"Niggard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being passing strange that she had begun to love him when the last sand of his life was well nigh run out; that wondrous are the ways of the revolving heavens which bestow wealth upon the niggard that cannot use it, wisdom upon the bad man who will misuse it, a beautiful wife upon the fool who cannot protect her, and fertilizing showers upon the stony hills. And thinking over these things, the gallant and ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... graces grant to thee, Since thou art such a niggard of thy grace? O how can graces in thy body be? Where neither they nor pity find a place! . . . Grant me some grace! For thou with grace art wealthy And kindly may'st ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... through Spenser's elfin dream, And mix in Milton's heavenly theme; And Dryden, in immortal strain, Had raised the Table Round again, But that a ribald king and court Bade him toil on, to make them sport; Demanded for their niggard pay, Fit for their souls, a looser lay, Licentious satire, song, and play; The world defrauded of the high design, Profaned the God-given strength, and ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... functions; to others are alloted offices, by virtue of which certain imposts are levied; to this man the land; to another the waters of rivers and canals; to a third the fruit-bearing trees. But money is distributed with a niggard hand, and only once a year. Every officer of revenue is permitted to pocket, and "charge to salary," a part of all that he collects in taxes, fines, extortions, bribes, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... faint-hearted, and rides forthwith to see Hoskuld to tell him of his troubles. Hoskuld said, "Times have been that you have been terror-struck, through not having with such overwhelming odds to deal." Then Thord offered Hoskuld money for his help, and said he would not look at the matter with a niggard's eye. Hoskuld said, "This is clear, that you will not by peaceful consent allow any man to have the enjoyment of your wealth." Answers Thord, "No, not quite that though; for I fain would that you should take over all my goods. That being settled, I will ask to foster your son Olaf, ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... years' war; was there ever a seventy or a thirty years' peace? or was there even a DAY'S universal peace? except perhaps in China, where they have found out the miserable happiness of a stationary and unwarlike mediocrity. And is all this because nature is niggard or savage? or mankind ungrateful? Let ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... I will you both, ye daring pair, under the kettles place. My husband is oftentimes niggard ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... Ye niggard Gods! you make our Lives too long: You fill 'em with Diseases, Wants, and Woes, And only dash 'em with a little Love; Sprinkled by Fits, and with a sparing Hand. Count all our Joys, from Childhood ev'n to Age, They wou'd but make a ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... Phantom! Scorpion King, away! Reserve thy terrors and thy stings display For coward Wealth and Guilt in robes of State! Lo! by the grave I stand of one, for whom 10 A prodigal Nature and a niggard Doom (That all bestowing, this withholding all) Made each chance knell from distant spire or dome Sound like a seeking Mother's anxious call, Return, poor Child! Home, weary Truant, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... felt the touch of sorrow, No love hath she, no understanding friend; O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow What the poor niggard earth has not to lend; But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend. The tallest flower that skyward rears its head Grows from the common ground, and there must shed Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely, That they should find so base a bridal bed, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the only way by which he could save anything out of the wreck. And she bravely responded. She could and did lend him enough of her mind to make it worth his while. A friend should not come home to her from perils of land and sea, and find her ungrateful—a niggard of sympathy and praise. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the medium of your own beggary; otherwise to him who lays covetousness aside the generous man and miser seem all one. The touchstone can prove which is pure gold, and the beggar can say which is the niggard." He said: "I speak of them from experience; for they station dependants by their doors, and plant surly porters at their gates, to deny admittance to the worthy, and to lay violent hands upon the collars of the elect, and say: 'There ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... Spanish ambassador, your excellency?" exclaimed Brunelli, contemptuously. "The Spanish ambassador knows nothing of the art of cookery, or he would not possibly be satisfied with his cook! He is a niggard, a poor fellow, of whom all Rome is speaking to-day, and laughing at him and his master, while they are ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the rich and liberal from the necessitous; but that men should be allured by the glittering of wealth only to feed the insolent pride of those who will not in return feed their hunger—that the sordid niggard should find any sacrifices on the altar of his vanity—seems to arise from a blinder idolatry, and a more bigoted and senseless superstition, than any which the sharp eyes of priests have discovered in ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... respect. There is no Sonnet of Milton's on the Restoration of Charles II. There is no Sonnet of Mr. Wordsworth's corresponding to that of 'the poet blind and bold' 'On the late Massacre in Piedmont.' It would be no niggard praise to Mr. Wordsworth to grant that he was either half the man or half the poet that Milton was. He has not his high and various imagination, nor his deep and fixed principle. Milton did not worship the rising sun, nor turn his back on a losing ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... she lay tax or tale on us, and whiles she would give us of her store, and that often, and abundantly. We deem also that every time when she came to us our increase became more plenteous, which is well seen by this, that since she hath ceased to come, the seasons have been niggard unto us." ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... houses had no doors? No firm-set rock Marked field from field by niggard masters held. The very oaks ran honey; the mild flock Brought home ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... lone survivor of that Yesterday— The one of Many whom the withering Gale Hath left unpunished to record their Tale. But who shall hear it? on that barren Sand None comes to stretch the hospitable hand. That shore reveals no print of human foot, Nor e'en the pawing of the wilder Brute; And niggard vegetation will not smile, All sunless on that ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... from dread of harm, Has smitten Janasthan and made Asylum safe in Dandak's shade. Enslaved and dull, of blinded sight, Intoxicate with vain delight, Thou closest still thy heedless eyes To dangers in thy realm that rise. A king besotted, mean, unkind, Of niggard hand and slavish mind. Will find no faithful followers heed Their master in his hour of need. The friend on whom he most relies, In danger, from a monarch flies, Imperious in his high estate, Conceited, proud, and passionate; Who ne'er to state affairs attends With wholesome fear when ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the first home-made party that Collumpsion had ever given; for though during his bachelorhood he had been no niggard of his hospitality, yet the confectioner had supplied the edibles, and the upholsterer arranged the decorations; but now Mrs. Applebite, with a laudable spirit of economy, converted No. 24, Pleasant-terrace, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... be the roses strewn! Ye flutes, ye lyres, exulting breathe! The festal Hour disdains to own The mournful note, the niggard wreath. ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... of night is crept upon our talk, And nature must obey necessity; Which we will niggard with a little rest. There is ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... those lands which a niggard nature had apparently condemned to perpetual poverty and obscurity, the principle of reasonable human freedom, without which there is no national prosperity or glory worth contending for, was taking deepest and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... And, first, of the Yankee character, which has wanted neither open maligners, nor even more dangerous enemies in the persons of those unskilful painters who have given to it that hardness, angularity, and want of proper perspective, which, in truth, belonged, not to their subject, but to their own niggard and unskilful pencil. ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... of these disagreeable sensations, let me prescribe for you patience; and a bit of my cheese. I know that you are no niggard of your good things among your friends, and some of them are in much need of a slice. There, in my eye is our friend Smellie; a man positively of the first abilities and greatest strength of mind, as well as one of the best hearts ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Rymer, you can find us a flagon of wine, too, and of the best, I know that," said Burdale. "Come, man, rummage out your stores, you used not to be niggard of your liquor." ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... with us one that has seemed, in some degree, to revive the glory of the olden time, when men, as they received, gave lavishly for the service of the altar; nor meted out their offerings with the niggard hand that is moved by the heart of this generation; unmoved, unwarmed, but boastful of its light—the light of a moonbeam playing on an iceberg! There is the long sweep of the nave, with the open chancel (not separated from the former by the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... thirty-seven, so effeminate in appearance that it was hard to believe he had seen famous fields and once bidden fair to be a great Captain, was nursing a dog on his lap, the while he listened with a weary air to the whispers of the beautiful woman who sat next him. Apparently he had a niggard ear even for her witcheries, and little appetite save for the wine flask. Lassitude lived in his eyes, his long thin fingers trembled. Bazan watched him drain his goblet of wine, almost as soon as he sat down, and watched him, too, hold ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... the lower town, especially in the locality of the university. Old Stuler's was filled with smoke, students and tumult. Ill feeling ran high. There were many damaged heads, for the cuirassiers had not been niggard with ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... say, so far. It has been decided that you shall go, if you are willing, with us to Petersburg the day after to-morrow to see the balloon, and make your report. All your expenses will be paid on the most liberal scale, for the Tsar is no niggard in spending either his own or other people's money, and you will have a handsome fee into the bargain for ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... Having at last won from his patient leave to depart, he set forth laden with rich gifts. In Scotland, Cardan found the most generous paymasters he had ever met. In recording the niggard treatment which he subsequently experienced at the hands of Brissac, the French Viceroy, he contrasts it with the liberal rewards granted to him in what must then have been the poorest of the European kingdoms;[153] and in the Preface of the De Astrorum Judiciis (Basel, 1554) ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... descend to the various little arrangements which were involved in the execution of this plan, he remembered that all his money (and in this respect Squire Griffiths was no niggard) was locked up in his escritoire at Bodowen. In vain he tried to do away with this matter-of-fact difficulty; go to Bodowen he must: and his only hope—nay his ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... great good of him; and if thou grudge him the banquet do thou bid him and I will entertain him of my monies." Quoth he, "Dost thou know me to be niggardly, that thou sayest this Say?; and quoth she, "Thou art no niggard, but thou lackest tact. Invite him this very night and come not without him. An he refuse, conjure him by the divorce oath and be persistent with him "On my head and eyes," answered he and moulded the ring till he had finished it, after which he passed the night and went forth on the morrow ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... few coins? I spent them all next day On a new chapel on the Eisenthal; There were no choristers but nightingales— No teachers there save bees: how long is this? Have you turned niggard? ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... Isaac, we all loved. He had the reputation at one time of being parsimonious, and some were inclined to treat him coldly on that account; but in time it was found that out of his small pay he maintained his widowed mother and a lame sister in their New England home, and that while niggard in regard to his own personal wants, the dear ones at the old home were generously provided for. So, although at first the West Point graduates were disposed to treat with contempt the Green Mountain boy who had entered the army as a ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... Three once told the Grace approves; She with her two bright sisters, gay and free, Shrinks, as maiden should, from strife: But I'm for madness. What has dull'd the fire Of the Berecyntian fife? Why hangs the flute in silence with the lyre? Out on niggard-handed boys! Rain showers of roses; let old Lycus hear, Envious churl, our senseless noise, And she, our neighbour, his ill-sorted fere. You with your bright clustering hair, Your beauty, Telephus, like evening's sky, Rhoda loves, as young, as fair; I for my Glycera ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... or less where God doth reign, There is no chance," she gently said, "For, whether large or small his gain, Here every man alike is paid. No niggard churl our High Chieftain, But lavishly His gifts are made, Like streams from a moat that flow amain, Or rushing waves that rise unstayed. Free were his pardon whoever prayed Him who to save man's soul did vow, Unstinted his bliss, and undelayed, For the ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... Queen, Addison was once more in office, and held his old position of Irish Secretary. In the following year he defended the Whig Government and Whig principles in the Freeholder, a paper published twice weekly. In it he gives no niggard praise to the Government of George I., and to the King himself, for his 'civil virtues,' and for his martial achievements. Addison's praise disagrees, it need scarcely be said, with the more minute and veracious description of the King given by Thackeray, but a party politician ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... hardly auaile you to make any fence for your Orchard, if you be a niggard of your fruit. For as liberality will saue it best from noysome neighbours, liberality I say is the best fence, so Iustice must restraine rioters. Thus when your ground is tempered, squared, and fenced, it is time ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... hospitality of Israel Wurm. In the course of the evening, an old Scotch gardener gave it as his opinion that the "miser was fey." (When a man suddenly changes his character, as when a spendthrift becomes saving, or a niggard generous, the Scotch say that he is fey, and consider the change a ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... mansion. The telephote! Here is another of the great triumphs of science in our time. The transmission of speech is an old story; the transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires is a thing but of yesterday. A valuable invention indeed, and Mr. Smith this morning was not niggard of blessings for the inventor, when by its aid he was able distinctly to see his wife notwithstanding the distance that separated him from her. Mrs. Smith, weary after the ball or the visit to the theater the preceding night, is still abed, though it is ...
— In the Year 2889 • Jules Verne and Michel Verne
... then turned white with vexation at the words. "It is in truth great honor to the house of Loring," said she, "yet our roof is now humble and, as you have seen, our fare is plain. The King knows not that we are so poor. I fear lest we seem churlish and niggard ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to myself alone:"— O man, forget not thou,—earth's honored priest, Its tongue, its soul, its life, its pulse, its heart,— In earth's great chorus to sustain thy part! Chiefest of guests at Love's ungrudging feast, Play not the niggard; spurn thy native clod, And self disown; Live to thy neighbor; live unto thy God; ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... said to him, "O my lord, buy thou this damsel, for she hath made choice of thee."[FN279] Then he set forth to him all her charms and accomplishments, and added, "I give thee joy if thou buy her, for this be a gift from Him who is no niggard of His giving." Whereupon Ali bowed his head groundwards awhile, laughing at himself and secretly saying, "Up to this hour I have not broken my fast; yet I am ashamed before the merchants to own that ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... of the old sailor from whom he had gleaned the information he sought, he was enabled to purchase a fine vessel and equip her for sea within the space of a few days. He lavished his gold with no niggard hand, and gold is a wondrous talisman to remove obstacles and facilitate designs. In a word, on the sixth morning after his arrival at Leghorn, Fernand Wagner embarked on board his ship, which was manned with a gallant crew, and carried ten pieces of ordnance. A favoring breeze ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... like to see a niggard man, One of the great Macdonald clan; When others are in quest of gain This man the needy will sustain. Your mother, if an honest dame, Has not retained her wedlock fame; No part is Mac from top to toe, You're either Rose or else Munro. When to the house you turned your face, Let it be told ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... the Mayne glideth 90 Where my Love abideth. Sleep's no softer; it proceeds On through lawns, on through meads, On and on, whate'er befall, Meandering and musical, 95 Though the niggard pasturage Bears not on its shaven ledge Aught but weeds and waving grasses To view the river as it passes, Save here and there a scanty patch 100 Of primroses too faint to catch A weary bee. And scarce it pushes ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Scriptures amongst the lower classes. I might have turned the services of this individual to far greater account had the quantity of books at my disposal been greater; but they were now diminishing rapidly, and as I had no hopes of a fresh supply, I was almost tempted to be niggard of the few which remained. This agent was a Greek bricklayer, by name Johannes Chrysostom, who had been introduced to me by Dionysius. He was a native of the Morea, but had been upwards of thirty-five years ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... To the niggard lands were we driven, 'twixt desert and floes are we penned; To us was the Northland given, ours to stronghold and defend; Ours till the world be riven in the crash of the ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... daughter," replied the old woman. "Don't be niggard, mind. It is a good thing to carry one's own candles before one dies, and not to wait until they are offered by the heirs and executors ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of coin and go. Leave here my jewels and some gold, for I may hear of some stores of grain hoarded by niggard farmers, and may induce them to sell, if not for the love of God, then for the love of gold. Take, too, authority from me, written and sealed with my seal, to sell all my lands and timber, and castles, except this one alone where I must dwell. ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... that Dick had fitted up for her in fashion more modern than the somber dignity of the rest of the house. Here was another new sensation—a household without bickerings. The elder Mrs. Percival, having accepted the situation, was no niggard in her spirit of courtesy, but very gracious as was her wont, and Lena was astonished to find that she and her new mother-in-law ran their respective lines without collisions. The half-invalid older woman breakfasted in her own room and occupied herself with quiet ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... feelings were raised above terror and joy, they were, nevertheless, subject in the same degree to fear; but his fear was earlier than the danger, and he was calm in tumult because he had trembled in repose. William lavished his gold with a profuse hand, but he was a niggard of his movements. The hours of repast were the sole hours of relaxation, but these were exclusively devoted to his heart, his family, and his friends; this the modest deduction he allowed himself from the cares of his country. Here his brow was cleared with wine, seasoned by temperance ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... removed him to the shades below, The large domain his greedy sons divide, And each was portion'd as the lots decide. Little, alas! was left my wretched share, Except a house, a covert from the air: But what by niggard fortune was denied, A willing widow's copious wealth supplied. My valour was my plea, a gallant mind, That, true to honour, never lagg'd behind (The sex is ever to a soldier kind). Now wasting years ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... seventy-five years or more, but worked his niggard hillside all the day, and seldom came to town. His aged wife was kind; the flowers of her life she gave away, but none could glance upon the garden. She seemed to know when neighbors were ill; hers was the dignity ...
— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis
... intellectual being.— When does he make advances?—He thinks that women should woo him; Yet, if a girl should do so, would be but alarmed and disgusted. She that should love him must look for small love in return,—like the ivy On the stone wall, must expect but a rigid and niggard support, and E'en to get that must go searching all round ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... Parsimony.— N. parsimony, parcity|; parsimoniousness[obs3], stinginess &c. adj.; stint; illiberality, tenacity. avarice, greed &c. 817a. miser, niggard, churl, screw, skinflint, crib, codger, muckworm[obs3], scrimp, lickpenny[obs3], hunks, curmudgeon, Harpagon, harpy, extortioner, Jew, usurer; Hessian [U.S.]; pinch fist, pinch penny. V. be parsimonious ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Sigurd took the Heart, and wood on the waste he found, The wood that grew and died, as it crept on the niggard ground, And grew and died again, and lay like whitened bones; And the ernes cried over his head, as he builded his hearth of stones, And kindled the fire for cooking, and sat and sang o'er the roast The ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... Commend, and recommend. What's that? you'll say. 'Tis this: he ever choos'd the middle way 'Twixt both th' extremes. Amost in ev'ry thing He did the like, 'tis worth our noticing: Sparing, yet not a niggard; liberal, And yet not lavish or a prodigal, As knowing when to spend and when to spare; And that's a lesson which not many are Acquainted with. He bashful was, yet daring When he saw cause, and ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... much material, as did this one whose chief naturalist was Francois Peron. When it is added that two of the greatest figures in British scientific history, Darwin and Huxley, were among the workers in this fruitful field, it will be admitted that the acknowledgment is not made in any niggard spirit. But we are now concerned with Peron as historian of what related to Terre Naploeon and the surrounding circumstances. Here his statements have been shown to be unreliable. It is probable that he wrote ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... Irishman in using this word has some confused notion that it comes from negro; whereas it really means niggard. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... parish. [His compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse.] He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. His feet never stink so unbecomingly as when he trots after a lawyer in Westminster-hall, and even cleaves the ground with hard scraping in beseeching ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... vale. Happy the man, who with unrivalled speed Can pass his fellows, and with pleasure view The struggling pack; how in the rapid course Alternate they preside, and jostling push To guide the dubious scent; how giddy youth Oft babbling errs, by wiser age reproved; How, niggard of his strength, the wise old hound Hangs in the rear, till some important point 240 Rouse all his diligence, or till the chase Sinking he finds; then to the head he springs, With thirst of glory fired, and wins the prize. Huntsman, take heed; they stop ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... against the play before they had even seen it, but no sooner had the rehearsals begun in earnest than they warmed to their assigned parts, and in due time admired and revelled in the comedy. Colman, niggard, would risk nothing in the production of the piece, neither in new costumes nor theatrical fittings. He actually held forth disparagingly in his own box-office to those who sent to purchase ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... missionaries are visible in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined doctrine that moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next-world. No contrast is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the niggard. The typical belief of the tribes of the United States was well expressed in the reply of Esau Hajo, great medal chief and speaker for the Creek nation in the National Council, to the question, Do the red people believe in a future state ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... well expressed it, Nature is prodigal in variety, but niggard in innovation. Why, on the theory of creation, should this be so? Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, each supposed to have been separately created for its proper place in nature, be so commonly ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... woman's will: Who ev'ry Sunday morn, to please her sight, Knots up his neck-cloth gay, and hosen white: Who for her pleasure keeps his pockets bare, And half his wages spends on pedlar's ware; When every niggard clown, or dotard old, Who hides in secret nooks his oft told gold, Whose field or orchard tempts with all her pride, At little cost may win her for his bride; Whilst all the meed her silly lover gains Is but the neighbours' jeering for his pains. On Sunday last when Susan's bands were read, ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... doling out of insufficient aid to the poor is niggardliness.—The niggard is thinking all the time of himself, and how he hates to part with what belongs to him. He gives as little as he can; and that little hurts him terribly. This vice cannot be overcome directly. It ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... the worthless—kings of knaves exalters be; Wealth attends the selfish niggard, and the cloud rains on ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Department of Charities was a rudimentary affair in those days, just as Queed had said. Its appropriation was impossibly meager, even with the niggard's increase just wrung from the legislature. The whole Department fitted cozily into a single room in the Capitol; it was small as a South American army, this Department, consisting, indeed, of but the two generals. But the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary worked together like ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... to suppose a region far removed even from such a niggard commerce of life as there was then in the Scottish Highlands. It is sixty miles from the warming salt-wash of the sea, and has winds nearly as cold as those that blow from the Arctic. This is because it ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... never been disposed to be niggard of cheerfulness; for it has always seemed to me that one of the duties of a writer is to supply solace in a world where, amid all the beauty, so many things seem to go wrong. But, while I would fain banish cankered melancholy, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... their unfledged younglings dread; Thee niggard old men dread, and brides new-made, In misery, lest their lords neglect ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... martyrized on far-off detachments, or vegetating with friends in the country; the more ambitious, after much private practice, strove to imitate his way of twisting his mustache as he stood before the fire, though with some, to whom nature had been niggard of hirsute honors, it was grasping a shadow and fighting with ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... always. There was one Scrimgeour, a very merry debonair fellow, who used to make not only the men, but sometimes the officers merry on board the ship. He was particularly remarkable for being always full of money, of which he was no niggard, but ready to do anybody a service, and consequently was very far from being ill-beloved. This man being one day on shore and going to purchase some fresh provisions to make merry with amongst his companions, somebody ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... "No!" Indeed, in business, the perfection of grit is this power of saying "No," and saying it with such wrathful emphasis that the whole race of vampires and harpies are scared from you counting-room, and your reputation as unenterprising, unbearable niggard is fully established among all borrowers of money never meant to be repaid, and all projectors of schemes intended for the benefit of the projectors alone. At the expense of a little temporary obloquy, a man can thus conquer the right to mind his own business; and having ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... a good and affectionate son, but as I took my way into the great world from which I had been so long secluded I could not help remembering that all my misfortunes had flowed like a stream from the niggard economy of my parents in the matter of school luncheons; and I knew of no reason ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... forlorn abode. A pavilion, nearly in ruins, was the sole shelter which the proud lord of Alberoni afforded to the only surviving branches of his family, when returning to their native city they found their patrimonial estates confiscated, and themselves dependent upon the niggard bounty of a cold and selfish relative. Slowly recovering from a severe wound which he had received in the wars of Lombardy, and disgusted with the ingratitude of the prince he served, the ill-starred Francesco was at first rejoiced to obtain any refuge from the storms of a tempestuous world; and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... the whole, Mr. Fairford was a man much liked and respected on all sides, though his friends would not have been sorry if he had given a dinner more frequently, as his little cellar contained some choice old wine, of which, on such rare occasions he was no niggard. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... 'luring charms Of phantoms gay, our reason all seduc'd, With pleasure roams thro' endless desarts wild, Enjoys the objects which herself has form'd. And this illusion for some time repairs The want of real joys, which niggard Nature Never has granted to ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... of reincarnation, may be found in the fact that, in general, there is no notion of punishment after death among the Indians of the New World; but that, while the good are assisted and cared for after death by the 'Master of Breath,' the Creeks believe that the liar, the coward, and the niggard (Vedic sinners par excellence!) are left to shift for themselves in darkness; whereas the Aztecs believed in a hell surrounded by the water called 'Nine Rivers,' guarded by a dog and a dragon; and the great Eastern American tribes believe that after the soul has been for a while in heaven ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... emulation with other people. Standing straight, protect us by thy splendor from evil; burn down every ghoul. Let us stand straight that we may walk and live. Find out our worship among the gods. Save us, O Agni, from the sorcerer, save us from mischief, from the niggard. Save us from him who does us harm or tries to kill us, O youngest god with bright splendor! As with a club smite the niggards in all directions, and him who deceives us, O god with fiery jaws. The mortal who makes his weapons very sharp by night, may that impostor not rule over us. Agni ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... yet whose alt of metred inches Nobly enlarged to full, fair, Saxon mould, And vested in the blazonments of rule, Shewed not so kingly to the obeisant sight As was his soul. Who than ye better knew His bravery; his lofty heroism; His purity, and great unselfish heart? Nature in him betrayed no niggard touch Of corporate or ethereal. Yet I yield That men of lesser mould in outward form Have been as great in deeds of rich renown. But then, I take it, greatness lies not in The flesh, but in the spirit. He is great Who from the quick occasion of the time Strikes out a name. ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... water. Oh, he was no niggard of his crowns, our Emperor! I had a bed-fellow of mine, a brave soldier, who was afterwards promoted to be king. This flattered us; for, if it was not one, it was the other. And so, at this game, your father became count; but, count or not, he was one ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... one, whose religious education was drawn solely from the pure fountain of truth—the holy oracles; and however unlettered he was, as to polite literature or the learned languages, his Christian liberality can no more be enlightened by the niggard spirit of learned sectarians, than the sun could be illuminated by a rush-light. The inquiry was then, as, alas, it is too frequent now, Are there many that be saved? forgetful of the Saviour's answer and just rebuke, What ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... A PIECE OF GOLD OF TWO-AND-TWENTY SHILLINGS.—"This was a considerable present; but Jonson's hand and heart were ever open to his acquaintance. All his pleasures were social; and while health and fortune smiled upon him, he was no niggard either of his time or talents to those who needed them. There is something striking in Taylor's concluding sentence, when the result of his (Jonson's) visit to Drummond is considered:—but there is one evil that walks, ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... alike on the one side the Sinner, on the other the Judge. Diabolic—betraying whether we yield to it, or condemn: Here is Gibbon's sneer—if you care for it; but I gather first from the confused paragraphs which conduct to it, the sentences of praise, less niggard than the Sage of Lausanne usually grants to any hero who has confessed the influence ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... them, who have acted with the most princely munificence, liberality, and generous feeling, involving an amount of sacrifice of which no persons out of this county can possibly have the slightest conception. I am not saying there are not instances of niggard feeling, though I am not about to name them, which really it was hardly possible to believe ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... with the active life and thought of our eager times, yet sharing neither. Here is an empire that is content to live in the past: having rich resources it neglects to develop them; a productive soil but niggard crops. Amidst a veritable Lebanon of forestry it has shanties for homes; with coal deposits that are the envy of the world, its shivering women in stoveless hovels attempt to defend themselves about their domestic toil with coarse homespun shawls and ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... dim amid the lonely night on through the dusk they went, On through the empty house of Dis, the land of nought at all. E'en as beneath the doubtful moon, when niggard light doth fall 270 Upon some way amid the woods, when God hath hidden heaven, And black night from the things of earth ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... poor Decimation tried To furnish forth the needful tide; And Civil War as vainly shed Her niggard offering ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... Userti, or Saptah. Perhaps the divine neck has not been oiled of late, or too much oiled, or too little oiled, or prayers—or strings—may have gone wrong. Or Pharaoh may have been niggard in his gifts to that college of the great god of his House. Who am I that I should know the ways of gods? That in the temple where I served at Thebes fifty years ago did not pretend to bow or to trouble himself as to which of the royal race ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... in inhumanity! think you these wretched outcasts have less sensibility than yourselves? think you, in cold and hunger, they lose those feelings which even in voluptuous prosperity from time to time disturb you? you say they are all cheats? 'tis but the niggard cant of avarice, to lure away remorse from obduracy. Think you the naked wanderer begs from choice? give him ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... thousand a year, finds me extremely useful. I bet for him, I make appointments for him to have his hair trimmed, I retain stalls for him, and occasionally I admit him to the house at an unlawful hour. In fact, he is a confounded nuisance. He is impertinent, grossly ignorant, and a niggard. Moreover, Toby, he hath an eye whose like I have seen before—once. Then it was set in the head of a remount which, after it had broken a shoeing-smith's leg, was cast for ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... scurvy-rotten, I will say they fought with credit. I have lost my Lord Tatho's navy, but I think Phorenice will see me righted there. If those that are against her took so much trouble to kill my Lord Deucalion before he could come to her aid, I can fancy she will not be niggard in her joy when I put Deucalion safe, if somewhat dented ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... of misery, both temporal and spiritual, surrounds us, and which might be effectually relieved, were all Christians, many of whom are laggard in effort and niggard in bounty, to manifest a tithe of the self-denial which Mr. Ellerthorpe practiced. 'What maintains one vice, would support two children.' Robert Hall says:—It is the practice of self-denial in a thousand little instances which forms the truest test of character.' Mr. Fletcher, ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... niggard, the dissatisfied, the passionate, the suspicious, and those who live upon others' means—are ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... should marry, you should know whom to choose, being a cosmopolitan as you are; the Hall should be occupied; you are a good and faithful steward, giving to the poor with no niggard hand, and out of your present small income; yes, you should decidedly marry and you should as decidedly have an heir," he ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... reading these Words. 'Dumb, (cried he out) naturally Dumb? O ye niggard Powers, why was such a wond'rous Piece of Art left imperfect?' He had many other wild Reasonings upon the lamentable Subject, but falling from these to more calm Reflections, he examined her Note again, and finding by the last ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... of this advice in no niggard spirit; I felt as if we were fleeing for our lives in throttling fear after some frightful atrocity. In truth, there is only one difference left between the secrecy of the two social classes: the poor hide themselves ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... know the Spanish recipe for salad dressing?" asked Elise. "'A spendthrift for oil; a niggard for vinegar; a sane man for salt and a maniac for ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... wealth, he moves with easy mien; Politely on the left he takes his place; The ivory pin is at his girdle seen:— His dress and gait show gentlemanly grace. Why do we brand him in our satire here? 'Tis this—-his niggard soul ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... he stepped high, nor can I find it in my heart to begrudge him his day. Cunningly had he clutched a few golden moments from the hoard that Fate, the niggard, guards from us so jealously. To myself I acclaimed him as ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... From fair Phyles' towers Survey Boeotia;—Caledonia's ours. 130 And well I know within that bastard land [10] Hath Wisdom's goddess never held command; A barren soil, where Nature's germs, confined To stern sterility, can stint the mind; Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth, Emblem of all to whom the Land gives birth; Each genial influence nurtured to resist; A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist. [xv] Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain Dilutes with drivel every drizzly ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... me thy belief to be That I was niggard in the other life, It may be from the circle where ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... these are serious, simple qualities which do not show much, and are soon forgotten by those who benefit from them. Had she laughed more, danced more, taken more kindly to the fools and their follies, she might have been acid of tongue and niggard of sympathy; the world would have ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... far more noble than the practices of manhood. The labor of the farmer in his fields, the generous returns of the earth, the benignant and favoring skies, tend to make him earnest, provident, and grateful; the education of the market-place makes him querulous, crafty, envious, and an intolerable niggard. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... ill-educated a love of refinement; so unarmed a credulity, noblest of weaknesses, betrayed for the laughter of a chambermaid. By an actual Bottom the Weaver our pity might be reached for the sake of his single self-reliance, his fancy and resource condemned to burlesque and ignominy by the niggard doom of circumstance. But is not life one thing and is not art another? Is it not the privilege of literature to make selection and to treat things singly, without the after-thoughts of life, without the troublous ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand. This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant's round of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean-brained superstition. He drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his line by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of the Church reverts Urbino's lordship, and ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... to take his pannikin and plate round to Teddy's cookhouse to get his food. "Slushy," as the cook was familiarly called, dipped him out a liberal measure of pork and beans, and handed him half a loaf of new-made bread. Jinks was no niggard, and Tresler was always welcome to ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... hominem arguments, or "accommodating" his better knowledge to popular ignorance, as well as to point out the inadmissibility of the other alternative, that he shared the popular ignorance. And to those who hold the latter view sarcasm is dealt out with no niggard hand. ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the world can show more beauteous sights than the river which runs between Truro and Falmouth, but I have my doubts. Nature here is at the height of her loveliness and spreads her riches with no niggard hand. For the clear water coils its way through a rich countryside, where green woods and rich meadows slope down to the river's bank. Here the flowers come early in the springtime, and scent the air through the summer; and here, too, winter is tardy in making its appearance, as if loth to ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Dryden, in immortal strain, Had raised the table-round again But that a ribald King and Court Bade him toil on to make them sport, Demanding for their niggard pay, Fit for ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... it's mean to sneer at everything the man does. We abused him yesterday as a niggard; let us have the grace to-day to say we were mistaken." He was afflicted with the over-scrupulosity of a refined, but strictly limited mind, and his conscience smote him. "I, at any rate, was quite mistaken," he went on; "I quite misinterpreted his hesitation when I mentioned ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... when have you become such a niggard? You should have economized when you gave the sasandars[41] something like ten ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... years of study and observation give us the power to wield the wand at will? We cannot but believe it. Our vast and fertile downs were never destined to be idle and unproductive for months and months, dependent only on the niggard clouds o'erhead. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... limbs finely proportioned, his countenance open and majestic, his eyes full of sweetness and vivacity, his teeth regular, and his pouting lips of the complexion of the damask rose. In short, he was formed for love, and inspired it wherever he appeared; nor was he a niggard of his talents, but liberally returned it, at least, what passed for such; for he had a flow of gallantry, for which many ladies of this land can vouch from their own experience. But he exclaimed against marriage, because ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... ingredient in the new state, I will not say; but this we are sure of; the French Catholics, at least, did not harm them, nor disturb their minds merely to corrupt them. The French they loved. But the stern Presbyterian, with his dogmas and his task-work, the city circle and the college, with their niggard concessions and unfeeling stare, have never tried the experiment. It has not been tried. Our people and our government have sinned alike against the first-born of the soil, and if they are the fated agents ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... effect his words had made, but every attempt was rejected with disdain. The King's ministers in Holland had orders to do all they could to thwart the projects of the Prince of Orange, to excite people against him, to protect openly those opposed to him, and to be in no way niggard of money in order to secure the election of magistrates unfavourable to him. The Prince never ceased, until the breaking-out of this war, to use every effort to appease the anger of the King. At last, growing tired, and hoping soon to make his ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... evidently, of ancient stone fences. The land must have been, in former days, a farm, inhabited, cultivated, the home of human hopes and desires and labours, but now relapsed into solitude and wilderness. What could the life have been among these rugged and inhospitable Highlands, on this niggard and reluctant soil? Where was the house that once sheltered the tillers of this rude ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... equally pure, unalterable, and intense. For my own part, I have sacrificed to a rigid punctilio of honour the dearest ideas of my heart. I beheld your unrivalled charms, and deeply felt their power. Yet, while a possibility of Melvil's reformation remained, and while I was restrained by my niggard fortune from making a tender worthy of your acceptance, I combated with my inclinations, and bore without repining the pangs of hopeless love. But, now that my honour is disengaged, and my fortune rendered independent, by the last will of a worthy nobleman, whose ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... ever since Englishmen have controlled her fortunes, be mingled with considerations of mournfulness and peril! It is not merely—and, alas! that such a calamity should have to be treated as of secondary magnitude—it is not merely that the niggard state charity of England is now at once to cease and be entirely withdrawn, but we have to contemplate a still more fearful and far wider-spreading misery at the end of autumn and in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... enshrouds the rocks, Shattered in earth's primeval shocks, And niggard Nature ever ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... be cities who refuse To their own child the honours due, And look ungently on the Muse; But ever shall those cities rue The dry, unyielding, niggard breast, Offering no nourishment, no rest, To that young head which soon shall rise Disdainfully, in might ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... as she was usually styled, to accompany her, for Pauline was, indeed, very popular in Chowringee and around its vicinity, and her Bungalow was a constant lounge for the gallants of all services. Horace was no niggard in his hospitality, but preferred the ease and comfort of his own sanctum to the gay rattle that was continually going on in his pretty little wife's drawing room or verandahs. And Arthur was again, for a fourth time since his arrival in the country, in ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... life has been more rich and deep, and of more calm and musical flow than ever before. It seems to me that Heaven, whose course has ever been to cross-bias me, as Herbert said, is no niggard in its compensations. I have indeed been forced to take up old burdens, from which I thought I had learned what they could teach; the pen has been snatched from my hand just as I most longed to use it; I have been forced to dissipate, when I most ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Government of India have applied themselves with great energy, with fresh activity, and they believe they have got the secret of this fell disaster. They have laid down a large policy of medical, sanitary, and financial aid. I am a hardened niggard of public money. I watch the expenditure of Indian revenue as the ferocious dragon of the old mythology watched the golden apples. I do not forget that I come from a constituency which, so far as I have known ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... twenty-two frigates or smaller naval craft put out to sea. In addition, there were the three little flotillas on Lakes Erie, Ontario, and Champlain; and a few minor vessels elsewhere. All the crews together did not exceed ten thousand men, replacements included. Yet, even with these niggard means, the American Navy won the command of two lakes completely, held the command of the third in suspense, won every important duel out at sea, except the famous fight against the Shannon, inflicted serious loss on British sea-borne trade, ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... valley greene, Spred with Flora summer queene: Where shee heaping all hir graces, Niggard seem'd in other places: Spring it was, and here did spring All that nature ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne |
