"Skim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is closing in and the gas is lighted, but is not yet fully effective, for it is not quite dark. Mr. Snagsby standing at his shop-door looking up at the clouds sees a crow who is out late skim westward over the slice of sky belonging to Cook's Court. The crow flies straight across Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... witches skim the air, When spooks and goblins climb the stair; When bats rush out with muffled wings, And now and then the door-bell rings; But just the funniest thing of all Is 'cause you can't see ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... don't think so! I've got an idea. Maudie Heywood's sure to make a most beautiful copperplate copy; we'll borrow hers, and just skim them over to get a kind of general acquaintance with the subject, sufficient to show 'intelligent interest'. Gibbie won't be able to question us with ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Schalckenberg, belongs the honour and glory of having made dwo mosd imbordand disgoveries, disgoveries of ingalgulable value do the worldt, disgoveries which will enable me do soar ad will indo the highesd regions of the embyrean, do skim the surface of the ocean, or do blunge do ids ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... down at night he took to bed with him a whole bundle of French newspapers, which had already lain unopened on his table for two or three weeks. He began carelessly to tear open their covers and to skim the contents of their columns, in which, for the matter of that, there was but little that was new. He was just on the point of throwing them aside, when he suddenly bounded out of bed as if something had stung him. In the feuilleton ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... grateful to the train, as to some god who conducts us swiftly through these shades and by so many hidden perils. Thirst, hunger, the sleight and ferocity of Indians, are all no more feared, so lightly do we skim these horrible lands; as the gull, who wings safely through the hurricane and past the shark. Yet we should not be forgetful of these hardships of the past; and to keep the balance true, since I have complained ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... associate milk with cows and cows with farms, but how closely is milk associated with the farm table? Is it prized as the most valuable food which the farm produces? Every drop should be used as food; and this applies to skim milk, sour milk, and buttermilk as well as sweet milk. Do we all use milk to the best advantage in the diet? Here are a few points which it is well to ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose
... recollection of Peggy's mischievous flight of a few days previously had occurred to him—Mortlake swung the delicate silvery machine about and dashed straight down at the boy and girl standing by the garden gate. So close to their heads did he skim in his desire to show off, that he almost came too low. For one instant it looked as if the machine would be dashed to a premature end, but it recovered buoyancy like a keeled-over racing yacht, and tore upward into the sky at ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... ado the Colonel broke the skim of ice, and, taking some of the water in his hand, poured powder from his flask into it and rubbed it on his face until he was the color of an Indian. Stepping back, he raised his sword high in the air, and, shouting the Shawanee war-whoop, took a flying ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... follow a steamer much as a fly does a horse, always keeping at just about such a distance, though one would think, in their sky-circling and ocean-dipping, they must lose time occasionally. As these birds of the sea glide down a billow, then skim lightly up again, it would seem they must sometimes be caught in the swirl of foam and borne under, but no! Every time, no matter with what fusilade of spray the wave breaks, Mr. Seagull rises, lightly triumphant, with not so much as a silver feather ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... evil one had power to make compacts, but against these was the virtue of the charmed circle. One of the most dangerous and malignant of beings was the Water-kelpie, which allured women and children into its element, where they were drowned, and then became its prey. It could skim along the surface of the water, and browse by its side, or even suddenly swell a river or loch, which it inhabited, until an unwary traveller might be engulfed. The Urisks were half-men, half-spirits, who, by kind treatment, could be induced to do a good turn, even to the drudgeries ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... is to continue on the grain twenty-four hours, then run off, and fresh water put on. This precaution is essentially necessary, in order to make clean bright malt, and should never be omitted. It is further right, at each watering, to skim off the surface of the water the light grain, chaff, and seed weeds, that are found floating on it; all this kind of trash, when suffered to remain in the steep, is a real injury to the malt, and ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... sometimes great black masses rolling on the water, looking like a ship bottom upward, which some said were black-fish. Some fish seemed to be at play, and would jump ten feet or more out of the water. The flying fish would skim over the waves as the ship's wheels seemed to frighten them; and we went through a hundred acres of porpoises, all going the same way. The ship plowed right through them, but none seemed to get hurt by the wheels. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... ornamental pavilions a few hundred feet within our lines was a droll sight. The Chinese riflemen, being on a slightly lower level and forced to fire upwards at the Japanese positions, caused many of their bullets to skim the sandbagged crest and strike the line of roofs behind. Many, I say; I should have said thousands and tens of thousands, for the roofs seemed alive and palpitating with strange feelings; and extraordinary as it may sound, big ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... forget the sight of those magnificent animals streaming across the desert! There were at least a thousand of them, and their yellow bodies seemed fairly to skim the earth. I was shouting in excitement, but ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... 'I'm afraid skim milk is more like me, and that you would say I had taken to the goody line. I never thought of the responsibility then, only when I wrote ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mabel was sitting in the little room at the back of the house, in which she received her own particular friends, wrote her letters, and read; just then she was engaged in the latter occupation, for the books had come in from the library that day, and she had sat down after luncheon to skim them through before selecting any which seemed worth more ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... tails smooth it again and it grows amain and amain it grows and the wind as it blows tosses the swallows over the hollows and down on the shallows till every feather doth shake and quiver and all their feathers go all together blowing the life and the joy so rife into the swallows that skim the shallows and have the yellowest children for the wind that blows is the life of the river flowing for ever that washes the grasses still as it passes and feeds the daisies the little white praises and buttercups bonny so golden and sunny with butter ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... make our tiny craft skim. It should be noted here that Aaleck, Jock, and Jeanettie were first to get their education. Scotland was the first country that required all parents, high or low, to educate their children, and established the parish ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... will be quite, quite young, with a full mane of flaming auburn locks, and no clothes to hinder him from plunging back at any moment into the shining Elysian waters from which he will have just emerged. I see him skim lightly away into that element. On the strand is sitting a man of noble and furrowed brow. It is Mazzini, still thinking of Liberty. And anon the tiny young English amphibian comes ashore to fling himself dripping at the feet of ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... along. Over and over again I thanked my stars that there were no curves to be taken, and I blessed the memory of that famous ruler wielded by the hand of Nicholas I. Here and there, at some slight rise in the ground, the engine literally did leave the rails and skim through the air for a few yards, alighting with a jar that brought my teeth together like castanets, ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... all excellent foods, and far better drinks than beer or whiskey. Make a plain pudding now and then, with skim-milk, adding an ounce of suet to restore its richness. If the milk has turned a little sour add lime water to it, in the proportion of four tablespoonfuls of the lime water to a quart. If the lime water is added before the milk begins to turn it will help keep it fresh. ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... aft smiling and unlashed the tiller, altering their course a little, so that as the evening breeze freshened they seemed literally to skim along the surface ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... Hossy and me has come a good ways to-day, and seen 'most all kinds. Are you acquainted any with a woman name of Weazle, down the ro'd about four mile from here? Ain't? Well, she's a case, I tell you. Long skinny kind of woman, looks like she'd bleed sour milk—skim—if she scratched her finger. She made up her mind I was goin' to cheat her, and she warn't goin' to be cheated, not she. ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... such skim milk as all that," replied Rose: "I have always a strong wish where you are concerned, and your happiness. I hesitated whilst I was in doubt, but I doubt no longer: I have had a long talk with him. He has shown me his whole heart: he is the best, the noblest of ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... who will give up his mind to its study, and who feels the unspeakable comfort it is capable of affording, will agree with me that no other book, ancient or modern, can in the remotest degree be compared to it. Too many people read it merely as a matter of conscience. They skim over a chapter at a time with very little thought or reflection. Even that way may be better than neglecting it altogether, but surely that is not the way a book with consequences so immeasurably ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... but the old book is ever the same. What would the old man do without it? And to you who are young I would say—you may re-read, you first must read. Choose worthy books to love. As for those who know no book long enough either to love or despise it—who skim through good and bad alike and forget page ninety-nine while reading page 100, we may simply say to them, in the words of the witty Frenchman, "What a sad old age you ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... technical skill seems the only quality calling for remark, and when we have said all that sympathy can say for Whitehead and Akenside, the truth remains that the one is vapid, the other empty. The Wartons saw that more liberty of imagination was wanted, and that the Muse was not born to skim the meadows, in short low flights, like a wagtail. They used expressions which reveal their ambition. The poet was to be "bold, without confine," and "imagination's chartered libertine"; like a ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... habitations lie. Ortygia's haven then we leave, and o'er the sea we fly By Naxos of the Bacchus ridge, Donusa's green-hued steep, And Olearon, and Paros white, and scattered o'er the deep All Cyclades; we skim the straits besprent with many a folk; And diverse clamour mid the ships seafarers striving woke; Each eggs his fellow; On for Crete, and sires of time agone! And rising up upon our wake a ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... boat over the water? While it is not exactly a hydroplane, yet it has those attachments, and you can probably skim over the surface of the water as well as float on it. And that might come in ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... pine-tree blue, Set in one clay, Bough to bough cannot you Bide out your day? When the rains skim and skip, Why mar sweet comradeship, Blighting ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... island of Teor, and a group near it, which are very incorrectly marked on the charts. Flying-fish were numerous to-day. It is a smaller species than that of the Atlantic, and more active and elegant in its motions. As they skim along the surface they turn on their sides, so as fully to display their beautiful fins, taking a flight of about a hundred yards, rising and falling in a most graceful manner. At a little distance they exactly resemble swallows, and no one who sees them ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... thy command took out a suit of clean white clothes and gave it to the boy Abdullah; then kindled the fire and set on the broth. As soon as it was ready I had need to light a lamp so that I might see to skim it, but all the oil was spent, and, learning this I told my want to the slave-boy Abdullah, who advised me to draw somewhat from the jars which stood under the shed. Accordingly, I took a can and went to the first vessel when suddenly I heard a voice within whisper with all caution, 'Is it now time ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... bird, for ever, Fra all thy feather'd mates to sever; Were I not near thee to deliver Wi' my awn hand; Nor ever more thou'd skim ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... killed him?" Racey allowed his eyes casually to skim the expressionless faces of the men backed ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... months from that date, after sending sundry presents on his part to the family, of smeaked hams and salt tongues—acknowledged on theirs, by return of carrier, in the shape of sucking pigs, jargonelle pears, skim-milk cheeses, and such like—matters were soldered; and Miss Jeanie Learig, made into Mrs Whitteraick by the blessing of Dr Blether, rode away into Edinburgh in a post-chaise, with a brown and a black horse, one blind ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... cattle, grain, and wheat produced on the farm and not consumed, or required for further agricultural production, will automatically be delivered to the co-operative business centre of the district, where the manager of the dairy will turn the milk into butter or cheese, and the skim milk will be returned to feed the community's pigs. The poultry and egg department will pack and dispatch the fowl and eggs to market. The mill will grind the corn and return it ground to the member, or there may be a co-operative ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... were true that Messala had attained his utmost speed, the effort was with effect; slowly but certainly he was beginning to forge ahead. His horses were running with their heads low down; from the balcony their bodies appeared actually to skim the earth; their nostrils showed blood red in expansion; their eyes seemed straining in their sockets. Certainly the good steeds were doing their best! How long could they keep the pace? It was but the commencement of the sixth round. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... juice of a lemon, a bay leaf, half a cup of wine and one box of gelatine soaked in a cup of cold water. Beat into the mixture the slightly beaten whites and crushed shells of two eggs. Heat to the boiling-point, stirring constantly, and let boil five minutes. After standing ten minutes skim off the froth, etc., and strain through a cheese-cloth folded double and held ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill
... into the sea. It was twilight, the waves rolling in, the wind sweeping by, the crimson clouds fading in the west and the silver moon brightening above the hill; and on the bridge were you, fluttering in the breeze like a sea-bird that might skim away at your pleasure. You seemed a daughter of the viewless wind, a creature of the ocean-foam and the crimson light, whose merry life was spent in dancing on the crests of the billows that threw up their spray to support your footsteps. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... So rapidly did she skim along over the water too, that, notwithstanding the extra distance traversed beyond that originally proposed, we were in ample time for the meal—luncheon or dinner, whichever we chose to call it—which it was ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he That frights the maidens of the villagery; Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; And sometime make the drink to bear no barm; Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... in a small twenty-pound wheel—a pony-cart wheel in comparison to the big Swiss. There are two qualities: (a) Common, made of skim milk and cured in brine for a year; (b) Festive, full milk, steeped in brine with wine, plus white wine lees and pepper. The only cheese we know of that is ripened with ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... to my presence of mind, as a beginning. I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... draw-bridge flies, Just as it trembled on the rise; Nor lighter does the swallow skim Along the smooth lake's level brim; And when Lord Marmion reached his band He halts, and turns with clinched hand And shout of loud defiance pours, And shook his gauntlet at the towers. "Horse! horse!" the Douglas cried, "and chase!" But soon he reined his fury's ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... always thus young; poets are; but the pilgrim does not lay aside his belt of steel, nor the merchant his pack, to worship the flowers on the fountain's brink. I feel, like Herbert, the weight of "business to be done," but the bird-like particle would skim and sing at these sweet places. It seems strange to leave them; and that we do so, while so fitted to live deeply in them, shows that beauty is the end ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... about through the many sheds and barns, which were hidden in a hollow a few rods away. Here he showed her his ice-houses, his huge churns, and his mammoth "separator" that went whirling around, dividing the cream from hundreds of gallons of milk in the time it would have taken her to skim ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... his body wasted. They bought a cow for his sole use and benefit, and guarded it like a sacred animal but to no purpose. He drank of its milk and grew thinner than ever. Strange furrows began to appear on his tiny face, with shadows and a transparent tinge like the blue of skim-milk. As the pure air of Drayton did so little for him, Mrs. Nevill Tyson wondered how he would bear ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... sea, is excessively difficult to navigate; its surf looks no more than champagne foam, but a thousand quicksands and shoals lie beneath: there are breakers ahead for more than half the dainty pleasure-boats that skim their hour upon it; and the foundered lie by millions, forgotten, five fathoms deep below. The only safe ballast upon it is gold dust; and if stress of weather come on you, it will swallow you without remorse. Trevenna had none of this ballast; he had come ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... but on his knees and the calves of his legs alternately; and that smell of sawdusty horses, which was never in any other place in the world, salutes my nose with painful distinctness. What do you think of my suddenly finding myself a swimmer? But I have really made the discovery, and skim about a little blue bay just below the town here, like a fish in high spirits. I hope to preserve my bathing-dress for your inspection and approval, or possibly to enrich your collection of Italian ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Alps. Tahoe is from ten to eighteen miles wide, and its mountains shut it in like a wall. Their summits are never free from snow the year round. One thing about it is very strange: it never has even a skim of ice upon its surface, although lakes in the same range of mountains, lying in a lower and warmer temperature, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... did not suit the purposes of Mr Cobden to enter himself into any investigation of the comparative profitableness of foreign and colonial commerce, nor did he, doubtless, desire to provoke such an investigation on the part of others. With the cunning of a prejudiced partizan, he was content to skim superficially the large economical question he had not scrupled to raise from the depths of discomfiture and oblivion, in which abandoned by the colonial detractors, his predecessors, who had tried their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... the seat mentioned, and her twin brother began to hoist the mainsail of the Ice Bird. It ran up easily, and caught by the wind the craft began to skim over the surface of the lake like a thing ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... you will skim along the ice as lightly as a bird on the wing. With a little practice you will learn to tack and guide yourself ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... not allowed to stand for cream now. It is stirred up with a spoon, silver-gilt, and the skim milk gets hopelessly mixed up with the cream. That young man who is now talking to the actress person is not what he looks. He is, as a matter of fact, the scion of a noble house, who ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... distinguishable by the colours of their riders. The supreme moment came for me when they were exactly opposite the grand stand, full half a mile away—the moment that I remembered from year to year as one of exquisite illusion—for then the horses seemed to lift from the earth as with wings, and to skim over the track like a covey of low-flying birds. The finish was tame to this. Mrs. March and I had our wonted difference of opinion as to which horse had won, and we were rather uncommonly controversial because we had both decided upon the same horse, as we found, only she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... peak floated, so 'tis said, through liquid billows of Neptune to the flowing Phasis and the confines Aeetaean, when the picked youth, the vigour of Argive manhood seeking to carry away the Golden Fleece from Colchis, dared to skim o'er salt seas in a swift-sailing ship, sweeping caerulean ocean with paddles shapen from fir-wood. That Goddess who guards the castles in topmost parts of the towns herself fashioned the car, scudding with lightest of winds, uniting the interweaved ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... water boiled and bubbled, and the Mouse King stood close beside the kettle—there was almost danger in it—and he put forth his tail, as the mice do in the dairy, when they skim the cream from a pan of milk, afterwards licking their creamy tails; but his tail only penetrated into the hot steam, and then he sprang hastily ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... must be familiar with cements of this kind long known among the people, and much used in the repairing of broken pottery, such as a cement compounded of quicklime made of oyster shells, mixed up with a glue made of skim-milk cheese, and another cement made also of quicklime mixed up with the whites of eggs. In Mrs. Marshall's cements, the organic matter is variously compounded of both animal and vegetable substances, while the earth generally employed is sulphate of lime; and the result is a close-grained marble-like ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... should boil three or four hours very slowly; it should be put in cold water, and be kept covered during the whole process; a small ham will boil in two hours. All bacon requires much the same management,—and if you boil cabbage or greens with it, skim all the grease off the pot before you put them in. Ham or dried beef, if very salt, should be soaked several hours before cooking, and should be boiled in ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... they do that of sleep, without knowing it. To the end that even sleep itself should not so stupidly escape from me, I have formerly caused myself to be disturbed in my sleep, so that I might the better and more sensibly relish and taste it. I ponder with myself of content; I do not skim over, but sound it; and I bend my reason, now grown perverse and peevish, to entertain it. Do I find myself in any calm composedness? is there any pleasure that tickles me? I do not suffer it to dally ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... sides, too, to Mr Rackstraw's character, but for the moment let him go as a multi-millionaire City man and Radical politician. Not that it is satisfactory; it is too mild. The Radical politics of other Radical politicians were as skim-milk to the Radical politics of Radical Politician Rackstraw. Where Mr Lloyd George referred to the House of Lords as blithering backwoodsmen and asinine anachronisms, Mr Rackstraw scorned to be ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... breasts with a ready roar not unakin to it. Still the promptness to laugh is an excellent progenitorial foundation for the wit to come in a people; and undoubtedly the diarial record of an imputed piece of wit is witness to the spouting of laughter. This should comfort us while we skim the sparkling passages of the 'Leaves.' When a nation has acknowledged that it is as yet but in the fisticuff stage of the art of condensing our purest sense to golden sentences, a readier appreciation will be extended to the gift: which is to strike not the dazzled eyes, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... drooping branches of the beech-trees dip, swish, and bend to the swirl of water created by our boat, which makes miniature waves leap and run along the bank in a playful way. How delightfully peaceful the surrounding landscape is as we skim over the silvery lake and then land! The climbing of this mountain does not take long. There is a splendid view from the top of Himmelbjerget, for the country lies spread out like a map before us. This lake district is very beautiful, and when the ling is in full ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... about 1890. USNM 129789; 1934. Cooley brand creamer, used for separating milk from cream prior to churning. The milk and cream were set in a cool place for several hours while the cream rose to the top. The farmer drew skim milk off through a spigot at the bottom, after which the cream could be drawn off. Used on farms before the hand centrifugal separator came into wide use. By 1890, in butter-producing areas, the centrifugal separator had already caused the disuse of the Cooley and similar separators. ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker
... advent of winter and rough weather. The bank flowers still show blossom among the seed-heads, and though the thick round rushes have turned to russet, the forget-me-not is still in flower; and though the water-lilies have all gone to the bottom again, and the swallows no longer skim over the surface, the river seems as rich in life as ever; and the birds and fish, unfrightened by the boat traffic, are tamer ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... gliding before their eyes for an hour together, in all the scenic splendour of Drury Lane, or Covent Garden, could give them an idea of it. They could only see one side at a time. The change, the contrast, the ceaseless variety of beauty, as you skim from side to side, the liquid smoothness of the broad mirror that reflects the scene, and most of all, the clear bright air through which you look at it; all this can only be seen and believed by ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... comes to one in moments of peril, to proceed to the left (to one coming from the German lines). As I crawled through holes and over mounds I could hear the vicious spitting of machine-gun bullets. They seemed to skim just over my helmet. The trench, opening out a little, began to assume its old outline. I had reached the head of New Woman Street, though at the time I did not know what communication trench it was—or trouble, for that matter. ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... flows from the oil mill, amurca is a watery fluid full of dregs. It is the custom to store it in this state in earthen jars and fifteen days later to skim off the scum from the top and transfer this to other jars, an operation which is repeated at regular intervals twelve times during the following six months, taking care that the last skimming is done on the wane of the moon. Then ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... the great stone bears carved on the portals of Saint Margaret's; his eyes wandered listlessly over the smooth turf of the Fellows' bowling-green, and the trim parterres full of crocus and anemone and violet which fringed it; he watched the boats skim past him on the winding gleams of the Iscam, and shoot among the water-lilies by the bridge and then he stared upwards at the sun, trying to think of nothing until his eyes watered, and then the sight of a don in the garden below ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... for their lawful owners. Meanwhile, I dashed forward whithersoever the horse took me. I remember, even amid my panic, what a delight it was to sit astride of so noble a beast, who seemed to scorn my weight, and skim the earth as lightly as if he carried a child. Had it been my own sorry nag I should long since have been ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... bed-quilt, in the glow of the subdued night-lamp, in his picture of "Asleep," and we all thought what a fine thing it was. But we have not thought it so fine for the whole art world to burst into the subsequent imitative paroxysm of crashing discords in chalk, lip-salve, and skim-milk, which has lasted almost to ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... of "letters," or strokes, will make easy reading of Chinese impossible. It is a mistake to suppose that the Chinese have to "spell their way" laboriously through the written character so familiar to them: it is just as easy to "skim over" a Chinese newspaper in a few minutes as it is to "take in" the leading features of the Times in the same limited time; and volumes of Chinese history or literature in general can be "gutted" quite easily, owing to the facility ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... the heights, lie prone in Dantesque confusion. There are rock-doves and falcons fluttering about the sunny precipices; cliff-swallows build precarious habitations against the roof of yawning caverns; sandpipers and wagtails skim over the streamlet that glides in a smiling flood across reaches of yellow sand. The charm of water in the waste! This Seldja-brook is a true child of the sun; cold in the morning and evening hours, its restless little heart becomes ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... were thus conversing, the Cree chief was arranging the smaller of the canoes for the use of the young hunters—that is, he took out all the lading, making it so light that it would skim over the water like an egg-shell with the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... She did, indeed, refuse hay this morning; but the only reason was that she was crammed full of oats. You have nothing to fear, neighbor; the mare is in perfect trim; and she will skim you over the ground like a bird. I wish you a good ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... bordering on the morose, was never lighted by more than a strained smile—a smile that suggested a grin, that puckered the corners of his eyes and drew hard furrows down his cheeks, but evidenced nothing akin to even the skim-milk of human kindness. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... old trees in the lingering light, and, young and fine and fair as they both were, formed a complete superficial harmony with the peaceful English scene. A near view, however, would have shown that Godfrey Chart hadn't taken so much trouble only to skim the surface. He looked deep into his sister's eyes. "What was it you said that morning to ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... gallop into the corridors of the labyrinth; I hover over the mountains; I skim along the waves; I yelp at the bottoms of precipices; I hang by my jaws on the skirts of the clouds. With my trailing tail I scratch the coasts, and the hills have taken their curb according to the form of my shoulders. But as for you, I find you perpetually motionless; or, rather, ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... vines mature, in purple clusters glow, And heav'n above, diffuses heav'n below! Erect and tall, here mountain cedars rise, High o'er the clouds, and emulate the skies! Here the winged crowds, that skim the air, with artful toil, their little dams prepare, Here, hatch their young, and nurse their rising care! Up the steep-hill ascends the nimble doe, While timid conies scour the plains below; Or in the pendent rocks elude the scenting foe. He bade the silver majesty of night, Revolve her circle, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... the waves which they shadow with their solemn forms, their costly fronts rich with the spoils of kingdoms, and softened with the magic of the midnight beam. The whole city too is poured forth for festival. The people lounge on the quays and cluster on the bridges; the light barks skim along in crowds, just touching the surface of the water, while their bright prows of polished iron gleam in the moonshine, and glitter in the rippling wave. Not a sound that is not graceful: the tinkle of guitars, the sighs ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... that I was tougher than a cat. He stated that peddlers came round there, and sometimes tried to sell the women-folks a skimmer, but he told them that their women had got a better skimmer than they could make, in the shell of their clams; it was shaped just right for this purpose. They call them "skim-alls" in some places. He also said that the sun-squawl was poisonous to handle, and when the sailors came across it, they did not meddle with it, but hove it out of their way. I told him that I had handled it that afternoon, and had felt no ill effects ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Taenarus came Euphemus whom, most swift-footed of men, Europe, daughter of mighty Tityos, bare to Poseidon. He was wont to skim the swell of the grey sea, and wetted not his swift feet, but just dipping the tips of his toes was borne ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... and boil two or three minutes and remove from the fire, have ready strained one quart of water, in which a table-spoonful of pulverized slippery elm bark has stood sufficiently long to make it ropy and thick life honey, mix this into the kettle with egg well beat up, skim well in a few minutes, and when a little cool, add two pounds of nice strained bees' honey, and then strain the whole, and you will have not only an article which looks and tastes like honey, but which possesses all its medicinal properties. It has been shipped in large ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... The skim-milk afforded by those same cows went in great part to the delicate children in the village, though Mrs Carbonel had every year to fight a battle for it with Master Pucklechurch and his wife, who considered the whole of it as the right of the calves and little pigs, and would hardly ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... three pieces there will come a messenger, to bid him to the King, so he will lay my flesh in a cauldron of brass and set it upon a brasier before going to the presence and he will say to thee, 'Keep up the fire under the cauldron till the scum rise; then skim it off and pour it into a phial to cool. Wait till it cool and then drink it, so shall naught of malady or pain be left in all thy body. When the second scum riseth, skim it off and pour it into a phial against my return ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... used, put in two-thirds of a tea cup. A pound or two of salt pork, boiled with the turkey, improves it. If you wish to make a soup of the liquor in which the turkey is boiled, let it remain until the next day, then skim off the fat. Heat and ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... times; the sun bright and as yellow as gold, the wind lusty and strong, before which the great white clouds go sailing majestically across the bright blueness of the sky above, while their dusky shadows skim across the brown face of the rusty ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... did not like it myself, when I heard of it," replied Jerry. "I hope they won't attempt it in my watch; it would not give them much trouble to launch me over the quarter—I should skim away, 'flying ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ex-member of a Yale boat crew. He made the "Water Witch" skim through the waters, and at the same time he kept a sharp lookout for a small boat. There were a number of skiffs filled with young girls and men. But Mr. Brown was looking for a boat with the single figure of a boy ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... Marine Gardens." These craft, that look like old-fashioned river side-wheelers are made on the Island, and some range from row-boats with glass bottoms to large side-wheel steamers valued at $3000. There is a fleet of them, big and little, and they skim over the kelp beds, and have introduced an altogether new variety of entertainment and ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... sigh that silence heaves: For not the faintest motion could be seen Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green. There was wide wand'ring for the greediest eye, To peer about upon variety; Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim, And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim; To picture out the quaint, and curious bending Of a fresh woodland alley, never ending; Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves, Guess were the jaunty streams refresh themselves. I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... rising silently above the bluffs which stand like some huge battlemented castle, just east of the city. Out to the left the great river swept on its massive yet silent way to the south. Jays called across the river from hillside to hillside, through the clear, beautiful air, and hawks began to skim the tops of the hills. The two vets were astir early, but Private Smith had fallen at last into a sleep, and they went out without waking him. He lay on his knapsack, his gaunt face turned toward the ceiling, his hands clasped on his breast, with a curious pathetic effect ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... after the English method the fat fries out into the pan, and a delicious, rich, brown gravy may be made by adding flour and water. Strain the juice through a fine sieve and allow to stand a few minutes so as to be able to skim or pour off all the grease. Do not serve gravies with half an inch of pure grease on top. It does not require a scientific education nor a herculean effort ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... best English from merely good English needs a long process of special education, but to recognize bad English one need merely skim through a page of a book, and if a single expression in the left-hand column following can be found (unless purposely quoted in illustration of vulgarity) it is quite certain that the author neither writes best English nor belongs to ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... and they crouched close together. Out upon the plain the shriek of the wind was weird and unearthly. Now and then some blast, fiercer and more tortuous than the rest, drove a fringe of snow so far into the hollow that it fell a wet skim across their faces. ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... and heat it to the boiling point. Add one cup of sugar for every two cups of juice; stir until the sugar is dissolved; boil briskly for five minutes; skim, and pour into glass tumblers, porcelain ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... shepherd puppy. It is just as cunning as it can be. There is no school here that I can go to, so I study at home. We have eight cows. I can milk, and I can strain the milk and skim it too. One ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... up together, one by one, upon the string, Like two yachts that skim the waters, they were racing wing and wing. Hushed was all the noisy clamor and the room was as still as death, As they stood and watched the players chalk their cues with ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... lined on the left side, and at the further end, with wide shelves up to the ceiling. On these shelves stood many capacious pans and basins of tin and earthenware, filled with milk, and most of them coated with superb yellow cream. Midway was the window, before which Miss Fortune was accustomed to skim her milk, and at the side of it was the mouth of a wooden pipe, or covered trough, which conveyed the refuse milk down to an enormous hogshead standing at the lower kitchen door, whence it was drawn as wanted for the use of the pigs. Beyond the window in the buttery, and on the higher shelves, were ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... two flying coursers that strain, on the track, neck and neck, on the home-stretch, With nostrils distended, and mane froth-flecked, and the neck and the shoulders, Each urged to his best by the cry and the whip and the rein of his rider, Now they skim o'er the waters and fly, side by side, neck and neck, through the meadows. The blue heron flaps from the reeds, and away wings her course up the river; Straight and swift is her flight o'er the meads, but she hardly outstrips the canoemen. See! the voyageurs bend ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... these lines is confused. Are not you he, says the fairy, that fright the country girls. that skim milk, work in the hand-mill, and make the tired dairy-woman churn without effect? The mention of the mill seem out of place, for she is not now telling the good but the evil that he does. I ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... me up. I was not of her monde; I am not now, either, but we sometimes meet. They are terrible people—her monde; all mounted upon stilts a mile high, and with pedigrees long in proportion. It is the skim of the milk of the old noblesse. Do you know what a Legitimist is, or an Ultramontane? Go into Madame de Cintre's drawing-room some afternoon, at five o'clock, and you will see the best preserved specimens. I say go, but no one is ...
— The American • Henry James
... perfect milk substitute— | | | | PRATTS CALF MEAL | | "BABY FOOD FOR BABY CALVES" | | | |When prepared and fed in accordance with the simple directions, Pratts| |Calf Meal will grow calves equal to those grown on whole or skim-milk| |and at less cost. | | | |This truly wonderful calf feed has practically the same chemical | |composition as the solids of whole milk. It is made of superior | |materials, carefully selected and especially adapted to calf feeding. | |These are milled separately and bolted to remove ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... read the very first poem that I open,' said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer remorselessly. 'I am afraid that it is almost time that I started, but we may still be able to skim over a few pages. Now then! There! Setebos! What a ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... to the right, the other to the left, while the third kept near the middle of the stream. Then two would swerve toward shore, or perhaps it was all three, and again it was Jennie who kept the farthest from land, or perhaps a fancy led her to skim so close that some of the overhanging ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... filmy shadow of green on the black soil. Behind the cultivator, a flock of blackbirds fed in the fresh-turned earth. The boy watched them with half-shut eyes. When one of the birds had fed, it would hop upon a lump of wet, black earth, and being satisfied that it could eat no more, would skim in rapid, undulating flight to the row of willows in the next pasture. On a fence-post, a meadow-lark filled the silence with a liquid flow of music. As it laid back its head in an abandon of joy, the boy noticed how the sun accentuated ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... if Jupiter should really wish to give a bonne-bouche to Juno, Leda, or Venus, or any one of his thousand and one flames, let him skim the milky-way—transform the instrumental part of the music of the spheres into 'hautboys,' and compound the only dish worth the roseate lips of the gentle dames 'in nubibus,' and depend on it, the cups of Ganymede and Hebe will be rejected ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... trying to discover where it might lead. Under sharp commands the crew brought the schooner about on the starboard tack, for the wind was on the bow, and set a staysail between the fore and main masts. The splendid ship seemed to skim over the surface of the sea, touching only the tops of ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... sun tearfully Ere the clouds clear fully, Still you skim cheerfully, Swallow, oh! swallow swift! often I sigh For a home Where you roam ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... "unprintable"; and in justice I must also say "unthinkable." They were unthinkable to me until I saw them, and I was no spring chicken in the ways of the world and the awful abysses of human degradation. It would take a deep plummet to reach bottom in the Erie County Pen, and I do but skim lightly and facetiously the surface of things ...
— The Road • Jack London
... shell again; Then thus renewed the desultory strain: Yes, yes, we must forget! the world is wide; My music now shall be the dashing tide: 100 In the calm of the deep I will frolic and swim— With the breath of the South o'er the sea-blossom[225] skim. If ever, stranger, on thy way, Sounds, more than earthly sweet, thy soul should move, It is the youth! Oh! do not say— That poor Olola died for love. Lautaro stretched his hand; she said, Adieu! And o'er the glimmering rocks like lightning flew. He followed, and still ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... and let it boil slowly for 10 minutes, and skim well while boiling. Then remove vessel from fire and add 1/2 gill of Brandy to every pint of Shrub. Bottle and cork securely. This drink is served by simply pouring a little of the Syrup into Ice Water, as any drink from Fruit ...
— The Ideal Bartender • Tom Bullock
... travelling mud-turtle visits it. Sometimes, when I pushed off my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great mud-turtle which had secreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent it in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows (Hirundo bicolor) skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus macularius) "teeter" along its stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting on a white pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the wind of a gull, like Fair Haven. At most, it tolerates ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... advance of her, three of which she had gained since keeping off, wing-and-wing. The lightness of the little craft essentially aided her. The canvas had less weight to drag after it; and Pintard observed that the hull seemed to skim the waves, as soon as the sharp stem had divided them, and the water took the bearings of the vessel. Hour after hour did he sit on the bowsprit, watching her progress; a crest of foam scarce appearing ahead, before it was glittering under ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... without getting an answer; but as she was rushing, distracted, round the house, Giselle came out of the door, and darted past her, running silently, her hair loose, and her eyes staring straight ahead. She seemed to skim along the grass as if on ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... down: a minute or two later he shut the book—a neat enough little volume—with a snap, and skimmed it deftly from where he sate, into his large waste-paper basket. This, by the way, was a curious little accomplishment of his,—throwing things with unerring aim. He could skim more cards across a room into a hat than anyone I have ever seen who was not a ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ever passed in my life now went along. The tiger roamed the deck silently, smelling at everything, once shoving its huge head into the companion-way, and I prayed with all my heart it would go below, that I might skim to the hatch and secure it. It drew its head out, and going to the boy stopped and smelt him. The very blood in me was curdled, for I made sure the beast was about to eat the lad. Sometimes I broke out into the noisiest roarings ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... would right itself. And it was a good cow for a small family like his; it did not give much milk at a time, but to make up for it gave milk all the year round. And rich milk too! When uncomplimentary remarks were made about it, Lars Peter would chaffingly declare that he could skim the milk three times, and then there was nothing but cream left. He was very fond of it, and more so for the good milk it ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the hen. "You should see her now that she has eaten the porridge: she is much taller than her mother, and her legs are so long that she can skim over the ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... light-hearted, fleeting forward to new scenes, there was in her mother's farewell kiss a solemnity which she could not hide. "Oh, Mother dear!" protested Sylvia, preferring as always to skim over the depths which her mother so dauntlessly plumbed. "Oh, Mother darling! How can you be so—when it's only for a ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the Elysian dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia, which the musky winds of the zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to sea. In the haze and the blur of it, Mr. Harley could see nothing, say nothing; his impulse was to be alone and collect himself. He felt as might one who has been staring at the sun. Storri's picture of an enterprise so vast that it proposed to set out the world like a mighty pan of milk, and skim the cream from two hemispheres, dazzled him and caused his wits to lose ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... spring. And from the dark flock'd up the shadowy tribes;— And as the swallows crowd the bulrush-beds Of some clear river, issuing from a lake, On autumn-days, before they cross the sea; And to each bulrush-crest a swallow hangs Quivering, and others skim the river-streams, And their quick twittering fills the banks and shores— So around Hermod swarm'd the twittering ghosts. Women, and infants, and young men who died Too soon for fame, with white ungraven shields; And old men, known to glory, but their star Betray'd them, and of wasting age they ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... meat from the blood, tends to keep it from tasting strong; it should be turned daily, and, if wanted soon, rubbed. A salting tub may be used, and a cover should fit close. Those who use a good deal of salt will find it well to boil up the pickle, skim, and when cold pour it over meat that has been sprinkled and drained. In some families great loss is sustained by the spoiling of meat. If meat is brought from a distance in warm weather, the butcher should be charged to cover it close, and bring ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... and swoop On the air, or loop Through the trees, and then go soaring, O: To group with a troop On the gusty poop While the wind behind is roaring, O: I skim and swim By a cloud's red rim And up to the azure flooring, O: And my wide wings drip As I slip, slip, slip Down through the rain-drops, Back where Peg Broods in the nest On the little white egg, So ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... crew, frae yon burn side, Those fairy scenes are no for you, by yon burn side; There fancy smooths her theme, By the sweetly murmuring stream, And the rock-lodged echoes skim, down by ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Cheiroptera to be in genera and species. Their profiles and full faces, even in outline, are often most bizarre and strange. Their interfemoral membranes, we may add, are actual "unreticulated" nets, with which they catch and detain flies as they skim through the air. They pick these out of this bag with their mouths, and "make no bones" of any prey, so sharp and pointed are their pretty insectivorous teeth. Their flying membranes, stretched on the elongated ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... said she, 'to live amidst the coral bowers and crystal caverns of the ocean, with my sister nymphs, and listen to the sounding waters above, and to the soft shells of the tritons! and then, after sun-set, to skim on the surface of the waves round wild rocks and along sequestered shores, where, perhaps, some pensive wanderer comes to weep! Then would I soothe his sorrows with my sweet music, and offer him from a shell some of the delicious fruit that hangs ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... ripple gently along the quiet strand, While summer's sunshine broodeth soft o'er all the sea and land. O mighty waves! as chainless, as free, as birds that skim! There's One who rules the stormy sea—thy song is ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... of pecking at the food after a meal is over and the way he, and the children too if they have the chance, mop up pickles and Worcester sauce—is a continual joy to me. We do not drink much alcohol. On the other hand, the children are curiously discouraged from drinking cold water. Skim milk, tea, stout, ale, or even very dilute spirit is considered better for them—a prejudice which dates probably from the days before a pure water supply. Since, however, I who am known to possess a contemptible ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... who crosses the heath at night bend clown until his face comes on a level with the tufts of grass, and he will see a strange spectacle outline itself against the western sky. Owls with great, round wings skim over the ground, invisible to any one standing upright. Snakes glide about there, lithe, quick, with narrow heads uplifted on swanlike necks. Great turtles crawl slowly forward, hares and water-rats flee before preying beasts, and a fox bounds ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... the later issues of the press, and especially the new novels, let him skim them for himself, unless in cases where trustworthy critical judgments are found in journals. Running through a book to test its style and moral drift is no difficult task for ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... days and the approach of spring the life of the Rangers became less full of hardship, though not less full of adventure. Snowshoes and skates were laid aside, and the men started to construct boats and canoes in which they soon began to skim the surface of the lake; scouting here, there, and all over, and bringing back news of the enemy's movements and strength even when no capture ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... valet of lord Ogleby. He has to skim the morning papers and serve out the cream of them to his lordship at breakfast, "with good emphasis and good discretion." He laughs at all his master's jokes, flatters him to the top of his bent, and speaks of him as a mere chicken compared to himself, though his lordship is seventy ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... strain a kettleful for ourselves, then divide what is left between them—two or three gallons for each; but it does not satisfy them, and they rage around, refusing to eat the scanty grass. We boil our kettle of water, and skim it; straining, boiling, and skimming make it a little better, for it was full of loathsome, wriggling larvae, with huge black heads. But plenty of coffee takes away the bad smell, and so modifies the taste that most of us can drink, though our ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... a pot going all day, into which you can put any broken-up bones or scraps left over, to make nourishing broth. Clean turnips, carrots, and onions improve it. Before using let it get cold, so as to skim off ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... lucky fellows we are to be away up here, where we can skim along at the rate of thirty miles an hour easily, without half trying, and snap our fingers at all those things. I tell you, Frank, this aviation business is the greatest thing that ever ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... stretch of level ground then, smooth and hard; and the horses as with common consent set out to gallop shoulder to shoulder in a wild, exhilarating skim across the plain. Talking was impossible. The man reflected that he was making great strides in experience, first a prayer and then a pledge, all in the wilderness. If any one had told him he was going into the West for this, he would ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... memory. The graces too, while virtue at their shrine Lay bleeding under that soft hand of thine, Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast, Abhorr'd the sacrifice, and cursed the priest. Thou polish'd and high-finish'd foe to truth, Gray-beard corruptor of our listening youth, To purge and skim away the filth of vice, That so refined it might the more entice, Then pour it on the morals of thy son To taint his heart, was worthy ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... blots for wild ducks; such a dashed-off daub as self-conceited artists mistake for a manifestation of genius. On my observing this to him, he answered, 'When my brain gets heated with thought, it soon boils, and throws off images and words faster than I can skim them off. In the morning, when cooled down, out of the rude sketch as you justly call it, I shall attempt ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... Cherubusco, and to tell the truth I didn't miss it, so weary was I, and the weather so cold. But yesterday and today I enjoyed the chance to soap myself and souse. Next if there is mail (and I can always depend on my letter from you) I like to enjoy it and skim the newspaper. After that the rifle should be cleaned, even on such a day as this when I did not fire a shot, for the barrel has a habit of "sweating" which requires it to be cleaned out and oiled. And then hundreds of us fall to ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... get only a smattering of the secret of certain success if you just skim over the chapters, and skip whatever requires you to think hard in order to comprehend it all. But if you dig into the meaning of each sentence for the full idea, you will enrich yourself with constantly increasing power and skill in selling. So you ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... whispered, "that old nut of a chairman doesn't look as if he had anything but skim milk in his veins. But do you sabez he's danced three times with that little fat ballet girl and he's hugging the daylights out of her. He'd ought to ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... roadside, which I used to pass daily in my walk, two nests were in process of construction throughout the month of November. The builders worked only at night, and I could see each day that the work had visibly advanced. When there was a slight skim of ice over the pond, this was broken up about the nests, with trails through it in different directions where the material had been brought. The houses were placed a little to one side of the main channel, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... savage men, are to be feared! If I feel too hot, I can ascend; if too cold, I can come down. Should there be a mountain, I can pass over it; a precipice, I can sweep across it; a river, I can sail beyond it; a storm, I can rise away above it; a torrent, I can skim it like a bird! I can advance without fatigue, I can halt without need of repose! I can soar above the nascent cities! I can speed onward with the rapidity of a tornado, sometimes at the loftiest heights, sometimes only a hundred feet above the soil, while the map of Africa unrolls ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... bring me some of that cold porridge too," he said, with a defiant look at Jones; "yesterday's, if you have it, and a few potato peelings and a glass of skim milk." ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock |
