside ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... you will skim along the ice as lightly as a bird on the wing. With a little practice you will learn to tack ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... wasted. They bought a cow for his sole use and benefit, and guarded it like a sacred animal but to no purpose. He drank of its milk and grew thinner than ever. Strange furrows began to appear on his tiny face, with shadows and a transparent tinge like the blue of skim-milk. As the pure air of Drayton did so little for him, Mrs. Nevill Tyson wondered how he would ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... but I read few modern novels, so I may not be a good judge there. Most of them seem very poor stuff, and I cannot waste time even to skim them as some people do. I still like the old-fashioned ones I read as a girl, though you would laugh at them. Did any of you ever read 'Thaddeus ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... flood his head he bore, And stoutly steered him from the shore; And Allan strained his anxious eye, Far mid the lake his form to spy, Darkening across each puny wave, To which the moon her silver gave. Fast as the cormorant could skim. The swimmer plied each active limb; Then landing in the moonlight dell, Loud shouted of his weal to tell. The Minstrel heard the far halloo, And ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... will not cost too much is an entirely different problem. To know what to omit is a rare talent. I once found a young man who could tell students what to store up in their minds for immediate use, and what to skim over or omit; but I could not keep him long, for more lucrative positions are ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... to be feared! If I feel too hot, I can ascend; if too cold, I can come down. Should there be a mountain, I can pass over it; a precipice, I can sweep across it; a river, I can sail beyond it; a storm, I can rise away above it; a torrent, I can skim it like a bird! I can advance without fatigue, I can halt without need of repose! I can soar above the nascent cities! I can speed onward with the rapidity of a tornado, sometimes at the loftiest ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... that smell of sawdusty horses, which was never in any other place in the world, salutes my nose with painful distinctness. What do you think of my suddenly finding myself a swimmer? But I have really made the discovery, and skim about a little blue bay just below the town here, like a fish in high spirits. I hope to preserve my bathing-dress for your inspection and approval, or possibly to enrich your collection of Italian costumes on my return. Do you recollect Yarnold in "Masaniello"? ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Tragedies: Consists of a few short tales of people who have been members of the divorce colony. Whilst the comedy part describes characters who find life is all froth, who skim its surface, so to speak, those portrayed in this chapter are people who take existence seriously; who want to drain the cup of life to its last dregs! If one listens as one reads one can almost ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... picture impossible to paint or describe, and with the least ripple from a passing breeze the whole scene changed to new groups of color. The water was very clear, and in some places deep; in others so filled with coral that a boat could barely skim over the surface without scraping the keel. After crossing a long reef, one day, they entered on a sheet of water so deep that their longest line would not reach the bottom, plainly visible beneath. Fish swarmed here, and it was characteristic of them that every species, if not brilliantly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... the way he, and the children too if they have the chance, mop up pickles and Worcester sauce—is a continual joy to me. We do not drink much alcohol. On the other hand, the children are curiously discouraged from drinking cold water. Skim milk, tea, stout, ale, or even very dilute spirit is considered better for them—a prejudice which dates probably from the days before a pure water supply. Since, however, I who am known to possess a contemptible digestion, have been seen ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... me that when he was arrested he swore in eighteen different languages, each one more refreshin'ly repulsive an' vig'rous than the precedin'. Oh, I have sure missed a-plenty to-day, partic'lar because my own diction is gettin' run down an' skim-milky of late, showin' sad lack of new idees. Which I might have assim'lated somethin' robustly original an' expressive if I'd been here. No, sir; a nose-bag full of nuggets wouldn't ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... is not one poem; it is made up of many "short swallow-flights of song that dip their wings in tears and skim away." There are one hundred thirty separate songs in all, held together by the silken thread of love for the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... at greater length in the present work, but we may here note that discovery and research in its relation to the later empires that ruled at Babylon have produced results of literary rather than of historical importance. But we should exceed the space at our disposal if we attempted even to skim this fascinating field of study in which so much has recently been achieved. For it is time we turned once more to Egypt and directed our inquiry towards ascertaining what recent research has to tell us with regard to her inhabitants during the later periods ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... drawbridge flies, Just as it trembled on the rise; Not lighter does the swallow skim Along the smooth lake's level brim: And when Lord Marmion reached his band, He halts, and turns with clenched hand, A shout of loud defiance pours, And shakes his gauntlet at ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... bound for Alaska, you can make the round trip most conveniently and comfortably by taking the steamer at Portland, Oregon, and retaining your state-room until you land again in Portland, three weeks later. Or you can run north by rail as far as Tacoma; there board a fine little steamer and skim through the winding water-ways of Puget Sound (as lovely a sheet of water as ever the sun shone on), debark at Port Townsend, and here await the arrival of the Alaska steamer, which makes its excursion trip monthly—at least it used to before the Klondyke hoards deranged the ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... with which I have compiled this invaluable little work; carefully winnowing away the chaff of hypothesis, and discarding the tares of fable, which are too apt to spring up and choke the seeds of truth and wholesome knowledge. Had I been anxious to captivate the superficial throng, who skim like swallows over the surface of literature; or had I been anxious to commend my writings to the pampered palates of literary epicures, I might have availed myself of the obscurity that overshadows the infant years of our city, to introduce ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the six-penny concert, the hotel, the watering-place, on the prairie, in the prison. Not as the poor playwright and little sensation-story grinder see them, not as the manufacturers of Magdalen elegies and mock-moral and mock-philanthropical tales skim them, but in their truth and freshness as facts, around and through which sweep incessantly the infinite joys and agonies, the dreams and loves and despair of humanity. Heavens! is not LIFE as earnest and as mysterious and as well worth the fierce grapple ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... he could feed upon at such a time. There was a light skim of snow upon the ground, and the weather was cold. The wren, so far as I know, is entirely an insect-feeder, and where can he find insects in midwinter in our climate? Probably by searching under bridges, under brush-heaps, in holes and cavities in banks where the sun ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... ice, o'er gulfs profound, With nimble glide the skaiters play; O'er treacherous Pleasure's flowery ground Thus lightly skim, and haste away. ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... but the old book is ever the same. What would the old man do without it? And to you who are young I would say—you may re-read, you first must read. Choose worthy books to love. As for those who know no book long enough either to love or despise it—who skim through good and bad alike and forget page ninety-nine while reading page 100, we may simply say to them, in the words of the witty Frenchman, "What a sad old age you are preparing ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... the incidents rather than their absence. One day the first shoal of flying fish is seen—a flight of glittering birds that, flushed by the sudden approach of the vessel, skim away over the waters and turn in the cover of a white-topped wave. On another we crossed the Equator. Neptune and his consort boarded us near the forecastle and paraded round the ship in state. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... flying coursers that strain, on the track, neck and neck, on the home-stretch, With nostrils distended, and mane froth-flecked, and the neck and the shoulders, Each urged to his best by the cry and the whip and the rein of his rider, Now they skim o'er the waters and fly, side by side, neck and neck, through the meadows. The blue heron flaps from the reeds, and away wings her course up the river; Straight and swift is her flight o'er the meads, but she hardly outstrips ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... lent her name were organized so admirably that by the time the takings were handed over, they were indeed skim milk divested of all cream of human kindness. But as she often justly remarked, sentiment was to be deprecated. She was, in fact, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... country road never gets more than half way. We who live in town have to keep a sharp lookout or we are apt to share the fate of many a valuable Buff Cochin or Plymouth Rock. Trains speed along their glistening rails faster than ever before. Great ships skim across the ocean in days instead of weeks. The aeroplane, which needs neither steel rails nor water to glide upon, darts through space still more rapidly. Everybody seems to be in a hurry, whether he is or not. We are impatient if the street ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... approach, I shall no longer see you skim away into the far vista of these alleys, or shrink back into the shadows ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... separate best English from merely good English needs a long process of special education, but to recognize bad English one need merely skim through a page of a book, and if a single expression in the left-hand column following can be found (unless purposely quoted in illustration of vulgarity) it is quite certain that the author neither writes best English nor ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... It always annoyed her to have Miss Boyd called her double. The figure and manner was so different. Zay was so light and airy, she seemed rather to skim over space than to walk, and every motion was replete with grace, while Miss Boyd was stately, and when critical eyes were ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... who have oppressed mankind with the dubious blessing of the penny post. But the ground of the distinction is plain. We are always obliged to read our letters, and are sometimes obliged to answer them. But who obliges us to wade through the piled-up lumber of an ancient library, or to skim more than we like off the frothy foolishness poured forth in ceaseless streams by our circulating libraries? Dead dunces do not importune us; Grub Street does not ask for a reply by return of post. Even ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... a very brilliant night. An hour later he saw something skim the horizon. Later still he saw that the object was closer, and that it was steering for the harbour. He ran to ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... equal wings, And darting forward to the ocean flings. Through misty air as nearer earth he drew, Cutting the winds and whirling sands, he flew 320 Like birds, that hov'ring o'er the fishy main, Drop from the sky', and skim the watry plain. So from the height his mighty grandsire props, Down on the pinion light Cyllenius drops; And scarce his winged feet had touch'd the ground, 325 AEneas with the busy crew he found, Planning new structures for the rising town. Bright with a radiant gem his sword hung ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... of the valley are more of our trenches, with the German parapets 200 yards away beyond. And over these our shells are bursting, fired by guns on the slope of the hill beneath me; they whistle softly as they skim through the air over my head, and I hear the burst as they land. Further away to the west is one of the enemy's strongholds, and there bigger shells are bursting, throwing up clouds of black smoke and dust. These ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... of Catia or of Tipe, lead from the coast to the high longitudinal valleys, and there is no bed of a great river, no gulf allowing the sea to flow inland, spreading moisture by abundant evaporation. In the eighth and tenth degrees of latitude, in regions where the clouds do not, as it were, skim the surface of the soil, many trees are stripped of their leaves in the months of January and February; not by the sinking of the temperature as in Europe, but because the air at this period, the most distant ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... little ter go upon every week. For one weeks 'lowance o' sumptin' ter eat dey gives me, hold on, I will show you, dat beats guessin'. Here it is: 1/2 peck meal (corn meal), 2 lbs oat meal, 2 lb dry skim milk, and 1 lb plate meat. Dis is what I gits fer one week 'lowance. I can't work much, but de white folks gib me meals fur washin' de woodwork in dere houses, de white folks in Hayes's Bottom. What little ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... picks out a square-jawed, bull-headed, pie-faced Yon Yonson, with stupid, stary, skim-milk eyes, and leads him to the front. "A direct descendant of the old Vikings," says he, "a fellow countryman of the heroic Stefansson, of Amundsen. Just now he works as a longshoreman. But give him a fair chance, and his son's son will turn out to ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... from a book that contains but little, a good share of a book that contains much, but very little of a book that is far beyond the range of his experience. Granted the same book, one reader will barely skim its surface, another will gain a fair idea of the gist of it, a third will almost relive ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... round the inside of the tanks. But after the liquid is drawn off you can see them. When first melted the sugar is far from pure; you would be astonished at the amount of dirt mixed with it. Many of these impurities boil up to the surface and over and over again we skim them off. But even after that we have to wash the sugar by various processes. After it has been separated, clarified, and filtered it comes out a clear white liquid, and is ready for the vacuum pans, where the water is evaporated ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... is great!" said I, after reading the first long paragraph. "I should like to skim it over at once, to get the gist of the argument, and then read it leisurely, to enjoy the style. And that reminds me that I brought you an Australasian. I'll get it out of my swag, and you can ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... cut from the lower part of the round; five quarts of cold water. Let come to a boil, slowly; skim carefully, and set where it will keep just at the boiling point for eight or ten hours. Strain, and set away to cool. In the morning skim off all the fat and turn the soup into the kettle, being careful not to let the sediment pass in. Into the soup ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... flowers and nightingale's songs. Then the children came brisk, and the wages came slack; and the farmer got the new reaping-machine, and my binding came to an end; and topping turnips for a few days in the foggy November mornings don't bring you in much, even when you havn't just had a baby. And the skim milk was long ago gone, and the leasing, and the sack of tail-wheat, and the cheap cheeses almost for nothing, and the hedge-clippings, and it was just the bare ten shillings a-week. So at last, when we had heard enough of eighteen ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris |
