"Modicum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... need for affection and sympathy, not all people by any means have big enough hearts, or fine enough natures, to respond to the need very deeply. Cold, superficial, self-centered people may go through life giving a very small modicum of sympathy or affection to anybody and receiving very little in return. Many a man is incapable and unworthy of being a real true friend to anybody. He may have brains and breeding and plenty of animal desires, but in his heart there is no understanding of what it means to be devoted to a ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... am not reasoner enough to persuade you that all women have souls. Very likely in Persia and India they have not. I only want you to believe that there may be women so fortunate as to possess a modicum of immortality. Well, pardon my interruption, 'if you looked abroad,' as you ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... idea, was probably on friendlier terms with the senior Senator from Pennsylvania than any of the other leaders of those reactionary forces with whom he was tilting. He knew where Penrose stood and it is not at all improbable that behind the Penrose reticence there was a modicum of admiration for the methods of the redoubtable little colleague, who in his way, was a more inexorable boss than Penrose himself ever dreamed of being. The mutual understanding was there, even ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... believe her unless her lie has some spice of fact to go on, unless it has vraisemblance, truth-likeness, an appearance of foundation at least. Mean little lies, like those she sets going, do not need much salt of truth to keep them from spoiling; still they require their due modicum, and they usually have it. As for instance, she says, with a long face, to Mrs. Tittle: 'Mrs. Jenkins, the widow Jenkins, you know, it's awful. She went over to Pinkins's last evening; I saw her go, ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... their Tory instincts, and rallied to the side of the Government with ready fervour. Their social proclivities were equally removed from the rude boorishness of the ordinary settler as from the pretence and ceremonial of the clique of self-constituted aristocrats. They generally preserved a modicum of state in the regulation of their household affairs, though they kept aloof from the Compact and its practices, and devoted themselves to various branches of industry—among others, to the education of youth; to the ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... out the impious aspiration as he sorted a judicious modicum of hemp into the canary seed. He spoke in semi-soliloquy, yet quite loud enough to reach the vigilant ear of Mrs. Punt, who was dusting the cages at the other end of the live-stock store. She said nothing in reply, but her eye fixed itself upon him with a glint ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... that the war was to be a war, not against the South as a people, but against a tyrannical and usurping faction at the South, and for the defence of the people at large residing in that region. There was a modicum of truth in this theory, but events have shown, and any one who knew the South well might safely have predicted, that the whole people there would soon be subdued to the authority of those few. Such ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... these youngsters to rush in and raise the devil where there's no necessity for anything to happen if just a modicum of common sense had ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the thoughtless man; in the case where there is little or no self-examination; God unquestionably knows the man as well as the man knows himself. The Omniscient One is certainly possessed of an amount of knowledge equal to that small modicum which is all that a rational and immortal soul can boast of in reference to itself. But the vast majority of mankind fall into this class. The self-examiners are very few, in comparison with the millions who possess ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... hand of might That kindles up the skies, Gives him a modicum of light, Proportion'd to ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... open. I plunged into her room. The moment I drew the blanket-thickness from my eyes I knew blindness and a modicum of what Bert Rhine must have suffered. Oh, the intolerable bite of the sulphur in my lungs, nostrils, eyes, and brain! No light burned in the room. I could only strangle and stumble for'ard to Margaret's bed, upon ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... conditions which now prevail, it can no longer be asserted that the imparting of the mere elements of knowledge is adequate either to secure the future social efficiency of the children of the lower classes of society or that such a modicum of instruction as is provided by our Elementary Schools is sufficient to protect the community from the ignorance of its ill educated and badly trained members. The "hooliganism" of many of our large cities is due to our system of half educating, half training the children of the ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... line which for generation after generation had considered itself in humiliating straits unless there were at least a thousand lances at beck and call—old Vardos had been thrown into a mental maelstrom by the sudden change in the lifelong existence. Sure of his meals and a modicum of money for occasional visits to taprooms, he was now placed in a position of responsibility, one where executive and aggressiveness were demanded. Here old Vardos failed, because he was a peasant true to his type. The poor fellow had struggled with ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... sill, which is 10 feet or so above the level of the present pavement. The jambs are quite plain, with heavy impost members, slightly hollowed, and a square label, much damaged and defaced. These two archways were no doubt made to admit a modicum of light to what must always have ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... bookish dreamers, their career must have been an exceedingly short one, since in the struggle for existence they would surely succumb to adversaries who tempered and directed the blind fury of combat with at least a modicum of reason and sense. The myth of the illogical or prelogical savage may safely be relegated to that museum of learned absurdities and abortions which speculative anthropology is constantly enriching with fresh specimens of misapplied ingenuity and ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... interested in the nuns. After a modicum of judicious praise to Madame, he departed, promising to ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... violate such laws as suited its interests, while calling for the enactment or enforcement of other laws which favored its designs and enhanced its profits. We see Astor ruthlessly brushing aside, like so many annoying encumbrances, even those very laws which were commonly held indispensable to a modicum of fair treatment of the Indians and to the preservation of human life. These laws happened to conflict with the amassing of profits; and always in a civilization ruled by the trading class, laws which do this ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... at night with their own hands, and now desired to give the meat to their people. Wives and daughters of millers, whose husbands and brothers were in arms, worked the mills night and day to furnish flour to their soldiers. To the last, women would go distances to carry the modicum of food between themselves and starvation to a suffering Confederate. Should the sons of Virginia ever commit dishonorable acts, grim indeed will be their reception on the further shores of Styx. They can expect no recognition from the mothers ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... and relatives make their last efforts for securing all they can in worldly effects. They almost repent of the bargain—it was too cheap—think of the price paid for the bride's mother—the expenses incurred during a long illness of the bride in her infancy—and compare the modicum demanded for her marriage; it is outrageous! no, the marriage can not go on, the girl is not in good health, and the ordeal might increase her ailment. Every sort of trick is resorted to in order that the other side may be more generous in the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... hearers. To be a good speaker, in the south and southwest, is to be everything. Eloquence implies wisdom—at least all the wisdom which is supposed to be necessary in making lawyers and law-makers—a precious small modicum of a material by no means precious. I was supposed to have the gift of the gab in moderate perfection, and my hearers were indulgent. My name obtained circulation, and, in a short time, I discovered that, in a professional as well as personal point of view, I had no reason to regret the ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... passed rapidly away. I had attained my full height, and more than my just share of inches. I already enjoyed a fair modicum of whisker, and had even made some progress in the cultivation of a pair of moustaches, when suddenly the house I was connected with failed. What to do? The governor insisted upon my return to England, where his interest among the mercantile class was considerable; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... Charles's intentions was any such thing; but he did think that a night passed there, with no other company than his own reflections, would do him a world of good, and was, at all events, no very great modicum of punishment for the rascality with which ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... represent the group of studies that exert a liberalizing influence upon the student, that possess a cultural rather than a technical value. From oral lessons in language in the lower classes, the students advance to a modicum of technical grammar in the middle of the course, and hence to the rhetoric of the Senior year. Moreover, an unusually large amount of written composition is insisted upon, the compositions being used not merely to discipline the student in chaste feeling, consecutive thinking, and efficient ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... And whenever such a correspondence exists, it is due either to the fact that the incidence of stress tends to lengthen a syllable or to the fact that, oftentimes, in polysyllabic words, mere length will produce a stress. This is the modicum of truth in the quantitative view. But obviously ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... had expected a more fragile type. The weaver of moonshine, of mystic phrases, of sweet gestures and veiled sonorities should not have worn the guise of one who ate three meals a day and slept soundly after his mellow incantations. Yet she was not—inheriting, as she did, a modicum of ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... appraisal upon his attainments and ability no one else is likely to do so, and that the public takes one, nine times out of ten, at his own valuation. Coming on the clay itself: I wore my hair rather long, with an appreciable modicum of bear's grease well rubbed in, side whiskers and white beaver, and carried a carpet bag on which was embroidered a stag's head in yellow on a background of green worsted. And the principal fact to be observed in this connection ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... cared little for poetry, and seldom understood the images of fancy, she was not averse to a modicum of scandal in moments of relaxation: for the faults of others were the illustrations of her prudent maxims, and the thoughtlessness of a sister was the best possible text for a moral homily. The tense rigidity of her character, too, sometimes required a ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... turkeys and we waked up Mr. Mark to tell him and he said—" Stonie paused in the rapid fire of his announcement of the morning news and then added in judicial tone of voice, as if giving the aroused sleeper his modicum of fair play: "Well, he didn't quite say it before he swallowed, but he throwed a pillow at Tobe and pulled the sheet over his head and groaned awful. Aunt Viney was saying her prayers when I went to tell her, and Aunt Mandy was taking down her frizzles, but she stopped and gave Tobe some corn-bread ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... causing me to lose stroke and distance. Nevertheless, I hold that the advantages outnumber the drawbacks. Golf humanizes women, humbles their haughty natures, tends, in short, to knock out of their systems a certain modicum of that superciliousness, that swank, which makes wooing a tough proposition for the diffident male. You ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... perfectly well known to belong to the straightforward classes are allowed to remain at large, and may be even seen hobnobbing with the guardians of public immorality. Indeed it is not in the public interest that straightforwardness should be extirpated root and branch, for the presence of a small modicum of sincerity acts as a wholesome irritant to the academicism of the greatest number, stimulating it to consciousness of its own happy state, and giving it something to look down upon. Moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain number of melancholy examples, whose notorious failure ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... seem so, my lord; but you must allow us to do the best with what modicum of judgment ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... wants. If you have goods to sell you soon find your place at the counter, unless owing to some fault of character your fellow barterers and their patrons will have none of you. Of course there is always the meanest of all passions, jealousy, waiting to thwart you at every turn, but no woman with a modicum of any one of those wares the world wants and must have need fear any enemy but her own ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... leaven of the "masses." The "classes" had no real zeal for discharging their political duty. They subscribed to the campaign fund, but had too delicate a sense of propriety to ask how their money was spent. A few of them—and these seemed to be endowed with a special modicum of patriotism—even attended the party primaries in which candidates were named. The majority went to the polls and cast their vote on election day, if it did not rain or snow. For a young man of Roosevelt's position to desire ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... comes from. You don't win it by any definite act of superlative daring—I mean to say, you don't have to creep out under cover of darkness and return in the morning with an enemy battleship in tow to qualify for a modicum of this mysterious treasure. You just proceed serenely on your lawful occasions, confident in the knowledge that incredible sums of prize-money are piling themselves up for your ultimate benefit. I suppose the authorities understand all about it; nobody else does. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... witness of the perils of a voyage across the Seine in a punt. The adventurers were a bourgeois, his wife, sister, and child. Honest Pierre, the waterman, had conditioned to take the whole party to the island opposite and to return them safe to the main for the modicum of five sous. The old fox invariably charged me a franc for the same service. There was much demurring, and many doubts about encountering the risk; and more than once the women would have receded, had not the man treated the matter as a trifle. He affirmed ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... scornful of the girls who could be content with the narrow, humdrum routine at Harding. But she concealed her scorn perfectly. And she no longer neglected her work; she attended her classes regularly and managed with a modicum of preparation to recite far better than the average student. Furthermore her work was now scrupulously honest, and she was sensitively alert to the slightest imputation of untruthfulness. She offered no specious explanations for her withdrawal from the debate, and ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... that the testimony was admissible for either purpose. He did not think, he said, that his brother Tippit was able to assist the judgment of the court a great deal; as for judgment, the article was so scarce with a certain gentleman, he advised him to keep the modicum he had for his own use. So far as mitigation of punishment was concerned, he thought the greater the respectability of the offender, the greater should be the punishment, both because his education and opportunities should have ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... omniscient, but competent and trustworthy, and a great burden is lifted from their hearts when they see him take command of the ship. On all other subjects besides religion, people are able to exercise their common sense; why can they not use a modicum of the same common sense when they come to ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... for it in terms of manual toil. I had never even seen alfalfa seed and did not in the least know how to proceed in preparing the soil. If I ever expected to have any freedom I must first learn the truth, and a certain modicum of freedom necessarily precedes the ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... any kind, no matter how childish, he entered into with the greatest delight and enthusiasm. Among other peculiarities, he had become deeply imbued with a thirst for scientific knowledge, ever since he had acquired, with infinite labour, the small modicum of science necessary to navigation; and his doings in pursuit of statistical information relative to the weather, and the phenomena of nature generally, were very peculiar, and in some cases outrageous. His transaction with the quicksilver was in consequence of an eager desire ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the Church of England? There is certainly, or rather there was, a modicum of priestcraft in the Church of England, but I have generally found that those who are most vehement against the Church of England are chiefly dissatisfied with her because there is only a modicum of that article in ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... out his time for provender, and can show a stump rod, togam tritam et laceram saith [2006]Haedus, an old torn gown, an ensign of his infelicity, he hath his labour for his pain, a modicum to keep him till he be decrepit, and that is all. Grammaticus non est felix, &c. If he be a trencher chaplain in a gentleman's house, as it befell [2007] Euphormio, after some seven years' service, he may perchance have a living to the halves, or some ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the full value of their watches and wearing apparel, exclusively of their inferior habiliments, which he was uniformly inexorable in obliging them to retain, for the credit of the house. As to mine own part, I may well say, that he never refused me that modicum of refreshment with which I am wont to recruit nature after the fatigues of my school. It is true, I taught his five sons English and Latin, writing, book-keeping, with a tincture of mathematics, and that I instructed his daughter in psalmody. Nor do I remember me ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... hanger, with two pounds of powder and "proportionable bullet." Each of them carried a scrip or satchel containing "three or four cakes of bread," or doughboys, weighing half-a-pound apiece, with some modicum of turtle flesh. "For drink ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... also in barring the entrance of fresh air from without. If it be true that, in pursuing its system of tutelage and oppression, the Russian Government was genuinely actuated by the desire to graft the modicum of European culture, to which the Russia of Nicholas I. could lay claim, upon the Jews, it certainly achieved the reverse of what it aimed at. The hand which dealt out blows could not disseminate ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... though to all He gives a will, all have not the same degree of intelligence; He does not endow them equally in this respect. How then could He make intelligence the first principle of salvation and of faith? God searches the heart, not the mind. A modicum of wit is guaranteed to all to know that they can safely believe. Be one ever so unlettered and ignorant, and dull, faith and heaven are to him as accessible as to the sage, savant and the genius. For all, the way ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... slice of lemon in each goblet. After a long talk on matters of no concern to the reader, during which the general related a number of capital war-anecdotes, I contrived, as is my wont, to turn the conversation upon agricultural topics, with the view of imparting to him a modicum of that consummate farming wisdom which appertains to every thoroughly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... of its modicum of red earth swamped by a huge mass of stones, has received a rough first attempt at cultivation: I am told that vines once grew here. And, in fact, when we dig the ground before planting a few trees, we turn up, here and there, remains of the precious stock, half carbonized by time. The ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... that she sympathised with Bunyan, or, rather, believed him entitled to a modicum of wholesome grief, the loss of wives being a canonised and legal, sorrow. But ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... himself only in successive instants. To such thinkers, whether in ancient or in modern times, the mind is only the poor recipient of impressions—not the heir of all the ages, or connected with all other minds. It begins again with its own modicum of experience having only such vague conceptions of the wisdom of the past as are inseparable from language and popular opinion. It seeks to explain from the experience of the individual what can only be learned from the history of the world. It has no conception of obligation, ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... men in the islands, like exploiters of weaker races everywhere in the world, were unwilling to share their profits with the native. They were reduced to pleading with or intoxicating the Marquesan to procure a modicum of labor. They saw fortunes to be made if they could but whip a multitude of backs to bending for them, but they either could not or would not perceive the situation from the native's ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... New Orleans, La., to promote industrial education, above referred to, failed to be fruitful. Members of different religious organizations, without suggestion that their particular sect would furnish a modicum of the large expenditure necessary to the establishment of such "schools of trade," strove to have the movement inaugurated, and launched under some ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... discretion, would order the culprit to be well flogged and dismissed to his expectant family. But thanks to Her Majesty's well-meaning Secretaries of State for the Colonies, who have all successively judged alike on this point, it is declared most unadvisable to allow a local magistrate the smallest modicum of discretion. He has only one course to pursue, and that is, to commit the offender for trial at the next Quarter Sessions, to be held in the capital of the colony. Accordingly the poor native, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum of man's work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the homes which Joyce had built for herself and the Bonnivels. Both of them, though fitted with many conveniences and finished with taste, were of moderate cost, there being not one extravagance, and only the modicum of room actually needed for refined living, in either. Many a rich woman has thought nothing of putting more expense into the fitting of one room, even, than Joyce had laid out on her whole house. Indeed that reserved for Madame was much ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... of mean variations for units (if we may call them such) of more than four beats only a modicum of material has been worked up, since the types of relation already discovered are of too definite a character to leave any doubt as to their significance in the expression of rhythm. The results of these further experiments confirm the conclusions of the earlier ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... the dictate of circumstances than of his free will; and in the round hole of modern journalism he was something of a square and stubborn peg. He had become a reporter because he had no taste for business; and a newspaper office is the natural refuge for clever young men with a modicum of education, and the need of providing an income. He was not considered a "star" on the force; and his city editor had been known to tear his hair at the missed opportunities in Pevensey's copy, and hand it to one of the ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... bard of Twickenham was egregiously mistaken when he pronounced "a little learning" to be "a dangerous thing." Had it not been for the modicum of letters, small as it was, acquired by Mr. Wheelwright, at the school of which I had occasion to speak early in the present history, to say nothing, as seems most meet, of the university, his family would now have been rather short of bread and butter. ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... irascible old gentleman, (a lawyer), under whose window it was braying, who sat at his desk with a finger in each ear trying to make sense out of a legal document. This was a difficult task at any time, for the legal document was compounded chiefly of nonsense, with the smallest possible modicum of sense scattered through it. In the circumstances the thing was impossible, so the lawyer rose and stamped about the floor, and wished he were the Emperor of Russia with a cannon charged with grape-shot loaded to the muzzle and pointed at the centre of ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... talked this matter over with that small modicum of learning which is a dangerous thing, and they had arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Glynde was not competent to carry out the duties thus suddenly thrust upon him. Wrapped up as was her heart in the welfare of ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... peculiar—it was not so much fortune that I sought—in short, I had my reasons—and a large practice would have greatly interfered with my more serious occupation. Still, I do not deny that a slight modicum of professional business, just to fill up the intervening time and save appearances, would not have been amiss, and I had been in fact rather anxiously looking for some symptoms of the sort for a considerable time, without any result at all. The inhabitants all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... following notice:—"Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, whose philanthropic efforts on behalf of 'our canal-boat population' are well known, has lately turned his attention to the wandering Gipsy tribes who infest the roadside, with the view to procuring at least a modicum of education for their children. He says that the Gipsies are lamentably ignorant, few of them being able even to write their names. By certain proceedings which took place at Christchurch Police-court on Tuesday, it would ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... this animal, we find that he displays all the characteristics of the instinctive principle. If animals are endowed with instincts which apparently act so much like reason in the ordinary course of their operations, we should not at once conclude that there is any need of endowing them with a modicum of reason to account for their deviations from this course, which do not outwardly resemble the acts of reason any more strongly. And besides, it is said, that, if we refer the variations to an intelligent principle, we must refer the ordinary conduct to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... slipped out unawares. In replying to me, however, the late "Fellow of University College," Oxford, declares he had to look the word out in a Lexicon. I commend the fact to the notice of the combatants over the desirability of retaining the present compulsory modicum ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... into the chassis of their craft. Frank had already laid out his course, which lay about two points west of north. The boy calculated that this direction would bring them within a few miles at any rate of the cache. To find it they would have to trust to persistence and a modicum of luck. ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... through several by-lanes and courts. This retired temple of Bacchus had also a connexion with Benjamin's more public shop by a long and narrow entrance, conducting to the secret premises in which a few old topers used to take their morning draught, and a few gill-sippers their modicum of strong waters, in a bashful way, after having entered the barber's shop under pretence of being shaved. Besides, this obscure tap-room gave a separate admission to the apartments of Dame Ursley, which she was believed to make use of in the course of her multifarious practice, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... amussim dolo, atque perfolio." Among the mottoes of early English printers, the most notable, partly for its dual source, and as one of our earliest examples, is that of William Faques; one sentence, "Melius est modicum justo super divitias peccatorum multas," is taken from Psalm xxxvii. verse 16; and the second, "Melior est patiens viro forti, et qui dominat," comes from Proverbs xvi., verse 32. The motto of Richard Grafton has already been quoted; that of John ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... his young mistress, when she had told him of all that lay within his grasp, and had added a gentle and persuasive modicum of moral suasion,—"now that you are going out into the world to make a way, it may be a name, for yourself, you must choose what that name shall be. You remember," soothingly, for this was a sore point with the boy,—"you remember that we know ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... sure I will not allow you to stand a moment longer on this cold floor; and I do not intend that you shall pay me undeserved compliments. It is derogatory to your dignity, and dangerous to my modicum of humility. As soon as you are ready for breakfast, come to the dining-room, where Santa Klaus left his remembrances last night. O, Leighton! I had half a mind to hang up two stockings at uncle's bed, for the sake of dear old lang syne. If we could only shut our ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... baronet's life—the want of a son to inherit the lands, in no portion of which had he himself more than a life-interest. For in the ill-advised settlement which his father, Sir Francis, had chosen to make by will, even Diplow with its modicum of land had been left under the same conditions as the ancient and wide inheritance of the two Toppings—Diplow, where Sir Hugo had lived and hunted through many a season in his younger years, and where his wife and daughters ought to have been able ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Scotland, and had passed a great portion of his life there; but, unfortunately for him, he had no Scotch blood in his veins, or he might have been blessed with some small modicum of the caution for which that nation is said to be distinguished. His father had been a cooper, and when quite a young man, John had succeeded to a well-established business in Aberdeen. His principal commerce consisted in furnishing the retail-dealers with casks, wherein to pack their ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... affection of children may be for such parents, there will always be mingled with it a modicum of indulgent pity, caused by their distrust, if the parents happen to be people of timidity, of what seem to ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... and art, and possesses definite ideas as to the eternal fitness of things. In Italy, many of the best paintings being in churches, and all the galleries being free on certain days, the common people absorb a goodly modicum of art education without being aware of it. I have heard market-women compare the merits of Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, and stupid indeed is the boat "hooker" in Venice who would not know a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... imperial use, wholly exhausted or left behind, but, to use the language of Horace, not the vilest Sabine vintage could be procured; so that his Imperial Highness was glad to accept the offer of a rude Varangian, who proffered his modicum of decocted barley, which these barbarians prefer to the juice of the grape. The Emperor, nevertheless, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to be observed, however, that the line of separation between illusion and hallucination, as thus defined, is a very narrow one. In by far the largest number of hallucinations it is impossible to prove that there is no modicum of external agency co-operating in the production of the effect. It is presumable, indeed, that many, if not all, hallucinations have such a basis of fact. Thus, the madman who projects his internal thoughts outwards in the shape of external voices may, for aught we know, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... cooked: the last of the flour was made into large loaves of bread; a ham and several dozen eggs were boiled; the few chickens that have survived the overflow were fried; the last of the coffee was parched and ground; and the modicum of the tea was well corked up. Our friends across the lake added a jar of butter and two of preserves. H. rode off to X. after dinner to conclude some business there, and I sat down before a table to tie bundles of things to be left. The sunset glowed and faded, and the quiet evening ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... New Englanders of more note than Bishop, pronounced him the man of sin, a malignant manifestation of Satan. On one or the other of these two scales he was placed by every man in the United States, according to each citizen's modicum of sense and temper. We say, every man—because in that war of the Democrats against the Federalists, no one sought to escape the service. Every able-tongued man was ready to fight with it, either for Jefferson ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... much distorted by the compression of his chin, and by his face being out of window, that his sister could not make it out. In answer to her sound of inquiry, he took down one hand, removed the other from his temple, and emitting a modicum more voice from between his teeth, said, 'It is plain—it ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Government official presents himself, and exacts a duty of the manufacturer for the production of the malt, the authorities shrewdly judging that they are entitled to levy off so valuable an article a modicum of tax. The grain thus prepared is now in a state for further manufacture, and it passes into the hands of the brewer or distiller, to be converted into a more or ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... bodies in regard to the Hegelian system and the prejudice against it, particularly among the clergy of the Church. He was, however, elected to be the first Gifford Lecturer in Edinburgh University, and his admirers have had to content themselves with that modicum of acknowledgment at last. He is the author of a critique on Sir William Hamilton's theory of perception, on Huxley's doctrine of protoplasm, and on Darwinianism, besides a translation of SCHWEGLER'S "History of Philosophy," with notes, a highly ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... censure; but as things were, the sly looks, open jests, and oblique innuendoes of all they met in the ship, had determined the honest magistrates to retire to their proper pursuits on terra firma, at the earliest occasion. In the mean time, to escape persecution, and to obtain a modicum of the glory that was now to be earned, they had hired a boat, and accompanied the expedition, in the character of amateurs. It formed no part of their plan, however, to share in the combat; a view of its incidents being quite as much, as ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... adroitness over inherited convictions and false education. She had brought him from condescension to deference solely by the magic of her art. Or am I wrong? Was it her artlessness? Perhaps it was her artful artlessness, since every girl-baby is born with a modicum of that dangerous quality. ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... all; not to estimate myself highly, and, still further, not to be always insisting upon other people estimating me highly, and to think a great deal more about their claims on me than fretfully to insist upon my due modicum of respect and attention from others, that is the sort of temper that Peter ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... well-known powers of persuasion, to bring them to his way of thinking. To get from the colonial agents a kind of assent to his measure would be to win a point of no slight strategic value, there being at least a modicum of truth in the notion that just government springs from the consent of ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... criticisms must be determined by our whole moral and emotional reaction to the future of international relations and the Peace of the World. If we take the view that for at least a generation to come Germany cannot be trusted with even a modicum of prosperity, that while all our recent Allies are angels of light, all our recent enemies, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, and the rest, are children of the devil, that year by year Germany must be kept impoverished and her children starved and crippled, and that she must be ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... peerage is so important an institution, that we should be very careful how we criticise any members of it. At the same time," he went on, turning apologetically to Westray, "there is perhaps a modicum of reason in our friend's remarks. I had hoped that Lord Blandamer would have contributed handsomely to the restoration fund, but he has not hitherto done so, though I dare say that his continued absence abroad accounts for some delay. He only succeeded his grandfather last year, and the late lord ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... devote Rather my modicum of parts to use What power may yet avail to re-infuse (In fancy, please you!) sleep that looks like death With momentary liveliness, lend breath To make the torpor half inhale. O Relfe, An all-unworthy ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... been apart for a space, and have thought much of each other in the interim. He, too, was improved in appearance. The fine climate, the open-air life had lent a deeper bronze to his face and a clearness to his eyes—even as an emancipation from sordid cares, together with a present modicum of success and a prospect of further in the future, had imparted a certain stamp of serenity to his expression which was not there before. "Air, freedom, life's healthier side are good—success is good—all good things are good—behold their result," was Lilith's ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... sit ye down then, sit you down here: [They sit down.]—and now, sir, you must recall to your thoughts, that your grandfather was a man, whose penurious income of half pay was the sum total of his fortune;—and, sir, aw my provision fra him was a modicum of Latin, an expertness in arithmetic, and a short system of worldly counsel; the principal ingredients of which were, a persevering industry, a rigid economy, a smooth tongue, a pliability of temper, ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... their aid, though in no instance was this dependence on private means of long duration. We have also seen that in a number of states private schools were first started, in a brief time to be taken over by the state, and thus received a modicum of private aid. In addition, there have been from time to time donations from private sources to one school ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... might well feel crushed under such a load of accusations, but that does not excuse the incredible folly of my conduct. I denied alike the modicum of truth and the mass of lying, and went off to America. However, as time passed on and my mind got into a proper state, I felt that the truth must be told some time or other. I accordingly wrote from ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... her sleek hair and some flicker of a girlhood that had its modicum of grace, flared up in the swift curtsy with which she acknowledged ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... genially. "My friend," said he, "I have always insisted that I possessed but a modicum of brains; but I am a gambler. My god is chance. With ordinary judgment and horse-sense, I take risks that no so-called sane man would consider. The curse of the world is fear—the chief instrument that you employ to hold the masses to your churchly system. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of sloughing them one by one. Perhaps that process ended in making him over-timid. It was otherwise with Isaac Hecker. He, too, had stopped to consider many doctrines which purported to be true; more than that, he had recognized in each the modicum of truth which it possessed. But the falsity with which this was overloaded was powerful enough to repel him, in spite of the truth he knew to be contained in it. He carried in himself the touchstone to which all that was akin to it beyond him responded of necessity. The Light which ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... lamentable wail from low on the floor, rising to the full pitch of Rol's healthy lungs; for his hand was gashed across, and the copious bleeding terrified him. Then was there soothing and comforting, washing and binding, and a modicum of scolding, till the loud outcry sank into occasional sobs, and the child, tear-stained and subdued, was returned to the ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... Thackeray, A little bit of Scott, A modicum of Dickens just To tangle up the plot, A paraphrase of Marryat, Another from Dumas— You ask me for a novel, sir, And I say, there ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... experience shape the type and design of aircraft and engine best suited to its purposes. Although a good deal has under the circumstances already been achieved in peace, much remains to be done. Gradually, however, with a modicum of research, improvements in the factors already mentioned and the reduction of initial cost and maintenance expenses, air transport for mails, passengers and goods will take its place as a normal commercial public utility service, and ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... subject of the poem must have been possessed either of an extraordinary modicum of modesty or of a bitter misanthropy; or possibly he had been guilty of a misdemeanor, and was cornered to expiate the punishment justly due; yet conjecture is at once made certainty in the second line, by which all doubts ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... imagine that his salary is respectable, that it is regularly paid, and that there is no excuse for his being in debt. And now take into consideration that he has an appearance to maintain; that he has a family to support; and then what becomes of the opportunity of laying by a modicum even, to guard against the decline of life when the 'winter daisies' shall crown his head, and a new race of performers have started up and driven the others from their posts? We have some rare instances of very large fortunes being made ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... especially such as Canada and the United States and Australia, the development of latent natural assets could absorb the labor of generations. There are still unredeemed empires in the west. Clearly enough a certain modicum of public honesty and integrity is essential for such a task; more, undoubtedly, than we have hitherto been able to enlist in the service of the commonwealth. But without it we perish. Social betterment must depend at every ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... saw no profit in wasting that modicum of spleen, when I might double it by deliberately reading her effusion and knowingly casting it into the dust. One always can make excuses to oneself, for curiosity. Consequently I halted, around a corner ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... inexpressive faces of the other ladies, seated in couples and rows on sofas—there were several in addition to Julia and the Dormers; mainly the wives, with their husbands, of Sherringham's fellow-secretaries—scarcely one of whom he felt he might count upon for a modicum of gush when the girl should ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... always in high spirits and loved a jest, began to flirt with the girl, whom he saw for the first time. She, who neither meant nor suspected any ill, was quite at her ease, and we should have enjoyed the joke, and everything would have gone on pleasantly, if her husband had possessed some modicum of manners and common sense, but he began to get into a perfect fury of jealousy. He ate nothing, changed colour ten times in a minute, and looked daggers at his wife, as much as to say he did not see the joke. To crown all, Tiretta began to crack jests at the poor wretch's expense, and I, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Commodore Martin, who had arrived overnight, appears in the Bay, with due modicum of seventy-fours, 'dursley galleys,' bomb-vessels, on an errand from his Admiral [one Matthews] and the Britannic Majesty, much to the astonishment of Naples. Commodore Martin hovers about, all morning, and at 4 P.M. drops anchor,—within shot of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... cooked in it was leg of beef, with sliced potato, bits of onion chopped down, and a modicum of white pepper and salt, With just enough of water to cover "the elements." When stewed slowly the meat became very tender; and the whole yielded a capital dish, such as a very Soyer might envy. It was partaken of with a zest that, no doubt, was a very important element in its ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... my chemistry entirely new. I was not familiar with one word of botany, zoology, physics, physiology, or comparative anatomy. About the universe which I inhabited I knew as little as I did about cuneiform writings. Except for my mathematics and a mere modicum of chemistry I had nothing on which to base my new work; and students coming from Government free schools, or almost anywhere, had a great advantage over men of my previous education; I did not even know how to study wisely. Again, as Huxley showed, medical education in London was so divided, there ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... point and I have done. Greek and Latin are going or gone, but a modicum of Mathematics seems to be indispensable to the modern curriculum. The domestic pig has on many occasions shown a capacity for mastering simple arithmetical processes, and we know that the pupil always ends by bettering his master. Under a more enlightened and humane ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... breaker, to shield it from the sun. At last, Jarl enlarged the vent, carefully keeping it exposed. To this precaution, doubtless, we owed more than we then thought. It was now deemed wise to reduce our allowance of water to the smallest modicum consistent with the present preservation of life; strangling all desire ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... it is necessary to be said that a modicum of merit goes a long way in all such matters, and it would not be safe now to assume that ours was much above the average of amateur attempts in general. Lemon certainly had most of the stuff, conventional as well as otherwise, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... he recognized its ludicrous aspect. Still, he could not withdraw then, and he made the best of a difficult position with a certain gracefulness which might, under different circumstances, have secured him a modicum of consideration. As it was, however, Hetty's anger left her almost white, and there was a light he did not care to see in her eyes when ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... Hollingsworth. Possibly he was in your thoughts when you spoke thus. Poor fellow! It is a pity that, by the fault of a narrow education, he should have so completely immolated himself to that one idea of his, especially as the slightest modicum of common-sense would teach him its utter impracticability. Now that I have returned into the world, and can look at his project from a distance, it requires quite all my real regard for this respectable and well-intentioned man to prevent me laughing at him,—as ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in all directions, and as far as the eye could reach could see nothing but the endless monotony of wave after wave of dunes, treeless, and apparently almost devoid of vegetation, for the little there was, was confined to the deep hollows between. A short distance away a fair-sized bush offered a modicum of shade, and here we rested for the day for we had planned to travel only in the cool of the night as long as the moon served. And here Inyati showed me how to make water from the young green t'samma, taking ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... read the modicum on "Chimney-Sweepers," which your last paper contained, with pleasure. It appears to be the production of that sort of mind which you justly denominate "gifted;" but which is greatly undervalued by the majority of men, because ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... lady was a reader of character—of hobo character at least—and she saw nothing in the appearance of either of these two that inspired even a modicum of confidence. Now the young fellow who had been there earlier in the day and who, wonder of wonders, had actually paid for the food she gave him, had been of a different stamp. His clothing had proclaimed him a tramp, but, thanks to ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... So, a king of Kish, whose name is read Alu-usharshid by Professor Hilprecht,[26] brings costly vases of marble and limestone from Elam and offers them to Bel as a token of victory; and this at a period even earlier than Sargon. Even when En-lil is obliged to yield a modicum of his authority to the growing supremacy of the patron deity of the city of Babylon, the highest tribute that can be paid to the latter, is to combine with his real name, Marduk, the title of "Bel," which of right belongs to En-lil. We shall see how this combination of En-lil, or Bel, ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... he threw out a cautious feeler with the object of ascertaining whether perchance it had occurred to me that it might be politic on my part to confirm the excellent impression which I had already made by bestowing upon him and his fellow indunas a small—a very small—modicum of the inestimable treasures which they all knew my wagon must still contain. To this I replied that the idea was at that moment the one uppermost in my mind, and that I gladly availed myself of the opportunity afforded by the king's temporary absence ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... time when I too was foolishly intent to divert the leisure hours of posterity. But reflection assured me that posterity had, thus far, done very little to place me under that or any other obligation. Ah, no! Youth, health and—though I say it—a modicum of intelligence are loaned to most of us for a while, and for a terribly brief while. They are but loans, and Time is waiting greedily to snatch them from us. For the perturbed usurer knows that he is lending ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... last six stories comprising the seven in this little collection of Stories of the Old Missions, all but one have, as a basis, some modicum, larger or smaller, of historical fact, the tale of Juana alone being wholly fanciful, although with an historical background. The first story of the series may be considered as introductory to the mission ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... snorting, and trailing its vile smells, through Harmouth till it stopped at Professor Ponsonby's gate and a lady got out and ran up the courtyard path. Deena had been trying in vain to make quince jelly stiffen—jell was the word used in the receipt book of the late Mrs. Ponsonby—with the modicum of sugar prescribed, till in despair she had resorted to a pinch of gelatine, and felt that the shade of her mother-in-law was ticking the word incompetent from the clock in the hall—when suddenly the watchword was drowned in the stertorous breathing of the machine ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... dull work," exclaimed Rhymer. "I'll bet anything that we don't make a single capture; and if we do, what is the good of it, except the modicum of prize money we might chance to pocket? The blacks won't be a bit the better off, and the Arabs will ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... feeble hands for mine oldt friendt Custos (Arne's name was Augustine), for I know not who I wouldt waidt for, over andt above mine oldt rival, Master Dom (meaning Pepusch). Only by your bermission, I vill dake a snag of your ham, andt a slice of French roll, or a modicum of chicken; for to dell you the honest fagd, I am all pote famished, for I laid me down on mine billow in bed the lastd nightd widout mine supper, at the instance of mine physician, for which I am not altogeddere inglined to extend mine fastd no longer.' ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... and a roast of equal bulk; it is only the vulgarian who wishes as much of his paper occupied by brutal prize-fights or vapid "personals" as by important political information or literary criticism. There is undoubtedly a modicum of truth in Matthew Arnold's sneer that American journals certainly supply news enough—but it is the news of the servants' hall. It is as if the helm were held rather by the active reporter than by the able editor. It is said that while there are eight editors to one reporter in Denmark, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... this edict. These benighted souls liked the old cottages, lop-sided as they were—liked the crooked staircase squeezed into a corner of the living room below, the stuffy little dens above, with casement windows which only opened on one side, letting in the smallest modicum of air, and were not often opened at all. Cottages on the Now Arden model meant stone floors below and open rafters above, thorough draughts everywhere, and, worst of all, they meant weekly inspection by Miss Granger. The free sons and ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... said than done! I escorted Bridget to a restaurant, and fed her and myself with lots of good hot food, and then straightway hired a taxi, and drove back to the agents to demand addresses of flats a little further afield, which should have at least a modicum of light and air. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... captain had ordered me to remain in bed, I thought for a moment I would have to obey; but having swallowed the hot gruel, into which Yorke had put a modicum of good Orleans ratafia, I was straightway infused with new spirit (I meant not that for wit), and such strength flowed through my limbs as I had not felt ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... at Wimblehurst were years of pretty active growth. Most of my leisure and much of my time in the shop I spent in study. I speedily mastered the modicum of Latin necessary for my qualifying examinations, and—a little assisted by the Government Science and Art Department classes that were held in the Grammar School—went on with my mathematics. There were classes in physics, in chemistry, in mathematics and machine drawing, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... only enabling them to determine the precise time they had passed, but the very spot where they were likely to be found, which they affirmed was close to us. My dogs being very much reduced, and not having the means of increasing their present modicum of food, I determined on availing myself of an opportunity which might not again occur of procuring a supply. The Indians accordingly set off in quest of them, desiring us at their departure to make no fire until the sun had reached a certain position in the heavens which ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... displays of temper was the conduct of Jesus before Pilate. A modicum of common sense would have saved him. He was not required to tell a lie or renounce a conviction. All that was necessary to his release was to plead not guilty and defend himself against the charge of sedition. His death, therefore, was rather ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... evening. The house at Craven Hill opened its doors at ten o'clock, and until midnight there was no lack of company. Singular people, more or less; distinguished from society proper by the fact that all had a modicum of brains. Some came from luxurious homes, some from garrets. Visitors from Paris were frequent; their presence made a characteristic of the salon. This evening, for instance, honour was paid by the hostess to M. Amedeee Silvenoire, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... the things you have been accustomed to doing, and your attitude will be that of a man who has to deny himself things he thinks he wants. You will then cut down the rate of expenditure to within your income, as you have a certain modicum of sense in regard to matters of this kind,—not acquired, but inherited,—and permit yourself to spend freely up to ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... great high-spreading gums, and lost their way in the shadows, were crystal-clear and pure; and out there it was intended that he should dwell, and in those sweet streams that he should wash. But what a modicum of wit, of originality the little beast had, that, because he was born a washer, wash he must, though he washed in mud, nay, though he washed upon the upturned bottom of his empty tub!—for this is what ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... mountains, needs some effort and work and capacity for administration, or even rudimentary economic life cannot be carried on. And the Turkish system, founded on the sword and nothing else ("the finest soldier in Europe"), cannot give that small modicum, of energy or administrative capacity. The one thing he knows is brute force; but it is not by the strength of his muscles that an engineer runs a machine, but by knowing how. The Turk cannot build a road, or make a bridge, ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... possess. The mistress of a dame-school can hear spelling-lessons; and any hedge-schoolmaster can drill boys in the multiplication-table. But to teach spelling rightly by using the powers of the letters instead of their names, or to instruct in numerical combinations by experimental synthesis, a modicum of understanding is needful; and to pursue a like rational course throughout the entire range of studies, asks an amount of judgment, of invention, of intellectual sympathy, of analytical faculty, which we shall never see applied to it while the tutorial official is held in such small esteem. ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... the end. The play, I fear, will have to end darkly, and that spoils the quality as I now see it of a kind of crockery, eighteenth century, high-life-below- stairs life, breaking up like ice in spring before the nature and the certain modicum of manhood of my poor, clever, feather-headed Prince, whom I love already. I see Seraphina too. Gondremarck is not quite so clear. The Countess von Rosen, I have; I'll never tell you who she is; it's a secret; but I have known the countess; well, I will tell you; ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which strikes me as being as happy as Jonah's whale, that could carry probably the most learned man of his time inside without the necessity of digesting him," said De Craye, "a rough truth is a rather strong charge of universal nature for the firing off of a modicum of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in various parts of the inner and outer ring; now depositing a few cool hundreds in the pockets of a sporting Priestley bookseller, or the brother of a Westminster Abbott; now contributing a small modicum to brighten the humbler speculations of the Dean-street ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... closet, with pegs for hanging garments upon. The sides of it were paneled, and in one of them, not readily distinguishable, was another door. It opened into a room lighted only by a little window high up in a wall, through whose dusty, cobwebbed panes, crept a modicum of second-hand light ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... was a man with some modicum of common sense. I am quite sure that I should have been unceremoniously ejected from nine public houses out of ten. But mine host of the White Horse—I learned afterwards that he had been whip to a well-known ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... long man and another as long, but less bulky, are extended in a couple of long bamboo chairs on Nixey's longish front verandah. The blue, fragrant smoke of two long cigars curls upwards over their supine heads, and two long drinks containing a very meagre modicum of inferior whisky are contained in two long tumblers, resting in the bamboo nests cunningly devised for their accommodation ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... by the doctor a certain modicum of whisky in the day, and the dose, for safety's ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... dictum, 'Those who can, do; those who can't, teach,' no longer holds true. It means that we weary, work-hardened experts are called in every so often, handed our little blue ticket, and given six months off—with pay—if we will only do the younger generation the favor of pounding a modicum of knowledge into their heads. During that time, if we are very careful, we can try to prevent our muscles from going to flab and our brains from corroding with ennui, so that when we again debark into the infinite sea of ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... habit which the trainer would have interfered with, considerably to the little gentleman's advantage. He had also an amiable weakness for pastry, port, claret, "et hock genus omne"; and would have felt it a cruelty to have been deprived of his daily modicum of "smoke"; and in all these points, boat-training would have materially ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede |
