"Scarce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like the rest that we had seen, it spoke of a poverty rather induced than natural. With the exception of the two villages of Planinam and Bohmishbrod we scarcely saw a house, and human creatures were extremely scarce. As we approached Collin we halted for a moment to look at a column of black marble erected on the roadside to commemorate the devotion of a handful of Russian troops, who had at this spot checked the progress of the whole French army for many hours. A little ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... vessel, without the risk of splitting on the rocks, which happens even in the calmest weather. When it is flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity; but the roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea is scarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts, the noise being heard several leagues Off; and the vortices or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within its attraction, it is inevitably absorbed ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... I passed two years at that school and was licensed to preach. My life there was the same false, unnatural one it had been in college—much study and no bodily exercise, a few faculties active and the greater number exercised scarce at all. All this while, with the exception of tobacco, I used no stimulants except on rare occasions, and ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... are right scarce up here. And chicken sure tastes better on Sunday. Was you goin' to turn your ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... mountains; was an inhabitant of our gardens in the time of PARKINSON (who has very accurately described it, noticing even its three stamina) to which, however, it has been a stranger for many years: it has lately been re-introduced, but is as yet very scarce. Our figure was taken from a specimen which flowered in Mr. ...
— The Botanical Magazine v 2 - or Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... the easy access of all her children to her, and in the pleasure of seeing the great work and increase of the Gospel. Here also she received in her own soul a wonderful increase of blessing—so much surpassing all her experience hitherto as to cause her to make the reflection that "she had scarce heard, till then, such a thing mentioned as the having God's Spirit bear witness with our spirit." "But two or three weeks ago, while my son Hall was pronouncing these words in delivering the cup to me, 'The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... disposal facilities; rural to urban migration; natural fresh water resources scarce and polluted in north, inaccessible and poor quality in center and extreme southeast; raw sewage and industrial effluents polluting rivers in urban areas; deforestation; widespread erosion; desertification; deteriorating agricultural ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... surprisingly scarce, but never wanting altogether. If everything else failed, a few fish-hawks were sure to be in sight. I watched them at first with eager interest. Up and down the beach they went, each by himself, with heads pointed downward, scanning the shallow water. Often they stopped in their course, and by ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... nothing, as we have seen in Madame Marneffe; it gets everything offered to it. Women of that stamp are never exacting till they have made themselves indispensable, or when a man has to be worked as a quarry is worked where the lime is rather scarce—going to ruin, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... way it is in this country, Mawruss, a multimillionaire can't side-step it. The newspapers won't let him, because if he gets a reputation for having made fifty million dollars in the safety-pin business, we would say, for example, and news gets so scarce in the newspapers that somebody starts a discussion about which is the biggest musician, Kreisler oder Zimbalist, y'understand, right away the editor sends out reporters to interview the most prominent ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... my book to every one of them, but they have paid me scarce enough to purchase poison for them all," said the little poet scowling. The cheekbones stood out sharply beneath the tense bronzed skin. The black hair was tangled and unkempt and the beard untrimmed, the eyes darted venom. "One of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the Missouri, along and above the 40th parallel, and appearing on our Eastern Coast at least as far South as North Carolina[1]—as to present, at numberless points, material, which, sooner or later, will serve us most usefully when other fuel has become scarce and costly. ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... for meals to come and get a cup of coffee. They would go back with us to camp. We did not care what their number was, we would always divide our provisions with them. If there were a large number of Indians, and our provisions were scarce, I would tell them so, but also tell them that notwithstanding that fact I still had some for them. Then if they only got a few sups of coffee around and a little piece of bread they were always profoundly grateful and satisfied that we ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... Pity's ineffectual throes Made that long shambles seem one ghastly hell, And all the broken, battered, blood-stained rows Of dead seem blessed in that they sleep so well; Where the soul sickened and the heart grew faint At scenes which Dante scarce had ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... him again, Why he rose in the night, and what was the cause of such sorrow? (for they told him all that they had seen him do) he answered with a dejected countenance, "I wish you had been in your beds, which had been more for your ease, for I was scarce well occupied." But they praying him to satisfy their minds further, and to communicate some comfort unto them, he said, "I will tell you, that I assuredly know my travail is nigh an end, therefore pray to God for me, that I may not shrink when the battle waxeth most ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... centuries old, so do events crowd the retrospect—when we were all reading it in the pages of the "Atlantic." In the unfinished story of "Brightly's Orphan" there is a Jew boy from Chatham Street, an original of the first water, who, though scarce fairly introduced, will, I am sure, make a place for himself and for his author in the memories of all who relish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... had not a moment to spare. The broad Roman way stretched in a bee-line from the eastern shore to the village, but the wayfarer never once set foot upon it. Swiftness and secrecy marked every movement. The sun had been above the horizon scarce an hour when the mysterious stranger knocked at the door of a farmhouse that lay about a mile from the village and northwards towards the river. It was opened on the instant by the farmer himself, and barred and ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... delicate sensibilities along the uneven banks of rivers. Towards the evening, O bull of Bharata's race, Bhima (bearing his brothers and mother on his back) reached a terrible forest where fruits and roots and water were scarce and which resounded with the terrible cries of birds and beasts. The twilight deepened the cries of birds and beasts became fiercer, darkness shrouded everything from the view and untimely winds began to blow that broke and laid low many a tree large and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... now become scarce, shops were only allowed to sell limited quantities, and as the situation was becoming dangerous, with the expected advent of the military, pickets were placed at street corners, and these insisted on the ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... soon led to a scarcity of salt, sugar, coffee, molasses and everything which had been formerly imported from Europe or bought of Northern merchants. Prices continually advanced as such things became more scarce in the South. Wilmington is so situated that an effective blockade there was almost impossible. There were two inlets, and, therefore, two blockade fleets were necessary, and even with this added difficulty the blockading squadron ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... not happy," murmured Eugenie to herself; "yet I scarce know why. Is it really, as we women of romance have said till the saying is worn threadbare, that the destiny of women is not fame but love. Strange, then, that while I have so often pictured what love should be, I have never felt it. And now,—and now," she continued, half ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... program, but a high population growth rate and internal political dissension complicate the government's task. Plans include a diversification of the economy, encouragement of tourism, and more efficient use of scarce ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... pull to reach her—the beautiful monster, towering motionless there in the summer sea, with scarce a curling of thin smoke from the mighty lungs of her slumbering engines; and that somnolent song of our boatmen must surely have some ancient magic in it; for by the time we glide alongside I feel as if I were looking at a dream. Strange as a vision of sleep, indeed, this spectacle: ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... are—wrestling and jumping. I mind me when there was scarce a man in Cummerlan' could give me the cross-buttock. That's many a lang year agone, though. And now our Paul can manish ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... the greengrocer, the baker, and the flesher, about furnished apartments, and started on our quest, not regarding the little posting establishment as a possibility. Apartments we found to be very scarce, and in one or two places that were quite suitable the landlady refused to do any cooking. We wandered from house to house, the sun shining brighter and brighter, and Pettybaw looking lovelier and lovelier; ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the street to which the publisher had pointed, and, in the course of the three succeeding days, many others of a similar kind. I did not find the description of literature alluded to by the publisher to be a drug, but, on the contrary, both scarce and dear. I had expended much more than my loose money long before I could procure materials even for the first volume of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... which have been prepared, to Embden [sic], and if this wind continues, I hope they will sail within three days. Endeavour to make Prussia send under General Kalkreuth (or whoever may be the general they destine for that quarter) not merely 10,000 men, but enough to make such an army as can scarce be resisted. Our force with the Russians (exclusive of the Swedes and after allowing for something to watch Hameln[749]) will be near 40,000 men. It surely cannot be difficult for Prussia to add 30,000 to that number within a very few weeks on increased ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the cloister him they drew, They pelted him to death with stones; I stood close by, and all could view, I scarce could ...
— The Verner Raven; The Count of Vendel's Daughter - and other Ballads • Anonymous
... cases these assistants were a great boon to the sick, to whom they ministered with indefatigable care, and whose kindness in allowing them to be present they thus repaid by their skilful attention. When you reflect that in Freeland only one commodity is dear and scarce, the labour of man, it can easily be estimated how valuable, as a rule, such assistance is both to the physician and to the patient. And in this way on the average the young medical men learn more than is learnt ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Providence was kind in putting us into the hands of an honest man, better still, one with imagination, when we came to look for a winter bungalow. He saw that we had to have something with charm, even if the furniture was scarce, and took as much pains over realizing our dream as if we had been hunting for a palace. It was he who found our "Sabine Farm," which brought us three of the best gifts of the gods—health, happiness, and a friend. We had almost decided to take a picturesque cot that I named ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... compass, the Lord only knew where I was Business of civilization to tame or kill Canopy of mosquitoes Caricature of a road Compass, which was made near Greenwich, was wrong Democrats became as scarce as moose in the Adirondacks Everlasting dress-parade of our civilization Grand intentions and weak vocabulary How lightly past hardship sits upon us! I hain't no business here; but here I be! Kept its distance, as only a mountain can Man's noblest faculty, his imagination, ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... fuller understanding of it; and still farther, as many can see better than one, in leading others who are now beginning to avail themselves of my principles, to assist me in turn with their discoveries. But though I recognize my extreme liability to error, and scarce ever trust to the first thoughts which occur to me, yet-the experience I have had of possible objections to my views prevents me from anticipating any profit from them. For I have already had frequent proof of the ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... blushed with humbled pride, Looked at the judge with woful mien, 'Too well am I convinced' he cried, 'Unjust to me thou hast not been.' The coxcomb scarce had disappeared, when he ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Athenian troops assailed each other. Keeping their ranks close, the Syracusans and their allies pressed on against the disorganized masses of the besiegers; and at length drove them, with heavy slaughter, over the cliffs, which, scarce an hour before, they had scaled full of hope, and apparently ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... the doors began. They almost tumbled over one another now in their haste to reach where their tongues could play freely. Kilshaw and Perry, the Treasurer and the waverers, all slipped out, and Norburn, knowing nothing but simply wearied of Puttock, followed them. Scarce twenty were left in the House, and the galleries had poured half their contents into the great room which served for a lobby outside. There the talk ran swift and eager. The very name of "Benyon" was enough for many, who remembered that it had always been said to be the maiden name of Medland's ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... pushed from shore, and the answer was scarce heard, mingling with the rush of the waves and the hollow wind, while the trampling of horses and the rumbling of the coach announced the departure of Preston's high and illustrious ruler and his learned ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... a healthy action of the skin, and for this nothing is so good as the daily cold bath. The praises of the latter are well sung in the following extract: "Those who desire to pass the short time of life in good health ought often to use cold bathing, for I call scarce express in words how much benefit may be had by cold baths; for they who use them, although almost spent with old age, have a strong and compact pulse and a florid colour in their face, they are very active and strong, their ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... home, however, his old milk purveyor had died; and, as such animals are rather scarce in the West Indies, he was not able to procure one either for love or money at Grenada, and was at a complete nonplus till we got ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that a high dogcart, driven by a groom in the livery of Earl Nosh, might have been seen entering the avenue of Nosham Taws. Beside him sat a young girl, scarce more than a child, in fact not nearly so big as ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... from the enemy; my fame is known high in heaven. I seek Italy my country, my kin of Jove's supreme blood. With twenty sail did I climb the Phrygian sea; oracular tokens led me on; my goddess mother pointed the way; scarce seven survive the shattering of wave and wind. Myself unknown, destitute, driven from Europe and Asia, I ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... just as it is for our ice-house. Do you fellows know that brook trout make the most delicious eating to be had when the cook knows his business? I do, for Mr. Morton has cooked trout for me in the woods. Besides, brook trout are growing scarce these days. If we can make a good haul, we can get a pretty big price per pound for them! We have ice, now, and we could carry a lot of trout to market on our push cart, on top of enough ice to keep them. Come on! ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... and of a good temper, if it spreads towards the fore and middle finger and ends blunt, it denotes preferment. Let us now see what is signified by the middle line. This line has in it oftentimes (for there is scarce a hand in which it varies not) divers very significant characters. Many small lines between this and the table line threaten the party with sickness, and also gives him hopes of recovery. A half cross branching into this line, declares the person shall have ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... Town, and what did she find there? Not a bird nor flower, the trees forsaken were; The folk were walking two-and-two in every lane and street— You scarce could hear your neighbour for the racket ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... an elephant leader has to be quite clever in merely avoiding difficulties, in the daily search for food. And that is not all! The food itself may be plentiful in one part of the jungle, and rather scarce in another; for in one direction there may have been just enough showers recently to bring out the fresh leaves on the trees; but in another direction there may have been no rain at all for some time, and so there would be no ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... conserve their scarce food supply, the colonists sought to acquaint themselves with the use of the native resources. To this end, a number of the settlers were billetted with the Indians. They not only learned to distinguish the edible roots, berries, leafy plants and fruits, and how to prepare them, but ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... estimation; but it struck me that Captain Sullendine had an ignorant and self-willed fellow for a mate, and probably he took the best one he could find; for I think good seamen, outside of the Confederate navy, must be very scarce ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of St. Mary, the French had from morning till evening stood on the defence, and were resting themselves at nightfall, the enemy, by a sudden attack, rushed on the camp with such fury that the body-guard had scarce ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... Baron of Roche-Corbon some few feet under the turf. Then he was his own master, free to lead a life of wild dissipation, and indeed he worked very hard to get a surfeit of enjoyment. Now by making his crowns sweat and his goods scarce, draining his land, and a bleeding his hogsheads, and regaling frail beauties, he found himself excommunicated from decent society, and had for his friends only the plunderers of towns and the Lombardians. ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... needed only the woodman's axe to transform it into fertile fields, and the poorest man could own a plantation that in England would have been esteemed a rich estate. Labor, on the other hand, was exceedingly scarce. The colony itself could furnish but a limited supply, for few were willing to work for hire when they could easily own farms of their own. The native Americans of this region could not be made to toil in the fields for the white man, as the aborigines of Mexico and the West Indies ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... started for the church she began to tremble, she scarce knew why; and when the solemn words were said, and the ring was put on her finger, she cried a little, and looked half imploringly at her bridesmaids once, as if seared at leaving them for an untried and mysterious ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... an hour late at the rendezvous with our carriage man for the return journey to Cannes. But he had lunched well, and did not seem to mind. Americans were scarce this season, and fortes pourboires few and far between. On the Riviera—as elsewhere—you benefit by your fellow-countrymen's generosity in the radiant courtesy and good nature of those who serve you until ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... employ themselves in tumbling over my Ware. One of these No-Customers (for by the way they seldom or never buy any thing) calls for a Set of Tea-Dishes, another for a Bason, a third for my best Green-Tea, and even to the Punch Bowl, there's scarce a piece in my Shop but must be displaced, and the whole agreeable Architecture disordered; so that I can compare em to nothing but to the Night-Goblins that take a Pleasure to over-turn the Disposition ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... built to demonstrate that cars could be drawn around short curves, beyond anything believed at that time to be possible. The success of this locomotive also answered the question of the possibility of building railroads in a country scarce of capital, and with immense stretches of very rough country to pass, in order to connect commercial centres, without the deep cuts, the tunneling and leveling which short curves might avoid. My contrivance saved this ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like; but all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth which are ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... minister, who even now draws nigh. My dread pictures him to me, ever offers him to my view. Fear has mastered all my feelings; under its influence I see him on the summit of this rock; I sink for very weakness, and my fainting heart scarce keeps up a remnant of courage. Farewell, Princes; flee, ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... as sources of monopoly. "Economic" monopoly, so-called, arises when the ownership of scarce natural agents, as mines, land, water-power, comes under the control of one man or one group of men who agree on a price. Economic monopoly is a result of private property that is undesigned by the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... absent for six weeks, during which time, without a single care to trouble him from without, Robert was in the very desert of desolation. His spirits sank fearfully. He would pass his old music-master in the street with scarce a recognition, as if the bond of their relation had been utterly broken, had vanished in the smoke of the martyred violin, and all their affection had gone into ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... sandstone, called La Roche Pendante (Hanging Rock) overhanging the cliff. Sandstone (mainly along the north-east coast), granite and porphyry are the chief geological formations. There are a few streams, but water is obtained mainly from wells. Trees are scarce. The town of St Anne stands almost in the centre of the island overlooking and extending towards the harbour. Here are the courthouse, a gateway commemorating Albert, prince-consort, the clock tower, which belonged to the ancient parish church, and the modern church ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... some other time, when you can speak like a gentleman,' returned he, and he made an effort to pass me again; but I quickly re-captured the pony, scarce less astonished than its master ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... Vanderbank's and Mitchy's, to say nothing of that of the others, has only to catch a reflected light from over the Channel in order to double at once its appeal to the imagination. (I am considering all these matters, I need scarce say, only as they are concerned with that faculty. With a relation NOT imaginative to his material the storyteller has nothing whatever ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... and death, who flock together like birds of prey watching for carcasses at Batson's. I never enter this place, but it serves as a memento mori to me. What a formidable assemblage of sable suits, and tremendous perukes! I have often met here a most intimate acquaintance, whom I have scarce known again; a sprightly young fellow, with whom I have spent many a jolly hour; but being just dubbed a graduate in physic, he has gained such an entire conquest over the risible muscles, that he hardly vouchsafes at any time to smile. I have heard him harangue, with all the oracular importance ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... she sent a written request through the mail for his bill, telling him not to come any more. This action, following the evening when Gus Elliot had surprised her in the garden, perplexed and rather nettled Malcom, who was, to use his own expression, "a bit tetchy." Their money had grown so scarce that Edith could not pay the bill, and she was ashamed to go to see him till there was some prospect of her doing so. Thus Malcom, though disposed to be very friendly, was lost to her at this critical time, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... then made it to lie in 13 degrees 50 minutes. We had abundance of boobies and man-of-war-birds flying about us all the day; especially when we came near the island; which had also abundance of them upon it; though it was but a little spot of sand, scarce ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... fleet were filled by Dalmatians. The army and its generals halted at Fanum Fortunae,[134] still hesitating what policy to adopt, for they had heard that the Guards were on the move from Rome, and supposed that the Apennines were held by troops. And they had fears of their own. Supplies were scarce in a district devastated by war. The men were mutinous and demanded 'shoe-money',[135] as they called the donative, with alarming insistence. No provision had been made either for money or for stores. The precipitate greed of the soldiers made further difficulties, for they each looted ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... formerly a printing-press, and printed a now scarce edition of hymns, and several books. This press ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... you say entirely unanticipated; but analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of discussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that, even when you left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in the most holy writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire, as having reference to the orb of the earth alone. But in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... knowing countryman, and a great stickler for the king and the church. At the Restoration, clergymen being scarce, he was asked if he thought he could preach; he answered that he could make a shift; upon which he was ordained, and ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... as good a school as he could afford, as a matter of fact an excellent school, one where she met girls of a superior social class and learned educated speech and graceful manners. Her holidays, poor child, were somewhat dreary, for her father, an anti-social creature, had scarce a friend in the town. Save for here and there an invitation to tea from Betty or myself, she did not cross the threshold of a house in Wellingsford. But to my house, all through her schooldays and afterwards, ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... little girl; she had large gray eyes, and brown hair smoothly parted over her forehead, while there was a pitiful expression round her mouth, that pleaded with you so earnestly, you could scarce help stopping, as you met her, to give her a ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... this evil, is so far from repenting of it, that it is odds but he vaunts his wit and dexterity in doing it. As a mad man (saith Solomon) who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death: so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am I not in jest? And, indeed, it is scarce to be conceived how any man can deal more destruction and ruin around him, than by deceiving and breaking faith with the fair trader; for it is well known, his credit, his whole subsistence, depends upon keeping his word, and being strictly punctual in his ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... I can scarce believe it myself. Disconsolate, I was preparing for the journey, and stopped to cast one last look up to the windows behind which my beloved sits captive—a lackey of the King's suite approached me. I anticipated some new humiliation. But imagine my astonishment at the surprise in store for me. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... cents. In 1894-'95 hard times struck me again. Cotton was four and five cents a pound, flour three dollars a barrel, and meat four and five cents a pound. We raised so much of our meat that didn't make much difference. Money was so scarce. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... camels; they are scarce, if not altogether unknown, in these regions. We must go a few degrees ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... idle. It fetched nearly five thousand pounds. With this I speculated successfully. In two years I had eighteen thousand. The eighteen thousand I invested in a fourth share in a coal-mine, when money was scarce and coals cheap. Coals rose enormously just then, and in five years' time I sold my share to the co-holders for eighty-two thousand, in addition to twenty-one thousand received by way of interest. Since then I have not speculated, for fear my luck should desert me. I have simply allowed the ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... and waited with scarce a doubt: He'll dare the way when the sun's descended. The light shone fainter, was nearly out, The day in ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... fashion he seized the occasion of the arrest and execution of one of their leaders to publish a pretended "Last Speech and Dying Confession," in which he threatened exposure and arrest to the remainder of the gang if they did not make themselves scarce. The threat had its effect, and the city found itself ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... but I think that is my turkey, unless Lew Wetzel happened to miss his aim," said Betty, laughing. "And that is such an unprecedented thing that it can hardly be considered. Turkeys are scarce this season. Jonathan says the foxes and wolves ate up the broods. Lew heard this turkey calling and he made little Harry Bennet, who had started out with his gun, stay at home and ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... almost always have plenty of water for our crops, and for drinking and washing. Plenty of fresh water is a great blessing to a land. In many parts of India water is very scarce. ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... of the British affairs within the United States; the other, though very important to us in its consequences, made apparently but little impression, owing, perhaps, to two causes, that it followed so nearly after so capital and brilliant an event, and that it was scarce possible to add to the conviction, which the former carried along with it. From this state of things it may be imagined, that the way is open to us to make our advances. The conclusion, I believe, would be too hasty. For the time does not so much depend upon the real sentiments, which her Imperial ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... inadequate, narrow, scanty, small, drained, insufficient, niggardly, scarce, sparing, exhausted, mean, poor, scrimped, stingy, impoverished, miserly, scant, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... as becomes his lineage. He demands if I lead an army to the war that he go with me, and he scarce twelve. What is more, he will demand and insist, until I have to take him. 'Tis a true eagle that young Joseph. But here is Willet! It soothes my eyes to see you again, brave hunter, and Tayoga, too, who is ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... anguish of her mind, had given utterance to her feelings, with scarce a thought as to who was her auditor. The sternly uttered words of her ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... Winifred, "then if Mr. Wyllard's strong points are merely to heighten Gregory's credit, I've nothing more to say. Anyway, I'll reserve my homage until I've seen him. Perfection among men is scarce nowadays." ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... Mary had taught school a term or two back east, and teachers were scarce as hens' teeth out there, so she got the school at $25 a month. The little schoolhouse was built close to the far end of our claim, which was a mile long instead of half a mile square as it ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... requested to be conducted to a private apartment, wherein to pass with her dear child (remote from the noisy mirth of her companions, so little according with her then feelings) the time, until the diligence might again be ready to start. But half an hour had scarce elapsed from the formation of this arrangement ere admission was sought and gained by a brigade of English soldiers, six of whom, on a support formed by muskets, bore what seemed to be the corpse of an officer, whose arm, hanging ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... one mission school some of the doors and windows have had to be permanently bricked up, because both teachers and children complained so much of the cold. Visions of tidy cottages for Indian Christians gradually get dispelled. Here and there a home-like dwelling is to be found, but they are scarce. A young married girl, who had been brought up in refined surroundings and had an unusually comfortable home when first married, had to live for a time in the open sheds and apparent discomfort of a ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... and leader, too, Heeding not what's "falling due," Knowing not of debt or dun,—Thou dost heed no bill but one; And, though scarce conceivable, That's a bill Receivable, Made—that thou thy stars mightst ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... outworks, and mastered the watch, who were fast asleep; for neither man nor dog perceived their coming. But there were sacred geese kept near the temple of Juno, which at other times were plentifully fed, but now, by reason that corn and all other provisions were grown scarce for all, were in but a poor condition. The creature is by nature of quick sense, and apprehensive of the least noise, so that these, being moreover watchful through hunger, and restless, immediately discovered the coming of the Gauls, and, running ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... "And they are scarce, child, and should be rewarded and preserved. That is what I meant, silly one; this Captain is not rich—but then, thou ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... I am—a figurehead on the prow of the ship, but I do not guide it. Who care for me save those who have their ends to gain? None, save the archbishop, who yet dreams of making a king of me. And these are not my people who surround me; when I die, small care. I shall have left in the passing scarce a finger mark in the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... for the most part irregular Shiverings, the Pulse low, soft, slow, quick, unequal, concentrated; a Heaviness in the Head so considerable, that the sick Person could scarce support it, appearing to be seized with a Stupidity and Confusion, like that of a drunken Person; the Sight fixed, dull, wandering, expressing Fearfulness and Despair; the Voice slow, interrupted, complaining; the Tongue almost always ...
— A Succinct Account of the Plague at Marseilles - Its Symptoms and the Methods and Medicines Used for Curing It • Francois Chicoyneau
... destruction of these reptiles, as the introduction of the domestic hog into the forests of America. Wherever a tract of woods has been used as the "run" of a drove of hogs, serpents of every kind become exceedingly scarce, and you may hunt through such a tract for weeks without seeing one. The hog seems to have the strongest antipathy to the snake tribe; without the least fear of them. When one of the latter is discovered by a hog, and no crevice in the rocks, or hollow ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... gentleman, no doubt; but a prince of pure blood, Mr. Soloman, is rather a scarce article ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... sermon on "The Advantages of a Revelation," in which he declares that, at the time of Christ's coming, "just notions of God were, in general, erased from the minds of men. His worship was debased and polluted, and scarce any traces could be discerned of the genuine and ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... out of doors, which by many is supposed to be much superior to kiln-dried material, is becoming very scarce, as the demand for any kind of wood is so great that it is thought not to pay to hold it for the time necessary to season it properly. How long this state of affairs is going to last it is difficult to say, but it is believed that a reaction will ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... touch of surprise, as if she had not known every tittle of gossip about the gay party and all their doings at the Chateau. "They say game is growing scarce near the city, Chevalier," continued she nonchalantly, "and that a hunting party at Beaumanoir is but a pretty menotomy for a party of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was like day-break, new, sudden, delicious,— The dawn of a pleasure scarce kindled up yet; The last like the farewell of daylight, more precious, More glowing and deep, as 'tis nearer its set. Our meeting, tho' happy, was tinged by a sorrow To think that such happiness could not remain; While our parting, tho' sad, gave a hope that to-morrow ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... obedience to the king's will might yet avail to protect him in the moment of his utmost need, his glance searched face after face. In vain! He had allowed his tyranny to carry him so far that at length there was scarce a man among those present who could say with certainty that his own life would not be the next demanded to satisfy some savage whim of the king. There were not twenty among all those hundreds who would raise a hand to save him! Too late he saw the full depth of his ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... I told Frederick Augustus. "Better make yourself scarce." He didn't need to be told twice. "Undress-uniform," he shouted to his valet. "And send ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... had seen a calf as white as snow in a herd of buffalo. White buffalo are very scarce. They are of inestimable value among the nations of the Missouri.... There were also some of a dirty-grey colour, ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... tired and chilly and glad to hear a hail from the direction of the light. I landed at a sort of ferry and found a man and woman awaiting me with a lantern. They escorted me to a little cabin and the woman bustled about, building a fire out of weeds and other stuff, wood being very scarce. Their patois was of the mountains and I could not understand their speech nor they mine. By signs, however, we understood each other very well and I intimated to them that I would stretch out before the fire ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... a rush for the friendship of either," returned Eustace. "A good victory on the King's side is the only way of fixing Sir William, and as to Morgan, I know it is not love for my uncle brings him to the rectory. I see that fellow's heart; and I could scarce keep myself from pushing him out of the room, when he kissed Constance the other day, and called her his little wife; but she looked so distressed at the instant, that I thought I had better not seem to ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... a poor widow, as often there has been, and she had one son. A very scarce summer came, and they didn't know how they'd live till the new potatoes would be fit for eating. So Jack said to his mother one evening, "Mother, bake my cake, and kill my hen, till I go seek my fortune; and ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... ceased, and a cloud passed over the star; and I communed with myself, and came, O dread fathers, mournfully unto you. For I feared that ye would smite me because of my bold tongue, and that ye would, sentence me to the death, in that I asked what may scarce be given even ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... table called for more liquor, and the stout personage, sitting opposite to Irons, dropped into their talk, having smoked out his pipe, and their conversation became more general and hilarious; but Irons scarce heard it. Curiosity is an idle minx, and a soul laden like the clerk's has no entertainment for her. But when one of the three gentlemen who sat together—an honest but sad-looking person with a flaxen wig, and a fat, florid face—placing his hand in the breast ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... forest bends over the lake's clear waters, and surrounds the log cabin or infant settlement with the wigwam and canoe of the Indian half breeds, who are still fishing and hunting round the graves of their ancestors-once the fiercest of all the warrior races that scarce forty years ago ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... remembering many things. I remembered Lethbury, a gross man, superfluously genial, whom I had never liked, although I recalled my admiration of his whiskers. I recollected young Amelia Van Orden, not come to her full beauty then, the bud of girlhood scarce slipped; and I remembered very vividly the final crash, the nine days' talk over Lethbury's flight in the face of certain conviction,—by his father-in- law's advice (as some said) who had furnished and forfeited heavy bail for the absconder. Oh, the brave woman ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... him around. Awkward, fighting in the air-puffed suits, with only a body-weight of some thirty pounds! Coniston stumbled over the rocks. I had still scarce recovered my wits, but I avoided his outflung arms, and, stooping, tried to recover my revolver. It lay nearby. But Coniston followed my scrambling steps and fell upon me. My foot struck the weapon; it slid away and fell down a crag into ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... people to whom Providence had originally assigned those countries, until the European, in his thirst for aggrandizement, on that very principle of might which you condemn, tore them violently away. Gone, extirpated, until scarce a vestige of their existence remains, even as it must he, in the course of time, with the Indians of these wilds—perhaps not in this century or the next, but soon or late assuredly. These two people—the South Americans and Caribs—I particularly instance, for the very reason ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... proceedings against them in the matter of trespass and wholesale damage to property, and if they didn't all end their infernal days in some dashed prison they might consider themselves uncommonly lucky, and if they didn't make themselves scarce in considerably under two ticks, he proposed to see what could be done with Beale's shot-gun. (Beale here withdrew with a pleased expression to fetch the weapon.) He was sick of them. They were blighters. Creatures that it would be fulsome flattery to describe as human ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... were supplied by devices hitherto unheard of in the equipment of armies. Leather was scarce and its supply impossible ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... for his abode and knocked at the door, whereupon he came out, and I saluted him, saying, "It is for a time like this that friends are treasured up." "With all my heart," answered he; "enter." So we entered, I and the lady, but found money scarce with him. However, he gave me a handkerchief, saying, "Carry it to the market and sell it and buy meat and what else thou needest." So I took the handkerchief and hastening to the market, sold it and bought ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... grief was settling down and taking its proper place at the bottom of my heart, leaving the surface as usual. For twelve hours that day we went by a slow railway train through a country of weary monotony. Endless forests of pine seemed all that was to be seen; scarce ever a village; here and there a miserable clearing and forlorn-looking house; here and there stoppages of a few minutes to let somebody out or take somebody in; once, to my great surprise, a stop of rather more than a few minutes to accommodate a lady who wanted some flowers ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell |
