"Niggardly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Samoncho[u] household. The wet nurse required brought with her a train of servants. With the child's growth this was maintained, even increased. The young lady (Ojo[u]san) found herself graduated into one with a status to maintain. All the niggardly habits of Matazaemon were thrown to the winds with the advent of this grandchild. The affection never shown outwardly to the mother, was lavished on her daughter. At seven years of age O'Iwa underwent the common enough infliction of smallpox. It ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... live-forever, not so well by the variable flower - for it is a niggardly bloomer - as by the thick leaf that they delight to hold in the mouth until, having loosened the membrane, they are able to inflate it like a paper bag. Sometimes dull, sometimes bright, the flower clusters ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... a beast is a niggardly ruffler, Nabbing, grabbing all for himself! Hang it, old fellow, I'll hit you a muffler, Since you won't give me a pinch of the pelf. You has not a heart for the general distress, You cares not a mag if our party ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... menage, to augment private fortune when recalled! This is wrong. And when France and Russia, and even Prussia, entertain constantly and very handsomely; our embassies and legations, generally speaking, are niggardly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... point out the way, and my soul shall guide yours in the ascent, for we will take our flight together. I now see and am convinced you can expect no pardon here, and I can only exhort you to seek it at that greatest tribunal where we both shall shortly answer. But let us not be niggardly in our exhortation, but let all our fellow prisoners have a share: good gaoler let them be permitted to stand here, while I attempt to improve them.' Thus saying, I made an effort to rise from ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... 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
... is wealth, it is not so because of a niggardly and parsimonious policy. Perhaps the simplest, fewest and best rules for economical business are these, by observance of which a noted merchant amassed a large fortune: 1. Obtain the earliest and fullest information ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terror also. It had not been our way to build great fires; we were, indeed, by the captain's orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood, and I began to fear that something had gone wrong while ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 and Greece, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... clerk, being asked how the inscriptions on the tombs in the church-yard were so badly spelled? "Because," answered Amen, "the people are so niggardly, that they won't pay ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... fat cigars in 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 of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... shalt find a woman familiar with society, and instal her in thy house as governess and example. If the woman be also of Israel, so much the better; for then we may expect faithfulness without jealousy. And further, son of Jahdai, be niggardly in nothing concerning our Lael. Clothe her as she were the King's daughter. At going abroad, which she shall do with me in the street and on the water, I would have her sparkle with jewels, the observed of everybody, even the Emperor. And ask not doubtingly, 'Whence the money for all ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... lemonade in a dream, you will concur with others in signifying some entertainment as a niggardly device to raise funds for the personal enjoyment of others at ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old school-house, snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... is that of times past, when 'the struggle for life,' as men used to phrase it (i.e., the struggle for a slave's rations on one side, and for a bouncing share of the slave- holders' privilege on the other), pinched 'education' for most people into a niggardly dole of not very accurate information; something to be swallowed by the beginner in the art of living whether he liked it or not, and was hungry for it or not: and which had been chewed and digested over and over again by people who didn't care about it in ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... lashed his treble 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 ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... was 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 ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... and just contrived 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
... madame," said the old professor, rising; "and, if it comes to the worst, I hope you will testify before the judge that I was niggardly about ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... on your mixing. A color mixed for one place will never do for another, so don't try to paint another place with it. Have the patience to proceed slowly, and mix the color specially for each brush-stroke. On the other hand, don't be niggardly with your paint. Don't use less paint than you need. Mix an ample brushful and put it on; then mix another, and use judgment as to how much you should use each time. The variety of tone and value which ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... who is willing to come home is often the attitude of the wife. Some of the causes at work when a woman takes her husband back have been discussed earlier.[35] Unfortunately, hopelessly bad husbands profit by them as well as hopeful ones. The policy of niggardly relief to a deserted wife has undoubtedly been responsible for many of these unfortunate attempts to patch up a life together. "She was worn down by her efforts to keep the household going, and, when the faint chance of her husband's supporting her appeared, she ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... the sea, at last, between Pretty Willie and the Lost Soul, which are great bare heads. You get a glimpse of the Tickle from the deck of the mail-boat: this when she rounds the Cocked Hat and wallows off towards Gentleman Cove. 'Tis but a niggardly glimpse at best, and vastly unfair to the graces of the place: a white house, wee and listlessly tilted, gripping a rock, as with expiring interest; a reach of placid water, deep and shadowy, from which rise the hills, gray, rugged, splashed with green; heights beyond, scarfed with ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... unscientific, persisted in his mind. Everything was a gamble—who took the greatest chances was most apt to be the greatest winner. The idea of manuring Los Muertos, of husbanding his great resources, he would have scouted as niggardly, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... a tidy sum saved out of the housekeeping money. She was naturally thrifty, and Orville had never been niggardly. Her meals when Orville was on the road had been those sketchy, haphazard affairs with which women content themselves when their household is manless. At noon she went into the dining car and ordered a flaunting little repast of chicken salad and asparagus and Neapolitan ice cream. The men in the ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... stiff ruff encircled her neck, a cap of the finest muslin, though rather dingy, covered her head; and her nose was bestridden by a pair of gold- bowed spectacles with enormous glasses. But the old lady's face was pinched, sharp and sallow, wearing a niggardly and avaricious expression, and forming an odd contrast to the splendor of her attire, as did likewise the implement which she held in her hand. It was a sort of iron shovel (by housewives termed a "slice"), such as is used in clearing ...
— An Old Woman's Tale - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... prose or poetry, somewhere a woman,—and because nobody of taste could surreptitiously possess herself of my veil, I have no doubt that she cut it incontinently into two equal parts, and gave one to her sister, and there are two women,—nay, since niggardly souls have no sense of grandeur, and will shave down to microscopic dimensions, it is every way probable that she divided it into three unequal parts, and took three quarters of a yard for herself, three quarters for her sister, and gave the remaining half-yard to her daughter, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... exclaimed Albani. "You would be a very niggardly vicegerent of God! But as Corilla is well worth two thousand scudi, I am content. Give me eight thousand scudi and the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... that the Intendant of the works proposed to allow him but a very trifling remuneration. "These drawings," said Cano, "are either to be given away, or to fetch 2,000 ducats;" and packing them up, he mounted his mule, and took the road to Granada. The niggardly Intendant, learning the cause of his departure, became alarmed, and sent a messenger after him post-haste, offering him his ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... the population because of the empire's unsettled economic conditions, its extensive system of slavery (precluding all successful practice of trades by freemen), the continuous military operations, the haphazard financial system, was forced to live niggardly. The contrast between the middle classes and the upper classes seemed very cruel. This condition may account for the many outcries against the "extravagances" of the few privileged ones who could afford decent food and for the exaggerated ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... Genevra. She was thinking of the stock she had hoarded up for him in her dressing-table drawer, under lock and key. It occurred to her that she could have no end of housewifely thrills if she doled them out to him in niggardly quantities, at stated times, instead of turning them over ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... WHAT an object lesson it should be to our country at large: east, west, north, south, that, "One touch of nature makes 'all men' kin." That in her opinion and treatment of her faithful, loyal black citizens; niggardly, parsimonious, grudging and half-heartedly, how shameful she has been, how great has been her sin; forgetting; or uncaring, even as Pharoh of old, that: "God omnipotent liveth," and that "He is a JUST ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... parole; and you have broke your bargain, and to all who look closely, and yourself among the rest if you have moral eyesight, you are a thief. Or take the case of men of letters. Every piece of work which is not as good as you can make it, which you have palmed off imperfect, meagrely thought, niggardly in execution, upon mankind who is your paymaster on parole and in a sense your pupil, every hasty or slovenly or untrue performance, should rise up against you in the court of your own heart and condemn you for a thief. Have you a salary? If you trifle with ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yield annual incomes. Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" was sold in the hour of distress, with little distinction from any other work in that class of composition; and "Evelina" produced five guineas from the niggardly trader. Dr. Johnson fixed the price of his "Biography of the Poets" at two hundred guineas; and Mr. Malone observes, the booksellers in the course of twenty-five years have probably got five thousand. I ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... often dreamed that this would come just because I believed it would not. But why should one control the imagination when it alone can give us happiness for a little while? I gave it rein, for I thought that one-half of my life was to be passed in that unreal but by no means niggardly world. And I thought of everything. To change your religion would mean the ruin of your career; moreover, it is not a possibility of your character. Were it I think I should not love you so much. Nor could I bear to think of any change in you. Only it will be harder—longer." Then she stretched ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... 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 human ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... left unmolested. He was a man whom scarcely any amount of fortune could have benefited permanently, and who was made to be ruined to cheat small tradesmen, to be the victim of astuter sharpers: to be niggardly and reckless, and as destitute of honesty as the people who cheated him, and a dupe, chiefly because he was too mean to be a successful knave. He had told more lies in his time, and undergone more baseness of stratagem in order to stave off a small debt, or to swindle a poor creditor, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... courts and galleries thronged with a great 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
... been the Queen's feelings towards him, there is no doubt that one powerful influence, which lasted into the reign of James, was steadily adverse to his advancement. Burghley had been strangely niggardly in what he did to help his brilliant nephew; he was going off the scene, and probably did not care to trouble himself about a younger and uncongenial aspirant to service. But his place was taken by his son, Robert ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... to learn that the storm which brought about a good deal of the preceding twenty-four hours' excitement had not acted in any niggardly fashion. It had laid low whole sections of the telegraph system on both sides of the pass during the night. Gangs of men were busy repairing the wires. Later in the day, said a civil spoken attendant at the bureau des postes, a notice would be exhibited stating the probable ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... and generous abroad, she is sullen, rude, and niggardly at home; return the visit, and she admits you with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in antediluvian notions, she has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... and those who were poor on earth will be poor in Hades. As to any moral retribution which may overtake evil-doers in the life to come, their ideas are very vague; only they are sure that the ghosts of the niggardly will be punished by being dumped very hard against the buttress-roots of chestnut-trees. They say, too, that all breaches of etiquette or of the ordinary customs of the country will meet with certain appropriate punishments in the spirit land. When ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... certain knight of Pistoia. Know then that at Pistoia there lived a knight, Messer Francesco, by name, of the Vergellesi family, a man of much wealth and good parts, being both wise and clever, but withal niggardly beyond measure. Which Messer Francesco, having to go to Milan in the capacity of podesta, had provided himself with all that was meet for the honourable support of such a dignity, save only a palfrey handsome ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and happiness of mankind. By a turn of imagination, by a refinement of reflection, by an enthusiasm of passion, we seem to take part in the interests of others, and imagine ourselves divested of all selfish considerations: but, at bottom, the most generous patriot and most niggardly miser, the bravest hero and most abject coward, have, in every action, an equal regard to ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... world, and despised it. He had no confidence in man or woman, and had truly reached Hamlet's condition, when "Man delighted him not, nor woman either." He felt the world was his debtor, and was niggardly in its payments. He grew more and more morose as the things of time receded. Others, full of youth, talent, and vigor, were usurping the positions and enjoying the honors of life, which were slipping away from him unenjoyed. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... those who dared to attack the established religion, and that such only were punished by the Inquisition.' He had in his pocket Pomponius Mela de situ Orbis, in which he read occasionally, and seemed very intent upon ancient geography. Though by no means niggardly, his attention to what was generally right was so minute, that having observed at one of the stages that I ostentatiously gave a shilling to the coachman, when the custom was for each passenger to give only six-pence, he took me aside and scolded me, saying that ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... is stronger than death; it rises superior to adversity, and towers in sublime beauty above the niggardly selfishness of the world. Misfortune cannot suppress it; enmity cannot alienate it; temptation cannot enslave it. It is the guardian angel of the nursery and the sick bed; it gives an affectionate concord to the partnership of life and ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... rich man who was niggardly he said, "That man does not own his estate, but his estate ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... 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 a l'usage des ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... prove it! I cannot give him all the monstrous sum he asks; he knows the estate to be incompetent; but I will give him what I have, and it is more than he expects. I have borne all this too long. See what he writes further on; read it for yourself: 'I know you are a niggardly dog.' A niggardly dog! I niggardly? Is that true, Mackellar? You think it is?" I really thought he would have struck me at that. "O, you all think so! Well, you shall see, and he shall see, and God shall see. If I ruin the estate and go barefoot, I shall ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... language of the hand, to be seen than heard. He lies ever close within himself, armed with wise resolution, and will not be discovered but by death or danger. He is neither prodigal of blood to misspend it idly, nor niggardly to grudge it, when either God calls for it, or his country; neither is he more liberal of his own life than of others. His power is limited by his will, and he holds it the noblest revenge, that he might hurt and doth not. He commands without tyranny ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... emancipated by the same token that had made Peter free. Peter had returned home poor and broken, not because he had been free, but because nature first, and society next, in distributing their gifts, had been niggardly with old Peter. Had he been better equipped, or had a better chance, he might have made a better showing. The colonel had prospered because, having no Peters to work for him, he had been compelled to work for himself. He would set his own success against Peter's failure; ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... or in London took up never more than half a column in a newspaper. Even the old man he was answering had adopted, to be original in everything, that selfsame conciseness: every sentence of his contained two or three ideas. But the member from Alcira would not be led astray by such niggardly parsimony. He believed that ponderousness and extension were qualities indispensable to eloquence. He must fill a whole issue of the Congressional Record, to impress his friends back home in the District. So he talked and talked on, trying deliberately to avoid ideas. Those ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... perhaps for decorum's sake, have made it, as to leave cause for apprehension that, if any such scheme were to be proposed, it would be in the first instance very limited in its compass, indecisive in its enforcement, and niggardly in its pecuniary appointments. Many of our legislators have never thought of investigating the condition of the people, and are unaware of their deplorable destitution of all mental cultivation; and many have formed but a low and ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... It 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 present; ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... the Thames below London, to review the troops collected there to defend the capital. "I know," said she, "that I have but the feeble body of a woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England too." Unhappily the niggardly Queen had half starved her brave sailors, and many of them came home only to die. None the less Elizabeth went with solemn pomp to St. Paul's Cathedral to offer thanks for the great victory, which was commemorated by a medal bearing this inscription: "God blew with his winds, and they were ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... we have said, accuses Charles of AVARICE. Charles II., in exile, would not, he says, have left a friend in want. Though distressed for money, the Prince does not display a niggardly temper in these letters to Goring. He had to defray the expenses of many retainers; he intended to dismiss his Popish servants, his household at Avignon, and to part with Dumont. We shall read Goring's remonstrances. But the affair of Daniel's 'close' proves how hardly Charles was ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... 'Wanted a Governess' that appeared at all eligible; but all my letters, as well as the replies, when I got any, were dutifully shown to my mother; and she, to my chagrin, made me reject the situations one after another: these were low people, these were too exacting in their demands, and these too niggardly in ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... first, will be paid an annuity from my estate. But while Mees Lucy is my wife, I will buy all that she needs. I will delight to dress her, to feed her well. With discretion, of course. For there are many channels into which my income must flow. But I will not be a niggardly husband to her! No, no!" cried the ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... people," he said, "but their ways are not my ways or your ways. You will go out of the town. You have genius. You will be a man of finance. I have watched you. You are not niggardly and you do not cheat and lie—result—you will not be a little business man. What have you? You have the gift of seeing dollars where the rest of the boys of the town see nothing and you are tireless after those dollars—you will be a big man of dollars, it is plain." Into ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... cases of defence 'tis best to weigh The enemy more mighty than he seems: So the proportions of defence are fill'd; Which of a weak and niggardly projection, Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... 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 ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... 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
... Austrian Embassy at Paris. He married Mlle. de Ladricourt, who was much younger than he. He was very niggardly. L'Argent. ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... 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 Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... great biologist has also perceived the degree to which size may be modified; may dwindle to dwarfness when a niggardly soil refuses to furnish beast and plant alike with ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... so unholy as to marry from profaning its pulpit'; but the Protestant Churches divide up, giving women the disabilities and mon the offices. The unselfishness of such a course is quite touching. It says to women: "You support us and we will damn you; there is nothing mean or niggardly ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... sewing-machine with which in spare time they made uniform suits. Washing and sewing men were bent upon having a good pay-day. These two classes of men would seldom buy any article from the canteen. I should not say they were niggardly or selfish—their course probably was governed by self-denial, or it may be that their future marriage day was the solution of their conduct. As for myself, I never could eat with relish any service food, consequently most of my wages was spent in canteen food, and the remainder on shore. ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... how to cross the Hawash, "second of the rivers of Abyssinia, and rising in the very heart of Ethipoia, at an elevation of 8000 feet above the sea. It is fed by niggardly tributaries from the high bulwarks of Shoa and Efat, and flows, like a great artery, through the arid plains of the Adaiel, green and wooded throughout its long course, and finally absorbed in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... absolute picture of the sum or integral is better termed an "integraph." The distinction is an important and valuable one, for while the integraph theoretically can do all the work of the integrator, the latter gives us in niggardly fashion one narrow answer, et praeterea nil. The superiority of the integraph over the integrator cannot be better pointed out than by a concrete example. The integrator could determine by one process, the bending moment, from the shear curve, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... meanness; and this sentiment was thoroughly wrought into their minds, that, they seemed not to rid themselves of the feeling of meanness in a refusal, to feel, notwithstanding their better knowledge, that to comply was generous, liberal, and social, and to refuse reproachful and niggardly. It would be impossible to enumerate or specify the crimes which emanated from this state of affairs. Their political condition was the very genius of despotism, systematically and deliberately conducted. Kings and chiefs were extremely jealous of their succession, and the more noble their ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... long since, she had played with her doll; twisting its tiny fingers, and making them close tightly round her own, which were quite as elfin-like, comparatively. For Mrs. Rothesay's surpassing beauty included beautiful hands and feet; a blessing which Nature—often niggardly in her gifts—does not always extend to pretty women, but bestows it on those who have infinitely more reason to be ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... 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
... had fed on this when Death's white arms Came sleeved in vapors and miasmal dew, Curling across the jungle's ferny floor, Becking each fevered brain. On bleak divides, Where Sleep grew niggardly for nipping cold That twinged blue lips into a mouthed curse, Not back to Seville and its sunny plains Winged their brief-biding dreams, but once again, Lords of a palace in Tenochtitlan, They guarded Montezuma's treasure-hoard. ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... 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 at ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... 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 which you want it? Make your will—you are a dead man! A ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... 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 ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... are doubtless weary of being told that they pack badly, that they are niggardly about credits, that they do not send enough or sufficiently qualified representatives, that they are careless of details, and so on. Still, before mentioning some further particular steps that should be taken, it is necessary to emphasize ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... must be faced. Alfred Barton worked the farm "on shares," and was held to a strict account by his father, not only for half of all the grain and produce sold, but of all the horses and cattle raised, as well as those which were bought on speculation. On his share he managed—thanks to the niggardly system enforced in the house—not only to gratify his vulgar taste for display, but even to lay aside small sums from time to time. It was a convenient arrangement, but might be annulled any time when the old man should choose, and Alfred knew that a prompt division of the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... orders to proceed round to the river. Before the Windsor Castle had anchored, the newspapers were put into his hands containing a report of the two actions, and he had the gratification of acknowledging that his countrymen were not niggardly in the encomiums upon his ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Augusta, Georgia, living in ease and affluence, like the majority of Southern speculators. The lesson he received from his uncharitableness, has not benefited him in the slightest degree. He still speculates on the wants of the poor, and is as niggardly to the needy. Though loyal to the Confederacy, we believe his loyalty only caused from his being the possessor of a large amount of Confederate funds, but perhaps we judge him wrongfully. At any rate, ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... niggardly, then," laughed Brian drearily. "We have but to hold the place till to-morrow night, friends, and the O'Malleys will relieve us. Now, one man to watch and the rest of us to rest, for ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... who goes out of his natural sphere of society to ask Lords, Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but is niggardly of his hospitality towards his own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob. My dear friend, Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at a watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a three-months-old baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the political rights of the Bantu, has been a potent factor in their development. "To the Bantu, perhaps more than to any other people," says Mr. S. M. Molema, himself a member of that race, "the missionaries have stood for civilization, Christianization and education."[2] Niggardly and inadequate governmental appropriations for common schools have been supplemented by missionary funds, and in many cases missionary funds alone have supported and are still supporting native schools. "In short, every educated member of the Bantu race, no matter how great or small his education ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... Am I niggardly in thus confining the action of each of us within his own body? Is the range of volition thus marked out too narrow? On the contrary, it is probably still too wide. We are as powerless to direct our bodies as we are to manage affairs in China. This, at least, is the modern ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... comparatively paltry sum of $12,000,000. In spite of the fact that our nation is devoting two thirds of its enormous national expenditures to war, our militarists point to our vast national wealth and sneer at the niggardly mortals who object to spending it ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... on another occasion when he had just wired twenty-five dollars somewhere to help bury some one. (My spirit was not so niggardly as fearsome. I was constantly terrified in those days by the thought of a poverty-stricken old age for myself and him—why, I don't know. I was by no means incompetent.) "Why don't you save your money? Why should you give it to every Tom, Dick ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... or 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, to pleasure. And as all these things ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... 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 ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... great beauty would have excused their 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 that by chance they heard it, huddling ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... troublesome desires; but I am in no hurry about that; nor, when the time comes, shall I plume myself on the immunity just in the same way, I do not greatly pride myself on having outlived my belief in the fairy tales of Socialism. Old people have faults of their own; they tend to become cowardly, niggardly, and suspicious. Whether from the growth of experience or the decline of animal heat, I see that age leads to these and certain other faults; and it follows, of course, that while in one sense I hope I am journeying towards the truth, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the mines! Where are they to-day, and what is their condition? Look for them in the sunless back rooms of San Francisco boarding-houses, and you will find them doing a little fine sewing for the shops; or working on their own garments, which they must make out of school hours, because the niggardly pay of teachers in the lower grades will not allow of their getting them done. Idealized indeed! Men talk about our getting out of our places where we clamor for paying work of some kind, for something to do that will enable us to live in half comfort by working ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... 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 ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... us not be 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
... might do, he would probably always be known as the engineer who designed the great Moorlock Bridge, the longest cantilever in existence. Yet it was to him the least satisfactory thing he had ever done. He was cramped in every way by a niggardly commission, and was using lighter structural material than he thought proper. He had vexations enough, too, with his work at home. He had several bridges under way in the United States, and they were ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... within the heart which sighs, Yet shuns, the modest sorrow to declare; And what rude Fortune niggardly denies, Love to the noble can with love repair. The lowly have the loftiest destinies; Love only culls the flower that love should wear; And ne'er in vain for love's rich gifts, shill yearn The heart that feels ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... with reverence a constitution which unites in itself the advantages of all other forms of government, the freedom of democracy, the vigour of monarchy, and the stability with the peacefulness of aristocracy. If I were to say that I am niggardly enough to keep this blessing at all hazards to ourselves, not to desire the extension to others of this happy form of government, I should do injustice to my own feelings; but if I were to say I am slow to believe that the ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... dead, Comte Maxime de Trailles had fallen back into his former state of existence. He went to the baths every year and gambled; he returned to Paris for the winter; but, though he received some large sums from the depths of certain niggardly coffers, that sort of half-pay to a daring man kept for use at any moment and possessing many secrets of the art of diplomacy, was insufficient for the dissipations of a life as splendid as that of the king of dandies, the tyrant ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... her tales were found to be a kind of mosaics composed of droll bits of fact picked up in the neighbourhood, Fortrose soon became considerably too hot for her. She had drawn, under the over-transparent guise of the niggardly Mrs. Flint, the skinflint wife of a "paper minister," who had ruined at one fell blow her best silk dress, and a dozen of good eggs to boot, by putting the eggs in her pocket when going out to a party, and then stumbling over a stone. And, of course, Mrs. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Nature, made him feel more forcibly the barrenness of what was best in that of man: nor is it to be wondered at, that, seeing her perfect and exquisite creations poured forth in a profusion which conception could not grasp nor calculation sum, he should think that it ill became him to be niggardly of his own rude craftsmanship; and where he saw throughout the universe a faultless beauty lavished on measureless spaces of broidered field and blooming mountain, to grudge his poor and imperfect ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terror also. It had not been our way to build great fires; we were, indeed, by the captain's orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood; and I began to fear that something had gone ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... weakness to praise cordially and to utter admiration with a free heart. They are mistaken, but no 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. ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... We niggardly drank. I dabbled my burning eyes, cleared my sight. Of the fellow in the rifle pit there was no living token. The Sioux had ceased their gambols. They sat steadfast, again anticipative. A stillness, menaceful and brooding, weighted ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... to the need of strict economy in expenditures. The fact that our national needs forbid us to be niggardly in providing whatever is actually necessary to our well-being, should make us doubly careful to husband our national resources, as each of us husbands his private resources, by scrupulous avoidance of anything like wasteful ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... and a small quantity of Libonta meal, which I still reserved for worse times. The patience of my men under hunger was admirable; the actual want of the present is never so painful as the thought of getting nothing in the future. We thought the people of some large hamlets very niggardly and very independent of their chiefs, for they gave us and Manenko nothing, though they had large fields of maize in an eatable state around them. When she went and kindly begged some for me, they gave her five ears only. They were subjects of her uncle; and, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... groves left standing on the interval appeared naturally disposed, though the farmer had consulted only his convenience, for he too falls into the scheme of Nature. Art can never match the luxury and superfluity of Nature. In the former all is seen; it cannot afford concealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison; but Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots. In swamps, where there is only here and there an ever-green tree amid the quaking moss and cranberry beds, ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... were of considerable value, consisting of blankets, broadcloths or strouding, calicoes, guns, kettles, traps, silver-works (comprising arm-bands, bracelets, brooches; and ear-bobs), looking-glasses, combs, and various other trinkets distributed with no niggardly hand. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... combat, either on horseback or on foot, for her sake! I did not promise Germans enough to her! To such a lady, I ought to vow as many as she has years. If the Lord Jesus will only release me from this tower, I will not be niggardly with her!" He raised ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... 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 giving ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... judge from the long list of tabby colored velvet gowns, silk hose, satin shoes, "Fashionable Summer Cloaks & Hatts," and similar articles ordered from the English agents she had no reason to complain that her husband was niggardly or a poor provider. If her "Old Man"—for she sometimes called him that—failed in anything she desired, tradition says that the little lady was in the habit of taking hold of a button of his coat and hanging on until he ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... penny. As fast as his means increased he used them in extending his business. By 1794 he was somewhat of an expansive merchant. Scores of trappers and agents ravaged the wilderness at his command. Periodically he shipped large quantities of furs to Europe. His modest, even niggardly, ways of living in rooms over his store were not calculated to create the impression that he was a rich man. It was his invariable practice habitually to deceive others as to his possessions and plans. But when, in 1800, he removed to No. 223 Broadway, at the corner of Vesey street, then a fashionable ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... very carefully, just as it occurred, without reading anything into it, and that we must not ascribe it to a higher faculty if it can be satisfactorily accounted for in terms of a lower one. In following this principle we may be sometimes niggardly, for the behaviour may have a mental subtlety that we have missed; but in nine cases out of ten our conclusions are likely to be sound. It ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... study theirs, when he became disgusted with the meanness of the doctors, who had bought for dissection the body of a child of a poor tailor for six shillings, the price asked being six shillings and sixpence, from which they made the needy man abate the sixpence. Turning from the niggardly surgeons, he enrolled his name as a student of divinity, and was frequently in Edinburgh attending the lectures at Divinity Hall. Wonderfully cheap was the living in those days, when, at the Edinburgh ordinaries, a good dinner could be had for fourpence, small beer included. John Witherspoon, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... and 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 folks to remain eternally at the kissing-stage, after the pattern of our fish-like ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... of 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, depraved smile; her entertaining ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... appearance in it—for their capacities are the work of Nature, and the possibility of cultivating them a matter of chance circumstance—but by the way in which contemporaries receive their works; whether, I mean, they give their applause soon and with a will, or late and in niggardly fashion, or leave it to be bestowed altogether ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Stadtholder. The Emperor commissioned me expressly to announce to you that his Imperial Majesty would gladly hold himself ready to furnish some assistance, yes, if needful, all the money required for the expenses of this journey.[15] And the Emperor would not be niggardly with his supplies of money for traveling, but give such sums that the Electoral Prince need not come merely to his Majesty at Vienna, but also make a little excursion to Innsprueck. For at Innsprueck the Archduke Leopold now holds his court, and the Electoral Prince could ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... of ancient suits of armor is suspended from its balustrade. It impresses me, too, (for, having gone so far, I would fain leave nothing untouched upon,) that I remember, somewhere about these venerable precincts, a picture of the Countess Godiva on horseback, in which the artist has been so niggardly of that illustrious lady's hair, that, if she had no ampler garniture, there was certainly much need for the good people of Coventry to shut their eyes. After all my pains, I fear that I have made but a poor hand at the description, as regards ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various |
