"Skimming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... left England in the lurch. SIR EDWARD HOWARD, a bold admiral, son of the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself by his bravery against the French in this business; but, unfortunately, he was more brave than wise, for, skimming into the French harbour of Brest with only a few row-boats, he attempted (in revenge for the defeat and death of SIR THOMAS KNYVETT, another bold English admiral) to take some strong French ships, well defended with batteries ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... and cut them into small pieces. Put water or stock into large earthenware pan, and when it boils, add meat and barley. Boil up, skimming frequently, add vegetables, and then simmer for 3 hours. Now stir in one extra carrot grated, salt and pepper, sugar and Crisco. Simmer again for 30 minutes. Add parsley and broth is ready ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... night-wind swimming, With pose and dart and rise, Away went the air fleet skimming Through a ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... by the balloon was three thousand feet, and this was registered about a couple of miles before we struck Highwood. For some distance before completing this descent we had been skimming along at about a thousand feet above the level of the fields, and the intention to drop being evident, a great crowd of rustics gallantly kept pace with the balloon for the last half-mile. By the time we were fairly ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... searchlights began skimming the bridge. If he'd been running, he'd have been shot to a sieve. As it was, they'd never see him in the ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... canoe which the Cayugas had left to them, the little party headed to the east, now skimming close to the silent beach, now cutting a straight path across some bay from point to point, out over the depths where lay the sturgeon and the pickerel and trout and whitefish. The gulls swooped at them; then, frightened, soared away in wide, rushing ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... much,—for with the little chip hat and fluttering ribbons well bent down over the bluish mane, and the streaming gauze of her mantle almost level with the horse's back, she swept down across the long tableland like a skimming blue-jay. A few more bird-like dips up and down the undulations, and then came the long, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; and found, after some observation, that they were feeding on the Libellulae or dragon-flies; some of which they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing. Notwithstanding what Linnaeus says, I cannot ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... following its graceful windings—sometimes touching bottom, and sometimes skimming smoothly over deep water, where Kitty could no longer clutch for the tall, bright grass that here and there had reared itself above the surface. Often Big Tom would sing out, "Lie low!" as some great bough, hanging over the ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... and blends add a little chopped red pepper along with three tablespoonfuls of vinegar and a teaspoonful of mustard. Stir together well, then mix in half an ounce of flour and half a pint of fish stock. Simmer for half an hour, skimming occasionally and, finally add a chopped ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... their Saturday afternoons and Sundays thus, prowling about a city's streets. Fanny Brandeis knew it too, in her heart. She knew that the Ella Monahans of her world spent their holidays in stayless relaxation, manicuring, mending a bit, skimming the Sunday papers, massaging crows'-feet somewhat futilely. She knew that women buyers do not, as a rule, catch their breath with delight at sight of the pock-marked old Field Columbian museum in Jackson ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... golden gleams through the tree branches which chased each other over the grassy spaces, as if they were quite alive and at merry-making. There were sedgy plants in bloom, jack-in-the-pulpit, and what might have been a lily, with a more euphonious name. Iridescent flies were skimming about, now and then a fish made a stir and dazzle. Squirrels ran up and down the trees and chattered, robins were singing joyously, the thrush with her soft, plaintive note. She glanced up now and then and ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... husbands with high aims, and in order that their incomes might be improved these married men were coaxingly urged to seek an engagement as cook—a post which carried with it ten shillings per month more than the able seamen's pay, besides other emoluments, such as the dripping saved by skimming the coppers in which the beef or pork was boiled, and casking it ready for turning into cash wherever the voyage ended. The proceeds, together with any balance of wages, were handed over to the custody of the imperious ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... with the glare of it. Now and again some unseen coyote signals his pack in a long-drawn, dolorous whine that comes from no determinate point, but nothing stirs much before mid-afternoon. It is a sign when there begin to be hawks skimming above the sage that the little people are going about ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... not for swimming in the water, but for their ancient custom." The natives hung their legs over the sides of their boats, and paddled with them like oars, so that "our men, looking at them from a distance and quite unused to the sight, thought they were birds that were skimming so over the water." As for their size, the sailors expected much greater marvels in those parts of the world, where every map and traveller's tale made the sea swarm with monsters ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... the wallowing floor beneath him, and the one wing that bore him skimming over its million deaths, away to the House of Lossie, where it stood steady in its woods, he distinguished the very window whence, hardly an hour ago, from the centre of the calm companionship of books, he had gazed out upon the wind swept ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... enough for me. I'm going to send for samples of another kind, and if I can't get what I want I'll make my own powder. But come on now, this stuff gives me a headache. Let's take a little flight in the Humming Bird. We'll go see Mr. Damon," and soon the two lads were in the speedy little monoplane, skimming along like the birds. The fresh air soon blew away their headaches, caused by the fumes from the nitro-glycerine, which was the basis of the powder. Dynamite will often produce a headache in ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... disciplined! Lest the steaming soup boil over, Swift he stirred it round and round, Skimming off the ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... wide long lake below,[g] And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;[29] I heard the torrents leap and gush O'er channelled rock and broken bush; I saw the white-walled distant town,[30] And whiter sails go skimming down; 340 And then there was a little isle,[31] Which in my very face did smile, The only one in view; A small green isle, it seemed no more,[32] Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, But in it there were three ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... bird that spends hours together on the wing, dashing through the air at great speed, frequently changing its course, now flying high, now just skimming the ground, must be either a swallow or a swift. Many people are totally at a loss to distinguish between a swallow and a swift. The two birds differ anatomically. A swift is not a passerine bird. It cannot perch. When it wants to take a rest it has to repair to its nest. Swallows, on ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... he was skimming along the streets, he happened to see a great number of these very Birds, imprisoned in a cage, on the shoulders of a bird-catcher. "Unhappy wretches!" said he, "you now feel the punishment of your former neglect. But ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... railroads, Skimming on the seas, Bounding on the mountain-tops, Battling with the breeze. Roaming through the forest, Scampering on the plain, Never stopping, always going, Round and ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... but in thousands and tens of thousands. The air was thick with them, and their numbers increased from minute to minute. Part drifted above, in clouds, twisting round like soot in a smoke-wreath. Thousands kept sweeping just over the tops of the willows, skimming so thickly that the sky-line was almost blotted out for the height of from three to four feet. The quarter from which these armies of swallows came was at first undiscoverable. They might have been hatched, like gnats, from ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... the change. The ice grew thinner, the air warmer, the trees taller. Birds, such as he had never seen before, sang in the bushes, and fowl of many kinds were pluming themselves in the warm sun on the shores of the lake. The gay woodpecker was tapping the hollow beech, the swallow and the martin were skimming along the level of the green vales. He heard no more the cracking of branches beneath the weight of icicles and snow, he saw no more the spirits of departed men dancing wild dances on the skirts of the northern clouds, and the farther he travelled the milder grew the skies, the ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... that the watchful fisherman inserts beneath them the moment they rise to the surface with a fish; captive and captor are then lifted aboard the raft, the cormorant robbed of his prey and hustled quickly off again to business. The sight of these nimble craft, skimming along with scarcely an effort, almost fills me with a resolve to obtain one of them myself and abandon Tung Po and his dreary lack of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... behind. These naturally retain a large amount of macerating liquor. To save this they are packed into strong canvas bags and subjected to pressure between the plates of a powerful hydraulic press. The fat squeezed out is accompanied by the moisture of the flowers, from which it is separated by skimming. Being returned to the original vat, our macerating medium receives another complement of flowers to rob of their scent, and yet others, until the strength of the pomade desired is reached. The fat is then remelted, decanted, and poured into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... with Atalanta, Hippomenes went. Her flying hair touched his breast, and it seemed to him that they were skimming the sandy course as if they were swallows. But then Atalanta began to draw away from him. He saw her ahead of him, and then he began to hear the words of cheer that came from the throng "Bend to the race, Hippomenes! Go on, go on! Use your strength to the utmost." He bent himself to the race, ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... time in getting into the boat, for already there was a distant peal of thunder. It was miles and miles away, but Bet didn't intend to take chances. Her hand worked in a steady rhythm that sent the boat ahead like a flat stone skimming the water. ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... crossed by Nebuchadnezzar's great Nahrwan Canal. This was now, in effect, a deep nulla, and had silted in, so that its bottom was above the Adhaim bank. Its cliffs were tenanted with blue rock-pigeon, with hedgehogs and porcupines. Shoals of mackerel-like fish used to swim up the Tigris, with fins skimming the surface. Erskine showed me how to shoot these; as, in later days, when we were in the Palestine line at Arsuf, I have seen Diggins stunning fish with rifle-shots in the ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... milk for the accommodation of those who send all theirs to the city. Our notions of the way to make butter were decidedly overturned on going to such a dairy. No setting of the milk in shallow pans for cream to rise; no skimming and putting away in jars until "churning day," when the thick cream was agitated by a strong arm until the butter came, then worked and salted. Instead, there is a daily pouring of the unskimmed soured milk into ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... wild and beautiful in a frail way. She wore a pea green skirt and a waist of filmy, feminine texture. We instantly took to each other. She was always up and off, skimming swallow-like in all directions, now this way, now that, as if seeking for some new flavour in life, some excitement that had not ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... hastily skimming the heap of MSS. before him, comes upon one which promises well in the opening paragraphs, he will turn to its conclusion, to learn how well the author has kept his promise; and if he finds there equal evidence of a good ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... He has unpreoccupied and alert eyes. Strangely enough, by the way, this watchfulness is for once as much at fault as would be the slovenly observation of an ordinary man, in the description of a horse's gallop, 'skimming along within a yard of the ground.' Who shall trust a man's nimble eyes after this, when habit and credulity have taught him? Not an inch nearer the ground goes the horse of fact at a gallop than at a walk. But Dr. Holmes's vigilance ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... a beautiful flat one skimming along with nearly a dozen hops in the brilliant track of the moon on the water. She did not pay any attention to me at first, and I kept skipping away, just as if I did not see her mopping her eyes. By-and-by a stroke worthy of myself sent a pebble spinning through the ripples, and ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... mushrooms sliced sauted in butter and mixed with the following sauce: Cook three tablespoonfuls salt pork fat with three of flour, add salt, cayenne, nutmeg and parsley; also thyme and mushroom parings. Cook a moment, add one and one-half cups white stock, and simmer one hour, skimming often. Strain, add about one-half cup hot cream or enough to make sauce right consistency. Add four drops lemon juice. Cover with more chicken, sprinkle with buttered ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... method by which the snowy band is formed rejects the idea of a different material. We see the two caudal appendices of the Mantis sweeping the surface of the foamy mass, and skimming, so to speak, the cream of the cream, gathering it together, and retaining it along the hump of the nest in such a way as to form a band like a ribbon of icing. What remains after this scouring process, or what oozes from the band before it has set, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... as the list of URLs in a public library's Internet use logs, to determine whether any of those URLs would be blocked by a particular software filter as falling within a particular category. Alternatively, library staff can review the Internet use logs by hand, skimming the list of URLs for those that are likely to correspond to Web pages containing obscenity or child pornography, as is the practice of Tacoma's David Biek, who testified as a government witness. Under either method, public libraries can assure patrons ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... which her words Produced, the night-hawk's startling cry Succeeded, and, round and round, above Her head a milk-white falcon soared, Now sailing high, now skimming low, As if some mystic orison In ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... Vanilla Extract; Testing Olive Oil for Cotton Seed Oil; Testing for Coal Tar Dyes; Determining the Per Cent of Skin in Beans; Extraction of Fat from Peanuts; Microscopic Examination of Milk; Formaldehyde in Cream or Milk; Gelatine in Cream or Milk; Testing for Oleomargarine; Testing for Watering or Skimming of Milk; Boric Acid in Meat; Microscopic Examination of Cereal Starch Grains; Identification of Commercial Cereals; Granulation and Color of Flour; Capacity of Flour to absorb Water; Acidity of Flour; Moist and ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... good English, and very close to the Latin, too," I told him, "particularly in the last line." And I picked up from the bridge which we were crossing, an oyster-shell, and sent it skimming over the smooth water that stretched between the low ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... him for the Royal medal. I most entirely agree that the Copley (44/1. The late Professor Lindley never attained the honour of the Copley medal. The Royal medal was awarded to him in 1857.) is more appropriate, and I daresay he would not have valued the Royal. From skimming through many botanical books, and from often consulting the "Vegetable Kingdom," I had (ignorant as I am) formed the highest opinion of his claims as a botanist. If Sharpey will stick up strong for him, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... craves the licentious pictures that come from the pen of such writers as Ainsworth or George Sand, its longings should be resisted as steadfastly as those which incline us to the gaming table or other scenes of licentious indulgence. On the other hand, the danger to the Understanding from skimming novels is far too much overlooked. It is not recreation, but dissipation, not a renewal, but a destruction, of the powers to read in this way. If you would be benefited by what you read, learn to read critically. Look at the characters, and see if they be natural and well drawn; ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... morn appear'd, Back to the camp they took their homeward way A fav'ring breeze the Far-destroyer sent: They stepp'd the mast, and spread the snowy sail: Full in the midst the bellying sail receiv'd The gallant breeze; and round the vessel's prow The dark waves loudly roar'd, as on she rush'd Skimming the seas, and cut her wat'ry way. Arriv'd where lay the wide-spread host of Greece, Their dark-ribb'd vessel on the beach they drew High on the sand, and strongly shor'd her up; Then through the camp they took ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... along some pleasant walks, or reposing in the shade of the stately trees; others again intent upon their different amusements. Nothing should be heard on all sides, but the sharp stroke of the bat as it sent the ball skimming along the ground, the clear ring of the quoit, as it struck upon the iron peg: the noisy murmur of many voices, and the loud shout of mirth and delight, which would awaken the echoes far and wide, till the fields ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... a sort of release in ease of any accident. Jardin buttoned himself into an elaborate and most expensive leather coat, carefully, adjusted his goggles, stepped into a plane beside the usual pilot who winked slyly at Lee, and proceeded, to send his big bug skimming here and there across the field under the wobbly and uncertain guidance of Horace. They did not leave the ground, but Frank soon soared upward on a short flight that filled Bill with joy and envy all at the same time. He felt ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... fortunate man in Europe. My old castle-building propensities came back upon me in an instant, and I pictured myself, with Lady Jane as my companion, wandering among the beautiful scenery of the Neckar, beneath the lofty ruins of Heidelberg, or skimming the placid surface of the Rhine, while, "mellowed by distance," came the rich chorus of a student's melody, filling the air with its flood of song. How delightful, I thought, to be reading the lyrics of Uhland, or Buerger, with one so capable of appreciating them, with all the hallowed associations ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... to have very little that is stirring about it. But my belief is that it can be the most lively, sensitive, fruitful, and enjoyable programme in the world, because the enjoyment of it depends upon the very stuff of life itself, and not upon skimming the cream off and throwing ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... seek to turn him aside from such company, whether of books or of men, as might tend to lower his reverence, his choice, or his standard. He will, therefore, discourage indiscriminate reading, and that worse than waste which consists in skimming the books of a circulating library. He knows that if a book is worth reading at all, it is worth reading well; and that, if it is not worth reading, it is only to the most accomplished reader that it can be worth skimming. He will seek to make him discern, not merely between the good and the ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... guide her—there was nothing. As far as she could see, it was all the same—tall white cliffs, yellow sand, and tossing waves. The only living creature besides herself was a beautiful grey and white bird with long wings which flew skimming about over the water, and sometimes dipped down into it. As Susan watched it, she remembered where she had seen birds of that kind before, and who had told her that they were called sea-gulls; the steamboat, and Monsieur La Roche's kind voice came back ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... Ford was out on the terrace, following the white dress and the waving scarf which were already disappearing down the yew-tree walk. The girl's flight over grass and gravel was like nothing so much as that of a bird skimming through the air. Ford's own steps crunched loudly on the stillness of the night, so that if any one lay in ambush he knew he could not escape. He was prepared to hear shots come ringing from any quarter, but he ran on with the indifference of a soldier grown used to battle, intent on keeping ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... over his work in school was skimming over his work as a man. The boy who went to the bottom of things in school was going to the bottom of things in manhood. Which had helped him to go ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... more mutton cutlets. 2 eggs, white bread-crumbs. 3oz. Parmesan cheese, grated. A little boiled macaroni. pint brown sauce. Some mashed potatoes. 2oz. clarified butter, or the fat skimming of ...
— The Skilful Cook - A Practical Manual of Modern Experience • Mary Harrison
... of such disasters, one of which I witnessed, consoled me somewhat when I saw Phil Adams skimming over the water in a spanking breeze with every stitch of canvas set. There were few better yachtsmen than Phil Adams. He usually went sailing alone, for both Fred Langdon and Binny Wallace were under the same ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... that though he has provoked all his Brothers of the Quill round, none of them will enter into a controversy with him. This fellow, who had excellent natural parts, but wanted a small foundation of learning, is a lively instance of those Wits who, as an ingenious author says, "will endure but one skimming"[!]. ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... then a big fish would leap out of the River, it felt so gay, and in the little harbours under the banks of the Canal the scuttle-bugs went skimming, skimming, like swift little tugboats at play. In the fields on the other side of the road a meadowlark sang; swallows twittered overhead; and in the grass at his feet the dandelions glowed like the round gold shields of a million soldiers. Yes, altogether it ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... it is, Mauser." The former marshal allowed himself a grimace. "Besides, I owe you something for that spectacular scene when you came skimming over the treetops, the two enemy gliders right behind you, then stalling your craft and crashing into that tree not thirty feet from my open air headquarters. Admittedly, in forty years of fracases, I've never seen anything so ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... rage or a sluggish placidity. He had a ragged beard of a reddish hue, and hair a shade lighter. He wore blue jeans trousers and an unbleached cotton shirt, and the whole system depended on one suspender. He was engaged in skimming a great kettle of boiling sorghum with a perforated gourd, which caught the scum and strained the liquor. The process was primitive; instead of the usual sorghum boiler and furnace, the kettle was propped upon stones laid together so as to concentrate the heat of the fire. ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... results of that skimming were, and how far more philosophical his appreciation of Hindu literature had then become, may be seen from the end of the same letter, written ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... and tipped with white, was now pulled out of the boat-house. Irene put in the basket of provisions, and a moment later she and Rosamund were skimming across the smooth bosom of the lake. It was quite a big lake, being a quarter of a mile across and half a mile long, and in the centre was a rapid current which was considered, and really was in times of ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... without having finished it. The next he worked at hardest, and finished, but with less deliberation. He grew more and more careless toward the books he counted of little consequence, while he imagined himself growing more and more capable of getting at the heart of a book by skimming its pages. If to skim be ever a true faculty, it must come of long experience in the art of reading, and is not possible to a beginner. To skim and judge, is to wake from a doze and give ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... and industrious ants covering the small turf-hills, all which were to us "signs of life," and living in the world. We had already seen, before entering the fair plain, a small flight of larks, and now we feasted our eyes on a few swallows skimming this "flowery mead," for here and there were pretty blue and red and yellow wild flowers. A moment I forgot being in The Desert. The abundance of the herbage arises from there having recently fallen copious showers of rain—quite unusual in this thirsty ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... head. She remembered the car flying up the ascents, swooping down long slopes and skimming like a bird across the levels, that morning ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... Arkwrights can work through noise and in company, having considerable powers of mental abstraction. I think they even sometimes combine attention to their own work with an occasional skimming of the topics current in the room ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... accidents. He could find a river easily enough, to say nothing of other methods of effecting his purpose; but he had committed himself as to the impropriety of selecting a lake, so they need not be anxious about the white canoe and its occupant, as they watched it skimming the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Fritz push the machine out into the open, and watched intently while he tested the steering gear and tried the ignition. After some further tinkering, Fritz finally took his seat, pulled a lever, and, after skimming the ground for a few rods, the machine ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... hung the graceful lianas, like floating draperies, forming magnificent canopies of verdure on the face of the rocks. The sea-birds, allured by the stillness of these retreats, resorted here to pass the night. At the hour of sunset we could perceive the curlew and the stint skimming along the seashore; the frigate-bird poised high in air; and the white bird of the tropic, which abandons, with the star of day, the solitudes of the Indian ocean. Virginia took pleasure in resting herself upon the border of this fountain, decorated with wild and sublime magnificence. She ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... much time to be merry who marry a struggling man, Making and mending and saving and spending, and doing the best we can. Skimming and scamming and plotting and planning, and making the done for do, Grinding the mill with the old grist still and turning the old into new; Picking and paring and shaving and sharing, and when not enough for us ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... soon ceased. Our line restored, the enemy made no further effort to take it. The rest of the time, till dark, was taken up with sharp-shooting, and artillery fire. A farmhouse and outbuildings and barn stood right behind our position, and, I remember, the barn swallows in large numbers were skimming and twittering all around, through the sweet, bright air, while shells and balls were singing a very different sort of song. I never saw that sight during the war but this once,—birds flying about in the midst of a battle. But here, those ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... newspapers. The great man comes very near to solving the problem heretofore considered insoluble, of being in two places at once. Two, did we say? Absurd! Three, four, five, half a dozen! What a man! Jumping here! Leaping there! Skipping North! Vaulting South! Skimming (like a CAMILLA in pantaloons) over the plains of the West! Then, as if by magic, whirling himself to the East! A man, did we say? Bah! GEORGE FRANCIS is clearly one ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... a candidate for orders, had studied a little of everything. Skimming all things leaves naught for result. One may be victim of the omnis res scibilis. Having the vessel of the Danaides in one's head is the misfortune of a whole race of learned men, who may be termed the sterile. What Barkilphedro ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... enter the Witch is not at home. In the midst of the kitchen is a large cauldron, and at its side, skimming it and seeing that it does not run over is a Meerkatze—a kind of female ape. The Meerkater, or male ape, squats by the fire, warming himself, and near by are several young apes. Mephistopheles is enraptured at the sight of the 'tender ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... remove tripe from water, and when cold cut into pieces about 3/4 of an inch square. The day following get a knuckle of veal, wash and cover with cold water—about three quarts—bring slowly to the simmering point, skimming off the scum which arises, simmer for three hours. Remove the meat from the bones, cut into small pieces, strain broth and return it to the kettle. Add a bay leaf, one large onion, chopped, simmer one hour; then add four medium-sized potatoes, cut like dice, and ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... After skimming the pot that the bacon has been boiled in, put in cabbage sprouts, and let them boil till the stalks are tender; all greens are best boiled in a net. Spinach cooks in a few minutes; some persons prefer it when boiled in salt and water; you should have drawn butter ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... and brilliant in the extreme, that of their backs is usually the colour of the general tone of the region they inhabit. In woods, where the bark of trees is chiefly bright yellow and green, their backs are of these colours. In the plains they are a mixture of green and brown, so that when skimming over a country they are not easily distinguished, but if they chance to come unexpectedly on travellers, they sheer off with a shriek, and expose their ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... garb than that of my guide, but of similar fashion, was standing motionless near the threshold. My guide touched it twice with his staff, and it put itself into a rapid and gliding movement, skimming noiselessly over the floor. Gazing on it, I then saw that it was no living form, but a mechanical automaton. It might be two minutes after it vanished through a doorless opening, half screened by curtains at the other end of the hall, when through ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... For skimming in the wake it mock'd the care Of the old Boat-God for his farthing fare; Tho' Irus' Ghost itself he ne'er frown'd blacker on The skin and skin-pent Druggist cross'd the Acheron, Styx, and with Periphlegeton Cocytus,— (The very names, methinks, might frighten us) Unchang'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Mr. Burton, skimming some dust from the last explosion out of his coffee cup. "Amusing is the word. Funny, I call it. Funny as a crutch. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to have received the drainings of the hills, and on which a little rain-water still remained, we dug a tolerably good well, and in a few hours were rewarded by obtaining near a quart of thick muddy water per man, which by boiling, skimming, and straining, was rendered palatable to persons who must otherwise have gone without their dinner or breakfast the next morning, it being impossible to eat either our bread or pork without something to quench ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... you are the animable hopjack of my contemplayshins, your aydear is infernally skimming before my keymerycal fansee, when Murfy sends his puppies to the heys of slipping mortals; and when Febus shines from his merry dying throne; whereupon I shall canseif old time has lost his pinners, as also cubit his harrows, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... off to the farm-house, and fell to singing one of her most enticing songs just under the dairy window. Sally was so struck with the pretty tune, which was unhappily used, as is too often the case, to set off some very loose words, that she jumped up, dropped the skimming dish into the cream, and ran ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... strange to see that merry bark Skimming the silver ocean, like a shark At play amid the beautiful sea-green, And all so ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... mother, with high approval. It's quite silly and horrid fun, and what I want is the BEST book about the Buccaneers that can be had - the latter B's above all, Blackbeard and sich, and get Nutt or Bain to send it skimming by the fastest post. And now I know you'll write to me, for ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the room like a hound on the scent, skimming the walls, considering the corners of the bulging matting on his hands and knees, rummaging mantel and tables, the curtains and hangings, the drunken cabinet in the corner, for a visible sign, unable to perceive that she was there beside, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... and round his body, like, as I have been told, them there Arabs wear,—and, indeed, I've seen them in them myself at West Brompton, when they was in the exhibition there. It was quite fine, and broad day, and I see him as plainly as I see you, —he comes skimming along at a tear of a pace, pulls up at the house over the way, opens the front door, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... simply a mixture of butter-fat and milk. The butter-fat floats in the milk in little globe-shaped bodies, or globules. Since these globules are lighter than milk, they rise to the surface. Skimming the milk is a mere gathering together of these butter-fat globules. As most of the butter-fat is contained in the cream, pains should be taken to get all the cream from ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... expense and delay of a chase. The Sumter was now terribly in need of an excitement. Not a living thing was in sight, but the glittering schools of flying fish which ever and anon darted into view, and skimming rapidly over their surface sank again beneath the waves, only to be once more driven for a brief refuge to the upper air by their unseen but relentless enemies below. Drill and exercise were now the order of the day during the hours of light, ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... upholsterer, so that insular ideas of comfort might be fulfilled within. Without, the combination of mountain and sea, the vine-clad terraces, the chestnut slopes, the magical colours of the barer rocks, the coast-line trending far away, the azure Mediterranean, with the white-sailed feluccas skimming across it, filled Kalliope with the more transport because it satisfied the eyes that had unconsciously missed such colouring scenes ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... or gushing as that. It is our little friend the Lark. Oh! how merry he is! more so than either of the other two. And what is he about? He seems to be floating and soaring, sauntering and curtseying, skimming and dipping, rollicking and frolicking—now up, now down—now describing gyrations, now imitating a pendulum—now trying to be so steady with his fluttering wings, that he looks like a star twinkling in the day-time—in short, playing all sorts of droll antics, ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... excitement the other words which his godmother had told him to use had slipped his memory, and the cloak only went faster and faster, skimming on through the dusky, ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... dusk when the fruitless search for the map was over, and they sat in the cabin discussing matters. The lights had not yet been switched on, and the RED CLOUD was skimming along under the influence of the automatic rudders ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... almost within gun-shot of that infernal Yankee skimming-dish, just as night came on. By daylight she had outsailed the Dublin so devilish fast that she was no more than a speck on the horizon. By the way, I wonder if you happen to know the name of the beggar that was master ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... banging with might and main, and raised such a terrible clatter that the birds made what haste they could to get away; and though they had shot half the feathers out of their wings, they were soon seen skimming among the clouds, a long distance off and looking like a flock of wild geese. Orpheus celebrated this victory by playing a triumphant anthem on his harp, and sang so melodiously that Jason begged him ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... float along; Sunward they're steering; On toward the isles of light Winging their way, That on the waters bright Dancingly play. Hark to the choral strain, Joyfully ringing! While on the grassy plain Dancers are springing; Climbing the steep hill's side, Skimming the glassy tide, Wander they there; Others on pinions wide Wing the blue air; All lifeward tending, upward still wending, Toward yonder stars that gleam, Far, far above; Stars from whose tender beam ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... two bottles apiece. The drive home, through the cool air beneath the bright stars, amid the twinkling lights, and the cries and 'chatterification' of birds going to bed, as well as the flutter of flying-foxes skimming overhead as they hurried forth on their nocturnal predatory expeditions, was really the pleasantest part ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the greater celandine, meaning a swallow, was given it because it begins to bloom when the first returning swallows are seen skimming over the water and freshly ploughed fields in a perfect ecstasy of flight, and continues in flower among its erect seed capsules until the first cool days of autumn kill the gnats and small winged insects not ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... door that had been designated by the advertisement as No. — Prince Street; and the fiery heat that had been pouring down during all the earlier part of the day was somewhat moderated by heavy clouds rising in the West and skimming half the upper sky, indicating a thunder-storm rapidly approaching. Perhaps Tom Leslie thought, as he approached the door sacred to the sublime mysteries of humbug, of the appropriateness of thunder in the heavens and lightning playing down on the beaten earth—provided ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... round the island, pushing through the reeds of the little bay and just skimming the rocks at the western extremity. But his arms ached so, that he had to pause a moment to rest. As he did so, he heard a loud whistle, and the steamer, Inverness, came round a far point and turned her long bowsprit towards the town, lying ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... bluff, lay a long, slender boat, shaped like a canoe, but much larger, stouter, stronger, and far swifter, when the wind filled its sails and carried it like a bird skimming over the waters. ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... sufficient to complete the sale of the sloop to three enthusiastic boys. And the boat had made good her reputation and served her purpose well. During the two months that the boys had owned her, there had been few days when she had not been in commission, either cruising for blue fish, or skimming along the shores of the island in a pleasant, summer way, lazily passing the days away for the youngsters, who lolled contentedly ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... I took myself to sea, While the little chiming bee Sung his ballad on the lea, Humming sweet; And the red-winged butterfly Was sailing through the sky, Skimming up and bouncing ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... she reentered the hotel, her cheeks glowing. Jock was not yet down. So she ordered and ate her wise and cautious breakfast of fruit and cereal and toast and coffee, skimming over her morning paper as she ate. At 7:30 she was back in the lobby, newspaper in hand. The Bisons were already astir. She seated herself in a deep chair in a quiet corner, her eyes glancing up over the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... any one of the Old Thirteen. Now, Mark Woolston had seen enough of the fruits of a concentrated physical force, in Europe, to comprehend their value; and he early set his face against the purely skimming process. He was resolved that the settlements should not extend faster than was necessary, and that as much of civilization should go with them as was attainable. In consequence of this policy, the country ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper |
