"Modicum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it and the eye below, the disdainful tension of the nostril and the drooping corners of the mouth, gave his face the injured expression of a spoiled child. The lips were of similar fullness and the chin retreated. There was refinement in his face, but no force nor modicum ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... one would have chosen, but who, since the world began, had ever lived exactly the life of his choice? Many women, she reflected stoically, were far worse off than she, since she started not only with a modicum of business experience (for surely the three months with Brandywine & Plummer might weigh as that) but with a knowledge of the world and a social position which she had found to be fairly marketable. That Madame Dinard would have accepted an unknown and undistinguished applicant for work at ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... I admit Munster, gintlemen—glorious Kerry!—yes, and I say I am not ashamed of it. I do plead guilty to the peripatetic system: like a comet I travelled during my juvenile days—as I may truly assert wid a slight modicum of latitude" (here he lurched considerably to the one side)—"from star to star, until I was able to exhibit all their brilliancy united simply, I can safely assert, in my own humble person. Gintlemen, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Joyce had built for herself and the Bonnivels. Both of them, though fitted with many conveniences and finished with taste, were of moderate cost, there being not one extravagance, and only the modicum of room actually needed for refined living, in either. Many a rich woman has thought nothing of putting more expense into the fitting of one room, even, than Joyce had laid out on her whole house. Indeed that reserved for Madame was much the costlier of the two. Yet, with ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... will rarely find himself in possession of more than one minute to each scholar. In so brief a time, very little can be ascertained as to what the scholar knows of the lesson, and still less can anything be done to increase that knowledge. Moreover, while the teacher is bestowing his small modicum of time upon one scholar, all the other members of the ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... indifferent to many more important ones. It was his custom to take what he called a stroll before breakfast—a matter of a mere eight or ten miles, maybe—and he found to his hand a young man with walking legs, seeing eyes, and but a modicum of tongue. He showed Peter that country-side with the thoroughness of a boy birds'-nesting, as Peter had once showed the Carolina country-side to Claribel Spring. They went over the venerable house with the same thoroughness, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... the guileless gayety of infantile ignorance, which perforce "medicines your weariness," on the other,—a demeanor which at once disgusts and alarms you. I felt confident that some underhand work was going on. I went upstairs. There was Cheri again, this time with his right wing gone, and a modicum of his tail. The cage had retained its position, but the Evil One had made her grip at him; and the same routine of weariness, silence, loss of appetite and spirits was to be gone through with again, followed by re-pluming and recuperating. But every time I think of it, I am lost in ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... pervolaverit; qui cum per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud exierit. Ipso quidem tempore quo intus est, hiemis tempestati non tangitur, sed tamen parvissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidve praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si haec nova doctrina certius aliquid attulit merito esse sequenda videtur." "Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum," book ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... old cottages, lop-sided as they were—liked the crooked staircase squeezed into a corner of the living room below, the stuffy little dens above, with casement windows which only opened on one side, letting in the smallest modicum of air, and were not often opened at all. Cottages on the Now Arden model meant stone floors below and open rafters above, thorough draughts everywhere, and, worst of all, they meant weekly inspection by Miss ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... which would fill English readers, of this time, with amazement. Much is admirable to us as we study Reinsberg, what it had been, what it became, and how it was made; but nothing more so than the small modicum of money it cost. To our wondering thought, it seems as if the shilling, in those parts, were equal to the guinea in these; and the reason, if we ask it, is by no means flattering altogether. "Change in the value of money?" Alas, reader, no; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... secret; and she hath done the same, and I cannot make her a liar." Rejoined they, "Thou sayst sooth, but we desire thine advantage, and even wert thou to take service with the folk, 'twere a means of thy continuance." Then each and every of them brought out to him money and gave him a modicum and clad him and fed him and fared on with him the length of a parasang, till they brought him far from the city, and letting him know that he was safe, departed from him, whilst he journeyed till he came forth of his uncle's reign and entered the dominion ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... stores, fancied that a fortnight was the very longest that could be counted on, though they ate no more than would keep a modicum of strength in them. From their kind and quality he surmised that they had been intended for the officials in charge of ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... or supplies at the grocery, you, of course, pay money. Is it a harvest from the field that you seek? Tillage must be paid. Would you have the river toil in production of cloths for your raiment? Only pay the due modicum of knowledge, labor, and skill, and you shall bind its hand to your water-wheels, and turn all its prone strength into pliant service. Or perhaps you wish the comforts of a household. By payment of the due bearing of its burdens, you may hope to obtain it,—surely not otherwise. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... the glebe and the vineyard. There is Horace, charming man of the world, who will condole with you feelingly on the loss of your fortune, and by no means undervalue the good things of this life, but who will yet show you that a man may be happy with a vile modicum or parva rura. There is Shakspeare, who, above all poets, is the mysterious dual of hard sense and empyreal fancy,—and a great many more, whom I need not name, but who, if you take to them gently and quietly, will not, like your ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... interested in the nuns. After a modicum of judicious praise to Madame, he departed, promising to come ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... I cannot," she replied tensely, the last modicum of will summoned to resist what he sought and she desired. "The King"—she began, bethinking her of her reason; "you know that he is not always prudent. Mine is a hot-headed though loyal people. I must be by to guide him—for Krovitch. But, ah, 'twill ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... suppose that had this lame girl's workmates enjoyed the privilege of the same elementary training, they might have shown an equal facility in the humble task of pasting and labeling and tissuing paper boxes. "Lame Lena" knew how to work; she knew how to husband every modicum of nervous energy in her frail, deformed body; and thus she was able to make up—more than make up—for her physical inferiority. "Lame Lena" brought to her sordid task a certain degree of organizing ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... through Harmouth till it stopped at Professor Ponsonby's gate and a lady got out and ran up the courtyard path. Deena had been trying in vain to make quince jelly stiffen—jell was the word used in the receipt book of the late Mrs. Ponsonby—with the modicum of sugar prescribed, till in despair she had resorted to a pinch of gelatine, and felt that the shade of her mother-in-law was ticking the word incompetent from the clock in the hall—when suddenly the watchword was drowned in the stertorous ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... plenty are always to be found, who, possessed with the idea that the entire significance and value of the Christian religion are demolished unless we regard it as a sort of historical monstrosity, are only too eager to subject the offending work to a scathing scrutiny, displaying withal a modicum of righteous indignation at the unblushing heresy of the author, not unmixed with a little scornful pity at his inability to believe very preposterous stories upon very meagre evidence. "Conservative" polemics of this sort have doubtless their function. They serve to purge scientific ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... variations for units (if we may call them such) of more than four beats only a modicum of material has been worked up, since the types of relation already discovered are of too definite a character to leave any doubt as to their significance in the expression of rhythm. The results of these further experiments confirm ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... word 'twas worth it to see their gratitude. They behaved admirably. You see, two- thirds of them are gentlemen, after a fashion; not, perhaps, quite in the sense in which we understand the word, but then the—ah—modicum of French blood in my veins counteracts, I dare say, some ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... little while he gained a modicum of comfort by swearing at the Administration, the President, the Cabinet. What right had they to declare war, anyhow? Now, if we were going to fight Mexico!—or if the Germans tried to come over here!—well, that would be ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... sleek hair and some flicker of a girlhood that had its modicum of grace, flared up in the swift curtsy with which she acknowledged ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... never either rose or fell much from a certain pitch; and at that level the words gurgled forth, seemingly from an everbrimming fountain; he never wanted one; and the stream had neither let nor stay till his modicum of sense had fairly run out. People thought he had not a greater stock of that than some of his neighbours; but he issued an amount of word-currency sufficient for the ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... presently found myself groping my way, with her assistance, down the companion ladder and into the cabin. She guided me to one of the sofa-lockers, upon which I mechanically seated myself; and then I saw her go to the swinging rack and pour out a good stiff modicum of brandy, which she brought and held to my lips. I swallowed the draught, and after a few seconds my senses returned to me, almost as though I were recovering from a swoon, Miss Onslow assisting my recovery by seating herself beside ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... set aside your preconceived notions and employ a modicum of practical logic," suggested Scholar Phelps. "Observe your position from a slightly different reign of vantage. Be convinced that no matter what you do or say, we intend to make use of you to the best of our ability. You are ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... beauty, his perfect figure, and the easy grace of all his movements. His mind had received no other cultivation than that of a well-educated man of the world. Religion in his eyes was inseparable from good breeding and the modicum of common sense which a classical education ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... position, and begin to assume a deliberate part in furthering the great work of evolution. He may infer the course it is bound to pursue, from his observation of that which it has already followed, and he might devote his modicum of power, intelligence and kindly feeling to render its future progress less slow and painful. Man has already furthered evolution very considerably, half consciously, and for his own personal advantages, but he has not yet risen to the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... Company a year or two ago in unmistakable round-hand declared that one Running Rabbit, lawful widow of Blueskin, was entitled to draw from the coffers clear-side bacon and a modicum of flour. But one quarterly paysheet, returned to Winnipeg from Fort Churchill, showed that Running Rabbit in addition to her food allowance had been handed out forty cents' worth of cotton. Stern enquiry, backed by red-tape and The Company's seal as big as a saucer, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... sure to be, but this could be reduced to a modicum if we could preserve a sense of the relation of the individual to the family, and of the latter to society, and if we had been given a code of ethics dealing with these larger relationships, instead of a code designed to apply so exclusively to relationships ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... priestcraft in the Church of England? There is certainly, or rather there was, a modicum of priestcraft in the Church of England, but I have generally found that those who are most vehement against the Church of England are chiefly dissatisfied with her because there is only a modicum of that article in her—were she stuffed to the very cupola with it, like ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... sit ye down then, sit you down here: [They sit down.]—and now, sir, you must recall to your thoughts, that your grandfather was a man, whose penurious income of half pay was the sum total of his fortune;—and, sir, aw my provision fra him was a modicum of Latin, an expertness in arithmetic, and a short system of worldly counsel; the principal ingredients of which were, a persevering industry, a rigid economy, a smooth tongue, a pliability of temper, and a constant attention to make every man well ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... face flushed as he recognized its ludicrous aspect. Still, he could not withdraw then, and he made the best of a difficult position with a certain gracefulness which might, under different circumstances, have secured him a modicum of consideration. As it was, however, Hetty's anger left her almost white, and there was a light he did not care to see in her eyes when ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... that she sympathised with Bunyan, or, rather, believed him entitled to a modicum of wholesome grief, the loss of wives being a canonised and legal, sorrow. But excesses! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... perfectly well known to belong to the straightforward classes are allowed to remain at large, and may be even seen hobnobbing with the guardians of public immorality. Indeed it is not in the public interest that straightforwardness should be extirpated root and branch, for the presence of a small modicum of sincerity acts as a wholesome irritant to the academicism of the greatest number, stimulating it to consciousness of its own happy state, and giving it something to look down upon. Moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... Some attempt was made by the Republicans to make an issue of the tariff, and a remark of Hancock to the effect that the tariff was a "local issue" was jeered at as proving an ignorance of public questions. There was little response to the "bloody shirt" and little interest in "the great fraud." A modicum of enthusiasm was injected into the canvass by the participation of Conkling and General Grant. The former was not happily disposed toward the Republican candidate and Grant had always refused to make campaign speeches, but as the autumn came ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... class, went off to Pratt's, where, we will hope, he was amused, though he did not look it. A cigar on a close evening leads to soda-water, with a slice of lemon, and, I had almost forgotten to add, a small modicum of gin. This entails another cigar, and it is wonderful how soon one o'clock in the morning comes round again. When Lord Bearwarden turned out of St. James's Street it was too late to think of anything but immediate bed. Her ladyship's confessions, if she had any to make, must be ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... handed over to a black cook who answered to the name of "Snowball," and who had good-naturedly constituted himself the cook of the party. The rations, which included a portion for us newcomers, consisted of a small modicum of meat, a few vegetables, a tolerably liberal allowance of coarse black bread, and water ad libitum. The little incident of the serving out of rations having come to an end, and the sergeant having retired with his satellites, our friend of the Sparkling Foam—whose ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... of Thackeray, A little bit of Scott, A modicum of Dickens just To tangle up the plot, A paraphrase of Marryat, Another from Dumas— You ask me for a novel, sir, And I say, ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... for the last seven years been trying to recover those arrears of sleep incurred during his Eastern career. He had been active enough under a tropical sky, when his mind was kept alive by a modicum of hard work and a very wide margin of sport—pig-sticking, peacock-shooting, paper-chases, all the delights of an Indian life. But now, vegetating on a slender pittance in the semi-slumberous idleness of Les Fontaines, he had nothing to do and nothing to think about; ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Coalville, whose philanthropic efforts on behalf of 'our canal-boat population' are well known, has lately turned his attention to the wandering Gipsy tribes who infest the roadside, with the view to procuring at least a modicum of education for their children. He says that the Gipsies are lamentably ignorant, few of them being able even to write their names. By certain proceedings which took place at Christchurch Police-court on Tuesday, it would almost seem that some of the dark-faced ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... spelling-lessons; and any hedge-schoolmaster can drill boys in the multiplication-table. But to teach spelling rightly by using the powers of the letters instead of their names, or to instruct in numerical combinations by experimental synthesis, a modicum of understanding is needful; and to pursue a like rational course throughout the entire range of studies, asks an amount of judgment, of invention, of intellectual sympathy, of analytical faculty, which we shall never see applied to it while the tutorial official is held in such small esteem. ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... work," exclaimed Rhymer. "I'll bet anything that we don't make a single capture; and if we do, what is the good of it, except the modicum of prize money we might chance to pocket? The blacks won't be a bit the better off, and the Arabs ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... cakes, oyster pasties, and other delicacies. The steward had fallen with good will on the noble drink and excellent food, and when he was replete, he was wont to be in a better humor, and after a modicum of wine, in a more cheerful mood than usual. Just now he was content and kind, for although he had done all that lay in his power, the entertainment had not lasted long enough, for him to arrive at a state of intoxication which could make him surly, or to overload his digestion. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... more importance attached than in perhaps any other in the world to the religious teaching of the minister, there was so little importance attached to the religious teaching of the schoolmaster, that, when weighed against even a slight modicum of secular qualification, it was found to have no sensible weight. And with this great practical fact some of our leading men seemed to be so little acquainted, that they were going on with the machinery of their educational scheme, on a ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... philosopher underwent in coming in contact with Roman men of the world, but it also doubtless reflects the tendencies of the Syrian branch of the school from which he sprang; for the Syrian group had had to cast off some of its traditional fanaticism and acquire a few social graces and a modicum of worldly wisdom in its long contact with ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... where the cross walls came, it stood stoutly; but elsewhere it began gradually to weaken. Here and there a doorway broke into what might have been a solid section; in one or two cases arches crumbled; in many others inside walls or beams or stairways, falling, carried down with them another modicum of the long wall's ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... above his own high-water mark of vicious cunning, because it played upon a chord that appealed instantly to the police; and it rang true, not only because what the police could find out about him made it likely, but also because it contained a modicum of truth in itself; and, furthermore, Danglar had scored on still another count in that his story must stimulate the police into renewed activities as his unsuspecting allies in the one thing, the one aim and object that, at that moment, must ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... solitude I lose the half of my soul. I go out into the world with a secret horror. When I withdraw, I gather together and lock up my scattered treasure, but I put away my ideas sorely handled, like fruits fallen from the tree upon stones.' No, no; in seclusion I find the only modicum of peace that earth can ever yield me, and can readily understand why Chateaubriand avoided those crowds which he denominated, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... man; in the case where there is little or no self-examination; God unquestionably knows the man as well as the man knows himself. The Omniscient One is certainly possessed of an amount of knowledge equal to that small modicum which is all that a rational and immortal soul can boast of in reference to itself. But the vast majority of mankind fall into this class. The self-examiners are very few, in comparison with the millions who possess ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... the poem must have been possessed either of an extraordinary modicum of modesty or of a bitter misanthropy; or possibly he had been guilty of a misdemeanor, and was cornered to expiate the punishment justly due; yet conjecture is at once made certainty in the second line, by which ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... type. The weaver of moonshine, of mystic phrases, of sweet gestures and veiled sonorities should not have worn the guise of one who ate three meals a day and slept soundly after his mellow incantations. Yet she was not—inheriting, as she did, a modicum of sense from ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... passed rapidly away. I had attained my full height, and more than my just share of inches. I already enjoyed a fair modicum of whisker, and had even made some progress in the cultivation of a pair of moustaches, when suddenly the house I was connected with failed. What to do? The governor insisted upon my return to England, where his interest ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... extras from the home. The debts were to be paid as far as possible now, and the small income was to be divided; part was to go as pin money to Mrs. Polkington, the main part of the remainder to go to the debts, and a very small modicum to come with the Captain to ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... seigneurs of the Clubs who are attracted to 'the winning seats' or 'the winning cards.' The idea of going on because 'the run of luck' is in your favour, or of leaving off because it has declared itself against you, is logically of course unworthy of Cetywayo. The only modicum of reason that underlies it is the fact that the play of some men becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, possibly, be improved by success. Yet the belief in this absurdity is universal, and bids fair to be eternal. 'If I am not ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... husband, with the perversity characteristic of gout and middle age, combined, no doubt, with a not unnatural modicum of jealousy, maintained that one such fete should be sufficient amusement for one night. She might take her choice of one; he would on no account permit her to attend all three. Much to his surprise and delight Madame Mildau made no scene, but graciously submitted after a few mild ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... that stay imply? It meant being in a hostile country, confronted by countless cavalry, legions of light infantry. And what had we? A heavy infantry force certainly, with which we could have dashed at villages in a body possibly, and seized a modicum of food at most; but as to pursuing the enemy with such a force as ours, or capturing men or cattle, the thing was out of the question; for when I rejoined you your original cavalry and light infantry divisions had disappeared. In such sore straits ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... cared little for poetry, and seldom understood the images of fancy, she was not averse to a modicum of scandal in moments of relaxation: for the faults of others were the illustrations of her prudent maxims, and the thoughtlessness of a sister was the best possible text for a moral homily. The tense rigidity of her character, too, sometimes required ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... thus passed among the ensigns of mortality. His mind was closed against all general considerations. He was incapable of interest in the fate and fortunes of another, the slave of his own desires and low ambitions. Cold, light, and selfish in the last resort, he had that modicum of prudence, miscalled morality, which keeps a man from inconvenient drunkenness or punishable theft. He coveted, besides, a measure of consideration from his masters and his fellow-pupils, and he had no desire to fail ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... turn of the road and rested, settling his burden more closely in his arms, drawing her to him in the unavailing embrace of regret. Another kind of life, he said,—some average marriage with children and home would have given her more fully the human modicum of joy. But his heart rejected also this reproach. In no other circumstance could he place her justly. She was so amply made for joy—so strong to love, to endure; so true to the eternal passions. But not mere household love, the calm minutes ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... as have been interested by the preceding sketch, taken down from my own observation, and who may wish to know a little more about the mysteries of London, I subjoin a modicum of local history put into my hands by an odd-looking old gentleman, in a small brown wig and a snuff-colored coat, with whom I became acquainted shortly after my visit to the Charter House. I confess I was a little dubious at first whether it was not one of those ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... but in the imagination of bookish dreamers, their career must have been an exceedingly short one, since in the struggle for existence they would surely succumb to adversaries who tempered and directed the blind fury of combat with at least a modicum of reason and sense. The myth of the illogical or prelogical savage may safely be relegated to that museum of learned absurdities and abortions which speculative anthropology is constantly enriching with fresh specimens of misapplied ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... wharves? How many "wharf rats" or stevedores in New York learn anything of these languages from similar intercourse? Or, for that matter, we may ask, How many New York pilots have acquired even the smallest modicum of French from boarding the steamers ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... those who can't, teach,' no longer holds true. It means that we weary, work-hardened experts are called in every so often, handed our little blue ticket, and given six months off—with pay—if we will only do the younger generation the favor of pounding a modicum of knowledge into their heads. During that time, if we are very careful, we can try to prevent our muscles from going to flab and our brains from corroding with ennui, so that when we again debark into the infinite sea of emptiness which ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... hope of supplying this modicum of book-learning that the Introductions and notes in this and other volumes ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Idiot, scraping the butter from his toast; "but to those who have more than a modicum of brains my reverend friend's remark was not entirely clear. If I am talking of cotton, and a gentleman chooses to state that it looks like snow, I know exactly what he means. He doesn't mean that the day looks like snow, however; ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... generally cooked in it was leg of beef, with sliced potato, bits of onion chopped down, and a modicum of white pepper and salt, With just enough of water to cover "the elements." When stewed slowly the meat became very tender; and the whole yielded a capital dish, such as a very Soyer might envy. It was partaken of with a zest that, no doubt, was a very important element in ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... helpful contact with their masters, among whom the institution never lost its patriarchal aspect. Although it was both unlawful and in some parts of West Virginia unpopular to instruct Negroes, these masters, a law unto themselves, undertook to impart to these bondmen some modicum of knowledge. Upon the actual emancipation in 1865, when all restraint in this respect was abrogated, benevolent white persons, moved with compassion because of the benighted condition of Negroes, volunteered ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... observed, however, that the line of separation between illusion and hallucination, as thus defined, is a very narrow one. In by far the largest number of hallucinations it is impossible to prove that there is no modicum of external agency co-operating in the production of the effect. It is presumable, indeed, that many, if not all, hallucinations have such a basis of fact. Thus, the madman who projects his internal thoughts outwards in the shape of external voices may, for aught we know, be prompted to do so ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... America," and upon his well-known powers of persuasion, to bring them to his way of thinking. To get from the colonial agents a kind of assent to his measure would be to win a point of no slight strategic value, there being at least a modicum of truth in the notion that just government springs from ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... Archiepiscopus totius Angliae Primas & Metropolitanus, dilecto nobis in Christo GULIELMO LILLY in Medicinis Professori, salutem, gratiam, & benedictionem. Cum ex fide digna relatione acceperimus Te in arte sive facultate Medicinae per non modicum tempus versatum fuisse, multisque de salute & sanitate corporis vere desperatis (Deo Omnipotente adjuvante) subvenisse, eosque sanasse, nec non in arte predicta multorum peritorum laudabili testimonio pro experientia, fidelitate, diligentia ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... trundled to bed almost by daylight, my very heart sinks. What a luxury if some Christian had been allowed to read aloud for an hour, instead of lying awake studying the ghastly lamp that swung from the ceiling in the dormitory; or if some one with a modicum of information had given half an hour's lecture on some entertaining branch of science. Perhaps these antique schools are reformed in some measure, or perhaps they are waiting till ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... title slipped out unawares. In replying to me, however, the late "Fellow of University College," Oxford, declares he had to look the word out in a Lexicon. I commend the fact to the notice of the combatants over the desirability of retaining the present compulsory modicum of Greek in ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... quae mihi obvenit, emi proxime Corinthium signum, modicum quidem, sed festivum et expressum, quantum ego sapio, qui fortasse in omni re, in hac certe perquam exiguum sapio: hoc tamen signum ego quoque intellego. Est enim nudum, nec aut vitia, si qua sunt, celat, aut laudes parum ostentat. Effingit senem ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... subjects, fervently loyal to the sacred dynasty, had crowded about him in their thousands. The Peruvians now assumed the aggressive. Thousands of Inca troops scoured the country, and, falling on remote and unprepared bands of Spaniards, obtained some modicum of revenge in slaughtering all ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... affair of impulse," he said, slowly. "Life from a personal point of view had lost all interest to me. I did not dream after my—shall we call it apostacy?—that I could rely upon even a modicum of your friendship. I looked upon myself as an outcast commencing life afresh. Then chance intervened. I thought I saw my way to making some atonement to a woman whose life I had certainly helped to ruin. That was where the serious part of the mistake came. I ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the trick to make the end. The play, I fear, will have to end darkly, and that spoils the quality as I now see it of a kind of crockery, eighteenth century, high-life-below- stairs life, breaking up like ice in spring before the nature and the certain modicum of manhood of my poor, clever, feather-headed Prince, whom I love already. I see Seraphina too. Gondremarck is not quite so clear. The Countess von Rosen, I have; I'll never tell you who she is; it's a secret; but I have known the countess; well, I will tell you; it's ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... can not as much as purge its own channels. For what is the ballot box, I ask again, but a modern vehicle of corruption and debasement? The ballot box, believe me, can not add a cubit to your frame, nor can it shed a modicum of light on the deeper problems of life. Of course, it is the exponent of the will of the majority, that is to say, the will of the Party that has more money at its disposal. The majority, and Iblis, and Juhannam—ah, come out with me to the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... it; but receiving a hint from some who financially, were main pillars of his church, he suddenly veered round and became one of the strongest champions for its repeal. If he had possessed the smallest modicum of good sense he would, after changing his views—remembering his former course—have remained neutral, or, in a modest manner, have endeavored to convince men he was influenced simply by his convictions; but he was so lost to good taste and what he owed to his holy office, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... the object of the present work to show how philosophy became a positive science; to indicate by what methods the human mind was enabled to conquer its present modicum of certain knowledge. The boldest and the grandest speculations came first. Man needed the stimulus of some higher reward than that of merely tracing the laws of phenomena. Nothing but a solution of the mystery of the universe could content him. Astronomy was derived from astrology: chemistry ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... number of members greater than that to which our population at the present moment would, taking the three kingdoms as whole, entitle us, but one must point out that the system of electing representative peers robs us of even that modicum of democratic peers of Parliament which Great Britain is able to secure, and we repeat the argument of Mr. Gladstone that the distance of Dublin from Westminster and the consequent deafness of the House of Commons to Irish opinion is to a slight extent redressed by the small excess—calculated on ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... for he was, indeed, a rare sport. However, he would have to retaliate. The feud must go on. Unless he could mix a modicum of fun with his profits, J. Augustus would not have regarded the fight worth while, so accordingly he kept his eyes and his ears open for a handy weapon with which to jab Cappy through that same old rift in his armor—his passion ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... socialist argument boiled down amounts to about this—that one should do without boiled eggs for breakfast now, in order that the proletariat may have baked hen for dinner in the millennium; which is lunacy; anybody with a modicum ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... generation after generation had considered itself in humiliating straits unless there were at least a thousand lances at beck and call—old Vardos had been thrown into a mental maelstrom by the sudden change in the lifelong existence. Sure of his meals and a modicum of money for occasional visits to taprooms, he was now placed in a position of responsibility, one where executive and aggressiveness were demanded. Here old Vardos failed, because he was a peasant true to ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... in the corrugated highland of Tibet, chilled to barrenness by an elevation of 12,000 feet or more (4000 meters), sterile and treeless from aridity, carved by canon-cutting streams into deep gorges offering a modicum of arable soil for irrigation, that monasticism has developed into an effective system to keep down population. Buddhism, with its convents and lamaseries, naturally recommended itself to a country ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... than done! I escorted Bridget to a restaurant, and fed her and myself with lots of good hot food, and then straightway hired a taxi, and drove back to the agents to demand addresses of flats a little further afield, which should have at least a modicum of ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... wage- earners, into a co-operation for production so well arranged that it requires little but his own elimination to make it a foundation for communal life: in the teeth also of the experience of past ages, he has been compelled to allow a modicum of education to the propertyless, and has not even been able to deprive them wholly of political rights; his own advance in wealth and power has bred for him the very enemy who is doomed to make an end ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... expression which seemed to say that at that moment he had taken leave of his senses; "hang the young Knight of Harden, when I have three ill-favoured daughters to marry off my hands! I wonder at ye, Juden! I aye thought ye had a modicum of common sense, and could look a long way in front of ye, but at this moment I am sorely inclined to doubt it. Mark my words, ye'll never again have such a chance as this. For, besides Harden, he is heir to some of the ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... the Romans, Consiliis armisque sua moderamina summa Arbitrio tractare suo: nil juris in hac re Pontifici summo, modicum concedere regi Suadebat populo. Sic laesa stultus utraque Majestate, reum geminae se fecerat aulae. Nor is the poetry of Gunther different from ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... up a deliberate voice (Flora caught her hand away), "as far as I can make head and tail of your business—supposing it to have a modicum of head, which I doubt—it appears to me that I have just done you a service; and that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with a crashing sound, and seemed to sink in. Captain Bacon almost fell, but recovered his balance, and, holding the broken bones together, staggered toward the booby-hatch for support. He groaned in pain, but did not curse; for it requires a modicum of self-respect for this, and Captain Bacon's self-respect was ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... of the Balkan mountains, needs some effort and work and capacity for administration, or even rudimentary economic life cannot be carried on. And the Turkish system, founded on the sword and nothing else ("the finest soldier in Europe"), cannot give that small modicum, of energy or administrative capacity. The one thing he knows is brute force; but it is not by the strength of his muscles that an engineer runs a machine, but by knowing how. The Turk cannot build a road, or make a bridge, or administer a post ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... the struggle and the squalors Which beset the politician's life— Work that for a modicum of dollars Brings a whole infinity of strife— Three of England's most illustrious cronies Started on a winter holiday, With no thought of MURRAY or Marconis— GEORGE and HENRY and the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... growth of the newspaper press from these times is very remarkable. Even so late as sixty years since, a London paper was a very meagre and timid affair. Before us lies a copy of the Times of 1797, insignificant in size and appearance. The small modicum of news is entirely foreign: no brilliant leaders, models of composition—no fearless correction of abuse, or withering sarcasm of folly. The parliamentary debates are merely alluded to as with permission, and the simple propositions said to be advanced and seconded, disputed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... few little things," he went on, "such as a little OBEDIENCE—that's most essential. A modicum of care about ORDINARY things,—for instance, about dress, speech, hair, et ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... the tumblers—that is, two tumblers, one with a stand, the other with a flat bottom, and a tea-cup with a spoon in it. The tea-cup was put opposite Father John's chair, and the reverend father himself proceeded to pour a tolerable modicum of spirits out of the stone jar into a good-sized milk jug, and placed it on ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... the complete permanent sanitation of this plague and fever infected region of that Republic, which has for so long constituted a menace to health conditions on the Canal Zone. It is hoped that the report which this mission will furnish will point out a way whereby the modicum of assistance which the United States may properly lend the Ecuadorian Government may be made effective in ridding the west coast of South America of a focus of contagion to the future commercial current ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... whenever such a correspondence exists, it is due either to the fact that the incidence of stress tends to lengthen a syllable or to the fact that, oftentimes, in polysyllabic words, mere length will produce a stress. This is the modicum of truth in the quantitative view. But ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... and she had talked this matter over with that small modicum of learning which is a dangerous thing, and they had arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Glynde was not competent to carry out the duties thus suddenly thrust upon him. Wrapped up as was her heart in the welfare of her weakling ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... dilecti sui adimplere non distulit. Nam uacca una lactifera, una cum uitulo, consecuta est eum, acsi a suo pastore minaretur post eum. Qui cum ad sacrum collegium sancti Fynniani uenisset, gaudium non modicum de eius aduentu omnes habuerunt. Vacca uero, que secuta est eum, simul cum uitulo pascebatur, nec ubera materna sine licencia tangere attemptabat. Keranus eius pascua sic discriminauit atque distinxit, ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... appraisal upon his attainments and ability no one else is likely to do so, and that the public takes one, nine times out of ten, at his own valuation. Coming on the clay itself: I wore my hair rather long, with an appreciable modicum of bear's grease well rubbed in, side whiskers and white beaver, and carried a carpet bag on which was embroidered a stag's head in yellow on a background of green worsted. And the principal fact to be observed in this connection is that, instead of creating a smile as I passed ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... "Only a modicum of success to counterbalance the disagreeable features of a journey in a freight ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Literate.—Education is not compulsory by law in Athens, but the father who fails to give his son at least a modicum of education falls under a public contempt, which involves no slight penalty. Practically all Athenians are at least literate. In Aristophanes's famous comedy, "The Knights," a boorish "sausage-seller" ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... tub. Out in the Bear Swamp, the streams that wandered about under the great high-spreading gums, and lost their way in the shadows, were crystal-clear and pure; and out there it was intended that he should dwell, and in those sweet streams that he should wash. But what a modicum of wit, of originality the little beast had, that, because he was born a washer, wash he must, though he washed in mud, nay, though he washed upon the upturned bottom of his empty tub!—for this is ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... out, but the suit could also be seen. That required sometimes intricate advance planning to offset. Also, occasionally, manipulating the field of the grid to permit mechanical contact with the physical world was a trifle cumbersome but never annoyingly so. All it took was a modicum of step-by-step thought and some care not to leave a personal trace for the quantum analyzer to pick up. No actual trouble. And, finally, Moglaut had warned that the compact power unit pocketed on the left breast had a half-life ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... your huge hotel expenses; Your beef was rightly of a super-cut; A modicum of wine does whet the senses; But ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... personage, when opportunity of so doing occurred. Now, learning on credible authority that Sir Charles's name was still one to conjure with in India, it clearly became his duty to bid his son seek out and secure whatever modicum of advantage—in the matter of advice and introductions—might be derivable ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... and relatives make their last efforts for securing all they can in worldly effects. They almost repent of the bargain—it was too cheap—think of the price paid for the bride's mother—the expenses incurred during a long illness of the bride in her infancy—and compare the modicum demanded for her marriage; it is outrageous! no, the marriage can not go on, the girl is not in good health, and the ordeal might increase her ailment. Every sort of trick is resorted to in order that the other side may be more generous in the bestowal ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... listen to my story: it's a sort of shilling-shock tale, With no end of fire and fury, and a modicum of blood, And a Colonel who mixed metaphors as Yankees mix a cocktail, And a quiverful of arrows, ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... If American literature be really "Journalism under exceptionally favourable conditions," as defined by the Danish critic, Johannes V. Jensen, then must Mark Twain be a typical product of American literature. A certain modicum of truth may rest in this startling and seemingly uncomplimentary definition. Interpreted liberally, it may be taken to mean that America finds her key to the future in the immediate vital present, ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... remarks of Professor Sidney Willard concerning Harvard College in 1794, in his late work, entitled, "Memories of Youth and Manhood." "The students who boarded in commons were obliged to go to the kitchen-door with their bowls or pitchers for their suppers, when they received their modicum of milk or chocolate in their vessel, held in one hand, and their piece of bread in the other, and repaired to their rooms to take their solitary repast. There were suspicions at times that the milk was diluted by a mixture of a very common tasteless fluid, which led ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... majority of would-be offenders." [Footnote: R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life, p. 99.] The law can never, of course, cover the whole field of human conduct; it represents, in Stevenson's phrase," that modicum of morality which can be squeezed out of the rock of mankind." Unnecessary extension of the law is cumbersome, expensive, and provocative of impatience and rebellion. Moreover, there is always some minimum of danger of injustice in attempting legal constraint; the law itself, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... delicacy, this careless reminder of the fascinating Father, and perhaps there was a modicum of ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... six stories comprising the seven in this little collection of Stories of the Old Missions, all but one have, as a basis, some modicum, larger or smaller, of historical fact, the tale of Juana alone being wholly fanciful, although with an historical background. The first story of the series may be considered as introductory to ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... light, showed an ordinary closet, with pegs for hanging garments upon. The sides of it were paneled, and in one of them, not readily distinguishable, was another door. It opened into a room lighted only by a little window high up in a wall, through whose dusty, cobwebbed panes, crept a modicum of second-hand light from ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... none so old but I can do my day's work yet. Ah! an' it 'ud be well if that gomerl, Renny Potter, 'ud do his'n. See here, now, Mester Adrian, nowt but a pint of wine left; and it the last," pointing her withered finger, erratically as the palsy shook it, at a cut-glass decanter where a modicum of port wine sparkled richly under the facets. "And he not back yet, whatever mischief's agate wi' him, though he kens yo like your meat at one." And then circumstances obliged her to add: "He is landing now, but it's ower late ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... so when in the plenitude of his wisdom he conceives that he can enlighten the house with a modicum of information. The last time I heard him hold forth was as an apologist for the tumultuary loyalists at the Mansion House Meeting, when he delivered himself in a manner so heterogeneal of commonsense, and so ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... without much understanding of its primitive spirit, but appreciating it as a setting for the ideal society dreamed of but not realised in his own day. Add to this literary perspicacity, a good foundation in classic fable, a modicum of ecclesiastical doctrine, a remarkable facility in phrase, figure, and rhyme and we have the foundations for Chretien's art as we shall find it ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... is to be observed, however, that despite the transfer of the business devolving formerly upon the Council into the hands of the specially constituted departments of government, the Council does still, through the agency of its committees, perform a modicum of actual service. Of principal importance among the committees is the Judicial Committee, which hears appeals in ecclesiastical cases and renders final verdict in all appeals coming from tribunals outside the United Kingdom. ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... charitable prudent people needs must, on nursing it, though with spoon-meat, into whiteness, and if possible into manhood. The Heavens smiled on their endeavor: thus has that same mysterious Individual ever since had a status for himself in this visible Universe, some modicum of victual and lodging and parade-ground; and now expanded in bulk, faculty and knowledge of good and evil, he, as HERR DIOGENES TEUFELSDROCKH, professes or is ready to profess, perhaps not altogether without effect, in the new University of Weissnichtwo, the new Science ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... him solely—by means of his daughter, that is to say (but in politics women do not count)—is due the fact that the Church of Jingalo still stands on its old established footing, and that her Bishops have a decisive modicum of political ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... and I have done. Greek and Latin are going or gone, but a modicum of Mathematics seems to be indispensable to the modern curriculum. The domestic pig has on many occasions shown a capacity for mastering simple arithmetical processes, and we know that the pupil always ends by bettering his master. Under a more enlightened and humane regime ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... displays of temper was the conduct of Jesus before Pilate. A modicum of common sense would have saved him. He was not required to tell a lie or renounce a conviction. All that was necessary to his release was to plead not guilty and defend himself against the charge of sedition. His death, therefore, was rather a suicide than ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote |
