"Scanty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bear a part. The other consideration is, that the United States have the means. They enjoy the revenues derived from commerce, and the States have no abundant and easy sources of public income. The custom-houses fill the general treasury, while the States have scanty resources, except by resort to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... conflict with the Harpies, one of those half-human birds had threatened the Trojans with dire sufferings. In particular she predicted that before their wanderings ceased they should be pressed by hunger to devour their tables. This portent now came true; for as they took their scanty meal, seated on the grass, the men placed their hard biscuit on their laps, and put thereon whatever their gleanings in the woods supplied. Having dispatched the latter they finished by eating the crusts. Seeing which, the boy Iulus ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... better than conclude this scanty history with the character of the man, as it is told us by Vasari: "Luca was a person of excellent habits, sincere and affectionate with his friends, sweet and agreeable in his converse with everyone, specially courteous to those who had need ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... up, and rooms, furnished and unfurnished, are rented out to messes. One dollar and fifty cents for beef, leaves no margin for profit, even at $100 per month, which is charged for board, and most of the boarders cannot afford to pay that price. Therefore they take rooms, and buy their own scanty food. I am inclined to think provisions would not be deficient, to an alarming extent, if they were equally distributed. Wood is no scarcer than before the war, and yet $30 per load (less than a cord) is demanded for ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... heard the news she had breathed a sigh of relief and sympathy. Relief, when she thought of the scanty, shabby little outfits which were all they had to take with them. Sympathy with their disappointment. She knew what it was to ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... favourite hues not only of their flowers, tame birds, fishes, and quadrupeds, but of plants in whose cultivation utility has been the primary object, contrast signally, as I have said, with the dull tints of the undomesticated flora and fauna, of which comparatively scanty remnants were visible here and there in this ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... 1543, the scanty remnant of the once powerful band embarked on the waters of the great river, and for seventeen days floated downward, while the Indians on the bank poured arrows on them incessantly as they passed. Fifty days later a few haggard, half-naked survivors of De Soto's great ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... a half from the west end of Caffarelli Island and afterwards endeavoured to steer between the range of islands, of which Caffarelli is the northernmost, and a group of rocky isles, marked 33; but finding we could not succeed from the scanty direction of the wind, then blowing a fresh breeze from South-East, we bore up round the west side of the latter and then steered by the wind towards a group of which the island 40 is the principal. On approaching 40 ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... furnish scanty water supply to the inhabitants of this region are found generally at great distances apart, and there are usually but few natural indications of their location. They often occur in obscure nooks in the canyons, reached by tortuous trails winding through the talus ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... Realm. For Gottlieb was a money-lender and an honest man in one body. He laid out for the plenteous harvests of usury, not pressing the seasons with too much rigour. 'I sow my seed in winter,' said he, 'and hope to reap good profit in autumn; but if the crop be scanty, better let it lie and fatten ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... anybody to come to Japan in the winter. You do not see it at its best, I am sure, and the scanty protection afforded by houses and carriages makes travelling a penance rather than a pleasure. Travellers, however, who wish to see Japan should do so at once; for the country is changing every day, and in three years more will be so Europeanised that little will ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... mother, seemed her only hope in life and the only time the poor crushed soul evidenced interest in anything was when tidings came from the children or she could prevail upon their thankless father to send them a little money. The mother's wardrobe was scanty that the darlings of her heart might ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... miserable. With restless feet he would wander from window to window of the stone tower, and mount from story to story; but mount as high as he would there was still nothing to be seen but the vast, unvarying plain, clothed with scanty grass, and flooded with the glaring sunshine; flocks and herds and shepherds moved across it sometimes, but nothing else, not even a shadow, for there was no cloud in the sky to cast one. The old ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... bishops of Ely," says Mr. Millers, "thirty-five are known to have been buried in this Cathedral, and two in the Lady Chapel. Of these thirty-seven, there are memorials of twenty; some of them very scanty and much mutilated, and many removed from the spots where the bodies of those whom they commemorate repose. Of the other seventeen, there were no doubt, similar memorials, but they 'are perished as though they had never been.'"[51] ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon the Ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, through the dust, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and the scanty great-coat, were not to be mistaken. I stopped, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... that you've picked those all yourself," cried Amy, remembering the scanty harvest she had ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... accomplished, I hurried down, removed my trousers, rehumped my back over the tub, scrubbed industriously until the trousers in turn were white and once more dashed roofwards. I have always been absent minded, but never to such an appalling extent as to appear clad only in my scanty underwear in the midst of a mixed throng of ladies, gentlemen and children. This I did. Some venturous souls had claimed the roof as their own during my absence so that when I sprang from the final step to claim my place in the sun I found myself by no means ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... nurserymen, from keeping large stocks of the same plant, are generally far more successful than amateurs in raising new and valuable varieties. A large number of individuals of an animal or plant can be reared only where the conditions for its propagation are favourable. When the individuals are scanty all will be allowed to breed, whatever their quality may be, and this will effectually prevent selection. But probably the most important element is that the animal or plant should be so highly valued ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... me that in all discussions upon this subject the capacities of the English language have received but scanty justice. The intellectual tendencies of our race have always been somewhat conservative, and its standards of literary taste or belief, once set up, are not varied without a struggle. The English ear is suspicious ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... plenty of long grass under it, and our horses are faring tolerably well, and will soon fill themselves with either grass or snow. There is no clear space large enough for us to pitch our tent. We have had our supper—an indifferent and scanty meal—and each man is now seeking with varied success a dry spot beneath the sheltering branches of the pines whereon to ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... that the pirates were coming out to attack him. The British flag run up at the peak soon pleasantly undeceived him, and the hearty cheers which rose from the decks of the prizes, replied to from the scanty crews of the Ruby and Pearl, showed him that his gallant fellows had gained the victory. Old Kemp at once returned to the Ruby to receive the Captain's orders, and signal was soon afterwards made for Bates to come on board. Captain Benbow, shaking him by the hand in the presence ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... contrive to live upon the very small sums they expended for Food; but a more careful examination of the economy of their tables cleared up the point, and let me into a secret which awakened all my curiosity. These soldiers, instead of being starved upon their scanty allowance, as might have been suspected, I found actually living in a most comfortable and even luxurious manner. I found that they had contrived not only to render their Food savoury and nourishing, but, what appeared to me ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... undiscriminating public. Possibly, as Mr. Gosse conjectures,[20] they were read chiefly by milliners and other women on the verge of literacy. But though persons of solid education avoided reading novels and eastern tales as they might the drinking of drams, it is certain that no one of scanty means could have afforded Mrs. Haywood's slender octavos at the price of one to three shillings. The Lady's Library ("Spectator" No. 37) containing beside numerous romances "A Book of Novels" and "The ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... esoteric phrase, the expression of a vague mysticism—these would suffice to call forth reams of exposition. It has been the favorite pastime of historians to weave their own anachronistic theories upon the scanty woof of the half-remembered thoughts of the ancient philosophers. To make such cloth of the imagination as this is an alluring pastime, but one that must not divert us here. Our point of view reverses that of the philosophers. We are chiefly concerned, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... consisted of native-made cloth or matting, and was very scanty, but in many cases was tastefully put on and intermingled with flowers. Some of the men wore a feather in their hair; others wore a wig made of the hair of men and dogs. Both sexes wore ear-rings made of pieces of stones, shells, or berries, ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Saxons may be imagined from the fact that Alfred was twelve years old before he could get a master capable of teaching him the alphabet, and even after the invention of paper in the eleventh century books were very scarce. The cause of the scanty supply of literature was not only the general destruction which had taken place, but also that there was no demand for it. Archbishop Lanfranc, with a view to improve education in England, directed in 1072 that ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... longer upheld by the magistrate; it rested solely on the belief of its followers, and it may have merged into Christianity the faster for the greater number of truths which were contained in it than in the paganism of other nations. The scanty hieroglyphical records tell us little of thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Indeed that cumbersome mode of writing, which alone was used in religious matters, was little fitted for anything beyond the most material parts of their mythology. Hence we must not believe that the Egyptian ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... of Hilton Hall. I walked up the broad avenue, through the final arch of which, as through a huge Gothic window, I saw the hall in the distance. Everything about me looked strange, rich, and lovely. Accustomed to the scanty flowers and diminutive wood of my own country, what I now saw gave me a feeling of majestic plenty, which I can recall at will, but which I have never experienced again. Behind the trees which formed the avenue, I saw ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... surface of thy circling deep! Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic gave 5 Peace, wealth and beauty, to its friendly wave, its blossoms fade, And blighted are the leaves that cast its shade; Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit, Whose chillness struck a canker to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... summit—now sunk down into the trough, but still was preserved from upsetting—had which event occurred, we must have been inevitably lost. We had food in the chests, but we had little inclination to taste it. Water was our great want. Our supply was very scanty. By the master's urgent advice, we took only sufficient at a time to moisten our tongues. For a few days we bore this with patience. Then the wind went down, and the sea grew calm, and the hot sun came out and struck down on our unprotected heads. The weather grew hotter and ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... land here. Of storm and tempest which fell hard upon the good wife and children, though they bore it better as regards sea-sickness and fear than I had expected, we had no lack, particularly in the vicinity of the Bermudas and the rough coasts of this country. Our fare in the ship was very poor and scanty, so that my blessed wife and children, not eating with us in the cabin, on account of the little room in it, had a worse lot than the sailors themselves; and that by reason of a wicked cook who annoyed them in every way; but especially by reason ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... Peter was seven years older than I and notoriously dissipated. No other girl of twenty would have hesitated between us half so long as Stella did. She hesitated through a whole winter; and even now there is odd, if scanty, comfort in the ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... economy is based on service activities connected with the country's strategic location and status as a free trade zone in the Horn of Africa. Two-thirds of Djibouti's inhabitants live in the capital city; the remainder are mostly nomadic herders. Scanty rainfall limits crop production to fruits and vegetables, and most food must be imported. Djibouti provides services as both a transit port for the region and an international transshipment and refueling center. Imports and exports from landlocked neighbor ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... race hiding in some deep cavern, in darkness, their friends slaughtered by the million by the falling stones, coming like arrows and spears, and the pestilence of poisonous gases; their food-supplies scanty; they themselves horrified, awe-struck, despairing, fearing that they would never again see the light; that this dreadful day was the end of ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... and roadways; of weapons, implements, and ornaments lost or abandoned at the time; of burial places and their contents; and of such physical characteristics of later populations as have survived from an early period. Centuries of human habitation of Britain passed away, leaving only such scanty remains and the obscure and doubtful knowledge that can be drawn from them. Through this period, however, successive races seem to have invaded and settled the country, combining with their predecessors, or living alongside of them, or in ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... a slim, shapely fellow, with laughing black eyes and thick black curls. Early in the season as it was, he was barefooted. His attire consisted of a faded, gingham shirt and a scanty pair of corduroy knickerbockers; but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple and fine linen that he seemed to be much better dressed than he ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sobbings deep. Right cruel art thou, if not e'en now runs To tears thy grief at what my heart forbode, If tears of thine at misery's tale e'er flowed. And then they woke, and came the hour around Which had been wont our scanty meal to bring; But from our dreams dumb ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... seemed to exercise the functions of her calling, in despite of the most cruel ravages of time; for age had bent her into the form of a Turkish bow. Her head was agitated by the palsy, like the leaf of the poplar tree; her hair fell down in scanty parcels, as white as the driven snow; her face was not simply wrinkled, but ploughed into innumerable furrows; her jaws could not boast of one remaining tooth; one eye distilled a large quantity ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... lieutenant; if anything should happen to Tontz, he would be commander. He was secretary of the expedition, drew careful maps, and made voluminous daily entries in a journal, which was afterward found to be a marvel of painstaking both in the facts and fictions which it contained. Scanty mention was there of La Salle and Tontz Main de Fer, and much of Pere Francois Xavier, but it was clear, explicit, depicting the advantages of an acquisition of this territory to the crown of France in glowing terms, and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... have honored you and myself with their especial distrust," said Soltikow, stormily, and swallowing a full cup of wine. "You, I know, receive rare and scanty praise; eulogies must be reserved for Daun. We are regarded with inimical and jealous eyes, and our zeal and our ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... made their way along. Now and then Frank would dismount to examine the rocks and scanty earth that formed the trail over which they ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... water in their goat-skin buckets, that are tied to long palmetto ropes made by the men of the neighbouring villages. The water is poured into flat, puddled troughs, and the thirsty flocks and herds drink in turn, before they march away to hunt for such scanty herbage as the land affords. The scene round these wells is wonderfully reminiscent of earliest Bible times, particularly so where the wandering Bedouins bring their flocks to water from the inhospitable territory of the Wad Nun ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... regiments composed largely of war-weary Socialists. During that summer skilful German propagandists operating from Spain had sown the seeds of pacificism throughout Italy. This was made easy by the distress then existing particularly in the villages where food was scanty and complaints against the conduct of the war were numerous. The propaganda extended from the civilian population to the army, and its channel was directed mainly toward the second army encamped ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... glory and the praise, The medals or the fat gratuity; No man shall crown thee with a wreath of bays Or recommend thee for the O.B.E.; And thou, methinks, wouldst rather have it so, Provided that, without undue delay, They let thee take thy scanty wage and go Back to thy sunny home ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... desert of sand and gravel of the Snake here and there is a thin and scanty herbage, insufficient for the horse or the buffalo. Indeed, these treeless wastes between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific are even more desolate and barren than the naked, upper prairies on the Atlantic side; they present vast desert tracts that must ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... the man, who had now removed his cap and stood looking about him, as if making an inventory of the scanty furniture. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... war, a siege; and as many of my friends formed part of the blockading force, I spent more than one night in the trenches. Indeed, except for this, the tiresome monotony of life was most irksome at this period. Day after day the incessant rain poured down. The supplies were bad, scanty, and irregular; the hospitals crowded with sick; field-sports impracticable; books there were none; and a dulness and spiritless depression prevailed on every side. Those who were actively engaged around Ciudad Rodrigo had, of course, the excitement and interest which the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... occasion, as party-colored and heterogeneous an assemblage of human passions, interests, dialects, wishes, and opinions, as any admirer of diversity of character could desire. There were several small traders, some returning from adventures in Germany and France, and some bound southward, with their scanty stock of wares; a few poor scholars, bent on a literary pilgrimage to Rome; an artist or two, better provided with enthusiasm than with either knowledge or taste, journeying with poetical longings towards skies and tints of Italy; a troupe ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... for making further progress in studies suited to their profession. The cares of a family (for marriage must indispensably precede ordination in the Russian church), their labours among their flocks, the scanty support which most of them receive, together with their isolated situation in country villages, where few traces of education and civilized life have yet entered, render ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... the house seemed never to have been changed. It was very old, somewhat scanty, but very rich—tapestry and velvet hangings, marvellous cabinets, and crystal girandoles. Here and there a group of ancient plate; ewers and flagons and tall salt-cellars, a foot high and richly chiselled; sometimes a ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... wonder to the young maidens of the tribe. She showed no less enthusiasm over Hakadah than she had done when she held her first-born, the boy's father, in her arms. Every little attention that is due to a loved child she performed with much skill and devotion. She made all my scanty garments and my tiny moccasins with a great deal of taste. It was said by all that I could not have had more attention had my mother ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... to follow in detail, since datable evidence is scanty. In general, however, the instances of really native fashions or speech which are recorded from this or that province belong to the early Empire. To that age we can assign not only the Celtic, Iberian, and Punic inscriptions which we find occasionally ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... foundered. He had, as he expressed it, no money to buy knowledge. And instead of attending the Schools he went into a biscuit-factory. The three roubles (then 5s.), which was his monthly salary, earned him a scanty living by an eighteen-hour day. Gorki soon gave up this task, which was too exhausting for him. He lived about on the river and in the harbour, working at casual jobs as a sawyer or porter. At this time he had no roof, and was forced to live in the society of the derelicts. What ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... the whole army, the deepest despondency fell upon the town. This feeling was not lessened when it began to be whispered that the Chevalier Ramesay had received instructions from the Governor not to attempt to hold the town in face of a threatened assault, but to wait till the scanty provisions had been exhausted, and then raise the white flag and obtain the best terms ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... splendid blue dressing-gown, with a golden girdle and trimmings. His scanty brownish hair curled (whether artificially or not, I am unable to say) in little ringlets. His complexion was yellow; his greenish-brown eyes were of the sort called "goggle"—they looked as if they might drop out of his face, if you held a spoon under them. His mustache and goat's beard were beautifully ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... five years old, was black at both outer edges, became yellow a little farther on and was white only in the very centre. The salted beef was in a very similar condition. The biscuits were often full of worms which we had to swallow in lieu of butter or dripping if we did not want to reduce our scanty rations still more. Besides this they were so hard that we were forced to use canon balls in breaking them into eatable pieces. Usually our hunger did not allow us to soak them, and often enough we had not the necessary water to do so. We were told (and not without some probability of truth) ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... deshabille more than hasty, intending to administer a savon (scolding) to such tardy comers. But on hearing from the piqueur that the monarch of all he surveyed was waiting in the carriage, he flew to open the gate, disclosing his scanty night-attire. The funniest part of it was that, as soon as he realized the situation, he thought it his duty to show his patriotism, so he stood on the steps of his lodge and, as we passed through the gate, he chanted a hoarse ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... from Jean's ingenious hand. It was the bow-backed skeleton behind the door, which had been cleverly arranged as and was called "Madame la Concierge." The skeleton had been arrayed in a short conventional ballet skirt and scanty lace cap, and held a candle in one hand and a bottle marked "Absinthe" in the other. The skirt was to indicate her earlier career, the cap and candle gave an inkling of her later life, while the bottle told the probable cause ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... manned with a couple of brown oarsmen in scanty kilts of blue. The speaker, who was steering, wore white clothes, the full dress of the tropics; a wide hat shaded his face; but it could be seen that he was of stalwart size, and his voice sounded like a gentleman's. So much could be made out. It was plain, besides, that the Farallone had been ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a man who loved England well, but who loved Rome better; and Wolsey has received but scanty justice from catholic writers, since he sacrificed himself for the catholic cause. His scheme was bold and well laid, being weak only in that it was confessedly in contradiction to the instincts and genius of the nation, by which, and by ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... that obtained in the schools where they begin teaching. Of course this is radically wrong, but it is the fault of our school system and not of the teacher. It behooves teachers entering upon their work with this scanty preparation to recognize their limitations, however, and to do their best to remedy them. Low grade of certificate, low standings in any branches, or the teacher's own consciousness of lack of mastery should be sufficient to send the sincere and earnest teacher to school again, even if this ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... Davy! O Scrope! ye fishers hard by taverns! luxury was ours of which ye know no more than a Chinaman does of music. Under the noble yellow birch we cooked our own fish. We used our scanty kitchen-battery with skill. We cooked with the high art of simplicity. Where Nature has done her best, only fools rush in to improve: on the salmonids, fresh and salt, she has lavished her creative refinements; cookery should only ripen and develop. From our silver gleaming pile of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... absence, and probably a day or two more before they discovered his prison, especially as the snow would make it more difficult to trace him. In the meantime he trusted to be able so to play upon the fears of Amos, and to wear him out by scanty food and rough lodging, that, sooner than continue in such durance, he would sign the cheque for ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... Pins" in high spirits and most effective state. Your thought of clothing the militia in the 41st cast-off clothing proved a most happy one, it having more than doubled our own regular force in the enemy's eye. I am not without anxiety about the Niagara with your scanty means for its defence, notwithstanding my confidence in your vigilance and admirable address in keeping the enemy so long in ignorance of my absence and ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... marronoo, 3; the Moree, mal, 1, boolar, 2, kooliba, 3; the Port Essington,[30] erad, 1, nargarick, 2, nargarickelerad, 3; the Darnly Islanders,[31] netat, 1, naes, 2, naesa netat, 3; and so on through a long list of tribes whose numeral scales are equally scanty. A still larger number of tribes show an ability to count one step further, to 4; but beyond this limit the majority of Australian and Tasmanian tribes do not go. It seems most remarkable that any human being should possess the ability to count to 4, and not to 5. The number of fingers on one ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... that old coatie when I go for my bit dip, you see—it's thick and it's warm, and I've had it twenty years or more—good tweed it is, and homespun. And whenever I've gone out here of a morning, I've put my pocket-book in the inside pocket, and laid the coat itself and the rest o' my scanty attire on the bank there down at Kernwick Cove while I went in the water. And I did that very same thing this morning—and when I came to my clothes again, the pocket-book ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... it is the setting of the subject which gives them the most trouble. The portraitist deals with but a single figure, yet this, in combination with its scanty ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... in his "Sketches of Paris," observes—"If we can retain our democracy when our back woodlands are filled up; when New York and Philadelphia have become a London and Paris; when the land shall be covered with its multitudes, struggling for a scanty living, or with passions excited by luxurious habits and appetites. If we can then maintain our universal suffrage and our liberty, it will be fair and reasonable enough in us to set ourselves up for the imitation of others. Liberty, as far as we yet know her, is not fitted to the condition ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... clump of scanty willows A low wail floats. The endless repetition of a lover's Melancholy notes; So sad, so sweet, so elemental, All lover's pain Seems borne upon its sobbing cadence— The love-song of the plain. From frenzied cry forever falling, To the wind's ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... structures of stone turrets and mill-work fronts by which later millionaires shamed California Street and Van Ness Avenue, they had the simple dignity of a mission, a colonial farm-house, or any other structure wherein love of craft has supplanted scanty materials. Innumerable additions of sheds and boxes, the increment of their fallen social condition, broke their severe lines. A massive door, a carriage entrance, the remains of a balcony faced to ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... tell a memorable tale, How much they can with heav'n prevail. Simonides, the very same We lately had a call to name, Agreed for such a sum to blaze A certain famous champion's praise. He therefore a retirement sought, But found the theme on which he wrote So scanty, he was forced to use Th' accustom'd license of the muse, And introduced and praise bestow'd On Leda's sons to raise his ode; With these the rather making free, As heroes in the same degree. He warranted his work, and yet Could but one third ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... of Harold,—armed in mail, with his face concealed by the strange Sicilian nose-piece used then by most of the Northern nations,—had ridden Tostig, who had joined the Earl on his march, with a scanty band of some fifty or sixty of his Danish house-carles. All the men throughout broad England that he could command or bribe to his cause, were those fifty or sixty hireling Danes. And it seemed that already there was dispute between the brothers, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of his positions in the neighborhood of Sailly-Saillisel, and his scanty foothold on the northern crest of the high ground above Thiepval, the enemy had now been driven from the whole of the ridge lying between the ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... doors were unlocked, the prisoner ascended a few steps, followed by the Lieutenant, and a warder of the higher class. They entered a large, but irregular, low-roofed, and dark apartment, exhibiting a very scanty proportion of furniture. The warder had orders to light a fire, and attend to Lord Glenvarloch's commands in all things consistent with his duty; and the Lieutenant, having made his reverence with the customary compliment, that he trusted his lordship would not long ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... admired Of Agamemnon's daughters, whom ourselves Will hither bring from Argos, if thy force With ours uniting, thou wilt rase the walls Of populous Troy. Come—follow me; that here 470 Among the ships we may adjust the terms Of marriage, for we take not scanty dower. So saying, the Hero dragg'd him by his heel Through all the furious fight. His death to avenge Asius on foot before his steeds advanced, 475 For them, where'er he moved, his charioteer Kept breathing ever on his neck behind. With fierce ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... again. "I declare," said Wilberforce, "my greatest cause of difference with the democrats is their laying, and causing people to lay, so great a stress on the concerns of this world as to occupy their whole minds and hearts, and to leave a few scanty and lukewarm thoughts for the heavenly treasure." Zachary Macaulay, who never canted, and who knew that on the 16th of August the Manchester Magistrates were thinking just as much or as little about religion as the Manchester populace, none ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... both hands, and let it descend without force, almost mechanically, on the old woman's head. But directly he had struck the blow his strength returned. According to her usual habit, Alena Ivanovna was bareheaded. Her scanty gray locks, greasy with oil, were gathered in one thin plait, which was fixed to the back of her neck by means of a piece of horn comb. The hatchet struck her just on the sinciput, and this was partly owing to her small ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... infants, would tend to increase the proportion of live-born males to females. There does not, however, seem to be any necessary connection between savage life and a marked excess of males; that is if we may judge by the character of the scanty offspring of the lately existing Tasmanians and of the crossed offspring of the Tahitians ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... scanty, but dismal, and you have seen them anticipated; as the loss of the young Lord Montague(867) and Mr. Burdett,(868) drowned in a cataract in Switzerland by their own obstinate folly.(869) Mr. Tickell's death was a determined ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... or not, and afterward look into the consequences of what—unmitigated by the freedman's finesse—would take the form of an open clumsy murder. But Phaon had started that morning; and it was now well into the afternoon. Time was dangerously scanty. Cornelia he felt he should inform; but she could do nothing really to help him. He turned his steps toward the Forum and the Atrium Vestae. He had some difficulty in inducing the porter to summon Fabia, to meet in personal interview a mere slave, but a gratuity ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... faith Taught by no priest, but by their beating hearts Faith to each other: the fidelity Of fellow-wanderers in a desert place Who share the same dire thirst, and therefore share The scanty water: the fidelity Of men whose pulses leap with kindred fire, Who in the flash of eyes, the clasp of hands, The speech that even in lying tells the truth Of heritage inevitable as birth, Nay, in the silent bodily presence feel The mystic stirring of ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... So scanty was her allowance of food, that more than once the thought, crossed her, whether or not, death by famine would be her allotted doom; and human nature shuddered, but the spirit did not quail! Hour after hour passed, she knew not whether it was night or day, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... general rule the same. There was no copyright at Athens or Rome; but the history of the Greek and Latin literature illustrates my argument quite as well as if copyright had existed in ancient times. Of all the plays of Sophocles, the one to which the plan of my noble friend would have given the most scanty recompense would have been that wonderful masterpiece, the Oedipus at Colonos. Who would class together the Speech of Demosthenes against his Guardians, and the Speech for the Crown? My noble friend, indeed, would not class them together. For to the Speech against ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Limagne Valley, is harsh, to an extent that has caused many a visitor to flee from Mont-Dore in the month of August. In the deep gorges of the Dordogne and its tributaries, the snow rarely lies more than a few days upon the ground, whereas upon the wind-swept plateau above the scanty population have to contend with the rigours of that French Siberia which may be said to commence here on the west, and to extend eastward over the whole mass of metamorphic and igneous rocks, which is termed the great central plateau of France, although ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... of all the crops failing. Moreover, during the past century famine has occurred in Bengal, where population is dense; in Ireland, where population is moderate, and in Eastern Russia, where population is scanty. The existence of famine is therefore no proof that a country is overpopulated, although it may indicate that a country ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... day. It was swimming in lard. There were side-dishes of potatoes and cold meats, appellated in Georgia collards, with quantities of corn-bread, with two bowls of hash from the lungs and liver of the pig, all reeking with the fire and summer heat. A scanty meal was soon made, but the tray and contents ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... a season when the supply of news was particularly scanty, the death of the little Chevalier was a boon to Saxonholme. The wildest reports were bandied about, and the most extraordinary fictions set on foot respecting his origin and station. He was a Russian spy. He was the unfortunate son of Louis XIV and Marie ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... said, "be welcome. I am worth two hundred and forty-five millions. Thank God that you are not. Thank God that you are poor. Thank God for your scanty meals and clothing, and your ceaseless failure to make both ends meet. Pray God you may die poor. How I envy you all your blessed privilege of struggle! Thank God, and now ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... necessitated an increase in the garrison; two hundred men were now scarcely sufficient to man the works;[614] while, owing to bad government, and the growing anomaly of the English position, the wealthier inhabitants {p.295} had migrated over the frontiers, and left the Pale to a scanty, wretched, starving population, who could scarcely extract from the soil sufficient for their own subsistence.[615] While the cost of the occupation was becoming greater, the means of meeting it became less. The country could no longer ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... poets offer but scanty allusions to Erebus. Homer appears purposely to envelop these realms in vagueness and mystery, in order, probably, to heighten the sensation of awe inseparably connected with {132} the lower world. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... penetrate it must be vain. All that we know of the tribe as it existed in past ages, is derived from tradition handed down to us chiefly thro' the Micmacs; and even from this source, doubtful and uncertain as such authority confessedly is, the amount of information conveyed to us is both scanty and imperfect. From such traditionary facts we gather, that the Boeothicks were once a powerful and numerous tribe, like their neighbouring tribe the Micmacs, and that for a long period these tribes were on friendly terms and inhabited ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... who did not know his part. Even Cosgrave played up—a little too triumphantly, showing off—as a tried man-of-the-world. And at her given moment the star performer made a dramatic entry into the midst of them, a cloak of pale blue brocade thrown over her scanty dress and her plumes still tossing from the elaborately ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... of the European grape go back five or six thousand years. The ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans grew the vine and made wine from its fruit. Grape seeds have been found in the remains of European peoples of prehistoric times, showing that primitive men enlivened their scanty fare with wild grapes. Cultivation of the grape in the Old World probably began in the region about the Caspian Sea where the vine has always run wild. We have proof of the great antiquity of the grape in Egypt, for its seeds are found entombed with the oldest mummies. Probably the Phoenicians, ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... paternal descent, and pantaloons patched in the most conspicuous places, more picturesque than decent—thrusting a basket of the rich fruit into your very face, with an impudent yell of "huckleberries, sir?" or some little girl, the edges of whose scanty frock were irregularly scalloped, making a timid courtesy, saying meekly, "Don't you want some berries to-day, sir? nice berries, sir, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... indentations by gulfs led to the notion, long entertained, that it was a group of islands, rather than one. It has an estimated area of some 57,000 square miles, but its soil is generally poor, and its population thin and scanty. The two leading and more civilized people of Celebes are the Macassars and Bugis, who inhabit its southwestern peninsula. The Macassar nation (in their own language, Mangkasara) conquered the Bugis in the sixteenth century, and became converts to Mahometanism ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... the Virgin Queen to walk on than because he carried the English name to undiscovered countries. Charles Strickland lived obscurely. He made enemies rather than friends. It is not strange, then, that those who wrote of him should have eked out their scanty recollections with a lively fancy, and it is evident that there was enough in the little that was known of him to give opportunity to the romantic scribe; there was much in his life which was strange ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... the Guards were stationed with head-quarters at St Jean de Luz, and most comfortable we managed to make them. For some short time previously we had been on scanty commons, and had undergone considerable privation: indeed we might have said, like the Colonel to Johnny Newcome on his arrival to join his regiment, "We sons of Mars have long been fed on brandy and cigars." I had no cause to complain personally; for ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... and fatiguing marches, dying almost from want, harassed incessantly by the enemy, did Riley carry the boy's knapsack for miles, and many a crust for the poor wretch was saved from his scanty allowance. But Frank Lilly's resolution was once the cause of saving the whole detachment. The American army was encamped at Elizabethtown. The soldiers stationed about four miles from the main body, near the bay that separated ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... British movement was recognized by Villeneuve, he saw that fighting was inevitable; and, wishing to keep Cadiz, then twenty miles to the northward and eastward, under his lee, he ordered the combined fleets to wear together.[135] The scanty wind which embarrassed the British impeded this manoeuvre also, so that it was not completed till near ten o'clock. Nelson, however, noted its beginning at seven, and with grave concern; for not only would it put the allies nearer their port, as it was intended to do, but it would cause vessels ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Salvini, to mention but these two, entered in any degree into the scope of Mr. Besant's interesting lecture or Mr. James's charming essay. The art of fiction, then, regarded as a definition, is both too ample and too scanty. Let me suggest another; let me suggest that what both Mr. James and Mr. Besant had in view was neither more nor less than the art ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... political equality, this is the desideratum in our Constitution, and in every Constitution in the world. Moral inequality is as between places and between classes. Now, I ask, what advantage do you find, that the places which abound in representation possess over others in which it is more scanty, in security for freedom, in security for justice, or in any one of those means of procuring temporal prosperity and eternal happiness, the ends for which society was formed? Are the local interests of Cornwall and Wiltshire, for instance—their ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... of the trees which have hitherto so closely surrounded us, and find ourselves treading the short scanty grass of the cliff-top once more. We still advance northward, walking along rough cart-roads, and skirting the extremities of narrow gullies leading down to the sea, until we enter the picturesque village of Boscastle. Then, descending a long street of irregular houses, of all sizes, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... a rational human being, to a voice in shaping them? I have physical needs, and must somehow earn a living. Why should I not be at liberty to earn it in any honest and useful calling?"—the mob's flout is hushed, and the legislator Is struck dumb also. They were already at the end of their scanty resources of logic, and it would be cruel for woman to ask further: "Suppose me a wife, and my husband a drunken prodigal—what am I to do then? May I not earn food for my babes without being exposed to have it ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... went on, "was your last act of folly. The very day after your poor mother's death you collected together all her scanty savings, and took ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... with their extreme filthiness, renders them anything but attractive. They are, however, quiet, sweet-tempered, and inoffensive creatures, destitute as well of artificial manners as of stays. Their dress is a gown, made without sleeves, and very scanty in the skirt, of coarse blue or green cloth; it reaches down to a little under the knee, below which their limbs are cased in leggins beautifully ornamented. Their whole costume, however, like that of the men, is ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... a few scanty effects and taking her two children started for her old home in the West Indies. It took all the money she ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... they got on the door-step of 911 Bernard Street was scanty and useless. The house was a typical Bloomsbury lodging-place, let off in floors and rooms. Its proprietor, summoned from a neighbouring house, recollected, with considerable difficulty and after consultation of a penny pocket-book, that he had certainly let a top-floor room to a ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... spent her winters, now in Philadelphia, now in Alexandria, Va., keeping herself busy with reading "of a very multifarious kind,—poetry, science, biography, and travels,—besides eking out the scanty means she had laid by from her teaching by writing stories and compiling floral albums and books of devotion." In 1827, she published a volume of "Ten Short Stories for Children" which went to a second edition in 1832; in 1828, ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills—gaunt masses of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short turf and scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of Scheggia, and is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At Scheggia, it joins the great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman armies. At the top there is a fine view over the conical hills that dominate Gubbio, and, far away, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... owner of Yew Nook, and she as his steward and guardian, she began that course of careful saving, and that love of acquisition, which afterwards gained for her the reputation of being miserly. She still thought that he might regain a scanty portion of sense—enough to require some simple pleasures and excitement, which would cost money. And money should not be wanting. Peggy rather assisted her in the formation of her parsimonious habits than otherwise; economy was the order of ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... been lost; and so it has been with the old Irish greyhound and apparently with the old English bulldog. But the extinction of former breeds is apparently aided by another cause; for whenever a breed is kept in scanty numbers, as at present with the bloodhound, it is reared with difficulty, and this apparently is due to the evil effects of long-continued close interbreeding. As several breeds of the dog have been slightly but sensibly modified within so short a period as the last one or two centuries, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... who keeps the house would make a perfect Fate; I saw her sitting at her window spinning, and looking down over the Ticino valley as though it were the world and she were spinning its destiny. She had a somewhat stern expression, thin lips, iron-grey eyes, and an aquiline nose; her scanty locks straggled from under the handkerchief which she wore round her head. Her employment and the wistful far-away look she cast upon the expanse below made a very fine ensemble. "She would have afforded," as Sir Walter Scott says, "a study for a Rembrandt, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... cover of the night and the next morning hired a fisherman to bring me here in his boat, thinking that the island was inhabited only by a few poverty-stricken wretches who gained a scanty subsistence from the sea. On my arrival I was filled with terror at beholding your magnificent palace, which I was told belonged to a great lord. I naturally imagined that no one could inhabit such a dwelling save ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... far-off north-west territory. So the poor widow, who keeps a boarding house, manufactures shirts, or sells apples and peanuts on the street corners of our cities, is compelled to pay taxes from her scanty pittance. I would that the women of this republic, at once, resolve, never again to submit to taxation, until their ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... Carpenter, and a comparison of the results thus obtained with what is known of the surface fauna, have brought to light the remarkable fact, that while the surface and the shallows abound with Foraminifera and other calcareous shelled organisms, the indications of life become scanty at depths beyond 500 or 600 fathoms, while almost all traces of it disappear at greater depths, and at 1,000 to 2,000 fathoms the bottom is covered with a ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... of Congress to the agents abroad were few, scanty, and meagre. This may be ascribed to two causes. First, there was really very little to communicate, which was not known through the public papers; and, secondly, it was not made the duty of any particular member of the Committee to write ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... he had succeeded only partially. Paulina and Irma he held in domestic bondage. From the boy Kalman, too, he exacted day by day the full tale of his scanty profits made from selling newspapers on the street. But beyond this he could not go. By no sort of terror could he induce Paulina to return to the old conditions and rent floor space in her room to his boarders. At her door she stood on guard, refusing ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... Her scanty wardrobe was finished at last, and she stood waiting for Abraham Lincoln and the spring waggon to carry her to the station. A strange tenderness towards her old environment came over her, as she stood on the threshold of the great unknown. She looked ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... Sisters—left the plantation, no person appeared to care for him, and on the second day he was attacked with a fever, and sent to one of the negro cabins, where an old mulatto woman took care of him and nursed him as well as her scanty means would admit. The fever continued for seven days, when he became convalescent and able to walk out; but feeling that he was an incumbrance to those around him, he packed his clothes into a little bundle and started for Charleston on foot. He reached ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... sit down, and were placed, without any order, in front of the tents, their hands tied behind their backs. A sombre determination was depicted on their countenances. We gave them a little biscuit and bread, squeezed out of the already scanty supply for the army. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... thread-like, semi-transparent worm or grub in most instances. Two or three of these atomies would hardly have made a square meal for a ladybird, and I should think that a starling after swallowing a thousand would fed very hungry. And on many days this scanty, watery food had to be searched for in very painful conditions, as it rained heavily on most days and often all day long. At such times the birds in their sodden plumage looked like drowned starlings fished out of a pool and galvanized ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... except in topographic configuration, between the lowlands and the uplands or high plateaus. The lowlands present an appearance which is barren and desolate in the extreme, although the soil is fertile and under irrigation yields good crops. Vegetation is limited to a scanty growth of grass during a small part of the year, with small areas here and there scantily covered by the prickly greasewood and at intervals by clumps of sagebrush; but even these prefer a higher level, ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... the common consequences of that immoderate share of labour, which is imposed upon them; nor is that, which is the result of a scanty allowance of food, less to be lamented. The wretched African is often so deeply pierced by the excruciating fangs of hunger, as almost to be driven to despair. What is he to do in such a trying situation? Let him apply to the receivers. Alas! the majesty of receivership is ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... generally believed to be the port of Sainte Genevieve, and the name which Cartier gave it was gradually transferred in the course of a century to the whole gulf as well as to the river itself which the Breton sailor was the first to place {35} definitely on the maps of those days of scanty geographical knowledge. Cartier led his vessels through the passage between the northern shores of Canada and the island of Anticosti, which he called Assomption, although it has long since resumed its old name, which has been ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... strength declined, as their miseries ate in and in, the two girls ceased talking together; they used to chatter much of the time like two birds on a leafy, sunny bough. Now they walked, ate their scanty, repulsive meals, dressed, worked, all in silence. When their eyes met both glanced guiltily away, each fearing the other would discover the thought she was revolving—the thought of the streets. They slept badly—Etta sometimes, Susan every night. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... affairs of the country nipped, with its frost, the growing prosperity of his father, whose death, soon following, left him, in tender years, and as one of a numerous family, to the sole care of his mother. With most scanty means, her thrift and energy sufficed to save her children from ignorance or declining manners; maintained their self-respect and independence; set them forth in the world well disciplined, stocked with good principles, and inspired with proud and honorable purposes. To the praise of this excellent ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts
... participating in the third phase (a common European currency) of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), but Denmark has decided not to join 12 other EU members in the euro; even so, the Danish krone remains pegged to the euro. Growth in 2004 was sluggish, yet above the scanty 0.3% of 2003. Because of high GDP per capita, welfare benefits, a low Gini index, and political stability, the Danish people enjoy living standards topped by no other nation. A major long-term issue will be the sharp decline in the ratio of workers ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... quotations from Mr. Pringle, and Mr. Gordon Cumming. The former says—"We pursued our journey over extensive plains, still parched by severe drought, and undulating heights clothed with a brown and scanty herbage, and sprinkled over with numerous herds of springbok. Near the banks of the Little Fish river, so numerous were those herds, that they literally speckled the face of the country, as far as the eye could reach; ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... chiefs, when they think them partial in their gifts, because they supposed that I had shown a preference in the distribution of the beads; but the beads I had given to my principal men were only sufficient to purchase a scanty meal, and I had hastened on to this village in order to slaughter a tired ox, and give them all a feast as well as a rest on Sunday, as preparation for the journey before us. I explained this to them, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... continual spattering of the water had made the board on which she stood so slippery, that before her face could reach the stream, she came very near tumbling headlong, and so taking more of a cold bath than she wished for. So she contented herself with the drops her hands could bring to her face a scanty supply; but those drops were deliciously cold and fresh. And afterwards she pleased herself with holding her hands in the running water till they were red with the cold. On the whole, Ellen enjoyed her washing very much. The morning air came playing about her; its cool breath was on her cheek, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... did you come from?" I heard Sam demand of the huddled bundle as he lifted it off the wall. It was attired in scanty night-drawers and a short coat, and shivered as it stood, first on one foot and then ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... round. Opening a cupboard, I found half a loaf of bread, a nipperkin of milk, and a rind of cheese. "Eat," said I, "and think it's rabbit-stew." I made her take all the milk, but shared the bread and cheese. Troy went on falling steadily meanwhile, and when we had finished our scanty nuncheon I once more led the way, and we passed out into the little yard behind the schoolhouse, and gained the playground, the outer boundary of which was the town wall, here some twelve feet ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Rao of Baraon lay within ten miles of the bridge; and Findlayson and Hitchcock had spent a fair portion of their scanty leisure in playing billiards and shooting Black-buck with the young man. He had been bear-led by an English tutor of sporting tastes for some five or six years, and was now royally wasting the revenues accumulated ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... A scanty and simple diet had Ephraim, and it seemed to him not so much from a solicitude for his health as from a desire to mortify his flesh for the good of his spirit. Ephraim obeyed perforce; he was sincerely afraid of his ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... inhabited this old place. From them the river, and the river's valley, and the mountain of its birth, took name, or else, perhaps, gave name to them; for the history of the giant Yordas still remains to be written, and the materials are scanty. His present descendants did not care an old song for his memory, even if he ever had existence to produce it. Piety (whether in the Latin sense or English) never had marked them for her own; their days were long in the land, through a long ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... a small, dark, wiry man, barefooted and barelegged, whose black eyes sparkled, and whose scanty hair and beard hung down over shoulders and breast. Some pokes of leather, much scratched, hung bulging from the rope which girded his coffee sack. From one of these he took a few unbound leaves, the fragment ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... not been able to do much more than support my family. This it seemed to me, afforded an excellent opportunity of laying up a little something which might render me secure in the event of a sudden attack of sickness. I had but about two hundred dollars, however, and from so scanty an investment I could not, of course, expect a large return; accordingly I went to Squire Conant; you ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... destruction after the Conquest, says Ondegardo, the wise governor of Cuzco, that in four years more of these animals perished than in four hundred, in the times of the Incas. *5 The flocks, once so numerous over the broad table-lands, were now thinned to a scanty number, that sought shelter in the fastnesses of the Andes. The poor Indian, without food, without the warm fleece which furnished him a defence against the cold, now wandered half-starved and naked over the plateau. Even those who had aided the Spaniards in the conquest fared no ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... with a slight shrug of his shoulders, "will never have a prejudicial effect upon my health. To men of your—pardon me—scanty education the expression of ideas in speech is doubtless a labour. To me, on the other hand, it is at once a pleasure and a relief. What I was about to observe is this: I belong by birth to what are called, I believe, the classes, you to the masses. I have inherited instincts which have been refined ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the countryside, the activity of Union garrisons, and their general state of energy at the time—southwest across the length of Kentucky. Days became not collections of hours they could remember one by one afterward, but a series of incidents embedded in a nightmare of hard riding, scanty fare, and constant movement. Not only horses were giving out now; they dropped men along the way. And some—like Cambridge and Hilders—vanished completely, either cut off when they went to "trade" mounts, or deserting the troop in favor of their ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... last Congress, and which will deserve your serious deliberations. Our Navy, commenced at an early period of our present political organization upon a scale commensurate with the incipient energies, the scanty resources, and the comparative indigence of our infancy, was even then found adequate to cope with all the powers of Barbary, save the first, and with one of the principal maritime ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... ignorant of all useful arts, I had learnt full well to feast off gold and silver, to sleep beneath silken hangings, to bid attendant pages obey my voice, and to listen to the honeyed words of flattery and adulation. Six years passed away in sorrow and in sadness—the remnant of my scanty means was fast melting away—my old and faithful nurse was no more—and— and then it was that fate brought your sovereign to Hamburg. I was walking beside the shores of the Elbe, wondering, as I gazed on its waters, whether they or my sorrows were the deeper, when the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... on the scantiest fare, on which the English horses would perish, and are patient of hunger and thirst in a degree unknown in any other races except the African. They feed on the scanty plants which the borders of the desert supply, and when these are wanting, they are fed on a little barley, with chopped straw, withered herbs, roots dragged from the sand, dates, when they can be obtained, and, in cases of need, the milk of the camel. They drink ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... Springle, my dear, of the statue of 'Innocence' I wanted to buy at the Exhibition at Paris," replied Mr. Dodd, meekly, "and that you wouldna let me on account of the scanty clothing." ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... diminish, grew scanty, and at length were gone. The emigrants' summer was turned into winter; it was now December. So pitiful did their case become that it forced the attention of the Dutch Government. Under its direction they were brought ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Shi', or Men of Peace, of the Highlanders, though not absolutely malevolent, are believed to be a peevish, repining race of beings, who, possessing themselves but a scanty portion of happiness, are supposed to envy mankind their more complete and substantial enjoyments. They are supposed to enjoy, in their subterraneous recesses, a sort of shadowy happiness,—a tinsel grandeur; which, however, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... were able to add some guinea-fowl and a little gazelle to their scanty store of dried meat, and as they had nothing now to do but wait for the coming of the waggon, they amused themselves by exploring a little here and there as their horses grazed, their ramble resulting in ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... utterly spent himself to the last breath of his life, away from home and kindred and all the inheritances of his motherland. His stay among us was too short to produce any outward result. He failed even to achieve during his life what he had in his mind, which was to found by the help of his scanty earnings a library as a memorial to Ram Mohan Roy, and thus to leave behind him a visible symbol of his devotion. But what I prize most in this European youth, who left no record of his life behind him, is ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... followed the Indian paths which had been cleared along the rivers and streams. The Great Shamokin Path followed the Susquehanna from Shamokin (now Sunbury) to the West Branch, then out along the West Branch to the Allegheny Mountains.[4] Loading his wife and smaller children on a pack horse, his scanty possessions on another horse, the prospective settler drove a cow or two into the wild frontier at the rate of about twenty miles a day.[5] This meant that a trip of approximately two days brought him from Fort Augusta ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... accept the offer, and, turning their horses into the woods, determined to share the fate of the garrison. In making this offer the colonel was influenced partly by motives of policy, as the stock of provisions was exceedingly scanty, and he feared that they would not last if the siege should be a long one. Besides this, he feared that, as had already too often happened, should the place fall, even the solemn engagement of the terms of the ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... like the bountiful palm, confers the greatest blessing on the inhabitants of the country where it grows. It serves the peasants of the bleak, barren parts of Sweden and Lapland for food: their scanty supply of meal often runs short, and they go to the pine to eke it out. They choose the oldest and least resinous of the branches and take out the inner bark. They first grind it in a mill, and then mix it with their store of meal; after this it is ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church |
