"Scum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day we had light winds and the coast was but indistinctly seen. The sea was covered with a brown scum which Captain Cook's sailors called sea saw-dust, from its resemblance to that substance.* Very few fish were noticed, but they were generally more ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... with my artist's ears and found them all much like the first, the music like the very stars, the words like the grease and scum on the water. I was about giving up my search when I met my old friend, ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... speedily dissolve the scum Upon your consciences, that limpidly Through them descend the river ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... this clear solution, agitation is stopped, and the contents of the tank passed through a filter press. The scum, which accumulates on the treatment tank, may be transferred to a perforated box suspended over the tank, and the liquor allowed to drain from it. The filtered liquor is now rendered slightly alkaline by the ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... their gory spray high in the air. The restless, heaving lake boiled and bubbled, never remaining the same for two minutes together. Its normal colour seemed to be a dull dark red, covered with a thin grey scum, which every moment and in every part swelled and cracked, and emitted fountains, cascades, and whirlpools of yellow and red fire, while sometimes one big golden river, sometimes four or five, flowed across it. There was an island on one ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... down, and they strike him. His asthma is worse. He has half a dozen complaints. His policy has failed. It was the finest policy ever tried in Russia. He is the finest Czar they have ever had. He gave them trial by jury; he abolished corporal punishment. Fools! they are the scum ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... listlessly at the framework of his latest try, fully disheartened. He tried not to think of the unescapable fact that the water in the rain tank had sunk to only an inch or so of muddy scum. Last night he had dug in the heart of the interior valley where the rankness of the vegetation was a promise of moisture, to uncover damp clay and then a brackish ooze. Far too little to satisfy both ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... with a good beef gravy, seasoned with white pepper, salt, a couple of sliced onions (previously browned in a little oil), and a piece of whole ginger, let it simmer very slowly for two hours taking care to remove the scum or fat, have ready some rich forcemeat and spread it about an inch thick over three cold hard boiled eggs, fry these for a few moments and put them in the saucepan with the veal; before serving, these balls should be cut in quarters, and the gravy rendered more savory by the addition ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... powerful arms swung her lusty broom aloft. "I'll teach you, you scallawag!" Thwack fell the broom, and, releasing Joan, the man sought to protect his head with his arms. "I'll give you a dose you won't fergit, you scum o' creation!" Thwack went the broom again. "Wait till the folks hear tell o' this, you miser'ble, miser'ble cur!" Again the broom fell, and the man turned to flee. "You'd run, would you? Git a fork, Miss Joan!" With a surprising rush the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... is a wonder that any person of rank, any that hath in him a spark of ingenuity, or doth at all pretend to good manners, should find in his heart, or deign to comply with so scurvy a fashion; a fashion much more befitting the scum of the people than the flower of the gentry; yea, rather much below any man endued with a scrap of reason, or a grain of goodness. Would we bethink ourselves, modest, sober, and pertinent discourse would appear far more generous and masculine than such mad hectoring the ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... the card players which was directed against them; for Matt, being called away to his bar, was replaced by a third loafer. Gradually there came to their ears the words, "conceited, offish, up-settin', pedlars, tramps, pious scum," with condemnatory and other adjectives prefixed, and then they knew that their characters and occupations were undergoing unfavourable review. Mr. Rawdon was too "hail fellow well met" with the loafers to offer ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... sir. But I've had enough of moneymakin'. It's too dear at the price. And if you'll let an old servant speak his mind it ain't fit for you, this 'ere kind of work. It's good enough for black-scum and for chocolate-birds like Durnovo; but this country's not built for honest white men—least of all for born and ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Intendente, the old Don nodded sadly in his chair. He was dishonouring the name of the Riegos, Carlos would exclaim feebly, turning his head towards his uncle. His uncle's own province, the name of his own town, stood for a refuge of the scum of the Antilles. It wras a shameful sanctuary. Every ruffian, rascal, murderer, and thief of the West Indies had come to think of this ancient and honourable town as a ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... robe, torn by the thorns of the thicket, stained with blood, and bedraggled by the greenish scum of the water, enveloped the lifeless form of the young wife, whom the Indians had already deposited upon a couch of reeds. Some green leaves that hung over her head appeared to compose ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... Jeffrey, and he was also free from the monitions of his predecessor. But in Croker he had a first lieutenant who could not very well be checked, and who (though he, too, has had rather hard measure) had no equal in the art of making himself offensive. Besides, those were the days when the famous "Scum condensed of Irish bog" lines appeared in a great daily newspaper about O'Connell. Imagine the Times addressing Mr. Parnell as "Scum condensed of Irish bog," with the other amenities that follow, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... English, Spanish, or French pirates were much better," said the mate, laughing. "Pirates are generally the scum of the ports they sail from; reckless, murderous ruffians. But I should say that of all pirates out in the East, the gentle, placid, mild-looking Chinaman makes the worst; for he thinks nothing of human life, his own or any ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... the outrage, and then there would be an opportunity for some excitement and agitation at the South—and perhaps some "nullification" in South Carolina and Virginia; and in that general fermentation who knows what scum would be thrown up! Even Mr. Clay "never expected the law would be enforced." "No Northern gentleman," said he, "will ever help return a fugitive slave." It seemed impossible ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... cook well. The best way to boil it is to put it in cold water, and boil it gently, with just water enough to cover it, as it hardens by furious boiling. The part that is to be up on the table, should be down in the pot, as the scum that rises is apt to make the meat look dark—the scum should be taken off as soon as it rises. The liquor in which all kinds of fresh meat is boiled, makes a good soup, when thickened and seasoned. Boiling is the cheapest way of cooking meat, provided you make a soup of the liquor; if not, it is ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... cake or lump, which is sustained by the furnace, and through this the mettal as it runs trickles down the receivers, which are placed at the bottom, where there is a passage open, by which they take away the scum and dross, and let out their mettal as they see occasion. Before the mouth of the furnace lyeth a great bed of sand, where they make furrows of the fashion they desire to cast their iron: into these, ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... bituminous consistence, but of a resinous taste, and a smell like oil of turpentine; chiefly found in the Baltic sea or the coast of Prussia.' Humph! 'Some have imagined it to consist of the tears of birds; others the'—humph!—'of a beast; others the scum of the Lake Cephesis, near the Atlantic; others a congelation in some fountains, where it is found swimming like pitch.' Really, brother," continued the lawyer, fixing his eyes on the little girl, and shutting the book, "I can't ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... on you must realize that he is the very scum of the earth, a toping man, a worthless, immoral man that hates ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... need to be ashamed of what I think. I am a true son of the Church, and fear not what the vile Mortimer scum may say. But to pleasure thee, good Warbel, I will say no more. We will make our way home with all speed, and tell the tale to our father. I doubt not he will say it was well done. The Lord of Chad would ever have the defenceless protected, and stand between them and the false ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... half-light of the pint-sized moon overhead the town looked almost romantic. One day, when civilization had at last been brought to these Asteroid bases, memory would make Torran heroic. But now, with the fact before the eyes, it was merely dirty and squalid. Only the scum of the Solar System ...
— This One Problem • M. C. Pease
... had with them and the way that those villains treated their captive I noted that his face paled, and that there came a look into his eyes which I had not often seen there, but which meant no good for Jensen and his scum if Lancelot got the top of them. For Lancelot was a staunch Churchman and a respecter of ministers of God's Word, and as loyal to his religion as he was to ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... heard it said and repeated that the British soldiers are the dregs of London and the scum of the criminal classes, that their ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the dried ants, as well as the pounded fangs of two venomous snakes. Clearing everything away, he made a fire in the centre of the hut, and pouring the mixture into the saucepan, he boiled it slowly for some hours. The scum was then taken off, when the liquid had become reduced to thick syrup of a deep brown colour. He now told me that it was fit for use; and his darts being ready, he dipped them into it, as he did also several ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... which will adhere lightly to the spoon; then fill up the pot with cold water, and when on the boiling point, draw it to the back of the stove, where it may gently simmer three hours, if veal, six if beef, carefully skimming it to remove scum. This stock, as it is, will make a delicious foundation, with the addition of salt, for all kinds of clear soup or gravies. To reduce it to glaze proceed as follows: Pass the stock through a fine hair sieve or cloth into a pan; then fill up the pot again with hot water, and let ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... silvery bubbles spring! Good! the mass is melting now! Let the salts we duly bring Purge the flood, and speed the flow. From the dross and the scum, Pure, the fusion must come; For perfect and pure we the metal must keep, That its voice may be ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... rid of this taint was a problem which our statesmen found it difficult to solve. In times of war they mitigated the evil by filling the ranks of our armies from the gaols, and manning our navies by the help of the press-gang, but in times of peace the scum of ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... the distant thunder hum, Maryland! The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum, Maryland! She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb— Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum; She breathes, she burns—she'll come! she'll come! Maryland, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... the years he had lived, to find a friend: he had been too busy to make friends. For an honest person he had traversed the world too hurriedly to perceive the deeper, better part of mankind; he had floated on the surface with the scum and froth, and could recall no one whom he could trust. At last, away back in the years of his childhood, he saw a face—that of a young but motherly Irishwoman, who had lived in his father's family as a faithful servant, and had been a fond partisan of his in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... to skirmish. He knew better than did his soldiers the treacherous nature of the ground in front of the enemy. He saw that it was one of those districts where peat had been taken out in large squares for fuel, and where a fallacious and verdant scum upon the surface of deep pools simulated the turf that had been removed. He saw that the battle-ground presented to him by his sagacious enemy was one great sweep of traps and pitfalls. Before he could carry the position, many men must ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... may be seen by taking some water weed from either fresh or salt water and placing it in a glass jar of the kind of water from which it came, then set the jar in the sunlight. After a time bubbles of gas will be seen collecting and rising to the surface. If a mass of weed like the green scum of fresh water ponds or green sea lettuce be used, the bubbles of gas will become entangled in the mass and will cause it to rise to the surface of the water. At the same time prepare another jar of the weed and place it somewhere out of the sun; very few bubbles will be seen to rise ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... infinite number of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and purposeless, the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause," born only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his theory—rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative—the theistic view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do not now vary at all times and places and in all directions, nor produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason for supposing that they ever did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities, ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... deepest distress: "This will be the greatest acquisition Great Britain has ever made." All he asked was for reasonable help in the way of food and decent settlers who could work. All he got in answer to his requests was the further shipment of the scum of the gaols and the hulks—and some more spades and seeds. King believed in his chief and cordially worked with him—and King was the silent ...
— The Beginning Of The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... of it, and many a scrape I get into at the Works through forgetting to order certain things at the proper time. For instance, when I had a dredger to get ready for action, it was found, when it came to the scratch, that there was no scum cock for the boiler, no posts for the handrails, etc.. etc. I was more sinned against than sinning that time however, as the job was suddenly thrown on my hands, when Pot left the Works in a state of semi-completion, ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... the hag, good Gunn," he continued. "To-morrow morning, Gunn, they will find you in your room dead, and if one of the scum you brought into my house be charged with the murder, so much the better. When I am well they will go. I am already feeling a little bit stronger, Gunn, as you see, and in a month I hope to ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... the bed of the brook until it was no longer passable. Huge bowlders lay jammed and crowded in clefts of the mountain before them. Penn remembered the spot. He had been there in spring, when down over the rocks, now covered with lichens and dry scum, poured an impetuous torrent. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... hard-worked-looking housewife, when I came up from under the bank in front of her house, and with pail in hand appeared at her door and asked for milk, taking the precaution to intimate that I had no objection to the yellow scum that is supposed to rise on a fresh article ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Plinnee maintained, that originally it must be a juice, exuding from balsam firs and pines; Borhavo, that, like camphor, it is the crystalized oil of aromatic ferns; Berzilli, that it is the concreted scum of the lake Cephioris; and Vondendo, against scores of antagonists, stoutly held it a sort of bituminous gold, trickling from antediluvian smugglers' caves, nigh ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... pound in a mortar or chopping-bowl until quite mashed. Let it stand a quarter of an hour, then squeeze the mass in a cloth, and put the green water into a cup, which set over the fire in a small saucepan of water; watch the scum rise; when it stands quite thick at the top and turns a vivid green, remove at once (if it remains on the fire after this the green darkens); pour the contents of the cup through cheese-cloth or ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... it in a large vessel till the scum rises. Skim this off as fast as it appears on the surface, until the butter remains quite clear, like oil. It should then be carefully poured off, that the impurities which settle at the bottom of the vessel may be separated. The clarified butter is to be put aside to be kept, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... devils!" blazed the Marquis, unable longer to contain himself. "Am I to have my ears offended by this braying? Miserable scum, you shall be taught what ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... demand for them so great?" asked Welland, "I should have thought that Canadian farmers and others would be afraid to receive into their dwellings what is often described as the scum ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... scum-bewrayed! Fulfil that promise erst my damsel made; Who vowed to Holy Venus and her son, Cupid, should I return to her anon And cease to brandish iamb-lines accurst, 5 The writ selected erst of bards the worst She to the limping Godhead would devote With slowly-burning ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... invading army entered by every frontier like a surging sea. Great waves of men arrived one after the other, scattering all around them a scum of freebooters. General Carrel's brigade, separated from its division, retreated continually, fighting each day, but remaining almost intact, thanks to the vigilance and agility of Lieutenant Lare, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... always sleep on the earth and not on cots. The Nun (salt) and Dhan (rice) clans of Oraons cannot dispense with eating their totems or titular ancestors. But the Dhan Oraons content themselves with refusing to consume the scum which thickens on the surface of the boiled rice, and the Nun sept will not lick a plate in which salt and water have been mixed. At the weddings of the Vulture clan of the small Bhona caste one member of the clan kills a small chicken by biting ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... justify his right of admission to her house. There Mr. French discoursed at great length, until the fourth of March sent him home to Connecticut; and he brought more than one intelligent member of Congress to Mrs. Lee's parlour. Underneath the scum floating on the surface of politics, Madeleine felt that there was a sort of healthy ocean current of honest purpose, which swept the scum before it, ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... explanation of the demoralisation of the army. He says that the Imperial Government only troubled itself about the corps d'elite; that the object in the line regiments was to get substitutes as cheaply as possible; consequently, they are filled with men physically and morally the scum of the nation. Semaphore telegraphs have been put up on all the high public buildings. There are also semaphores on the forts. I see that one opposite me is exchanging signals. The crowd watch them as though ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... "Scum of the desert were they, my Messala, and garbage-eaters from the Jacob's Temple in Jerusalem. What had I to ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Mysterious it is, for a man does not ordinarily empty his pockets of gold in order to fill them with gravel. Mysterious it is, for a thirsty man will not usually turn away from the full, bubbling, living fountain, to see if he can find any drops still remaining, green with scum, stagnant and odorous, at the bottom of some broken cistern. But all these follies are sanity as compared with the folly of which we are guilty, times without number, when, having known the sweetness of Jesus Christ, we turn away to the fascinations ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... mostly memories of sheepsheads and flanneled bathers and 'tis not for these that the poet gazes into the emerald depths whence the pearly scum, like tears of mermaids—Ah! Mermaids! Mr. P. had never seen a mermaid. These were not among his memories He deeply woulded that he could—and lo! he did! The creature came gliding to his very feet, and he had barely time to bound back before she reached the shore. Shaking the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled; 590 Yea, even that which Mischief meant most harm Shall in the happy trial prove most glory. But evil on itself shall back recoil, And mix no more with goodness, when at last, Gathered like scum, and settled to itself, It shall be in eternal restless change Self-fed and self-consumed. If this fail, The pillared firmament is rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble. But come, let's on! Against the opposing will and arm of Heaven ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... quantity of their juice through his hands into the pot. Lastly the snakes' fangs, ants and pepper are bruised and thrown into it. It is then placed on a slow fire, and as it boils more of the juice of the wourali is added, according as it may be found necessary, and the scum is taken off with a leaf: it remains on the fire till reduced to a thick syrup of a deep brown colour. As soon as it has arrived at this state a few arrows are poisoned with it, to try its strength. If it answer the expectations it is poured out into a calabash, or ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... cold water. Dissolve the butter in a large enamelled saucepan, slice the artichokes and fry for five minutes in the butter, then add the water, shalots and celery chopped, and the seasonings. Boil for three-quarters of an hour, removing the scum as it rises. Add milk and sago, and stir frequently for twenty minutes. Rub through a hair sieve ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... active part in this demonstration that he had deeply incensed the assassins; and the more ferocious of them resolved to wreak vengeance upon him by pillaging and burning his chateau. A conspiracy was organized, and the following night about forty men of both parties, or rather the scum and refuse of both, started for Chamondrin. They knew the castle had but a small number of defenders, and that Coursegol, the most formidable of these, was absent at the time. They also knew that the isolated situation of the chateau afforded its inmates little chance of succor, and ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... recovered, he left the Holy Land, with keen regret, and many vows to return with a greater force. These vows were never fulfilled, nor was it well they should have been. Acre was a nest of corruption, filled with the scum of the European nations, and a standing proof that the Latin Christians were unworthy to hold a foot of the hallowed ground; and in 1291, eighteen years after the conclusion of the seventh Crusade, it was taken by the Sultan ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... lips and mats of furzy hair; sleek Jews slithering in and out the groups, inciting to devil's work; figures of nobles and gentlemen of France or Espagne, dishonoured and merged in the depth of the lowest scum there present; great Saxon churls and Danes, standing stern and resolute, but barbarous, as lions in the ranks of jackals ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... money on me, an' he give me money to spend—that had never had a cent to call my own—an', Mis' Cullom, he took me by the hand, an' he talked to me, an' he gin me the fust notion 't I'd ever had that mebbe I wa'n't only the scum o' the earth, as I'd ben teached to believe. I told ye that that day was the turnin' point of my life. Wa'al, it wa'n't the lickin' I got, though that had somethin' to do with it, but I'd never have had the spunk to run away's I did if it hadn't ben for the heartenin' Billy ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... part of the day was spent in furbishing up clothes and camp equipments and scrubbing the collected dirt and scum of three weeks from the decks and sides of the canoes. The boys realized that the cruise was about ended, and they hoped by the aid of the high water and an early start to reach home on ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... cooled crust of the lake had looked black and even sooty, with a fountain of molten gold playing upwards from it; by night it was all incandescent, with black blotches of cooled scum upon it, which were perpetually being devoured. The centre of the lake was at a white heat, and waves of white hot lava appeared to be wallowing there as in a whirlpool, and from this centre the fountain rose, solid at its base, which ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... speculations, in the world, than was formerly the case. Society is decidedly less graceful, more care-worn, and of a worse tone to-day, than it was previously to the revolution of 1830. I presume the elements are unchanged, but the ebullition of the times is throwing the scum to the surface; a natural but temporary consequence of the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... And the bribe he promis'd; you are cozen'd in them; For of all the scum that grew rich by my riots, This for a most unthankful knave, and this For a base quean, have worse deserv'd; And therefore speak not for them. By your place, You are rather to do me justice; lend me your ear, Forget his turkeys, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... Thus I find he had made one flying visit to the Cumberland Lake-region in 1828, and got sight of Wordsworth; and in the same year another flying one to Paris, and seen with no undue enthusiasm the Saint-Simonian Portent just beginning to preach for itself, and France in general simmering under a scum of impieties, levities, Saint-Simonisms, and frothy fantasticalities of all kinds, towards the boiling-over which soon made the Three Days of July famous. But by far the most important foreign home he visited was that of Coleridge ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... Algiers) was printed in Valladolid in the year 1612, gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he describes that monarch as an "unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his vassals and the friends of his father; who could by no means suffer his tyrannies and those of his ministers, the scum of the earth ("hombres baxos"), to whom he had given the principal offices of the kingdom. Accordingly, since the time that Ali had become Basha of Algiers, letters had been written to him importuning him to come to Tunis that he might ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... along a mile broad, and the heat is so great that there is no standing within a hundred yards of it? All the soldiers are there, and the magistrates and the guards, and all the rest of them, but all that can be done is to prevent the scum of the city from sacking and plundering. Scores of men have been scourged and some beheaded, but it is no easy matter to keep down the mob. There are parties of guards in every street. The whole of the Praetorians are under arms, but the terror and confusion is so great and spread over so wide ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... up, and was well-known here. With nothing special, perhaps, to record, I would give a word or two to his memory. He seem'd to me not an inappropriate specimen in character and elements, of that bulk of the average good American race that ebbs and flows perennially beneath this scum of eructations on the surface. Always very quiet in manner, neat in person and dress, good temper'd—punctual and industrious at his work, till he could work no longer—he just lived his steady, square, unobtrusive life, in its own humble ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... me?' And yet she laughed at the long-forgotten word. 'Forty years ago that might have been said, and not without truth. Ay. thirty years ago. But it is the fault of this gadding up and down Hind that a king's widow must jostle all the scum of the land, and be made a ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... Toledo, swore and bounced about the room: "'Sdeath! what am I come to, to be affronted so by my tradesmen? I know the rascals: my barber, clothier, and linen-draper dispose of my estate! Bring hither my blunderbuss; I'll warrant ye you shall see daylight through them. Scoundrels! dogs! the scum of the earth! Frog, that was my father's kitchen-boy, he pretend to meddle with my estate—with my will! Ah, poor Strutt! what are thou come to at last? Thou hast lived too long in the world, to ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... seemed as if he, Othman, and all would be ripped away from the boat by the tremendous suction. Great eddies boiled and swirled in every direction, and a thick scum of oil and coal dust rose and covered the ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... the solution of the riddle as it respects the strength of democratic government? It has heretofore been said by the revilers of the masses in America, that 'for two hundred years the scum, the crime, and poverty of Europe have been cast upon the shores of the Atlantic.' It is immaterial to the question of humanity, whether such has been the seed from which a new nation has been raised up in the wilderness. A ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... them in fair water till they be somewhat tender, then take them out, and peel off the skins and put them into a fair earthen pot, and cover them till they be cold, then make the syrup with fair water and Sugar, seeth it, and scum it very clean, then being almost cold, put in your Pippins, so boil them softly together, put in as much rind of Oranges as you think will tast them, if you have no Oranges take whole Cinamon and Cloves, so boil them high enough to keep them ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... lapse into barbarity. This, among the Romans, was the raillery of slaves, of which we have many instances in Plautus. It seemeth to have been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by preferring the scum of the people, made it a court-entertainment, of which I have heard many particulars; and, considering all things were turned upside down, it was reasonable and judicious; although it was a piece of policy found out to ridicule a point of honour in the other extreme, when the smallest word ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... troubled and anxious about every trifle. No, indeed, but he desired that God should be loved by all with a vigilant and attentive love, exact, punctual, and faithful in the smallest matters, pictured to us by the rod the Prophet used when watching the boiling caldron, to remove all the scum as it ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... breathe, Purple, you graceless scum, let me tell you that we will stand no reference to the two ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... and more beautiful than you can possibly imagine - for they were soft and smooth, and every feather lay neatly in its place. And the feathers were of the most lovely mixed changing colours, like the rainbow, or iridescent glass, or the beautiful scum that sometimes floats on water that is not at all ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... in her wings so suddenly that she almost stood still in the air. Thereupon, she lowered herself to light on the edge of the sea. But before the geese had reached the water, the west storm caught up with them. Already, it drove before it fogs, salt scum and small birds; it also snatched with it the wild geese, threw them on end, and cast them ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... my rude singing with that divine voice? Scum of the earth! Toads! And I never divined that they were doing to him here what was ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... art will become filthy and a minister of sin. They talk about 'Art for Art's sake.' Would that all these poets and painters who are trying to find beauty in corruption—and there is a phosphorescent glimmer in rotting wood, and a prismatic colouring on the scum of a stagnant pond—would that all those men who are seeking to find beauty apart from goodness, and so are turning a divine instinct into a servant of evil, would learn that the true gracefulness comes from the grace which is the fullness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... discourse, "worse than your director, Zoinka, worse than my cadet, the worst of all—are your lovers. What can there be joyous in this: he comes drunk, poses, makes sport of you, wants to pretend there's something in him—only nothing comes of it all. Wha-at a lad-die, to be sure! The scummiest of the scum, dirty, beaten-up, stinking, his whole body in scars, there's only one glory about him: the silk shirt which Tamarka will embroider for him. He curses one's mother, the son of a bitch, always aching for a fight. Ugh! No!" she suddenly exclaimed in a merry provoking ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... consequently generally very much reduced. The process consists of submitting the molten pig-iron to a very great heat in a pear-shaped vessel (known technically as the "converter"). This is open at the top, and is supported on hinges, which permit of its being moved so as to pour off the scum which rises to the surface at the end of the operation, and which, we may explain, consists of "basic slag." In the original process the sides of the "converter" were lined with fire-bricks, consisting largely ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... salt, and a wineglass of vinegar. Let stand for half or three-fourths of an hour, drain, and put it into a saucepan to boil until tender. The length of time for boiling depends upon the size of the head. Remove the scum carefully as it rises, or it will discolor the cauliflower. When done separate the sprigs, and arrange them around the bowl, heads outward. Put into the centre of the dish a head of cabbage-lettuce, cover it with red mayonnaise (see Lobster ...
— Fifty Salads • Thomas Jefferson Murrey
... offspring of white overseers—and it is a notorious fact that a majority of our professional "nigger-drivers" were from the North. This is no reflection on the character of the Northern people—these fellows were simply the feculent scum, the excrementitious offscourings of civilization. And now I remember that a second-cousin of mine in Kentucky has an overseer from Ohio named Otis. A very thrifty and choleric man was my cousin, and considering a yaller nigger less valuable than a black one, he threatened ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... You did, hey? Well, did n't I tell you to let no lazy, loafing bumboat-man set foot on board? Do you laugh at my orders, you good-for-nothing scum of the sea? And above all things why did you ever drag such a creature as this down between decks to disgrace the whole of His Majesty's navy? Get ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... onion and sweat in 1 oz. butter for twenty minutes. Add 2 to 3 pints stock and 1 lb. chestnuts previously lightly roasted and peeled. Simmer gently for one hour or more, pass through a sieve and return to saucepan. Bring to boil, remove all scum, add a cupful boiling milk or half that quantity of cream, and serve without ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... rattle of tankards on a table, as he joined what was evidently his coterie. Standing outside, I heard song and ribaldry within. The heir-presumptive to the throne of the Empire was too obviously a drunken brawler; a friend and comrade of the lowest scum in Frankfort. ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... can imagine how Swift might have introduced the subject in Grildrig's conversations with the King of Brobdingnag. "The King asked me more about our 'dots' of houses, as his Majesty was pleased to call them; and how we removed the scum and filth from those little 'ant-heaps' which we called great towns. I answered that our custom was to have a long brick tube, which we called a sewer, in the middle of our streets, where we kept a sufficient supply ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... the war, I once had a walk of several miles under a burning sun, in a region where not a drop of water could be found. When I finally reached it, the only water to be found was in a small, stagnant pool, covered with a green scum nearly an inch in thickness. Warm, brackish, and fever-laden as that water was, I had never before tasted any thing half so sweet. Again, while crossing the Great Plains in 1860, I underwent a severe and prolonged ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... needed, use boiling water from the tea-kettle; cold or lukewarm water spoils the flavor. Never salt it before the meat is tender (as that hardens and toughens the meat), especially if the meat is to be eaten. Take off every particle of scum as it rises, and before the vegetables are ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... expected. A batch of colored folks had drifted into the place under the impression that a certain planter was going to give them work at big wages. They were a worthless lot, the scum of other plantations, ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... from the difficulty experienced in suppressing the practice. Down to a very recent date cock-fighting was carried on in secret,—the police now and then breaking into the secret pits, dispersing and chasing a motley crew of noblemen, gentlemen, and 'the scum ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Fear was nearly taking the place of mercy, words of pardon were on his lips, when a certain Athanasius Vaya, a Greek schismatic, and a favourite of the pacha's, whose illegitimate son he was supposed to be, advanced at the head of the scum of the army, and offered to carry out the death sentence. Ali applauded his zeal, gave him full authority to act, and spurred his horse to the top of a neighbouring hill, the better to enjoy the spectacle. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the room furiously. "Who in Mexico is this Pasquale?" he demanded, and then answered his own question: "Scum of the earth, a peon whipped for stealing whiskey, a hill robber and murderer. In my country they'd take the scoundrel and hang him ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... way. That is what he should do now in her behalf. She would then have an opportunity of clearing her character from imputations which, to a certain extent, will affect it, even though they come from a madman, and from the very scum of the press." ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... latter indeed, must have embellished the type retrospectively with characters which can be understood only as serving the purposes of war and of propaganda. That strange and sickly world into which the Gospels lead us—a world apparently out of a Russian novel, in which the scum of society, nervous maladies and "childish" idiocy keep a tryst—must, in any case, have coarsened the type: the first disciples, in particular, must have been forced to translate an existence visible only in symbols and ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... great measure perverted, empty, and dangerous. Niehl divides Society in Germany into four great classes, namely: the peasantry, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie or middle class, and the proletariat, or mere laborers for wages. The last he regards as the decaying and corrupting class, a sort of scum in hot effervesence. This is, however, one of the classes that produce social movement; the other is the middle class; the conservative or stationary classes are the peasantry and aristocracy. The learned professions ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... arm shot out from behind him, and a stone the size of two fists sped like a bullet, striking Buckley Simmons where his hair and forehead joined. Gordon, in a species of shocked curiosity and surprise, clearly saw the stone hit the other. There was a sound like that made by a heel breaking a scum of ice on a ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... engaged, with a wet towel round his head, writing a leader upon the event. This production, which was very sonorous and effective, was peppered all over with such phrases as "protection of property," "outraged majesty of the law," and "scum of civilization"— expressions which had been used so continuously by Mr. O'Flaherty, that he had come to think that he had a copyright in them, and loudly accused the London papers of plagiarism if he happened to see them ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... street. But even now there was no encouragement for them to attempt to escape, because, besides being hemmed in by their escort of half a dozen soldiers, the entire party were surrounded by a gaping, scowling, execrating mob of ragged, unwashed ruffians, apparently the scum of the city, who would have effectually frustrated any attempt on the part of the Englishmen to break away from their guard and take to their heels; indeed if one might have judged from the expression of their coarse, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Engels saw very clearly the part that the criminal elements would play in any uprising, and as early as 1847 they wrote in the Communist Manifesto: "The 'dangerous class,' the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those slender windrows, Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... give it them. So they will be fit for their position, and will do honour to it, and stay in it: let the masters be as sure they do honour to theirs, and are as willing to stay in that. Remember that every people which gives itself to the pursuit of riches, invariably, and of necessity, gets the scum uppermost in time, and is set by the genii, like the ugly bridegroom in the Arabian Nights, at its own door with its heels in the air, showing its shoe-soles instead of a Face. And the reversal is a serious matter, if reversal be even possible, ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... shoe to wed with an ugly toad spawned i' the Welsh marshes. Had ye seen her first husband, Sir William Bradshaigh—rest his soul! he was killed in the wars—you would have marvelled that she drunk the scum after ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... against the grey hillside. "They will hang about me now all the night ... until I kill," said Andoo. "Filth of the world!" And mainly to annoy them, he resolved to watch the red flicker in the gorge until the dawn came to drive the hyaena scum home. And after a time they vanished, and he heard their voices, like a party of Cockney beanfeasters, away in the beechwoods. Then they came slinking near again. Andoo yawned and went on along the cliff, and they followed. Then he ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... dumpled hag, stood snuffling by, With her three frowsy blowsy brats o' babes, The scum o' the Kennel, cream o' the filth-heap—Faugh! Aie, aie, aie, aie! [Greek: otototototoi], ('Stead which we blurt out, Hoighty toighty now)— And the baker and candlestick maker, and Jack and Gill, Blear'd Goody this and queasy Gaffer ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... Virginia and clenched her hands. All this was contrary to her social code of conduct. How could society excuse familiarity with the scum of the streets? What would Virginia's action cost the family in the way of criticism and loss of standing, and all that long list of necessary relations which people of wealth and position must sustain to the leaders of society? To Madam Page society represented more than the ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... has been proved to be a fluid. Very well; no fluid in large bodies moves with an equal velocity throughout. Part of it is rapid and part quite stagnant. The stagnant places of the air produce this green scum, this mossy, unwholesome, and injurious stuff; while the overrapid motion causes this iron appearance, this hard surface, and general sterility. By the simplest of simple contrivances, I make this evil its ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... began, a malicious light in his eyes and a snarl in his throat; "d'ye want yer nose punched? If you think I'm a thief, just keep it to yerself, or you'll find 'ow bloody well mistyken you are. Strike me blind if this ayn't gratitude for yer! 'Ere you come, a pore mis'rable specimen of 'uman scum, an' I tykes yer into my galley an' treats yer 'ansom, an' this is wot I get for it. Nex' time you can go to 'ell, say I, an' I've a good mind to ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... deceptive, robbed the scene of much of its brilliancy; still it was truly sublime, as a feeble attempt at description will show. This immense caldron, two and three quarter miles in circumference, is filled to within twenty feet of its brim with red molten lava, over which lies a thin scum resembling the slag on a smelting furnace. The whole surface was in fearful agitation. Great rollers followed each other to the side, and, breaking, disclosed deep edges of crimson. These were the canals of fire we had noticed the night before diverging from a common centre, and the furnaces in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... our carriage horses, one riding-horse, and my youngest boy's pony. We argued; but no! They must take them, as they were big and fat. My husband had almost given it up, being tired out. When they entered the stable, I stood by my favourite and slated them. The men were not Boers, but some of the scum who have joined. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... commented Ben, gazing about him with a satisfied look. "It spreads a thin scum on the waves and prevents them breaking. Now we shall do nicely for awhile, though now the worst is about over, I don't mind admitting that I did think once or twice that we were bound for Davy ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... floating scum-like substances on fresh water; they deserve to be more studied, for some, as dulse, laver, badderlocks, &c., are eatable, and others ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... he took in a rush, trying not to think of anything but the necessity of landing on some spot of firm ground. His last leap of all was too short, so that he went knee deep in a particularly evil-smelling pool where yellow scum spattered his breeches and he experienced the insidious pull of the bottomless stuff. A stout branch whipped across his shoulder and he caught it. With Nymani's wiry strength on the other end, Dane worked free and sat, white-faced ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... said of course that men, and newspapers, are equally stupid in time of peace; and I fear that fundamentally this is true. War does not change their nature, but only brings to the bubbling surface the dregs and vileness and scum. War does not change any one's nature; and that is why it is vain to expect that under its influence those crowds will love their country who never loved anything before. But if war cannot create it may at least be supposed to discover ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... business was, by affidavits, motions, pleas, demurrers, flaws, and appeals, to protract the question from term to term, and from court to court. It would, as Mr. Tyrrel argued, be the disgrace of a civilized country, if a gentleman, when insolently attacked in law by the scum of the earth, could not convert the cause into a question of the longest purse, and stick in the skirts of his adversary till he had ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... history of the puffin, sufficiently apocryphal to remind one of the famous passage in the history of the barnacle, which traced the lineage of the bird to one of the pedunculated cirripedes, and the lineage of the cirripede to a log of wood. The puffin feeds its young, say the islanders, on an oily scum of the sea, which renders it such an unwieldy mass of fat, that about the time when it should be beginning to fly, it becomes unable to get out of its hole. The parent bird, not in the least puzzled, however, treats the case medicinally, and,—like mothers of another ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... thickets; its roads, narrow and deserted, which seem to wind on forever; the desolate fields, here and there covered with stunted bushes; the owls flapping their dusky wings; the whip-poor-will, crying in the jungle; and the moccasin gliding stealthily amid the ooze, covered with its green scum. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... that if the Castilian sovereigns did not suffer any crying injury from the Moors, it would be improper to do anything which might draw great damage upon the Christians—as if, when once the sword of the faith was drawn, it ought ever to be sheathed until this scum of heathendom were utterly destroyed or driven from the land. But this monarch," he continues, "was more kindly disposed toward the infidels than was honest and lawful in a Christian prince, and was at that very time in league with the soldan against their ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... the great iron pot in which the sap was boiled down into sugar. While the sap was running freely, the pot had to be kept boiling uniformly and the thickening sap kept skimmed clean of the creaming scum; and therefore, during the season, some one had to be always living in ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... in honour of his dame. I bid thee mark him well, whate'er he be, That London's Pleasure doth in malice scorn, For he's a rascal or a stranger born. Good boy, mark well his gesture and his look, His eye, his gait, his weapon, and attire, And dog him to his lodging or his den, For I will make him scum and scorn of men. No better boy than Will, when Will is pleas'd Be pleas'd, my boy, and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... coffee is carefully noted to see if it is up to standard. In pouring the water, care is exercised to keep the temperature constant in the cups, so that the strength in all will be equal. When the water is poured directly on the grounds, a crust or scum is formed. Before this crust breaks, the tester sniffs the aroma given off; this is called the wet-smell, or crust, test, and is considered ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... broad-arrowed coat, the yellow stockings—this man dragged wearily the wheelbarrow in the grim silences under the sinister skies of Dartmoor, with warders to taunt, or insult, or browbeat the Irish felon-patriot—with the very dregs and scum of our lowest social depths for companions and colleagues—and then think of this same man standing up before the supreme and august assembly where the might, sovereignty, power, and omnipotence of this world-wide empire are centred, and holding it for more than an hour ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... show the gentlemen something of a sight more interesting that this," the newcomer continued. "They don't want to sit down and drink with the scum of the earth." ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... quality of a {tourist}. Often used as a pejorative, as in 'losing touristic scum'. Often spelled 'turistic' or 'turistik', so that phrase might be more properly ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... class," the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... of the trade that are scattered about the town, but all over England, ay, and beyond sea, too, and send abroad their circulators, and in this manner get into their hands all that is valuable. The rest of the trade are content to take their refuse, with which, and the fresh scum of the press, they furnish one side of the shop, which serves for the sign of a bookseller, rather than a real one; but instead of selling, deal as factors, and procure what the country divines ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... aniline gentian violet three to five minutes. Filter as much aniline water on to the cover-slip as it will hold; then add the smallest quantity of alcoholic solution of gentian violet which suffices to saturate the aniline water and form a "bronze scum" upon its surface—if too much of the alcoholic gentian violet is added the alcohol present redissolves ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... to defy his and every other person's authority; and, on hearing that the result of all the disorders and revolutions had been the elevation of Bibars Bendocdar to the throne of Saladin, he remarked, in homely oriental phrase, 'when the pot boils, the scum rises to the top.' Above all, Musteazem was a miser, and covetous to the last degree; and when it was explained to him by his grand vizier, whom the Templar had already bribed with a purse of gold, that the ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... libel is prohibited, the more eager we are for it. When we have read it, and we see that nothing compensates for its mean temerity, we are ashamed to have sought after it. We scarcely dare say, we have read it: 'tis the scum of low literature, and what ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Tom. Then, as Harry and Mr. Prenter stepped aside, Reade added, "I'll admit, Mr. Bootleg, that I've behaved in a rather high-handed fashion with you. But I'm justified in doing it. You have been breaking the law of the state, moving through this camp and selling liquor. You represent the scum of the otherwise decent population of Alabama. If you think you've any redress in the courts, my name is Reade and you can hire a lawyer and get after me as hard and as fast ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... the peerless blood That flows untainted from the Flood! Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains Of Norman thieves and pirate Danes! Scum of the nations! In thy pride Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side, And, lo! the very semblance there The Lord ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... gathered from the moralists, it was dark enough. For obvious reasons it is desirable not to elaborate. It is perhaps more profitable, as well as refreshing, to consider the brighter side. That there were noble women and good wives, and that the froth and scum and dregs of idle town-life did not make up the existence of the contemporary Roman world, may be seen from passages like the following, which are either quoted or condensed from a letter of Pliny concerning a lady named ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... realities, the things more living than flesh and blood, which in his way he still contrived to believe in? The idea made him extremely uncomfortable, and he put it from him. He had drifted into that stagnant backwater of the soul where the scum of thought rises to the surface. Molly was better than most women; but, poor little thing, there was nothing transcendent about her virtues. She loved him after the manner of ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... heavens, cruel day would follow pitiless night, and the careless earth follow its accustomed orbit as though the race were not writhing in its death agony. Gazing into the infinity of space human existence seemed but the scum upon a rainpool, human warfare but the frenzy of insectivora. Unmindful of the starving hordes of Paris and Berlin, of plague-swept Russia, or of the drowned thousands of the North Baltic Fleet, these two ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... you are. I wish it were poison; but for the time being, the law won't let us serve it to you, you scum. ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... folk ain't goin' to let ye chaw the gentleman up to-day, but, if ever I set eyes on either of the scum agin, I'll give the varmints what's comin' to 'em, and I'll do it sudden-like, and I'll do it so it stays done, and there won't be nobody to stop me next time. If ye don't believe it, jest give me the chance. And to think I had to waste a perfectly ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... upper corridor! The door—it was the door of the apartment where he had left Naomi! He leaped down the hall, shouting. The portal hung open, shattered: the rooms were stark, staring empty. Allan reeled out again. There were the marks of footprints, of many footprints, in the green scum of the hall floor, their own among them, that had led the marauders straight ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... door opened, and four men stepped out. Their type was not hard to determine. They were of the scum of humanity—ready for ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... powers below: Hear, ye taskers of the dead. 2. You that boiling cauldrons blow, You that scum the molten lead. 3. You that pinch with red-hot tongs; 1. You that drive the trembling hosts Of poor, poor ghosts, With your sharpened prongs; 2. You that thrust them off the brim; 3. You that plunge them when they swim: 1. Till they ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... surprised to find quite pure. These pools are, of course, sometimes fouled for a time by the movements of alligators and other tenants in the fine mud which settles at the bottom, but I never observed a scum of confervae or traces of oil revealing animal decomposition on the surface of these waters, nor was there ever any foul smell perceptible. The whole of this level land, instead of being covered with unwholesome swamps emitting ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... it if you don't behave towards that lady in your most respectful manner. Now, I don't care a button what you do to me, because I don't affect to be anybody. So far from having high connections I have no connections at all, and I come of the scum of the earth. But towards that lady, I do care what you do; and you shall do what is deferential and respectful, or you shall not ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... "go to your homes while ye may. Ignorant, and greatly daring that ye are, the bandar-log, or such thievish scum among ye, drive ye with idle words and chatterings even to the brink of death. So far have ye come, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... scum of Paris!" he cried in his clear treble tones—"you who know neither God nor devil! You will have your money—more than your share—what else seek you? You have served one of the noblest of men; and because he is so great and wise ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... myself. For my part, I had thought it praiseworthy, but he says none of the rest of us care a rush for my mother, and so the only one of us good for anything has to be the victim. But don't plume yourself. You'll be the scum of the earth when he has you before him. Poor old boy, it is a sore business to him, and it doesn't improve his temper. I believe this place is a greater loss to him than to my ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... face, that all the sun-tan of Africa and all the wild life of the Caserne would not harden or debase. But he was sorry a child so bright and so brave should be turned into three parts a trooper as she was, should have been tossed up on the scum and filth of the lowest barrack life, and should be doomed in a few years' time to become the yellow, battered, foul-mouthed, vulture-eyed camp-follower that premature old age would surely render the darling of the tricolor, the pythoness of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... this, there is yet that which thou wilt not get. Honey that is nine times sweeter than the honey of the virgin swarm, without scum and bees, do I require to make bragget ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... him, "What is her price, for indeed she is noble?" Thereupon the Badawi waxed angry and answered, "Thou wilt turn me the girl's head with this talk! Why dost thou say that she is noble,[FN249] while she is of the scum of slave girls and of the refuse of folk? I will not sell her to thee!" When the merchant heard this, he knew the man to be weak of wits and said to him, "Calm thyself, for I will buy her of thee with these blemishes ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... alas! no verdurous visions come, Save yon exigous pool's conferva-scum,— No concave vast repeats the tender hue That laves my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... hands, lie scattered, each from each, under a ragged bank of mortar, and scoria, and bricklayer's refuse, on one side, which the clean water nevertheless chastises to purity; but it cannot conquer the dead earth beyond: and there, circled and coiled under festering scum, the stagnant edge of the pool effaces itself into a slope of black slime, the accumulation of indolent years. Half-a-dozen men with one day's work could cleanse those pools, and trim the flowers about their banks, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... is that them army scum is cutting for the Government. Pine, some spruce. This road was made to get timber out. I ought to know about it—I was foreman of the road gang! I know every tree that's marked for the Government. My old bunch of bundle stiffs and before-the-war wobblies is in there now. What chance ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... shame not enough in your eyes but that you must taunt me further? Do my innocent children want to look upon the faces of those who robbed them of a father? If there is a spark of manhood left in one of you, show it by leaving me alone! And you other scum, never fear but that you will clutter hell in reward for last night's work. Begone, and leave me ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... beggars in sordid rags, beside the shameful poor in threadbare frock-coats, all the waifs and strays of the daily shipwrecks of Paris life, all the laziness and vice, and ill-luck and injustice which the torrent rolls on, and throws off like scum. Some slept on, quite annihilated, with the faces of corpses. Others, lying on their backs with mouths agape, snored loudly as if still venting the plaint of their sorry life. And others tossed restlessly, still struggling in their slumber against fatigue and cold and hunger, which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... character of the two destinations was soon apparent, for whereas man taken in bulk had perhaps made Hell, Hampstead had obviously been made by the upper classes. There were trees and gardens, and instead of dark canals of sky banked by the roofs of houses and hazed with the yellow scum of London lights, the heavens spread out in a wide trembling pool. From that rampart of the town, the Spaniard's Road, two plains lay exposed to left and right; the scent of may-tree blossom had stolen up the hill; the rising moon clung to a fir-tree bough. Over the country ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... by a prairie slew: long grass reaching up out of clear water, mossy bogs, red-winged black-birds, the scum a splash of gold-green. Kennicott smoked a pipe while she leaned back in the buggy and let her tired spirit be absorbed in the Nirvana of ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... several different places by the villains that had that day been improperly freed from their confinement in the town prison. The town itself was full of drunken negroes and the vilest vagabond soldiers, the veriest scum of the entire army being collected in the streets." The very night of the conflagration he spoke of the efforts "to arrest the countless villains of every command that were ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... difference does it make to this scum whar they go? Do yer talkin' aboard, not here. So ye've been ter the Virginia ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... "All the scum of the wilderness gathers here," went on Lannis. "Here's where half the trouble in the North Woods hatches. We'll eat dinner at Clinch's. His stepdaughter is ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers |
