"Niggardly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... march ten days inland. He turned a deaf ear to it and to all his importuning crew and went searching for his "strait"; by which steadfastness of purpose he just missed discovering the Pacific Ocean. It has been said that Fate was always a little niggardly with Columbus, and never was it truer than at this moment when she at last deafened his ear to the tale of ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... further inquiry I see on your lips, and tell you why I came so promptly. My brother Robert was the wealthy member of the family, and I was the poor one—a poor devil of an Anglo-Indian with nothing on this side of the grave but a niggardly Civil Service pension! ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... narcotize fat consciences; but Fourteenth Street, grimy with old, sparsely-tenanted buildings, where theatrical offices three flights up bargain for the driblets of trade among the low music-halls and the cheapest vaudeville houses, where niggardly, gray-haired agents have for two generations sat among their dusty contracts and their rusty pens, haggling over bread-and-water salaries with the jetsam of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... was furnished with a number. By that number he was to be known while in the company's employ. Each man showed his number and drew what he needed—overalls, lamps, and heavy boots. There was nothing niggardly in the credit. The deeper the debt the tighter the grip on the debtor. The goods cost just one hundred per cent. more than anywhere else. The company paid wages once a month. If a labourer borrowed of his own within that time, he paid ten ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... rights are in question, yet giving fresh chickweed to his bird and fish-bones to his cat, interrupting the signing of a lease to whistle to a canary, suspicious as a jailer, but apt to put his money into a bad business and then endeavor to get it back by niggardly avarice. The evil savor of this hybrid flower was only revealed by use; its nauseous bitterness needed the stewing of some business in which his interests were mingled with those of other men, to bring it fully out. Like all Parisians, Molineux had the lust of ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... for its whole luxuriant vegetation; one negative or formal element of happiness may be preferred to the full entelechy of life. We may see the Life of Reason reduced to straits, made to express itself in a niggardly and fantastic environment; but we have, in principle and essence, the Life of Reason still, empirical in its basis and rational in its method, its substance ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... she has in common with the grand duke. Love of Frederick is the bridge which Panin has built to unite them. I must try to lead her into another road of policy, and so remove Orloff and Panin. Orloff hates Austria, and if—pshaw! Why is that Joseph so niggardly that one cannot feel the slightest interest in him? If after refusing all other invitations he had paid me the compliment of accepting mine—but, no!—this haughty Austrian treats me with as little consideration as be does the rest of the world; ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... "I don't. They put me in the wrong, between them. They make me uncomfortable. I've a good mind to withdraw my subscription to those rascals who came first, and have nothing to do with any of them. Then, you see, down I go for a niggardly fellow. That's the reputation I get. Nothing of this in London! you make your money, pay your rates, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were judiciously overlooked and directed by Pierquin. Devotion was now set down as a good speculation in the mind of that worthy man; his care and trouble were in fact an investment, and he had no wish to be niggardly in making it. First he contrived to save Marguerite the trouble of clearing the land and working the ground intended for the farms. He found three young men, sons of rich farmers, who were anxious to settle themselves in life, and he succeeded, through the prospect he held out ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... punishing those who dared to attack the established religion, and that such only were punished by the Inquisition.' He had in his pocket Pomponius Mela de situ Orbis, in which he read occasionally, and seemed very intent upon ancient geography. Though by no means niggardly, his attention to what was generally right was so minute, that having observed at one of the stages that I ostentatiously gave a shilling to the coachman, when the custom was for each passenger to give only six-pence, he took me aside and scolded me, saying ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... of the population because of the empire's unsettled economic conditions, its extensive system of slavery (precluding all successful practice of trades by freemen), the continuous military operations, the haphazard financial system, was forced to live niggardly. The contrast between the middle classes and the upper classes seemed very cruel. This condition may account for the many outcries against the "extravagances" of the few privileged ones who could afford decent ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... tumbling into ruin. The shutters were always closed, as though the mansion were in a state of chronic mourning for a race of proprietors now become extinct, except that now and then, in summer-time, a niggardly amount of fresh air and sunshine was allowed to find its way into the interior of ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... weary of being told that they pack badly, that they are niggardly about credits, that they do not send enough or sufficiently qualified representatives, that they are careless of details, and so on. Still, before mentioning some further particular steps that should be taken, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... what the doctor said. The point of the spindle had acted as a kind of operation. But it might just as easily have taken the other direction. Yes, we had the doctor to her three times; it was no use being niggardly." Kalle stood and tried to look important; he had stuck his thumbs ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the worth of the husband you selected for your mother's child, and doubtless you had your own private reasons for sacrificing her to such a man. His worthlessness, too, furnishes an excuse for your niggardly allowance to me. The very dresses I wear are the price of dishonor. I often feel ashamed of the part I play toward your wife, Ottario, and I know not but some day I may throw myself at her feet and acknowledge ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... them. More than once his wife would be appalled in the dark of night by the silhouette of old Zelig in nightdress, sitting up in bed and counting a bundle of bank notes which he always replaced under his pillow. She frequently upbraided him for his niggardly nature, for his warding off all requests outside the pittance for household expense. She pleaded, exhorted, wailed. He invariably answered: "I haven't a cent by my soul." She pointed to the bare walls, the broken furniture, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... author for a trifle, as well as Buchan's "Domestic Medicine;" these works yield annual incomes. Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" was sold in the hour of distress, with little distinction from any other work in that class of composition; and "Evelina" produced five guineas from the niggardly trader. Dr. Johnson fixed the price of his "Biography of the Poets" at two hundred guineas; and Mr. Malone observes, the booksellers in the course of twenty-five years have probably got five thousand. I could add ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... of the drudge himself. A man of education, accustomed to easy means, would suffer tortures unspeakable if he were made to live in a single room of a populous and squalid tenement, and had to subsist upon a wage at once niggardly and precarious. He would be tormented with that memory of happier things, which we are told is a 'sorrow's crown of sorrow.' But the man who has known no other condition of life is unconscious of its misery. He has no standard of comparison. ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... excuse my apparent grossness, Mary, in venturing to bring my own larder with me. Abernethy has me under his orders, and I must eschew your rich country dainties. A little white wine and a cold bird—it is as much as the niggardly Scotchman ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... apparent at a considerable distance. These springs rise in natural basins, which are surrounded by walls eight feet in height. Every one is allowed to bathe there without any charge, for people are not so niggardly and sparing of nature's gifts as in Europe. Certain hours are set apart for women, and ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... forthwith. In taking leave of me, Mr. B. made a proposition for the purchase of the paper when written; but as he could offer me only fifty guineas a sheet, I thought it better to let our society have it, than sacrifice it for so paltry a sum. Notwithstanding this niggardly spirit, however, the gentleman showed his consideration for me in all other respects, and indeed treated me with the greatest civility. His parting words made a deep impression upon my heart, and I hope I shall always remember ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of Denton Farm. It consisted of old Christopher Denton, his three sons, Matthew, Sam, and David, and his daughter Jennie. They had the reputation of being "people well-to-do," but they were not liked among the Cumberland "states-men," who had small sympathy for their niggardly hospitality and petty ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... prosperity, hung over the early years of Torquato Tasso. Deprived of the care of a father who followed from court to court the varied fortunes of his benefactor, and in the company of a mother worse than widowed, dependent upon the cold and niggardly charity of friends who were either too timid or superstitious to oppose the patron of the Inquisition, the child grew up in melancholy solitude, like an etiolated plant that has been deprived of the sunshine. The original sadness and sensitiveness of his disposition was much ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... one jug, and syne another, till Peter was growing tongue-tied, and as red in the face as a bubbly-jock; and, to speak the truth, my own een began to reel with the merligoes. In a jiffy, both of us found our hearts waxing so brave as to kick and spur at all niggardly hesitation; and we leuch and thumped on the good-man of the inn-house's mahogany table, as if it had been warranted never to break. In fact, we were as furious and obstrapulous as two unchristened Turks; ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... most solitary men of strong minds, was a good critic of the substance of poetry, but somewhat niggardly in the allowance he made for those subsidiary qualities which make it the charmer of leisure and the employment of minds without definite object. It may be doubted, indeed, whether he set much store ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... satisfaction, when he was privately informed that the Intendant of the works proposed to allow him but a very trifling remuneration. "These drawings," said Cano, "are either to be given away, or to fetch 2,000 ducats;" and packing them up, he mounted his mule, and took the road to Granada. The niggardly Intendant, learning the cause of his departure, became alarmed, and sent a messenger after him post-haste, offering him his ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... were paid out of the public treasury, the salaries might be considered as net profit. This custom had originated many centuries in the past. In those early days, when a penurious character became an incumbent of public office, the social obligations belonging to it were often but niggardly requited. Sometimes business embarrassments and real necessity demanded economy; so, at last, the Government assumed all the expenses contingent upon every office, from the highest to the lowest. By this means the occupant of a Government office was freed from every care ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... restless intellect of man, unless perhaps submarine navigation, or the invention of explosives. It cannot be prosecuted except with a perfect willingness to risk life. No doubt this is one of the reasons why practical results seemed so long in the coming. Nor have men been niggardly in this enforced sacrifice. Though no records of assured accuracy are available, the names of forty-eight aeronauts who gave up their lives in the century following the Montgolfiers' invention are recorded. That record ended in 1890. How many have since ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... own, she lavished a pent-up wealth of affection upon Magda of which few would have thought her capable, and though she was by no means niggardly in her blame of Hugh Vallincourt for his method of shelving his responsibilities, she was grateful that his withdrawal into the monastic life had been the means of throwing Magda into her care. Five years later, ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... to get the revenues, as Rambuksh is a bad paymaster. Had he not been so, as well to his own retainer as to the King's officers, the Nazim would not have been able to do this. It is remarked as a singular fact among Rajpoot landholders that Rambuksh wants courage himself, and is too niggardly to induce others to fight for him with spirit. The last Nazim, Hamid Allee, a weak and inexperienced man, dared not venture upon such a measure to ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old school-house, snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... was attacked because it provided for biennial instead of annual elections. The salaries fixed for State officers were "niggardly and insufficient." The method prescribed for amending the Constitution was altogether too tedious and too uncertain. The provisions relative to corporations were too narrow, since they restrained ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... corporation and recovered $13,000 damages. And those $13,000 belong to him bona fide; and whenever that unfortunate wife wishes a dollar of it to supply her needs she must ask her husband for it; and if the man be of a narrow, selfish, niggardly nature, she will have to hear him say, every time, "What have you done, my dear, with the twenty-five cents I gave you yesterday?" Isn't such a position, I ask you, humiliating enough to be called "servitude?" That husband, as would any other ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... that poor waif you were so interested in! My dear child, you are as niggardly with your philanthropies as you are with your favours. Why not be generous with me? And, by the way, can you tell me just why that young fellow appealed to you so? I daresay other 'unknowns' drift ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... familiar, artificial, and polished, are, in their very nature, unfit for any lofty effort of the Muse. Whatever poetical enthusiasm he actually possessed he withheld and stifled. Surely it is no narrow and niggardly encomium to say, he is the great Poet of Reason, the first of Ethical authors in verse." Warton illustrated his critical positions by quoting freely not only from Spenser and Milton, but from recent poets, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... inhumanity. Even death does not always end their monstrous rapine, for when they pay what is called the debt of nature they too often fling, in their wills, a posthumous sneer at that still larger debt owed to their fellow-creatures, and make some eldest son their principal heir. Charity may get a few niggardly thousands from them, and handsome bequests usually go to their younger children; yet the bulk of the big gambler's treasure passes intact to one who will most probably guard with avid custody the alleged prestige of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... ground, so that people don't now like to run the risk of bringing liquor near Greeley, and the temperance influence is spreading over a very large area. As the men have no bar-rooms to sit in, I observed that Greeley was asleep at an hour when other places were beginning their revelries. Nature is niggardly, and living is coarse and rough, the merest necessaries of hardy life being all that can be thought of in this stage ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... and separate apartments." Here the poor wretches sit in a melancholy posture. "Before they cheapen 'em, they turn 'em about from this side to that, survey 'em from top to bottom.... Such of 'em, both men and women, to whom Dame Nature has been niggardly of her charms, are set apart for the vilest services: but such girls as have youth and beauty pass their time well enough.... The retailers of this human ware are the Jews, who take good care of their slaves' education, that they may sell ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... little English; we had struck the beginning of the Gaelic settlement. From here to Hogamah we should encounter only the Gaelic tongue; the inhabitants are all Catholics. Very civil people, apparently, and living in a kind of niggardly thrift, such as the cold land affords. We saw of this family the old man, who had come from Scotland fifty years ago, his stalwart son, six feet and a half high, maybe, and two buxom daughters, going ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... world, it requires of its leaders that they be alert. Its appetite for variety is insatiable, but its appreciation, when given, is full-handed and whole-hearted. The American public never holds back from the man to whom it gives; it never bestows in a niggardly way; it gives all ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... attention to the need of strict economy in expenditures. The fact that our national needs forbid us to be niggardly in providing whatever is actually necessary to our well-being, should make us doubly careful to husband our national resources, as each of us husbands his private resources, by scrupulous avoidance of anything like wasteful or reckless expenditure. Only by avoidance of spending money on ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... from the intellectual compulsions that now drive man to move higher and higher into the high heavens, it seems clear that our country can be niggardly in this field only at the risk of being completely and forever outclassed by Russia—a gamble that could have the most fearful political, economic, and ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics
... pleasant, for the world likes cheerful Mr. Barnum's success; New Haven, girt with flat marshes that look like monstrous billiard-tables, with hay-cocks lying about for balls,—romantic with West Rock and its legends,—cursed with a detestable depot, whose niggardly arrangements crowd the track so murderously close to the wall that the peine forte et dare must be the frequent penalty of an innocent walk on its platform,—with its neat carriages, metropolitan hotels, precious old ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in this he was erratic. He would have masons in to renew the crumbling plaster and brickwork in the cellars, while the drawing-room furniture could go ragged and forlorn. He spent his money freely for anything he wanted himself, but was niggardly toward mother and myself. However, he always told us that at his death we should inherit his wealth. The estate, also, he willed to mother. He lived with us for about five years, and then was killed by a fall from his horse. I was a girl of fifteen then, and when he was brought ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... Greek. His delicate constitution permitted him the use only of bread and wine. Condemned by many as a renegade, he had no desire for places of honour, but only to see his merits acknowledged, and existence assured to him. He was simple without being niggardly; he desired to be ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... with more feeling of humanity than his niggardly patron. "Whose fault is it that you rob a woman of her love, and then accuse her of inconstancy because your son resembles the man that was the object of her thoughts? Is that reasonable, or ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... exclaimed Albani. "You would be a very niggardly vicegerent of God! But as Corilla is well worth two thousand scudi, I am content. Give me eight thousand scudi and the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... rapturously into the warm sheets, thinking to himself, "Oh! this is good!" To tell the truth, the maid gave him his money's worth—and the good man thought of the difference between the profusion of the royal houses and the niggardly ways of the citizens' wives. The servant laughing, played her part marvellously well, regaling the knave with gentle cries, shiverings, convulsions and tossings about, like a newly-caught fish on the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... in Washington's career. His difficulties were those which we have seen already, want of powder and want of arms, but to them was added the great fear of a lack of men. As to powder, its supply still fluctuated, small quantities coming in irregularly, and being steadily used in equally niggardly amounts, or slowly spoiling in the soldiers' pouches. Muskets were still scanty, and Washington saw no hope except in buying those of his soldiers whose terms were about to expire, or in sending agents through the neighboring towns to secure what they could find. There was a corresponding lack ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... path to happiness easy and safe to all such as fear Allah, and give alms, and believe the truth proclaimed by Allah's messenger. But we will make easy the path to distress and misery for all such as are niggardly, are bent on making riches, and deny the truth when it is proclaimed to them. When these last fall headlong into Hell, their wealth will avail them nothing. In the burning furnace they shall ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... in Paris or in London took up never more than half a column in a newspaper. Even the old man he was answering had adopted, to be original in everything, that selfsame conciseness: every sentence of his contained two or three ideas. But the member from Alcira would not be led astray by such niggardly parsimony. He believed that ponderousness and extension were qualities indispensable to eloquence. He must fill a whole issue of the Congressional Record, to impress his friends back home in the District. So he talked ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... over-abundance of poison," said Genevra. She was thinking of the stock she had hoarded up for him in her dressing-table drawer, under lock and key. It occurred to her that she could have no end of housewifely thrills if she doled them out to him in niggardly quantities, at stated times, instead of turning them over to ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... has been a potent factor in their development. "To the Bantu, perhaps more than to any other people," says Mr. S. M. Molema, himself a member of that race, "the missionaries have stood for civilization, Christianization and education."[2] Niggardly and inadequate governmental appropriations for common schools have been supplemented by missionary funds, and in many cases missionary funds alone have supported and are still supporting native schools. "In short, every educated member of the Bantu race, no matter how great or ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... have heard Dodsley, by whom it was published, relate that when the copy was offered him, the price demanded for it, which was a hundred and twenty pounds, being such as he was not inclined to give precipitately, he carried the work to Pope, who, having looked into it, advised him not to make a niggardly offer; for ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... welfare of the Colonies. His words are significant, and it seems well to quote them, since they gather up the policy which he consistently followed: 'If Great Britain gives up her supremacy from a niggardly spirit of parsimony, or from a craven fear of helplessness, other Powers will soon look upon the Empire, not with the regard due to an equal, as she once was, but with jealousy of the height she ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... He had not really loved her. No one, she thought with desperation, had ever really loved her. She did not ask herself whether that was her fault, whether she had ever given to anyone what she wanted so terribly now, whether she had any right to expect generosity of feeling when she herself was niggardly. She was stricken in her vanity and, because of that, she had come ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... followed the reception of Charles by France, niggardly as that reception was—war with England broke out, and the French army of invasion was moved from Dunkirk to Flanders. The prince, not permitted to serve in the French army, returned to Paris, where he had been falsely assured by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... been the Queen's feelings towards him, there is no doubt that one powerful influence, which lasted into the reign of James, was steadily adverse to his advancement. Burghley had been strangely niggardly in what he did to help his brilliant nephew; he was going off the scene, and probably did not care to trouble himself about a younger and uncongenial aspirant to service. But his place was taken by his son, Robert Cecil; and Cecil ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... presently what becomes of this cushion whereon the Spider, that niggardly housewife, lays her saved-up bits of thread; for the moment, we will note that the Epeira works it up with her legs after placing each spoke, teazles it with her claws, mats it into felt with noteworthy diligence. In so doing, she gives the spokes a solid common support, ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... son, I will point out the way, and my soul shall guide yours in the ascent, for we will take our flight together. I now see and am convinced you can expect no pardon here, and I can only exhort you to seek it at that greatest tribunal where we both shall shortly answer. But let us not be niggardly in our exhortation, but let all our fellow prisoners have a share: good gaoler let them be permitted to stand here, while I attempt to improve them.' Thus saying, I made an effort to rise from my straw, but wanted strength, and was able only to recline against ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terror also. It had not been our way to build great fires; we were, indeed, by the captain's orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood; and I began to fear that something had gone wrong while I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... even were it in my power, which it is not, to attempt an exact and complete description of all the productions of the group of islands composing the Philippines, to which nature has with no niggardly hand dispensed great territorial and maritime wealth. And as the limits of this work prevent much expansion, I will confine the following observations to an outline of the principal articles produced in the country, beginning the catalogue with ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... as blunt iron ground Into an edge, hurts worse; so I (fool!) found Crossing hurt me. To fit my sullenness, He to another key his style doth dress, And asks, What news? I tell him of new plays: He takes my hand, and, as a still which stays A semibrief 'twixt each drop, he niggardly As loth to enrich me, so tells many a lie, More than ten Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stows, Of trivial household trash he knows. He knows When the queen frown'd or smil'd; and he knows what A subtile statesman may gather of that: He knows who loves whom, and who by poison Hastes to an office's ...
— English Satires • Various
... of the edifice of pleasure is, and must be, its perfect ease, its appearance of felicitous repose. This it can never have where the nature and expression of the land near it reminds us of the necessity of labor, and where the earth is niggardly of all that constitutes its beauty and our pleasure; this it can only have where the presence of man seems the natural consequence of an ample provision for his enjoyment, not the continuous struggle of suffering ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... land, but the spring that year was a meagre starveling, niggardly of smiles. He seemed to have borrowed winter's breath, and the pale young leaves shuddered in the unfriendly blasts. The fruit blossom struggled into a nipped existence, and fell like thin snow to the ground. ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... Where are they to-day, and what is their condition? Look for them in the sunless back rooms of San Francisco boarding-houses, and you will find them doing a little fine sewing for the shops; or working on their own garments, which they must make out of school hours, because the niggardly pay of teachers in the lower grades will not allow of their getting them done. Idealized indeed! Men talk about our getting out of our places where we clamor for paying work of some kind, for something to do that will enable us to live in half comfort ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... wilderness, for the sake of reconciling their sense of religious duty with their affections for their country, few, perhaps none of them, formed a conception of what would be, within two centuries, the result of their undertaking. When the jealous and niggardly policy of their British sovereign denied them even that humblest of requests, and instead of liberty would barely consent to promise connivance, neither he nor they might be aware that they were laying the foundations ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams
... painful of humiliations—the sense of shame for a parent; there was nothing for it but to be passive while his father poured out a flood of reasons—sordid, whining, contemptible, money-getting reasons—in which the niggardly old man wrapped his refusal. David crushed down his pain into the depths of his soul; he saw that he was alone; saw that he had no one to look to but himself; saw, too, that his father was trying to make money out of him; ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... see how anxious he was for his brother to make a good official showing. If a niggardly Government refused to provide decent quarters—no matter; the miners, with gold pouring in, would themselves pay for a suite "superbly carpeted," and all kept in order by "two likely contrabands"—that is to say, negroes. Samuel Clemens ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of a ruined priory were at hand. We had often laughed since at the eagerness and delight with which we hurried off to look at these venerable objects. It was soon decided, however, that it was a pleasure too exquisite to be niggardly enjoyed alone, and the carriage was sent back with orders to bring up the ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... end both of the page and the book. Turning back, he commenced at the page immediately preceding—"One can live very well without napkins. And now I think of it, what are these miserable napkins but a niggardly expedient for saving the table-cloth? Nay, what is this table-cloth itself but a base economy for sparing the table! I pronounce them both to be mere superfluities; both shall be sold, that we may eat off ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... that the man who runs may read, that he is no such bungler in his workmanship as to fashion the organism of a woman without giving her at the same time the corresponding strength. We have too much belief in him to believe that the power given to us is in such niggardly measure for our needs; that, in order to carry out perfectly the work of the organs most peculiarly our own, the regular action of the brain must be suspended. Not so. He who fits the shoulder to the burden; who, in planning the complex ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... heavy, bloated, good-for-nothing, impudent, and happy dogs, never before fed upon a baronet's substance, contradicted him to his very face, and fought for him behind his back. The females in my establishment bear but a most niggardly proportion to the males—in the ratio of Falstaff, one pennyworth of bread to his many gallons of sack: and these few are the most hideous, pox-marked, blear-eyed damsels that the country could produce—all ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... as he loved his winsome daughter, much as he prized her for that dead woman's sake, who, as long as she lay in his bosom, had brought him comfort, and happiness, and honor, he was something over-harsh with her, niggardly in the bestowing of caresses, and liberal in the gift of unnecessary rebuke. Very severe, then, was his displeasure, when she confessed to him, with many blushes, that she loved her ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her; followed her with a doting observance; engrossed opportunities to meet her; fee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not only bought many presents to give her, but have given largely to 180 many to know what she would have given; briefly, I have pursued her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the wing of all occasions. But ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... payment a few days helps to pull an order. It is not that a man is niggardly or that he does not want the article but it is the desire, rooted deep in human nature, to hold onto money after ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... induced to vote an annual grant for so important a work till it was accomplished; albeit, when we think of their niggardly denial of any thing to the printing, or{3} even the conservation of the public records, sanguine hopes from that quarter can hardly ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... representation in art; but with the growth of sympathy the range of tragic portrayal has gradually been extended over almost the whole of human life. The peasant in his struggle for subsistence against a niggardly soil, or the patient woman who loses the bloom of her youth in the unremitting effort to maintain her ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... little dazed when she climbed the low stone wall, crossed the road, and came into the grassy wilderness of the Joyce back yard. Nature had triumphed riotously, as she will when niggardly thrift is away. The grass lay rich and shining, lodged by last night's shower, and gate and cellar-case were choked by it. The cinnamon roses bloomed in a spicy hardiness of pink, and the gnarled apple-trees had shed their broken branches, and were covered with little ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... "It is indeed my own fault, but you shall be safe. That niggardly wretch, Arthapati, is known to be intimate with me. I will say that I received it from him; and, as he is already suspected of stealing it, ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... he was usually called, was a man of business of the old school, moderate in his charges, economical and even niggardly in his expenditure, strictly honest in conducting his own affairs and those of his clients, but taught by long experience to be wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. Punctual as the clock of Saint Giles tolled nine, the neat dapper ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... unscientific, persisted in his mind. Everything was a gamble—who took the greatest chances was most apt to be the greatest winner. The idea of manuring Los Muertos, of husbanding his great resources, he would have scouted as niggardly, Hebraic, ungenerous. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... cabinet was undoubtedly much influenced by this section of its supporters in the blind confidence it snowed to the czar, in their presumption that moral influence would suffice to prevent a war, and in the niggardly, and therefore unwise, and ultimately costly scheme upon which armaments were provided. Probably never in the House of Commons was rebuke more eloquently and sincerely given, or more justly merited, than when Lord Palmerston exposed the contradictory, selfish, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... this great law of the earth, let poets sing and fancy as they may, the Spring and Autumn of America partake largely of the universally distinctive characters of the rival seasons. What Nature has done on this Continent, has not been done niggardly; and, while we may boast of a decline of the year that certainly rivals, and, with few exceptions, eclipses the glories of most of the climates of the old world, the opening months rarely fail of equalizing the gifts of Providence, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... comes, shall I plume myself on the immunity just in the same way, I do not greatly pride myself on having outlived my belief in the fairy tales of Socialism. Old people have faults of their own; they tend to become cowardly, niggardly, and suspicious. Whether from the growth of experience or the decline of animal heat, I see that age leads to these and certain other faults; and it follows, of course, that while in one sense I hope I am journeying towards the truth, in another I ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen, rude, and niggardly at home; return the visit, and she admits you with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in antediluvian notions, she has not yet acquired the European ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... failed as a composer, failed as a playwright, failed as a singer, failed as an actor. He had been forced to take up the profession of putting on dramatic and musical plays, a profession that required vast knowledge and high talents and paid for them in niggardly fashion both in money and in fame. Crossley owed to him more than to any other single element the series of successes that had made him rich; yet the ten thousand a year Crossley paid him was regarded as evidence of Crossley's ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... of the best fighting men the ancient world ever saw, had come against him to be broken, scattered, and destroyed. His career through Italy had been, in the words of Horace, as the rush of the flames through a forest of pines. But after Cannae the tide turned. His niggardly, short-sighted countrymen denied him the support without which success was impossible. As his veterans were lost to him he had no means of filling their places, while the Romans could put army after army into the field. But through the long ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... board—his fare paid, and so good-bye. But it is needless to multiply examples; the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we came to Apemama, of so many white men who have scrambled for a place in that rich market, one remained—a silent, sober, solitary, niggardly recluse, of whom the king remarks, "I think ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with society, and instal her in thy house as governess and example. If the woman be also of Israel, so much the better; for then we may expect faithfulness without jealousy. And further, son of Jahdai, be niggardly in nothing concerning our Lael. Clothe her as she were the King's daughter. At going abroad, which she shall do with me in the street and on the water, I would have her sparkle with jewels, the observed of everybody, even the Emperor. And ask not doubtingly, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... character. My concurrence failed to give the full satisfaction I expected, and they so habitually did what they pleased with me, that, like all men so disposed, I never got the credit for concession which a man more niggardly of ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... said quite as much as need be said in answer to those who maintain that we ought to give support to this college, but that the support ought to be niggardly and precarious. I now come to another and a much more formidable class of objectors. Their objections may be simply stated thus. No man can justifiably, either as an individual or as a trustee for the public, contribute to the dissemination of religious error. But the church of Rome ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... promises which he never intended to fulfil, the hypocritical, selfish, niggardly man had repulsed, delayed, and put ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... begins to contrast his own indulgences with the rights of God. There are so many of us who are lavish in our home and miserly in the sanctuary. We multiply treasures which bring us little profit, and we are niggardly where treasure would be of most ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... greedy, mean, niggardly, penurious, rapacious, close, ignoble, miserly, parsimonious, petty, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... entering the Priory, concert measures together for the defence of the city. There is one other point worthy of remark, touching the office of chief banneret, and that is that on the occasion of any siege undertaken by the London forces, the castellain was to receive as his fee the niggardly sum of one hundred shillings for ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... that either. He did not wish to learn that 'woman's talk', not he; and when one of the teachers advanced on him with a book and an ink-horn and waved them before him in a mild persuasive way, much as a churchwarden invitingly shakes the offertory bag under the nose of a rich but niggardly parishioner, he sprang up with a fierce oath and flashed Inkosi-kaas before the eyes of our learned friend, and there was an end of the attempt to ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... invalid. Just before they left, a letter arrived from John demanding the keys of his house, and proposing that Polly should come to town to set it in order for him, and help him to engage a housekeeper. A niggardly—a truly "John-ish"—fashion of giving an invitation, thought Mahony, and was not for his wife accepting it. But Polly was so pleased at the prospect of seeing her brother that he ended by agreeing to her going on to Melbourne as soon ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... from pain, which, even if it be a freedom from evil, is nevertheless not the chief good, make use of an addition which is not very easily recommended to men in general, and yet I do not understand why they do it in such a niggardly and restricted manner: for, as if they had to bring something to add to virtue, first of all they add things of the least possible value; afterwards they add things one by one, instead of uniting everything ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... not the only quarrel they had during these days when they were occupied in moving from their suite and in looking for new quarters. Every hour the question of money came up. Trina had become more niggardly than ever since the loss of McTeague's practice. It was not mere economy with her now. It was a panic terror lest a fraction of a cent of her little savings should be touched; a passionate eagerness to continue to save in spite of all that had happened. Trina ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... upon whom crowning mercy had fallen from beneficent heavens, naturally indisposed to treat unexpected boon in niggardly spirit. BONNER LAW insisted on business being set aside and opportunity provided for rubbing in the salt. Lively debate followed. Speeches delivered with difficulty through running stream of interruption. BYLES OF BRADFORD began it. Breaking in upon BONNER LAW'S speech with pointed question ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... Walker was somewhat of an authority in the district—a travelled woman, who had been in Australia and back again, and was now living with a family of orphan nephews and nieces, and an old man, their grandfather. Public rumour pronounced her a niggardly woman, for though she had property she worked as hard as if she had nothing, and took the bread out of other folk's mouths; but as she was really an excellent laundress, she had the best custom in the neighbourhood, and her ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... mines of copper and its forests of firs and stately cedars, the island naturally attracted a commercial and maritime people like the Phoenicians; while the abundance of its corn, its wine, and its oil must have rendered it in their eyes a Land of Promise by comparison with the niggardly nature of their own rugged coast, hemmed in between the mountains and the sea. Accordingly they settled in Cyprus at a very early date and remained there long after the Greeks had also established themselves on its shores; for we know ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... thus found employment at her cost, there were continual contests for the favours of another beauty, who was not much more niggardly in that way than herself; this ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... inherited titles and ancient names many times since dishonored, compared with the heritage of uncomplaining suffering and heroism which we boast of to-day because those modest martyrs were working people, proud that by the sweat of their brows they wrung from a niggardly soil the food they ate, proud also that they could leave the plough to govern or to legislate, able also to survey a county ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... Duke, impatiently. "If you do your work well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you will have no reason to complain of niggardly treatment." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... [He slaps his right coat-pocket.] Here lies the crown of England. [Now the left coat-pocket.] Here the crown of Scotland—and here, in my waistcoat pocket, is Ireland. What shall I take from herein exchange? [He looks about.] Is the gilding real? It looks deuced niggardly and close-fisted. There's space enough in these great halls, but I'll wager there are many mice here. It's as quiet as an English Sunday. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Eve did; so that we wished for it much more than we should if our parents had given it to us? Did we not in our hearts accuse our parents of grudging it to us, and listen to the voice of the tempter, as Eve did, when the serpent tried to make out that God was niggardly to her, and envious of her, and did not want her to be wise, lest she should be too ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... a calumniating, niggardly bigot in Le Mariage de Figaro, and again in Le Barbier de Seville, both by Beaumarchais. Basile and Tartuffe are the two French incarnations of religious hypocrisy. The former is the clerical humbug, and the latter ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... fair-faced and arch, with a piquant nose and a laughing blue eye, who sat at the door of the room. It was a long and rather narrow apartment; at the end, a stage of rough planks, before a kind of curtain, the whole rudely but not niggardly lighted. Unfortunately for the Baroni family, Sidonia found himself the only first-class spectator. There was a tolerable sprinkling of those who paid half a franc for their amusement. These were separated from the first row, which Sidonia alone was to occupy; in ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Archelaus, who was still lying with his ships near Munychia,[225] and was neither inclined to give up the sea nor ready to engage with the Romans: his plan was to protract the war and to cut off the supplies of the enemy. But Sulla was as quick as Archelaus, and moved into Boeotia from a niggardly region, which even in time of peace could not have maintained his troops. Most people thought that he had made a false calculation in leaving Attica, which is a rough country and ill adapted for the movements of ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... The Idler, No. 65. 'A chamber in his house was filled with letters from the most eminent scholars of the age. The learned in Europe had addressed Pieresc in their difficulties, who was hence called "the attorney-general of the republic of letters." The niggardly niece, though entreated to permit them to be published, preferred to use these learned epistles occasionally to light her fires.' D'Israeli's Curiosities of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... counsels just then taking favour; but I went back to my father and mother, and aunt, and Preston, and others; and comfort found no lodgment with me. Then there was an extract from a Southern paper, calling Yankees "the most contemptible and detestable of God's creation" - speaking of their "mean, niggardly lives - their low, vulgar and sordid occupations" - and I thought, How can peace be? or what will ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... declining my compliment in such a manner, as only a person can do, who deserved it, she said, For her part, she had always thought me a man of sense [a man of sense, Jack! What a niggardly praise!],—and should therefore hope, that, when I wrote, it exceeded even my speech: for that it was impossible, be the letters written in as easy and familiar a style as they would, but that ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... y-brought; He wallow'd, and he turned to and fro. This olde wife lay smiling evermo', And said, "Dear husband, benedicite, Fares every knight thus with his wife as ye? Is this the law of king Arthoures house? Is every knight of his thus dangerous?* *fastidious, niggardly I am your owen love, and eke your wife I am she, which that saved hath your life And certes yet did I you ne'er unright. Why fare ye thus with me this firste night? Ye fare like a man had lost his wit. What is ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... stage with black was to prepare it for tragedy. The costumes of the players were sometimes less niggardly than the furnishing of the stage, for it was an age of rich and picturesque apparel, and it was not difficult to procure the cast-off clothes of fine gentlemen for stage use. But there was no lavishing of expense. I am recalling ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... or in knowledge; and the lord thinks that the courtier is telling the truth. He who believes another anent some quality which he does not possess knows himself ill; for even if he is faithless and stubborn, base and as cowardly as a hare, niggardly and foolish and malformed, worthless in deeds and in words, yet many a man who mocks at him behind his back, extols and praises him to his face; thus then the courtier praises him in his hearing when he speaks of him to another; and yet he pretends that the lord does not hear what they ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes |
