"Niggardly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no attention on the sons you are going to leave that money to?"[12] I would add to this that such fathers act very similarly to a person who should be very careful about his shoe but care nothing about his foot. Many persons also are so niggardly about their children, and indifferent to their interests, that for the sake of a paltry saving, they prefer worthless teachers for their children, practising a vile economy at the expense of their children's ignorance. Apropos of this, Aristippus on one occasion rebuked an empty-headed ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Belgium was crossed, England staked the existence of its great empire upon the issue of the uncertain struggle. It had, as figures go in this war, only a small army. If it had been niggardly in its effort to defend Belgium, and save France in her hour of supreme peril, England might have said, without violating any express obligation arising under the ENTENTE CORDIALE, that in giving its incomparable fleet it had rendered all the service that its political ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... struggle on precisely as heretofore. Scarcely any land had been cleared, so that it was impossible by means of agriculture alone to provide against famine in the winter. Nevertheless, the requisite supplies were furnished by the company's agents in the most niggardly manner. Its neglect became worse and worse, until, in the winter of 1626, there was an actual dearth of provisions at Quebec. In the spring of 1627 De Caen's vessels brought out, as usual, a certain supply of necessaries. But when the summer had passed away, and autumn came, although the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... another bold stroke against the enemy his stingy and niggardly spirit urged him to defend himself against his friends, and before endeavoring to leave he ordered a division of the spoils. Many of the goods taken from the two towns were on board the different vessels ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,—in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,—he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... which he sent out for the defence of his country, and for him fought Olaf divers battles and proved himself to be an able captain, and himself maintained a large host of warriors on the fiefs allotted to him by the King. Of no niggardly disposition, Olaf was ever openhanded to the men that were with him and who for this self-same reason held him in affection; but as oft times happens when men who are not of the country are exalted to power, or are so greatly honoured that they take the lead of the men of the land, ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... what is really a variation upon a single theme. Though the author cunningly avoids this, I think it might justly be observed that he has made Olivia's plunges almost too uniformly successful. But perhaps not; after all, while you are handling fairy-gold, why be niggardly of it? The heroine's introduction to horse-racing comes about through the unconscious agency of her husband, who takes her with him on a visit to Newmarket in search of local colour for a "sporting" novel. The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... a very great pleasure to hear oneself praised, and well praised too, by a person whom one highly esteems, and particularly when, at the same time, this person is commonly niggardly of his praise. Henrik experienced at that moment this feeling in its highest degree; and this pleasure was accompanied by the yet greater pleasure of seeing himself understood, and in such a manner by Stjernhoek as made himself ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the reception of Charles by France, niggardly as that reception was—war with England broke out, and the French army of invasion was moved from Dunkirk to Flanders. The prince, not permitted to serve in the French army, returned to Paris, where he had been falsely assured by Semple and AEneas Macdonald that England was ready to rise ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... natural; it does not come off!" the old lady exclaimed, and a smile crept over her parchment-coloured face. "Not but what a great deal of nonsense is talked about the usage of rouge, my dear children! There is no harm in supplementing the niggardly gifts of nature. You, for instance, Marie-Anne, would look all the better for a little rouge!" She spoke in ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the Geatmen with gracious responses! So ought one to do. Be kind to the Geatmen, 50 In gifts not niggardly; anear and afar now Peace thou enjoyest. Report hath informed me Thou'lt have for a bairn the battle-brave hero. Now is Heorot cleansed, ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... to which I sat down occupied the recess of a bay-window, and commanded a view of the front of the inn, where I continued to be amused by the successive departures of travellers—the fussy and the offhand, the niggardly and the lavish—all exhibiting their different characters in that diagnostic moment of the farewell: some escorted to the stirrup or the chaise door by the chamberlain, the chambermaids, and the waiters almost in a body, others moving off under a cloud, without ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he was usually called, was a man of business of the old school, moderate in his charges, economical and even niggardly in his expenditure, strictly honest in conducting his own affairs and those of his clients, but taught by long experience to be wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. Punctual as the clock of Saint ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... is not any such grotesque or fragmentary immortality that God has given us. The Creator does not administer the universe on so niggardly a plan. Either there is no immortality for us which is intelligible or satisfying, or childhood, youth, manhood, age, and all the other persons who make up an individual, live for ever, and one day will meet and be together in God's eternal ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... bringing liquor near Greeley, and the temperance influence is spreading over a very large area. As the men have no bar-rooms to sit in, I observed that Greeley was asleep at an hour when other places were beginning their revelries. Nature is niggardly, and living is coarse and rough, the merest necessaries of hardy life being all that can be thought of in this stage ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... interest in the wiles he was set on to practise; inch by inch, and bit by bit, Jonas rather allowed the dazzling prospects of the Anglo-Bengalee establishment to escape him, than paraded them before his greedy listener. And in the same niggardly spirit, he left Mr Pecksniff to infer, if he chose (which he DID choose, of course), that a consciousness of not having any great natural gifts of speech and manner himself, rendered him desirous to have the credit ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... requires can be found on level land or moderate slopes, such situations are much better than steep declivities, since on these the cost of all vineyard operations is greater and heavy rains erode the soil. The soil on hills, too, is often scant and niggardly. Level land, however, must not be shut in on all sides by higher land as untimely frost will often lay waste vines ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... you shall not be able to accuse Mazarin of being a niggardly paymaster. Belloc will return in a day or two, and we will have a talk with him. But the night flies. Martin, my trusty friend, I must depart: we will discuss those accounts ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... Life Ray is responsible for the miraculous growth of all life in New Eden. The Life Ray is Nature's most powerful force. Yet Nature is often niggardly and paradoxical in her use of her powers. In New Eden, we have forced the powers of creation to take ascendency over ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... being on the story for some time, he set out with the idea that if he could not charter a boat he would buy one. He felt that the expense would be justified and he was certain the powers that be on his paper would approve such a step; they were not niggardly in ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... Families Association or the Local Representation Committees. It has been said that "the whole system is an outrage on democratic principles. The State sweats its servants and then compels them to take the niggardly wages it allows them from a charitable society[1]." This type of action may pass muster during a time of stress, but whether the spirit of the people will accept it after the war is over and there are the dependants ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... by him, were now—despite the strong opposition of Cranmer, Tunstal, and a few of the bishops— formally subjected to the Council and for the most part abolished. It is to be noted however that of the Church property acquired by the crown in this reign a comparatively respectable though still niggardly proportion was re-appropriated to educational purposes. [Footnote: In most cases, only in the way ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... last (such depressed letters!) you compare your own fate with that of some others with an injustice which God measures, and which I too have knowledge of. Isa, you speak you know not what. Be sure of one thing, however, that God has not been niggardly towards you, and that He never made a creature for which He did not make the work suited to its hand. He never made a creature necessarily useless, nor gave a life which it was not sin on the creature's part to hold ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... come against him to be broken, scattered, and destroyed. His career through Italy had been, in the words of Horace, as the rush of the flames through a forest of pines. But after Cannae the tide turned. His niggardly, short-sighted countrymen denied him the support without which success was impossible. As his veterans were lost to him he had no means of filling their places, while the Romans could put army after army ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... uncle and his son took up the burden. At one time this cousin sent Swift quite a large sum of money, a fact which seemed to change the nature of the wild young spendthrift, who thereafter remained economical; in fact, he became niggardly ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... doubt they are sincere. Shakespeare, the wisest of monitors, is never so eloquent and splendid as when he makes one of his people express praise of another. Look at those speeches in Coriolanus. Such niggardly persons, in their detraction of Henry Irving, are prompt to declare that he is a capital stage manager but not a great actor. This has an impartial air and a sapient sound, but it is gross folly and injustice. Henry Irving is one of the greatest actors that ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... thing about him," remarked Simon Slade, in answering some question that I put in reference to the man, "that I don't object to; he has plenty of money, and is not at all niggardly in spending it. He used to come here, so he told me, about once in five or six months; but his stay at the miserably kept tavern, the only one then in Cedarville, was so uncomfortable, that he had pretty ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... there are women to whom nature has been niggardly in the matter of roundness of form, but even these need not despair; if they cannot show their own busts, they can show something nearly as good, since we read the following, which we forbear to translate:—"Autre excentricite. C'est l'invention des poitrines adherentes ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... roamed, gleaning what joys were to be had in the metallic atmosphere, the stunted copses, the marshy pools spotted with the blue shields of fleur-de-lys. For even here, in the refuse corner of the great city, Nature doled out niggardly gifts of green growth—proofs ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... a great deal in it." The hair was worn neither short nor long. The moustache was rather thick and heavy. The lower jaw, otherwise clean-shaven, was made remarkable by a tuft of hair, too small to be called a goatee, upon the lower lip. The head was of a good size. There was nothing niggardly, nothing abundant about it. The face was pale, the cheeks were rather drawn. In my memory they were rather seamed and old-looking. The eyes were at once smoky and kindling. The mouth, not well seen below the moustache, had a great play of humour on ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... order to narcotize fat consciences; but Fourteenth Street, grimy with old, sparsely-tenanted buildings, where theatrical offices three flights up bargain for the driblets of trade among the low music-halls and the cheapest vaudeville houses, where niggardly, gray-haired agents have for two generations sat among their dusty contracts and their rusty pens, haggling over bread-and-water salaries with the jetsam ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... safe way to get the revenues, as Rambuksh is a bad paymaster. Had he not been so, as well to his own retainer as to the King's officers, the Nazim would not have been able to do this. It is remarked as a singular fact among Rajpoot landholders that Rambuksh wants courage himself, and is too niggardly to induce others to fight for him with spirit. The last Nazim, Hamid Allee, a weak and inexperienced man, dared not venture upon such a measure to ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... Gefuehlsduselei. True it is that shepherds have ample opportunities of sporting with Amaryllis in the shade; opportunities which, to my certain knowledge, they do not neglect. Theocritus knew it well enough. But, in a general way, he is niggardly with the precious commodity of kisses; he seems to have thought that in literature, if not in real life, one can have too much of a good thing. Also, being a southerner, he could not have trusted his young ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... brand to work, a cattleman would tell you. Yet the TJ up-and-down herd never seemed to increase beyond a niggardly three hundred or so, though the Quirt ranch was older than its lordly neighbors, the Sawtooth Cattle Company, who numbered their cattle by tens of thousands and whose riders must have strings of fifteen horses apiece to keep them going; older too ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... sage has been imitated by the learned who have discoursed on this subject since, who are liberal of their negative, and niggardly of their positive precepts—in the ratio, that it is easier to tell you not to do this, than to teach you ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... gives place to the second course. Here are nuts, {and} here are dried figs mixed with wrinkled dates, plums too, and fragrant apples in wide baskets, and grapes gathered from the purple vines. In the middle there is white honey-comb. Above all, there are welcome looks, and no indifferent and niggardly feelings. In the meanwhile, as oft as Baucis and the alarmed Philemon behold the goblet, {when} drunk off, replenish itself of its own accord, and the wine increase of itself, astonished at this singular event, they are frightened, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... their long interview in the New York home, had contained an element of truth. There was a poignant sincerity in her saying, "You do not love me enough," which touched Aleck to the center of his being. He was not niggardly by nature; and had he given stintingly of his affection to this woman who was to him the best? His whole nature shrank from such a role, even while he dimly perceived that he had been guilty of acting it. If he had been small in ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... favour; but I went back to my father and mother, and aunt, and Preston, and others; and comfort found no lodgment with me. Then there was an extract from a Southern paper, calling Yankees "the most contemptible and detestable of God's creation" - speaking of their "mean, niggardly lives - their low, vulgar and sordid occupations" - and I thought, How can peace be? or what will it be when ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... consequences of not listening to what he was saying with reverence, and, surrounded by Indians of various tribes, the good man, mounted on a primitive rostrum seat, dealt liberally in the terrors of the church, while he offered a niggardly allowance of hope even to the best, always excepting himself. For a time the motley crowd seemed disposed to assume a becoming deportment; but when the preacher went into the particulars of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... very easy!—I was in want of money. The Dujarrier furnished me with a little for that affair. She is too niggardly. I ask madame for some. She assumes a haughty tone, and, instead of comprehending that I come as a friend, she threatens to have me put out of doors. ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... who could prolong life by moving to Southern California; there are many who would find life easier there by reason of the climate, and because out-door labor is more agreeable there the year through; many who have to fight the weather and a niggardly soil for existence could there have pretty little homes with less expense of money and labor. It is well that people for whom this is true should know it. It need not influence those who are already well placed to try ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... know something of the fair Mistress Flanagan who was left in very comfortable circumstances by a niggardly husband, who did her the favour to die suddenly one day, to the no small satisfaction of the pleasure-loving widow, who married him in an odd sort of a hurry, and got rid of him as quickly. Mr. Flanagan was engaged in supplying the export provision trade, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the Great Armada should hold command of the Channel. England was the first objective. When its conquest was accomplished that of the rebel provinces would speedily follow. On the other hand Elizabeth, always niggardly, was little disposed in face of the threatened danger to dissipate her resources by any needless expenditure. Leicester therefore found himself at the head of far too small a force to deal any effective blows at the enemy. He succeeded in capturing Doesburg, but failed to take Zutphen. It was in ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... in. Behind him, a couple of juniors and the office boy supplied reenforcements. They all had the settled conviction that their employer was a rogue, but he paid them in no niggardly fashion, and they would not suffer anyone to ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... differently from young men, La Portillone settled down to a virtuous life directly she had her thousand crowns. Even a Duke, who would have counted out five hundred crowns, would have found this girl rebellious, which proves she was niggardly with her property. It is true that the king caused her to be sent for to his retreat of Rue Quinquangrogne, on the mall of Chardonneret, found her extremely pretty, exceedingly affectionate, enjoyed her society, and forbade ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... one could be a match for him in prowess or in knowledge; and the lord thinks that the courtier is telling the truth. He who believes another anent some quality which he does not possess knows himself ill; for even if he is faithless and stubborn, base and as cowardly as a hare, niggardly and foolish and malformed, worthless in deeds and in words, yet many a man who mocks at him behind his back, extols and praises him to his face; thus then the courtier praises him in his hearing when he speaks of him to another; and yet he pretends that the lord does not hear what they are speaking ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... the Starving Time had begun. When their stores were gone the settlers tried to get more in the old way from the natives. But they, seeing the miserable plight of the Pale-faces, became insolent in their demands, and in return for niggardly supplies of food exacted guns ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... received with a most gracious smile by a pretty woman, fair-faced and arch, with a piquant nose and a laughing blue eye, who sat at the door of the room. It was a long and rather narrow apartment; at the end, a stage of rough planks, before a kind of curtain, the whole rudely but not niggardly lighted. Unfortunately for the Baroni family, Sidonia found himself the only first-class spectator. There was a tolerable sprinkling of those who paid half a franc for their amusement. These were separated from the first row, which Sidonia alone was to occupy; in the extreme distance ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... owed much to Dr. Young—a debt which the poet acknowledged, as we have already seen, in no niggardly way. Amongst Milton's Latin letters is the following, which has been translated by Professor Masson thus: 'Although I had resolved with myself, most excellent preceptor, to send you a certain small epistle composed in metrical numbers, yet I did not consider that I had done enough unless ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... and you desire that this sum shall be taken from the money set apart for the maintenance of the army and the assistance of famished and suffering villages and towns. I acknowledge that the court of his sainted majesty was somewhat niggardly, and that you, sire, may justly find some changes necessary. If, however, it is determined to use for this purpose the funds set apart for other important objects, then must your majesty impose new and heavy taxes upon your subjects, or ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... fact was, that in the city she had carried on a protracted romance with a certain notary—an elderly man, sufficiently rich, but exceedingly niggardly. Their acquaintance had been scraped up yet a year back, when they had been by chance travelling together on the same steamer to a suburban monastery, and had begun a conversation. The clever, handsome Tamara; her enigmatic, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... said she. "Your fishing has sped to a wish. And now let us choose for the king the fairest of all your fish. For fear inhabits the palace and grudging grows in the land, Marked is the sluggardly foot and marked the niggardly hand, The hours and the miles are counted, the tributes numbered and weighed, And woe to him that comes short, and ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... monastery where they were received) for more than two months, and here they were rejoined by Pao-yun and his friends.(11) (At the end of that time) the people of Woo-e neglected the duties of propriety and righteousness, and treated the strangers in so niggardly a manner that Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, and Hwuy-wei went back towards Kao-ch'ang,(12) hoping to obtain there the means of continuing their journey. Fa-hien and the rest, however, through the liberality of Foo Kung-sun, managed to go straight forward in a south-west direction. ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... honours, some in feasts, and some—voici un exemple—in furniture. So true it is, Pelham, that our earliest longings are the purest: in love, we covet goods for the sake of the one beloved; in display, for our own: thus, our first stratum of mind produces fruit for others; our second becomes niggardly, and bears only sufficient for ourselves. But enough of my morals—will you drive me out, if I dress quicker than you ever saw ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... company. The preparations for the banquet were on a heroic scale: twelve sheep, eight fat swine, and two oxen, the choicest of the herd, were slaughtered, and a goodly row of casks, filled with the finest vintages, gave further token that Alcinous was no niggardly host. ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... The analysis of these interacting forces and of their various combinations requires careful investigation. Let us consider the interplay of the forces of land and sea apparent in every country with a maritime location. In some cases a small, infertile, niggardly country conspires with a beckoning sea to drive its sons out upon the deep; in others a wide territory with a generous soil keeps its well-fed children at home and silences the call of the sea. In ancient Phoenicia ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... path to happiness easy and safe to all such as fear Allah, and give alms, and believe the truth proclaimed by Allah's messenger. But we will make easy the path to distress and misery for all such as are niggardly, are bent on making riches, and deny the truth when it is proclaimed to them. When these last fall headlong into Hell, their wealth will avail them nothing. In the burning furnace they ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... at the neck gathered to a frill, which is enclosed by a torque, or gold necklet. Over this hangs a garment, which falls gracefully down in front, and is crossed at the breast over the left arm. The jewellery of the widow is of no common description, nor niggardly bestowed. Upon the breast, below the torque, is a rose-shaped ornament or brooch, and beneath that a couple of fibulae; two more of a similar pattern fasten the upper garment near the right shoulder, and upon the left arm, ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... volition; that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favour of any inclination, nay even of the sum total of all inclinations. Even if it should happen that, owing to special disfavour of fortune, or the niggardly provision of a step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing, and there should remain only the good will (not, to be sure, a mere wish, but ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... first one jug, and syne another, till Peter was growing tongue-tied, and as red in the face as a bubbly-jock; and, to speak the truth, my own een began to reel with the merligoes. In a jiffy, both of us found our hearts waxing so brave as to kick and spur at all niggardly hesitation; and we leuch and thumped on the good-man of the inn-house's mahogany table, as if it had been warranted never to break. In fact, we were as furious and obstrapulous as two unchristened ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... Jacopo? To me, they have ever seemed more prone to vent their seditious discontent. But 'tis the nature of man to be niggardly of praise and lavish of censure. This decree of the tribunal must not be suffered to die, with the mere justice of the case. Our friends should dwell on it, openly, in the cafes, and at the Lido. They will have no cause to fear, should they give their tongues a little latitude. A just government ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of the boys' fortunes being at stake was not a matter of idle words. Jack, Hal and Eph well understood that, if they came out successful, they would also be at least moderately well off. Messrs. Farnum and Pollard were not of the kind to be niggardly in ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... from the Army of the Potomac, descriptive of the attack on Fort Steadman, March 25th. On the 26th he saw again the sparkling-eyed Sheridan. Once more he began to use his whip of scorpions upon the editors and people who were bestowing all praises upon the Army of the West, with only criticism or niggardly commendation for the Armies of the Potomac and the James, with many a sneer and odious comparison. He witnessed the tremendous attack of the rebel host upon the Ninth Corps, hearing first the signal gun, next the rebel yell, then the rattling fire of musketry ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... intention, even were it in my power, which it is not, to attempt an exact and complete description of all the productions of the group of islands composing the Philippines, to which nature has with no niggardly hand dispensed great territorial and maritime wealth. And as the limits of this work prevent much expansion, I will confine the following observations to an outline of the principal articles produced in the country, beginning ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... also, that the remains of a ruined priory were at hand. We had often laughed since at the eagerness and delight with which we hurried off to look at these venerable objects. It was soon decided, however, that it was a pleasure too exquisite to be niggardly enjoyed alone, and the carriage was sent back with orders to bring ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... effort and emotion had tired him, but presently resumed: "I wouldn't use your money, but this wasn't altogether because I was too proud to let you help. I wanted to keep you safe; farming's a risky business, and I couldn't play a niggardly, cautious game. There was the land, waiting to be worked; I couldn't spare labor or money. But since both might be lost, I was afraid to use your ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... social commerce called "an apology!" If the chemists were half so careful in vending their poisons, there would be a notable diminution in the yearly average of victims to arsenic and oxalic acid. But, alas, in the matter of apology, it is not from the excess of the dose, but the timid, niggardly, miserly manner in which it is dispensed, that poor humanity is hurried off to the Styx! How many times does a life depend on the exact proportions of an apology! Is it a hairbreadth too short to cover the scratch for ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... boot decided him. Atheism, bald, bold, niggardly, brutal, pretending withal, Khalid turns from its door never to look again in that direction, Shakib is right. "These people," he growled, "are not free thinkers, but free stinkards. They do need soap to ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... "It is indeed my own fault, but you shall be safe. That niggardly wretch, Arthapati, is known to be intimate with me. I will say that I received it from him; and, as he is already suspected of stealing it, I ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... boundary a mountain called Telleno, the loftiest of a chain of hills which have their origin near the mouth of the river Minho, and are connected with the immense range which constitutes the frontier of the Asturias and Guipuscoa. The land is ungrateful and barren, and niggardly repays the toil of the cultivator, being for the most part rocky, with a slight sprinkling of a red bricky earth. The Maragatos are perhaps the most singular caste to be found amongst the chequered population of Spain. They have their own ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... have two hearts" (dhu'kulbein) signifies to be prudent, wise. Karun is the Arabic Croesus. "Thy hand is tied up" is equivalent to calling a man niggardly.] ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... calumniating, niggardly bigot in Le Mariage de Figaro, and again in Le Barbier de Seville, both by Beaumarchais. Basile and Tartuffe are the two French incarnations of religious hypocrisy. The former is the clerical humbug, and the latter the lay religious ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... pleasant, for the world likes cheerful Mr. Barnum's success; New Haven, girt with flat marshes that look like monstrous billiard-tables, with haycocks lying about for balls,—romantic with West Rock and its legends,—cursed with a detestable depot, whose niggardly arrangements crowd the track so murderously close to the wall that the peine forte et dure must be the frequent penalty of an innocent walk on its platform,—with its neat carriages, metropolitan hotels, precious old college-dormitories, its vistas of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... niggardly or ungenerous in meting out to struggling fellow-beings their share, and perchance a little more than their share of approbation and applause, poor enough return, after all, for the pleasure their labors have procured us. What adequate compensation can we ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... now spending most of her life in the past—that sad past, which had been very niggardly of joy for her; but she was so used to suffering that she was still grateful for the least tenderness shown to her, and the pale lights which had shone here and there in the drab days of her life, were still enough to make them bright. All the evil that Melchior had done her was forgotten; ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... finger..." suggests Wellgunde, and, unable to restrain their eagerness, the three cry out in a voice: "Give us that!" He considers the Ring a moment. "A gigantic dragon I slew for the ring, and I am to part with it in exchange for the paws of a worthless bear?" "Are you so niggardly?... So higgling at a bargain?... You should be generous to ladies!..." they shame him one after the other. With perfect good humour, he offers as a better objection: "Were I to waste my property on you, my wife, I suspect, would find fault." "She is a shrew, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... to make it a heaven. As a home-maker man has the ruggeder part. It is his to provide. The man who falls short of this in the home does not do his part. No woman can respect a man much less love him, who places her, her work, her life, her home, her world under constant embarrassment by a scant and niggardly provision. She loses her ambition, ceases to make her self and her home attractive; disorder, filth, unwholesome food, lack of spirit on her part is the result. She can not be to him, most of all, ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... as he witnessed the misery and abasement of the glorious creature on whom he had brought such sorrow, if not shame. The remorse that a strong will and hard heart had stifled so long found voice at last in three muttered words—"God forgive me!" A very niggardly and inadequate expression of contrition—was it not?—conceded to a life whose sins outnumbered its years. Yet the slight thread of hope drawn therefrom has been able since to hold back Cecil Tresilyan from the abyss of utter desperation. She forbore to press him farther then, seeing ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... this period that Mr. Masaki was brought into personal contact with Yoshida; and hence, through the eyes of a boy of thirteen, we get one good look at the character and habits of the hero. He was ugly and laughably disfigured with the small-pox; and while nature had been so niggardly with him from the first, his personal habits were even sluttish. His clothes were wretched; when he ate or washed he wiped his hands upon his sleeves; and as his hair was not tied more than once in the two months ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the Indies, and the other was stout old Juan de la Cosa. These two men made a very efficient combination at the Spanish court, especially as La Cosa had some money and was quite willing to put it up, a prime requisite for the mercenary and niggardly Ferdinand's favor. ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... of representation in art; but with the growth of sympathy the range of tragic portrayal has gradually been extended over almost the whole of human life. The peasant in his struggle for subsistence against a niggardly soil, or the patient woman who loses the bloom of her youth in the unremitting effort to maintain ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... big, and thought it unnecessary and besides no small labor to build him a house portionable to that bulk and bigness. And do you not observe, O Chersias, continues he, many poor men,—how one while they pinch their bellies, upon what short commons they live, how sparing and niggardly and miserable they are; and another while you may observe the same men as distrustful and covetous withal, as if the plenty of the city and county, the riches of king and kingdom were not sufficient to preserve ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... sake of reconciling their sense of religious duty with their affections for their country, few, perhaps none of them, formed a conception of what would be, within two centuries, the result of their undertaking. When the jealous and niggardly policy of their British sovereign denied them even that humblest of requests, and instead of liberty would barely consent to promise connivance, neither he nor they might be aware that they were ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams
... across France as best they could. Another party, about one hundred strong, was, however, subsequently sent out of the capital with the assistance of Mr. Washburne, and in their case Colonel Walker had to expend some money. But every grant was a very niggardly one, and it would not surprise me to learn that the bulk of the money voted by Parliament was ultimately returned to the Treasury—which circumstance would probably account for the "full approval" which the Government ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... wonderful, how she acquires all this. Her husband's ruin'd, my dissipated lord, Most lavishly, I hear, supplies her wants; Whilst even for domestic calls his purse Is niggardly unclos'd; and what he spares, Must be in strictest mode accounted for: Nor does he know a pleasure, absent from her. To keep this sum then, were but fair ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... other directions,—but examine and compare them with our own, and Honorable Members will be rather ashamed at the contrasts between the wise and lavish generosity of countries much poorer than ours and the short-sighted and niggardly parsimony with which we dole out small sums of money for the encouragement ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... to your country; for the business you have undertaken is of so complex a nature, and must engross so much of your time and attention, as necessarily to injure your private interests; and the public is often niggardly even of its thanks, while you are sure of being censured by malevolent critics and bug-writers, who will abuse you while you are serving them, and wound your character in nameless pamphlets; thereby resembling those little dirty insects, that attack us only in the dark, disturb our repose, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... but their native patois. Up to this period their schoolmasters, paid at the rate of twenty-five francs a year, had been peasants like themselves. Their only time for study was such of the year as was not needed for the tilling of the niggardly soil or spent in the care of the flocks. And even the little they were able to learn was easily lost on account of the scarcity of books. Neff first addressed himself to learning the patois, and then, as he went from village ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... as a composer, failed as a playwright, failed as a singer, failed as an actor. He had been forced to take up the profession of putting on dramatic and musical plays, a profession that required vast knowledge and high talents and paid for them in niggardly fashion both in money and in fame. Crossley owed to him more than to any other single element the series of successes that had made him rich; yet the ten thousand a year Crossley paid him was regarded as evidence of Crossley's ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... being led astray by a too servile adherence to any system. It exposes the folly of the "social contract," and of the idyllic dreams of the advantages of savage life. It shows that nature, instead of being prodigal of her treasures, distributes them with a niggardly hand, and that it is necessary to conquer her by labor, intelligence and patience before we ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... but was very shabbily treated by the Government, who only awarded him a miserably small pension, a niggardly act which aroused ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... permitted him the use only of bread and wine. Condemned by many as a renegade, he had no desire for places of honour, but only to see his merits acknowledged, and existence assured to him. He was simple without being niggardly; he desired to be ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... sold his war-horse beforehand, because he did not hold himself entitled to charge the state with the expenses of its transport. There is no question that the Roman governors—although certainly but few of them pushed their conscientiousness, like Cato, to the verge of being niggardly and ridiculous—made in many cases a powerful impression on the subjects, more especially on the frivolous and unstable Greeks, by their old- fashioned piety, by the reverential stillness prevailing at their repasts, by their comparatively upright administration ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... studied jurisprudence, and the functions of a country postman are not given to a paralytic. Society should model itself on nature, whose plan is specialisation. "For," as Aristotle says, "she is not niggardly, like the Delphian smiths whose knives have to serve for many purposes, she makes each thing for a single purpose, and the best instrument is that which serves one and not many uses." Elsewhere he says, "At Carthage it is thought ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... "What," quoth he, "shall the house of the brave Lord Boteler, or such a brave day as this, be without a fool? Certes, the good Lord St. Clere and his fair lady sister might think our housekeeping as niggardly as that of their churlish kinsman at Gay Bowers, who sent his father's jester to the hospital, sold the poor sot's bells for hawk-jesses, and made a nightcap of his long-eared bonnet. And, sirrah, let me see thee ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... is by no means a niggardly man; still, he would like to have his treasure transported at a rate not exorbitant. And yet he is anxious about its safety; and for this reason has resolved to ship it with secrecy in a private trading-vessel, instead ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... lies the crown of England. [Now the left coat-pocket.] Here the crown of Scotland—and here, in my waistcoat pocket, is Ireland. What shall I take from herein exchange? [He looks about.] Is the gilding real? It looks deuced niggardly and close-fisted. There's space enough in these great halls, but I'll wager there are many mice here. It's as quiet as an English Sunday. [Rises.] There's ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... niggardly instincts, Jimmy Knight, as the evening progressed, assumed the burden of entertainment. He, too, adopted a spendthrift gaiety and encouraged Wharton's libations, although he ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... and quadruple teams of human flesh as they pulled him from room to room, and his was no make-belief ferocity, either. He was a niggardly rake, but in order to indulge his Sadist tendencies, agreed to pay one Thaler (Seventy-five cents) for every drop of blood shed ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... own will and genius, civilization must run along natural courses even though its products are artificial. In many instances nature appears bountiful and kind to man, but again she appears mean and niggardly. It is man's province to take advantage of her bounty and by toil and invention force her to yield her coveted treasures. Yet the final outcome of it all is determined by the extent to which ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... thinking of Anneke—and he passed through the outer room without once raising his eyes from the floor. He left Mother Doortje, as much depressed in spirits, as Jason had left her elated; the one looking forward to the future with a selfish and niggardly hope, while the other regarded it with a feeling as forlorn as the destruction of all his youthful fancies could render any view of his after-life. The reader may feel disposed to smile at the idea of Dirck Van ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... said to reach 25,000l. This sum is forwarded to the colonial chest, instead of being expended in local improvements; and, practically, when some petty war-storm breaks it is wasted like water. The local officials are not to be blamed for this miserable system, this niggardly colonial policy of the modern economical school, which contrasts so poorly with the lavish republican expenditure in French Senegambia. They have, to their honour be it said, often protested against the taxes raised from struggling ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... freedom from pain, which, even if it be a freedom from evil, is nevertheless not the chief good, make use of an addition which is not very easily recommended to men in general, and yet I do not understand why they do it in such a niggardly and restricted manner: for, as if they had to bring something to add to virtue, first of all they add things of the least possible value; afterwards they add things one by one, instead of uniting everything which nature had approved of as the highest goods, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... generation, however, reverence for Shakespeare had increased to an intensity that made Johnson's admiration seem feeble and niggardly. This transformation was due to many causes, but in the main it was a part of the vast changes in European literature known as the Romantic movement. This resulted in a rejection of the rules and models of neo-classicism, a new interest in the literature and manners of the Middle ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... carousal they returned to Charlesfort, where they were soon pinched with hunger. The Indians, never niggardly of food, brought them supplies as long as their own lasted; but the harvest was not yet ripe, and their means did not match their good-will. They told the French of two other kings, Ouade and Couexis, who dwelt towards the south, and were rich beyond belief in maize, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... This custom had originated many centuries in the past. In those early days, when a penurious character became an incumbent of public office, the social obligations belonging to it were often but niggardly requited. Sometimes business embarrassments and real necessity demanded economy; so, at last, the Government assumed all the expenses contingent upon every office, from the highest to the lowest. By this means ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... provided each of their antennae with thirty-seven thousand eight hundred olfactory cavities, while the worker has only five thousand in both. There we have an instance of the almost universal disproportion that exists between the gifts she rains upon love and her niggardly doles to labour; between the favours she accords to what shall, in an ecstasy, create new life, and the indifference wherewith she regards what will patiently have to maintain itself by toil. Whoever would seek faithfully to depict the character of nature, in accordance with the traits ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... very dirty rogue, and a niggardly:—I hate a mean rascal. Well, fearing her second escape from that prison, and being hand in glove with the Parliament men, he gets her on board a sloop bound for the Virginias, just at the time when he knows the Earl of Stamford is to march and crush the ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... after this calculation master and man were hauling stones for a new stove. On the homeward way they stopped at an inn, for they had a long and hilly road. Since the master was not so niggardly as to order the poorest wine when the servant was with him, and only a halfpence worth of bread for the two, Uli became talkative as they proceeded. "Listen, master," said Uli, "I have been thinking that the pastor who gave you your instruction wasn't altogether ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... la grande dame, rose without apparent embarrassment to meet the gentleman who entered, though I knew she could not help but feel keenly the niggardly appearance of the board she left with such grace. The stranger—he was certainly a stranger; this I could see by the formality of her manner—was a gentleman of urbane bearing and a general ...
— The Gray Madam - 1899 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... to keep the buildings from tumbling into ruin. The shutters were always closed, as though the mansion were in a state of chronic mourning for a race of proprietors now become extinct, except that now and then, in summer-time, a niggardly amount of fresh air and sunshine was allowed to find its way into the ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... the old governante, Kamalia, having counted us on her four skinny fingers, proceeded to fulfil that sacred rite, never omitted in the east, of presenting refreshments; without the heartless and niggardly-ceremony of appealing to the guests, as is wont in Europe, to learn whether they will take them or not, looking on those who receive them with an evil eye. I followed Kamalia to know how the genuine oriental coffee is made. Good mussulmans can alone make good coffee; for, being interdicted from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... my honour, Sim Summer, thou art a bad member, a dunce, a mongrel, to discredit so worshipful an art after this order. Thou hast cursed me, and I will bless thee. Never cap of Nipitaty[94] in London come near thy niggardly habitation! I beseech the gods of good fellowship thou may'st fall into a consumption with drinking small beer! Every day may'st thou eat fish, and let it stick in the midst of thy maw, for want of a cup of wine to swim away in. Venison be venenum to thee: and may that vintner have ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... existence in their father's eyes, as beauty might have helped them to good matches which would have rid him of them. But 'twas the sad ill fortune of the children Anne and Barbara to have been treated by Nature in a way but niggardly. They were pale young misses, with insignificant faces and snub noses, resembling an aunt who died a spinster, as they themselves seemed most likely to. Sir Jeoffry could not bear the sight of them, and they fled at the sound of his footsteps, if it so happened ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... needless to multiply examples; the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we came to Apemama, of so many white men who have scrambled for a place in that rich market, one remained—a silent, sober, solitary, niggardly recluse, of whom the king remarks, "I think ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to hear her say so; for it showed a commendable anxiety to execute in no niggardly spirit the intentions of Master Richard Watts. But the room was really so well adapted to its purpose that I protested, quite enthusiastically, ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... the worth of the husband you selected for your mother's child, and doubtless you had your own private reasons for sacrificing her to such a man. His worthlessness, too, furnishes an excuse for your niggardly allowance to me. The very dresses I wear are the price of dishonor. I often feel ashamed of the part I play toward your wife, Ottario, and I know not but some day I may throw myself at her feet and acknowledge ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... another.[46] For the very chiefest[47] part of the character of the edifice of pleasure is, and must be, its perfect ease, its appearance of felicitous repose. This it can never have where the nature and expression of the land near it reminds us of the necessity of labor, and where the earth is niggardly of all that constitutes its beauty and our pleasure; this it can only have where the presence of man seems the natural consequence of an ample provision for his enjoyment, not the continuous struggle of suffering existence with a rude heaven ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... since we are obliged by the law of holy charity to communicate to our neighbour the representation of our mind, imparting to him without dissimulation or jealousy what we have learnt concerning the science of salvation, so we ought to be still less niggardly in pleasing our friends by placing before their eyes the picture of our outward self which they so ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... ago, so we came at once. I'll forestall the further inquiry I see on your lips, and tell you why I came so promptly. My brother Robert was the wealthy member of the family, and I was the poor one—a poor devil of an Anglo-Indian with nothing on this side of the grave but a niggardly Civil Service pension! ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... own, thirty-five years ago, I find that expense has increased from year to year, until now it requires about $550 to $600 annually to cover tuition, room-rent, board, and common running expenses. A boy might squeeze through for $400 a year, but he would have to pinch and be niggardly, if not mean. The $550 or $600 would not cover vacation expenses and society dues, therefore the larger sum ought to be reckoned as the cost annually for a Harvard undergraduate at the present time. And upon inquiry, I find that about the same amount ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... expenses of that poor waif you were so interested in! My dear child, you are as niggardly with your philanthropies as you are with your favours. Why not be generous with me? And, by the way, can you tell me just why that young fellow appealed to you so? I daresay other 'unknowns' drift into ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... getting his cousin Roderick to take charge. The Northwest Fur Company, which had succeeded the French fur traders of Quebec and Montreal when Canada passed from the hands of the French to the English, wouldn't assume any cost or risk for exploring unknown seas. This was more niggardly than the Hudson's Bay Company, which had paid all cost of outlay for its explorers; but Mackenzie assumed risk and cost himself. Then the Indians hesitated to act as guides; so Mackenzie hired guides when he could, seized them by compulsion when he couldn't hire them, and went ahead without guides ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... received, and the kind intentions of his father fully explained. A living, of which Mr. Morland was himself patron and incumbent, of about four hundred pounds yearly value, was to be resigned to his son as soon as he should be old enough to take it; no trifling deduction from the family income, no niggardly assignment to one of ten children. An estate of at least equal value, moreover, was assured as his ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... "That, of course, is to trunch with. One truncheon, though, seems rather niggardly. I should prefer two, one in each hand. 'One note-book'—is that for autographs and original ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... the arrival of the travellers in his capital, had been very niggardly in his presents, as coming from a monarch of a large and mighty kingdom. Nor in other respects was the conduct of Mansolah, such as to impart to them much pleasure, nor could they in any wise account ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... grounds were laid out in part by Capability Brown, and seemed to me even more beautiful than those of Blenheim. Mason the poet, a friend of the house, gave the design of a portion of the garden. Of the whole place I will not be niggardly of my rude Transatlantic praise, but be bold to say that it appeared to me as perfect as anything earthly can he,—utterly and entirely finished, as if the years and generations had done all that the hearts and minds ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... difficulties were those which we have seen already, want of powder and want of arms, but to them was added the great fear of a lack of men. As to powder, its supply still fluctuated, small quantities coming in irregularly, and being steadily used in equally niggardly amounts, or slowly spoiling in the soldiers' pouches. Muskets were still scanty, and Washington saw no hope except in buying those of his soldiers whose terms were about to expire, or in sending agents through the neighboring towns to secure what they could find. There was ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... and he repaired and restored much about the place. But even in this he was erratic. He would have masons in to renew the crumbling plaster and brickwork in the cellars, while the drawing-room furniture could go ragged and forlorn. He spent his money freely for anything he wanted himself, but was niggardly toward mother and myself. However, he always told us that at his death we should inherit his wealth. The estate, also, he willed to mother. He lived with us for about five years, and then was killed by a fall from his horse. I was a girl of fifteen then, and when he ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... What are inherited titles and ancient names many times since dishonored, compared with the heritage of uncomplaining suffering and heroism which we boast of to-day because those modest martyrs were working people, proud that by the sweat of their brows they wrung from a niggardly soil the food they ate, proud also that they could leave the plough to govern or to legislate, able also to survey a ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... a man. But the other constituent parts of the school have serious commercial interests at stake. For the masters the school is the means of livelihood, and the livelihood afforded them is in many cases so niggardly that they very rightly consider that the smallest financial mishap to the school might plunge them below the line of bare subsistence. From a slightly different angle, the eyes of the higher officials and the ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... to me! So then, I have made no will—I did not desire to do so—and then I knew what you were; you have a good heart; you are not niggardly, not too near, in any way; I said to myself that when my end approached I would tell you all about it, and that I would beg of you not to forget the girl. And then listen again! When I am gone, make your way to the place at ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant |
