"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... amongst his brethren. This was all forest once. Under the shade of the mighty oaks here those gallant O'Caharneys your ancestors followed the chase, or rested at noontide, or skedaddled in double-quick before those smart English of the Pale, who I must say treated your forbears with scant courtesy.' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... plead perhaps that the blackbirds were too many—and the fruit too scant. Is it wise, my dear sir, to stand there in ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lay to the north of the boundary line. When not thus employed they lolled about, like true lords of creation, smoking, drowsing or indifferently watching their squaws, who did all the tilling of the ground and gathering of the scant crops from the rich soil. The Blackfeet lived too far to the eastward to take any part in the salmon fishing which gave employment to so many of their race on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The warriors ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... treated his mother with scant courtesy in public but Suarez, a jesuit theologian and Spanish gentleman, has ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... passionately cherishing the same opinions, had never shaken these illusions, it was but natural that they should have done their best to hand them down as sacred heirlooms to their only child. Even Gabriel's four years of hard fighting and scant rations were enkindled by so much of the disinterested idealism that had sent his State into the Confederacy, that he had emerged from them with an impoverished body, but an enriched spirit. Combined with his ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... a little "book learning" in a backwoods school and a little more in a minister's study at Albany. At thirteen he entered Yale; but he was a self-willed lad and was presently dismissed from college. A little later, after receiving some scant nautical training on a merchantman, he entered the navy as midshipman; but after a brief experience in the service he married and resigned his commission. That was in 1811, and the date is significant. It was just ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... part of the Spanish province of Mexico, but even before the overthrow of Spanish rule a thin stream of immigration had begun to run into it from the South-Western States of America. The English-speaking element became, if not the larger part of the scant population, at least the politically dominant one. Soon after the successful assertion of Mexican independence against Spain, Texas, mainly under the leadership of her American settlers, declared her independence of Mexico. The occasion of this ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... shrilly for a breeze. But none came and the night descended calm, dark, and still. As the slow hours dragged themselves away, the ship's company, weary of the monotony of their watch, sought their sleeping places, or found such scant comfort as the decks afforded, until of them all only the sentry ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... come away, though. Some of 'em's making up pretty free to Mrs. Lusk. It ain't suitable for me to see too much. Lusk says he's after you," he mentioned incidentally to Lin. "He's fillin' up, and says he's after you." McLean nodded placidly, and with scant politeness. He wished this visitor would go. But Judge Slaghammer had noticed the whiskey. He filled himself a glass. "Governor, it has my compliments," said ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... croon, cross-grained, cross-patch, cross purposes, cuddle, to cuff (to strike), cleft, din, earnest money, egg on, greenhorn, jack-of-all-trades, loophole, settled, ornate, to quail, ragamuffin, riff-raff, rigmarole, scant, seedy, out of sorts, stale, tardy, trash. How Halliwell ever came to class these words as archaic I cannot imagine; but I submit that any one who sets forth to write about the English of England ought to have sufficient acquaintance with ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... therefore, he addressed a few words to Hetty, and then took his place by her side. Now was Marie's moment of joy. Springing to one side as quickly as her rheumatic old joints would permit, she revealed what she had been trying to hide behind her scant petticoat. It was a white lamb, decorated from ears to tail with knots of ribbon and with flowers. The poor little thing tugged hard at the string by which it was held, and shook its pretty head in restless impatience under its load of finery, and bleated ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... up that they could scarcely wag a finger; after which they were each hoisted upon the shoulders of four Indians and borne with songs of triumph and rejoicing to the canoes, into which they were tumbled with scant ceremony. Then, with further songs of triumph, they were swiftly transported back down the river to the village to which ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... fortnight of "carrying on" had been a distinctly anxious time for me; moreover it was a pleasant change to find myself on the comparatively spacious deck of the Eros, and once more surrounded by the familiar faces of my former shipmates. There was scant time, however, for the interchange of greetings, for Captain Perry was in a perfect fever of anxiety to complete his arrangements, and I was no sooner through the gangway than he hustled me off to his handsome and delightfully cool cabin under the poop, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... The man had begun to crawl, making his way inch by inch. Fragments of his torn clothing hung on the points of rocks. Dim brown lines showed the path his body had taken, as he sometimes slipped back. Breaks in the scant vegetation told where his fingers had clutched desperately to halt his descent. Yet each time the reverse had been but temporary; he had returned, and mounted higher and higher. But at last there had come the end. He had reached his present place in the picture. By gripping ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... unable to defend themselves were robbed of their scanty supplies of food and clothing. Dark stories were afloat, of men, both sick and well, who were murdered at night, strangled to death by their comrades for scant supplies of clothing or money. I heard a sick and wounded Federal prisoner accuse his nurse, a fellow-prisoner of the United States Army, of having stealthily, during his sleep inoculated his wounded arm with gangrene, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Abigail made pink icing for the cake. Ruby Lee hung bleeding-hearts over the dining-room door. Aunt Nancy resurrected from the bottom of her trunk a white lace cap with a rakish-looking pink bow for an adornment, and fastened it to her scant gray hairs in honor of the occasion. Blossy turned her pink china pig, his lid left up-stairs, ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... been separated by abstraction, and when, by appealing at the same time to the sensuous and to the spiritual faculties, he addresses altogether the entire man. No doubt the vulgar critic will give very scant thanks to this writer for having given him a double task. For vulgar criticism has not the feeling for this harmony, it only runs after details, and even in the Basilica of St. Peter would exclusively attend to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... as leaders love to fall, In battle's forefront, loved and mourned by all; But fiercely fighting, as for his own hand, With the scant remnant of a broken band; His chieftainship, well-earned in many a fray, Rent from him—by himself! None did betray This sinister strong fighter to his foes; He fell by his own action, as he rose. He had fought all—himself he could not fight, Nor rise to the clear air of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... and the Horsewrangler, the Host and myself, leaving the Cook to take care of camp. We were hunting for elk, mountain lion, or bear. Nimrod had his camera, as well as his gun, a combination which the Horsewrangler eyed with scant tolerance. ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... were the horses, and such was the nature of the belts of scrub, that it took them three days to accomplish fifty miles, and after being four days and three nights without water for the horses, they reached a rugged granite hill, called Mount Riley, where they got a scant supply. From here, their journey to the Russell Range, fifty miles away, was but a repetition of their former hardships. Nothing but continuous scrub; sometimes the thickets were too dense to attempt a passage, even with the axes, and long detours had to be made. At last, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... admiringly. But these authors, we find, invariably, only passed by the eastern extremity, or the western, of the great mountain wall; the mountains themselves they did not visit. Search in the large libraries brings out a few scant volumes of Pyrenean travel, but all, with two or three exceptions, bear date within the first three-fifths of the century. It is with books, often, as with the Furancon, the wine of the Pyrenees, and with certain other vintages: ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... they rushed upon the Christian With a shout like cannon's roar; Like the dashing of the torrent, Like the sweeping of the storm, Like the raging of the tempest, Came down the dusky swarm. From the scant and struggling brush-wood, From the waste of burning sand, Sped the warriors of the desert, Like the locusts of the land: They would crush the bold invader, Who had dared to cross their path; They were fighting for their prophet, ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... the main, to the wilder spirits, though it may well be that occasionally peaceable persons were sucked into the vortex by the accident of their being abroad at the time, and on the scene of the affray, where their pacific character would receive scant consideration from the angry combatants. Esprit de corps also was a powerful incentive to action, and one from which even Masters were not exempt. To this must be added that the course of study itself seemed expressly devised to foster the belligerent temper. The air was laden with the breath ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... Fernando Maria Calderon y Albuquerque, owner of the Bella Vista estate—had sallied forth from a certain small cove on the estate for the purpose of procuring a supply of fish, as usual. After having been thus engaged for some hours, with very scant success, Tomasso had decided to try his luck farther out; and while padding to seaward his attention had been attracted by the appearance of something floating about a mile away. Paddling in that ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... rest, it would mean dismantling the house of the web that for years he had spun, the symbols of dreams that had been his chief delight. Should he go to the Eldridges there could be no more inventing, for Jan's wife was a hard, practical woman who had scant sympathy with Willie's "idees." Nevertheless one redeeming consideration must not be lost sight of—she was a famous cook, a very famous cook; and poor Willie, although he cared little what he ate, was incapable ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... with my own thoughts, and paying scant attention to the clattering-tongued Struthers, up to this point. But the intimation that Lady Allie was not in the West for the sake of her health brought me up short. And Struthers, when I challenged that statement, promptly announced that the ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... lichen-covered stone wall, and follow him with her palm- shaded eyes down the lonely road; and it as frequently happened that he would glance back over his shoulder at the nut-brown maid, whose closely clinging, scant drapery gave her a sculpturesque grace to which her unconsciousness of it ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... years old, He fled alone, by many an unknown coast, O'er Aegean Seas by many a Greekish hold, Till he arrived at the Christian host; A noble flight, adventurous, brave, and bold, Whereon a valiant prince might justly boast, Three years he served in field, when scant begin Few golden hairs to ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... percentage of the wheat berry is used. Graham flour is the whole kernel of wheat, ground. Entire wheat flour is the flour resulting from the grinding of all but the outer layer of wheat. A larger use of these coarser flours will therefore help materially in eking out our scant wheat supply as the percentage of the wheat berry used for bread flour is but 72 per cent. Breads made from these coarser flours also aid digestion and are a ...
— Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) • C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M. Goudiss
... my husband will be polite and delightful to you—as a doctor, he would treat you with scant civility, and would probably give you little or ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... 'bold and impressive.' As soon as the sermon was over, he would hasten out of the church along with his hearers, and chat with the farmers about their turnips, or cattle, or corn-crops, being anxious to utilize his scant opportunities of conversing with his parishioners.... There was until lately living in this parish an old man aged eighty, who was proud of telling how he was invited over to Foston to 'brew for Sydney,' as he affectionately ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... to say, conservative and enamored of force. In 1830 four-fifths of the population lived by agriculture and the landlord governed his peasants patriarchally. He kept the conservatist spirit of a rustic, a very lively sense of authority and the military instinct. He had scant liking for distant enterprises or adventures. He was at once religious, warlike, and realist, knowing how to nurse his ambitions and to confine his view to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... held personal fear in high scorn; and if, after ninety years' experience of lightning and thunder, Mary Antony was not better proof against their terrors, the Prioress felt scant patience with ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... cow-tax—or indeed any taxes at all, but listened and gaped, and shouted, and clapped; and being told that they could sit at a European Congress to decide the fate of Epirus, were for the moment oblivious that they had bad bread, dear wine, scant meat, an army of conscripts, and a bureaucracy that devoured them as maggots a cheese. What is political eloquence for, if not to make the people forget ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... rallying-point of all the young talent of the day, and as young talent has never too many publishers on the look-out for it, his task was not difficult, though it was one of those real services to literature which such publishers and booksellers have occasionally done in our literary history, with but scant acknowledgment. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... a flash of lightning strikes the maid, and lays her a blackened corpse at the young man's feet. The poem concludes with the more peaceful scenery of a summer's evening, when the story of Damon and Musid[o]ra is introduced. Damon had long loved the beautiful Musidora, but met with scant encouragement. One summer's evening he accidently[TN-165] came upon her bathing, and the respectful modesty of his love so won upon the damsel that she wrote upon a tree, "Damon, the time may come when you need not fly." The whole ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... comprehensive than large, since it includes about 16 points, whereas large is confined to the beam or quarter, that is, to a wind which crosses the keel at right angles, or obliquely from the stern, but never to one right astern. (See LARGE and SCANT.)—Fair, in ship-building, denotes the evenness or regularity of a curve or line.—To fair, means to ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... he trudged along the road. It was a scant three miles to town, and he would rather walk that short distance than to be bothered with a horse. When he took Old Nig, he had to keep to the main-traveled road straight into town, then tie him to a post—and worry about ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... emotion, she brushed back the scant wet hair; closed her eyes and felt in her bosom a sudden ache like the turning of a rusty iron. She felt young and afraid—a young wife who finds her ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... The scant supply of water for ablution is another annoyance to the American traveler accustomed to the hot-and cold-water faucets introduced into private bed-rooms and hotel apartments, and the capacious bath-tubs and unlimited control of water in his native land. To be sure, one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... by some of the missionaries in Japan to convert the Ainos to Christianity, but I fear the attempts made in this direction have been attended with a very scant measure of success. A people such as this possesses minds of childlike simplicity, and to endeavour to get it to comprehend the abstruse doctrines and dogmas of Christianity is an almost hopeless task. ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... merely lads; not one was able To earn the crust of bread, Though scant it might be, coarse and black and humble, With which he must ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... as strange that Mr. Carville displayed no shadow either of reverence or dislike for a place which impressed itself upon me more even than San Francisco or Chicago. It seemed to me strange that a man so sensitive to detail, so conscious of the scant poetry of the commonplace, should have no feeling for that astonishing accident which we call New York City. That he was not aware of her I refused absolutely to credit. If he could feel the beauty of Genoa and the immensity of London, he must necessarily be conscious of the sublimity of ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... to seek his bed; soon afterward he had chilly sensations which increased to marked chills; there was also nausea, eructation and vomiting, first of food and then of bilious mucus; a little later tenesmus appeared, the patient first voiding small, compact feces, followed by scant, thin dejecta. Within a few hours the abdomen had become tympanitic, the pains continued with exacerbations upon motion, after eruetations, and on talking; the entire abdomen was very sensitive. Strangury with the frequent discharge of scant urine ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... the week of the two'Easters (Palm Sunday to Easter Day), and fashioned engines of divers sorts, and set such miners as they had to work underground and so undermine the wall. And thus did they celebrate Easter (10th April) before Adrianople, being but few in number and scant of provisions. ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... heart beat fast as recollections of their merciless treatment of their officers came flooding my brain, and I felt that if they behaved like this to their officers, whom they had sworn to obey, there would be scant mercy ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... seen the assassin hastening away among the scant bushes on the slope above the house. The description that she gave of him left no doubt in Macdonald's mind of his identity. It was Mark Thorn, the cattlemen's contract killer, ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... hot, humid summers (southwest monsoon, June to September); less cloudy, scant rainfall, mild temperatures, lower humidity during winter (northeast monsoon, December ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... her dark eyes were good and her face held the glow of fine health. She had added to the severity of her sharp features by the too-elderly manner in which she parted her hair exactly in the centre of her high brow and brushed it sharply backward to a scant knot behind. She wore constantly an expression of one who was well aware of the fact that vast and vague duties to the dead as well as to the living rested on her and which should be performed at any cost. She was not usually talkative, and she had few observations to make ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... the shape of a monster, which belched forth hordes upon hordes of rioters and murderers. The Government had changed front, and adopted a policy of reaction and fierce Jew-hatred, while the liberal classes of Russia showed but scant sympathy with the downtrodden and maltreated nation. The voice of the hostile press, the Novoye Vremya, the Russ, and others, resounded through the air with fall vigor, whereas the liberal press, owing partly—but only partly—to ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... to them. Don't fancy they are too old—try 'em. And they will remember you, and bless you in future days; and their gratitude shall accompany your dreary after life; and they shall meet you kindly when thanks for kindness are scant. O mercy! shall I ever forget that sovereign you gave me, Captain Bob? or the agonies of being in debt to Hawker? In that very term, a relation of mine was going to India. I actually was fetched from school ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... years old, and the immemorial custom of that village gave her a scant remaining year in which to make up her mind. All girls who ran true to pattern were either snugly married or serenely teaching by the time they were twenty-five, and the choice was not always their own. There had been more marriageable maidens than eligible ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... sorcerer so-called, beat upon a drum in the interest of science and rattled bears' claws in a tortoise-shell. A sick man lay huddled in skins at the farthest end of the hut. His friends and relatives gave him scant attention. Indians were taught to scorn pity. Drawings on the walls signified that this was the house of ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... I honour The love thou bearest him, but go I cannot, Until the feast is done. 'Twould cast discredit On every daughter's love for her dead sire, If I should leave this solemn festival With all to do, and let the envious crowd Carp at the scant penurious courtesy Of hireling honours by an absent daughter To her ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... well-talented as you are beautiful. That one, so gifted, should by faith be able to receive the law of righteousness is, indeed, a rare thing in the world! The wisdom of a master derived from former births, enables him to accept the law with joy: this is not rare; but that a woman, weak of will, scant in wisdom, deeply immersed in love, should yet be able to delight in piety, this, indeed, is very rare. A man born in the world, by proper thought comes to delight in goodness, he recognizes the impermanence of wealth and beauty, and looks upon religion as his best ornament. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... think you will find it an interesting instance of a singular survival.' He made an obvious effort to become more like his usual self. 'It is extremely unfortunate, Atherton, that I should have troubled you with such a display of weakness,—especially as I am able to offer you so scant an explanation. One thing I would ask of you,—to observe strict confidence. What has taken place has been between ourselves. I am in your hands, but you are my friend, I know I can rely on you not to speak of it to anyone,—and, in particular, not to breathe ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... when all is ready, take a one-gallon stone jar and into this put one scant cupful of new milk. Add a level teaspoonful of salt and one of sugar. Scald this with three cupfuls of water heated to the boiling point. Reduce to a temperature of one hundred and eight degrees with cold water, using a milk ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... were only seven of us; we knew what was ahead; the weather had already given ample proof of the early approach of winter; the field of work which once stretched to the west, east and south had no longer the mystery of the "unknown"; the Ship had gone and there was scant hope ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... incursions,' 'cries of "Stand!" "Give fire!"' etc., which forced the prelate to flee to the Castle in the morning, hoping there to find the rest which was denied him at home. {6c} Now, however, when all danger to himself was past, Sharpe came out in his true colours, and scant was the justice likely to be shown to the foes of Scottish Episcopacy when the Primate was by. The prisoners were lodged in Haddo's Hole, a part of St. Giles' Cathedral, where, by the kindness of Bishop Wishart, to his credit be it ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an weet,— Her hair flyin tangled an wild: Shoo'd just been browt in aght o'th street, Wi drink an mud splashes defiled. Th' poleece sargent stood waitin to hear What charge agean her wod be made, He'd scant pity for them they browt thear, To be surly wor pairt ov his trade. "What name?" an he put it i'th' book,— An shoo hardly seemed able to stand; As shoo tottered, he happened to luk saw summat claspt in her hand. "What's that? Bring it here right away! ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... she replied, "those who surrender at discretion receive but scant courtesy, but those who make a gallant resistance are often victorious in ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... in life when these things become evident to even the least observant of us. When we stand beside the newly dead the most intolerable reflection of countless mourners is that their tears fall on quiet lips to which they gave scant caresses, in the days of health: their passionate words of love are uttered to unhearing ears, which in life waited eagerly for such assurances as these, and waited vainly. All the purity and beauty of the vanished human soul is revealed to us now, when it is no longer ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... was one of these. It is not a particularly up-to-date hostelry, and there is a scant accommodation for automobiles, but for all that it is good of its kind, and one dines and sleeps well to the accompaniment of the rushing waters of the river, at its very dooryard, on its ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... the business wasna visible till the Saturday—the wonted day for the poor to seek their meat—when the swarm of beggars that came forth was a sight truly calamitous. Many a decent auld woman that had patiently eiked out the slender thread of a weary life with her wheel, in privacy, her scant and want known only to her Maker, was seen going from door to door with the salt tear in her e'e, and looking in the face of the pitiful, being as yet unacquainted with the language of beggary; but the worst sight of all was two bonny bairns, dressed in their best, of a genteel demeanour, going ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... convenient for them for ready sale, and they urged that I ought to let them have the four and a half per cents. at par, as some had been put to the people at that. I desired a premium of three per cent. They finally met me half way, and gave one and a half premium. In short, we get a very little scant of 103 currency for those bonds, for the syndicate pays over to us the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Thou that bor'st the battle's brunt At Queenstown, and at Lundy's Lane: On whose scant ranks but iron front ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... four feet and a half long. In the course of all these years he never raised his hood, no matter what the ardor of the sun or the rain's strength. He never put on a shoe. He wore a garment of coarse sackcloth, with nothing else upon his skin. This garment was as scant as possible, and over it a little cloak of the same stuff. When the cold was great he took off the cloak and opened for a while the door and little window of his cell. Then he closed them and resumed the mantle—his way, as he told us, of warming himself, and making his body feel a better temperature. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... out that, good Shepherd, I suppose, In such a scant allowance of Star-light, Would overtask the best Land-Pilots art, Without the sure guess ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... The scant record of Jackson's services in the House of Representatives and in the Senate is of little importance to us save in three respects. It throws some light on his political opinions at that period; it gives us a glimpse of him as he appeared ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... a pirate and assumed command of the S.S. Maggie. With the memory of a scant breakfast upon him, however, Captain Scraggs ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... he read the little book, cuffed it, and cursed. He snapped up Louada Murilla with scant courtesy when she tried to give him the history of Smyrna's most famous organization, and timorously represented to him the social ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... farmed at all—in the foggy latitude of Boeotia, and knew nothing of the sunny wealth in the south of the peninsula, or of such princely estates as Eumaeus managed in the Ionian seas. Flaxman has certainly not given him the look of a large proprietor in his outlines: his toilet is severely scant, and the old gentleman appears to have lost two of his fingers in a chaff-cutter. As for Perses, who is represented as listening to the sage,[A] his dress is in the extreme of classic scantiness,—being, in fact, a mere night-shirt, and a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... pint whipped cream soak a scant tablespoonful granulated gelatine in enough water, cold, to barely cover, until soft; then add a small half teacupful of boiling water and stir until the gelatine is completely dissolved; after which add three-quarters of a cupful of sugar and flavoring. Turn into a bowl and beat ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... of that now," Braceway said to the chief. They each grasped one of the prisoner's arms and hustled him with scant ceremony to his bedroom. Bristow removed his trousers and, unbuckling the belt and straps of the steel brace, took off the ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... widening valley instead of a bare-walled gorge all scarred with slides, to see wooded heights lift green in place of barren cliffs, to watch banks of fern massed against the right of way where for a day and a night parched sagebrush, brown tumble-weed, and such scant growth as flourished in the arid uplands of interior British Columbia had streamed in barren monotony, hot and ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... street escorted by a dozen Chouans; two on either side of the postilion, ten others guarding the doors. The carriage stopped in the middle of the market-square. All were so intent upon the diligence that they paid but scant attention to Cadoudal. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... none the less bitter that it meets with scant sympathy in this hard world. In the breast of many an unsought woman lies a wealth of wasted treasure, treasure which no one has cared to seek, and yet what a treasure it ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... had deemed that the greatest power on earth, under majesty itself, was his Honour Mr. Wynn of Dunore, where now, fallen from greatness, the family was considerably larger than the means. The heavily encumbered property had dropped away piece by piece, and the scant residue clung to its owner like shackles. With difficulty the narrow exchequer had raised cash enough to send Robert on this expedition to London, from which much was hoped. The young man had been tolerably well educated; he possessed ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... exceedingly, imperious, perhaps a little narrow; impassioned for hard facts, and with scant sympathy for make-believe. I should now be free and untrammelled; in the conception and carrying out of a scheme, I could accept and reject to ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... that wither'd imp, Wi' a' his noise and caprin, And tak a share wi' those that bear The budget and the apron. And by that stoup, my faith and houp, An' by that dear Kilbaigie,[5] If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, May I ne'er weet my craigie. An' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... pine-tops blended into one, and she slept. Endicott, too, fell asleep almost as soon as he touched the blankets which the half-breed had spread for him a short distance back from the fire, notwithstanding the scant padding of pine needles that interposed between him ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... the empty sky, this ignorance may be excused. In the boyaux, which began where the railroad stopped, that was our position. We walked through an endless grave with walls of clay, on top of which was a scant foot of earth. It looked like a layer of chocolate on ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... be easily broken, and it was large enough for even Happy's bulky body to pass through. But the oxygen-scant air of Mars would sear his lungs to quick death without a helmet; and even if it would not, Happy's skin would dry and crack in a few hours of that outside air, and he ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... It was named after the war god and it always lives up to its traditions. It has had scant ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... Take, for example, thrift. It is not possible to expect that large class of workers who depend upon irregular earnings of less than 18s. a week to set by anything for a rainy day. The essence of thrift is regularity, and regularity is to them impossible. Even supposing their scant wage was regular, it is questionable whether they would be justified in stinting the bodily necessities of their families by setting aside a portion which could not in the long run suffice to provide even a bare maintenance for ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... for the day-pupils has diminished the length by some yards. Tall houses surround and shut it in on either side, making it close and sombre, and the noises of the great city all about it penetrate here only as a far-away murmur. There is a plat of verdant turf in the centre, bordered by scant flowers and damp gravelled walks, along which shrubs of evergreen and laurel are irregularly disposed. A few seats are placed here and there within the shade, where, as in Miss Bronte's time, the externals eat the luncheon brought with them to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... Pilar was Dona Concepcion's favourite pupil, and when at home spent her time reading, embroidering, or riding about the rancho, closely attended. She rarely talked, even to her mother. She paid not the slightest attention to Ygnacio's serenades, and greeted him with scant courtesy when he dashed up to the ranch-house in all the bravery of silk and fine lawn, silver and lace. But he knew the value of Dona Brigida as an ally, and was content to ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... almost a deadlock between the legislative and executive departments. Governor Bernard addressed the representatives in a supercilious and dogmatic manner, which they for their part resented with scant courtesy. ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... He's fat, and scant of breath.[1] Heere's a Napkin, rub thy browes, [Sidenote: Heere Hamlet take my napkin] The Queene Carowses to thy ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... See how now, fair lord, I have but scant breath's time to help myself, And I must cast my heart out on a chance; So bear with me. That we twain have loved well, I have no heart nor wit to say; God wot We had never made good lovers, you and I. Look you, I would not have you love me, ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ammunition horse. Then at last came the order for the advance, the order so eagerly awaited by Weldon, maddened by his long exposure to the bullets of his unseen foe. In extended order, the squadrons galloped forward until their goal was a scant five hundred yards away, when of a sudden a murderous fire broke out from the rocks in front of them, emptying many a saddle and dropping many a horse. Under such conditions, safety lay ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... four leagues distant to the north, where, at the inn of the Beau Paon, his man, Rabecque, should be lodged, ready for his coming at any time. Once already, when repairing to Condillac, he had travelled by that road, and it was so direct that there seemed scant fear of his mistaking it. On he plodded through the night, his way lighted for him by the crescent moon, the air so still that, despite his wet garments, being warmed as he was by his brisk movements, he never ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... all my store; this suckling lamb Fresh from the ewe, green crowns for joyfulness, And creamy things new-curdled from the press. And this long-stored juice of vintages Forgotten, cased in fragrance: scant it is, But passing sweet to mingle nectar-wise With feebler wine.—Go, bear them in; mine eyes... Where is my cloak?—They ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... their bodies, came plunging irregularly through the brook and gathered in confused masses along the foot of the slope, jabbering shrilly to each other and making insolent gestures toward the silent company at the top. The hair of their heads was stringy, coarse and scant, and of an inky blackness, in contrast to the abundant locks of the Hillmen, which were for the most part of a dark ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... or a bed, and jumped on it. Then followed the strangest silence—a silence of grisly suspense it was, too—waiting, expectancy, fear. It was as dark as pitch, and one had to imagine the spectacle of those fourteen scant-clad men roosting gingerly on trunks and beds, for not a thing could be seen. Then came occasional little interruptions of the silence, and one could recognize a man and tell his locality by his voice, or locate any other sound a sufferer made by his gropings or changes of position. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... heavily-barred door. It was opened in due season and with great caution by old Catherine, who evidently thought the hour ill-chosen for a new-comer, and mistrusted sorely the purpose of his visit. He allowed her scant time, however, to threaten or expostulate, but, putting her gently on one side, stepped to the inner room. There, pale with anxiety and terror, Mistress Vane leaned forward in her chair, while Cicely, half-frightened, half-defiant, grasped her mother's skirt. Before the fire stood ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... enemies and rivals, the daughter of the dead Baaltis, Mesa by name, was considered to be certain of election at the poll of the priests and priestesses. This ceremony was to take place within two days. Nothing discouraged, however, by the scant time at his disposal or other difficulties, without her knowledge or that of her father, Metem began his canvass on ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... into the night. A peculiar object lying stretched upon the lawn for some time baffled his eyesight; but at length he had made it out to be a long ladder, or series of ladders bound into one; and he was still wondering of what service so great an instrument could be in such a scant enclosure, when he was recalled to himself by the noise of some one running violently down the stairs. This was followed by the sudden, clamorous banging of the house door; and that again, by rapid and retreating footsteps in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have volunteered as a scout of three," I said, "but Colonel Sheldon has declined our services with scant politeness." ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... rebellion. Probably the lining membrane of a pocket may have intermitted accesses of induration: we must consult circumstances, if we would know what to expect. An extraordinary vintage or a great fruit year will follow a long series of scant or average crops; but we can count ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... it that he has done, Monsieur?" she asked, seeking more than the scant information which so ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... seest, though courtly pleasures want, Yet country sport in Sherwood is not scant: For the soul-ravishing, delicious sound Of instrumental music we have found The winged quiristers with divers notes Sent from their quaint recording[201] pretty throats, On every branch that compasseth our bow'r, Without command contenting us each hour. For arras hangings and rich tapestry We have ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... more, almost believed them true. Oh! The good times! One evening Jacques de Beaune (he kept the name although he was not lord of Beaune) was walking along the embankment, occupied in cursing his star and everything, for his last doubloon was with scant respect upon the point of quitting him; when at the corner of a little street, he nearly ran against a veiled lady, whose sweet odour gratified his amorous senses. This fair pedestrian was bravely mounted on pretty pattens, wore a beautiful dress of Italian ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... almost-forgotten race—the Saracen—are still to be found on the northern seaboard of Africa, in the kingdom called Morocco, where they strive to eke out a scant existence from the arid plains of ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... chosen her seat where she could best look out from the scant amount of window. She gazed at the harvest-fields full of sheaves, the orchards laden with ruddy apples, the trees assuming their autumn tints, with lingering eyes, as of one who foreboded that these sights of ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mastery, so to speak, over the lymphatic and nervous systems. With negroes, the sanguineous never gains the mastery over the lymphatic and nervous systems. Their digestive powers, like children, are strong, and their secretions and excretions copious, excepting the urine, which is rather scant. At the age of maturity they do not become dyspeptic and feeble with softening and attenuation of the muscles, as among those white people suffering the ills of a defective system of physical education, and a want of a ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... scant pastures and the green charity which a spindling second-growth spread over the nakedness of rotting forest bones—here amid the wasted uplands and into this flimsy wooden building came the rank and file of the metropolis in search of air, of green, of sky, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... the Sartins and to find considerable pleasure in Sam's companionship, who on his few holidays was only too glad to explore the grey river and its innumerable wharfs with Christopher. Sam was already a fair waterman; he at least spent all his scant leisure and scantier pennies in learning that ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... which proved more or less aggravating to Covington, he was ushered into the presence of the "great" man. Levy endeavored to be courteous in his reception, but Covington showed scant interest in conventions. He plunged at once into the nature of his business, finding Levy an interested and sympathetic listener. It was some minutes after his caller ceased speaking that the silence ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... two glances at Colonel Cleaves, when he was talking earnestly, were enough to show the observer that this officer meant all he said. Shirkers, among either officers or men, would receive scant consideration ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... salami then began to shed tears and to question her saying, "Where be the place whereon my brother went to sit?" She showed it to him, whereat he went up to it and prostrated himself in prayer[FN71] and kissed the floor crying, "Ah, how scant is my satisfaction and how luckless is my lot, for that I have lost thee, O my brother, O vein of my eye!" And after such fashion he continued weeping and wailing till he swooned away for excess of sobbing and lamentation; wherefor Alaeddin's ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... generations of men, whose tombs serve but to mark that boundary more clearly, whose fierce warfare, when they fought against the master, could not drive back that limit by a handbreadth, whose uncomplaining labour, when they accepted their lot patiently, earned them not one scant foot of soil wherewith to broaden their inheritance as reward for their submission; and of them all, neither man nor woman was ever forgotten in the day of reckoning, nor was one suffered to linger in the light. Death will bury a thousand ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... many years ago. He was very sad as he pointed out this spot to his visitor. A few scraggly hedges and an apple tree, a charred bit of fence, a chimney foundation are the only markers of the home he built after years of a hard struggle to have a home. His land is all gone except the scant five acres upon which he lives, and this is only an expanse of broom straw. He is no longer able to cultivate the land, not ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Cardinal's own. In 1514 Carroz had complained of Henry's offensive behaviour, and had urged that it would become impossible to control him, if the "young colt" were not bridled. In the following year Henry treated a French envoy with scant civility, and flatly contradicted him twice as he described the battle of Marignano. Giustinian also records how Henry went "pale with anger" at unpleasant news.[368] A few years later his successor describes Henry's ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... pressing upon each other till often one or another would be pushed against the dead line, shot by the guard, and the body left lying till the next morning; even if it had fallen into the water beyond the line, polluting the scant supply left for the living. But the cry of these perishing ones had gone up into the ears of the merciful Father of us all, and of late a spring of clear water bubbles up in ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... boomed in his ears. As he had seen but a scant half-dozen persons during the afternoon on the heights, Ferval was startled from his dreams. He turned. Sitting on a bank of green was the girl. Her hands were clasped and she spoke carelessly to her father, who, unharnessed from his orchestra, appeared another ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... declare in another that the time which he spent at Sacco was the happiest he ever knew.[47] No greater instance of inconsistency is to be found in his pages. He writes: "I gambled, I occupied myself with music, I walked abroad, I feasted, giving scant attention the while to my studies. I feared no hurt, I paid my respects to the Venetian gentlemen living in the town, and frequented their houses. I, too, was in the very flower of my age, and no ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... sacred stone figures of Brahmin and Buddhist origin, in the garden of the Dutch Residency, shows the scant care bestowed on the ancient temples, for years used as mere quarries of broken statuary, and still receiving inadequate recognition as historical remains, though Sir Stamford Raffles a century ago realised the supreme importance ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... child now down to one scant undergarment. She looked from her bony little body to Jessie, and Amy's eyes ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose |
