"Modicum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in question; not in character only, for we often disapprove of a character whose attraction we are powerless to resist; not in intellect alone, for men more rational fail of stirring us as these unconsciously do. In what, then? In life itself; not that modicum of it, indeed, which suffices simply to keep the machine moving, but in the life principle, the power which causes psychical change; which makes the individual something distinct from all other individuals, a being capable of proving sufficient, if need be, unto himself; which shows itself, ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... that even men yielded to his fascination until they plumbed him; had in fact many of the fleeting kindly instincts to which every mortal is subject who is made of flesh and blood, or comes of a stock that has been bred to certain ideals. Every wretch has a modicum of good in him, and in spite of the preponderance of evil in Burr, had he been born under kindly Southern skies with a gold spoon in his mouth, if, when ambitions developed, he had had but to stretch out his hand to pluck the prizes of life, instead of ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... rush in and raise the devil where there's no necessity for anything to happen if just a modicum of common sense ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... German from frequenting the wharves? How many "wharf rats" or stevedores in New York learn anything of these languages from similar intercourse? Or, for that matter, we may ask, How many New York pilots have acquired even the smallest modicum of French from boarding the steamers of the ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... came to Westray's ears, and stirred in him the modicum of chivalry which leavens the lump of most men's being. He was still smarting under his repulse, but he would have felt himself disgraced if he had allowed the scandal to pass unchallenged, and he rebutted it with such ardour that people shrugged their shoulders, and hinted that there ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... evenings when he had been torn from his reading and sent sternly to bed because he must get up so early. Always work had stolen from him these treasures—dreams, recreation and knowledge. He had been obliged to fight the farm and his father for even a modicum of them—the things that made life worth living. And the irony of it—that eventually it would be this farm and Martin's driving methods which, if he became reconciled to his father, would make it possible for him to drink ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... of The Company a year or two ago in unmistakable round-hand declared that one Running Rabbit, lawful widow of Blueskin, was entitled to draw from the coffers clear-side bacon and a modicum of flour. But one quarterly paysheet, returned to Winnipeg from Fort Churchill, showed that Running Rabbit in addition to her food allowance had been handed out forty cents' worth of cotton. Stern enquiry, backed by red-tape and The Company's seal as big as a ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... provisions for the trip were cooked: the last of the flour was made into large loaves of bread; a ham and several dozen eggs were boiled; the few chickens that have survived the overflow were fried; the last of the coffee was parched and ground; and the modicum of the tea was well corked up. Our friends across the lake added a jar of butter and two of preserves. H. rode off to X. after dinner to conclude some business there, and I sat down before a table to tie bundles of things to be left. The sunset glowed and faded, and the quiet ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... to my story: it's a sort of shilling-shock tale, With no end of fire and fury, and a modicum of blood, And a Colonel who mixed metaphors as Yankees mix a cocktail, And a quiverful of arrows, shameful arrows, ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... little. Dysart noticed it in her nervous laughter; in a slight exaggeration of gesture with fan and flowers; in the quick movement of her restless little head, as though it were incumbent upon her to give to every man confronting her his own particular modicum of attention—which was not like a debutante, either; and Dysart realised ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... arguing with his good friend the doctor, that the socialist argument boiled down amounts to about this—that one should do without boiled eggs for breakfast now, in order that the proletariat may have baked hen for dinner in the millennium; which is lunacy; anybody with a modicum of brains— ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... can in worldly effects. They almost repent of the bargain—it was too cheap—think of the price paid for the bride's mother—the expenses incurred during a long illness of the bride in her infancy—and compare the modicum demanded for her marriage; it is outrageous! no, the marriage can not go on, the girl is not in good health, and the ordeal might increase her ailment. Every sort of trick is resorted to in order that the other side may ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... he wears out his time for provender, and can show a stump rod, togam tritam et laceram saith [2006]Haedus, an old torn gown, an ensign of his infelicity, he hath his labour for his pain, a modicum to keep him till he be decrepit, and that is all. Grammaticus non est felix, &c. If he be a trencher chaplain in a gentleman's house, as it befell [2007] Euphormio, after some seven years' service, he ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... be ascribed in part to the suspended matter, which is never absent, even in the purest natural water; and in part to the slight reflection of the light from the limiting surfaces of strata of different densities. A modicum of light is thus thrown back to the eye, before the depth necessary to absolute extinction has been attained. An effect precisely similar occurs under the moraines of glaciers. The ice here is exceptionally compact, and, owing to the absence of the internal scattering common in bubbled ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... cried, and then all seemed to be one buzz of confusion, till I reached General Crude's study, and found him walking up and down the room. He had left his table with his gold snuff-box in one hand, his pinched-together finger and thumb of the other holding a tiny modicum of snuff, which he applied to his nose as I entered, and he stopped short ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... Losely, warming himself at the hearth, scarcely noticed these humble revellers by a glance. And they, after a displeased stare at the stalwart frame which obscured the cheering glow they had hitherto monopolised, resumed a muttered conversation; of which, as well as of the vile modicum that refreshed their lips, the man took the lion's share. Shabbily forlorn were that man's habiliments—turned and re-turned, patched, darned, weather-stained, grease-stained—but still retaining that kind of mouldy, grandiose, bastard gentility, which implies that the wearer has known better ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... weary little sigh she set about thinking what she could do to kill the next two hours before Moritz and Jeno and those other kind lads came to take her father away. With the door shut the room was very dark: only a small modicum of light penetrated through the solitary, tiny window. Elsa drew a chair close beside it and brought out her mending basket and work-box. But before settling down she went back into the sleeping-room to see that the ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... some effort and work and capacity for administration, or even rudimentary economic life cannot be carried on. And the Turkish system, founded on the sword and nothing else ("the finest soldier in Europe"), cannot give that small modicum, of energy or administrative capacity. The one thing he knows is brute force; but it is not by the strength of his muscles that an engineer runs a machine, but by knowing how. The Turk cannot build a road, or make a bridge, or administer a post office, or found a court of law. ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... have seemed to its authors a triumph of diplomacy. They had secured peace with but an inconsiderable loss of honour; they had saved Rome from a long, difficult and costly war, whilst a modicum of punishment might with some ingenuity be held to have been inflicted on Jugurtha. They must have been astounded by the chorus of execration with which the news of the compact was received at Rome.[944] ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... foreign and fluctuating trade, exposed, as in most cases the latter is, to high fiscal, restrictive, and capricious burdens. These, pro tanto, shut out competition with the protected foreign producer, unless the importer consent to be cut down to such a modicum of price or profit, as shall barely, or not at all, return the simple interest of capital laid out. Such is the position of foreign, in comparison ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... transfer of the business devolving formerly upon the Council into the hands of the specially constituted departments of government, the Council does still, through the agency of its committees, perform a modicum of actual service. Of principal importance among the committees is the Judicial Committee, which hears appeals in ecclesiastical cases and renders final verdict in all appeals coming from tribunals outside the ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... who had arrived overnight, appears in the Bay, with due modicum of seventy-fours, 'dursley galleys,' bomb-vessels, on an errand from his Admiral [one Matthews] and the Britannic Majesty, much to the astonishment of Naples. Commodore Martin hovers about, all morning, and at 4 P.M. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... can not as much as purge its own channels. For what is the ballot box, I ask again, but a modern vehicle of corruption and debasement? The ballot box, believe me, can not add a cubit to your frame, nor can it shed a modicum of light on the deeper problems of life. Of course, it is the exponent of the will of the majority, that is to say, the will of the Party that has more money at its disposal. The majority, and Iblis, and Juhannam—ah, come out with me to ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... syllabus which is to bind all schools and all teachers alike, and which must therefore be so framed that the least capable teacher, working under the least favourable conditions, may hope, when his pupils are examined on it, to achieve with decent industry a decent modicum of success. Under the control of a uniform syllabus, the schools which are now specialising and experimenting, and so giving a lead to the rest, would have to abandon whatever was interesting in their respective curricula, and fall into line with the ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... assemblage broke up, Plutarch's guests were entertained with wine, fruit, syrups, sweet cakes, oyster pasties, and other delicacies. The steward had fallen with good will on the noble drink and excellent food, and when he was replete, he was wont to be in a better humor, and after a modicum of wine, in a more cheerful mood than usual. Just now he was content and kind, for although he had done all that lay in his power, the entertainment had not lasted long enough, for him to arrive at a state of intoxication which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on the steam engine and dynamo principle, is that easy light produced. Very little waste radiation is there from phosphorescent things in general. Light of the kind able to affect the retina is directly emitted; and for this, for even a large supply of this, a modicum ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... Literate.—Education is not compulsory by law in Athens, but the father who fails to give his son at least a modicum of education falls under a public contempt, which involves no slight penalty. Practically all Athenians are at least literate. In Aristophanes's famous comedy, "The Knights," a boorish "sausage-seller" is introduced, who, for the purposes of the play, must be one of ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... the years at Wimblehurst were years of pretty active growth. Most of my leisure and much of my time in the shop I spent in study. I speedily mastered the modicum of Latin necessary for my qualifying examinations, and—a little assisted by the Government Science and Art Department classes that were held in the Grammar School—went on with my mathematics. There were classes in physics, in chemistry, in mathematics ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... need only take a few extras from the home. The debts were to be paid as far as possible now, and the small income was to be divided; part was to go as pin money to Mrs. Polkington, the main part of the remainder to go to the debts, and a very small modicum to come with the Captain to ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... at night with their own hands, and now desired to give the meat to their people. Wives and daughters of millers, whose husbands and brothers were in arms, worked the mills night and day to furnish flour to their soldiers. To the last, women would go distances to carry the modicum of food between themselves and starvation to a suffering Confederate. Should the sons of Virginia ever commit dishonorable acts, grim indeed will be their reception on the further shores of Styx. They can expect no recognition from the ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... policeman. The approval or the disapproval of the police must be eternally indifferent to a man who is both valorous and good. There is extreme discomfort, but no shame, in the condemnation of the law. The law represents that modicum of morality which can be squeezed out of the ruck of mankind; but what is that to me, who aim higher and seek to be my own more stringent judge? I observe with pleasure that no brave man has ever given ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to London, to Convocation; and in London he met with many old friends and new. Then there were frequent outings to Norwich, and the annual visitations and the Charge. On the first day of his first visitation, at Eye, there was the usual luncheon, and the usual very small modicum of wine. Lunch over, the Rev. Richard Cobbold, the author of 'Margaret Catchpole,' proposed my father's health in a fervid oration, which wound up thus: "Gentlemen, I call upon you to drink the health of our new archdeacon,—to drink it, gentlemen, in flowing ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... absolutely remote from the conquered people's interests. Such a government is nothing but a chronic raid, mitigated by the desire to leave the inhabitants prosperous enough to be continually despoiled afresh. Even this modicum of protection, however, can establish a certain moral bond between ruler and subject; an intelligent government and an intelligent ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... can testify that their lot, like their abilities, their stature, is a sort of middling thing. There is about it an equable sobriety, a sort of average endurableness. Some things go well: some things go ill. There is a modicum of disappointment: there is a modicum of success. But so much of disappointment comes to the lot of almost all, that there is no object in nature at which we all look with so much interest as the invariably lucky man—the man whom all this system of things appears to favour. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... New-York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and even now in New-Jersey servants are "bought" as really as in Virginia. And the different senses in which the same word is used in the two states, puts no man in a quandary, whose common sense amounts to a modicum. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the changed economic conditions which now prevail, it can no longer be asserted that the imparting of the mere elements of knowledge is adequate either to secure the future social efficiency of the children of the lower classes of society or that such a modicum of instruction as is provided by our Elementary Schools is sufficient to protect the community from the ignorance of its ill educated and badly trained members. The "hooliganism" of many of our ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... Arbiter mundi, when the States of ancient Europe, tired of tearing one another to pieces, at last longed for peace again. America could not but hope that neither of the two warring parties would come out of the war in a dominating position. There is, therefore, a certain modicum of truth in the view frequently expressed in Germany that the United States would in any case finally have entered the war to prevent the so-called "German Peace." But the question is whether such ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... debate, the matter ended thus,—with by no means a sufficiency of romance for his taste. Isa had agreed to become his betrothed if certain pecuniary conditions should or could be fulfilled. It appeared now that Herbert's father had promised that some small modicum of capital should be forthcoming after a term of years, and that Heine Brothers had agreed that the Englishman should have a proportionate share in the bank when that promise should be brought to bear. Let it not be supposed that Herbert would thus become a millionaire. If all went well, ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope
... called at New Orleans, La., to promote industrial education, above referred to, failed to be fruitful. Members of different religious organizations, without suggestion that their particular sect would furnish a modicum of the large expenditure necessary to the establishment of such "schools of trade," strove to have the movement inaugurated, and launched ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... To-morrow the master offers congratulations at the castle. Kage is stuffed beyond measure to-day, that he be able to fast to-morrow. Show no discontent. For the passage of the sun there is to be no eating, and but a modicum of drinking. Halt not the procession for unseemly purposes." He stroked the horse, and the pleased animal purred and whinnied with the contentment of a cat at being petted. Then harshly said a voice ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... little things," he went on, "such as a little OBEDIENCE—that's most essential. A modicum of care about ORDINARY things,—for instance, about dress, speech, hair, et ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... occasion of the wedding of his friend, Mr. Chauncey Stackelberg, should become imbued with moisture in the shower that now seemed imminent, Mr. Cohen, of whom he had hired the suit, would not add to the modicum agreed upon, a charge for pressing it. But if his own suit for everyday wear, which he was carrying under his arm with the purpose of putting it on at good Mr. Cohen's establishment, should become wet, that would be a serious ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... Could we suspect a Committee of Members of Congress of a joke appreciable by mere members of the human family, could we suppose them in a thoughtless moment to have carried into legislation a mildened modicum of that metaphorical language which forms the staple of debate, we should make no remonstrance. We recognize the severe justice of an ideal avoirdupois in literary criticism. We remember the unconscious sarcasm of the Atlantic Telegraph, as it sank heart-broken under the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... moment a Government official presents himself, and exacts a duty of the manufacturer for the production of the malt, the authorities shrewdly judging that they are entitled to levy off so valuable an article a modicum of tax. The grain thus prepared is now in a state for further manufacture, and it passes into the hands of the brewer or distiller, to be converted into a more or less ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... destined: thus the high-class English buyer demands a dry champagne, the Russian a wine sweet and strong as "ladies' grog," and the Frenchman and German a sweet light wine. To the extra-dry champagnes a modicum dose is added, while the so-called "brut" wines receive no more than from one to three per ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... assume a deliberate part in furthering the great work of evolution. He may infer the course it is bound to pursue, from his observation of that which it has already followed, and he might devote his modicum of power, intelligence, and kindly feeling to render its future progress less slow and painful. Man has already furthered evolution very considerably, half unconsciously, and for his own personal advantages, but he has not yet risen to the conviction that it is ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... peoples of this globe, which is round—those responsibilities handed down to us by the father of our country, George Washington—interpret as meaning that we wish freedom of the seas. Not in the abstract, but in the concrete, not in modicum but in unconditional unobstruction and under such international statutes and regulations as shall confine sea spaces to neither the individual, to the group, to those who live within certain prescribed boundaries which constitute ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... compassionate, was listening to them so moved that scarce more changed was Mary at the cross. But when the other virgins gave place to her to speak, risen upright upon her feet, she answered, colored like fire: "Modicum, et non videbitis me, et iterum, my beloved Sisters, Modicum, et vos videbitis me."[2] Then she set all the seven in front of her; and behind her, by a sign only, she placed me, and the Lady, and the Sage who had stayed.[3] So she moved on; and ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... the matter is, that so far as offensive operations in conjunction with that army were concerned, the gunboats were more ornamental than useful; and it is not just that the modicum of glory (mingled with so much of disaster), won fairly upon that occasion by the land forces, should be awarded to another branch of ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... friend," said he, "I have always insisted that I possessed but a modicum of brains; but I am a gambler. My god is chance. With ordinary judgment and horse-sense, I take risks that no so-called sane man would consider. The curse of the world is fear—the chief instrument that you employ to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... things were, the sly looks, open jests, and oblique innuendoes of all they met in the ship, had determined the honest magistrates to retire to their proper pursuits on terra firma, at the earliest occasion. In the mean time, to escape persecution, and to obtain a modicum of the glory that was now to be earned, they had hired a boat, and accompanied the expedition, in the character of amateurs. It formed no part of their plan, however, to share in the combat; a view of its incidents being quite as much, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... principle.—The vitalized school generates and fosters patriotism, not merely as a sentiment, but more particularly as a working principle. Patriotism has in it a modicum of sentiment, to be sure, as do religion, education, the home, and civilization; but sentiment alone does not constitute real or true patriotism. The man who shouts for the flag but pursues a course of conduct that brings discredit upon the name of his country, ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... afternoon passed very pleasantly for both the sisters. Jacinth earned her aunt's commendation by her quick neat-handedness and accuracy, and a modicum of praise from Miss Mildmay meant a good deal. The little misunderstanding of the morning, ending as it had done in making the aunt, an essentially just woman, blame herself for hasty judgment, had drawn ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... instinct, the desire of wandering, had greatly declined with both husband and wife since the earlier days in Italy. Yet when they returned to Casa Guidi it was only for six weeks. Even at the close of the visit to Siena Mrs Browning had recovered but a slender modicum of strength; she did not dare to enter the cathedral, for there were steps to climb. At Florence she felt her old vitality return and her spirits rose. But the climate of Rome was considered by Dr Gresonowsky more suitable ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... he builded on what had been done. He moved in the line of least resistance—made friends of Protestant and Catholic alike; won the warm recognition of the Pope, who averred, "Thorwaldsen is a good Catholic, only he does not know it." He kept clear of all factions, and with a modicum more of will, might have been a very prince of diplomats. But as it was, he evolved into a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... [Marginal note: Cuius nomen erat M. Ioannes ad Barbam.] solet namque circa se retinere diuersarum medicos nationum, et quos nominandae audierit esse famae: Nos tamen raro inuicem conuenimus ad colloquium, eo quod meum seruitium cum suo modicum congruebat: longo autem postea tempore, et ab illo loco remote, videlicet in Leodij ciuitate, composui hortatu et adiutorio eiusdem venerabilis viri hunc tractatum, sicut in fine operis totius enarrabo. Itemque in Cayr ciuitate ducuntur ad forum communitur ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... feel sensibly the want of water: since passing the tropic of Capricorn the daily allowance had been always diminishing, till we were reduced to three gills a day, a slender modicum considering that we had only salt provisions. We had indeed a still, which we used to render the sea-water drinkable; but we distilled merely what sufficed for the daily use of the kitchen, as to do more would have required a great ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... thinker, "is, Pay and take." If you desire silks of the mercer or supplies at the grocery, you, of course, pay money. Is it a harvest from the field that you seek? Tillage must be paid. Would you have the river toil in production of cloths for your raiment? Only pay the due modicum of knowledge, labor, and skill, and you shall bind its hand to your water-wheels, and turn all its prone strength into pliant service. Or perhaps you wish the comforts of a household. By payment of the due bearing of its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... a lunatic fringe in the Consolidated Illiterates' Organization who want just that, Chester Pelton knows that we cannot abolish Literacy entirely. Even with modern audio-visual recording, need exists for some modicum of written recording, which can be rapidly scanned and selected from—indexing, cataloguing, tabulating data, et cetera—and for at least a few men and women who can form and interpret the written word. Mr. Pelton, himself, is the owner of a huge department ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... watch. It was one o'clock. I had slept seven hours! And she had been steering seven hours! When I took the steering-oar I had first to unbend her cramped fingers. Her modicum of strength had been exhausted, and she was unable even to move from her position. I was compelled to let go the sheet while I helped her to the nest of blankets and chafed her ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... Out in the Bear Swamp, the streams that wandered about under the great high-spreading gums, and lost their way in the shadows, were crystal-clear and pure; and out there it was intended that he should dwell, and in those sweet streams that he should wash. But what a modicum of wit, of originality the little beast had, that, because he was born a washer, wash he must, though he washed in mud, nay, though he washed upon the upturned bottom of his empty tub!—for this ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... terrenorum bonorum, in quam nauigio intrauimus in octo vel circa diaetis per aquam satis tenuem, haud profundam. Ibi, sicut et in alijs multis Insulis, rex non nascitur sed eligitur per partes terrae: et est haec vna de quindecim nominatis Regionibus conquisitionis Ogeri. Ista, cum modicum declinet a circulo terrae sub AEquatore, patitur in anno duas aestates, et duas hyemes, si tamen hyems aliqua dici debeat, et non magis aestas, quia nullus hic dies anni caret fructu, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... his beating, for he was, indeed, a rare sport. However, he would have to retaliate. The feud must go on. Unless he could mix a modicum of fun with his profits, J. Augustus would not have regarded the fight worth while, so accordingly he kept his eyes and his ears open for a handy weapon with which to jab Cappy through that same old rift in his armor—his passion for a large profit through an adroit and ingenious deal ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... receiving his modicum of twist with a delighted chuckle, "these be new times, these be. Who'd ever ha' thought o' Giles Maine walkin' in like a lard ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, hoped by this "bit by bit" preparation for the war to show his majesty the czar British desire for peace; and expected to conciliate him by showing how few regiments we were willing to raise, and the modicum of expense wo contemplated. All who knew the habit of thought in Asiatic nations—and Russia is essentially an Asiatic nation—were aware that this parsimonious war-making would have a contrary effect: the czar understood it as a token ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the object of the present work to show how philosophy became a positive science; to indicate by what methods the human mind was enabled to conquer its present modicum of certain knowledge. The boldest and the grandest speculations came first. Man needed the stimulus of some higher reward than that of merely tracing the laws of phenomena. Nothing but a solution of the mystery of the universe could content him. Astronomy was derived ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... of words in Truc. 858 ff. is egregiously tiresome in the reading, but in action could have been made to produce a modicum of amusement if presented in the broad burlesque spirit that we believe was almost invariably employed. This gives us a clue ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... down.]—and now, sir, you must recall to your thoughts, that your grandfather was a man, whose penurious income of half pay was the sum total of his fortune;—and, sir, aw my provision fra him was a modicum of Latin, an expertness in arithmetic, and a short system of worldly counsel; the principal ingredients of which were, a persevering industry, a rigid economy, a smooth tongue, a pliability of temper, and a constant attention to make every man well ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... to end darkly, and that spoils the quality as I now see it of a kind of crockery, eighteenth century, high-life-below- stairs life, breaking up like ice in spring before the nature and the certain modicum of manhood of my poor, clever, feather-headed Prince, whom I love already. I see Seraphina too. Gondremarck is not quite so clear. The Countess von Rosen, I have; I'll never tell you who she is; it's a secret; but I have known the countess; well, I will tell you; it's my old Russian friend, Madame ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... court at an early day, and succeeded in making a favorable impression upon my hearers. To be a good speaker, in the south and southwest, is to be everything. Eloquence implies wisdom—at least all the wisdom which is supposed to be necessary in making lawyers and law-makers—a precious small modicum of a material by no means precious. I was supposed to have the gift of the gab in moderate perfection, and my hearers were indulgent. My name obtained circulation, and, in a short time, I discovered that, in a professional as well as personal point of view, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... cross walls came, it stood stoutly; but elsewhere it began gradually to weaken. Here and there a doorway broke into what might have been a solid section; in one or two cases arches crumbled; in many others inside walls or beams or stairways, falling, carried down with them another modicum of ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... keeping with these displays of temper was the conduct of Jesus before Pilate. A modicum of common sense would have saved him. He was not required to tell a lie or renounce a conviction. All that was necessary to his release was to plead not guilty and defend himself against the charge of sedition. His death, therefore, was rather a suicide than a martyrdom. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... is the reality and not the mere name of a liberal education; and this College must steadily set before itself the ambition to be able to give that education sooner or later. At present we are but beginning, sharpening our educational tools, as it were, and, except a modicum of physical science, we are not able to offer much more than is to be found in an ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Joshua had observed (she says) like a true knight, only reading it to his visitors till some of them learned it by heart. The "charming bagatelle" was afterwards printed, that posterity might be enabled to wonder what a small expenditure of wit in metre sufficed to purchase a large modicum of fame among the blues of ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... to the straightforward classes are allowed to remain at large, and may be even seen hobnobbing with the guardians of public immorality. Indeed it is not in the public interest that straightforwardness should be extirpated root and branch, for the presence of a small modicum of sincerity acts as a wholesome irritant to the academicism of the greatest number, stimulating it to consciousness of its own happy state, and giving it something to look down upon. Moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain number of melancholy examples, whose ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... not reasoner enough to persuade you that all women have souls. Very likely in Persia and India they have not. I only want you to believe that there may be women so fortunate as to possess a modicum of immortality. Well, pardon my interruption, 'if you looked abroad,' as you ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... chief grievance in the baronet's life—the want of a son to inherit the lands, in no portion of which had he himself more than a life-interest. For in the ill-advised settlement which his father, Sir Francis, had chosen to make by will, even Diplow with its modicum of land had been left under the same conditions as the ancient and wide inheritance of the two Toppings—Diplow, where Sir Hugo had lived and hunted through many a season in his younger years, and where his wife and daughters ought to have been able ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... of this modicum of praise (if praise it may be termed) was indisputable; but it may be doubted, whether, under any circumstances where his success depended on his own exertions, Hugh would have made his way well through the world. He was one of those unfortunate persons, who, instead ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... tumblers—that is, two tumblers, one with a stand, the other with a flat bottom, and a tea-cup with a spoon in it. The tea-cup was put opposite Father John's chair, and the reverend father himself proceeded to pour a tolerable modicum of spirits out of the stone jar into a good-sized milk jug, and ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... English language is quite enough for us. We have it now and we speak it, sometimes, even better than the English people themselves. We are proud of using the same language as Sheridan, Burke, and Grattan used. Such an opinion has its modicum of truth, though less now than a hundred years ago. Formerly there was in Ireland, and especially around Dublin, a little colony of Anglo-Irish. The members of this colony spoke a very pure and classic English, and this fact is largely responsible for the place which Ireland at ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... her evening modicum of creature-comforts sitting next to her lover, the major; and our two friends were left alone by themselves. The news had soon spread about the ship, and to those ladies who spoke to her on the subject, Mrs. Cox made no secret of the fact. Men in this world catch their fish by various devices; ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... to her sleek hair and some flicker of a girlhood that had its modicum of grace, flared up in the swift curtsy with which she acknowledged ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... an affair of impulse," he said, slowly. "Life from a personal point of view had lost all interest to me. I did not dream after my—shall we call it apostacy?—that I could rely upon even a modicum of your friendship. I looked upon myself as an outcast commencing life afresh. Then chance intervened. I thought I saw my way to making some atonement to a woman whose life I had certainly helped to ruin. That was where the serious part of the mistake came. I thought ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... some modicum of reason penetrated into the numbed blankness of his brain. The dark arch of the entrance-way was somehow familiar. Still legible under the verdigris of the bronze plate on the lintel he read, "Transportation Substation—District ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... you now by what arguments Dr. Voss, at first merely my benefactor, sparing me a portion of his small modicum, at length persuaded me to become his wife. His wife he called it, I called it; for we went through the religious ceremony too much slighted at the time, and as we were both Lutherans, and M. de la Tourelle had pretended to be of the reformed religion, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the Rector, "if I remark that an hereditary peerage is so important an institution, that we should be very careful how we criticise any members of it. At the same time," he went on, turning apologetically to Westray, "there is perhaps a modicum of reason in our friend's remarks. I had hoped that Lord Blandamer would have contributed handsomely to the restoration fund, but he has not hitherto done so, though I dare say that his continued absence abroad ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... more puppies than two calves. It's sixteen chickens and a passel of turkeys and we waked up Mr. Mark to tell him and he said—" Stonie paused in the rapid fire of his announcement of the morning news and then added in judicial tone of voice, as if giving the aroused sleeper his modicum of fair play: "Well, he didn't quite say it before he swallowed, but he throwed a pillow at Tobe and pulled the sheet over his head and groaned awful. Aunt Viney was saying her prayers when I went to tell her, and Aunt Mandy was taking down her frizzles, but she stopped and ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of the poem must have been possessed either of an extraordinary modicum of modesty or of a bitter misanthropy; or possibly he had been guilty of a misdemeanor, and was cornered to expiate the punishment justly due; yet conjecture is at once made certainty in the second line, by which all doubts as to the reasons for his being in ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... the perversity characteristic of gout and middle age, combined, no doubt, with a not unnatural modicum of jealousy, maintained that one such fete should be sufficient amusement for one night. She might take her choice of one; he would on no account permit her to attend all three. Much to his surprise and delight Madame Mildau made no scene, but graciously submitted after a few mild ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... remember that the chasm was filled with SOME empirical material, whether ideational or sensational, which performed SOME bridging function and saved us from the mortal leap. Restoring thus the indispensable modicum of reality to the matter of our discussion, we find our abstract treatment genuinely useful. We escape entanglement with special cases without at the same time falling into gratuitous paradoxes. We can now describe the general features of cognition, ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... church to take care of at Crocus. Mr. Dell's was a little church at the opposite corner of the village and society. He himself was a good-hearted, plain man, with no savour of elegance about him, though with more than the usual modicum of sense and shrewdness. Appearance conformable to character. Mr. Morton was not very far from Mr. Falkirk's range of years, though making more attempts to conceal the fact. Rich, well educated, well mannered, a little heavy, he had ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... lop-sided as they were—liked the crooked staircase squeezed into a corner of the living room below, the stuffy little dens above, with casement windows which only opened on one side, letting in the smallest modicum of air, and were not often opened at all. Cottages on the Now Arden model meant stone floors below and open rafters above, thorough draughts everywhere, and, worst of all, they meant weekly inspection by Miss Granger. The free sons ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... time, and the dreary winter's evenings, trundled to bed almost by daylight, my very heart sinks. What a luxury if some Christian had been allowed to read aloud for an hour, instead of lying awake studying the ghastly lamp that swung from the ceiling in the dormitory; or if some one with a modicum of information had given half an hour's lecture on some entertaining branch of science. Perhaps these antique schools are reformed in some measure, or perhaps they are waiting till their ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... I have taken in the education of his two boys, are services for which some men might have expected a greater return. I would not have you imagine I am therefore dissatisfied; for St Paul hath taught me to be content with the little I have. Had the modicum been less, I should have known my duty. But though the Scriptures obliges me to remain contented, it doth not enjoin me to shut my eyes to my own merit, nor restrain me from seeing when I am injured by an unjust comparison."—"Since you provoke me," returned Square, "that injury is ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... reinforcements had arrived, deficiencies in armament and material had been partially made good, and, most important of all, the promise of an immediate advance against the enemy had sent a thrill of exultation and enthusiasm throughout the whole force. A modicum of rest had ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... stricken at the moment with a similar weakness. No man dare say of this revolution that it was unprovoked; but its means were treachery and violence; the numbers and position of those engaged made the design one of the most insolent in history; and a mere modicum of native boldness and cohesion must have brought it to the dust. "My race had one virtue, they were brave," said a typical Hawaiian: "and now they have taken ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 1915. Imbros. An anxious night. Gouraud has done splendidly; so have his troops. This has been a serious defeat for the Turks; a real bad defeat, showing, as it does, that given a modicum of ammunition we can seize the strongest entrenchments of the enemy and ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... the following notice:—"Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, whose philanthropic efforts on behalf of 'our canal-boat population' are well known, has lately turned his attention to the wandering Gipsy tribes who infest the roadside, with the view to procuring at least a modicum of education for their children. He says that the Gipsies are lamentably ignorant, few of them being able even to write their names. By certain proceedings which took place at Christchurch Police-court on Tuesday, it would almost seem that some of the dark-faced ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... out a cautious feeler with the object of ascertaining whether perchance it had occurred to me that it might be politic on my part to confirm the excellent impression which I had already made by bestowing upon him and his fellow indunas a small—a very small—modicum of the inestimable treasures which they all knew my wagon must still contain. To this I replied that the idea was at that moment the one uppermost in my mind, and that I gladly availed myself of the opportunity afforded by the king's temporary ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... grace of honest fortune, A savior at his elbow through the war, Where I might have observed, more than I did, Patience and wholesome passion. I was there, And for such honor I gave nothing worse Than some advice at which he may have smiled. I must have given a modicum besides, Or the rough interval between those days And these would never have made for me my friends, Or enemies. I should be something somewhere — I say not what — but I should not be here If ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... probably a modicum of truth in this—the fact remained that the garments which were more scant and shorter than those of any other feathery person were also more numerous and exquisite. Her patriotic entertainment of soldiers who required her special order of support and ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sure I will not allow you to stand a moment longer on this cold floor; and I do not intend that you shall pay me undeserved compliments. It is derogatory to your dignity, and dangerous to my modicum of humility. As soon as you are ready for breakfast, come to the dining-room, where Santa Klaus left his remembrances last night. O, Leighton! I had half a mind to hang up two stockings at uncle's bed, for the sake of dear old lang syne. If we could only shut our ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... he entered into with the greatest delight and enthusiasm. Among other peculiarities, he had become deeply imbued with a thirst for scientific knowledge, ever since he had acquired, with infinite labour, the small modicum of science necessary to navigation; and his doings in pursuit of statistical information relative to the weather, and the phenomena of nature generally, were very peculiar, and in some cases outrageous. His transaction with the quicksilver was in consequence of an eager desire ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne |
