"Skim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their riders. The supreme moment came for me when they were exactly opposite the grand stand, full half a mile away—the moment that I remembered from year to year as one of exquisite illusion—for then the horses seemed to lift from the earth as with wings, and to skim over the track like a covey of low-flying birds. The finish was tame to this. Mrs. March and I had our wonted difference of opinion as to which horse had won, and we were rather uncommonly controversial because we ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Then when beneath some shadowy cliff, O'er-hanging wood, or leafy vale, The trav'ller rests, haul'd up the skiff, Then lovers breathe their am'rous tale. When Nature, languid, seems to rest, Nor moves a leaf, or heaves a wave, And Zephyrs sleep, by Sol caress'd, And sportive swallows skim the lave; Then, when by early toil oppress'd, The peasant seeks the glen or dale, Enjoys his frugal meal and rest, Then lovers breathe their am'rous tale. When close beneath the forest's pride The upland's group of cattle throng, And sultry heat dissevers wide The feather'd host of tuneful song; ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... and research in its relation to the later empires that ruled at Babylon have produced results of literary rather than of historical importance. But we should exceed the space at our disposal if we attempted even to skim this fascinating field of study in which so much has recently been achieved. For it is time we turned once more to Egypt and directed our inquiry towards ascertaining what recent research has to tell us with regard to her inhabitants during the later periods of her existence ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... "Miss Aubrey," in the corner. In addition to this, 'twas not an unpleasant thing to skim over the contents of his letters! as one by one he opened them, and laid them aside; for both these fair creatures were daughters of Eve, and inherited a little of her curiosity. Mr. Aubrey was always somewhat nervous and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... of ugliness; now sharing the commons of Master Keep the shoemaker's pigs; now succeeding to the reversion of the well-gnawed bone of Master Brow the shopkeeper's fierce house-dog; now filching the skim-milk of Dame Wheeler's cat:—spit at by the cat; worried by the mastiff; chased by the pigs; screamed at by the dame; stormed at by the shoemaker; flogged by the shopkeeper; teased by all the children, and scouted by all the animals of the parish;—but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... great stone bears carved on the portals of Saint Margaret's; his eyes wandered listlessly over the smooth turf of the Fellows' bowling-green, and the trim parterres full of crocus and anemone and violet which fringed it; he watched the boats skim past him on the winding gleams of the Iscam, and shoot among the water-lilies by the bridge and then he stared upwards at the sun, trying to think of nothing until his eyes watered, and then the sight of a don in the ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... stretch of level ground then, smooth and hard; and the horses as with common consent set out to gallop shoulder to shoulder in a wild, exhilarating skim across the plain. Talking was impossible. The man reflected that he was making great strides in experience, first a prayer and then a pledge, all in the wilderness. If any one had told him he was going into the West for this, he would have laughed ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... and frequent, as a rule, the cultivated lands in the neighborhood of water, showing a decided preference for the habitations of man. "How gracefully the swallows fly! See them coursing over the daisy-bespangled grass fields; now they skim just over the blades of grass, and then with a rapid stroke of their long wings mount into the air and come hovering above your head, displaying their rich white and chestnut plumage to perfection. Now they chase each other for very joyfulness, uttering ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... not a calf we have; we will not spoil his dinner. But you may skim it and give him ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... dreams doth bring To the mind some restful thing, Breezes soft that rippling blow O'er ripe cornfields row by row, Murmuring rivers round whose brim Silvery sands the swallows skim, Or the drowsy circling sound Of old mill-wheels going round, Which with music steal the mind And ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... sextant in a temperature thirty-eight degrees below zero, or seventy below the freezing-point, as it was this night. It is not pleasant to sit still for any length of time in such weather. A thin skim of ice over the surface of the kerosene oil used for an artificial horizon has to be constantly removed by the warm breath of an assistant. The sextant glasses become obscure from the freezing upon ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... beef, one pound salt pork, and one pound mutton; cut into pieces about three inches by two, let it boil, and skim. Take two or three carrots, one large turnip, one large head of celery, three or four leeks, a good green cabbage, cut in four, the other vegetables cut into pieces of moderate size, not too small; put them in with the meat, and see that they are first covered by the water. Let it boil for three ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... the Balkans. Crossing the Dragoman Pass, they came into an upward current of air that set the machine rocking, and Smith for the first time felt a touch of nervousness lest it should break down and fall among these inhospitable crags. Rodier planed downwards, until they seemed to skim the crests. The air was calmer here: the aeroplane steadied; and when the mountains were left behind they came still lower, following ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... in certain proportions with organic matter. The reader must be familiar with cements of this kind long known among the people, and much used in the repairing of broken pottery, such as a cement compounded of quicklime made of oyster shells, mixed up with a glue made of skim-milk cheese, and another cement made also of quicklime mixed up with the whites of eggs. In Mrs. Marshall's cements, the organic matter is variously compounded of both animal and vegetable substances, while the earth generally employed is sulphate of lime; and the result ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... sea. It is said there are many evidences that go to prove this desert to have once been covered by the waters of the great inland sea that still, in places, laves its eastern borders with its briny flood. I am informed there are many miles of smooth, hard, salt-flats, over which a 'cycler could skim like a bird; but I scarcely think enough of bird-like skimming to go searching for it on the American Desert. A few miles east of Matlin the road leads over a spur of the Red Dome Range, from whence I obtain my first view of the Great Salt Lake, and soon ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... at all about cattlemen, you will know that the Quirt was a poor man's ranch, when I tell you that Hunter and Johnson milked three cows and made butter, fed a few pigs on the skim milk and the alfalfa stalks which the saddle horses and the cows disdained to eat, kept a flock of chickens, and sold what butter, eggs and pork they did not need for themselves. Cattlemen seldom do that. More often they buy milk in small tin cans, butter in "squares," and ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... low at this time of year. As we stood in one of them to let the horses drink and cool their legs, I saw a huge eel hidden under the shadow of a high overhanging bank, waiting till the evening to come out and feed upon the myriads of flies and little white moths that skim over the surface ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... bush is not at hand, a bushy branch of a tree is stuck up. The men arm themselves with small boodthuls, or miniature waddies, then stand a few feet behind the bush, which varies from five to eight feet or so in height at competitions. They throw their boodthuls in turn; these have to skim through the top of the bush, which seems to give them fresh impetus instead of slackening them. The distance they go beyond is the test of a good thrower; over three hundred yards is not unusual. As practice in this game is kept up, the ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... pigs, or other young animals upon watery vegetables: it makes them big-bellied and bare-boned at the same time; and it effectually prevents the frame from becoming strong. Children in health want no drink other than skim milk, or butter-milk, or whey; and, if none of those be at hand, water will do very well, provided they have plenty of good meat. Cheese and butter do very well for part of the day. Puddings and pies; but always without sugar, which, say what people will about ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... safe, of course. It was practically a form of suicide. But Bell had not death, but life to fear. He could afford to be far more reckless than any man who desired to live. The plane went scuttling madly across the jungle tops, now rising to skim the top of a monster ceiba, now ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... abstract commerce," said Claparon,—"commerce which won't be developed for ten years to come, according to Nucingen, the Napoleon of finance; commerce by which a man can grasp the totality of fractions, and skim the profits before there are any. Gigantic idea! one way of pouring hope into pint cups,—in short, a new necromancy! So far, we have only got ten or a dozen hard heads initiated into the cabalistic secrets ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... winter and rough weather. The bank flowers still show blossom among the seed-heads, and though the thick round rushes have turned to russet, the forget-me-not is still in flower; and though the water-lilies have all gone to the bottom again, and the swallows no longer skim over the surface, the river seems as rich in life as ever; and the birds and fish, unfrightened by the boat traffic, ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... ominously stealing along the wooded hills; and now, in the sharp, momentary rattling of the seared beech-leaves, the whole forest seemed shivering in the dead chill that was settling over the earth. The cold, indeed, was now becoming so intense as to congeal and skim over all the pools and still eddies of the river, and make solid ice along the shores of the rapid currents of the stream; while even the ground was fast becoming so frozen as to clumper and sound beneath the hurrying ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... customers patronize the reading-matter shops because they want to induce delusions about a world they know, and do not find particularly roseate and the other half skim through a book because they haven't anything else to do and aren't sleepy, ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... double assertion of opinion there was a sudden cry that flying-fish were to be seen alongside, and Mrs Mitford actually beheld them with her own eyes leap out of the sea, skim over the waves a short distance, and then drop into the water again; still she was incredulous! "Flyin'" she exclaimed, "nothin' of the sort; they only made a long jump out o' the water, an' wriggled their tails as they went; ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... so we must mix water with it. Strong tea isn't good for children, she says." And Bab contentedly surveyed the gill of skim-milk which was to satisfy the thirst of ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... to station orbit where a quick boost from the jets would have made up his lost velocity to orbit standard. But there would be no boost now. So he'd just fall off around the other side, falling around and into Mother Earth, to skim atmosphere and climb on past and up to touch orbit altitude—and down again. A nice elliptical orbit, apogee a thousand odd miles, perigee, sixty-seventy—perhaps. How much speed had he left? How long would it be before he brushed the fringe of atmosphere once too often and ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... plies Where the willows shiver, Round the mossy mill-wheel flies; Dragon-flies a-quiver— Flash a-thwart the lily-beds, Pierce the dry reed's thicket: Where the yellow sunlight treads Chants the friendly cricket. Butterflies about her skim (Pouf! their simple fancies!) In the willow shadows dim Take her eyes for pansies! Buzzing comes a velvet bee Sagely it supposes Those red lips beneath the tree Are two crimson roses! Laughs the mill-stream wise and bright It is not ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... she said to herself, 'nothing could be pleasanter,' and she was almost sorry when her skim across the sea of glass was over, and she found herself at the foot of the ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... which attract the eye are constantly changing. Large black geese, too heavy for lofty flying, rise awkwardly from the waves and skim across the fjords, just clearing the surface of the dark blue waters. Oyster-catchers, as they are familiarly called, decked with scarlet bills and legs, are abundant. Now and then that daring highwayman among birds, the skua, or robber-gull, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... Awa', ye rude, unfeeling crew, frae yon burn side, Those fairy scenes are no for you, by yon burn side; There fancy smoothes her theme, By the sweetly murm'ring stream, And the rock-lodged echoes skim, down by ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... farmer got the new reaping-machine, and my binding came to an end; and topping turnips for a few days in the foggy November mornings don't bring you in much, even when you havn't just had a baby. And the skim milk was long ago gone, and the leasing, and the sack of tail-wheat, and the cheap cheeses almost for nothing, and the hedge-clippings, and it was just the bare ten shillings a-week. So at last, when ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... night-lamp, in his picture of "Asleep," and we all thought what a fine thing it was. But we have not thought it so fine for the whole art world to burst into the subsequent imitative paroxysm of crashing discords in chalk, lip-salve, and skim-milk, which has lasted ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... that he missed the easiest balls, fascinated in watching the movements and graceful attitudes of his opponent. Her feet, which even in the unflattering tennis-shoes looked small and dainty, seemed merely to skim over the ground like the wings of a passing swallow; and the most daring bounds and leaps, which in others would have been grotesque, she accomplished with the ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... above the water, sometimes coming close to the boat and now and then one would make a sudden dash down to the water, just dip his head in it and skim it with his wings, then soar ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White
... On the air, or loop Through the trees, and then go soaring, O: To group with a troop On the gusty poop While the wind behind is roaring, O: I skim and swim By a cloud's red rim And up to the azure flooring, O: And my wide wings drip As I slip, slip, slip Down through the rain-drops, Back where Peg Broods in the nest On the little white egg, So early in ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... of the valley are more of our trenches, with the German parapets 200 yards away beyond. And over these our shells are bursting, fired by guns on the slope of the hill beneath me; they whistle softly as they skim through the air over my head, and I hear the burst as they land. Further away to the west is one of the enemy's strongholds, and there bigger shells are bursting, throwing up clouds of black smoke and dust. These pass by with a louder purring whistle ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... scud across the sky overhead, and the low mutterings of thunder came from the distance. It may have been the thunderings of nature, or of war—she did not heed them; her heart was filled with bitter, rebellious thoughts, and her flying feet seemed to skim over the road; nor did she check her hasty steps until she was about to enter her father's room. Mauer sat in his arm-chair, absorbed in thought. She threw herself down on her knees beside him, and flung her arms about his waist. Pressing ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... the level how the skaters slide, And skim the glitt'ring surface as they go: Thus o'er life's specious pleasures lightly glide, But pause not, press not on the ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... But, my dear Stephen, it is only those who half know a thing that write about it. Those who know it thoroughly don't take the trouble. All I know about women, or men either, is a mass of generalities. I plod along, and occasionally lift my eyes and skim the weltering surface of mankind lying between me and the horizon, as a ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... natural expression of his face, bordering on the morose, was never lighted by more than a strained smile—a smile that suggested a grin, that puckered the corners of his eyes and drew hard furrows down his cheeks, but evidenced nothing akin to even the skim-milk of human kindness. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... the strangest things that ever saw the light. Suppose that some newspaper should give that item of news, don't you think folks would get the book, when it was published? and don't you think they would read it, or, at all events, skim it over, to see what kind of stuff Uncle Frank had been emptying out of his brain? ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... time coffee king, sugar merchant, philanthropist, and typical American, came from fine, rugged Scotch stock. He was the son of a well-to-do Scottish woolen-mill owner in Allegheny, Pa., where he was born, July 11, 1839. He often said he was raised on skim milk. He received a common school education in Pittsburgh and Allegheny. He and Henry Phipps, the coke and steel head, are said to have occupied adjoining desks in one of the public schools, Andrew Carnegie being at that ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... amain it grows and the wind as it blows tosses the swallows over the hollows and down on the shallows till every feather doth shake and quiver and all their feathers go all together blowing the life and the joy so rife into the swallows that skim the shallows and have the yellowest children for the wind that blows is the life of the river flowing for ever that washes the grasses still as it passes and feeds the daisies the little white praises and buttercups bonny ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... prayer often answered in ways that drive us almost to despair. It means, 'Do anything with me, put me into any seven-fold heated furnace of sorrow, do anything that will melt my hardness, and run off my dross, which Thy great ladle will then skim away, that the surface may be clear, and the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... cooked meat, poultry, or rabbits. Never put in fat, as this can be rendered down for pastry and frying, and only makes the stock greasy; always cover the bones with cold water, but regulate the quantity by the material used. Put in cold water with a teaspoonful of salt, and when it boils up, skim well; when skimming, take an iron spoon and a basin of water, and dip the spoon in the water each time the scum is removed; then put in the peppercorns and vegetables. In very hot weather put peppercorns and ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... her that she could do very little, and when I left the convent she had to give me up. I was not of her monde; I am not now, either, but we sometimes meet. They are terrible people—her monde; all mounted upon stilts a mile high, and with pedigrees long in proportion. It is the skim of the milk of the old noblesse. Do you know what a Legitimist is, or an Ultramontane? Go into Madame de Cintre's drawing-room some afternoon, at five o'clock, and you will see the best preserved specimens. ...
— The American • Henry James
... together; beef, mutton and ham in another lot; one makes a white stock, the other brown. If the quantity is small, put them all together. Crack the bones, put them in the bottom of a large soup kettle, cover with cold water, bring slowly to boiling point and skim. Push the kettle to the back part of the stove, where the stock may simmer for at least three hours, then add an onion into which you have stuck twelve cloves, a bay leaf, a few celery tops, or a little celery seed, and a carrot cut into slices; simmer gently for ...
— Made-Over Dishes • S. T. Rorer
... England-for-the-Irish politician, the Conscientious Objector, the hotel-government bureaucrat, and other bulwarks of our united Empire. For the rest, you will want to cram into ten short days the average experiences of ten long weeks. If, like most of us, you are young and foolish, you will skim the bubbling froth of life and seek crowded diversion in the lighter follies, the passing shows, and l'amour qui rit. And you will probably return to the big things of war tired but mightily refreshed, and almost ready to welcome a further spell of ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... cultivator, a flock of blackbirds fed in the fresh-turned earth. The boy watched them with half-shut eyes. When one of the birds had fed, it would hop upon a lump of wet, black earth, and being satisfied that it could eat no more, would skim in rapid, undulating flight to the row of willows in the next pasture. On a fence-post, a meadow-lark filled the silence with a liquid flow of music. As it laid back its head in an abandon of joy, the boy noticed how the sun accentuated the vivid ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was with ammunition, wheels and harness—was a Godsend, after the past three days. Cicero, Frank's ancient and black Man Friday, dispensed hot coffee and huge hunks of bread and ham; and a violin and two good voices among the Crescents made the time skim along far ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... clouds. We were rent from our anchors, and with all our enormous load were whirled swift as an arrow along the vast abyss. Now we climb the rolling mountains, we plough the frightful ridge, and seem to skim the skies; anon we plunge into the opening gulf, we reel to and fro, and stagger in the jarring decks, or climb the cordage, whilst bursting seas foam over the decks. Despair is in every face, and death sits threatening in every surge." The whistling of the wind and roaring ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the abyss—down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing wall between us ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... In the morning put them in a kettle with a close fitting top; pour over them three quarts of cold water, adding half a pound of lean ham or bacon cut into slices or pieces; also a teaspoonful salt, a little pepper and a stalk of celery cut fine. When the soup begins to boil, skim the froth from the surface. Cook slowly from three to four hours, stirring occasionally until the peas are all dissolved. Strain through a colander and leave out meat. It should be quite thick. If not rich enough, add a small piece of butter. Serve with small ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... only a smattering of the secret of certain success if you just skim over the chapters, and skip whatever requires you to think hard in order to comprehend it all. But if you dig into the meaning of each sentence for the full idea, you will enrich yourself with constantly increasing power and skill in selling. So you ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... depth is here that we do not know and never can know. The most fragmentary and inadequate grasp of them with heart and mind will bring light to the mind and quietness and peace to the heart; but the whole meaning of them goes beyond men and angels. We can only skim the surface and seek to shift back the boundaries of our knowledge a little further, and to embrace within its limits a little more of the broad land into which the words bring us. So just take a thought or two which may tend in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... interest which had wound about him, that often he rejoiced that for once he was engaged in something that absorbed him fully, and the zeal for the development of which made him careless for the result in respect to its good or evil, but only desirous that it show itself. As for Alice, she seemed to skim lightly through all these matters, whether as a spirit of good or ill he could not satisfactorily judge. He could not think her wicked; yet her actions seemed unaccountable on the plea that she was otherwise. ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... over this new development and trying to discover where it might lead. Under sharp commands the crew brought the schooner about on the starboard tack, for the wind was on the bow, and set a staysail between the fore and main masts. The splendid ship seemed to skim over the surface of the sea, touching only the tops ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... dozen men are watching the fords of the Lodden, and a bullet in your back would probably be the first intimation of the presence of a party of skulkers. No, sirs, unless you can skim over the surface of this bog, and then scale Mount Tarrengower, your only place of safety is on this ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... one-half teaspoon peppercorns, a bit of bay leaf, one carrot sliced, one turnip sliced, and one-half onion sliced. Add two sprays each of parsley and thyme and one of marjoram. Cover and heat to boiling point. Skim when necessary. Reduce heat and simmer until meat is tender (four or five hours). Remove to serving platter. Strain stock and use for soup or sauces. Serve meat with hot Horseradish Sauce. ...
— Fifty-Two Sunday Dinners - A Book of Recipes • Elizabeth O. Hiller
... of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage and bought a cheap second-hand buggy—said a buggy was just the trick to skim along mushy, slushy early spring roads with, and he had always wanted to try a buggy on those mountain ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... handkerchiefs burst out of the windows; ten thousand female hands waved him forward. Shouts rose from the multitude; little children were crowded back into the gutters; women were jammed together on doorsteps and curbstones. In fact, the skim milk of society was compelled to flow in awful narrow channels, while the creme on creme—excuse French once more—rolled smoothly through the city in carriages, with royalty leading the way, a regiment of trainers leading him, and a band ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... swallows, skim the main, And bear my spirit back again Over the earth, and through the air, A wild ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... not of that sort; you cannot tell when you are to reverse him, only that you will have sometimes to do so. He does use the direct kind; The Rhetorician's Vade mecum and The Parasite are examples; the latter is also an example (unless a translator, who is condemned not to skip or skim, is an unfair judge) of how tiresome it may become. But who shall say how much of irony and how much of genuine feeling there is in the fine description of the philosophic State given in the Hermotimus ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... remark, and when we have said all that sympathy can say for Whitehead and Akenside, the truth remains that the one is vapid, the other empty. The Wartons saw that more liberty of imagination was wanted, and that the Muse was not born to skim the meadows, in short low flights, like a wagtail. They used expressions which reveal their ambition. The poet was to be "bold, without confine," and "imagination's chartered libertine"; like a sort of ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... early boat to the capital. It was sent in large baskets made of rushes, and packed in many layers of cool, fresh leaves; so that it arrived at Buenos Ayres, forty hours after leaving Mount Pleasant, perfectly fresh and good. The skim milk was given to the pigs, who had already increased to ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... conference with LeFroy. The remaining canoemen were outfitted with surprising celerity. And at midnight a big freight canoe, loaded to the gunwale with an assortment of cheap knives and hatchets, bolts of gay-coloured cloth, and cheaper whiskey broke through the ever thickening skim of shore ice, and headed Northward under the personal direction of that master of all whiskey runners, ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... making slow progress because the trail was very poor. The second day after dismissing the three Indians they were enveloped in a blinding snowstorm, and they had to halt and make camp. It was terribly cold, so cold that a hot cup of tea would have a skim of ice over it in a minute after it was poured out. It seemed as if their very ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... skulking Frenchman to come forth from his bights and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the east? a gallant frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a crippled privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to skim the sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their imprudence in an English hold. Stirring times those, which I love to recall, for they were days of gallantry and enthusiasm, and were moreover ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... three pieces there will come a messenger, to bid him to the King, so he will lay my flesh in a cauldron of brass and set it upon a brasier before going to the presence and he will say to thee, 'Keep up the fire under the cauldron till the scum rise; then skim it off and pour it into a phial to cool. Wait till it cool and then drink it, so shall naught of malady or pain be left in all thy body. When the second scum riseth, skim it off and pour it into a phial against my return from the King, that I may drink ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... to Rhoda, in her elegant fashion, "you are a bit of a German sausage, aren't you? Just read over that passage for me. I've been puzzling over it for the whole of the evening," and then would follow some blissful moments, when Rhoda would skim lightly over the difficulty, and feel the eyes of the ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the Elysian dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia, which the musky winds of the zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and sometimes children, have been killed by its bite; but it has not generally been fatal to men. These snakes are fond of cream, and will wind their way into the dairy, and skim the milk-pans, and sometimes visit hen-roosts, and ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... Ohio and the Mississippi, we saw crawling beneath us from west, south and north, an endless succession of railway trains bearing their multitudes on to Washington. With marvellous speed we rushed westward, rising high to skim over the snow-topped peaks of the Rocky Mountains and then the glittering rim of the Pacific was before us. Half way between the American coast and Hawaii we met the fleets coming from China and Japan. Side by side ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... bay of rest The Alpine winds contend no more, But skim, like gulls, its dimpled breast, And sink to ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... his knee, "th' owd parson's lass. A little wench not much higher nor thy waist, an' wi' a bit o' a face loike skim-milk, but steady and full o' ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... shallow, sluggish pond by the roadside, which I used to pass daily in my walk, two nests were in process of construction throughout the month of November. The builders worked only at night, and I could see each day that the work had visibly advanced. When there was a slight skim of ice over the pond, this was broken up about the nests, with trails through it in different directions where the material had been brought. The houses were placed a little to one side of the main channel, and were constructed ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... pots and stewpans, are almost always inaccessible; to know how to look at them with laboriously-acquired indifference and to practise to take no notice of them, saying to yourself that here are objects which are probably sacred, since merely to skim them with the tip of a respectful tongue is enough to let loose the unanimous anger of all ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... steamer stopped by where I was watching the flying fish fizz out of the blue-ink-like water, skim along for some distance, and drop in again, often, I believe, to be snapped up by some bigger fish; and he gave me a poke in the shoulder with one finger, so hard, that ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... headed back for the now far-distant field. It went slowly lower and lower and lower until it seemed barely to skim the minor irregularities in the ground. And low like this, the effect ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... end, with wide shelves up to the ceiling. On these shelves stood many capacious pans and basins of tin and earthenware, filled with milk, and most of them coated with superb yellow cream. Midway was the window, before which Miss Fortune was accustomed to skim her milk, and at the side of it was the mouth of a wooden pipe, or covered trough, which conveyed the refuse milk down to an enormous hogshead standing at the lower kitchen door, whence it was drawn as ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... smooth and sparkling sea, is excessively difficult to navigate; its surf looks no more than champagne foam, but a thousand quicksands and shoals lie beneath: there are breakers ahead for more than half the dainty pleasure-boats that skim their hour upon it; and the foundered lie by millions, forgotten, five fathoms deep below. The only safe ballast upon it is gold dust; and if stress of weather come on you, it will swallow you without remorse. Trevenna had none of this ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... daring to breathe for fear of being heard, and raced off along the road toward the sleeping town with all the speed they could muster. Once they fancied they heard a voice call to them, but this only increased their head-long flight. Their feet seemed fairly to skim over the ground, and when they reached the main street of the town they were breathless, exhausted and frightened ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Parties furious at the great Man's nod, And hating none for nothing, but his God: Foe to the Learn'd, the Virtuous, and the Sage, A Pimp in Youth, an Atheist in old Age: Now plung'd in Bawdry and substantial Lyes, Now dab'ling in ungodly Theories; But so, as Swallows skim the pleasing flood, Grows giddy, but ne'er drinks to do him good: Alike resolv'd to flatter, or to cheat, Nay worship Onions, if they cry, come eat: A foe to Faith, in Revelation blind, And impious much, as ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... skim over bents which the mill-stream washes, Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem; They need no parasols, no goloshes; And good Mrs. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the days and the hours flew along, Like swallows that skim o'er the flood; Like the sound of a beautiful song, That echoes and ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... from burning. When brown, cut the meat in pieces, add this with all the juice it has drawn, to the chicken soup. Set on the back of the stove, and cook slowly all day. Set in a cold place, or on ice over night, and next morning after it is congealed, skim off ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... feet, as if to look who we were, and ask why we had come to disturb their solitary basking in the sun; and a few swallows, which seemed to follow us to the well, or to the shores of the Mediterranean, whence they will now skim their airy way to the more temperate clime of Europe. I think, also, we saw two birds not unlike snipes. But we shall soon get within the region of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... up his mind to its study, and who feels the unspeakable comfort it is capable of affording, will agree with me that no other book, ancient or modern, can in the remotest degree be compared to it. Too many people read it merely as a matter of conscience. They skim over a chapter at a time with very little thought or reflection. Even that way may be better than neglecting it altogether, but surely that is not the way a book with consequences so immeasurably important ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... have pity, Listen to my sad entreaty, Yet for what can Hero pray? Should the gods in pity listen, He, e'en now the false abyss in, Struggles with the tempest's spray. All the birds that skim the wave In hasty flight are hieing home; T the lee of safer haven ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... tinted it; some silvery clouds were floating just over the pale summits, and on the other side of the gulf Nice, lying close to the water, stretched like a white thread between the sea and the mountain. Two great sails, driven by a strong breeze, seemed to skim over the waves. I looked upon ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... referable to muriatic acid being used in curdling the milk instead of rennet. This renders it pungent, and preserves it from mites. Parmesan cheese, so called from Parma in Italy, where it is manufactured, and highly prized, is merely a skim-milk cheese, which owes its rich flavour to the fine herbage of the meadows along the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... Art and the face of Nature herself are treated in the same way. We lift an impalpable scale from the surface of the Pyramids. We slip off from the dome of St. Peter's that other imponderable dome which fitted it so closely that it betrays every scratch on the original. We skim off a thin, dry cuticle from the rapids of Niagara, and lay it on our unmoistened paper without breaking a bubble or losing a speck of foam. We steal a landscape from its lawful owners, and defy the charge of dishonesty. We skin the flints by the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... away was a small, speedy craft, sailing around the submarine. It seemed fairly to skim over the surface of the water, and cast the spray astern like a mist. It had come up unnoticed by ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... as they reminded him that he had started to skim over the river like a swallow, with a scow upon each foot, and then he ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... Mix two tablespoonfuls of potato flour to a smooth paste with a little cold water, then mix it with the broth and stir until thick. Move the pan to the side of the fire and let the sauce boil gently until reduced to two-thirds of its original quantity. Skim it well, pass it through a silk sieve, and ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... times, for now the swain Returning late may pass the woods in vain, And never hope to see the nightly train: In vain the dairy now with mints is dress'd, The dairymaid expects no fairy guest, 20 To skim the bowls, and after pay the feast. She sighs and shakes her empty shoes in vain, No silver penny to reward her pain: For priests, with prayers, and other godly gear, Have made the merry goblins disappear; And where they play'd their merry pranks before, Have sprinkled holy water on ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... gulls beat the air on tireless wings, or skim close to the water, intent upon their ceaseless search for food. Far out the lighthouse stands anchored to the rocks, the waves dashing against it, as if to tear it from its firm foundation. But it defies them all, and sends ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... visits, can be easily explained on their hypothesis, and that no other possible cause suggests itself as yet. The same cause, it may be, has produced the submarine spring of petroleum, off the shore near Point Rouge, where men can at times skim the floating oil off the surface of the sea; the petroleum and asphalt of the Windward Islands and of Cuba, especially the well-known Barbadoes tar; and the petroleum springs of the mainland, described by Humboldt, at Truxillo, in the Gulf of Cumana; and ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... thought which is in him,— Not imaging another's bright or dim, Not mangling with new words what others taught; When whoso speaks, from having either sought Or only found,—will speak, not just to skim A shallow surface with words made and trim, But in that very speech the matter brought: Be not too keen to cry—"So this is all!— A thing I might myself have thought as well, But would not say it, for it was not worth!" ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... one quart of carrots and turnips, half and half, in small balls, and add them, with one dozen button onions, a bouquet of sweet herbs, half a saltspoonful of pepper, and a teaspoonful of salt; simmer for one hour; take up the cutlets with a fork, skim out the vegetables, and remove the bouquet; lay the cutlets in a wreath on a hot dish, place the vegetables in the centre, and strain the gravy over all. Green peas, new turnips, or new potatoes, may replace the first named vegetables. The dish should ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... before a foaming track. He flings a yell of triumph back, And grimly smiles as on he flies To hear their disappointed cries; Yet lest they may too soon pursue, He urges on the flight anew. He plies the paddle with a will, They skim the waves,—but swifter still A vengeful arrow cleaves the air, To sink between his shoulders bare. The shock is cruel, and the blade Falls from his hand; his powers all fade Like thought, and plunging on his face, Deathlike he lies. Now to his place Wenonah springs; with bloodless lip, With ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... sitting here in your coffin, Virginia Dane. Now—they won't take any more help from me, and I like 'em for it; and yet I want them to have more to do with. Will is clerk in the post-office, and his salary would give the three of them skim milk and red herrings, but not much more. I want you to ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... humankind Had alter'd, and in brutal shapes confin'd. Which monsters lest the Trojans' pious host Should bear, or touch upon th' inchanted coast, Propitious Neptune steer'd their course by night With rising gales that sped their happy flight. Supplied with these, they skim the sounding shore, And hear the swelling surges vainly roar. Now, when the rosy morn began to rise, And wav'd her saffron streamer thro' the skies; When Thetis blush'd in purple not her own, And from her face the breathing winds were blown, A sudden silence sate ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... sweeping upward again. Another minute, and I saw a second bird, farther away. I watched the nearer one till it faded from sight, soaring and swooping by turns,—its long, scissors-shaped tail all the while fully spread,—but never coming down, as its habit is said to be, to skim over the surface of the water. There is nothing more beautiful on wings, I believe: a large hawk, with a swallow's grace of form, color, and motion. I saw it once more (four birds) over the St. Mark's River, and counted the sight one of ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... families all building in one kind of tree, or eating the same sort of insects or seeds, each has its own manners and customs. Thus they divide among themselves the realms of the air, the water, the trees, and the ground. Some birds, as the Swallows and Flycatchers, skim through the air to catch winged insects. Others, like the Woodpeckers and Warblers, take the scaly insects from the bark of trees. Others that walk on the ground, like the Robin, the Thrush, Meadowlark, Crow, and Red-winged ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... parsley and half an apple, stir in three teaspoonfuls of curry powder, add a pint and a half of hot stock from bones, or of hot water and a little piece of lean bacon, or a small bacon bone if you have one; let the soup simmer for an hour, skim the fat off, strain the soup, put it back in the saucepan, add to it the juice of half a lemon and a dessertspoonful of flour that has been baked a very light brown and mixed with a piece of butter the size of a pigeon's egg; salt to taste. Serve the soup very hot, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... justifiable, to seize the spirit of the writer. The expatiation was long and the movement slow, because Rousseau was full of his thoughts; they were a deep and glowing part of himself, and did not merely skim swiftly and lightly through his mind. Anybody who takes the trouble may find out the difference between this expression of long mental brooding, and a merely elaborated diction.[65] The length is ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... fighting the world, and with a good footing in the fight, knows the world best. It may be the most selfish, but that is a question leading us into sophistries. Cultivated men and women, who do not skim the cream of life, and are attached to the duties, yet escape the harsher blows, make acute and balanced observers. Moliere is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... became shimmering fountains of light, the moonbeams streaming over both tiers like water, gliding along the huge plates of zinc, and flowing over the edges of the vast superposed basins. Then frosty weather seemed to turn these roofs into rigid ice, like the Norwegian bays over which skaters skim; while the warm June nights lulled them into deep sleep. One December night, on opening his window, he had seen them white with snow, so lustrously white that they lighted up the coppery sky. Unsullied by a single ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... sleeping land, Thy fancy, like a magick wand, Forth caird the Elfin race: And now around the fountain's brim In circling dance they gaily skim; And now upon its surface swim, ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... no chattels prevent; We live not by ploughing—we thrive not by rent; Our herds rove the forest, our flocks swim the floods, And we skim the broad waters, and trip ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... and Charlie stood beside me. I am afraid his chief remembrance of the day is fixed upon Kanambat's tiny boat and outrigger, which he sat in on the beach, and went on voyages, in which the owner waded by his side, and saw him (Kanambat) skim along the waves like a white butterfly. We all dined in hall, after the boys, on roast beef and plum pudding, melons and water melons, and strolled about the place and beach at leisure, till it was ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with these fellows. A quick, sharp bark from a coati, and in an instant every dog was at the height of his speed. A few moments made up for an unfair start, and gave each dog his relative place. Welly, at the head, seemed almost to skim over the bushes; and after him came Fanny, Feliciana, Childers, and the other fleet ones,—the spaniels and terriers; and then behind, followed the heavy corps—bulldogs, etc., for we had every breed. Pursuit ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the froth that the fluid grows thicker You, should skim it (with glee) for it's turning to liquor! While it ferments, please continue to skim: At the end, you may murmur the Bartender's Hymn. This makes a booze that is potent enough— Seal in a hogshead—and hide it ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... salt and pepper, form into round balls the size of a walnut and drop into a stew-pan of boiling, salted water, containing a teaspoon of butter. Do not cover the stew-pan while they are cooking. As soon as the dumplings rise to the top, skim one out and cut in half to see if it is cooked through. They should take from 15 to 20 minutes to cook. Skim out of the boiling water on a platter. Cut each dumpling in half, pour over them bread crumbs browned in a pan containing a little lard and butter, and serve. The onion ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... brine strong enough to float an egg; add two pounds of brown sugar or a quart of molasses, and four ounces of saltpetre; boil and skim clean, and pour cold on your meat. Meat intended for smoking should remain in pickle about four weeks. This pickle can be boiled over, and with a fresh cup of sugar and salt used all summer. Some persons use as ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... refuse hay this morning; but the only reason was that she was crammed full of oats. You have nothing to fear, neighbor; the mare is in perfect trim; and she will skim you over the ground like a bird. I wish you a good journey and a ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... conspicuous, if one walks about after sunset. They are dusky with a white throat and band on the wing. They sail through the air without any effort, wings outspread and beak wide open, and thus glean their harvest of winged insects as they skim along. Oftentimes their sudden swoop will startle ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... From the green sea up to my hidden source About Arcadian forests; and will shew The channels where my coolest waters flow Through mossy rocks; where, 'mid exuberant green, I roam in pleasant darkness, more unseen Than Saturn in his exile; where I brim Round flowery islands, and take thence a skim Of mealy sweets, which myriads of bees Buzz from their honied wings: and thou shouldst please Thyself to choose the richest, where we might 1001 Be incense-pillow'd every summer night. Doff all sad ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... communication was carried on by sleighs, a very pleasant mode of travelling when the roads are smooth, but rather fatiguing when they are uneven, as the sleigh then jumps from hill to hill, like an oyster-shell thrown by a boy to skim the surface of the water. To defend myself from the cold, I had put on, over my coat, and under my cloak, a wadded black silk dressing-gown; I thought nothing of it at the time, but I afterwards discovered that I was supposed to be one of the ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... on top of these, and pour enough boiling water to three parts cover it, and simmer slowly two hours; lift mutton into roasting tin with a few tablespoonfuls of the gravy; set in hot oven until brown; strain gravy and skim off fat, melt Crisco in saucepan, add flour, then add gravy gradually, seasoning of salt and pepper, mushrooms, and boil eight minutes. Set mutton on hot platter with mushrooms round, ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... the seat mentioned, and her twin brother began to hoist the mainsail of the Ice Bird. It ran up easily, and caught by the wind the craft began to skim over the surface of the lake like ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... 'I'm afraid skim milk is more like me, and that you would say I had taken to the goody line. I never thought of the responsibility then, only when ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... filled Gladys's water pail in the morning, she hung up her wet bathing suit when Gladys had gone off and left it lying on the tent floor, she paddled her out in the heavy sponson when she was dying to skim over the lake in the sailing canoe, and in short, sacrificed herself at every turn for Gladys. And Gladys in time began to look on her as a sort of serving maid, who would do any unpleasant task she happened ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... his companions a characteristic of the hawk and buzzard tribe, by which these birds can always be distinguished from the true falcon. That peculiarity lay in the manner of seizing their prey. The former skim forward upon it sideways—that is, in a horizontal or diagonal direction, and pick it up in passing; while the true falcons—as the merlin, the peregrine, the gerfalcon, and the great eagle-falcons—shoot down upon their prey perpendicularly like ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the perfectly plain reason. An extensive literature seems to have been devoted to the subject. There are shelves of it up at the museum which I have been trying to go through, or at least to skim over, in connection with this study. If the books were not so dull in style they would be very amusing, just on account of the extraordinary ingenuity the writers display in avoiding the natural and obvious explanation of the facts they discuss. ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... it is the sail of a vessel—of one of those peroquas which skim over these seas; how she rises on the swell! She is full of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... readin', or if he has to, th' book is no fun. Did ye iver have something to do that ye ought to do, but didn't want to, an' while ye was wishin' ye was dead, did ye happen to pick up a newspaper? Ye know what occurred. Ye didn't jus' skim through th' spoortin' intillygince an' th' crime news. Whin ye got through with thim, ye read th' other quarther iv th' pa-aper. Ye read about people ye niver heerd iv, an' happenin's ye didn't undhersthand—th' fashion notes, ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... the wild wood through; The fawn's bounding footsteps skim over the dew. The butterfly flits round the blossoming tree, And the cowslip and bluebell are bent by the bee; All the creatures that dwell in the forest are gay, And why should not I be as merry ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... youth, I traced the path of him, The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind,[422] The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, Came Megara before me, and behind AEgina lay—Piraeus on the right, And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined Along the prow, and saw all these unite In ruin—even as he had seen the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... golden butterflies skim over, And poise, all fondly, on these lifted lips, Leaving the riches of the sweet red clover For the blue gentians' fine and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... bats and goat-suckers dart from their lonely retreat and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different kinds of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow-sounding croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament and mourn ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... here The dinner-bell broke in; and lighter thoughts— Thoughts that but skim the surface of the mind, And stir not its profound—were interchanged As now more timely; for the Percivals Lacked not good appetites, and every meal Had its best stimulant in cheerfulness. "Where shall we go to pass our holidays?" The mother asked: ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... dispersed the mist, and the little valley stood in glittering sheen, as the children turned away to the pond to skim flat stones on the water. As they passed the house the girl pressed the latch once more; but again the door did not open, nor was anything to be seen at the window. And now the children played merrily beside the pond, and the girl seemed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... driver drop the skim-copter to the street when we got to Pennsylvania Avenue within a block of the building, and he skimmed to the outskirts of the crowd that was pressing around the entrance. There were four or five hundred people there, milling ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... insensibly imbibing one of those Horatian particles that were ever floating in that classic atmosphere—to Darrell medicinal, to Fairthorn morbific. "Years slide away, Willy, mutely as birds skim through air; but when friend meets with friend after absence, each sees the print of their crows' feet on the face of the other. But we are not too old yet, Willy, for many a meet at the fireside! Nothing else in our studs, we can still mount our hobbies; and thoroughbred hobbies ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... aliquid ut se vixisse testentur. As apothecaries we make new mixtures everyday, pour out of one vessel into another; and as those old Romans robbed all the cities of the world, to set out their bad-sited Rome, we skim off the cream of other men's wits, pick the choice flowers of their tilled gardens to set out our own sterile plots. Castrant alios ut libros suos per se graciles alieno adipe suffarciant (so [80]Jovius ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... always try to profit by my superiors. She has courage: I have none. I beat about the bush, and talk skim-milk; she uses the very word. She said we have been the dupe and the tool of a little scheming rascal, an anonymous coward, with motives as base as his heart is black—oh! oh! Ay, that is the way to speak of such a man; I can't do it myself, but I reverence ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... Mrs. Skim; and quite agree with you that he knows very little about us and our affairs," answered one of the swallows with a shrill chirp, like a scornful laugh. "We work harder than he does any day. Did he build his own house, I should like to know? Does he get his daily bread ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... bad as yourself," said I. "There is no skim-milk in Francis Burke. But which is it to be? Fight ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Abel Perry turned 'em out of that when the rent got behind. He's the meanest skinflint that ever strained skim milk. He got married ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... away, there was great commotion over the disappearance of Master Archie. Marianne had lingered quite a long time at the back gate. The milkman was a widower, looking out for a wife, and Marianne, as she said, could skim cream with anybody; so it was only natural that they should have a great deal to say to each other, and that measuring the milk at that particular gate should be a slow business. This morning their talk was so interesting that twenty minutes at least went by before Marianne, with very rosy ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... into the sea. It was twilight; the waves rolling in, the wind sweeping by, the crimson clouds fading in the west, and the silver moon brightening above the hill; and on the bridge were you, fluttering in the breeze like a sea-bird that might skim away at your pleasure. You seemed a daughter of the viewless wind, a creature of the ocean foam and the crimson light, whose merry life was spent in dancing on the crests of the billows, that threw up their spray to support your ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to my presence of mind, as a beginning. I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness there ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... clouds drifted across the sky. The two refugees, goaded by the realization that every wasted second cut their desperate hope more and more to a vanishing point, watched the fleecy scraps of mist skim by the moon afar off without veiling its face. Then for a short moment a shred of silver-tipped cloud cut off the radiance. Blanco seized the King's arm in a wordless signal. Karyl and the bull-fighter raced across to the boat that lay at the water's edge. In a moment more it was afloat ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... Ah jest know I heard you call me when Ah started to eat, and tole my son so. Had you been to the do' befo'?" She talked on not waiting for a reply. "Ah sho did enjoy the victuals you sent day befo' yistidy. They send me surplus food frum the gove'nment but Ah don't like what they send. The skim milk gripes me and Ah don't like that yellow meal. A friend brought me some white meal t'other day. And that wheat cereal they send! Ah eats it with water when Ah don't have milk and Ah don't like it but when you don't have nothin' else you got to eat what you have. They send me 75c ever ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... those of Catia or of Tipe, lead from the coast to the high longitudinal valleys, and there is no bed of a great river, no gulf allowing the sea to flow inland, spreading moisture by abundant evaporation. In the eighth and tenth degrees of latitude, in regions where the clouds do not, as it were, skim the surface of the soil, many trees are stripped of their leaves in the months of January and February; not by the sinking of the temperature as in Europe, but because the air at this period, the most distant from the rainy season, nearly attains its maximum of dryness. Only those ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... understand a book, students must seek to frame the questions which it answers. They must also know how to use books to answer their own questions. This means they must know how to turn from part to part, gleaning here or there what they need. It means training in the ability to skim, omitting unessentials and picking out essentials. It means the ability to recognize major points, minor points, and illustrative material. Children must be taught to use the table of contents, the index, and paragraph headings. They must, in their search for fuller information ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... saw them plunge away among the trees, no easy capture for their lawful owners. Meanwhile, I dashed forward whithersoever the horse took me. I remember, even amid my panic, what a delight it was to sit astride of so noble a beast, who seemed to scorn my weight, and skim the earth as lightly as if he carried a child. Had it been my own sorry nag I should long since ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... this was no easy task. Three times they swooped low, to skim along just over the crest of the waves, only to ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... occasionally a travelling mud-turtle visits it. Sometimes, when I pushed off my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great mud-turtle which had secreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent it in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows (Hirundo bicolor) skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus macularius) "teeter" along its stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting on a white pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the wind of a gull, like Fair Haven. At most, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... flood his head he bore, And stoutly steered him from the shore; And Allan strained his anxious eye, Far mid the lake his form to spy, Darkening across each puny wave, To which the moon her silver gave. Fast as the cormorant could skim. The swimmer plied each active limb; Then landing in the moonlight dell, Loud shouted of his weal to tell. The Minstrel heard the far halloo, And joyful from ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Set in one clay, Bough to bough cannot you Bide out your day? When the rains skim and skip, Why mar sweet comradeship, Blighting with poison-drip ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... as his. What cruelty to slaves! And black Frank thinks me cruel, too, when he meets me with a patronizing grin, and shows me the nicest vats of candy, and peels cane for me. Oh! very cruel! And so does Jules, when he wipes the handle of his paddle on his apron, to give "Mamselle" a chance to skim the kettles and learn how to work! Yes! and so do all the rest who meet us with a courtesy and "Howd'y, young Missus!" Last night we girls sat on the wood just in front of the furnace—rather Miriam and Anna did, while I sat in their laps—and with some twenty of all ages crowded around, we sang ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... girls and delighting Dwight. They will follow a steamer much as a fly does a horse, always keeping at just about such a distance, though one would think, in their sky-circling and ocean-dipping, they must lose time occasionally. As these birds of the sea glide down a billow, then skim lightly up again, it would seem they must sometimes be caught in the swirl of foam and borne under, but no! Every time, no matter with what fusilade of spray the wave breaks, Mr. Seagull rises, lightly triumphant, with not so much as a silver ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... moment,—then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation," or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor with their tails in unison and their faces ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... droning o'er the sun-bright seas, And the Minch is all a-dazzle to the Hebrides; They will skim along like salmon—you can see their shoulders gleam, And the flashing of their fingers in ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... of it, Mr. Harley could see nothing, say nothing; his impulse was to be alone and collect himself. He felt as might one who has been staring at the sun. Storri's picture of an enterprise so vast that it proposed to set out the world like a mighty pan of milk, and skim the cream from two hemispheres, dazzled him and caused his wits ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... servants. Your thoughts are the thoughts of cooks curious to skim perquisites from every pan, your quarrels are the quarrels of scullions who fight for the privilege of cleaning the pot with most leavings in it, your committees sit upon the landings of back-stairs, and your quarrels are the quarrels ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... Atlantic and Gulf States, where it is very abundant; it is frequent in the Middle States, and only occasionally seen in New England. The wings are exceedingly long; they fly in close flocks, moving simultaneously. They seem to feed as they skim low over the water, the under-mandible grazing or cutting the surface, and thus taking in their food.—Vide Coues's Key to North American Birds, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... don't think so! I've got an idea. Maudie Heywood's sure to make a most beautiful copperplate copy; we'll borrow hers, and just skim them over to get a kind of general acquaintance with the subject, sufficient to show 'intelligent interest'. Gibbie won't be able to question us with ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... reason for this sudden departure, when we were startled to see a tall, bearded man with a long staff in his hands, skimming down the snow-covered slope of the mountain towards us. One glance showed us that it was our friend, the hermit, though how he could skim over the snow like that without moving his feet was a puzzle to us, until, on approaching to within twenty yards of where we sat, he stuck his staff into the snow and checked his speed, when we perceived that ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... forms, their costly fronts rich with the spoils of kingdoms, and softened with the magic of the midnight beam. The whole city too is poured forth for festival. The people lounge on the quays and cluster on the bridges; the light barks skim along in crowds, just touching the surface of the water, while their bright prows of polished iron gleam in the moonshine, and glitter in the rippling wave. Not a sound that is not graceful: the tinkle of guitars, the sighs of serenaders, and the responsive chorus of gondoliers. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... god. There were other sides, too, to Mr Rackstraw's character, but for the moment let him go as a multi-millionaire City man and Radical politician. Not that it is satisfactory; it is too mild. The Radical politics of other Radical politicians were as skim-milk to the Radical politics of Radical Politician Rackstraw. Where Mr Lloyd George referred to the House of Lords as blithering backwoodsmen and asinine anachronisms, Mr Rackstraw scorned to be so guarded in his speech. He did not mince his words. His attitude towards a member ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... him hunt New York over for the desired shade. Where he found it I never knew, but find it he did, or something approximating to it, a faded, washed-out color, which seemed a cross between wood-ashes and pale skim milk. A sample was sent up for Guy's approval, and then the work commenced again, when order number three came in one of those dainty little billets which used to make Guy's face radiant with happiness. Daisy had changed her mind again and gone back to the blue, which she ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... sewing-machines, who should be abundantly able to "hoe their row" with them anywhere. In short, I was extremely disappointed. I expected to see the high fashion, the very birth and breeding, the cream cheese of the country, and it was skim-milk. If that is birth, one can do quite as well without being born at all. Occasionally you would see a girl with gentle blood in her veins, whether it were butcher-blood or banker-blood, but she only made the prevailing plebsiness more striking. Now I maintain that a woman ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... such a man as Miss Fountain is a woman. He was but a dish of skim-milk, yet he could poison ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... a rule, is the liquid used in cake making. It may be skim milk or whole milk, it may consist of part water and part milk, or it may be entirely water, depending on the kind of cake. When a large number of eggs are used in a cake, very little liquid is employed. Sometimes the liquid consists of molasses and sour milk ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences |
