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Skim   /skɪm/   Listen
Skim

verb
(past & past part. skimmed; pres. part. skimming)
1.
Travel on the surface of water.  Synonym: plane.
2.
Move or pass swiftly and lightly over the surface of.  Synonym: skim over.
3.
Examine hastily.  Synonyms: glance over, rake, run down, scan.
4.
Cause to skip over a surface.  Synonyms: skip, skitter.
5.
Coat (a liquid) with a layer.
6.
Remove from the surface.  Synonyms: cream, cream off, skim off.
7.
Read superficially.  Synonym: skim over.



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"Skim" Quotes from Famous Books



... enjoying myself in spite of my sorrows. The sun was low and creamy, and the snow was so white and the shadows so slender and blue. All through the lovely Stillwater woods was a fine frosty stillness. It was splendid to skim down those long wonderful avenues of crusted snow, with the mossy grey boles on either hand, and overhead the lacing, leafless boughs, I just drank in the air and the beauty until my very soul was thrilling, and I went on and on and on until I was most delightfully lost. That is, I ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... The second day after dismissing the three Indians they were enveloped in a blinding snowstorm, and they had to halt and make camp. It was terribly cold, so cold that a hot cup of tea would have a skim of ice over it in a minute after it was poured out. It seemed as if their very bones ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster

... servants. Your thoughts are the thoughts of cooks curious to skim perquisites from every pan, your quarrels are the quarrels of scullions who fight for the privilege of cleaning the pot with most leavings in it, your committees sit upon the landings of back-stairs, and your quarrels ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... coursers that strain, on the track, neck and neck, on the home-stretch, With nostrils distended, and mane froth-flecked, and the neck and the shoulders, Each urged to his best by the cry and the whip and the rein of his rider, Now they skim o'er the waters and fly, side by side, neck and neck, through the meadows. The blue heron flaps from the reeds, and away wings her course up the river; Straight and swift is her flight o'er the meads, but she hardly outstrips ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... is really little interest except for the archeologist in digging so far into the past for an art that has left us but traditions and museum fragments, let us skim but lightly the surface of this time, only picking up the glistening facts that attract the mind's eye, so that we may quickly reach the enchanted land of more recent times which yet ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... "Asleep," and we all thought what a fine thing it was. But we have not thought it so fine for the whole art world to burst into the subsequent imitative paroxysm of crashing discords in chalk, lip-salve, and skim-milk, which has lasted ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... sprung from Pelion peak floated, so 'tis said, through liquid billows of Neptune to the flowing Phasis and the confines Aeetaean, when the picked youth, the vigour of Argive manhood seeking to carry away the Golden Fleece from Colchis, dared to skim o'er salt seas in a swift-sailing ship, sweeping caerulean ocean with paddles shapen from fir-wood. That Goddess who guards the castles in topmost parts of the towns herself fashioned the car, scudding with lightest of winds, uniting the interweaved ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... please the angels,—not Julia's cast-iron angels, but the other angels, who understand and are patient, because they remember our frames and know that being dust we are likely to be dusty once in a while. Julia wasn't made of dust. She was made of—let me see—of skim milk and baked custard (the watery kind) and rice flour and gelatine, with a very little piece of overripe banana,—not enough to flavor, just enough to sicken. Stir this up with weak barley water without putting In a trace of salt, sugar, spice, or pepper, set it in a cool oven, take ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... came, a virgin train, Like a bright constellation clustering round The central star, most glorious of them all. One, in a crimson blossom, torn away From its far moorings, nestled at her ease, Was seen slowly to skim the silver lake; While the huge flower seemed of itself propelled, Save that, by chance, a flushed and saucy face, Peeped from the waves, showing a little imp Who tugged at its stout stem with willful toil. KOLONA's limbs and ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown

... are sidelong glances that skim these curiosities, and then each man resumes "eyes right," devotes himself to his belongings, and concentrates ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... beginning. I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... it ceased to cry. Then I returned to watch and see what the two women would do next. The contents of the pan were already frizzling. Now and then it boiled over into the fire and the flames shot up all round it. Then the old woman would skim it carefully with a spoon. And all the ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... its shore, (p. 308) Green rushes fringe its brim, And o'er its breast for evermore The wanton breezes skim. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... of a Yale boat crew. He made the "Water Witch" skim through the waters, and at the same time he kept a sharp lookout for a small boat. There were a number of skiffs filled with young girls and men. But Mr. Brown was looking for a boat with the single figure of a ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... Set in one clay, Bough to bough cannot you Bide out your day? When the rains skim and skip, Why mar sweet comradeship, Blighting with ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... politician, the Conscientious Objector, the hotel-government bureaucrat, and other bulwarks of our united Empire. For the rest, you will want to cram into ten short days the average experiences of ten long weeks. If, like most of us, you are young and foolish, you will skim the bubbling froth of life and seek crowded diversion in the lighter follies, the passing shows, and l'amour qui rit. And you will probably return to the big things of war tired but mightily refreshed, and almost ready to welcome a further spell of ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... can't jest feed 'em same as ord'nary folks. They need speshul food. You'll need to give 'em boiled milk plain or with pap, you kin git fancy crackers an' soak 'em. Then ther's beef-tea. Not jest ord'nary beef-tea. You want to take a boilin' o' bones, an' boil for three hours, an' then skim well. After that you might let it cool some, an' then you add flavorin'. Not too much, an' not too little, jest so's to make it elegant tastin'. Then you cook toasties to go with it, or give 'em crackers. Serve it to 'em hot, an' jest set around blowin' it so it don't scald their little ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... version, the translator begs to shelter himself under the well-known observation of Lord Chesterfield, "that everything suffers by translation, but a bishop!" Those to whom such a dilution is necessary will perhaps be contented with the skim-milk as they cannot get the cream.- TRANS. Thy beauty, seductress, leads mortals astray, Over hearts, Lise, how vast and resistless thy sway. Cease, duchess, to blush! cease, princess, to rave— Venus sprang from the foam of the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... fresher than at other times; the sun bright and as yellow as gold, the wind lusty and strong, before which the great white clouds go sailing majestically across the bright blueness of the sky above, while their dusky shadows skim across the brown face ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... pleasure; but I read few modern novels, so I may not be a good judge there. Most of them seem very poor stuff, and I cannot waste time even to skim them as some people do. I still like the old-fashioned ones I read as a girl, though you would laugh at them. Did any of you ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... sanatorium. The only trouble is, that the little good-for-nothings that come of utterly used-up and worn-out stock, and ought to die, can't die, to save their lives. So they grow up to dilute the vigor of the race with skim-milk vitality. They would have died, like good children, in most average country places; but eight months of shelter in a regulated temperature, in a well-sunned house, in a duly moistened air, with good sidewalks to go about on in all weather, and four months ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the sources of the Nile, I'd see the Sandwich Islands, And Chimborazo's granite pile, And Scotland's rugged Highlands; I'd skim the sands of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... with almost anything. Tayoga foresaw this big freeze, and I can tell you exactly what he did as accurately as if I had been there and had seen it. He kept to the river and his canoe almost until the first thin skim of ice began to show. Then he paddled to land, and hid the canoe again among thick bushes. He raised it up a little on low boughs in such a manner that it would not touch the water. Thus it was safe from the ice, and so leaving it well hidden and ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... away. I watched the nearer one till it faded from sight, soaring and swooping by turns,—its long, scissors-shaped tail all the while fully spread,—but never coming down, as its habit is said to be, to skim over the surface of the water. There is nothing more beautiful on wings, I believe: a large hawk, with a swallow's grace of form, color, and motion. I saw it once more (four birds) over the St. Mark's River, and ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... Night-hawks are quite conspicuous, if one walks about after sunset. They are dusky with a white throat and band on the wing. They sail through the air without any effort, wings outspread and beak wide open, and thus glean their harvest of winged insects as they skim along. Oftentimes their sudden swoop will startle ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... anything at all about cattlemen, you will know that the Quirt was a poor man's ranch, when I tell you that Hunter and Johnson milked three cows and made butter, fed a few pigs on the skim milk and the alfalfa stalks which the saddle horses and the cows disdained to eat, kept a flock of chickens, and sold what butter, eggs and pork they did not need for themselves. Cattlemen seldom do that. More often they buy ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... and the young beaver as his recompense. Then was the sacred falcon first seen winging his way to the land of long winters; and the bird of alarm, the cunning old owl, and his sister's little son, the cob-a-de-cooch, and the ho-ho. All the birds which skim through the air, or plunge into the water, were formed from ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... barrels of water with a well bucket, to cleanse for washing the next day, and by that time I wanted to die. It was most nine o'clock, and I began to think about supper, when the deacon said all they had was bread and milk for supper Sunday night, and I rasseled with a tin basin of skim milk, and some old back number bread, and wanted to go to bed, but the deacon wanted to know if I was heathen enough to want to go to bed without evening prayers. There was no one thing I was less mashed ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck

... turnip, and lay them at bottom of stewpan with sweet herbs and parsley; lay mutton on top of these, and pour round enough water to 3 parts cover it, simmer slowly 1-1/2 to 2 hours; lift mutton into dripping tin with few tablespoons gravy; set in brisk oven until brown; strain gravy and skim off fat, put Crisco into saucepan, and when brown, add flour, and brown also; then add gravy gradually, little pepper and salt, and 1 dozen button mushrooms, skinned; boil 8 minutes; dish mutton with mushrooms round, and gravy ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil

... lost no opportunity to do her service. She filled Gladys's water pail in the morning, she hung up her wet bathing suit when Gladys had gone off and left it lying on the tent floor, she paddled her out in the heavy sponson when she was dying to skim over the lake in the sailing canoe, and in short, sacrificed herself at every turn for Gladys. And Gladys in time began to look on her as a sort of serving maid, who would do any unpleasant task she happened to want done. Nyoda could ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... and groves of living green; Poplars and alders ever quivering play'd, And nodding cypress form'd a fragrant shade: On whose high branches, waving with the storm, The birds of broadest wing their mansions form,— The chough, the sea-mew, the loquacious crow,— and scream aloft, and skim the deeps below. Depending vines the shelving cavern screen. With purple clusters blushing through the green. Four limped fountains from the clefts distil: And every fountain pours a several rill, In mazy windings wandering down the hill: ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... this new development and trying to discover where it might lead. Under sharp commands the crew brought the schooner about on the starboard tack, for the wind was on the bow, and set a staysail between the fore and main masts. The splendid ship seemed to skim over the surface of the sea, touching only the tops of ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... and the low mutterings of thunder came from the distance. It may have been the thunderings of nature, or of war—she did not heed them; her heart was filled with bitter, rebellious thoughts, and her flying feet seemed to skim over the road; nor did she check her hasty steps until she was about to enter her father's room. Mauer sat in his arm-chair, absorbed in thought. She threw herself down on her knees beside him, and flung her arms about his waist. ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus

... smattering of the secret of certain success if you just skim over the chapters, and skip whatever requires you to think hard in order to comprehend it all. But if you dig into the meaning of each sentence for the full idea, you will enrich yourself with constantly increasing power and skill in selling. So you will surely become ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... swallows, skim the main, And bear my spirit back again Over the earth, and through the air, A wild bird ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... boat over the water? While it is not exactly a hydroplane, yet it has those attachments, and you can probably skim over the surface of the water as well as float on it. And that might come in ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis

... me cruel, too, when he meets me with a patronizing grin, and shows me the nicest vats of candy, and peels cane for me. Oh! very cruel! And so does Jules, when he wipes the handle of his paddle on his apron, to give "Mamselle" a chance to skim the kettles and learn how to work! Yes! and so do all the rest who meet us with a courtesy and "Howd'y, young Missus!" Last night we girls sat on the wood just in front of the furnace—rather Miriam ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... hills thick set with grapes; There rolling pastures spread, where royal mares, High bred, and colts too young for bit or spur, Now quiet feed, then, as at trumpet's call, With lion bounds, tails floating, neck outstretched,[5] Nostrils distended, fleet as the flying wind They skim the plain, and sweep in circles wide— Nature's Olympic, copied, ne'er excelled. Here, deer with dappled fawn bound o'er the grass,[6] And sacred herds, and sheep with skipping lambs; There, great white elephants in quiet nooks; While high on cliffs framed in with living green Goats ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... followed by Levina, who carried a plate of manchet-bread and a bowl of milk. And though Belasez did not know it, she owed thanks to Doucebelle that it was not skim milk. The young Jewess ate as if she were very ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... Will plainly think the thought which is in him,— Not imaging another's bright or dim, Not mangling with new words what others taught; When whoso speaks, from having either sought Or only found,—will speak, not just to skim A shallow surface with words made and trim, But in that very speech the matter brought: Be not too keen to cry—"So this is all!— A thing I might myself have thought as well, But would not say it, for it was not worth!" Ask: "Is this truth?" For ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... And from the dark flock'd up the shadowy tribes;— And as the swallows crowd the bulrush-beds Of some clear river, issuing from a lake, On autumn-days, before they cross the sea; And to each bulrush-crest a swallow hangs Quivering, and others skim the river-streams, And their quick twittering fills the banks and shores— So around Hermod swarm'd the twittering ghosts. Women, and infants, and young men who died Too soon for fame, with white ungraven shields; And old men, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... stone in the flagging does man after man cross yonder street? What plebeian Lear or Oedipus, what Israel Potter, cowers there by the corner they shun? From this turning point, then, we too cross over and skim events to the end; omitting the particulars of the starveling's wrangling with rats for prizes in the sewers; or his crawling into an abandoned doorless house in St. Giles', where his hosts were three dead men, one pendant; ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... nests in the forest, all tangled and dark; Ye build and ye brood 'neath the cottagers' eaves, And ye sleep on the sod, 'mid the bonnie green leaves; Ye hide in the heather, ye lurk in the brake, Ye dine in the sweet flags that shadow the lake; Ye skim where the stream parts the orchard decked land, Ye dance where the foam sweeps ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... him as he swept along the ice under the starlight. Venus made a glowing path toward the west and seemed eager to reassure him. He was sorry he could not skim down that avenue of light which flowed from the love-star, but he was forced to turn his back upon it ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... 'em out of that when the rent got behind. He's the meanest skinflint that ever strained skim milk. He got married again ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... sea, is excessively difficult to navigate; its surf looks no more than champagne foam, but a thousand quicksands and shoals lie beneath: there are breakers ahead for more than half the dainty pleasure-boats that skim their hour upon it; and the foundered lie by millions, forgotten, five fathoms deep below. The only safe ballast upon it is gold dust; and if stress of weather come on you, it will swallow you without remorse. Trevenna had none of this ballast; ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... Where the willows shiver, Round the mossy mill-wheel flies; Dragon-flies a-quiver— Flash a-thwart the lily-beds, Pierce the dry reed's thicket: Where the yellow sunlight treads Chants the friendly cricket. Butterflies about her skim (Pouf! their simple fancies!) In the willow shadows dim Take her eyes for pansies! Buzzing comes a velvet bee Sagely it supposes Those red lips beneath the tree Are two crimson roses! Laughs the mill-stream wise and bright It is not so simple Knew it, since she first saw light Ev'ry blush ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... could travel in a few moments over the fertile plains of India, could soar on the wings of demons above African desert spaces, or skim the surface of the seas. The same insight that could read the inmost thoughts of others, could apprehend at a glance the nature of any material object, just as he caught as it were all flavors at once upon his tongue. He took his pleasure like a despot; ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... in the woods. What a commotion was there! The leaves were absolutely frantic. Now they would sweep up far into the air as if they never intended to descend again, and then taking curvatures, would skim away like birds; others would cluster together, and then roll along like a great quivering billow; others again would circle around in eddies like whirlpools, soaring up now and then in the likeness of a water-spout, whilst frequently ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... spread out. Must he not look a noble bird, sailing as he does calmly round and round, far up in the air, over those southern seas? From the length of his wings, the albatross has some little trouble in raising himself from the surface of the water, where he often floats at rest. He has to skim along half flying and half running for some distance, until his wings are clear of the water; then he soars away, seldom flapping his wings, but rising, sinking, and floating through the air, as if kept up by some internal power. As he seldom is obliged ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")

... hand of Care; The panting herds repose: Yet hark, how thro' the peopled air The busy murmur glows! The insect youth are on the wing, Eager to taste the honied spring And float amid the liquid noon: Some lightly o'er the current skim, Some show their gaily-gilded trim Quick-glancing ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... particular friends, wrote her letters, and read; just then she was engaged in the latter occupation, for the books had come in from the library that day, and she had sat down after luncheon to skim them through before selecting any which ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... in the nest on the high bright tree Blazing with dawn and dew, She knoweth the gleam of the world and the glee As I drop like a bolt from the blue; She knoweth the fire of the level flight As I skim, close, close to the ground, With the long grass lashing my breast and the bright Dew-drops flashing around. She watcheth the hawk, the hawk, the hawk, (O, the red-blotched eggs in the nest!) Watcheth him sway in the sun's ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... Sophie's favour. The past four months had taught George better than to reply. The carriage road winding up the hill was his present keen interest. They set off to look at it, and the imported American scraper which had blighted the none too sunny soul of "Skim" Winsh, the carter. ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling

... quantity of candies and tobacco. The priest had given potatoes; the clergyman had supplied a copy of the Bible in syllabic characters; and the minister had given the silver-plated wedding ring. The nuns had presented a supply of skim-milk and butter. Mr. Spear provided jam, pickles, and coal-oil for the lamps. The Mounted Police contributed two dollars to pay for the "band"—the fiddle and the concertina—and ammunition enough for the feu de joie. The friends and relations had given a plentiful store ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... the morning, I disturbed a great mud-turtle which had secreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent it in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows (Hirundo bicolor) skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus macularius) "teeter" along its stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting on a white pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the wind of a gull, like Fair Haven. At most, it tolerates one annual loon. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... pantermimes might put notions in a child's head. But when she came home last night, a little late, Lizer was very strange. She vowed and swore she had seen a large Bird, far bigger than any common bird, skim over the street. Then when I had put her to bed in the attic, down she flies, screaming she saw the Bird on the roof. I had hard work to get her to sleep. To-day I made her lay a-bed and wear her theatre ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... up in a cloth, unless you boil rice in the pot. If rice is used, put in two-thirds of a tea cup. A pound or two of salt pork, boiled with the turkey, improves it. If you wish to make a soup of the liquor in which the turkey is boiled, let it remain until the next day, then skim off the ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous

... the healthy body, and intemperance is a fruitful predisposing cause of consumption. Skim milk is not a suitable food for the young. ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... found on the breakfast-table. They laugh at it, and call it ice-cream, but they almost feel more like crying, with cold blue fingers, and toes that even the warm knit stockings can't keep comfortable. Never mind, the swift snowshoes will make them skim over the snow-crust like birds flying, and the merry sled-rides that brother Christian will give them will make up for all the trouble. They will soon love the winter ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... a form of suicide. But Bell had not death, but life to fear. He could afford to be far more reckless than any man who desired to live. The plane went scuttling madly across the jungle tops, now rising to skim the top of a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... lagoon, being only separated by a smooth patch of sand. Here, too, were quite a flock of the maleo birds, scratching and searching for food, after the fashion of fowl; but as the boat stopped they took alarm, and seemed to skim over the sand, their feet striking the ground so ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... such a quantity as not to render the article injurious to health), or if any part of it has been abstracted to the detriment of the article. Margarine or cheese containing margarine has to be conspicuously marked as such; condensed, separated or skim milk has to be clearly labelled "machine-skimmed milk'' or "skimmed milk,'' as the case may be. The next sections give to the Local Government Board and the Board of Agriculture a roving commission to see that the acts are properly enforced throughout the kingdom ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... of boiling sugar would make one's mouth water as he passed, and the same assistants, never weary in well-doing, might be seen setting saucers of black jam upon the window-sill to "jeel," and receiving, as a kind of blackmail, another saucerful of "skim," which, I am informed, is really the refuse of the sugar, but, for all that, wonderfully toothsome. Bear with a countryman's petty foolishness, ye mighty people who live in cities, and whose dainties come from huge manufactories. Some man reading these pages will remember ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... in which it had been stored, required sturdy appetites to make it even tolerable. Even in later days Frank T. Bullen was able to write: "I have often seen the men break up a couple of biscuits into a pot of coffee for their breakfast, and after letting it stand a minute or two, skim off the accumulated scum of vermin from the top—maggots, weevils, etc—to the extent of a couple of tablespoonsful, before they could shovel the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... bubbled, and the Mouse King stood close beside the kettle—there was almost danger in it—and he put forth his tail, as the mice do in the dairy, when they skim the cream from a pan of milk, afterwards licking their creamy tails; but his tail only penetrated into the hot steam, and then he sprang hastily down from ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... spare much milk, so we must mix water with it. Strong tea isn't good for children, she says." And Bab contentedly surveyed the gill of skim-milk which was to satisfy the thirst of ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... traced for you the relations of the creature we are examining to those beneath it and above, to the bat and to the falcon. But you will find that it has still others to entirely another world. As you watch it glance and skim over the surface of the waters, has it never struck you what relation it bears to the creatures that glance and glide under their surface? Fly-catchers, some of them, also,—fly-catchers in the same manner, with wide mouth; while in motion the bird almost exactly combines the dart ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... thousand thousand succeeded by another thousand thousand—and still flowing, no multiple could express the endless number. That which flows continually by some sympathy is acceptable to the mind, as if thereby it realised its own existence without an end. Swallows would skim the water to and fro as yachts tack, the sandpiper would run along the strand, a black-headed bunting would perch upon the willow; perhaps, as the man of genius fishing and myself made no noise, a kingfisher might come, and we might see him take ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... volume, has succeeded in stringing together some of the strangest things that ever saw the light. Suppose that some newspaper should give that item of news, don't you think folks would get the book, when it was published? and don't you think they would read it, or, at all events, skim it over, to see what kind of stuff Uncle Frank had been emptying out of his brain? I ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank

... me when they were exactly opposite the grand stand, full half a mile away—the moment that I remembered from year to year as one of exquisite illusion—for then the horses seemed to lift from the earth as with wings, and to skim over the track like a covey of low-flying birds. The finish was tame to this. Mrs. March and I had our wonted difference of opinion as to which horse had won, and we were rather uncommonly controversial because we had both decided upon the same horse, as we found, only she was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... endeavouring to master the outside edge, which is the grammar of figure skating, and watched Leblanc, but could make nothing out of that, for Leblanc seemed to move by volition, as some birds appear to skim along without any motion of the wings. He could not give hints, or show how anything was done, because he could not understand where any difficulty lay. It was like simple walking to him; you get up and walk, you could not show any one exactly ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... should boil three or four hours very slowly; it should be put in cold water, and be kept covered during the whole process; a small ham will boil in two hours. All bacon requires much the same management,—and if you boil cabbage or greens with it, skim all the grease off the pot before you put them in. Ham or dried beef, if very salt, should be soaked several hours before cooking, and should be ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... if I can get on their trail?" thought Larry, as he watched the houses skim by, and held himself in his seat, beside Grace, to avoid the jouncing and swaying caused by the ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis

... First I go over the period in some general history, if one is to be had; then I read very carefully my original authorities in the order of their estimated importance, making copious excerpts. Afterwards I skim my second-hand materials. Now I maintain that it is logical and natural to have the extracts before me in the order of my study. When unusually careful and critical treatment has been required, I ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... metallic-looking sky, hanging like a vast galvanic plate over the face of nature. As evening drew on, everything betokened the coming tempest. Unerring indications of its approach were noted by the weatherwise at the hall. The swallow was seen to skim the surface of the pool so closely that he ruffled its placid mirror as he passed; and then, sharply darting round and round, with twittering scream, he winged his rapid flight to his clay-built home, beneath the barn eaves. The kine that had herded to the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... skulking Frenchman to come forth from his bights and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the east? a gallant frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a crippled privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to skim the sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their imprudence in an English hold. Stirring times those, which I love to recall, for they were days of gallantry and enthusiasm, and were moreover the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... and must be rich and nutritious. Take ten pounds of good clear beef cut from the middle part of the round. Wipe and cut the meat into pieces. Put this into one gallon of water and heat slowly; skim just as the water begins to boil. When this is done place the pot where it will simmer slowly for five or six hours. One hour before removing add two blades of celery, ten pepper corns, six cloves, small stick of cinnamon, and salt. Should one prefer ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman

... world to yonder skies. They come and go at even tide, And sometimes on the sunbeams ride; And when they wish for railroad cars. They ride upon the shooting stars: Firmly unite them in a train, And skim along the aerial plain; No locomotive do they need, For their own will propels their speed. The Aeolian harp, with plaintive wail, Sighs responsive to each gale; Its chords are strung 'mid branching trees, And echo to ev'ry passing breeze; Gently they vibrate through the grove, Touching the chords ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... sail and you will skim along the ice as lightly as a bird on the wing. With a little practice you will learn to tack and ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... Like him he gave his patients blue pill at night but omitted the black draught in the morning. He thought an emetic better, and secured it by tartarized antimony. Between the puke and the purge his patients were fed on stale bread, skim milk, and water-gruel. And this heroic practice he pursued day after day, for weeks and months together, in spinal caries, hip caries, tuberculosis, urethral stricture ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell

... droopt for him With all her girlish love; And oft her thoughts would lightly skim The sea, like Noah's dove. But every wave that danced along Like silver to the shore Brought back the burden of her song, And murmur'd ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... I always try to profit by my superiors. She has courage: I have none. I beat about the bush, and talk skim-milk; she uses the very word. She said we have been the dupe and the tool of a little scheming rascal, an anonymous coward, with motives as base as his heart is black—oh! oh! Ay, that is the way to speak of such a man; I can't do it myself, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... make astronomical observations with a sextant in a temperature thirty-eight degrees below zero, or seventy below the freezing-point, as it was this night. It is not pleasant to sit still for any length of time in such weather. A thin skim of ice over the surface of the kerosene oil used for an artificial horizon has to be constantly removed by the warm breath of an assistant. The sextant glasses become obscure from the freezing upon them of the breath of the observer, and can only ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... forsake us; but the old book is ever the same. What would the old man do without it? And to you who are young I would say—you may re-read, you first must read. Choose worthy books to love. As for those who know no book long enough either to love or despise it—who skim through good and bad alike and forget page ninety-nine while reading page 100, we may simply say to them, in the words of the witty Frenchman, "What a sad old age you are ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... the forest At the river stoop to drink, But from the rush of waters All panic-stricken shrink; And the mountain eagles sailing O'er the cataract's foaming brim Alarmed, on soaring pinions, Away, o'er Heaven's clouds skim. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... the vampires, bats and goat-suckers dart from their lonely retreat and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different kinds of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow-sounding croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament and mourn all ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... some of that cold porridge too," he said, with a defiant look at Jones; "yesterday's, if you have it, and a few potato peelings and a glass of skim milk." ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... gesture of flight is present throughout his music. Throughout it, one hears the beating of wings. Sometimes, it is the light flutter of glistening ephemeridae that wheel and skim delightfully through the limpid azure. Sometimes it is the passionate fanning of wings preparing themselves for swift sharp ascents. Sometimes, it is the drooping of pinions that sink brokenly. For all these pieces are "Poemes ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... sugar; then squeeze the pulp from the skin. Cook the pulp a few minutes and rub through a wine sieve to separate the seeds. Cook skins in the same water until soft (if you have no water left in the kettle, add some); skim them out and put in sugar. When it begins to cook put in pulp and skins, and cook slowly until they jelly. It should form ...
— The Cookery Blue Book • Society for Christian Work of the First Unitarian Church, San

... our clean collars on, Willie never went near Myra again that night. After all, he seemed to be a diluted kind of a skim-milk sort of a chap, and I never wondered that Joe Granberry ...
— Options • O. Henry

... surface of the sea long lines of pelicans pursue a lumbering flight; graceful terns (sea-swallows) skim the waves; a great blue heron stalks across the hard sand, majestic, solitary and shy of man's approach; and dainty little beach-birds, piping plover in snowy white and drab, glide rapidly past the surf-line. A mile below Beach Avenue is a high sandhill shelving abruptly toward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... Put it into a large pot, and add half a table-spoonful of salt. Hang it over a good fire, as early as six o'clock in the morning, if you dine at two. When it has come to a hard boil, and the scum has risen, (which it will do as soon as it has boiled,) skim it well. Do not remove the lid more frequently than is absolutely necessary, as uncovering the pot causes the flavour to evaporate. Then set it on hot coals in the corner, and keep it simmering steadily, adding fresh coals so as to ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... weep," she sobbed. "I weep because I am woman, after all, but in my heart I hate you and with my soul I despise you, for you are but a mock man,—the blood in your veins skim milk! Ah, by God, there is more of vigorous life in my little finger than in all your great, heavy, clod-like carcase. Oh, shame!" Here she lifted her head to scowl on me and I, not enduring her look, glanced otherwhere. "Ha—rot me!" cried she, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... pilots defy the elements in a style which it requires a long apprenticeship to the difficulties and discomforts of a wintry navigation, in a stormy latitude, duly to appreciate. In the fine weather, smooth water, and light winds of summer, these pilot-boats skim over the surface with the ease and swiftness of a swallow, apparently just touching the water with their prettily formed hulls, which seem too small to bear the immense load of snow-white canvas swelling above them, and shooting them along as if by magic, when every other ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... rapid, sometimes a broad shoal, sometimes a barricade of boulders with gleams of white water springing through or leaping over its rocks. Your boat for voyaging here must be stout enough to buffet the rapid, light enough to skim the shallow, agile enough to vault over, or lithe enough to slip through, the barricade. Besides, sometimes the barricade becomes a compact wall,—a baffler, unless boat and boatmen can circumvent it,—unless the nautical carriage can itself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... house. They made a perfect slave of me. When I was twelve years old I had to milk three cows, besides spinning my day's work on the flax-wheel. And very often all I had for supper was brown bread and skim milk. I didn't have any grandfather's house to go to, with a seat in the trees, and a boat on the water, and a swing, and a summer house, and a crocky-set ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May

... an amusement to me this first evening, scribbling as egotistically as usual about myself and my doings; so you must forgive me, as I know well your kind heart will do. I have managed to skim the newspaper, but had not heart to read all the bloody details. Good God! What will the end be? Perhaps we are too despondent here; but I must think you are too hopeful on your side of the water. I never believed the "canards" of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... killed him?" Racey allowed his eyes casually to skim the expressionless faces of the men ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... lemon, a bay leaf, half a cup of wine and one box of gelatine soaked in a cup of cold water. Beat into the mixture the slightly beaten whites and crushed shells of two eggs. Heat to the boiling-point, stirring constantly, and let boil five minutes. After standing ten minutes skim off the froth, etc., and strain through a cheese-cloth folded double ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill

... over the fire on a low hearth; various figures appear in the vapour rising from it. A FEMALE MONKEY sits beside the caldron to skim it, and watch that it does not boil over. The MALE MONKEY with the young ones is seated near, warming himself. The walls and ceiling are adorned with the ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... from under his eyebrows; and the natural expression of his face, bordering on the morose, was never lighted by more than a strained smile—a smile that suggested a grin, that puckered the corners of his eyes and drew hard furrows down his cheeks, but evidenced nothing akin to even the skim-milk ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... of civilization with its city control of the hinterland, its products and inhabitants, enabled the city-centered oligarchy to accumulate and concentrate wealth and monopolize power, to skim the cream from the available milk, monopolize the cream, distribute the skimmed milk judiciously and thus perpetuate its ascendancy through generations and centuries. During periods of expansion civilized communities develop a dynamism which ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... almost semi-conscious intuition that comes to one in moments of peril, to proceed to the left (to one coming from the German lines). As I crawled through holes and over mounds I could hear the vicious spitting of machine-gun bullets. They seemed to skim just over my helmet. The trench, opening out a little, began to assume its old outline. I had reached the head of New Woman Street, though at the time I did not know what communication trench it was—or trouble, for that matter. The scene at the head of that communication ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing

... useful. "Now, Tom, you may be no wiser nor a young gull as has never learned to fly," I heard the old man say; "but listen, my boy, if you follows my advice you'll soon be able to spread your wings and skim over the water just for all the world like one on them big albatrosses one meets with off the Cape of Good Hope, you've heard speak of." Tom had not heard of such a place, so Grampus told him all about it, and a great deal more besides. In that way my young follower ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... stood looking round her, not able to identify the landscape because she was still confused a little, and then walked softly on, all the time afraid lest she should awake and lose the sweetness of it all, and the sense of rest and happiness. She felt so light, so airy, as if she could skim across the field like any child. It was bliss enough to breathe and move with every organ so free. After more than fifty years of hard service in the world to feel like this, even in a dream! She smiled ...
— A Little Pilgrim • Mrs. Oliphant

... dark that the lads could not see that it was of beautiful pattern and fine make—one of those delicate vessels which under the skillful guidance of its owner skim like a swallow over the water. It was a ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... inaccessible; to know how to look at them with laboriously-acquired indifference and to practise to take no notice of them, saying to yourself that here are objects which are probably sacred, since merely to skim them with the tip of a respectful tongue is enough to let loose the unanimous anger of all the gods ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck

... the capital. It was sent in large baskets made of rushes, and packed in many layers of cool, fresh leaves; so that it arrived at Buenos Ayres, forty hours after leaving Mount Pleasant, perfectly fresh and good. The skim milk was given to the pigs, who had already increased to ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... General Dingo seemed to be kindly contributing some noise while we feasted. There were guns going off around town, and pretty soon we heard that cannon go 'BOOM!' just as he said it would. And then men began to skim along the edge of the plaza, dodging in among the orange trees and houses. We certainly had things stirred up in Salvador. We felt proud of the occasion and grateful to General Dingo. Sterrett was about to take a bite ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... some of The Times' broad-sheets. I don't exactly know whether they are good or not. It is undoubtedly a benefit to have "bits" from great writers to skim over when you haven't the time, or the inclination, to wade through a volume. On the other hand, it is intensely aggravating to experience the feeling of incompleteness that naturally results from having ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... arrow from my quiver its barb caught in the rawhide, and I swore a soft vicious oath to steady my nerves. Then drawing my bow carefully, lowering my aim and holding like grim death, I shot a beautifully released arrow. It sped over the tops of the dried grass seeming to skim the ground like a bird, and struck the deer full and hard in the chest. It was a welcome thud. The beast leaped, bounded off some thirty yards, staggered, drew back its head and wilted in the hind legs. I had stayed ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... of life had been passed under a wet blanket, so to speak, and she had not permitted the depressing covering to shut out more sunshine than was absolutely necessary. "If you can't get cream, you might as well learn to love your sasser of skim milk," ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... our mother, 'what matters it whether the boon which Santa Claus brings be royal English cheddar or fromage de Bricquebec, Vermont sage, or Herkimer County skim-milk? We should be content with whatsoever Santa Glaus bestows, so long as it be cheese, disjoined from all traps whatsoever, unmixed with Paris green, and free from glass, strychnine, and other harmful ingredients. As for myself, I shall be satisfied with a cut of nice, fresh Western reserve; ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... his greatest pleasure to take auntie, Aileen, and old Jenny out to skim the lake in this gondola, and sit for long ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... about him play, The shining waves they skim, Or round his feet they seek their food, and stay As if ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... the market and fair— We meet in the morning and night— He sits on the half of my chair, And my people are wild with delight; Yet I long through the winter to skim, Though Eoghan longs more I can see, When I will be married to him, And he will be married to me. Then, Oh! the marriage, the marriage, With love and mo bhuachaill for me, The ladies that ride in a carriage, Might envy my ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... know what a breakfast is, Mr Nutt," said John; "but I am afraid we can't introduce your good wife's receipt into college; our cows give nothing but skim-milk. Well, now we had better be off, if you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... were now heard, ominously stealing along the wooded hills; and now, in the sharp, momentary rattling of the seared beech-leaves, the whole forest seemed shivering in the dead chill that was settling over the earth. The cold, indeed, was now becoming so intense as to congeal and skim over all the pools and still eddies of the river, and make solid ice along the shores of the rapid currents of the stream; while even the ground was fast becoming so frozen as to clumper and sound beneath the hurrying tread of our anxious ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... with salt and half a teaspoonful of moist sugar, boil for a quarter of an hour, adding more white stock if necessary, and stirring constantly. Put through a strainer into another saucepan, boil up again, skim, ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore

... toil shall make him humble; In the stall he will not stiffen, But be winged as a Griffin, Only flying with his feet: And will not such a voyage be sweet? Merrily! merrily! never unsound, Shall our bonny black horses skim over the ground! From the Alps to the Caucasus, ride we, or fly! For we'll leave them behind in the glance of an eye. [They mount ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... her match is to be found," cried the cardinal. "Would your majesty had seen her skim over the lake in a fairy boat managed by herself, as I beheld her this morning. You would have taken her for a water-sprite, except that no ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... dogs, and sometimes children, have been killed by its bite; but it has not generally been fatal to men. These snakes are fond of cream, and will wind their way into the dairy, and skim the milk-pans, and sometimes visit hen-roosts, and suck ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... Chicago will make no attempt to secure this convention, we do not mind telling St. Louis, Philadelphia and Cincinnati that the biggeet inducement which can be held out to the Carl Schurz party is a diet of oatmeal and skim ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... organic matter. The reader must be familiar with cements of this kind long known among the people, and much used in the repairing of broken pottery, such as a cement compounded of quicklime made of oyster shells, mixed up with a glue made of skim-milk cheese, and another cement made also of quicklime mixed up with the whites of eggs. In Mrs. Marshall's cements, the organic matter is variously compounded of both animal and vegetable substances, while the earth generally employed is sulphate of lime; ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... add six quarts of cold water and place over the fire. Just before it boils, skim it carefully. Then add two cups of cold water and skim again, repeating this for a third skimming. Allow it to simmer slowly for three hours. Then add the vegetables; eight ounces each of cut up carrots, onions and turnips, and three ounces of celery, with salt ...
— Joe Tilden's Recipes for Epicures • Joe Tilden

... quite a pleasant little excursion from Gurgan Point to the harbour; the sea was luckily calm, but there was sufficient breeze to enable The Kittiwake to skim over the water like her sea-gull namesake. The girls, who by this time had grasped the depths of their friend's plot, enjoyed the situation immensely. They were actually having their coveted sail in the very company of the dear lady who had ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... promptness to laugh is an excellent progenitorial foundation for the wit to come in a people; and undoubtedly the diarial record of an imputed piece of wit is witness to the spouting of laughter. This should comfort us while we skim the sparkling passages of the 'Leaves.' When a nation has acknowledged that it is as yet but in the fisticuff stage of the art of condensing our purest sense to golden sentences, a readier appreciation will be extended to the gift: which is to strike not the dazzled eyes, the unanticipating ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... two later he shut the book—a neat enough little volume—with a snap, and skimmed it deftly from where he sate, into his large waste-paper basket. This, by the way, was a curious little accomplishment of his,—throwing things with unerring aim. He could skim more cards across a room into a hat than anyone I have ever seen who was not ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Reno Tragedies: Consists of a few short tales of people who have been members of the divorce colony. Whilst the comedy part describes characters who find life is all froth, who skim its surface, so to speak, those portrayed in this chapter are people who take existence seriously; who want to drain the cup of life to its last dregs! If one listens as one reads one can almost hear the steady ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... was a real home, no tar-paper shack—rustic, we would call it now—with four rooms and a porch. There were honest-to-goodness beds, carpets and linoleum on the kitchen floor! Ida Mary was so proud of the linoleum that she wiped it up with skim milk to make it shine. There was a milk cow and consequently homemade butter and cottage cheese—all the makeshift discomforts of homesteading replaced by the solid ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... I hung fire," said Big Slim. "I had it in my mind to jump into the room, follow, and lay him out. But a better plan came to me. Why not skim down the scaffold, and get the lad as he left ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... the cliffs, and the rocks, and the hundreds of islands which surround this strand, live a race of fishermen, who, rivalling the sea-mew, skim the sea. Night and day, winter and summer, swarm their boats upon the waves; through the whistling tempest, through the foaming breakers, speed they unterrified with their light sails, that from the depths of the sea they may catch the silvery shoals of herrings, the ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... heath at night bend clown until his face comes on a level with the tufts of grass, and he will see a strange spectacle outline itself against the western sky. Owls with great, round wings skim over the ground, invisible to any one standing upright. Snakes glide about there, lithe, quick, with narrow heads uplifted on swanlike necks. Great turtles crawl slowly forward, hares and water-rats flee before preying beasts, and a fox bounds after a bat, which is chasing mosquitos by the river. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... cash out of it, but grow the calves| |just the same. Merely feed the perfect milk substitute— | | | | PRATTS CALF MEAL | | "BABY FOOD FOR BABY CALVES" | | | |When prepared and fed in accordance with the simple directions, Pratts| |Calf Meal will grow calves equal to those grown on whole or skim-milk| |and at less cost. | | | |This truly wonderful calf feed has practically the same chemical | |composition as the solids of whole milk. It is made of superior | |materials, carefully selected and especially adapted to calf ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.

... Hare got the snowshoes and left the tepee. For a moment she looked about her to see if any other little girl would like to join her in a skim over the fields. But all seemed busy at their games, and even now she was not enough at home with any one of them to ask them to leave their own play and go off ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade

... of the tanks. But after the liquid is drawn off you can see them. When first melted the sugar is far from pure; you would be astonished at the amount of dirt mixed with it. Many of these impurities boil up to the surface and over and over again we skim them off. But even after that we have to wash the sugar by various processes. After it has been separated, clarified, and filtered it comes out a clear white liquid, and is ready for the vacuum pans, where the water is ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... think, regret that being so near we were not among the fortunate ones who saw that little flat shape skim landward out of the blue; surely they have an enviable memory; and then we fell talking and disputing about what that swift arrival may signify. It starts a swarm ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... and you can't believe a word his children say. Wouldn't it be dreadful to have the twins learn anything like that? Or suppose they went to the Wiggins'. Mrs. Lynde says that Mr. Wiggins sells everything off the place that can be sold and brings his family up on skim milk. You wouldn't like your relations to be starved, even if they were only third cousins, would you? It seems to me, Marilla, that it is our ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... that will burn all the blackness out of it. Get the love of God into your hearts, and the fire of His Divine Spirit into your spirits to melt you down, as it were, and then the scum and the dross will come to the top, and you can skim them off. Two powers conquer my sin: the one is the blood of Jesus Christ, which washes me from all the guilt of the past; the other is the fiery influence of that Divine Spirit which makes me pure and clean for all the time to come. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... astonishing thing might be the result. Next morning was as beautiful as a spring morning ever could be, and Kat took much comfort in the fact, that, in her haste to get out to the pond, Kittie flew about the sitting-room in a hurry, whisked the dirt under the stove, didn't stop to dust, except a rapid skim over the top, left the piano shut, neglected to put fresh flowers under father's portrait, and shut the blinds so as to hide all defects under a comfortable shielding gloom. Kat looked on and felt relieved. Kittie wasn't going to be so dreadfully good and proper after all, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... open them again. When Lavretsky lay down at night he took to bed with him a whole bundle of French newspapers, which had already lain unopened on his table for two or three weeks. He began carelessly to tear open their covers and to skim the contents of their columns, in which, for the matter of that, there was but little that was new. He was just on the point of throwing them aside, when he suddenly bounded out of bed as if something had stung him. In ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... to a long stretch of level ground then, smooth and hard; and the horses as with common consent set out to gallop shoulder to shoulder in a wild, exhilarating skim across the plain. Talking was impossible. The man reflected that he was making great strides in experience, first a prayer and then a pledge, all in the wilderness. If any one had told him he was going into the West for this, he would have laughed ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... young farmer to Mrs. Atterson. "But I believe the risk is worth taking. If we do get 'em good, we'll get 'em early and skim the cream of the local market. ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... fields as charms against blight.[13] The large ragwort—known in Ireland as the "fairies' horse"—has long been sought for by witches when taking their midnight journeys. Burns, in his "Address to the Deil," makes his witches "skim the muirs and dizzy crags" on "rag-bred nags" with "wicked speed." The same legendary belief prevails in Cornwall, in connection with the Castle Peak, a high rock to the south of the Logan stone. Here, writes Mr. Hunt,[14] "many a man, and woman too, now quietly sleeping ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... attracted by dint of ugliness; now sharing the commons of Master Keep the shoemaker's pigs; now succeeding to the reversion of the well-gnawed bone of Master Brown the shopkeeper's fierce house-dog; now filching the skim-milk of Dame Wheeler's cat:—spit at by the cat; worried by the mastiff; chased by the pigs; screamed at by the dame; stormed at by the shoemaker; flogged by the shopkeeper; teased by all the children, and scouted by ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... type made in a small twenty-pound wheel—a pony-cart wheel in comparison to the big Swiss. There are two qualities: (a) Common, made of skim milk and cured in brine for a year; (b) Festive, full milk, steeped in brine with wine, plus white wine lees and pepper. The only cheese we know of that is ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... to give way at all, the breaking of diplomatic relations, followed by war, is inevitable. In my opinion it is out of the question to find a formula that will satisfy public opinion on both sides. It may, however, be possible to find a formula that will skim over the points of contention, as was done in the Arabic case. In spite of all the outcry over here there is no doubt that the American Government and the greater part of public opinion would be only too delighted if we could find a ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff



Words linked to "Skim" :   surface, touch, skip, see, skimmer, natural covering, cream off, plane, withdraw, skim milk, cover, take, covering, remove, take away, cream, read, glide, aquaplane, reading, coat, examine, nonfat, skimmed, fatless, throw, fat-free



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