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Scarcely   Listen
adverb
Scarcely, Scarce  adv.  
1.
With difficulty; hardly; scantly; barely; but just. "With a scarce well-lighted flame." "The eldest scarcely five year was of age." "Slowly she sails, and scarcely stems the tides." "He had scarcely finished, when the laborer arrived who had been sent for my ransom."
2.
Frugally; penuriously. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scarcely" Quotes from Famous Books



... from all directions, cavalry and infantry; but I learn that none scarcely are accepted by the State. This is great political economy, with a vengeance! How is Gov. Letcher to be ready to fight in a few days? Oh, perhaps he thinks the army will spontaneously spring into existence, march without transportation, and fight without rations or pay! But ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... specimens of British literature from 'The Castle Specter,' Mr. Lewis' 'Monk,' or the 'Mysteries of Udolpho,' and 'Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus'?. . . 'Faust,' for instance, passes with many of us for a mere tale of sorcery and art magic. It would scarcely be more unwise to consider 'Hamlet' as depending for its main interest on the ghost that ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... chewing the betel constantly. His head was large; and his shaven cranium afforded an interesting phrenological treat. He was deformed; not more than five feet in height, of large body, and short, thick, and deformed legs, scarcely able to support the ponderous trunk. His neck was thick and short, and his head habitually stooped; his face bloated, with the lower lip projecting, and large eyes protruding, one of them having a cataractal appearance. He was dressed in a short pair of cotton drawers, a sarong of cotton cloth came ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various

... federal government, which have been long pointed out and regretted by the intelligent friends of the Union. We may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride or degrade the character of an independent nation which we do not experience. Are there engagements to the performance of which we are held by every tie respectable among men? These are the subjects of constant ...
— The Federalist Papers

... to Hesshusius, Chemnitz says concerning the Torgau Convention: "Everything in this entire transaction occurred aside from, beyond, above, and contrary to the hope, expectation, and thought of all. I was utterly astounded, and could scarcely believe that these things were done when they were done. It seemed like a dream to me. certainly a good happy and desired beginning has been made toward the restoration of purity of doctrine, toward the elimination of corruptions, toward the establishment ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... not talk of it—I cannot bear the thought of happiness! And yet, if before I die I could but see him again!" She clasped her hands fervently as she spoke, and the blush that overspread her face threw over it so much of bloom and freshness, that even Evelyn, at that moment, would scarcely have seemed more young. "Enough!" she added, after a little while, as the glow died away. "It is but a foolish hope; all earthly love is buried; and my heart is there!"—she pointed to the heavens, and ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that Flora reasoned wisely, and, acting up to her convictions, did right. The world, we know, would scarcely agree with us; but in matters of the heart, the world is ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... in a smoking-room for some trouble in passing the matches, than as if he were (as he was) practically thanking the Curator of Kew Gardens for coming with him into a field to find a four-leaved clover. With scarcely a semi-colon after his hearty thanks, the little ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... Bull he butted and kicked with all the strength of his body, but the Troll fought quite as well as he did, and the whole day went by before the Bull put an end to him, and then he himself was so full of wounds and so worn out that he was scarcely able to move. So they had to wait a day, and the Bull told the King's daughter to take the horn of ointment which hung at the Troll's belt, and rub him with it; then he was himself again, and the next day they set off once more. And now they journeyed ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... Lord Ellingham wasn't there—he scarcely ever is there," replied Lucy Summers. "I mean that Mr. Ashton went into the park a good deal and looked over the house—a good many people come ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... best it impresses the reader with the belief that it would be spoiled if it were made larger or if it were incorporated into a more elaborate work. The difference in spirit and in form between the Lyric and the Epic is scarcely greater than the difference between the Short-story and the Novel; and "The Raven" and "How we brought the good news from Ghent to Aix" are not more unlike "The Lady of the Lake" and "Paradise Lost," in form and in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... prophecy, at Melun, of her capture; the prophecy of the relief of Compiegne; and the strange affair of the bon conduit at the battle of Pathay.* For several of these predictions we have only the Maid's word, but to be plain, we can scarcely have more unimpeachable testimony. ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... declared that there were living witnesses "who have seen a population of scarcely six hundred thousand swelled into ten millions; a population which, in their youth, extended scarcely an hundred miles from the ocean, spreading beyond the mountains of the West, and sweeping down those mighty waters which open into regions ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... feasting, and could scarcely in the same breath find fault with Him for not fasting, but they put forward some of John's disciples to bring that fresh objection. Common hatred is a strong cement, and often holds opposites together for a while. It was bad for John's followers that they should ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... throngs that followed their master were now turning after the new teacher. In their great love for John, and remembering how he had witnessed for Jesus, and called attention to him, before he began his ministry and after, they felt that it was scarcely right that Jesus should rise to prosperity at the expense of him who had so helped him rise. If John had been less noble than he was, and his friendship for Jesus less loyal, such words from his followers would have embittered him. There are people who do irreparable hurt by such flattering sympathy. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... had heard incidentally from Saville of Godolphin's attachment to the beautiful countess. She longed to see her; and when, one night at the theatre, she was informed that Lady Erpingham was in the Lord Chamberlain's box close before her, she could scarcely command her self-possession sufficiently to perform with her wonted brilliancy ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... should stand in such weather looking into such a shop was a matter of sufficient wonder to Syme; but his idle wonder turned suddenly into a personal shock; for he realised that the man standing there was the paralytic old Professor de Worms. It scarcely seemed the place for a person of ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... still others, self-conscious, solicitous, secretly determined to affect to see all that other people could see, lest some subtle incapacity, some flagrant rusticity, be inferred from failure. These last were hasty observers, scarcely waiting to adjust the eye to the lens, fluttered, and prolific of inapt exclamations, which too often betrayed the superficial character of the investigation. To this class ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... "It is scarcely a compliment to Venus," Geoffrey laughed to his brother. "These square-shouldered and heavily-built women do not at all correspond with my idea ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... cousin Phillis?' said I, scarcely venturing on the new name, it seemed too prettily familiar for me to call her by it; but cousin Holman took no notice of it, answering straight ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... But they were scarcely on their way again before the aforesaid south- east wind began to grow bigger, and at last blew a gale, and brought up with it a drift of fine snow, through which they yet made their way, but slowly, ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... motives for forbearance, against those whose system of faith may not exactly harmonize with his own—to render him less ferocious in support of opinions, which, if he will but discard his prejudices, he may find not so solidly bottomed as he imagines. All we know is scarcely more than that the motion we witness in the universe is the necessary consequence of the laws of matter; that the uniformity of this motion is evidence of their immutability; that it is not too much to say it cannot cease to act in the manner it does, as long as the same causes operate, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... this principle that a man who could not find the security of some tithing or friborg for his behavior,[67] he that was upon account of this universal desertion called Friendless Man, was by our ancestors condemned to death,—a punishment which the lenity of the English laws in that time scarcely inflicted for any crime, however clearly proved: a circumstance which strongly marks the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... wretched! English philanthropy cuts a very suspicious figure, when, not content with neglecting the welfare of those whom she undertakes to protect, she thus attempts to made them subservient to national aggrandizement. The fate of the rescued slaves is scarcely better than that of the crews of the captured slave-vessels. The latter are landed on the nearest point of the African coast, where death by starvation or fever almost ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... cried the commissary, "to die just when he would have told us all. These few words will scarcely suffice to identify the murderers. Can any one ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... He had scarcely made three strokes when he came in violent collision with a huge block of ice in his path. Without attempting to go around it, he grasped the edge, and, by a determined effort, drew himself upon it. Fragments of the bridge were all around, and he felt some ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis

... La Masque, as if to herself. "Whimsical as he is, I scarcely expected he would give her ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... boy's health still slowly declined. The Doctor blamed the weather, which was cold and boisterous. He called in his confrere from Bourron, took a fancy for him, magnified his capacity, and was pretty soon under treatment himself—it scarcely appeared for what complaint. He and Jean-Marie had each medicine to take at different periods of the day. The Doctor used to lie in wait for the exact moment, watch in hand. 'There is nothing like regularity,' he would say, fill out the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to say that the members of the Halcyon Club had never listened to anything quite like the account that Achilles Alexandrakis gave them that day, in the gloomy room of the red-fronted house overlooking the lake, of the land of his birth. They scarcely listened to the actual words at first, but they listened to him all lighted up from far away. There was something about him as he spoke—a sweeping rhythm that flew as a bird, reaching over great spaces, and a simple joy that lilted a ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... work on Education [four short essays]. Dr. Charles Mercier, who next to Herbert Spencer is the most original and clear sighted Psychologist in England, presents, in a work entitled "Sanity and Insanity," a scarcely equalled example of lucid exposition and logical development. Whichever one is selected it should be fairly and honestly handled by my method. The gain to Intellectual Comprehension from having carefully abstracted one ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)

... themselves mad if at any time their experience should wander into a fourth dimension. Vague dramatic and moral laws, when they find any casual application, seem to such dreaming minds more notable truths, deeper revelations of efficacious reality, than the mechanical necessities of the case, which they scarcely conceive of; and in this primordial prejudice they are confirmed by superstitious affinities often surviving in their religion and philosophy. In the midst of cities and affairs they are like landsmen at sea, incapable of an intellectual conception of their position: ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... the low marsh lands. The vagabond kind (31) addicted to every sort of ground are difficult to hunt, for they know the short cuts, running chiefly up steeps or across flats, over inequalities unequally, and downhill scarcely ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... of its circumference. The town of Hydra is built in an irregular manner on the fall of the mountain about the port, and presents a clean appearance, the houses being all whitewashed. There is not a tree on the island, though there are a few straggling bushes. There is scarcely any land capable of cultivation; but there are some vineyards on the south side and a few small gardens near the town. The port is small, the water deep, and the vessels made fast by hawsers to the shore. It is evident, that, if Greece obtains independence, this island, to which the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... that the neighbours can shake hands, if they would, from opposite windows. Many of the houses are of three or four stories, with walls, inside and out, dingy and grimed with smoke, and with windows that scarcely admit even the gloomy light which finds a way through the thick atmosphere, and down ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton

... north to the delicate orange of the south. This garden was not the least source of trouble on the plantation. Its excellent fruit was quite a temptation to the hungry swarms of boys, as well as the older slaves, belonging to the colonel, few of whom had the virtue or the vice to resist it. Scarcely a day passed, during the summer, but that some slave had to take the lash for stealing fruit. The colonel had to resort to all kinds of stratagems to keep his slaves out of the garden. The last and most successful one was that of tarring his fence all around; after which, if ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... Pepper had scarcely a wider field of production. The forests that clothed a stretch of the Malabar coast of India some two hundred miles in length, and extending some miles back into the interior, were filled with an abundant growth of pepper-vines. One of the ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... Scarcely did she know herself in this wonderful experience of speaking freely, face to face, with one ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... relief as they cleared the crowd and could quicken their pace. But they were scarcely out of the range of the arc light when a dark group ran hurriedly down from the mesa back of the town. It was old Suma-theek with four of his Indians. They held, tightly bound with belts and bandanas, two disheveled ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... or so, and the way was not so pleasant now, for the road was sandy, when they came to a fork of the highway. A time-worn sign-post bore letters that could scarcely be made out, and, though they had a road map, the girls were not quite sure which way to take to get to Rockford. They were debating the matter, alternately consulting the map and the sign-post, when ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... longer resembled the well-fed plutocrat. He scarcely seemed the same man who, nearly two years before, had absently bestowed upon MacRae a dollar for an act of simple courtesy. He wore nondescript trousers which betrayed a shrunken abdominal line, a blue flannel shirt that bared his short, thick neck. And in that particular moment, ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... collar stood out like a little frill of white neck feathers. She had a fixed, foolish expression, maintained an energy of motion that was persistent and amazing, and gave out at regular intervals a short, staccato squeal that was scarcely human in sound. ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... I need scarcely say, did not shine with its full splendour until after the return of its most beauteous ornaments, the ladies and girls who had gone to nurse the little Tom, ladies'-maids with shining and pomaded hair, chiefs of domestic departments in bonnets adorned with ribbons, negresses, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... Princess Rapunzelhauser, Princess Goldernenfingerleinigen, and Princess Flachspinnenlosburg; Baroness Belohnte von Haulemaennerschen, Baroness Kluge Bauerngrosstochterheimer, and Countess Gaensehirten am Brunnen, and many others scarcely less distinguished. Never before had Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson been in such aristocratic company, and for the moment she entirely forgot how immeasurably she was now their social superior. She had held her own triumphantly with Lady Harriet, but that was different. ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... will subsist;- -they are called,—perhaps they are—weaknesses here;—but there may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve the name of virtues." He sighed as he spoke these last words. He had scarcely finished them, when the door opened, and his aunt appeared, leading in Miss Walton. "My dear," said she, "here is Miss Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you herself." I could observe a transient glow upon his face. He rose from his ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie

... a universal duty, which it is in every person's power to practise. Every kind of help given to another, on proper motives, is an act of charity; and there is scarcely any man in such a straitened condition as that he may not, on certain occasions, assist his neighbour. The widow that gives her mite to the treasury, the poor man that brings to the thirsty a cup ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... impossibility to enter that formal dining-room and face the glacial disapproval manifest on Lady Gertrude's face, the quick glance of condolence which Isobel would throw her—and which always somehow filled her with distrust—and the irritability which Roger was scarcely able to conceal. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... been detained for life, had not her brother Charles promised to devote himself to her and take her under his care—and for her sake renounce a project of marriage he then entertained. An instance of abnegation of self scarcely, I think, to be paralleled in the annals of the "coarser sex." They passed their subsequent lives together—models of fraternal affection, and would have been very happy but for the dread visitation to which Mary Lamb continued ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... and lip. A gentleman applied to the prime minister for the place for a friend of his, whose services to the party he duly dilated on. "I understood," said his lordship, "that Mr. Fulford's claims are considered paramount." "Mr. Fulford!" was the rejoinder. "I scarcely thought that such a place as this would be an object to Mr. Fulford—a gentleman of great position, with a deer-park and all that sort of thing." "A deer-park! You surprise me. I understood that Mr. Fulford's circumstances were extremely reduced. This alters the matter." Unfortunately, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... For man is accustomed from childhood to maintain a semblance of friendship, benevolence, and sincerity, and to conceal the thoughts of his own will, thereby living from habit a moral and civil life in externals, whatever he may be internally. As a result of this habit man scarcely knows what his interiors are, and gives little thought ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... night and morning, but after every meal. Very hard tooth-brushes are not advisable, and a simple tooth-powder of common chalk is safer and more effectual than any quackeries. The onion, we need scarcely observe, must be the forbidden fruit of the Eve of the nineteenth century. Indigestible food is also certain to affect the sweetness of the breath. As soon as the breath becomes unpleasant, one may be quite sure that the digestive machinery is out ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... staring, and then, his eyes striving to catch the illusion again, there fell upon him a realization of the tremendous strain he had been under for many hours. It had been days since he had slept soundly. Yet he was not sleepy now; he scarcely felt fatigue. The instinct of self-preservation made him arrange his sleeping-bag on a carpet of spruce boughs in the ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... sacred names, he would give a yell, and fall into ecstasy. Returning to Assisi he was held in high honour, and converted a Hanoverian Prince. He healed many sick people, and, having fallen into a river, came out quite dry. He could scarcely read, but was inspired with wonderful theological acuteness. He always yelled before falling into an ecstasy, afterwards, he was so much under the dominion of anaesthesia that hot coals, if applied to his body, produced no effect. Then he ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... a more useful and suitable accomplishment for a chief to be expert at his bow; and I think you could scarcely draw my bow, even if you ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... think it scarcely necessary to speak to Mr. Anhalt, or that he should speak to you, on the subject of the Count; but as he is here, ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald

... done. Intelligent, isn't it? I believe it has been established that all but about fifty of seven hundred known Italian suspects are still at large, mostly in this city. And the rest of the Italian population is guarded from them by a squad of police in number scarcely one-thirtieth of the number of known criminals. No, it's our fault if the Black ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... crossed on her fair bosom, without for a moment exhibiting the slightest fear. I could not have believed that any woman would have shown courage so undaunted, and yet be so gentle and modest in all her actions. Stoical and indifferent as I am, I could scarcely refrain from shouting 'To the rescue!' and rushing forward to preserve her; but I remembered in time that I should certainly be shot did I make the attempt. And so, rooted to the spot, and feeling as if I were turning ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... which she had to deal. The danger was pressing, and if she had been herself the poor lovesick girl who lay a mile away, stifling her sobs lest they should reach her father's ears, and vainly calling on her lover's name, she would scarcely have ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... the service of Guidubaldo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, with whom he remained until 1563, when he accepted the post of secretary from Guglielmo, Duke of Mantua. He died in 1569 at Ostiglia, so poor that his son could scarcely collect money enough to bury him after selling his effects. Manso says that a couple of door-curtains, embroidered with the arms of Tasso and De'Rossi, passed on this occasion into the wardrobe of the Gonzaghi. Thus it seems that the needy nobleman ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... at his handsome face and figure with scarcely veiled contempt. With all his advantages of education and his well-bred air he was yet ruffian to the core—as low in nature, if not lower, than the half-savage tramp for whom no social law has ever existed or ever will ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... had scarcely elapsed since the departure of Dagobert, when the marshal, who, after a long and gloomy silence, had repeatedly drawn near the door of his daughters' apartment with a mixture of hesitation and anguish, suddenly made a violent effort, wiped the cold sweat from his brow, and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... not go, dear uncle," shrieked the unhappy girl—and at the same time she sprung from the bed, and darted after him, in order, by her grasp, to detain him. But the warning came too late, for scarcely had he passed the threshold, and hardly had his niece had time to utter the startling exclamation, when the door which divided the two rooms closed violently after him, as if swung by a strong blast of wind. Schalken and he both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... more complete Edition of Virgil in English it is scarcely possible to conceive than ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... in wealth of arrows and in wondrous strength of bow, Arjun scarcely me surpasseth, scarcely I excel ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... fellow, John!" said Mr. Pendyce. He went back to his seat, but since he had identified the wrong spot he was obliged in a minute to return again to the plan. The spaniel John, cherishing the hope that he had been justly treated, approached in a half circle, fluttering his tail; he had scarcely reached Mr. Pendyce's foot when the door was opened, and the first footman brought in a letter on ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... rather than from the psychological point of view. Indeed it must be confessed that, from the latter standpoint, his conception of instinct as a "mental faculty" which "impels" an animal to the performance of certain actions, scarcely affords a satisfactory basis for genetic treatment. To carry out the spirit of Darwin's teaching it is necessary to link more closely biological and psychological evolution. The first step towards this is to interpret the phenomena of instinctive ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... some fruit, which was not on all occasions accompanied by a mouthful of biscuit, sent as a great treat, if possible, from Manila. His rest, day and night, was so little, and was so liable to surprises that scarcely could he rest a moment without the expectation of death before him all the time, which the heathen, instigated by the devil, promised to give him. He went through their thickets and along their shores, crying out and endeavoring to conquer the coldness of those men. By virtue of the cross, he was ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... these wild regions was decidedly unique. Scarcely a day passed but what some strenuous emergency arose demanding quick thought and quicker action, where life, frequently his own, hung in the balance. Yet the most strenuous of them found him always easy, always deliberate, and, as his subordinates loved to declare, he always ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... that day Edgar was silent and evidently under a cloud, and scarcely touched his food. Frances Allan looked toward him anxiously and her husband suspiciously. When his lack of appetite was remarked upon, he, truthfully enough, pleaded headache. Mrs. Allan was all sympathy ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... origin called Andriscus, but he pretended to be the son of Perseus, and assumed the name of Philippus. At first he met with some success, and defeated the Roman Praetor Juventius, but, after reigning scarcely a year, he was conquered and taken ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... astray from Paradise; the moon was shining down as it only does shine between the tropics, the sky clear and cloudless, the mild breeze, just enough to fill our sails, pushing us gently through the water, the sea as glassy as a mountain-lake, and motionless, save the long, slight swell, scarcely perceptible to those who for long weeks have been tossed by the tempestuous waves of the stormy Atlantic. The sails of a distant ship were seen, far away to the north, making the lovely scene less solitary; the only sounds heard were the rippling at the bows, the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... poems descriptive of great warlike adventures, still so minute a statistical detail can neither be considered as imperatively required, nor perhaps such as would, in ordinary cases, suggest itself to the mind of a poet. Yet there is scarcely any portion of the Iliad where both historical and internal evidence are more clearly in favour of a connection from the remotest period, with the remainder of the work. The composition of the Catalogue, whensoever it may have taken place, necessarily presumes ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... entered on elastic feet, riotous from having been made much of all the evening. He had helped to sing the choruses; but scarcely inside the studio he realised that this was no place for tail-wagging, and settled himself on Dick's lap till it was bedtime. Then he went to bed with Dick, who counted every hour as it struck, and rose in the morning with a painfully ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... on his back beneath the dreary vault, communing with Dante, Savonarola, and the Hebrew prophets in the intervals of labour, locking up the chapel-doors in order to elude the jealous curiosity of rivals, eating but little and scarcely sleeping, he accomplished in sixteen months the first part of his gigantic task.[317] From time to time Julius climbed the scaffold and inspected the painter's progress. Dreading lest death should come before the work were finished, he kept crying, "When will ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... scarcely knew what reply to give. On his return from Tuam, he had determined that he would at any rate make his way into his sister's room, and, as he thought to himself, see what would come of it. In his after-dinner ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... his will, the good duke died and was buried. Scarcely was he in his tomb, when his nephew came to take possession, thinking, as his uncle had died without issue, the domains would be devised to him of course. He was in a furious passion, when the will was produced, and the young widow declared inheritor ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... It needs scarcely be said, that an Epitaph presupposes a Monument, upon which it is to be engraven. Almost all Nations have wished that certain external signs should point out the places where their dead are interred. Among savage tribes unacquainted with letters this has mostly been ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... so near that he could be heard speaking in a voice hardly raised above the ordinary pitch, the man, first again lifting his cap with an easy gesture, addressed Cosmo Versal by name, using the English language with a scarcely perceptible accent: ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... father, will I gladly do! 'Tis scarcely afternoon— The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... The lad had scarcely halted when he caught the tip, tip of his pursuer, who was evidently determined to overtake him before he reached the lighted regions beyond. Ben was astonished just then, to note that a second ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis

... Square that winter was one of almost complete privacy. Of the hundreds of friends which Mark Twain had in London scarcely half a dozen knew his address. He worked steadily on his book of travels, 'Following the Equator', and wrote few letters beyond business communications to Mr. Rogers. In one of these he said, "I am appalled! Here I am ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... up and down the platform calling to the passengers for Paris to cross over. In that one moment I saw Paris with its great houses like palaces, with roofs so high that they were lost in the clouds. A young man bumped into me. He stopped and said, "Are you going to Paris, mademoiselle?" I scarcely hesitated, and said, "Yes; but I have no ticket." He held out his hand. "Give me the money," he said, "and I will go and get it for you." I gave him one of my two gold coins, and he ran off. I put the ticket and the change in copper which he had brought me into ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux

... was conscious of nodding, and waking up with a start, endeavoured to pursue my train of thought. The fire was comfortable, and my cigar was still alight; only a few moments more, and then bed. The resolution was scarcely formed before my head dropped again and ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... officers. Of the latter, one very young artillery officer who had only just come from a military training school, a silent lad who had not yet made friends with anyone, turned up now at Virginsky's with a pencil in his hand, and, scarcely taking any part in the conversation, continually made notes in his notebook. Everybody saw this, but every one pretended not to. There was, too, an idle divinity student who had helped Lyamshin ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... brought back to life by the prophet Ezekiel, which is only a tale that is told. But I am one of the living dead of the Babylonian Talmud, revived by the new Hebrew literature, itself a dead literature, powerless to bring the dead to life with its dew, scarcely able to transport us into a state between life and death. I am a Talmudist, a believer aforetimes, now become an unbeliever, no longer clinging to the dreams and the hopes which my ancestors bequeathed to me. I am a wreck, a miserable wretch, ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... all!" said Charlotte Harman. Her face could scarcely grow any whiter. She made no further exclamation, but sat quiet. Charlotte Home, having told her story, watched her face. Suddenly, with tears springing to her eyes, she turned to the wife and mother ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade

... be ambassador from his majesty, and found the natives in both those kingdoms very hard to believe that the fact was possible: and it appeared from my astonishment when he first mentioned the matter to me, that I received it as a thing wholly new, and scarcely to be credited. That in the two kingdoms above mentioned, where, during his residence, he had conversed very much, he observed long life to be the universal desire and wish of mankind. That whoever had one foot in the grave was sure to hold back the other ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... of excitement, of intense power, have returned! They may not fade again unspoken. You shall know my long-cherished secret. Younger in years, you may scarcely advise; but, at least, you may give sympathy that shall confirm my decision. I have engaged rooms at the neighboring hotel. Come and pass the evening—nay, the night—with me; for much must be read and thought and spoken before the black veil of personality ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... underlying qualities in her careless view of externals. Tollman seemed to expect no answer and went on slowly, "I tried to point out to your father the unwisdom of an insistence which must stir a spirit like yours to natural opposition. I suggested that under the circumstances it was scarcely fair." ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... magnificently entrenched and has been held in turn by the Dorsets, the South Lancashires, and now the Queen's Regiment. The whole of the intelligence from Grass Kop as to movements of the enemy since July 24th up to this date, has been furnished by my look-outs with our long telescope; and this I need scarcely say has been a considerable and arduous duty for the men under the conditions of violent winds, rain, mist, and storms which prevailed up here (a height of 6,500 feet), since we occupied the hill. These wind-storms ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne

... but to sell his life dearly; and six Saracens, rushing forward simultaneously, attempted to seize his bridle, and take him captive. But, at that moment, Louis—gentle and saintly as was his nature—used his German sword with a vigour and effect, scarcely excelled by Richard Coeur de Lion at Joppa, when he charged among the Mamelukes of Saladin, or by Edward Longshanks at Kakhow, when the sweep of his sword, and the rush of his grey steed, struck terror into the heart of the host of Bibars Bendocdar. ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar

... as they were to danger, were all equally affected. Tom felt relieved to see that the others all looked pale and shaken, for he was conscious that he had been in a terrible fright, and that his legs would scarcely support his weight. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... to him, was far too proud to ask her a favour, even if he had had hopes of receiving his request. He knew, too, that, in the house, the laird, to interfere in the smallest degree, must imperil far more than he dared. The prospect, therefore, of the coming winter, in a country where there was scarcely any afternoon, and where the snow might lie feet deep for weeks, was not at all agreeable. He had, as I have said, begun to suffer already, for the mornings and evenings were cold enough now, although it was ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... who had tied Billy had scarcely gotten out of sight when he commenced to chew his rope in two and when it dropped apart, Billy walked over and commenced to eat the elephant's food. This the elephant did not like. He told Billy to stop and go eat his own supper, but Billy would not, neither ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery

... understand that Perth is your destination, and not any other point on the western coast," or words to that effect. They would see by that, that had he been fortunate enough to discover the country by which Mr. Forrest got across, he should scarcely have been justified in proceeding. His farthest point west was between 500 and 600 miles from the explored portion of the Murchison, and 360 miles from the sources of the same. Copies of his diary and map had been forwarded to Mr. Forrest by Mr. Goyder on the 27th of February, 1874, ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... perhaps never plainly appear, but as the child grew into manhood he seemed filled with the same adventurous aspirations which had actuated his forefathers, causing them to leave their homes in old England, and come to foreign shores. Scarcely had he passed into his teens before he was devouring tales of pirates, and kindred old sea yarns, and his heart was fired with ambition to own a vessel and sail the high seas. Not that he thirsted for a pirate's life, but a seafaring man's adventures he longed ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... pipe he sometimes fell into sad thoughts, and then the music became sad also, and the reason of all this sadness was that he could not reach the Gardens, though he could see them through the arch of the bridge. He knew he could never be a real human again, and scarcely wanted to be one, but oh! how he longed to play as other children play, and of course there is no such lovely place to play in as the Gardens. The birds brought him news of how boys and girls play, and wistful tears ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... as when she went away. Indeed, Aunt Betsy in her guileless heart feared that she had actually fallen from grace, imputing the fall wholly to Lucy's predilection for a certain little book on whose back was written "Common Prayer," and at which Aunt Betsy scarcely dared to look, lest she should be guilty of the enormities practiced by the Romanists themselves. Clearer headed than his sister, the deacon read the black-bound book, finding therein much that was good, but wondering why, when folks promised ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... misanthropical. I have sometimes thought in former years that he might make inquiries about you, but he has never done so to my knowledge, though perhaps he has tried without being able to hear where you were. After all, he would scarcely know where to look. On the whole, I consider Sir Lionel the only friend you have, Edith darling, besides myself, and if any trouble should ever arise, he would be the one to whom I should apply for assistance, or ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... Crossing from Borneo to Celebes, there is a very great difference in the animals. In Borneo, a vast number of various species of monkeys exist, as well as wild cats, deer, otters, civets, and squirrels. In Celebes, wild pigs are found, and scarcely any other terrestrial mammal, besides ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... region to see the sun himself in the last place, in like manner, according to Plato, the idea of the good must be seen the last in the intelligible region. He, likewise divinely adds, that it is scarcely to be seen; for we can only be conjoined with it through the intelligible, in the vestibule of which it is ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... scarcely listening. His thoughts had returned to the delicious task of fingering ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... certain eccentric individual with an enthusiastic temperament and blue binoculars who pays frequent and prolonged visits to the Keeling Islands. It need scarcely be said that his name is Verkimier. There is no accounting for the tastes of human beings. Notwithstanding all his escapes and experiences, that indomitable man of science still ranges, like a mad philosopher, far and wide ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... scarcely be exaggerated in the most florid strains of the Arabian minstrel, and which still bloomed luxuriant, notwithstanding the repeated ravages of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... the scientific center of gravity of all Europe to a town, practically to them obscure, a thing they themselves scarcely realized. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... tended for many years; so much so that, where shaded by trees, he found some difficulty in keeping it. Though he had noticed the remains of a deer-fence further back no deer were visible, and it was scarcely possible that there should be any in the existing state of things: but rabbits were multitudinous, every hillock being dotted with their seated figures till Somerset approached and sent them limping into their burrows. The road next wound round a clump ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... among those who rushed out and hauled in the camels with the wounded just before the Arabs came up. As they got them inside the ranks the roar of fire broke out and they fell into their places. "Independent firing!" the officer shouted as the first volley had been discharged, but scarcely had the roll of musketry begun than through the smoke a dense mass of black figures appeared. A storm of spears and javelins were poured in upon them, and in an instant there was a crash as club, spear, and sword struck the muskets, and then the ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... less dramatizes his story, often breaking into song or a few dance steps or mimicking his characters in voice and facial expression. Sometimes the writer has been so intrigued with the performance she could scarcely wait for her interpreter (See Figure 13) to let her into the secret. Often the neighbors gathered round to hear the story, young and old alike, and they are good listeners. All of these stories save one, that ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett

... building. The other members of the congregation looked on for a moment in surprise, then one after another they started to sing, and in a moment nearly all in the place were aiding the choir. One was silent, however, the lady of the cafe; still deep in prayer she scarcely glanced at the singers, her mind was full of another matter. Only a mother thinking about a loved son can so wholly lose herself from the world. And as I looked at her I thought I detected tears ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... in a whale-boat had lasted from December 3rd, 1797, to February 25th, 1798, and we have before us a log kept by Bass of the voyage. Bass describes in detail all that Hunter tells in his despatch, but the intrepid explorer scarcely mentions the hardships and dangers with which he met. Incidentally he tells how the boat leaked, what heavy seas were often successfully encountered, and how "we collected and salted for food on our homeward voyage stormy petrels" and ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... has achieved a work of art more complete in expression than anything that has yet come from him. It is like a cry of the soul, so intense one scarcely realizes whether it is put ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... armoured train with two 12-pounder Naval guns and two machine guns, and dispatched it at express speed to my assistance, with a second similar train following behind, the whole being under the command of Captain Bath, R.M.L.I. It is scarcely possible to describe the feeling of relief with which our exhausted and attenuated forces welcomed this timely aid from our ever-ready Navy. It enabled us to bring the two Czech guns into position to keep down the fire of the enemy, and gave us a sense of security in ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... saw a Turco, who had apparently lost his regiment and who spoke scarcely any French, vainly trying to find some food. He walked about through the cafes waving a one hundred franc note in each hand and ceaselessly demanding ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... to see it; indeed, he had scarcely heard the latter part of what she said. Presently he lifted his face, and it bore traces of a dreadful inward struggle. It was deadly pale, and great black rings had painted themselves beneath ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... house Brockton's new automobile waited. He himself leaned against a stone pillar of the piazza, facing his hostess, who sat on the edge of a chair in the tense attitude of protest against delay. She had scarcely recovered from her waking crossness yet, and found herself more irritated than amused at the eccentricities of her guest. She was wondering with unusual asperity why a man with such lack-lustre blue eyes dared to wear a tie ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... and held over the opening in the floor. Down below two dark forms, covered with mud and flour paste, could be seen clutching at the slippery braces of the spiling. Snap and Shep could scarcely ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill

... a French paper to-day. You would almost think I had given them up, it is so long since one was despatched. The fact is, they had accumulated to quite a pile during my absence. I wished to look them over before sending them off, and as yet I have scarcely found time. That same Time is an article of which I once had a large stock always on hand; where it is all gone now it would be difficult to say, but my moments are very fully occupied. Take warning, Ellen, the married woman can call but a very small portion of each day her own. Not that I ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... thoughts were busily travelling along a road which had grown very familiar to them of late: she was recalling all her past intercourse with Kenneth Graham since the time when, as boy and girl, they had scarcely remembered that they were not "real" brother and sister—all through the pleasant years of frequent meeting and unconstrained companionship to the melancholy day when Kenneth was ordered to India, and they bade each other a long farewell! ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... throughout life, formed a distinguishing feature in his appearance. Ever since the discovery of his relationship to the Trenchard family, a marked change had taken place in Jack's demeanour and looks, which were so much refined and improved that he could scarcely be recognised as the same person. Having only seen him in the gloom of a dungeon, and loaded with fetters, Kneebone had not noticed this alteration: but he was now greatly struck by it. Advancing towards him, he made him a formal salutation, which ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... any melodramatic nonsense with straws, or bits of wood of different lengths. We'll go down to the gateway to-morrow between one and two, when there's scarcely a creature about, and one shall look up the street, and the other down. Whoever can count twenty human beings first shall have first right to ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... such a task, such a battle, such a danger, and such a risk, that it will take all that your most watchful minister can do, and all that you can do yourself, and all that God can do for you, and yet your soul will scarcely be saved after all. You do not know what salvation is nor what it costs. You will not be saved in your sleep. You will not waken up at the last day and find yourself saved by the grace of God and you not know it. You will know it to your bitter cost before your soul is saved from ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... There is scarcely an English brook that has not some historical associations, some poetical reminiscences, some attractions beyond those of scenery. Wherever water, forest and meadow were combined, an abbey was generally planted. Bala ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... inflection. Here one or more of the elements entering into the compound has been so changed that it can scarcely be recognized. There is a constant tendency to economy in speech by which words are gradually shortened as they are spoken by generation after generation. In those words which are combinations of others there are ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell

... workday world in its harshest and tritest forms below and around them, he recognized that divine poem which comes out from all union between the mind and the heart. Here, on the rough deal table (the ink scarcely dry), lay the writings of the young wrestler for fame and bread; there, on the other side of the partition, on that mean pallet, lay the boy's sole comforter, the all that warmed his heart with living mortal affection. On one side ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Joe Strong had scarcely begun his act when he became aware that indeed the storm was no usual blow and bluster, accompanied by rain. He could feel his trapeze swaying as the whole tent shook, and while this would not have deterred him from going on with his performance, ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum

... fireside, perusing man, felt at times a wide gap between himself and Olive, his wife, who loved riding and driving and out—door jaunts to a degree; while Steve, who was always knocking about hither and thither, had a very domestic wife, who worked samplers, and made hearthrugs, scarcely ever wished to cross the threshold, and only drove out with him to ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... that we are truly God. It seems impossible for us in our modern life, with all the follies in which we spend ourselves, with all the childish ambitions and terrors with which we amuse or frighten ourselves. This little modern life seems so petty and so vulgar that we scarcely dare to believe ourselves divine. We speak of the old heroic days, and think that if we had lived then, we too should have been heroic, as the heroes and martyrs and saints of earlier times. But in truth humanity ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... simple man will scarcely be a man of leisure, because there is so much that he will desire to do, and which he will feel called upon to do. Whatever he considers to be his work, he will do with a cheerful energy, which will sustain ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... second shot knocked me over like a nine-pin. I seemed to fly in the air, then came down by the run and lay half a minute, silly; and then I found my hands empty, and my gun had flown over my head as I fell. It makes a man mighty wide awake to be in the kind of box that I was in. I scarcely knew where I was hurt, or whether I was hurt or not, but turned right over on my face to crawl after my weapon. Unless you have tried to get about with a smashed leg you don't know what pain is, and I let out a howl ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... number the reports of the debates of the Senate of Lilliput began. To his fertile mind was very likely due this humorous expedient by which the resolution of the House was mocked. That he wrote the introduction in which is narrated the voyage of Captain Gulliver's grandson to Lilliputia can scarcely be doubted. It bears all the marks of his early style. The Lords become Hurgoes, and the Commons Clinabs, Walpole becomes Walelop, Pulteney Pulnub, and Pitt Ptit; otherwise the report is much as it had been. At ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... gleeful baby, with roguish eyes and sunny little rings of hair, who was named after dear grandma, and who obstinately refused to go "by-low," as any well regulated baby ought to do, by seven o'clock in the evening. Kittie and Kat, on the lounge with clasped arms as of old, looked scarcely a whit changed, though they were both indelibly stamped with the grace and elegance of city ladies, and had fulfilled the promise in girlhood, by becoming truly refined and lovely women. The little stool by the fire was not vacant, for there sat ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... dashed the torrent towards the sea. Having thus entrapped itself, the turbulent stream, by the configuration of the succeeding region, was forced to continue its assault on the rocks, to reach the Gulf, and ground its fierce progress through canyon after canyon, with scarcely an intermission of open country, for a full thousand miles from the beginning of its entombment, the entrance of Flaming Gorge, at the foot of the historical Green River Valley. Some few attempts had been made to fathom the mystery of this long series of chasms, but with such small success ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... blank plates, but there were some double ones which had been twice exposed, and showed such a kaleidoscopic jumble of heads and legs as was as good as any professional puzzle; but, besides these, there were a number of groups where the likenesses were quite recognisable, though scarcely flattering enough to be pleasant to the originals. There was quite a scene in the dining-room on the evening when Oswald came down in triumph and handed round the proofs of the first presentable group, over which he had been ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... them discuss living topics—living topics to them because they belong to the change from heathen to Christian life; after hearing them pray—though I could not understand a word, yet from their earnestness I could understand the spirit of their prayer; after all this, I could scarcely believe that these men had ever been Indians in paint, feathers, dances and on the war path. Thus I spent my first four days among Indians. And even if preaching, prayers, discussions were in an unknown tongue, I perhaps, understood as much as I would at many a Presbytery or ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 1, January, 1890 • Various

... the soft west-wind's sighs; But who shall utter all the debt, 0 Land! wherein all powers are met That bind a people's heart, The world doth owe thee at this day, And which it never can repay, Yet scarcely deigns to own! Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly sing The source wherefrom doth spring That mighty commerce which, confined To the mean channels of no selfish mart, Goes out to every shore Of this broad earth, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... hitherto withheld success from all adventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source a light that overpowered the moon, and almost matched the sun. It was observable that each smiled scornfully at the madness of every other in anticipating better fortune than the past, yet nourished a scarcely hidden conviction that he would himself be the favored one. As if to allay their too sanguine hopes, they recurred to the Indian traditions that a spirit kept watch about the gem, and bewildered those who sought it either ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... room next the drawing-room, which contained a modest bookcase, a writing table, and chairs in red damask. She sat down, and Wilhelm took a chair near; they were silent for a minute or two, while she, with eyes downcast, went alternately red and white, and could scarcely breathe. There was no pretense this time about her agitation. It seemed as if suddenly a flash of lightning had illuminated his mind, showing him a picture of this trembling, pretty girl clashed to his heart, and he with his arms round her. It only lasted for a second, but it struck him ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... have seen reason to doubt that; and, indeed, Milton, had, in his second Morus publication, put himself substantially right with the public about the extent of Morus's concern in the Regii Sanguinis Clamor, and had scarcely anything to retract. What he could do in addition was Du Moulin's danger. He could drag a new culprit to light and immolate a second victim. That he refrained may have been owing, as we have supposed ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... together his forces to play the first act in the drama. The names of the twenty-six Knights had been written down on a sheet of paper, and a dozen of them took position in the waist, with their backs to the professor. Scarcely had the actors taken their places before the Josephine's gig came alongside with Captain Kendall, who visited the ship to receive his instructions from the ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... made to disappear, they might be succeeded by some other evasion of the law. He thought, also, that a general address to the crown affecting all judges, without entering into the case of each individual, would be scarcely consistent with the independence of the bench. As to removing every magistrate and person in office belonging to the Orange societies—if they should be removed at once by an address of this kind—without any previous declaration either from the house of commons or the crown, they would conceive ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... It scarcely needs to be said that the Athenian has taken hold of the conversation, and that the others are as wax in his hands. 'O Athenian stranger,' Cleinias addresses him—'inhabitant of Attica I will not call you, for you seem to deserve rather ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... is my garden, monsieur, which makes me retain this house, otherwise I should probably have removed to larger and more commodious premises long since; but you see I could not take my garden with me, and I should scarcely find one so large and pleasant ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... never Sleep in the day-time; scarcely sleep at night. I have not time. Did you meet Benvenuto As you ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... their coates are couered with veluet or cloth of gold: their desire is to be sumptuous in the field, and especially the nobles and gentlemen: as I haue heard their trimming is very costly, and partly I haue seene it, or else I would scarcely haue beleeued it: but the Duke himselfe is richly attired aboue all measure: his pauilion is couered either with cloth of gold or siluer, and so set with stones that it is wonderfull to see it. I haue seene the Kings Maiesties of England and the French Kings pauilions, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... scarcely in so pleasant a humour. With Lewis she was undeniably cross, but of Mr. Stocks she was radically intolerant. A moment of pique might send her to his side, but the position was unnatural and could not be maintained. Even now Lewis was in her thoughts. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... manifest) whereby maternity was so far from all accident possibility removed that whatever care the patient in that all hardest of woman hour chiefly required and not solely for the copiously opulent but also for her who not being sufficiently moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcely could subsist valiantly and for an inconsiderable emolument ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... chance now, and he did not mean to waste it. Mr Abney had scarcely left the room when he began to exude pamphlets and ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... season in the country, What can a man's amusements be? Walk? And but more of empty highway And of deserted village see? Or let him through the far Steppes gallop, His horse can scarcely stand at all— His stamping hoofs in vain seek foothold, The rider dreading lest he fall! So then remain within thy paling, Read thou in Pradt or Walter Scott, Compare thy varying editions, Drink, and thy scoffing mood spare not! As the long evenings drag away So ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... amphitheatre, surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp, had camping been advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped or provisioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to his companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of "throwing up their hand before the game was played out." But they were furnished ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... Scarcely was he settled on the throne when the Tartar invasions began. Their raids were repelled, but they instigated Taitsong to an important measure. It had always been evident that the Chinese troops, hitherto little more than a raw militia, were unable ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... De la Rey to Tafelkop, where our lager was stationed. In a week's time I was back again at Stompies. I had been there scarcely an hour, when the tidings came that the enemy were camped on Willem Basson's farm. The following morning before daybreak I was on my way to Rietfontein. There, too, I had been only about an hour, when another column came down upon me from the direction of Ventersdorp. I fled to Tivee ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo

... iron arm of the bench. The muscles of his face scarcely moved, but its sallow tint changed, under his father's eyes, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... greater quantities of medicine sent to Kamtschatka, and not in the greater practicability of judiciously applying them. This, most persons of discernment will shrewdly suspect, is several degrees worse than problematically a change to the better. At least one could scarcely help desiring rather to accept peaceably the warrant of a natural death, than to risk the enhancement of a conflict on the doubtful aid of a bungling doctor, whose chief recommendation, perhaps, if he would but allow ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... and who has been 'innutritus et juratus' in the Grotio-Paleyan scheme of Christian evidence, and who has been taught by the men and books, which he has been bred up to regard as authority, to consider all inward experiences as fanatical delusions;—I say, I can scarcely conceive such a young man to make a serious study of the Fathers of the first four or five centuries without becoming either a Romanist or a Deist. Let him only read Petavius and the different Patristic and Ecclesiastico -historical ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... cold this for the south of England! During these four nights the cold was so penetrating that it occasioned ice in warm chambers and under beds; and in the day the wind was so keen that persons of robust constitutions could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was at once so frozen over, both above and below bridge, that crowds ran about on the ice. The streets were now strangely encumbered with snow, which crumbled and trod dusty, and, turning grey, resembled bay-salt; what had fallen on the roofs was so ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... begins in different countries at varying dates. A few manuscripts and inscriptions found in Egypt date back three or four thousand years before Christ. The annals of Babylonia are scarcely less ancient. Trustworthy records in China and India do not extend beyond 1000 B.C. For the Greeks and Romans the commencement of the historic period must be placed about 750 B.C. The inhabitants of northern Europe did not come into ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... And I am scarcely less persuaded that a third cluster, of nine, had the same source. These, too, are clearly concerned with the deeper interests and regards of private life; they carry a homefelt energy and pathos, such as argue ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... Laurence could scarcely repress a cry of terror. He set his hand to the door, and lo! as it had opened, so it appeared to shut of itself. He sank almost fainting against the cold iron bars of the window which looked out upon the courtyard below. The wind blew in upon him sweet and cool, and with it ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... cheerfulness that once made it more than a palace to me? The remittances that I had made from London were already conspiring against my quiet. I could scarcely get a kiss from either of my girls, they were in such merciless haste to make their dinner "toilet." My kind and comely wife was actually not to be seen; and her apology, delivered by a coxcomb in silver lace to the full as deep as any in (my rival) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various

... "Campania". 'Intended,' says Bolton Corney, 'to denote 'La campagna di Roma'. The portion of it which extends from Rome to Terracina is scarcely habitable.' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... and the bottom seemed uneven, there being some deep holes. Striking my stick on the bottom it seemed solid as a rock, and breaking off a small projecting point I found it to be solid rock salt. As the teams rolled along they scarcely roiled the water. It looked to me as if the whole valley which might be a hundred miles long might have been a solid bed of rock salt. Before we reached this water there were many solid blocks of salt lying around covered with a little dirt on ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... all record of her past experience had been effaced: her very footprints of an hour before were lost; the gray wall on which she leaned was white and spotless now; even the familiar farm-shed looked dim and strange and ghostly. Had she been there? had she seen the captain? was it all a fancy? She scarcely knew. ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte



Words linked to "Scarcely" :   barely, scarce



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