"Scant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... artifice consisted in finally taking advantage of my excess of virtue. After a few weeks of self-torture, over-fatigue, scant food, little sleep and insufficient clothing, I naturally fell ill, and the kind Tenders family would not hear of it that I should be tended elsewhere than ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... and shot up high and rugged against the sky. The trail was harder, steeper, narrower where it wound along the edges of the many ravines. Again and again the ground was so flinty that it held no sign to show whether shod horse had passed over it or not. But he told himself that there was scant likelihood of her having turned out here; there was but the one trail now. And then, suddenly when he came down into another little valley through which a small drying stream wandered, he came upon the tracks he had been ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... talking about, Christina Binnie? There is nothing but scant and want in them foreign countries. Oh! my lass, he will come home, and be glad to come home; and you will have the hank in your own hand. See that you ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... though it might have been wiser had we kept to our original purpose. For some time we made fine weather of it, but getting into another channel, we found the wind first scant, and then directly against us. We had consequently no choice but to attempt to beat up to the station. This delayed us much beyond the time we expected to get there. We of course kept a bright look-out for the schooner, lest she should pass us; but evening was closing in apace, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... gentleman, still laying on his blows, "I have scant mercy for a great strong boy who amuses himself by frightening women ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... of almost every source of intimate knowledge of the boy, who was a mature man at twenty-two, has left the record of the early period curiously scant. Fortunately, there are in his letters and speeches some casual allusions to his childhood and youth, and a few facts and anecdotes of the period from members of his family, from school, college, and early newspaper associates. In 1888, the story begins to gather ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Murillo was more than ever inspired to go abroad to Rome or to Flanders. He at once set about earning a little money to assist him in the journey. Again he painted a great number of saints and bright landscapes on small squares of linen, and sold them to eager customers. Thus he provided himself with scant means for the journey. He placed his sister in the care of a relative, and then started off afoot across the Sierras to Madrid, without having told anyone of his intentions. His little stock of money was soon exhausted, and he arrived in Madrid exhausted and desperately lonesome. He at once searched ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... sixty leagues to the eastwards of Cape Casinas or Honduras. This was occasioned by opposing currents and contrary winds, so that we had continually to tack out to sea and stand in again, sometimes gaining, and sometimes losing ground, according as the wind happened to be scant or large when we put about. And had not the coast afforded such good anchoring we had been much longer upon it; but being free from shoals or rocks, and having always two fathoms of water at half a league from the shore, and two more at every league farther distant, we had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... I've had scant time for introspection during the last five days, for Struthers has been in bed with lumbago, and the weight of the housework reverted to me. But Whinstane Sandy brought his precious bottle of Universal Ointment in from the bunk-house, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... remaining for the return match; and this, as Loring pointed out with just indignation, would only put them even. They knew that Wyatt would have at least twice that much with him. So they scurried forth and made such good use of the scant time left them, by borrowing, by squeezing both Bickford and the hard-working bookkeeper, and by resource to certain nest-eggs laid by for case of extreme urgency (known among themselves as "fix money"), they scraped together some six thousand more. The "ripping" ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... for a few minutes that I may have my coffee. Being the last man, I get a bo'sun's share of the grounds. To my protests the cook gives scant heed. ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... quarter of a mile. It is separated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie[4] stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Pere Michaud had scant patience with these notions of the little son's, and once, when Felix had ventured to speak to him about it, had insisted rather sharply that he was to stick to his sheep-tending, so that when the Pere himself grew old he could take ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... of Covenanting is itself a lofty spiritual exercise, and requires a people possessing much of the Spirit of the living God. Every public act for the sake of Christ should be the outcome of an impassioned devotion. The reading of even the scant records of those times of Covenanting, telling of the prayers, and tears, and love, and courage of those who gave themselves to God, is fitted to inspire the coldest heart with noblest emotions. Their inward piety made them men of power, and enabled them to bear down ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... the Tartarines, zif thei fleen in bataylle. For in fleynge, thei schooten behynden hem, and sleen bothe men and hors. And whan thei wil fighte, thei wille schokken hem to gidre in a plomp; that zif there be 20000 men, men schalle not wenen, that there be scant 10000. And thei cone wel wynnen lond of straungeres, but thei cone not kepen it. For thei han grettre lust to lye in tentes with outen, than for to lye in castelle or in townes. And thei preysen no thing the wytt of other naciouns. And amonges hem, oyle of olyve is fulle ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... bow five feet long, one and a quarter inches broad in the middle, three-fourths of an inch thick at the centre, and a half-inch scant at the ends ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... is to say clere, darke plentuous or scant, whiche is to understande quadri-partite, cest a dire clere, obscure habondante et rare, qui ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous
... Thus the region became subdivided among small holders, each independent, but all mutually dependent as to water, which is the sine qua non of existence. It is only a few years since there was a forlorn and struggling colony a few miles east of Los Angeles known as the Indiana settlement. It had scant water, no railway communication, and everything to learn about horticulture. That spot is now ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... said Jarette, fiercely; and in a slow surly way first one and then the other was dragged to the hatchway and lowered down, with scant attention to any ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... compared their successes in pickling and preserving, and discussed the high prices of dry goods and the newer scant skirts that would take so much less cloth and the improvement in home-made goods. Carpets of the higher grades were beginning to be ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Yang-tsz River, or, as some say, as far as some place on the River Han, where he was murdered; in 656 the First Protector raked up this affair against Ts'u, whose capital was very near King-thou Fu, above Hankow. Finally, scant though Sz-ma Ts'ien's two references to this affair may be, they at least agree with each other, i.e. the Emperor did actually go to Tartar regions, and a revolt of non-Chinese tribes did actually break out ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... miles of almost barren rock with outlying uncharted ledges,—worn smooth by ice, else still more vessels would have found wreckage there; a scant, constant population of hardy fishermen and their families, pious and God-fearing, most of them, but largely at the mercy of the local traders, who took their pay in fish for the bare necessities of living, ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... Nature, so Darling started out in search of a climate. He mounted a bicycle and headed south for the sunlands. Stanford University claimed him for a year. Here he studied and worked his way, attending lectures in as scant garb as the authorities would allow and applying as much as possible the principles of living that he had learned in squirrel-town. His favourite method of study was to go off in the hills back of the University, and there to strip off his clothes ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... the Court has made me the object of much false admiration, and much real satire. Many men who owed to me their elevation or their success have defamed me; many women have belittled my position after vain efforts to secure the King's regard. In what I now write, scant notice will be taken of all such ingratitude. Before my establishment at Court I had met with hypocrisy of this sort in the world; and a man must, indeed, be reckless of expense who daily entertains at his board a score ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... until the 22d that they reached the Nez Perce village and joined Captain Clark. Then they, too, almost to a man, suffered severe illness, caused by the unwonted abundance of food. From the high altitudes and the scant diet of horseflesh to the lower levels of the valley and a plentiful diet of fish and camass-root was too ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... future in the real world promised to be of a fine and highly ordered kind. Cardillac wished eagerly that these things might yet be his, but if he were to be beaten, then, of all men in the world, let it be by Dune. In his own scant, cynical estimate of his fellow-beings Dune alone demanded a ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... land breeze was blowing, and the ship had been worked through the harbor's mouth under scant sail, but now that they had cleared the point every available shred of canvas was being spread that she might stand out to sea ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and descended to ask us questions of our voyage and fortunes, and in the end concluded that we might do well to think with ourselves, what time of stay we would demand of the state, and bade us not to scant ourselves; for he would procure such time as we desired. Whereupon we all rose up and presented ourselves to kiss the skirt of his tippet, but he would not suffer us, and so took his leave. But when it came once amongst our people, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... Gus Trenor seemed surprised, and not wholly unrelieved, to see her. She yielded up the reins of the light runabout in which she had driven over, and as he climbed heavily to her side, crushing her into a scant third of the seat, he said: "Halloo! It isn't often you honour me. You must have been uncommonly hard ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... to pick up a shell or pebble that gleamed at the water's edge from a long way off. She escaped a wetting from the surf by a scant margin, and laughed delightedly at the chance she took. Back against the foot of the bluff certain brilliant flowers grew—fall blossoms that equaled any in Prudence Ball's garden—and the girl gathered these and arranged ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... narrations of his own adventurous voyages and battles. And only dimly could Cornelia realize that the gems she wore in her hair, her silken dress, nay, almost everything she touched, had come from earlier owners with scant process ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... slay them all! and wherefore? For the gain Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, Scratched up at random by industrious feet Searching for worm or weevil after rain, Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet As are the songs these uninvited ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... the desert trail. Heat waves played on the sand. Vegetation grew scant except for patches of cholla and mesquite, a sand-cherry bush here and there, occasionally a clump ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... subject of the king, but he was more; he owed allegiance to the Church, and claimed the Church's protection also. Accordingly, whenever a cleric got into trouble, and there was only too good cause to believe that if he were brought to his trial he would have a short shrift and no favour, scant justice and the inevitable gallows within twenty-four hours at the longest, he proclaimed himself a cleric, and demanded the protection of the Church, and was forthwith handed over to the custody of the ordinary ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... swinging from the room with scant ceremony, loudly ordering from his path the loiterers at the inn door. They whose company he had quitted were silent for a moment; then said Sir Mortimer, slowly: "I remember now—there was a Thomas Baldry, master of the Speedwell. Well, it was ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... panting ammunition horse. Then at last came the order for the advance, the order so eagerly awaited by Weldon, maddened by his long exposure to the bullets of his unseen foe. In extended order, the squadrons galloped forward until their goal was a scant five hundred yards away, when of a sudden a murderous fire broke out from the rocks in front of them, emptying many a saddle and dropping many a horse. Under such conditions, safety lay only ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... leaned again on the low abutment, but the hypnotic spell was broken: only acute anxiety remained. For the lamp of her life had made scant progress; and now she was aware of a disturbance in the water, little ominous whirlpools not caused by wind. Presently there emerged a long shadow, like a black expanse of rock:—unmistakably a mugger. And ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... days that followed, between the necessary adjustment of matters of state, and the many ceremonies incident upon the King's sudden death, there was scant time to discuss the rapid happenings; even in the court-circle they scarcely knew what was passing—still less how it had come about. It was said that Janus had died of malignant fever, due to the terrible malaria of the coasts where he had been hunting. Yet some hinted that there were natural poisons, ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... to the guns, which they were well accustomed to handle; but before they could cast off the lashings and run them out, a broadside from the Constant Warwick came crashing into us, several of the crew being struck to the deck to rise no more. With scant ceremony their shipmates hove the bodies overboard, while the gunners, running out their pieces, returned with interest the ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... necessary connection between any weakening of virile force and this advance in the moral standard, this growth of the sense of obligation to one's neighbor and of reluctance to do that neighbor wrong. We need have scant patience with that silly cynicism which insists that kindliness of character only accompanies weakness of character. On the contrary, just as in private life many of the men of strongest character are the very men of loftiest and most exalted morality, so I believe ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... with a love that seemed to rend his heart in twain. The thin canvas between them was as safe a partition as walls of granite. She might have found time to admire the quality of his love, considering the circumstances prevailing, but her pride left scant room for any sentiment of that sort. She merely ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... stirrup hold. Then might ye look upon cavaliers A-many round him who spake in tears. "Sir," they said, "what a woful day! Long were you ranked in the king's array, A noble vassal as none gainsay. For him who doomed you to journey hence Carlemagne's self shall be scant defence; Foul was the thought in Count Roland's mind, When you and he are so high affined. Sir," they said, "let us with you wend." "Nay," said Ganelon, "God forefend. Liefer alone to my death I go, Than such brave bachelors perish so. Sirs, ye return into France the fair; Greeting from ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... gathered in confused masses along the foot of the slope, jabbering shrilly to each other and making insolent gestures toward the silent company at the top. The hair of their heads was stringy, coarse and scant, and of an inky blackness, in contrast to the abundant locks of the Hillmen, which were for the most part of a dark brown or ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... latitude of Boeotia, and knew nothing of the sunny wealth in the south of the peninsula, or of such princely estates as Eumaeus managed in the Ionian seas. Flaxman has certainly not given him the look of a large proprietor in his outlines: his toilet is severely scant, and the old gentleman appears to have lost two of his fingers in a chaff-cutter. As for Perses, who is represented as listening to the sage,[A] his dress is in the extreme of classic scantiness,—being, in fact, a mere night-shirt, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... acres they had access to through the grace of the owners, and there was forest-reserve grazing besides, which the Sawtooth could have if it chose to pay the nominal rental sum. The Quirt ranch, was almost surrounded by Sawtooth land of one sort or another, though there was scant grazing in the early spring on the sagebrush wilderness to the south. This needed Quirt Creek for accessible water, and Quirt Creek, save where it ran through cut-bank hills, was fenced within the section and a ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... been masterful exceedingly, imperious, perhaps a little narrow; impassioned for hard facts, and with scant sympathy for make-believe. I should now be free and untrammelled; in the conception and carrying out of a scheme, I could accept and ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... various questions to ask when that celestial but rather long-winded visitor was gone. Perhaps this picture is not quite harmonious with the few facts in our possession in respect to our first mother, and does scant justice to that original-minded woman: but the type has seized hold upon the imagination of mankind. Dick thought of it vaguely, as he looked (having secured a position in which he could do so without observation) at this impersonation of the woman's part. ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... way of navigation had been done when the frightful storm came on, after scant warning in the way of a falling barometer. Then nothing was left for the unfortunates on board but to hold on and wait for the end of the hurricane as they were swept ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... angles, while great slabs of rock were split from the faces. The sides also became less vertical, and there was an accumulation of detrital fragments about their bases. These heaps of fractured stone had in some cases begun to disintegrate and form soil, on which there was a scant growth of vegetation; but the sides and summits, whose jaggedness increased with their height, were absolutely bare. "Here," said Cortlandt, "we have unmistakable evidence of frost and ice action. The next interesting question is, How recently has denudation occurred? The absence ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... a secret signal; that hag was scuttling around to collect the False-Faces for a council. They may mean war; I'm sure they mean it, though Brant wore no war-paint. But war has not yet been declared; it is no scant ceremony when a nation of the Iroquois decides on war. And if the confederacy declares war the ceremonies may last a fortnight. The False-Faces must be heard from first. And, Heaven help us! I believe their ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Roumanian army crossed the Danube, and thenceforward the Bulgarians are seldom mentioned, and the contest is prosecuted by the 'allies,' or the 'Russo-Roumanian' army. At first the Roumanian soldiers receive scant regard at the hands of the chroniclers: indeed, on one or two occasions they are referred to with marked contempt. Writing from Giurgevo on June 5 (that was before the Russians had crossed the Danube ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... and Madeline waited for the party to come up. Here he briefly explained to her that Don Carlos and his bandits had left the ranch some time in the night. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a faint wind rustled the scant foliage of the cedars. The air grew ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... anchor alone at the foot of the cliff. Whenever the artist broached the subject of a new boat, Uncle William turned it aside with a jest and trotted off to his clam-basket. The artist brooded in silence over his indebtedness and the scant chance of making it good. He got out canvas and brushes and began to paint, urged by a vague sense that it might bring in something, some time. When he saw that Uncle William was pleased, he kept on. The work took his mind off himself, and he grew strong and vigorous. ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... be more interested in visiting Robin Hays than in noting the preparations made and the order observed by the Protector for his intended journey. When Cromwell put his state upon him, he did it with all dignity; there was no sparing of expense, no scant of attendants, no lack of guards—boldly and bravely were his arrangements formed; for he wisely knew that plainness and simplicity, although they may be understood and appreciated by the high-minded, are held in contempt by the low and the ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... that though there was scant courtesy in his speech, it was by no means the rough talk of the fisher-folk. It fired her curiosity. "And ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... Tuft." So called from his hair, and from Riquet with the Tuft, the fairy tale. We read in the Cowden Clarkes' Recollections of Writers: "The latter name ('Cowden with the Tuft') slyly implies the smooth baldness with scant curly hair distinguishing the head of the friend addressed, and which seemed to strike Charles Lamb so forcibly, that one evening, after gazing at it for some time, he suddenly broke forth with the exclamation, ''Gad, Clarke! what whiskers you ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... demon rum; Houses and lands all gone; Want came by stealth. Yet her scant fare she shared With me, who worse have ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... favourite mild laxative medicine, known as "Compound Liquorice Powder," and for other uses. The solid juice is put into porter and stout, because giving sweetness, thickness, and blackness to those beverages, without making them fermentative; but Liquorice, like gum, supplies scant aliment to the body. Black Liquorice is employed in the manufacture of tobacco, for ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... cloudy, rainy, hot, humid summers (southwest monsoon, June to September); less cloudy, scant rainfall, mild temperatures, lower humidity during winter (northeast monsoon, ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... said to Hollyhock, but she noticed that Lady Jane Carden was speaking to another friend of hers, and glancing at Hollyhock with scant approval as she did so. It seemed to Hollyhock that she was saying, 'That's not at all a nice or polite ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... straight. A bustling, consequential little personage was he, moreover; very fond of delivering an opinion, even when unasked, and of a meddling, make-mischief turn, constantly setting men by the ears. A suit of rusty black, a parchment-coloured skin, small wizen features, a turn-up nose, scant eyebrows, and a great yellow forehead, constituted his external man. He partook of the hospitality at the Abbey, but had his quarters at the Dragon. He it was who counselled Roger Nowell to abide by the decision of Sir Ralph, confidently ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... civil fashion he asked me if I could oblige him with a light for his pipe. Then, as I drew a matchbox from my pocket, he threw his reins over the splashboard, and removing his large, iron-shod boots he descended on to the road. He was a burly man, but inclined to fat and scant of breath. It seemed to me that it was a chance for one of those wayside boxing adventures which were so common in the olden times. It was my intention that I should fight the man, and that the maiden from the dingle standing by me should tell me when to use my right or my ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nature throughout her existence, and had enjoyed her life far too much to admit of any doubt that America was the most perfect country in the world, Americans the cleverest and most amusing people, and that other nations were a little out of it, and consequently sufficiently scant of resource to render pity without condemnation a natural sentiment in connection with ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the tablet seems to mark the zenith of Nestorian Christianity in China; after this date it began to decay. Marco Polo refers to it as existing in the 13th century; but then it fades out of sight, leaving scant traces in Chinese literature ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... and black. The Confederates came often into dire extremities. Men whose lives had been luxurious fared on the plainest and hardest. Delicate women bore privations uncomplainingly, and toiled and nursed and endured. Food, clothing, medicines were scant. Invasion was borne, with its humiliation and suffering, its train of ravage and desolation. The supporting motive was the common defense, the comradeship of danger and of courage. The Confederacy and its flag had ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... saw Abner Dimock's father, the elder Abner, entering the little wicket-gate of the garden. A strange, tottering old figure, his nose and chin grimacing at each other, his bleared eyes telling unmistakable truths of cider-brandy and New England rum, his scant locks of white lying in confusion over his wrinkled forehead and cheeks, his whole air squalid, hopeless, and degraded,—not so much by the poverty of vice as by its demoralizing stamp penetrating from the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Youth's hither shore Would I be some poor Player on scant hire, Than King among the old, who play no more, - "THIS is the end of ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... woods. Her soft lips, her eyes called back their fire. Helbeck looked at her in a delight mingled with pain, counting the weeks silently till she became his very own. Only five now before Advent; and in the fifth the Church would give her to him, grudgingly indeed, with scant ceremony and festivity, like a mother half grieved, still with her blessing, which must content him. And beyond? The strong man—stern with himself and his own passion, all the more that the adored one was under the protection of his roof, and yielded thereby to his ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of want, Our doors are open still; And though our portions are but scant, We give them with ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... ploughed, manured, and under that improved cultivation rushing up into astonishing wheaten and oaten crops, enriching tenant and proprietor, the aspect of the country would be decidedly uninteresting, and would present scant attraction to the man riding or walking through it. In such a world the tourists would be few. Personally, I should detest a world all red and ruled with the ploughshare in spring, all covered with harvest in autumn. I wish a little ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... has the miner, not the bard, A life that runs in pleasant ways; His labour may be pretty hard, But, when compared with mine, it pays. Scant the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... kept me duly informed of their purposes, and, besides, an agent who handles treasure every week is an adept at the business, and does not need the protection which must surround an amateur, who in nine cases out of ten has but scant idea of the dangers that threaten him, beyond knowing that if he goes down a dark street in a dangerous quarter he is likely to be maltreated ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Suddenly, she observed Velmont approaching her. She would have avoided him, but the balustrade that surrounded the terrace cut off her retreat. She was cornered. She could not move. A gleam of sunshine, passing through the scant foliage of a bamboo, lighted up her beautiful golden hair. Some one spoke to her in a ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... hardened and trained under German conscription before the war, and who had learned new arts in their bloody trade, through their service in the World War, met their masters in young Americans taken from the shop, the field, and the forge, youths who had been sent into battle with a scant six months' intensive training in the art of war. Not only did these American soldiers hold the German onslaught where it was but, in a sudden, fierce, resistless counter-thrust they drove back in defeat and confusion ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... Word should not remain in infinite excess.[1] And this makes certain that the first proud one, who was the top of every creature, through not awaiting light, fell immature.[2] And hence it appears, that every lesser nature is a scant receptacle for that Good which has no end and measures Itself by Itself. Wherefore our vision, which needs must be some ray of the Mind with which all things are full, cannot in its own nature be so potent that it may not discern its origin ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... long one; in the course of the next ten minutes they drew up at the end of a shallow pocket of a street, a scant half-block in depth; where alighting, Lanyard helped the girl out, paid and dismissed the cocher, and turned to an iron gate in a high ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... where the narrow white streets of the town Leap up from the blue water's edge to the wood, 15 Scant room for man's range between mountain and sea, And the market where woodsmen from over the hill May traffic, and sailors from far foreign ports With treasure brought in from the ends of ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... coolie lit a fire and called us to get up. We started at four. The clouds were still below, and the moon above; but she had moved across to the west, Orion had appeared, and a new planet blazed in the east. The last climb was very steep and our breath very scant. But we had other things than that to think of. Through a rift in a cloud to the eastward dawned a salmon-coloured glow; it brightened to fire; lit up the clouds above and the clouds below; blazed more and intolerably, till, as we reached the summit, the sun leapt into view and sent a long line ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... but ran here and there, for no apparent reason, except, possibly, to keep in action with the raging fire in their hearts. The cleanliness which characterized the normal Indian was absent in them; their scant buckskin dress was bedraggled and stained. They were still drunk with rum and the lust for blood. Murder gleamed from the ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... presenting as desolate a scene as eye could witness. The yellow flood of the river, still swollen by melting mountain snow, was a hundred feet from the stockade gate, and on its bank stood the log cavalry stables. Below, a scant half mile away, were the only trees visible, a scraggly grove of cottonwoods, while down the face of the bluff and across the flat ran the slender ribbon of trail. Monotonous, unchanging, it was a desolate picture to watch day after day ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... about giants and fairies, dwarfs and genii, and enchanted castles, and gorgeous kings and princes. His head grew to be full of these wonderful things, and many a night as he lay in the dark on his scant and offensive straw, tired, hungry, and smarting from a thrashing, he unleashed his imagination and soon forgot his aches and pains in delicious picturings to himself of the charmed life of a petted prince in a regal palace. One ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... honour means?" retorted Andrew—"but ca' him what ye wull, they're a great convenience in a country-side that's scant o' borough-towns like this Northumberland—That's no the case, now, in Scotland;—there's the kingdom of Fife, frae Culross to the East Nuik, it's just like a great combined city—sae mony royal boroughs yoked on end to end, like ropes of ingans, with their ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... not know what the sudden shifting meant, but just as he was about to bellow to the helmswoman he caught sight of a towering mass of lights that for the moment seemed to hang over them, then flashed on, missing the "Sue" by a few scant rods of water. They had had a narrow escape from being run down by a steamer. But for Harriet's quickness, nothing could have saved them. It was plain that those on the bridge of the steamer had not discovered the small boat ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... head of processions, covered all over with green ribbons, playing "Croppies Get Up," "Granny Whale," and the like. But, your hanner; though I went the whole hog with the repalers and emancipators, they did not make their words good by making a man of me. Scant and sparing were they in the mate and drink, and yet more sparing in the money, and Daniel O'Connell never gave me the sovereign which he promised me. No, your hanner, though I played "Croppies Get Up," till my fingers ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... "Saving" has received but scant attention from economic writers. Jevons appears to have held that superfluous food and other necessary consumptive goods, in whosoever hands they were, constituted the only true fund of capital in a community at any given time. Sidgwick ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... Empress sent a messenger to the Gorokhovaya urging the monk to go to Peterhof at once, as she desired to consult him, he disregarded her command and did not even vouchsafe a reply. Indeed, Rasputin treated the poor half-demented Empress with such scant courtesy that I often ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... the corral. Later on, as we knew, ere the camp slept, the animals would be driven inside, and the gate-wagon would be chained like the others in place. In the meanwhile, and for hours, the animals would be herded by men and boys to what scant grass they ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... safest and most capacious of all this rough coast. A short distance from that port are found the village of Palanan and the missions of Dicalayon, and Dauilican or Divilican. Thence, until one reaches the cape of Engano, [123] one finds nothing more than some small anchoring-places, which offer but scant refuge to the vessels, as they are all exposed to the vendavals. On the northern coast as well, which begins at the said cape of Engano (so called because of the deceitfulness of its currents), one does not meet bay or port until he reaches the village of Aparri, some ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... different. There was no grain to be had for them. They had been starving for a month, for the Indians had burned the grass before us wherever we went, and here in the pine-covered hills what grass could be found was scant and wiry,—not the rich, juicy, strength-giving bunch-grass of the open country. Of my two horses, neither was in condition to do military duty when we got to Whitewood. I was adjutant of the regiment, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... not an easy task, for although she had enemies and rivals, the daughter of the dead Baaltis, Mesa by name, was considered to be certain of election at the poll of the priests and priestesses. This ceremony was to take place within two days. Nothing discouraged, however, by the scant time at his disposal or other difficulties, without her knowledge or that of her father, Metem began his canvass ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... to the Manbos of the Libagnon River and its tributaries, nor to the Manbos that occupy the hinterland above Nasipit as far as the Bugbus River. I had only cursory dealings with the inhabitants of the last-named region but both from my own scant observations and from the reports of others more familiar with them, I am inclined to believe that there may be differences great enough to distinguish them from the other peoples of the Agsan Valley as a ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... speculation could conceive of philosophy in such ultra-deductive fashion. Reason was for so long servile to idle theology, it is not at all surprising that a work exemplifying reason to such high degree as does the Ethics, should receive scant respect from intrepid empiricists. It is so easy to confuse the rationalizations of reason with ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... Patrick Bronte was one of the ten children of a peasant proprietor at Ahaderg in county Down. The family to which he belonged inherited strength, good looks, and a few scant acres of potato-growing soil. They must have been very poor, those ten children, often hungry, cold and wet; but these adverse influences only seemed to brace the sinews of Patrick Prunty and to nerve his determination ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... intimacy with William became most close, both his grandmother and aunt were dead, and he was struggling with great difficulty through the last year of his apprenticeship. As his master supplied him with but food and lodging, his linen was becoming scant, and his Sabbath suit shabby; and he was looking forward to the time when he should be at liberty to work for himself, with all the anxiety of the voyager who fears that his meagre stock of provisions and water may wholly fail him ere he reaches port. I of ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... the ocean the most destructive cruiser the Southern Confederacy ever launched. And here was the grandson of the hero of that fight, already thirty years of age, with the hair on his crown growing scant. Tempus ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... at the palace. The meal consisted mainly of rum, wine, coffee, rice, and toasted cake. This scant fare occasioned many apologies on the part of the Spaniards, but it spoke eloquently of their heroic resistance. The fruit supply of the city was absolutely exhausted, and the Spaniards had nothing to live on except rice, on which the soldiers in the trenches of Santiago have ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... preempted by the natives, watered the horses where water was scarce and for local consumption only, and lied eloquently as to the qualities of his master's caviayard when a trade was in progress. For these manful services Young Pete received scant ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... a scant six feet above certain death. Fortunately the raft was light and they were able to gain a foothold and lift it from the ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... wooded slope. This hill was probably twelve or fourteen hundred feet high. He thought of it as a hill, for he had lived long in the heart of the towering Andes. Behind him lay the belt of woodland that separated the basin from the open sea, a scant league away. The cleft through the hill lay almost directly ahead. It's walls apparently were perpendicular; a hundred feet or less from the pinnacle, the opening spread out considerably, indicating landslides ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... day for the poor to seek their meat—when the swarm of beggars that came forth was a sight truly calamitous. Many a decent auld woman that had patiently eiked out the slender thread of a weary life with her wheel, in privacy, her scant and want known only to her Maker, was seen going from door to door with the salt tear in her e'e, and looking in the face of the pitiful, being as yet unacquainted with the language of beggary; but the ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... the Heart.—Stout people are usually more or less "scant of breath." Accumulations of fatty material, or changing of muscle into fat, cause this, especially if about the chest and heart. To reduce the fat, and grow healthy muscle instead, will perfectly cure the difficulty ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... complications already existing, but it tends to prevent them as well as other serious inflammations. One of these gentlemen assures us that to say it far excels any other method of treatment would be to give it but scant praise. But, upon the other hand, it is accused of producing disorders, and even grave accidents in almost all the functions of the economy. In some cases it has produced ringing in the ears or deafness, or a rapid ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... begun to rain—big drops that were the precursors of a heavy shower. The lads, in their exposed position on the tower, paid scant heed. Their interest and attention were centred upon the anxiously awaiting stranger ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Bontoc has a fairly heavy 4-inch growth of gray hair on his chin and throat; he is shown in Pl. XIII. Their bodies are quite free from hair. There is none on the breast, and seldom any on the legs. The pelvic growth is always pulled out by the unmarried. The growth in the armpits is scant, ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... sent into the field, the supply of accessories was embarrassingly scant. There were arms, such as they were, for over one hundred thousand men, but no accoutrements nor equipments, and a meager supply of ammunition. In time the knapsacks were supplanted by haversacks, which the women could make. But soldiers' shoes and cartridge-boxes must be had; leather was also ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... did not know it, despatches of a similar nature had been following or preceding him these past three months, a fact certainly not uncomplimentary to an officer who had been out of the academy a scant ten years, whatever the ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... 12: That minor operations such as these should receive but scant recognition at the hands of historians is not to be wondered at, but neither the official nor the Times histories in their accounts of this surprise of Pochefstroom found space to mention the length of this march, ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... a calibre of nine millimetres, and several hundred cartridges, were my armament, and for weeks this pistol became my only means of providing a scant food supply. ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... I can offer are not great, Nor is the accommodation more than scant That falls to me for hospitality; But, as ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... flowed in. The series of great names marched past with scant ceremonial, the public not being present. Leicester entered, and shook Lichfield's hand; then came Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough and Monmouth, the friend of Locke, under whose advice he had proposed the recoinage of money; ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... undressed the child now down to one scant undergarment. She looked from her bony little body to Jessie, and Amy's ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... from his pack's scant treasure A hoarded volume drew, And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... schoolgirl, tall and stag-like, always running, her rebellious knees tossing up scant petticoats, her long hair rarely leaving more than one eye visible through its smother of tangled silk. She was very brown then and very bony, and so ridiculously soft of heart that her tenderness was regarded by her schoolmates as an unfortunate infirmity. She was tall still, taller than ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... yet must I first tell what manner of man he was reckoned by the folk of our island and by ourselves. Abbot Michael had expressly charged us, on his first coming, we should believe nothing of aught we heard of him. Yet tales went round, and gathered force as they went, ill tales that took scant time to travel; and we lads, innocent of mind, were full of shame for what was common talk, and we were ready to believe that here was no common sinner. We knew there were witch women whom men justly burn for sin. And of Archbishop Maugher men said a spirit of evil ever went with ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... hour before the train started, Nance resolutely kept the situation in hand, not giving Mac a chance to speak to her alone, and keeping up a running fire of nonsense that provoked even Mr. Clarke to laughter. When the "All Aboard!" sounded from without, there was scant time for good-bys. She hurried out, and when on the platform, turned eagerly to scan the windows above her. A gust of smoke swept between her and the slow-moving train; then as it cleared she caught her last glimpse of a gay irresponsible face propped about with pillows ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... a business letter. He read it with scant attention, and returned it to his breast-pocket. The second envelope bore the handwriting of his senior subaltern, now in England on short leave. The two men were close friends; but Eldred's last letter had been written four months ago; and the envelope in his hand contained Richardson's ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... the counter, or seated at numerous small tables, men were drinking villainous liquor, smoking and talking, and paying but scant attention to the strains of the fiddle or the accordion, save when some well known air was played, when all would join in a boisterous chorus. Some were always passing in or out of a door which led into ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... command, but he did not by any means obtain for them that reward which his great labours and the needs of his family called for, since, death having closed the eyes of Agostino, and almost at the same time those of Raffaello, the heirs of Agostino, with scant respect, allowed these figures to remain in Lorenzetto's workshop, where they stood for many years. In our own day, indeed, they have been set into place on that tomb in the aforesaid Church of S. ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... dinner proceeded in comparative silence, Agnes sobbing under breath. The room was small and very hot; the table was warped so badly that the dishes had a tendency to slide to the center; the walls were bare plaster grayed with time; the food was poor and scant, and the flies absolutely swarmed upon everything, like bees. Otherwise the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... pray you, Sir, take patience; I have hope, You less know how to value her desert, Than she to scant her duty. ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... title envied in Marion, Reno, Butte, or Salt Lake City. Senators who start young serve long and obediently, suppressing all their natural instincts for self-expression, and attain if they are lucky the scant distinction of a committee chairmanship in a legislature that has steadily tended toward submergence. To the House? Individuals are lost in the House. And the Presidency comes to ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... wi' theirs compar'd, And shudder at the niffer; But cast a moment's fair regard, What maks the mighty differ? Discount what scant occasion gave, That purity ye pride in, And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) Your ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... feeble hand! Strength of the strong! to whom the nations kneel! Stay and destroyer, at whose just command Earth's kingdoms tremble and her empires reel! Who dost the low uplift, the small make great, 5 And dost abase the ignorantly proud, Of our scant people mould a mighty state, To the strong, stern,—to Thee in meekness bowed! Father of unity, make this people one! Weld, interfuse them in the patriot's flame,— 10 Whose forging on Thine anvil was begun In blood late ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... been old, in feeble health and my husband's mother, I would have considered the words scant reparation for the contemptuous phrases with which she had scourged my spirit ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... But scant he lays him on the floor, When hollow winds remove the door, A trembling rocks the ground: And (well I ween to count aright) At once an hundred tapers light On all ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... was curiously built. It consisted of two storeys, and formed a main building and one wing, which gave it a peculiarly lop-sided appearance that reminded me somewhat ludicrously of Chanticleer, with a solitary, scant, and clipped appendage. ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... mile of clean, brown slope, ridged and grooved like a washboard, led gently down to meet the floor of the valley, where the scant grama-grass struggled to give a tinge of gray. The road appeared to become more clearly defined, and could be seen striking straight ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... Mexico, but even before the overthrow of Spanish rule a thin stream of immigration had begun to run into it from the South-Western States of America. The English-speaking element became, if not the larger part of the scant population, at least the politically dominant one. Soon after the successful assertion of Mexican independence against Spain, Texas, mainly under the leadership of her American settlers, declared her independence of Mexico. The occasion of this ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... the details of the mythical land and the mythical journey to suit its own geographical position. The souls had generally to cross water, either the sea or a river, and they were put across it by a ghostly ferryman, who treated the passengers with scant courtesy.[773] According to some people, the River of the Souls (Waini-yalo) is what mortals now call the Ndravo River. When the ghosts arrived on the bank, they hailed the ferryman and he paddled his canoe over to receive them. But before he would take them on board they had to state ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... the women, were at home. In one part or another of the hall I met his mother. She was dark and lean; without being tall, she looked gaunt. She seemed occupied with herself, as she moved out of one shadow into another, and she gave scant attention to a casual boy. Raymond was really no more hospitable than any young and growing organism must be; but perhaps she was thankful that it was only one boy, instead of three ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... told the little Irishman made him drop the shoe he was at work upon and glare at her over his spectacles, and with his scant reddish hair ruffled up. This, with his whiskers, made him look like a ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... discouraging enough. The great hop gardens of the estate had been in times past its most prolific source of agricultural revenue and the boast and wonder of the hop-growing county. The neglect and scant food of the lean years had cost them their reputation. Each season they had needed smaller bands of "hoppers," and their standard had been lowered. It had been his habit to think of them gloomily, as of hopeless and irretrievable loss. Because this morning, for a remote ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Gent came to me this morning as it were to bemoan himself of the little regard hath been had of him and others, and indeed for ought I hear there is scant anybody pleased, but for the rest it were no great matter if he had had more consideration or commiseration where there was most need. But he was so carried away with the vanity and vain-glory of his library, that he forgot all other respects and duties, almost of Conscience, Friendship, ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... This feeling developed the fashion of polite jeering to a point that made life abroad uncomfortable until Johnny Poe fell fighting in the ranks of the Black Watch on the plains of Flanders. In the dull monotony of the casualty list his name at first slipped by with scant mention. It was the publication in the United States of the story of his fighting career which stimulated newspaper interest not merely in England, but throughout the British Empire. To Australia, ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... political questions, unless they be to concede away the political rights of their race, or to soothe the consciences of white men by suggesting that the problem is insoluble except by some slow remedial process which will become effectual only in the distant future, are received with scant respect—could scarcely, indeed, be otherwise received, without a voting constituency to back them up,—and must be cautiously made, lest they meet an actively hostile reception. But there are many colored men at the North, where their civil and political rights in the main are respected. There ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... an English-man; You'l scant find any now, to make that name good: There were those English that were men indeed, And would perform like men, but now they are vanisht: They are so taken up in their own Country, And so beaten of their speed by their own women, ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... of all the House committees, that of Foreign Affairs is at times the foremost, and it never had an abler chairman than Robert R. Hitt. He was certainly in the most remarkable degree what might be termed a specialist in legislation. He gave but scant attention to any other branch of legislation. He had little time or liking for the tariff, finance, appropriations, or for any branch of legislation that failed to come within his own especial province. He was, in fact, so indifferent ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... Harry's room and lit the lamp there. He smiled when he glanced around the walls. There were hunting scenes and actresses in scant clothing. Tobacco pipes of all kinds on the tables, and stumps of ill-smelling cigarettes, and over the mantel was a crayon picture of Death shaking the dice of life. Two old ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... of places where the almost limitless forest afforded timber without end, and the labor of the prisoners themselves under the same guards that garrisoned the prison would have comfortably housed and warmed them, and then the scant and wretched rations would not so soon have been the cause of emaciation and disease. The risk of escape would not have been great, and I doubt if as many would have got away as in fact managed to do so in the actual circumstances. The almost certainty of sickness and death nerved many a man ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... habitual, he began to take keener note of his comrade, and found him different from any other he had ever encountered in the wilderness. This man never grumbled at the heat, the glare, the driving sand, the sour water, the scant fare. During the daylight hours he was seldom idle. At night he sat dreaming before the fire or paced to and fro in the gloom. He slept but little, and that long after Cameron had had his own rest. He ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... mile back from the river, on top of the level gravelly earth which stretched for miles on either side of the river clear to the mountains. This earth and gravel mixture was so firmly packed that even the cactus had a scant foothold. The town interested me for one reason only, this being, that I could get my meals for the evening and the following morning, instead of having to cook them myself. After I had eaten them, however, there was a question in my mind if my own cooking, bad as it was, would not have answered ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... the philosophical, possibly over-tolerant for the exigencies of the situation, although upon occasion his judgment proved a valuable counterweight to the hasty enthusiasm of Lloyd George. But Balfour, like Lansing, was sometimes treated with scant consideration by his chief and by no means exercised the influence which his experience and capacity would lead one ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... he refused with a red Indian pride; intellectual he used and slighted. He renders scant justice to those who had preceded him in his lines of historical investigation, as if they had been poachers on his premises, e.g. Heath, the royalist writer of the Commonwealth time, is "carrion Heath": Noble, a former biographer of Cromwell, is "my reverend imbecile friend": his predecessors ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... will incessantly devise methods to distract her mind from the thought of her lost husband. She refuses nourishment, but as nature is exhausted she is prevailed upon to partake of food; the supply is scant, but on every occasion the best and largest proportion is deposited upon the grave of her husband. In the mean time the female relatives of the deceased have, according to custom, submitted to her charge a parcel made up of different cloths ornamented with bead-work and eagle's feathers, ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... father, after all," was one of the things that Thorpe said to his wife next day. He had the manner of one announcing a concession, albeit in an affable spirit, and she received the remark with a scant, silent nod. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... obtained leave, Mr. Williams; I may take your offer!" he exclaimed with scant ceremony, when he found himself in that gentleman's presence, who was at tea with his wife. "Mr. Galloway has authorized me to accept it. How do ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... him the paper. As he was studying it, Galpy reentered, still scant of breath from excitement and haste. "He's gone back to the mountains," he announced. "Sent word for you to get to the port before dawn, if you have to walk. See Mr. Wisner there. ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... dissenters in opposing it, on the ground that, in order to obtain their share of the money, they would have to admit their inferiority through the showing of the compulsory certificates. Moreover, even the scant favor secured through these was in danger from the continual favoritism of the legislature, with its treasury open at all times to its Congregational college, and with its enactments in favor of the ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... off. I could not get out of his sight; but I did venture on grabbing a circular life-buoy from the quarter-rail as I passed it, and slipping it over my head, and he did not seem to notice the maneuver. I was resolved, as a last resort, to jump into the sea with this scant protection against death by drowning, hunger, or thirst, rather than risk another assault by this lunatic or a bite from a rat. These were numbered now by the thousands. The deck was black with them in places, and here and there a rope was as ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... power on earth, under majesty itself, was his Honour Mr. Wynn of Dunore, where now, fallen from greatness, the family was considerably larger than the means. The heavily encumbered property had dropped away piece by piece, and the scant residue clung to its owner like shackles. With difficulty the narrow exchequer had raised cash enough to send Robert on this expedition to London, from which much was hoped. The young man had been tolerably well educated; he possessed a certain amount and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... explained by the activity shown at the same time in this sector by the French. The French command was not deceived by the German tactics; they intended to husband their strength for the future Somme offensive. For them Verdun was a sacrificial sector to which they sent, from now on, few men, scant munitions, and only artillery of the older type. Their object was only to hold firm, at all costs. However, the generals in charge of this thankless task, Petain and Nivelle, decided that the best ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... temper. In the first place, she had never before tried to dress a child, and this first experience was not a pleasing one. The child's toes persisted in catching in the tops of the stockings, the little waist seemed to her unaccustomed eyes to be constructed upside down, and the scant little skirt went on hind side before. In spite of shrill protestations, she braided up the lanky hair and scoured a patch of skin in the very middle of the child's face, and at last the toilet was complete. Breakfast brought with it ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... Love as gladly and full-fed hath fared Upon a broken crust that two have shared; And from scant wine as glorious dreams drawn up Seeing two ...
— The Dreamers - And Other Poems • Theodosia Garrison
... of Massachusetts effaced the last vestige of State ownership by giving the Vanderbilts a perpetual lease of this richly profitable railroad for a scant two million dollars' payment a year. During the debate over this act Representative Dean charged in the Legislature that "it is common rumor in the State House that members are receiving $300 apiece for their votes." The acquisition of this railroad enabled the New York Central to make direct ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... came and went. The blueberries ripened in the pastures and scant clearings, and the blackberries along the edge of the woods. All the native roots that Black Bruin knew so well ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes |
