"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and had been reminded with more exactness than kindness that he had cost King Charles a ship, scores of men, and thousands of pounds, in a fruitless search for buried treasure in Hispaniola. When he had urged his case upon the basis of fresh information, he was drily told that the security was too scant, even for a king. He had then pleaded his case to the Duke of Albemarle and other distinguished gentlemen. They were seemingly convinced, but withheld their answer ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... there was to be scant picking here, for this was the beginning of the severest winter I ever knew. From this very ridge, in February, I had reports of berries gone, of birds starving, of whole coveys of quail frozen ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... complaint that the painter's art can never reproduce one-half of the dead lady's charms is literally true in this instance, and those of Beatrice's portraits which we possess do but scant justice to the brightness and beauty which fascinated young and old among her contemporaries. Two of the letters addressed to Lodovico on this melancholy occasion are especially worthy of mention. One was a Latin epistle from the Emperor Maximilian, in which the writer ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... and upon whom all the sweetest thoughts of imagination shall be brought to bear for the furtherance of mutual joy! Aubrey's strong spirit, set to stern labour for so long, and trained to toil with but scant peace for reward, now sprang up as it were to its full height of capability and resolution,—yet its power was tempered with that tender humility which, in a noble-hearted man, bends before the presence of the woman whose love for him shall make her sacred. All his instincts bade him recognise ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... herself. Amalu alone berthed forward; the rest occupied staterooms, camped upon the satin divans, and sat down in Grant Sanderson's parquetry smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad of their kind, and often scant in quantity. Hemstead grumbled; Tommy had occasional moments of revolt, and increased the ordinary by a few haphazard tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry. But Hemstead grumbled from habit, Tommy revolted only for the moment, and there was underneath ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the balsam are blunt or rounded at the ends and some of them are even dented or notched in place of being sharp-pointed. Each spine or leaf is a scant one inch in length and very flat; the upper part is grooved and of a dark bluish-green color. The under-side is much lighter, often almost silvery white. The balsam blossoms in April or May, and the fruit or cones stand upright on the branches. These vary from two to four inches ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... Hillenkoetter, Jacobs, Thomas Darden, Dillon, and other BuPers officials. In contrast to the Knox period, where the files are replete with Secretary of the Navy memos, BuPers letters, and General Board reports on the development of the Navy's racial policy, there is scant documentation on the same subject during the early months of the Forrestal administration. This is understandable because the subject of integration was extremely delicate and not readily susceptible to the usual staffing needed for most policy decisions. Furthermore, Forrestal's ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... rising situation in life—and looking over our shoulder, the sight of city and sea was indeed magnificent. There in the distance rose North Berwick Law—but though we have plenty of time now for description, we had scant time then for beholding perhaps the noblest scenery in Scotland. Up with us—up with us into the clouds—and just as St. Giles's bells ceased to jingle, and both girths broke, we crowned the summit, and sat on horseback like king Arthur himself, eight hundred feet above ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... then. Some drunken artisan, who faced discharge on the morrow. Ivan turned from the window; but quickly returned to it. Vulgarly drunk the man might be. But even the fires of alcohol form scant protection against such cold as reigned to-day. The man might be frozen ere an officer perceived him. Moreover, as Ivan looked again, something in the recumbent figure suggested the abandon rather of despair than of debauchery.—An instant's hesitation. Then ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... perhaps more volubility than was required, covered up the traces of her design, Miss Lavender cast about how to commence the second and more hopeless attack. It was but scant intelligence which she had gained, but in that direction she dared not venture further. What she now proposed to do required more courage and ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... In contrast to this scant and uncertain evidence, Ales Hrdlicka, of the Smithsonian Institution, speaking of a single locality, says, "Near Lyons, France, the skeletons of 200,000 prehistoric horses are scattered. In one cave in Moravia, there are enough mammoth ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... scant three minutes before I heard his clear voice singing, "in the Downs", and up I got, with a precipitation far from politic, and stepped out of the box. Our company stared in surprise. But Dorothy rose clear from her chair. The terror I saw stamped upon her face haunts me yet, and I heard her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that gray early morning came two old flags, so torn by shot and shell that there was hardly enough left of them to tell whether the State flag was that of Massachusetts or Virginia. And behind these came scant three hundred men. All the rest were sleeping between Washington and Richmond, some on almost every battle-field. The uniforms were old and faded from sun and rain. Only gun-barrel and bayonet were bright. And the men were scarred and tired and foot-sore, ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... cabinet. In an upper story of one of these subdivided houses Rob Riley and his wife, Henrietta, have two old-fashioned rooms; the front room is large and airy, with a carved mantelpiece, the back room small and cosy. The furniture is rather plain and scant, for Rob has not yet got to be a great engineer working on his own account. At present he is one of those little fish that the big fish are made to eat—an obscure man whose brains are carried up to the credit of his chief. But he is already something, and is sure ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... the rounds in Dublin. Mr. —— is a man of aldermanic proportions. He chartered an outside car, t'other day, at Island Bridge Barrack, and drove to the post-office. On arriving he tendered the driver sixpence, which was strictly the fare, though but scant remuneration for the distance. The jarvey saw at a glance the small coin, but in place of taking the money which Mr. ——held in his hands, he busied himself putting up the steps of the vehicle, and then, going to the well at the back of the ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... institution over which they presided, their officials, who tried the innumerable cases which were brought to the papal court, had a reputation for grave corruption.[147] It was generally believed that the decision was always in favor of him who could pay most and that the poor received scant attention. The bishops' courts were notorious for their oppression, since a considerable portion of the bishop's income, like that of the feudal lord, came from the fines imposed upon those condemned by his officials. The same ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... destroy us. A living wall of steel it was, and on every hand the call to surrender. There was dismay in my heart, as I'll swear there was dismay in the heart of every man of us, and I make little doubt, gentlemen, that with but scant pressing we had thrown down our arms, so disheartened were we by that ambush. Then of a sudden there arose above the clatter of steel and Puritan cries, a loud, clear, defiant shout of ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... schooner's broad bilge showed above water, and the old Polly was so flat and tubby that their floating islet afforded only scant freeboard. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... back for her engagement at eleven o'clock, came in flushed and smiling—the extraordinary warmth and fervour of her reception by the audience which she had at first been so inclined to treat with scant courtesy had restored her to good humour, and when she had eaten a few mouthfuls of delicate food and drunk her first glass of champagne she began to ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... degree In Egypt, tarry not, but come to me, And thou shalt dwell in Goshen and be nigh me, And with provision there will I supply thee; Both thou and thine, flocks, herds, and all thou hast, (For yet these five years will the famine last) Lest otherwise, provision being scant, Thou and thy family may come to want. Behold, both you and Benjamin my brother Do see that it is I and not another. Go tell my father this amazing story, And bring him hither to behold my glory. Then falling on his youngest brother's neck, And he on his, they o'er each other wept. And ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... railroads operating in the State as their mileage there bore to their total mileage. In Maine v. Grand Trunk Railway Company,[672] a sharply divided Court upheld the tax on the basis of its designation, giving scant attention to its apportionment feature. Said Justice Field for the majority: "The privilege of exercising the franchises of a corporation within a State is generally one of value, and often of great value, and the subject of earnest contention. It is ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... gives a brief outline of Urdaneta's opinion that they should sail first to New Guinea. This island he declares "is one that we discovered in the year forty-four." He describes it as a desolate region, with but scant food, and declares that the voyage thither is dangerous and arduous. His own opinion is that the fleet should take the same course as did Saavedra and Villalobos; "and that the fleet should put in at the Filipinas Islands, which are ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... MR4, spun crazily through space a million miles off her trajectory. Her black-painted hull resembled a long thermonuclear weapon, and below her and only a scant twenty million miles away burned the hungry, flaming maw of ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara
... all kinds were showered upon him. Many medals were awarded to him, and the grateful miners subscribed from their scant wages enough to present him with a magnificent service of silver worth $12,000. His discovery was hailed from every part of Europe. The Czar Alexander of Russia sent him a beautiful vase, and he was chosen a member of ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... and texture, hat somewhat more modern, but bearing unmistakable proof of long service and exposure to sun and rain; old round-toed shoes, the top-leathers of which had survived more soles than the wearer had outlived souls of his early friends and companions; a scant white vest, ruffled shirt, and voluminous white cravat, completed the costume of this singular gentleman, who, with his ancient blue silk umbrella under his arm, and his fierce eye fixed on some imaginary goal ahead, made his way through the struggling ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... She paid but scant attention. If she could accomplish what she hoped, this morning, neither Dr. Hartmann nor his treatments would matter in the least to her. "I am sorry it will be necessary," she said, "but of ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... youthful and feminine pen and that of her critical biographer, I pass on to a time some months after her arrival home. Indeed, she writes little in the interval. The coming into a new and wider circle, the adapting herself to new conditions, leave her scant time for writing. There is a rapid noting of events, for it was an eventful time,—the mention of a few distinguished names, and that is all. But in order to follow the thread of Mary Twining's romance, we must pause at the account ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... rain—big drops that were the precursors of a heavy shower. The lads, in their exposed position on the tower, paid scant heed. Their interest and attention were centred upon the anxiously awaiting stranger fifty feet ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... compromises; and there was hardly any engagement which would bear being interpreted literally. Human language was too gross a vehicle of thought—thought being incapable of absolute translation. He added, that as there can be no translation from one language into another which shall not scant the meaning somewhat, or enlarge upon it, so there is no language which can render thought without a jarring and a harshness somewhere—and so forth; all of which seemed to come to this in the end, that it was the custom of the ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... days and six hours ago the Spirit of God came to my poor lost soul and found it in a dirty saloon on the East Side. I was dead—dead to shame, dead to honour, dead to love, dead to the memory of life. I was so low I found scant welcome in hell's own port, the saloon. They knew me and dreaded to see me. I had served time in prison, and when I drank I was an ugly customer for the bravest policeman to ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... who are all very strong and entirely normal. He is himself, however, delicate, overgrown, with a narrow chest, a small head, and babyish features, while mentally he is backward, with very defective memory and scant powers of assimilation. He is intensely nervous, peevish, and subject to fits of childish rage. He takes violent fancies to persons of his own sex. But he appears to have only one way of obtaining sexual excitement and gratification. It is his custom to get into a hot bath and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... friends, and she answered. Yet when he got, along with her mild responses, one of those glances, he was himself strangely subdued by it, and fain to prop his leaning prejudices by contrasting her scant print gown, her slat sunbonnet, and cowhide shoes with the apparel of the humblest in the village which they ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... being those of feet only, merged into those made by hands. The man had begun to crawl, making his way inch by inch. Fragments of his torn clothing hung on the points of rocks. Dim brown lines showed the path his body had taken, as he sometimes slipped back. Breaks in the scant vegetation told where his fingers had clutched desperately to halt his descent. Yet each time the reverse had been but temporary; he had returned, and mounted higher and higher. But at last there had come ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... scant encouragement from the President, but Seward still thought something might result from the venture, and on that evening, April 24, Schleiden started for Richmond, being provided by Seward with a pass through the Union lines. He arrived on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth, but even before ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... their dormitory with a scant minute or so to spare before locking-up time, for the rules were rather strict at Milton. There were hasty good-nights, promises to meet on the morrow, and then quiet settled ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... the bank to the water's edge. Behind him followed his old friend, no longer the emboldened Devil Anse with fire in his eagle eye, but a meek, a silent, penitent figure. The autumn breeze stirred his snow-white hair, his scant gray beard. Upon his breast the old clansman held respectfully his wide-brimmed felt as he walked with head uplifted in supplication. Behind him followed his six sons. Jonse came first, Jonse, who had loved ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... the entire family. He is a noble and amiable bird, by far the best all-round character in the flock, for dignity of mien and large- minded common-sense. What is the treatment vouchsafed to this blameless husband and father? One that puts anybody out of sorts with virtue and its scant rewards. To begin with, the others will not allow him to go into the pond. There is an organised cabal against it, and he sits solitary on the bank, calm and resigned, but, naturally, a trifle hurt. His favourite retreat is a tiny sort of island on the edge ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... It was a deep-blue heaven with Fujiyama to the left and golden grain beneath, persons sitting on benches, heat, radiance, joy! One of Hiroshige's prints he dubbed "the great poem of the moon." On wide, moist, melancholy meadows, scant-leaved trees, like weeping willows, their branches drooping in the mirror of an idly flowing stream, barges loaded with turf passing by, a floating bridge propelled by Japanese raftsmen, the water blue ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... for the large part still homeless. Many were still down in the villages, living upon neighbourhood kindness and the scant help of public charity. Only the comparative few who could obtain ready credit had been able even to begin rebuilding. If they were not roused to prodigious efforts at once, the winter would be upon ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and trees, the ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... meadows, inclosed with stone walls; the irregular and broken ground, between the wall and the road on which we stood; a long low hill behind the windmill, and a grey covering of uniform cloud spread over the evening sky. It was that season when the last leaf had just fallen from the scant and stunted ash. The scene surely was a common scene; the season and the hour little calculated to kindle lawless thought; it was a tame uninteresting assemblage of objects, such as would drive the imagination for refuge in serious and sober talk, to the evening fireside, ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... that made his walk ungainly; but though no way resembling the ermine-cloaked king of the chapel at Pontesordo, he yet knew how to put on a certain majesty with his state wig and his orders. As for the newly married Duchess, who sat at the other end of the cabinet caressing a toy spaniel, she was scant fourteen and looked a mere child in her great hoop and jewelled stomacher. Her wonderful fair hair, drawn over a cushion and lightly powdered, was twisted with pearls and roses, and her cheeks excessively rouged, in the French fashion; so that as she arose on the approach of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... line, and you will see the action and the result of this great law of Co-operative Activities. When I first looked within the lids of that hollyhock, and was incited to read the rudimental lessons of the new leaves that man's art had added to its scant, original volume, I had no thought of finding so much matter printed on its pages. I have transcribed it here in the order of its paragraphs, hoping that some who read them may see in this life of flowers an interest they may have ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... were in doubt that the world was now right evil governed as it was never other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but the law nor his judges did provide no remedy. A redress God grant. This was scant said but all cried with one acclaim nay, by our Virgin Mother, the wife should live and the babe to die. In colour whereof they waxed hot upon that head what with argument and what for their drinking but the franklin ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... miles of moor and fell, to beautiful mills and dells and waterfalls—too many miles for slender Marty or little Chips; or even Bob and Chucker-out—who weigh thirty-two stone between them, and are getting lazy in their old age, and fat and scant of breath. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Scant feet from ground surface, the sportster pilot flicked his pitch control and pulled his throttle out for the brief burst of power which would allow him to drop ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... still swung at anchor alone at the foot of the cliff. Whenever the artist broached the subject of a new boat, Uncle William turned it aside with a jest and trotted off to his clam-basket. The artist brooded in silence over his indebtedness and the scant chance of making it good. He got out canvas and brushes and began to paint, urged by a vague sense that it might bring in something, some time. When he saw that Uncle William was pleased, he kept on. The work took his mind off himself, and he grew strong and vigorous. Andy, ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... general rule only within the reach of the few, of the privileged classes and those more or less dependent on their favour, with whom such ideals as those voiced by Winstanley would naturally meet with but scant consideration. Moreover, though we may be accused of pessimism or cynicism for saying so, it seems to us that the main reason why teachings such as Winstanley's must necessarily remain specially unpalatable and unwelcome so long as social and political privileges are ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... wood or ivory. But for three years the situation had remained the same—the husband unobservant, the lady capricious and wilful. She had shown the artist more kindness than he cared to recall. That was months ago. Of late he had found scant favor in her ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... morning, so I sent for a pair of battledores and a shuttlecock, and when Charles Mason came to render up last night's account, I made him come into a beautiful large ball-room I had discovered in this house, and took a good breathing; and he, being like Hamlet, "fat and scant ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... thoroughly an unenviable position on every other score as was that of the Venizelists at this time. The Serbs and the Belgians had at least the knowledge that the confidence and the sympathy of the Allies were theirs. Also, they had chances to fight to their hearts' content. The Venizelists had scant measure of sympathy, and still less of confidence; and when their first chance to fight was at last given them, they were allowed to face the foe only after elaborate precautions had been taken against everything, ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... to himself the warm fire he had just quitted in his little room in the Rue D'homond, and the folio Bollandiste which he had left lying on the table, with his eye-glasses on its open pages. But it was Saturday night, the day when certain old widows, who earned their scant income in the neighboring boarding-houses, sometimes sought absolution for the morrow's communion. The honest priest could not, therefore, excuse himself from entering his oak box and opening, with the punctuality of a cashier, that wicket where the devotees, for whom the confessional is a spiritual ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... victory.] It was greatly to our credit that we had been enterprising enough to fit out such an effective little flotilla on Lake Erie, and for this Perry deserves the highest praise. [Footnote: Some of my countrymen will consider this but scant approbation, to which the answer must be that a ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... paying scant attention to the fellow's tirade. Could there be smuggling going on from this mine? It all seemed to be conducted openly enough. If the production record were being falsified I felt that this dissatisfied mine commander was not aware of it. He showed me the smelter, where the quicksilver ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... that in him they are to see the first fruit of their toil, the first in the district to be saved by their teaching, while he nurses a vague hope that, when the foreign teachers regard him as adequately converted, they may be willing to restore speech and hearing to his poor little offspring. It is a scant harvest. ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... sufficient food, and now, when it was almost within their reach, they were denied it by this curious trick of nature. With pale and wan faces they gazed at each other, wetting their parched lips, for they had some time since taken the last of their scant supply of water, and ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... were at last completed, and Mr. Mulrady and Mamie, accompanied by a taciturn and discreet Chinaman, carrying their scant luggage, were on their way to the high road to meet the up stage, the father gazed somewhat anxiously and wistfully into his daughter's face. He had looked forward to those few moments to enjoy the freshness and naivete of Mamie's youthful ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... them up! You will soon have enough to do to take care of your own. What with Dynamics and Infinitesimals, Pasigraphy and Dyadik, Monads and Majesties, Concilium AEgyptiacum and Spanish Succession and Hanoverian cabals, there will be scant room in that busy brain for Substantial Forms. Let them sleep, dust to dust, with the tomes of Duns Scotus and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... issuing forth From his own phalanx, he approach'd and drove A spear right through his body at the waist. Sounding he fell. Loud groan'd Achaia's host. As when the lion and the sturdy boar 1005 Contend in battle on the mountain-tops For some scant rivulet, thirst-parch'd alike, Ere long the lion quells the panting boar; So Priameian Hector, spear in hand, Slew Menoetiades the valiant slayer 1010 Of multitudes, and thus in accents wing'd, With fierce delight exulted in his fall. It ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... increased the terrible contrast between wealth and poverty. In their years of strength the laboring people, cut off from all share in governing the state, derived a scant support from the severest toil, and had no hope for old age but in public charity or death. A grasping ambition had dotted the world with military posts, kept watch over our borders on the northeast, at the Bermudas, ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... there was an English-man; You'l scant find any now, to make that name good: There were those English that were men indeed, And would perform like men, but now they are vanisht: They are so taken up in their own Country, And so beaten of their speed by their own women, When they ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... are the old ladies who worship a fat poodle, scant of breath and full of fleas. I knew a couple of elderly spinsters once who had a sort of German sausage on legs which they called a dog between them. They used to wash its face with warm water every morning. It had a mutton cutlet regularly for breakfast; and on Sundays, when ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the day but often every hour of the night. She may have to get up night after night to take care of a sick child, and yet must by day continue to do all her household duties as well; and if the family means are scant she must usually enjoy even her rare holidays taking her whole brood of children with her. The birth pangs make all men the debtors of all women. Above all our sympathy and regard are due to the struggling ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... my heart beat fast as recollections of their merciless treatment of their officers came flooding my brain, and I felt that if they behaved like this to their officers, whom they had sworn to obey, there would be scant mercy for ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... the whole crew; so crowding all the sail we could, we pushed southwards very briskly before the wind for several days. We now went upon examining our stores, and found we had flour enough, plenty of fish and salt provisions, but were scant of water and wood; of the first whereof there was not half a ton, and but very little of the latter. This made us very uneasy, and being none of us expert in navigation farther than the common working of the ship, and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... He had scant time to mourn. Scarcely had he seated himself at his desk when an emergency call came snapping in; a call of such import that his secretary's usually calm voice trembled as she put it on ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... them, becomes the conviction of all who have studied the subject sufficiently. For there must be the continuous line all through: we see it go from dense ignorance up to intelligence and wisdom; it is only natural that it should go on to intuitive knowledge and to inspiration. Some scant fragments we have of these great gifts of man; where, then, is the whole of which they must be a part? Hidden behind the thin yet seemingly impassable veil which hides it from us as it hid all science, all art, all powers of man till he had the courage to tear away the screen. ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... soe that, sweet Robin being away, I find myselfe lonely. Harry rides with me in the Evening, but the Mornings I have alle to myself; and when I have fulfilled Mother's Behests in the Kitchen and Still-room, I have nought but to read in our somewhat scant Collection of Books, the moste Part whereof are religious. And (not on that Account, but by reason I have read the most of them before), methinks I will write to borrow some of Rose; for Change of Reading hath now become a Want. I am minded also, to seek out and minister ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... of its day of appearance, an article for which he had made himself responsible and of which, tied up with a stout string, he laid on my table the subject. I pounced upon my opportunity—that is on the first volume of it—and paid scant attention to my friend's explanation of his appeal. What explanation could be more to the point than my obvious fitness for the task? I had written on Hugh Vereker, but never a word in The Middle, where my dealings were mainly with the ladies and the minor poets. This was ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... some on the wing; he added grouse and rabbit meat to the scant larder of their "go light" outfit. He shot graylings and salmon in the streams. He could easily have killed caribou because they operated close to vast herds of these foolish beasts. However, at the time it seemed that there was no hurry about the matter; they had meat in ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... never raised his hood, no matter what the ardor of the sun or the rain's strength. He never put on a shoe. He wore a garment of coarse sackcloth, with nothing else upon his skin. This garment was as scant as possible, and over it a little cloak of the same stuff. When the cold was great he took off the cloak and opened for a while the door and little window of his cell. Then he closed them and resumed the mantle—his way, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... offered to the public, therefore, in the hope that they may suggest a method, add a little to the scant supply of material for children's sermons, and serve to interest ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... will get scant attention, Interest's sure to be centred in me. Painters will picture me, poets may mention, Beauties discuss ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... friendless, and unknown. Thirty years later he left Illinois the foremost man in the nation, and known to all the world. He assisted his father in clearing fifteen acres of land, and split the rails with which to build the fence. Although of age, he had no money, and having but a scant supply of clothing, made a bargain with Nancy Miller to make him a pair of trousers. For each yard of cloth required he split four hundred fence-rails, and as he was over six feet in height it took fourteen hundred rails to pay for his trousers. On April 19, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... This scant sympathy Ethel found to be the usual tone among her acquaintances. St. Jude's got a new rector and a new idol, and the Stanhope affair was relegated to the limbo of things "it was ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... profuse, but after having tucked the money safely away in his pocket, something of his old surly manner returned. He took leave of his benefactors with scant ceremony, but the boys were so glad to get rid of him ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... spoke. He felt in his heart that he had gotten scant sympathy and comfort. The older man looked with pity at the young fellow's handsome, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... by this time, though it was quite half an hour earlier than he usually started for school. He felt chilly—chillier than he had ever felt before, though it was not a very cold morning. But going out breakfastless does not tend to make one feel warm, and of this sort of thing Geoff had but scant experience. His bag, too, felt very heavy; he glanced up and down the street with a vague idea that perhaps he would catch sight of some boy who, for a penny or two, would carry it for him to the omnibus; but there was no ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... loomed before him, dark and forbidding. On either side there were outhouses, and in the rear quite near the house a barn. There was not a tree on the place; indeed, there was little vegetation upon the entire Neck, save the grass of the middle meadows which in summer furnished scant nourishment for the cattle and a flock of sheep. Now all was bleak and covered with snow, and a freshening gale swept out of the great maw ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... and for ten days no food had found way into his stomach. So they asked the cause of his sickness and she answered, "The reason was our severance from him and our leaving him desolate; for these days we have been absent from him were longer to him than a thousand years and scant blame to him, seeing he is a stranger, and solitary and we left him alone, with none to company with him or hearten his heart; more by token that he is but a youth and may be he called to mind his family and his mother, who is a woman in years, and bethought him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... they could not reach Brownstown before night, and Major Muir, after a hasty consultation with Tecumseh, decided to meet the enemy at Maguaga, a small Indian village between Brownstown and Detroit. The Indians in their scant habiliments of war, their dark bodies grotesquely painted in varied colours, strode silently by the side of the British soldiers. The allies rapidly pushed their way along the muddy road, past the scene ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... of their married life, they lived in a lonely place and had but a scant income. We have a very interesting picture of their life at Craigenputtock. Thomas could not eat bakers' bread, so Jeannie baked. The one servant they had was not competent. It may have been this same servant that was ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... the others aiders and abettors of his misbelief. Some even of the darker charges may have had some ground, or at least have seemed truer than they were. Thus Eusebius had a very heterogeneous following, and it would be scant charity if we laid on all of them the ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... his visitor. A few scraggly hedges and an apple tree, a charred bit of fence, a chimney foundation are the only markers of the home he built after years of a hard struggle to have a home. His land is all gone except the scant five acres upon which he lives, and this is only an expanse of broom straw. He is no longer able to cultivate the land, not even ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... back from the river, on top of the level gravelly earth which stretched for miles on either side of the river clear to the mountains. This earth and gravel mixture was so firmly packed that even the cactus had a scant foothold. The town interested me for one reason only, this being, that I could get my meals for the evening and the following morning, instead of having to cook them myself. After I had eaten them, however, there was a question in my mind if my own cooking, bad as ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... are just the rude stories one hears In sadness and mirth, The records of wandering years, And scant is their worth Though their merits indeed are but slight, I shall not repine, If they give you one moment's delight, Old comrades ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... not the comfort had brought me, Fair queen of the ring, thy embrace! Go, mate with the man of thy choosing, Scant mirth will he get of thy grace! Be dearer henceforth to thy dastard, False dame of the coif, than to me;— I have spoken the word; I have sung it;— I have said my last farewell ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... and animated, but it was in the castle courtyard Frank found most amusement. Here of a morning a thousand negroes would be gathered, most of them men sent down from Dunquah, forming part of our native allied army. Their costumes were various but scant, their colors all shades of brown up to the deepest black. Their faces were all in a grin of amusement. The noise of talking and laughing was immense. All were squatted upon the ground, in front of each was a large keg labelled "pork." Among them moved two ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... no more than out of the room when Jim slid off the bed quick as a cat; softly as a cat, on his noiseless stockinged feet he followed Mac down the hall; crafty as a cat, he crept down the creaking stairs, tread for tread, a scant arm's length behind his prey—why, God alone knows, unless for a savage joy in longer holding another thug's life in his hands. So he hung, like a leech to the blood it loves, across the corridor and to the middle of the trunk room that ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... forth on his journey to the battle-field that very day, and that moments were growing precious, even in the timeless East. Then, turning to the Sultan, he in his turn began to pour out profuse explanations and apologies. The uncouth, misshapen figure on the central divan, however, paid scant heed to his Minister. Right into the fierce, cruel, passionate heart of Sultan Mahomet that strange silence was piercing: piercing as no words could have done, through the crust formed by years of self-seeking and sin, piercing, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... monsoon; cloudy, rainy, hot, humid summers (southwest monsoon, June to September); less cloudy, scant rainfall, mild temperatures, lower humidity during winter (northeast ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... been staying a week at the vicarage, her parents came down from town on a two days' visit, especially arranged to give them an opportunity of looking over Yew Hedge. Colonel Saville's scant supply of patience was fast giving out beneath the strain of disappointment, and he declared his intention of buying the first habitable house he saw, while his wife and daughter were reluctantly forced to the conclusion that it was impossible to procure an ancestral ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... houseless child of want, Our doors are open still; And though our portions are but scant, We give them ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... winds over the flat expanse, denotes some evidence of man—horseman or ox-cart pursuing its leisurely and monotonous way. Upon the edges of the dry stream-beds, or arroyos, which descend from the hills and lose themselves in wide alluvial fans upon the sandy waste, a fringe of scant vegetation appears, nourished by the water which flows down ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... of "Saving" has received but scant attention from economic writers. Jevons appears to have held that superfluous food and other necessary consumptive goods, in whosoever hands they were, constituted the only true fund of capital in a community at any given time. Sidgwick also holds that all "Savings" are in the first instance ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... dangerous for that. He had viewed the failure of the plan to capture a city in the northwest in February with irritation, but without discouragement. They had acted prematurely there and without sufficient secrecy. That was all. The plan in itself was right. And he had watched the scant reports of the uprising in the newspapers with amusement and scorn. The very steps taken to suppress the facts showed the uneasiness of the authorities and left the nation with a feeling of ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... available for the wants of man. There is yet scope for an enormous extension of railways all over the world, and the fame of Stephenson will continue to grow as railways continue to spread. (Loud cheers.) But I should do scant justice to the memory of George Stephenson if I dwelt only on the results of his achievements. Many a great reputation has been marred by faults of character, but this was not the case with George Stephenson. His manly simplicity and frankness, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... wi' theirs compared, And shudder at the niffer; But cast a moment's fair regard, What makes the mighty differ? Discount what scant occasion gave That purity ye pride in, And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) Your better ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... to stick close to their shanties and fire-places, for their clothing was scant and the weather extremely cold. The division did not remain at North Chickamauga long, for, on the 26th of December, it crossed the Tennessee, taking up camp at McAfee's church, on the left of the Chickamauga battle-field and ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... meadow to the walled garden inclosure of Villa Elsa, whose branches, vines and flowering bushes insisted on making it almost a hidden retreat. The spot could not be more gemuetlich—that familiar expressive word which Kirtley soon learned to rely on amid the scant artillery of his ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... the decorations. Miss Abigail made pink icing for the cake. Ruby Lee hung bleeding-hearts over the dining-room door. Aunt Nancy resurrected from the bottom of her trunk a white lace cap with a rakish-looking pink bow for an adornment, and fastened it to her scant gray hairs in honor of the occasion. Blossy turned her pink china pig, his lid left ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... Philip had certainly shown rather scant civility to Mr. Anderson, and this trait of thoughtfulness for a sickly and capricious ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in heart and brain, Without the dead were colder. If we tried To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure The future would not stand. Precipitate This old roof from the shrine, and, insecure, The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate. How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer! The tall green poplars grew no longer straight Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight For Athens, and not swear by Marathon? Who dared build temples, without tombs in sight? Or live, ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... you saw her faire, none else being by, Herselfe poys'd with herselfe in either eye: But in that Christall scales, let there be waid, Your Ladies loue against some other Maid That I will show you, shining at this Feast, And she shew scant shell, well, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... to justify it presently. I should be angry with you, O'Moy, for what you have done. But I find my anger vanishing in regret. I should scorn you for the lie you have acted, for your scant regard to your oath in the court-martial, for your attempt to combat an imagined villainy by a real villainy. But I realise what you have suffered, and in that suffering lies the punishment you fully deserve for not having taken the straight course, for not having taxed me there ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... the soile is much like Newfoundland, but the fish about it, as also throwout the Grande Bay within Cape Briton, is much larger and better than that of the Newfoundland. This Island is scant two leagues long, and very narrow. In the midst of it, a great way within the wood is a great poole. Here we were thrise on shore: once at the East side, and twise ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... object lying stretched upon the lawn for some time baffled his eyesight; but at length he had made it out to be a long ladder, or series of ladders bound into one; and he was still wondering of what service so great an instrument could be in such a scant enclosure, when he was recalled to himself by the noise of some one running violently down the stairs. This was followed by the sudden, clamorous banging of the house door; and that again, by rapid and retreating footsteps in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for whole weeks at a time; but our horses,—ah, that was different. There was no grain to be had for them. They had been starving for a month, for the Indians had burned the grass before us wherever we went, and here in the pine-covered hills what grass could be found was scant and wiry,—not the rich, juicy, strength-giving bunch-grass of the open country. Of my two horses, neither was in condition to do military duty when we got to Whitewood. I was adjutant of the regiment, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... which endeavour to stem the current, but they make scant headway; sometimes a fugitive afraid of the rails will pull up stream; the birds do fly with the spring winds against the retreat of winter; but all these things are trifles, and merely accentuate the fact that everything ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... alone—she leaned again on the low abutment, but the hypnotic spell was broken: only acute anxiety remained. For the lamp of her life had made scant progress; and now she was aware of a disturbance in the water, little ominous whirlpools not caused by wind. Presently there emerged a long shadow, like a black expanse of rock:—unmistakably a mugger. And in that moment she felt ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... County, a small town Built near the Sound, but of a scant renown, That always to its biggest size did run At summer-time, beneath a blazing sun, But rested as a town, as if to say, "I'll pay no further taxes, come what may;"— The ancient cobbler, JOHN, unknown to fame (So many cobblers since have borne the name), Owned the great belle of all ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... of Sore Eyes," or March, had come at last, and Wazeah, the God of Storm, was still angry. Their scant provision of dried meat had held out wonderfully, but it was now all but consumed. The Sioux had but little ammunition, and the snow was still so deep that it was impossible for them to move away to any other region in search of game. The worst ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... a tunic reaching to the feet; the palmata was a state tunic, embroidered with palms, which ornamentation was often found in other parts of dress. The lacerna, loena, cucullus, chlamys, sagum, paludamentum, were upper garments, more or less coarse, either full or scant, and usually short, and were analogous to our cloaks, mantles, &c., and were made both with and without hoods. There were many varieties of the tunic and cloak invented by female ingenuity, as well as of other articles of dress, which ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... the counter, or seated at numerous small tables, men were drinking villainous liquor, smoking and talking, and paying but scant attention to the strains of the fiddle or the accordion, save when some well known air was played, when all would join in a boisterous chorus. Some were always passing in or out of a door which led into a room behind. Here there was comparative ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... which culminated finally in a visit to Tolstoy—that the Settlement, or Hull-House at least, was a mere pretense and travesty of the simple impulse "to live with the poor," so long as the residents did not share the common lot of hard labor and scant fare. ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... authors of whom personally we know little, but of whose works we cannot ever know enough, such a one for example as Shakespeare; others of whose lives we know much, but for whose works we can have but scant affection: such is Doctor Johnson; others who are intimate friends in all their aspects, as Goldsmith and Charles Lamb; yet others, who do not quite come home to our bosoms, whose writings we cannot entirely approve, but for whom and for whose works we find a soft place somewhere ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... some distance, and then he said, "Now you understand the sort of man I am. Much brutality, more weakness, scant pity for anyone—Oh, it has ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... astonishment annoyed the Master, even while it hurt him. He took scant pleasure in rebuffing this old friend; but certainly "Captain Alden" would not bear discussing. Feeling himself in a kind of impasse regarding Alden, and fearing some telltale expression in his eyes, the Master swung ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... planted, that is the hope and snare of every real-estate man, but, though poor, she will not part with it. She has a house, however, that she rents in the season. One day some Eastern people were looking at it, and timidly said that one bath-room seemed rather scant ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... and rider abandoned the effort, and, full fifty yards below the point where the battalion commander and his scouts were in consultation, the lieutenant dismounted, and leaving his steed unguarded to nibble at a patch of scant and sodden herbage that had survived the Indian fires, he slowly climbed the ascent. "I am ordered to report to you, sir," was all he had ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the major part of it in passing and repassing the house on the corner, only going home between times to remove the mud from his shoes and give an extra brush to his hair. The girl, meanwhile, was devoting her day to sweeping off the front pavement, a scant three feet of pathway from her steps to the wooden gate. Every time Joe passed she looked up and smiled, and every time she smiled Joe suffered all the symptoms of ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... imagine, was, like most local satire, personal; and was a reflection upon the unfairness of the process rather than a commentary upon the impropriety of the result. With this facetious exception, Sandy had been undisturbed. A wandering mule, released from his pack, had cropped the scant herbage beside him, and sniffed curiously at the prostrate man; a vagabond dog, with that deep sympathy which the species have for drunken men, had licked his dusty boots, and curled himself up at his feet, and lay there, blinking one eye in the sunlight, with ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... man, then, and not with the multitude, are her intimacies; and in the book of her life the names inscribed are few—scant, indeed, the list of those who have helped to write her story of ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... prepare our scant meal, that she was bravely endeavoring to appear gay, while her heart remained heavy from memory of her father. Whether this assumed levity deceived De Noyan I cannot say—he was of a volatile nature, easily swayed by either smile or tear, and instantly joined responsive to her ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... humiliating reverence with which the king would wait for the meanest clerk to pass before him. In the square-shouldered ruddy youth who came to receive his fiefs, with his "countenance of fire," his vivacious talk and overwhelming energy and scant ceremoniousness at mass, she saw a man destined by fate and character to be in truth a "king." Her decision was as swift and practical as that of the keen Angevin, who was doubtless looking to the southern lands so long coveted by his race. ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... here," holding out her hand. "One makes acquaintance so much more quickly out of doors. I must begin ours by asking for your arm, Miss Swendon. I am fat and scant o' breath, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... and her face held the glow of fine health. She had added to the severity of her sharp features by the too-elderly manner in which she parted her hair exactly in the centre of her high brow and brushed it sharply backward to a scant knot behind. She wore constantly an expression of one who was well aware of the fact that vast and vague duties to the dead as well as to the living rested on her and which should be performed at any cost. She was not usually talkative, and she ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... few fellow travelers, and those they did meet paid scant attention to the man and the boy carrying the violins. As it chanced, there was no one in sight when the man, walking in the grass at the side of the road, stumbled and fell ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... Life was scant at Samarra, as poor as it had been abundant at Sannaiyat. The crested larks were of a new species. Owls nested in the old wells; and most units were presently owning their owlets or kestrels or speckled kingfishers, miserable-looking ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson |
