"Niggard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by coming so far to do him a service. But I think, from what I have seen of him last night, that he is not such a niggard and misanthrope as I was led to believe. He exhibited considerable emotion, despite the monosyllabic greeting, when he shook my hand. If he were a man to feel annoyance at any person coming after him, he would not have received me as he did, nor would he ask me ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... 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
... with his conquering arm Has freed the saints 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 ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... hope—to which she had reduced him, it was 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
... 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 praising ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... does the portrait of a stern, unbending egotist satisfy us when we remember the life-long devotion that existed between him and Dorothy, and the fact that Coleridge loved him, and that Lamb and Scott were his friends. He may have been a niggard of warm-heartedness to the outside world, but it is clear from his biography that he possessed the genius of a good heart as well as of ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... 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 ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... 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
... my friends? We are nigh broken, and not too proud to accept a little charity from a Devon man. Thy heart used not to beat in a niggard's bosom." ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... difference reaching to divorce, Now can the finish'd lover see Marvel of me most far from me, Whom without pride he may admire, Without Narcissus' doom desire, Serve without selfishness, and love 'Even as himself,' in sense above Niggard 'as much,' yea, as she is The only ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... 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 ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... nature 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 to think ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... suffer almost as much as the criminal himself. But, if his reason imposed this just and necessary severity, his heart had taught him another lesson in respect to private distresses of his men; he visited them in their sickness, relieved their miseries, and was a niggard of nothing but human blood. But I ought to correct myself in that expression, for he was rashly lavish of his own, and to that ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... 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 ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... did rich Nature 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 ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... hardly sufficient against the multitude of enemies, and he asked himself whom he could choose among the rest. [67] He remembered how his Persians led the sorriest of lives at home owing to their poverty, working long and hard on the niggard soil, and he felt sure they were the men who would most value the life at his court. [68] Accordingly he selected ten thousand lancers from among them, to keep guard round the palace, night and day, whenever he was at home, and to march beside him whenever he went abroad. [69] Moreover, he ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... unfledged younglings dread; Thee niggard old men dread, and brides new-made, In misery, lest their lords neglect their bed, By ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... it, old man," said Halbert, "if I am to be the butt that every fool may aim a shaft of scorn against?—What avails it, old man, that you yourself move, sleep, and wake, eat thy niggard meal, and repose on thy hard pallet?—Why art thou so well pleased that the morning should call thee up to daily toil, and the evening again lay thee down a wearied-out wretch? Were it not better sleep and wake no more, than to undergo this ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... of the usually frozen rivers in or near the Arctic circle. Even Mormon energy, industry, frugality and subservience to sacerdotal despotism, barely suffice to wrench a rude, coarse living from those narrow belts and patches of less niggard soil which skirt those infrequent lakes and scanty streams of the Great Basin which are susceptible of irrigation; mines alone (and they must be rich ones) can ever render populous the extensive country which is interposed between the Rocky Mountains ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... heavy-laden soul, And fall by thousands on the highway lined With little graves; or reach at last their goal Of stunted manhood and embittered age, To brood awhile with dark and troubled mind, Beside the smouldering fire of sullen rage, On life's unfruitful work and niggard wage. Are these the regiments that Freedom rears To serve her cause in coming years? Nay, every life that Avarice doth maim And beggar in the helpless days of youth, Shall surely claim A just revenge, and take it without ruth; And every soul denied the right to grow Beneath the flag, shall ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... being; as indeed is shown by that old, but somewhat exaggerated, canon in natural history of "Natura non facit saltum." We meet with this admission in the writings of almost every experienced naturalist; or, as Milne Edwards has well expressed it, "Nature is prodigal in variety, but niggard in innovation." Why, on the theory of Creation, should there be so much variety and so little real novelty? Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, each supposed to have been separately ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... 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 largely from memory; almost certainly from insufficient data. ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... 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 and ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... of a self-isolated people, begirt 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 ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the bard's museum, this the fane To Phoebus sacred, and the Aonian maids: But, oh! it stabs his heart, that niggard fate To him in such small measure should dispense Her better gifts: to him! whose generous soul Could relish, with as fine an elegance, The golden joys of grandeur, and of wealth; He who could tyrannise o'er menial slaves, Or swell beneath a coronet ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... poor Decimation tried To furnish forth the needful tide; And Civil War as vainly shed Her niggard offering of red. ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... came soon to this ephemeral happiness. It was only one of those bright coins snatched from the niggard hand of Time which must always be paid back with usurious charges. We paid ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... 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 ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... charitable trusts, and other functions. Thirdly, when the Mass ceased to be said it was secularized completely. Service was held in the church, but the Hospital became a perfectly secular charity, supporting a few almspeople with niggard hand, and a Master in great splendour. Fourthly, it was again treated as a semi-ecclesiastical foundation, for reasons which do not appear. At the same time, while its charities were enlarged, no duties were assigned to the Brothers, who seem to have been considered as Fellows, forming ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... 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, ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... 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 ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... virtue, not by a fault—in the most dreadful of human calamities—ignominious degradation;—hurled in the midday of life from the sphere of honest men—a felon's brand on his name—a vagrant in his age; justice at last, but tardy and niggard, and giving him but little joy when it arrives; because, ever thinking only of others, his heart is wrapped in a child whom he cannot make happy in the way in which his hopes have been set!—George-no, your illustration ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... lunch was taken beneath the shade of the nearest tree, or, in case the pickers were boarded by the grower, all adjourned to the largest room in an out-building, where a rural feast was spread with no niggard hand. Hop-pickers expect to live on the fat of the farmer's land, and as a rule they are not disappointed. Whole sheep and beeves vanish like manna before the Israelites in the short three weeks of the picking season, while gallons of coffee, ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... the money well spent; those who had won would be the more lavish in the spending. They had simply won a few more pleasures. "Quick come; quick go!" sang the whirling wheels. "The niggard in pound and pence is a usurer in happiness; a miser driving a hard bargain with pleasure. Better burn the candle at both ends than not burn it at all! In one case, you get light; in the other nothing but darkness. Laughter is cheap at any price. A castle ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... give largely to true merit, All that a king should do: But though these are not My province, I have scene enough within, To exercise my virtue. All that a heart, so fixed as mine, can move, Is, that my niggard fortune starves my ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... children with; if all the world 720 Should in a pet of temperance feed on Pulse, Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but Freize, Th'all-giver would be unthank't, would be unprais'd, Not half his riches known, and yet despis'd, And we should serve him as a grudging master, As a penurious niggard of his wealth, And live like Natures bastards, not her sons, Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight, And strangl'd with her waste fertility; Th'earth cumber'd, and the wing'd air dark't with plumes. 730 The herds ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... why dost thou spend Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy? Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free: Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? For having traffic with thy self alone, Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive: Then how when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... would, I know, be a source of irritation to him. If they vex me it is a most pleasurable vexation. I delight to find her at fault; and were I always resident with her, I am aware she would be no niggard in thus ministering to my enjoyment. She would just give me something to do, to rectify—a theme for my tutor lectures. I never lecture Henry, never feel disposed to do so. If he does wrong—and that is very ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... it, but one so seldom catches them in the act. Here in the valley there is no cessation of waters even in the season when the niggard frost gives them scant leave to run. They make the most of their midday hour, and tinkle all night thinly under the ice. An ear laid to the snow catches a muffled hint of their eternal busyness fifteen or twenty ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... twinkle futurity? the lonely lichen brighten or pale its lustre with change? Does not the gift of prophecy dwell with the family of the violets and the lilies? The prescient harebells, do they not let drop their closing blossoms when the heavens are niggard of their dews, or uphold them like cups thirsty for wine, when the blessing, yet unfelt by duller animal life, is beginning to drop balmily down from the rainy cloud embosomed in the blue of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... those 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
... To others, not a few, all this hustle was an act in a domestic tragedy. Sometimes it was a comedy, as in the case of one man who had built up a "nice little butchering business," snatching his profits from the niggard hand of competition; and now he must go forth to kill men, leaving his rival master in the field of domestic butchery. But the comedies were few, or else I did not come across them, for it was the serious ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... mortal men: The warrior's weapons fail him; the citizen is buried beneath the ruins of his own penates, when engaged in paying his vows to the gods; another falls from his chariot and dashes out his ardent spirit; the glutton chokes at dinner; the niggard starves from abstinence. Give the dice a fair throw and you will find shipwreck everywhere! Ah, but one overwhelmed by the waves obtains no burial! As though it matters in what manner the body, once it is dead, is consumed: ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... band I lead Rob thee of thy daily need Of a whiter soul, or steal What thy lordly prayers reveal? Who could be enriched of thee By such hoard of poverty As thy niggard hand pretends To dole me— thy worst of friends? Therefore shouldst thou pause to bless One indeed who blesses thee: Robbing thee, I dispossess But myself—. Pray thou ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... the idea of your father from your memory. Enough, you know he lives. We know no more. Your mother labours to forget him; her only consolation for sorrows such as few women ever experienced, is her child, yourself, your love. Now be no niggard with it. Cling to this unrivalled parent, who has dedicated her life to you. Soothe her sufferings, endeavour to make her share your happiness; but, of this be certain, that if you raise up the name and memory of your father between your mother and yourself, her ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... to allow of the passengers getting refreshment, all entered the hotel except old Neild. Observing the absence of the pinched, poverty-stricken-looking old gentleman, some good-natured passenger sent him out a bumper of brandy and water, which the old niggard eagerly accepted. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... your own lips and punish your own self; it's only fair;" old lady Chia remarked. Then facing Mrs. Hsueeh, "I'm not a niggard, fond of winning money," she went on to say, "but it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... recipe for salad dressing?" asked Elise. "'A spendthrift for oil; a niggard for vinegar; a sane man for salt and a ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... of water from the scene; but the native peasant would have explained to them that the eye alone had reason to be discontented, and that the thick foliage and the uneven surface did but conceal what mother earth with no niggard bounty supplied. The Bagradas, issuing from the spurs of the Atlas, made up in depth what it wanted in breadth of bed, and ploughed the rich and yielding mould with its rapid stream, till, after passing Sicca ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... repose. Thy skinny, thy cold, thy visageless mould, Its disgust is untold, and its surface is dim; What a signal of wrack is the wrinkle's dull track, And the bend of the back, and the limp of the limb! Thou leper of fear—thou niggard of cheer— Where glory is dear, shall thy welcome be found? Thou contempt of the brave—oh, rather the grave, Than to pine as the slave that thy fetters have bound. Like the dusk of the day is thy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... not a few well-meaning but old-fashioned people the mere act of refusing to vote the supplies was in itself a species of treason. To more practical people this act presented itself in a different aspect. It seemed to them indicative of a niggard and ruinous parsimony. They gazed with ill-concealed envy at the marvellous prosperity of the neighbouring State of New York. Any one crossing the Canadian frontier in that direction at once became aware that ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... Perhaps 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; ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... the advice 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 prevailed ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... I have rambled strangely from my story: but what of that? if I have been so lucky as to find the road to happiness, why should I be such a niggard as to omit so good an opportunity of pointing out the way to others. The very basis of true peace of mind is a benevolent wish to see all the world as happy as one's Self; and from my soul do I pity the selfish churl, who, remembering the little bickerings ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... first, Alexander II. did not hold out any hope of reform. Driven to straits, he busied himself with throwing a sop to public opinion by various small relaxations in administrative matters. They were small enough; and they were given with a niggard hand. ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... different in the character of their scenery, can be such near neighbours, that these luxuriant valleys, nestling among the roots of these gigantic hills, are only separated by a narrow expanse of sea from those shores over which nature has strewed, with so niggard a hand, a soil capable of bearing the productions characteristic of the latitudes within which ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... 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 ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... have to 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 ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... of use? What can he do but pray That God will aid it on its way? And so, my friends, it is my prayer That God will have you in his care." His well-fed saintship said no more, But in their faces shut the door. What think you, reader, is the service, For which I use this niggard rat? To paint a monk? No, but a dervise. A monk, I think, however fat, Must ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... draw from Mammon's harpy keeping. Go, lure the tomtit from the twig, Go, coax the tiger from his quarry, The toper from his thirsty swig, The swindler from his schemings sorry: "Persuade" the Sweater to be just, The 'cute Monopolist to be kindly; Tempt hunger to resign his crust, The niggard churl to lavish blindly: Make—by soft words—the ruthless wrecker Subscribe for life-boats, ropes and rockets; Then plump the National Exchequer By willing doles from ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... against you. Do not be going to drinking-houses, or finding fault with old men; do not meddle with low people; this is right conduct I am telling you. Do not refuse to share your meat; do not have a niggard for your friend; do not force yourself on a great man or give him occasion to speak against you. Hold fast to your arms till the hard fight is well ended. Do not give up your opportunity, but with that follow ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... sea-boys[272] hail it from the mast; When Victory's Gallic column[273] shall but rise, Like Pompey's pillar[274], in a desert's skies, 110 The rocky Isle that holds or held his dust, Shall crown the Atlantic like the Hero's bust, And mighty Nature o'er his obsequies Do more than niggard Envy still denies. But what are these to him? Can Glory's lust Touch the freed spirit or the fettered dust? Small care hath he of what his tomb consists; Nought if he sleeps—nor more if he exists: Alike the better-seeing Shade will smile On the rude cavern[275] of the rocky ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... heart touched, but his resolution firm; 'go on. I will share weal or woe with my soldiers. I am not such a niggard of life, that I grudge to risk it in such company, and in such ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... in the Highlands: nor is the sense of duty lessened by absence from the mountains where first the sentiment was felt. The Highland soldier, far from his country, is accompanied by this holy love, this inexhaustible stimulus to exertion, which induces him to save with what may be unjustly called a niggard hand his earnings, to support, in their old age, those who have given him birth. "I have been," says General Stewart, "a frequent witness of these offerings of filial bounty, and the channel through which they were communicated; and I have generally found that a threat of informing their ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... her husband's shallow tongue,— The niggard prodigal that praised her so,— In that high task hath done her beauty wrong, Which far exceeds his barren skill to show: Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe Enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise, In ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... 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 ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... but half her stores: In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen, She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green: Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace, And waste their music on the savage race. Is nature then a niggard of her bliss? Repine we guiltless in a world like this? But our lewd tastes her lawful charms refuse, And painted art's depraved allurements choose. Such Fulvia's passion for the town; fresh air (An odd effect!) gives vapours to the fair; Green fields, and shady groves, and crystal springs, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... death of the 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 ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... 135 Mar bade I should purvey them steed, And bring them hitherward with speed. Forbear your mirth and rude alarm, For none shall do them shame or harm." "Hear ye his boast?" cried John of Brent, 140 Ever to strife and jangling bent; "Shall he strike doe beside our lodge, And yet the jealous niggard grudge To pay the forester his fee? I'll have my share, howe'er it be, 145 Despite of Moray, Mar, or thee." Bertram his forward step withstood; And, burning in his vengeful mood, Old Allan, though unfit for strife; Laid hand upon his dagger-knife; 150 But Ellen boldly stepped between, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... must, in sad accordance with the unvarying fate of Ireland 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 ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... too dear, he said. I threw them down and said to him, "Count, give me a stoup of wine and they are yours." That pleased him: he bade the serving-woman carry the fish away, and told me to follow him. He took me into a vaulted stone chamber, and poured with a niggard hand a glass of mezzo-vino. I looked at him: he was lean, gray, unlovely. I could have crushed him to death with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... 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
... 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
... thought of these things. He was content to go straight ahead without looking down those side paths into which so many immature thinkers stray. He had fought at Sedan, had thrown his life with no niggard hand into the balance. When wounded he had cunningly escaped the attentions of the official field hospitals. He might easily have sent in his name to Prussian head-quarters as that of a wounded officer begging to be released on parole. But he cherished the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... Lord Dalgarno, "I spoke but according to the trick of the time; besides, a man must set a piece or two sometimes, or he would be held a cullionly niggard. But here comes dinner, and we will see whether you like the Chevalier's good cheer better ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... your eyes," returned the scout; "and he who owns it is not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man may so deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so clear in the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... reigns, behind which only a more persistent nature than ours can pass. Unless, therefore, we find our way into some circle of gentle scholars or lovers of the beautiful quite simple in their tastes, a thing possible but not often granted by a niggard fortune, we are perforce thrown back upon our own company, and move towards the grave alone. For this we accuse none; nothing is more at fault than our own constitution. But to us society is a school of dames, who are not to be blamed if amid the crowd that clamours for their teaching, they find ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... 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
... of the happiness of another. As the Moon plays upon the waves, and seems to our eyes to favour with a peculiar beam one long track amidst the waters, leaving the rest in comparative obscurity; yet all the while, she is no niggard in her lustre—for though the rays that meet not our eyes seem to us as though they were not, yet she with an equal and unfavouring loveliness, mirrors herself on every wave: even so, perhaps, Happiness falls with the same brightness and power over the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... my anger pure—let no worst wrong Rouse in me the old niggard selfishness. Give me thine indignation—which is love Turned on the evil that would part love's throng; Thy anger scathes because it needs must bless, Gathering into union calm and strong All things on ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Ana, or 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 sat upon the throne. ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... houseless, dirty, ignorant, all that is to him as natural as that he should have a skin. But for us, for the most of us, civilization has bred desires which she forbids us to satisfy, and so is not merely a niggard ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... Under the niggard care of miserly old Jabez Potter, the miller, her great uncle, tempered by the loving kindness of Aunt Alvirah Boggs, the miller's housekeeper, Ruth's prospects had been poor indeed. But Providence moves in ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... 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 ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... "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 ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... pronounce him simply a cold 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 rigid and niggard support, and Even to get that must go searching all round with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... Of these latter, there seemed persons of every rank and condition: some, dressed in all the brilliancy of the mode; others, whose garments bespoke direst poverty. There were women, too, whose costume emulated the classic drapery of the ancients, and who displayed, in their looped togas, no niggard share of their forms; while others, in shabby mourning, sat in obscure corners, not noticing the scene before them, nor noticed themselves. A strange equipage, with two horses extravagantly bedizened with rosettes and bouquets, stood at the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... with the head and feet; these we ate on Saturday night; the broth we had on Sunday." So in another Scottish play, "The Gentle Shepherd" of Allan Ramsay, it was long the custom on stages north of the Tweed to present a real haggis, although niggard managers were often tempted to substitute for the genuine dish a far less savoury if more wholesome mess of oatmeal. But a play more famous still for the reality of its victuals, and better known to modern times, was Prince Hoare's musical ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... anything worth remembering they will not forget it. You may rely on that. They know what each gives—whether freely or with a niggard hand—and each shall be paid back in his own coin. They give freely enough themselves. It is always so with the aristocrats; but they expect an equal generosity in others, which is ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... barn, his kitchen, cellar, nay, and his very purse too, others had the greatest use and share, whilst he keeps his keys in his pocket much more carefully than his eyes. Whilst he hugs himself with the pitiful frugality of a niggard table, everything goes to rack and ruin in every corner of his house, in play, drink, all sorts of profusion, making sport in their junkets with his vain anger and fruitless parsimony. Every one is a sentinel against ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... forsake my niggard leas, My orchard, too late hoar, And wander over lands and seas To ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... 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
... 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 treat things singly, without the after-thoughts of life, without the troublous completeness ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... 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 ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... his kindred, from his country's soil, By want enfeebled, and oppress'd by toil, Compelled with slow reluctance to demand The niggard pity of a stranger's hand, And forced, in silent anguish, to abide The sneer of malice, the rebuke of pride: A wretch opprest by sorrow's galling weight, Deplored his ruined peace, his hapless fate. His was such anguish as the guilty know, For self-reproach ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... the settlers hare driven them to other haunts. To this change (which in some particulars is melancholy to one who knew the country in its infancy), it may be added that the Otsego is beginning to be a niggard ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... pick out the names of a few dishes, such as peterel, crane, sturgeon, swan, etc., with a profusion of wild-fowl and venison. We also see that a suitable song was produced by Peretto on the occasion, and that the bishop, who blessed the bridal beds which received the happy couples, was no niggard of his holy water, bestowing half a gallon upon each of the couches. We regret we cannot give these curiosities to the reader in detail, but we hope to expose the manuscript to abler antiquaries, so soon as it shall be framed and glazed by the ingenious artist who rendered ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... stately plant from its fertile, maternal soil, and there will still cling lovingly to it much that can seem superfluous only to a niggard. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... set ever sat down to a festal board, than that which gathered to greet the 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 ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... old but somewhat exaggerated canon in natural history of "Natura non facit saltum." We meet with this admission in the writings of almost every experienced naturalist; or, as Milne Edwards has 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, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... is really wonderful: architecture, painting, gardening, all are alike subject to his genius. Be it remembered, that English gardening is the purposed perfectioning of niggard Nature, and that without it England is but a hedge-and-ditch, double-post-and-rail, Hounslow-heath and Clapham-common sort of a country, since the principal forests have been felled. It is, in general, far from a picturesque ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... many a mountain nigh Rising in lofty ranks, and loftier still, Might well itself be deemed of dignity, The Convent's white walls glisten fair on high: Here dwells the caloyer, nor rude is he,[21.B.] Nor niggard of his cheer;[150] the passer by Is welcome still; nor heedless will he flee From hence, if he delight kind Nature's sheen ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... I should truck my good luck by mine ill luck trepanned: So I'll eat it and drink it and joy in my wealth; * And no spending my pennies on others I'll stand: I will keep my purse close 'gainst whoever he be; * And a niggard in grain a true friend ne'er I fand: Far better deny him than come to say:—Lend, * And five-fold the loan shall return to thy hand! And he turns face aside and he sidles away, * While I stand like a dog disappointed, unmanned, Oh, the sorry lot his who hath yellow-boys none, * Though ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton |
